Meeting Minutes February 2022
Evergreen Township Minutes February 14th, 2022
The Evergreen Township Board met February 8th for their regular meeting at Betty Janke’s home. Present were: Betty Janke, Rana & Todd Holmer, Scott Ulschmid, Steve Wilkowski Jr and Dwight Drewes.
Steve called the meeting to order. The minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved as read.
Betty read her treasurer’s report of money paid out, money received, money on hand in savings and checking. Balance on hand is $185,258.69. Todd made a motion to approve the treasurer’s report. Second by Scott. All present in favor.
Todd made a motion to pay bills. Second by Scott. All present in favor. Bills presented for payment are as follows: Lake Region Electric $35.13 for electric at town hall, Dennis Drewes Inc $6,195 for 41.5 hours of snow plowing and 6.5 hours for payloader, Minnesota Benefit Association $805.00 for board life insurance & Wes Hegna for 2021 assessing $3300.00. No transfer of funds required. No need to transfer funds there is enough in checking from Becker County deposits. All present in favor.
Annual Review of the books. All checks & claims matched.
Rana suggested we do both our Annual Meeting and March Regular meeting on March 8th. All board members agreed. It will be added to our Annual Meeting notice in the Frazee Forum.
Todd brought up the quote from Jeremy Hensel to clip our ditches this summer. He is from the Osage area. He has a bat wing mower that will do approximately 8’ from edge of road. He also said if the ditch is able to be driven down into and there is a patch of thistles that he will swing down and cut those too. His estimate is $1500 for each mowing, but said the price may drop a little if he does our township in conjunction with Green Valley Township or Osage Township. He did bring his insurance form already that will be renewed in May. Todd motion to hire Jeremy to do our ditch mowing. Second by Scott. Todd will let him know that we have accepted his bid.
Scott got a call from Don Johnson on Balsam Ave saying the snowplow keeps hitting his mailbox. Dwight said the problem is the mailbox is too low. Scott will let Don know to move his mailbox up.
Steve got a call from Wes Hegna after the last meeting. He informed Wes that we had already decided at the January meeting to go with someone else for our assessing work.
Todd explained the estimates he had from Menards on a rough cost of a new Town Hall. The estimated price on the building materials only is about $17,000. This didn’t include, concrete, insulation, or interior finishing. We will discuss again at a later date.
Todd also informed what he learned on the ARPA call that MAT had. If we are receiving less than 10 million we can put all the funds in general fund. Restrictions for spending on loans, pension or replenishing a rainy day fund. Also can’t be used for fire or rescue squad donations, but can be used to pay for the fire contract. Funds could also be used to build a new Town Hall. In CTAS a separate fund needs to be created for the ARPA funds, so we can keep track of where they are spent for our reporting requirements. If we spend it on road & bridge we do not need to transfer to that fund. We must make a resolution to use all ARPA funds for general or lost revenue. These funds will need to be spent by end of 2027 and can’t just be kept in our savings. We should receive the second payment about a year from the first payment. There is a possibility that if there are funds that weren’t requested by other townships that it could be divided up amongst the ones that did apply. There are no options to apply now if you didn’t already apply by the original deadline.
Rana notified that the Local Weed Inspector meeting will be Thursday March 24th in Callaway. 8:30-11:30. Rana and Todd planning on going.
Todd also mentioned that after reading the letter that Corliss received on replacing the culvert on 100th St, that we should maybe talk to Corliss about getting the ball rolling on getting it done. The costs to the township is only going to be about $15,000 each and we could allocate ARPA funds to it. We will discuss further in the next few months.
Having no further business, Steve made a motion to adjourn. All present in favor.
Respectfully submitted, Rana Holmer, Clerk