The Koochiching County Board Tuesday agreed to table a request from the city of Big Falls asking the board to fund the resurface of Second Street following completion of the city’s $2.3 million water infrastructure project this year.

A letter from Big Falls City Clerk Joan Nelson said the water infrastructure project involves disturbing a portion of Second Street, designated a county highway, to replace an aging water main line. The city has secured funding from other sources, but only enough to pay for patching of pavement – not complete repaving, according to the letter.

“Since this is our main street, we would like to have it completely resurfaced, rather than patched,” the letter read.

The letter included a draft from the city’s engineer Curt Meyer, of Widseth Smith and Nolting Associates, with two different cost options: the first at $288,013 for a complete reconstruction, and the other at $72,712 for a 1 1/2 inch overlay.

County Engineer Doug Grindall said municipal county state aid highway, known as CSAH, funding is allotted about $86,000 annually, and the county has already borrowed from the account until 2016.

In addition, the plan set for the 2013-2015 county road and bridge system not only uses the CSAH funding, but borrows from future CSAH allocations as well as county highway funds, which are “10 times tighter than CSAH funds,” Grindall said.

“I don’t think (the project) should be done quite as quickly as they’re asking,” he said.

Using county funds at this time should be weighed with what is already being expended and borrowed within the current three-year plan, Grindall said.

And, Commissioner Wade Pavleck said he was uncomfortable with committing future county boards to the project should the current board tell the city of Big Falls that the project could have priority in 2017.

“We’ve got other projects sitting here waiting, too,” he said.

“So they’re looking at four more years of a torn up main street?” said Commissioner Wayne Skoe, who represents the Big Falls area.

Grindall said that the money secured for the infrastructure project will pay for any damage done to the street.

“I can’t imagine them coming in and completely tearing up the entire road,” he said.

Skoe said he would contact the engineer for more details on the project and how any damage to Second Street would be handled.

Also Tuesday, commissioners agreed to make the final payment for the county’s involvement in a Blandin Paper Co. tax court case.

County Administration Director Teresa Jaksa said the payment of $3,144 should be the last of about the about $10,000 the county paid towards the case, which involves a claim by the company that its land value has been set too high. A small amount of the property is located in Koochiching County with other property involved in Aitkin, Itasca and St. Louis counties.

Jaksa said the case is now in the discovery phase and a conclusion has not been reached.

In other business, the board agreed to seek applicants for the county engineer position that will be vacated April 1 by Grindall, who will retire after 37 years with the county.

Commissioners previously discussed contracting with Lake of the Woods County to share the services of a government engineer, which is allowed under state law.

However, Commissioner Rob Ecklund said he and Pavleck met with LoW commissioners this week about the idea.

“The (LoW) highway engineer was potentially interested, but he is new and doesn’t have a complete handle on his job yet down there,” Ecklund said. “After having a fairly long, good discussion...we thought it would be too big of a project to take on in this short amount of time.”

Ecklund added that discussions laid the groundwork for considering the idea with openings for department heads in the future.

Jaksa said she will begin the process to advertise for the position and anticipates an application deadline of March 4.

Jaksa gave the board a 2012 budget report, which she said was “actually really good news.”

She said several areas of the budget showed the board had allocated for more money than was needed, and some fund budgets that spent reserves were restored by funds.

“It was a very good budget year,” she concluded.