LYON COUNTY BOARD MEETING

The Lyon County Board approved $54,000 in financial support to fund the preliminary engineering for the Tracy drainage systems that will assist in the prevention of flooding in the city.
This project will replace the 110-year-old tile that was designed for the use of agriculture and has been working over its max capacity. Tracy EDA Director Jeff Carpenter presented two photographs of flooding at Brockway-Brown Veterinary Clinic and the Tracy Greenwood Nursery after the ditches were full.
The problem is that the water is moving from the southwest to the northeast, and the railroad acts as somewhat of a dam.
The City of Tracy was built on top of a creek, so natural flows can create some problems that can be mitigated through additional retention and the choice to either upsize or reroute flows.
“It’s not just when we have the 500- or 100-year floods and 18 inches of rain in three days. It’s when (land) gets saturated that we run into problems,” said Carpenter.
The master plan is to get help from the City of Tracy, Lyon County and MnDOT. The City of Tracy contacted the Southwest Regional Development Corporation regarding a national EDA grant of $2.5 million and is looking at matching the funds by selling a property that it already has a letter of intent for. All that remains is receiving financial help from Lyon County and MnDOT.
“The city of Tracy could certainly use the help. We’ve got the (budget) that we said we we’re going to use on a water project. This is one of them,” said Commissioner Rick Anderson.

In other news, the board:
• Approved the draft of the CARES Act for business and non-profit applications.
• Approved the trade of two 2020 RAM pickups to use as masked patrol vehicles with a total price of $39,444 after trade plus tax, titles, and fees.
• Approved a four-year agreement with Dr. Steven Meister for County Coroner, increasing his yearly pay $2,750 with a potential increase of $150 each year.
• Allowing archery hunting for deer in Garvin Park for the 2020 season with a fee of $20.
• Approved new Voyant phone system for Government Center, Public Works, Law Enforcement, Courts and Area II, funded through the CARES Act.
• Set an annual ditch assessment hearing for Oct. 6
• Approved the purchase of panel extensions for workspaces for $29,689.16 from Intereum.