By Dave Baumeister, County Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – Although their decision might change later, the Minnehaha County Commission denied a joint jurisdiction request with the City of Hartford during the Tuesday, Aug. 27, meeting.
Commissioners said they were not against the request, but they felt more work needed to be done to make affected land owners aware of a change that could have a big impact on them.
Teresa Sidel, City Administrator for Hartford, spoke to commissioners about the plan to move forward requiring approval from the county.
“This allows the city, the county and the landowners to work together to ensure we have orderly growth,” Sidel said.
She went on to explain that their next step would be for the city to draft regulations and to meet with individuals who live in the area for their input before coming up with the final plan.
However, Commissioner Cindy Heiberger, who lives in rural Hartford, questioned why the public meetings had not been done already. She felt that if the county approved the request that it would be a “done deal,” and that land owners would not have had any input.
Sidel said she looked at this as just a first step, and that this would allow the city to go ahead and draft the regulations.
Minnehaha County Zoning and Planning Director Scott Anderson echoed Sidel when he said the county agreeing to allow joint jurisdiction was that necessary first step, and that the onus would then be put on Hartford to come up with the regulations to which they would later agree.
Heiberger still didn’t feel comfortable with moving ahead.
“You’re asking me to approve the (Hartford’s) comprehensive plan, and a part of that comprehensive plan tends to call for joint jurisdictions,” she said, “and that would put all of those people in a joint jurisdiction without any input from them.”
Sidel again said that this would not be the last step, but Heiberger still felt that her vote to move ahead would be binding.
Commissioner Jeff Barth, who serves as liaison to the planning commission, urged that they pass this vote to move ahead, citing the difficulty in getting a quorum for many of these meetings and pointing out that members of these groups are not well-compensated for their time.
Before the vote, commission chair Jean Bender opened the floor to comments and two men from this joint jurisdiction area both said that, while they were not against the proposal, they first heard about this very recently. They also wished there had been more notice.
Eventually, Heiberger made a motion to deny the joint jurisdiction request which passed on a vote of 4-1, Barth being the only vote against denial.
The commissioners who voted against it were still supportive of the overall plan, but said they wanted to see that area people had a chance to give input before proceeding.
It was determined that those next steps lay with the city of Hartford is establishing meetings with the public.
More land for nature
The other major action at the meeting was the commission giving its final approval for a land transfer at the Mary Jo Wegner Arboretum east of Sioux Falls.
As had been described previously, the transfer involved a gift of three parcels of land next to the Perry Nature Area for the right to put in an emergency easement road to a development north of the arboretum.
That final hurdle was cleared by a 5-0 commission vote.
One of the last items of business was to set Sept. 21 as the date for an auction of surplus property for Minnehaha County.
There will be more information about that auction when the public notices are published.
The Minnehaha County Commission has its regular meetings each Tuesday at 9 a.m. on the second floor of the county administration building at 6th and Minnesota in Sioux Falls.
These meetings are open to the all, and public comment is always encouraged.
