Meeker County Update

Xcel Energy will be installing a transmission line through parts of Central and Southwestern Minnesota and it will be running through parts of Meeker County. Public open houses are scheduled for June 6th at Powder Ridge in Kimball and on June 8th at the Meeker County Fairgrounds in Litchfield from 4-to-7 p.m. each day.

County Administrator Andrew Letson says you can voice comments about the project on Xcel’s website or attend the meetings to have your voice heard. He says 3 routes were being considered, but it’s been narrowed down to two – on the western side of Meeker County. A route from Kimball to Hutchinson was scrapped.

Letson says Meeker County is going back out for bids in its effort to sell the landfill property and its related equipment with a deadline of June 20th. He says the County is also continuing its remodeling project for the Court House and the Family Services Center and they are currently in the design phase.

Letson says the Family Services Center would become more user friendly with more of a reception area as you first walk into the building, and having Public Health and Social Services in closer proximity to one another. He says the County continues seeking employees for various departments and those job postings can be found on the Meeker County website.

Meeker County Board Chair Steve Schmitt says the Commissioners decided this past month not to enter into a new Sentencing to Service contract as that program has not had the participation that it used to have and needs the support of the state’s judicial branch. He says the Board agreed last month to loan money to the Stockade which will be paid back over 5 years to build a pole shed to house an equipment donation.

Schmitt says Meeker County has some construction projects taking place this summer, including a milling, overlaying and culvert replacement project on County-State-Aid-Highway 14 south of Darwin to the McLeod County line, and a bridge project in Manannah Township.