Hutchinson Township residents devoted most of their 80-minute annual meeting to three subjects: 2016’s emergency road repairs, complaints about manure on roads, and a new resolution opposing future expansion of recreational trails in McLeod County.
The township spent significantly more money this past year — $124,442 — to shore up roads, replacing two culverts on one and adding gravel to others to remedy washouts.
“We ended up doing a lot of extra road repairs last summer because of the heavy rains,” Board Chairman Jon Christensen said. “It was a challenging summer.”
But when it came time to approve funds for next year’s repairs, the 11 residents in attendance stuck with the past year’s level of $86,000.
Christensen noted that the township’s roads are heavily used, partly because it is the most heavily populated among McLeod County’s 14 townships. Yet its per capita tax is the lowest among the 14.
“We don’t have a building to pay for, and we don’t have equipment to pay for,” Town Clerk Craig Schmeling said.
County Commissioner Joe Nagel and Sheriff Scott Rehmann told of the county’s ongoing efforts to keep the township’s roads manure free. Rehmann said one farmer’s leaky spreader has been largely responsible. “It is a nuisance and it is disgusting if you’re driving home from work and you have it all over your car,” he said.
Christensen said township officials receive frequent calls about the problem but by the time they check it out, the manure is usually gone.
The conversation then turned to cracks showing up on the Luce Line State Trail, and the future of paving the Dakota Rail Trail. Residents adopted a resolution asking the county to suspend work on the Dakota Rail for three years or until the benefits of the Luce Line, paved in 2015, are realized.
