Ivanhoe, MN - Lincoln County receives FEMA grant to help emergency responders

[Thunderbolt]

IVANHOE, Minn. -- Plans to upgrade Lincoln County's emergency radio system received a boost this month in the form of a FEMA grant targeting emergency responders.

Lincoln County receives FEMA grant to help emergency responders - MarshallIndependent.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Community Info. - Marshall Independent

 

[kb0nly]

Here comes more property taxes.. Yippee.. Communists Bastards already hiked my property taxes this year. Let the roads go to pot, detour the highway when its under water instead of fixing it, but we MUST have this grant for new radios.

Another unsatisfied Lincoln County resident.

 

[garyh9900]

kb0nly, the good news is purchasing the equipment from this grant will only cost the local government about $24,000 , that doesn't go very far in road or drainage improvements.

 

[kb0nly]

kb0nly, the good news is purchasing the equipment from this grant will only cost the local government about $24,000 , that doesn't go very far in road or drainage improvements.

$24k would go a long ways towards fixing the potholes the size of compact cars on the county roads around here, and probably could help make the roads more driveable in the winter time. I would also think $24k would be more than enough to get a contractor out to fix the flooding problem on Hwy 14 by Tyler, that road is going under again come spring i guarantee it. The DNR blames MNDOT, and MNDOT blames the DNR. Enough, pay someone to get out there with a piece of equipment and make the water drain. But hey we cant do that its too simple.

FYI its more than $24k from the announcements i read in the paper here. Looks more like 2-3 times that once its all said and done.

Now don't get me wrong, i'm all for public safety, but they just upgraded to new VHF P25 mere years ago, and now they wanna upgrade yet again just because the rest of the state is. Again i understand why, its a no brainer for interop and such, but seems to me the State is putting to heavy of a bill on these counties. Lincoln county is one of the poorest in the state. And many other counties that are as poor or poorer are still trying to figure out what to do, most of the problem is being able to afford it.

Anyway, they hiked the property taxes thanks to other project here, and i'm sure this will bring another increase.

 

[garyh9900]

I don't know about up there in Minnesota but here in Kentucky $24k won't fix a lot of pot holes. BTW patching pot holes is like putting a band aid on a gunshot wound. The only way to really fix them is to resurface them. As I recall the average for resurfacing a 2-lane road is about $250k per mile. As for drainage. The area in my subdivision is plagued with drainage problems. The county recently sent a crew of 7 or 8 guys, a dump truck, a excavator, and a backhoe to work on the drainage ditches for 2 days. Each one of those guys makes around $15/hr, the labor alone would be $2k. My county is fortunate enough to have a relatively large tax base, so they own all the heavy equipment they need. But some of the other counties have to rent them which could be anywhere from $500-1000 dollars per day. So just imagine $4000 just to fix 1.5 miles of road in my subdivision. The article posted on here says the grant was awarded as 5% matching, which comes to about $24k being the counties cost. Now the county may chose to go above and beyond what was awarded in the grant. But accepting this grant and purchasing only what the grant covers will only be $24k from the numbers in the article. But everyone is entitled to their opinion. If your dissatisfied with your officials decisions, then come election time vote against them, or even run yourself.