Annual township board meeting

About 40 people attended the annual Waseca County Township Association meeting the evening of January 17. The association assists the county’s 12 individual township boards by disseminating information and allowing some tasks to be consolidated.

 

Toward those ends, the group holds an annual meeting each January and sponsors a yearly banquet for networking and celebration. This year’s banquet, association board chair Bernie Frederick wants township leaders to know, will be April 10 at the Waseca V.F.W. building.

Other official business transacted included reinstating two board members; the six-member group again consists of chair Bernie Frederick and treasurer/secretary Lester Kroeger, along with Chuck Schwab, Curt Keyes, Neil Roesler and Randy Peterson.

 

Sandy Hooker, the regional representative to the Minnesota Association of Townships (MAT), encouraged township leaders to attend upcoming training events for officers and newly elected township board members. These events, she said, would be arranged in 13 different places across the state during March and April with the intent of making them easily accessible.

 

She also notified leaders that the statewide MAT conference is planned for Dec. 12-14 this year, and encouraged everyone who could to attend, mentioning that at least 10 percent of members should be present to make any decisions or actions official.

 

Another item of great importance, she said, was for township leaders to attend “lobby day,” to be scheduled in February. A “lobby day” is a selected date when members of a special interest group travel to the state capitol and visit with legislators.

 

Hooker suggested the district might arrange for bus transportation. She cautioned that, if only one district-wide bus is arranged, groups would have to travel to some central point to board it: District 2 includes the 141 townships in Blue Earth, Brown, Cottonwood, Faribault, Jackson, Martin, Waseca and Watonwan counties. Waseca’s township association decided to at least look into the possibility of arranging its own bus.

 

Hooker also mentioned that township leaders should be aware of “a big push” headed their way to protect Monarch butterfly habitat.

 

Aside from Hooker’s comments, the majority of the meeting consisted of reports provided by various county officials.

 

Among those providing updates were county public health nurse Sarah Berry, highway department head Jim Kollar, Waseca fire chief Jason Forshee, sheriff Jay Dulas, drainage coordinator and ditch inspector Chris Howard, county auditor Tammy Spooner and county commissioners Brian Harguth and DeAnne Malterer.

 

Spooner mentioned that there will be four elections during 2024 and notified township leaders who act as election judges that they must receive special training if they wish to be officials for the presidential nomination primary election scheduled for March 5. She also mentioned the township level elections set for March 12, the primary election scheduled on August 13, and, of course, the national vote on November 5.

 

Of the meeting, association chair Frederick commented, “This annual meeting is a good opportunity to know what everyone is doing to make this county work.”