According to information presented at the Williams County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday, progress is being made on securing the remaining surrounding properties needed in order to complete the project.
Purchase of one house has already begun, and could close within 10 days, Tate Cymbaluk of Basin Brokers said. The property owners will sign a lease with the county to remain in the house until July 1.
A second house has proved a little more difficult, Roger Cymbaluk added. Negotiations continue with the family that owns the home, and Basin Brokers is looking for a home for the property's resident to move to.
“Our goal has not been to disrupt people's lives,” Commission Chair Dan Kalil said. Roger Cymbaluk said those negotiations could become more urgent as the construction progresses, and condemning the property would become a possibility if an agreement could not be reached.
“In my way of thinking, a condemnation is unacceptable,” Commissioner Raymond Schmidt noted.
Roger Cymbaluk assured the board he and his staff are doing everything they can to find the resident an acceptable property within walking distance of downtown, so the affect on her life can be minimized as much as possible.
A third property, the location of the old city shop, will be used for employee parking once the building is removed. A timeline for that portion of the project was not available, but should be happening soon, Kalil said.
A groundbreaking ceremony for the project is set for 10:15 a.m. on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 223 E. Broadway, in Williston.
The new 79,000 square foot facility will be adjacent to the Williams County Courthouse. The Center will house the offices of the Williams County Sheriff, Williston Police, North Dakota Highway Patrol, Bureau of Criminal Investigation and a 112-bed correctional center.
The construction manager for the project is Parsons Commercial Technology Group of Minneapolis. Architect is Hulsing & Associates of Williston.
The county has awarded 27 multiple prime contracts for the construction project. Construction will start this Spring and completion is scheduled for late Summer, 2008.
GPS and 911
Williams County Information Technology Coordinator Steve Kemp, received the board's blessing to hire an intern for the summer to handle 911-related work, doing global positioning (GPS) work for address points throughout the county. Kemp said there are more than one thousand points which need to be physically entered into the system. This requires someone to visit the site and get a satellite reading on the actual physical location with a GPS system.
GPS will then be used to determine the exact location of a 911 call to help make emergency responders more efficient.
The intern position would be about 24 hours a week at $10 per hour. Funding for the intern would come from the 911 reserve fund.
On another 911 matter, Disaster and Emergency Services Coordinator Ed Lodwig said a joint meeting of the Williston and Williams County 911 boards will be held later this month. He will be exploring options for combining the two into one entity.
West Acres
Roger Cymbaluk asked the commissioners to reconsider a decision made at the March meeting to require a waiver of protest to future special assessment districts as a condition of the replat of the West Acres subdivision.
The waiver, prepared by the City Engineer and State's Attorney's office, was an attempt by the board to save effort in future paving districts for new subdivisions.
Cymbaluk agreed that an avenue for modification of new subdivisions was needed, but asked that West Acres be exempt from the new regulations because it is not a new subdivision, but a reorganization of an old subdivision.
The new plat moves property lines to “tidy up” ownership, Cymbaluk explained.
The board asked Cymbaluk to draw up a new document spelling out that only those dedicated roads adjacent to the current properties would be covered by the waiver of protest, and to present it at the next board meeting.
Other business
An extension has been filed for with the North Dakota Department of Transportation for the White Bridge/Merriwether Park trail project. Trail work, originally set to be completed in the fall of 2006, is now set for completion by September 2007.
Tax Equalization Director Brion Norby reported his department is finalizing the year's property valuations. Twelve townships currently do their own valuations, with the county taking on more of those responsibilities with each year, Norby said.
Pre-employment drug tests will be required this year for all seasonal employees who are not paid on a year-round basis, Human Resources Generalist Helen Askim explained. This will include any employees operating equipment or driving vehicles, along with those in the Sheriff's Department and those working on the drug task force.
While existing public employees are protected by the Fourth Amendment from random drug testing, pre-employment tests are not covered in the same way, Askim explained. Testing will be done in the courthouse using the same system used by parole and probation.
The next meeting of the Williams County Commissioners will be held at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, April 10.
Crysta Parkinson can be reached at cparkinson@willistonherald.com.
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