BREITUNG- At the Tuesday special meeting of the Breitung Town Board, the supervisors voted to start the process of hiring a police chief for the township. Breitung and the city of Tower currently have no local police service after the full-time officer and police chief both left the Breitung Police Department for jobs with other departments.
Members of the Tower-Soudan police committee recommended local policing to the town board, possibly managed by a joint police commission in the future. The committee also recommended that off hours be serviced by St. Louis County’s 911 service, instead of having Breitung officers on-call 24/7, to prevent officer burnout. The committee made their recommendation after ten weeks of research, a community open house, and a survey.
Supervisor Greg Dostert made the motion to start the hiring process, seconded by Supervisor Chuck Tekautz, and the vote was unanimous. There are currently two applicants for the position who will be called in to interview on the evening of Thursday, July 22.
The township will begin by hiring the chief of police and then add another full-time officer if a contract for policing can be made with the neighboring city of Tower.
“The risk of Tower joining or not joining is minimal if we are just hiring a chief,” said Tekautz.
Results of the community policing survey are reported on in another story in this edition of the Timberjay.
Projects
The township was awarded $150,000 from the DNR to renovate the bike trail from the Soudan wastewater ponds to McKinley Park. Chairman Tim Tomsich said they are hoping to get one contractor for the Breitung trail, manhole replacements, and sewer work.
Bids for the sewer/manhole project were opened. Bids were Jola and Sopp Excavating of Eveleth for $435,780, TNT Construction of Grand Rapids for $484,800, and Utility Systems of America of Eveleth for $516,407.
John Jamnick recommended accepting the low bid of $435,780 from Jola and Sopp. However, Tomsich said he would like time to speak with Frandsen Bank to secure gap funding before moving forward and to try to negotiate a higher contribution from IRRR.
Currently, funding is $195,000 from IRRR, $100,000 from CBDG and Tomsich estimates $200,000 would be the township’s contribution.
The sewer work is scheduled to be completed by Oct. 15 of this year.
Tomsich made a motion to table the contractor selection to the next meeting, July 22 at noon, with Dostert supporting. A special meeting to interview the police chief candidates will be held later the same day at 5 p.m.