Apprehension builds

By NEIL O. NELSON

Traill County commissioners are cautiously optimistic the $7 million bond issue facing voters next week will be approved and construction can start this summer on the proposed new law enforcement center and accompanying office complex.

The commissioners realize, however, that there’s the real possibility the bond issue will be turned down. And any opportunity to relieve the crowded conditions at the courthouse will be shelved; for how long, is anyone’s guess.

How soon do we dare bring back the issue? commissioner Ron Peterson asked at Tuesday’s regularly-scheduled meeting of the county board.

Peterson wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer to his question.

“Let’s see what happens. I don’t want to dwell on the negative.”

But, by not building now, he said, “we’re putting off the inevitable. Sooner or later, we will have to do something.”

Steve Larson, District 4 commissioner from Mayville, has been the commission’s strongest advocate of the $7 million bond issue and proposed 29,600 sq. ft. three-story addition that also offers Social Services an entire floor, in addition to new offices for the states attorney and water resource board.

Meanwhile, security remains a serious problem at the courthouse wing, where sheriff Mike Crocker’s department and Social Services share the ground floor in the energy-inefficient and deteriorating building built 50 years ago.

And that, according to Larson, translates into a liability issue.

Crowded conditions in the 1955 addition present problems all around, from extended families involved with Social Services and forced to meet in less-than-accommodating meeting rooms to the less-than-secure surroundings the sheriff’s dispatchers work under.

“There’s too much of a liability issue,” Larson repeated Tuesday in Hillsboro.

“There will come the time,” he said, when we will have to again confront these issues.

With no other options on the table, Larson is telling residents that the square footage (29,600) proposed is what the courthouse and its staff desperately need.

If Tuesday’s election turns out poorly, Larson anticipates the county will be returning with the same blueprints in a couple of years.

The crowded conditions are a serious problem now, he tells. It’s a problem that will be compounded in the months and years ahead.

He also understands that the biggest problem facing voters today is how the $7 million proposed addition will be paid for.

The burden is being put on the property owners. The owner of a $100,000 home in Traill County can expect to pay approximately $95 more a year in property taxes, should the April 8 bond issue pass. Homes valued at $150,000 will cost $142 more in taxes. Farmland owners will be asked to pay an additional $97.60 on a quarter of cropland.

A 60 percent majority approval is needed in Tuesday’s special election.

Commissioners attending the public informational meetings across the county in the last two weeks are cautioning residents; a defeat Tuesday does not put the matter to rest; erase or eliminate the problem.

The crowded conditions at Social Services will worsen, not improve; agency caseloads in Traill and across the state are increasing, not decreasing.

Meanwhile, the county jail’s future is bleak, at best.

State officials recently suggested that the county consider closing the jail, for liability reasons largely, and house inmates in Grand Forks or Fargo.

Increased costs in transporting prisoners and housing them in either Grand Forks or Cass County will be a burden the county will shoulder, sheriff Mike Crocker and the commissioners have repeated often lately.

Increased taxes reflecting mounting jail costs will result, county officials strongly hint.

Tuesday’s dialogue at the commissioners’ meeting touched on all the hot topics: cost and size of the proposed addition and the public’s reaction and perception of the county’s building plans.

“We’re preaching to the choir,” commented Ron Peterson, District 3 commissioner.

Regardless, answered Arne Osland, commissioner from District 5, “This is (still) needed.

“And it’s the least expensive route we can take.”

Building this addition will improve the facility, Osland believes.

“We can patchwork, here and there, to the point of non-renewal.”

“Patchwork has reached its end,” Clifford farmer and commissioner John Knudsvig is convinced. “The cost of patchwork goes way beyond the cost of building.”

Meanwhile, options to building new, which were all suggested, researched and debated more than two years ago, still surface.

A letter to the editor in last week’s Banner and Traill County Tribune at Mayville, for instance, suggested moving Social Services out of Hillsboro, an option that would relieve the crowded situation at the courthouse’s 1955 addition, the letter writer said.

Commissioners respond: building new is still the best option.

County business is most efficient when operated from one central location, Larson emphasized.

“We need to build it here, and keep everything here in Hillsboro.”

Voters in the April 8 special election will cast ballots at eight locations in the county. Eligible voters in Hillsboro and surrounding townships will vote at the armory.

Hours will be from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Townships voting in Hillsboro include Eldorado, Caledonia, Norway, Bloomfield, Bohnsack, Kelso, Herberg, Elm River and Hillsboro.

Polling locations will also be available at Buxton, Reynolds, Clifford, Galesburg, Hatton, Mayville and Portland.