Martin County commissioners on Tuesday approved a motion to, in effect, start over with the county’s enrollment in the National Insurance Flood Program. Emergency Management director Abigail Nesbit then offered some background .
“When I was first digging around, I talked to the sheriff and he said it would be a good idea to check out,” she said. “When I went digging, I found out Martin County is actually enrolled as of 1977. Very preliminary flood mapping was done to draw the border around the county and the cities.”
With the county already enrolled in the program, Nesbit was not seeking permission to re-enroll but rather to reach out to different agencies, such as the state Department of Natural Resources and Federal Emergency Management Agency, to figure out how to get more mapping of the lakes and creeks in the county.
“It would be worthwhile to go through this because it would help residents, and residents can’t get this insurance unless their community is registered,” Nesbit said. “Fairmont is the only city that’s registered as of last year, but none of the other cities are. So when we declare a state of emergency, which has happened quite a few times in the last few years, that will not help residents.
“So individual private homeowners and private businesses will not receive state assistance if we declare a state of emergency. But with this National Flood Insurance, that will help them.
The board:approved a motion to authorize recruitment of a full-time Human Resources manager.
And a funding request from Prairie Lakes Transit director Jeremy Monahan. The Faribault-Martin County Transit board had authorized Monahan to approach both county boards with a request of $30,000 from each. This is because of a projected shortfall in March before the next contractual funding from the Minnesota Department of Transportation arrives in April. Faribault County passed a similar motion Tuesday.
Commissioners were updated by Frontier Comminications on the progress of the Countywide Broadband Project Initiative-Border to Border Grant.
