MARSHALL - Financial penalties for the Tracy Kid's World property were taken care of Tuesday at the Lyon County Board's regular meeting. Nearly $10,000 in tax penalties and interest were abated, as the Tracy Area School District paid for delinquent property taxes on the Kid's World building.
The Tracy School Board voted to purchase Kid's World earlier this year and intends to rent out space in the facility for a child care center to continue to operate. The rest of the property will be used for Head Start and other educational purposes.
Lyon County Administrator Loren Stomberg said the school district needed to pay the delinquent property taxes in order to record the deed to the Kid's World property. Tracy Superintendent Loy Woelber said the district was requesting an abatement of the property's delinquent tax penalties and interest on the penalties before the tax payment was finalized. The penalties and interest totaled about $9,900.
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Lyon County Commissioners Steve Ritter and Mark Goodenow reviewed information presented by the Area II and Yellow Medicine River Watershed organizations at Tuesday’s county board meeting.
Commissioners voted in favor of abating and refunding the $9,900 but stressed that the abatement included only the tax penalties, not the delinquent taxes. The situation with the Kid's World property having a new owner was different from past incidents where property owners asked to have late tax penalties waived, they said.
Commissioners also heard updates from the Yellow Medicine River Watershed and Area II organizations about a road retention project affecting Lincoln and Lyon counties. While actual construction on the project would take place in Limestone and Alta Vista townships in Lincoln County, it would benefit Eidsvold Township in Lyon County as well, said Area II Executive Director Kerry Netzke.
Road retention projects are designed to temporarily pool stormwater to prevent flooding downstream.
Netzke said two roads at the border of Alta Vista, Limestone and Eidsvold townships would be affected by the project. The Lyon-Lincoln road running north and south curves into 340th Street running east and west. The retention project would add 10 feet of fill to raise the east-west road, and an "extremely dangerous" bridge over a stream on the north-south road would be replaced with a 24-inch concrete culvert, she said.
Netzke said the retention project has been in the planning stage for about two years, and Area II was approaching Lyon and Lincoln County commissioners to contribute funding. Bonding funds through Area II would help pay for 75 percent of the project's estimated $183,000 cost, and the organization was seeking at 25 percent local match. Eidsvold Township and Alta Vista Township had already committed $5,000 and $10,000 respectively to the road retention, she said.
Board members voted to contribute up to $15,000 to the project.
"We are on the side where we're getting all the benefits," said Commissioner Rodney Stensrud.
Commissioners voted to offer the position of county human resources director to Carolyn McDonald. Stomberg said the county had 13 applicants for the HR director position, which was vacated when former director Aurora Heard accepted a job with Murray County. Three applicants were interviewed, Stomberg said, and McDonald was the interview committee's top choice.
Commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of offering McDonald the job, with Commissioner Rick Anderson casting the no vote.
Commissioners also approved a request from Veterans Services Officer Terry Wing to hire David Zick as a part-time van driver for the VSO's transportation service. The service has been giving Lyon County veterans rides to the Sioux Falls and St. Cloud VA hospitals since Feb. 1, Wing said. Using on-call drivers, he said the transportation service has averaged one trip a week to Sioux Falls and one trip a week to St. Cloud. With a part-time driver, he said the goal will be to offer trips to Sioux Falls two times a week and to St. Cloud once a month.
Zick was a strong candidate for the job, Wing said.
Wing said scheduling has been one big factor in getting area veterans rides to their medical appointments - the van makes trips on certain days of the week. Veterans are encouraged to contact the Veterans Services Office for schedule information.