Meeker County Board Holds Public Hearings

The Meeker County Board held a couple of public hearings this past month which garnered lots of public interest. A resolution for a local option sales tax was approved following one of the hearings, and a public hearing on the shotgun zone law drew a crowd of 70 people on Feb. 17th.

Administrator Andrew Letson says 24 people spoke during the February 17th hearing and he and the Commissioners had also received a lot of written comments and phone calls prior to the hearing. He says the Legislature repealed a law last year that had limited the types of firearms that could be used to hunt deer – basically in 55 counties south of I94, but each county may keep the old law in place if it so chooses. Letson says the Board approved of a motion to take no action on the matter, which means that both shotguns and rifles may be used in Meeker County for deer hunting this fall. He says a decision needed to be made by May 1st in order for the information to get in the DNR’s hunting pamphlets for 2026.

Letson says the Meeker County Commissioners held a public hearing earlier this month regarding a half-cent local option sales tax to help with transportation funding as the money the county gets from the state for county-state-aid roads is not keeping up with costs. He says Meeker County is one of the last counties in the state to adopt a sales tax or a wheelage tax.

Letson says in many cases, the county has been replacing, but not really improving highways with the funds it has. He says the state has to yet approve of the local option sales tax, but if they do, retailers will start applying the half-cent tax in Meeker County on July 1st of this year.