2006-03-02 WC Admin MeetingWright County City/County Administrator's Meeting
Wild Marsh, Buffalo, Minnesota
11:30 a.m., Thursday, March 2, 2006
Present: Albertville City Administrator Larry Kruse, Buffalo City Administrator Merton Auger
and Assistant Administrator Laureen Bodin, Hanover City Administrator Dan Buchholtz,
Montrose Wendy Manson and Wright County Administrator Richard Norman.
Others: Speaker Bill Swing, Wright County IT Department
TABLE TALK: The meeting opened with each City sharing something of interest. Hanover,
Buffalo and Montrose all mentioned they are working on Comprehensive Plan updates. Hanover
mentioned their Comprehensive Plan update is timely as the CounTy is doing an update in the
northeast portion of the County. Richard Norman mentioned the County held its first
Comprehensive Planning task force meeting last week and everything appeared to go very well.
Montrose reported they have hired an Economic Development consultant by the name of
Municipal Development Group to assist with their economic development efforts. Albertville
reported it is getting closer to submitting its Interstate Access Request for a CSAH 19 interchange
and working with Otsego on a number of boarder road projects. Buffalo mentioned they are in the
process of completing a fiber ring connecting the city, school and County creating some
redundancy capabilities.
Wright County Administrator Richard Norman reported the County will be selecting an architect
for the new jail. Initially the jail will have 300 beds with the ability to expand to 650 beds. The
jail project is a $45 million dollar project, but could expand to an $80 million dollar project if the
whole judicial system is relocated. Norman also reported they were notified that the County
Highway Department will not be able to get advance State Aid funds and are looking at
alternatives on how the current road scheduled project get funded.
Richard Norman and Bill Swing reported they had met with their department heads regarding
non-county use of the Internet during working hours. They mentioned that about 50% of the
Internet use may not be directly connected to work. The County has purchased a Web Trends
Program, which has the ability to identify certain uses. They anticipate dealing with some
problems and are hopeful that having the program will in itself be a deterrent to employees using
the web for personal use.
WRIGHT COUNTY INORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT:
Bill Swing Information Services Director discussed the government portal which primarily
involves the land records office and related documents. Swing mentioned that he is working a
regional group of Counties represented by Sterns, Sherburne, Benton and Wright Counties to try
and take the government portal to an even larger scale.
Swing has noticed that many of the municipal jurisdictions do things such as fire assessments
much differently. Some cities base their fire charges on market value or tax capacity while others
base assessments on a per unit basis or even on a building value basis. Swing is hopeful that some
day municipal users can retrieve much of this information through the government portal without
assistance. In the future, maybe as this information becomes available, cities will migrate away
from doing it so differently and adopt a common theme or method.
M:\Public Data\Wright County Administrators Organization\Minutes\03-02-2006.doc
Swing mentioned he has not heard a great deal of feedback regarding the aerial photos taken last
year. Everyone present complimented the County on taking the lead on this valuable joint effort.
All the comments about having the aerial photos were very positive.
Swing said that in the coming year he will be working on "redundancy". He believes the County
has become very dependent on technology, and if it fails, things will come to a stop quickly.
Backup systems and redundancy is critical.
APRIL'S MEETING
County Board Chair Karla Heeter has been invited to share a little humor with us. For the main
program we will have Laurie Mullen from Western Area City County Cooperative (WACCO)
present to share with us how they developed their cooperative sharing program
http:,J/wrr rv.rvacca6ov.ora/inde~.htm.
The meeting adjourned at 1:00 p.m.
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