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‘Unstable soils’ have muddied Justice Center’s future; city may stick to mediated settlement
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By Charlie Warner
Argus News Editor
Just when it appeared as if everything was running smoothly with Houston County’s proposed Justice Center, which is to be built just east of the County Courthouse, another bump in the road materializes.
Last year, following a court-imposed mediation session, the county agreed to scale back the size of the Justice Center by approximately 20,000 square feet. The footprint of the facility wasn’t reduced much. The architects just took about 20,000 square feet of floor space out of a large portion of what would have been the basement.
The Caledonia City Council learned at the Jan. 25 meeting that the county would like to have that basement portion put back into the plans. It’s not a space issue, more of an engineering one…unstable soils.
Soil borings indicated that all of the dirt would need to be removed from the section of the facility that had been changed to “crawl space” to get under the mediated 65,000 square foot limit and then replaced with a more “compactible” type of soil.
The county contends it would be a waste of money to remove all the unstable soil and then fill it back in. They asked the council to consider allowing basement walls and floors to be poured in that section of the facility with a written understanding that the area could not be used for an agreed number of years.
Several councilmembers have contended they were “duped” when the county returned following mediation with new drawings that basically had the same footprint as the old ones. Approximately 20,000 square feet of floor space had been removed from the plans, but the outside size of the facility remained about the same.
The general consensus of the council was that they would be sticking to the mediated limit of 65,000 square feet of floor space.
Councilman Bob Lemke will meet with representatives of the county to discuss the request and members of the county board have been invited to the Feb. 8 city council meeting.
In other council action:
Work hours set
The current city ordinance dealing with construction hours allows for work to be conducted from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays, but Saturdays and Sundays were not addressed.
The county requested that during the construction of the Justice Center crews be allowed to work “some Saturdays,” if need be to stay on schedule.
After considerable discussion, Mayor Bob Burns made a motion to allow for work from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays. His motion was seconded by Councilwoman Randi Vick. The motion passed 3-2 with Burns, Vick and Lemke voting in favor of it and councilmembers Tom Murphy and Peggy Perry voting against it.
New coats
The council approved a motion to allow Caledonia Area Ambulance Director Mike Tornstrom to purchase 15 heavy-duty winter coats for his staff to utilize when making ambulance calls during the winter months.
Tornstrom brought several samples for the council to inspect. After some discussion, the council went with the “middle of the road” coat. Tornstrom was given the authority to spend up to $3,000 to purchase 15 coats.
Ambulance office help
Tornstrom explained that his daughter Britney Tornstrom has been working in the ambulance office updating policies, starting up an EMT page on the Caledonia website and helping with state-mandated reports. He asked the council if the city needed to set a different pay scale for someone doing office work. Currently when other EMTs help out in the office with reports, they are paid the same $12 per hour rate they receive while on call.
The council decided to take a closer look at this issue. Burns and Perry, who are on the ambulance committee, will review the issue and report back to the council with a recommendation.
Software needed
Now that the city will begin using the new hand-held meter readers, a type of software for the city’s billing department will be required. Banyon Data Systems of Burnsville, Minn. submitted a bid of $2,019.94 for the new software and annual support program. The council approved the bid.
You can contact Charlie Warner at
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