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County makes emergency snow declaration

By Staff | Feb 7, 2011

The Pierce County Commissioners made an emergency snow declaration for Pierce County on Tuesday, Feb. 1 to prepare for spring flooding probabilities. Other counties with townships in the Devils Lake Basin have also made declarations.

Sheriff Matt Lunde requested three new bulletproof vests for his department. A mandatory policy for wearing the vests will go along with the distribution of the vests. At $650 per vest, they are spendy, but a necessary part of the uniform for county law enforcement officers.

“I would hate to see an officer lose his or her life because of not wearing one,” said Commissioner David Migler.

The commission voted unanimously to approve the purchase of three bulletproof vests for the Sheriff’s Department. The cost will come out of the sheriff’s budget.

In further business, the commission reviewed an employee request for fully accurate leave forms. They looked at leave form policies for the city of Rugby and the Heart of America Correctional and Training Center and compared theirs with those. The commissioners authorized the county auditor to order forms in triplicate so they would have three copies. An employee’s supervisor would need to sign off on the request.

Kent Jaeger, RDO Equipment, Minot, stopped in briefly to share the latest information on equipment.

He was followed by Marty Trett, Butler Machinery, who provided information on types of cutting edges for the motor grader. The county currently uses curved cutting edges. Trett told the commission that the flat cutting edges are wider, cutting with less penetration.

One county uses the carbide cutting edges which cost approximately $200 per foot.

“They don’t care about penetration, they just want to open roads and not have to change cutting edges all the time,” said Trett.

Some discussion took place about the size of the cutting edges. Trett recommends the county switch from 6″ ones to 8″ ones. He said that the 8″ are more cost effective.

The county’s main concern was clearing the roads, but doing it cost effectively.

No action was taken at this time.

The commissioners approved the appointing of a disaster mitigation committee with various leaders from the community as part of it.

County Auditor Karin Fursather reported that FEMA will be performing an audit on the 2009 claims from Feb. 22- March 4 in Rugby. The county still has $85,000 in FEMA funds from 2009, but needs to get FEMA’s permission to use it. Fursather said her office has everything in order for the upcoming audit.

A letter was read from Dennis Fred who is protesting his 2008 taxes. The commissioners discussed that they had followed proper procedure, but there were time limits to follow. No action was taken.