By Dave Baumeister
County Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – Several smaller business items comprised this week’s Minnehaha County Commission meeting, which turned out to be one of the shorter sessions since they went to only three meetings per month.
Although the consent agenda was quite lengthy, with employee policy changes and disabled veterans’ property tax exemptions, the new format made that all go quickly.
However, there were two people who spoke during public comment on different matters. The first, Joy Hohn of Hartford, asked commissioners for help in dealing with the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline.
According to Hohn, many landowners in Minnehaha County are either against the pipeline or are unaware of the harm it could cause. She feels that if the county commissioners took a stand with the SD PUC that it would make more of an impact.
She also said that in Iowa, several county boards have already come out against the pipeline.
Toward the end of the meeting, Commissioner Jeff Barth said he felt the commission should look at this issue more at a later date.
“I don’t mind signing a letter to the PUC,” he said. “We need to stand up for the citizens of Minnehaha County and try to make the best deal we can.”
(The reason Barth spoke about this at the end of the meeting is that during public comment, commissioners make it a practice of not responding to people, but to, instead, allow them to have the floor.)
In the second comment, Cindy Meyer of the South Dakota Canvassing Group invited commissioners and others to an open meeting of their group this Saturday, Feb. 19, at 10 a.m. at Oak Hills Baptist Church, 6201 S. Lyncrest Ave., Sioux Falls.
ARPA money
County Auditor Ben Kyte asked for and received permission to start allocating the $37.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds received by Minnehaha County.
The plans to divvy up funds means the auditor would look at how to spend them, but the commission would have to discuss and vote before any of those expenditures take place.
Originally, there was over $110 million in requests for the ARPA money, most of them external, but since that time, commissioners said they believed most of the money could be use on internal requests from county departments.
They added they thought they were being better stewards of tax dollars by using that money to fund county operations, rather than putting them in a position to opt out of the property tax cap.
Mental health woes
In his annual report, Jamie Gravett, director of the Juvenile Detention Center presented some “eye-opening” numbers on how mental health figures into JDC budget.
While he explained that incarcerated juveniles are locked up for having legal charges against them, many of those individuals also have mental health problems.
Currently, several people in the JDC are waiting for placement at the Human Services Center in Yankton, which deals with mental health issues on a statewide basis.
Gravett added that the HSC only has 11 beds for juveniles from all over South Dakota, and that Minnehaha County has had to put mental health holds on people who need placement in Yankton.
“The staff jokes that we are ‘HSC North’,” Gravett said.
He spoke to the commission about how future legislative action is needed to address this problem.
The next commission meeting will be at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 22, on the second floor of the Minnehaha County Administration Building at 6th and Minnesota in Sioux Falls.
Time is allotted for people to address any non-agenda concerns toward the beginning of the meeting.
