The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
Interesting and peculiar things are often found in old buildings when repair work is being done.
The Foster County Commission learned at their meeting last week that contractors found something unexpected on top of the concrete in the basement of the courthouse.
During the meeting, held on Tuesday, February 6, Chris Thomas of EAPC Architects and Engineers attended via telephone and Joe Olson, foreman of General Roofing and Construction, was at the meeting.
Olson explained to the board that originally, or at one point in time, a contractor poured a gypsum/concrete mix over the floor of the basement to level it out. That is what has been breaking up under the carpet on the bottom floor.
"This "gypcrete" also raised the floor quite a bit, so to prevent the doors from scraping on the floor, the bottom of the doors of the various offices were cut off," explained Olson.
Now the contractors must figure out how to level the floor after removing the "gypcrete."
Thomas explained that "gypcrete" is a common floor leveler.
In other business:
• The board discussed how many mills to levy for roads for the 2024 ballot.
The county can legally levy 10 mills for capital improvement projects without a vote of the public.
Commissioner David Utke said that Steele County levies 25 mills for their roads.
Commissioner Alan Scanson noted that he would like to levy 22 mills for roads, with two mills for the cities and 20 mills for county roads.
Basically, the county would be asking the public for 12 extra mills for roads. No action was taken at the meeting.
• The board heard from Sheriff Justin Johnson. who attended the meeting to ask for a wage increase.
With the departure of Sgt. Nathan Kruse, who recently left and accepted a position with the NDDOT, Johnson is the sole county law enforcement officer. Since he is effectively on call 24 hours per day, seven days a week, he believes he should be compensated as such.
He also said he has an officer from Valley City who is interested in working part time covering a couple shifts, but he has little hope of finding a full-time deputy any time soon.
Johnson reminded the board that over the past few years he had advocated for wage increases for his deputies and direct reports, but never for himself.
The board decided to have the county human resources committee look at the request before making a decision.
• The board discussed board appointments for planning and zoning, weed board and water board.
• The board received a request from Foster County State's Attorney Kara Brinster about retaining her ¾ time assistant state's attorney until the end of February to finish out the Wick trial, but she could not attend the meeting.
The board wanted to know how many hours the assistant would be working so they decided to table the request until Brinster could attend.
