Residents of Tracy will see a slight change in the landscape of a couple neighborhoods after the Lyon County Board meeting Tuesday.
Lyon County commissioners approved a resolution to permit the City to demolish the remaining structures and materials on taxforfieted parcels at 424 Rowland St. and 200 Union St. in Tracy.
“They are part of the legacy tax forfeiture, stuck in the process of trying to sell these for three years on Minnbid,” explained Tracy Community Development Director Tom Dobson. “In the meantime, they are falling apart. We did have these two inspected and they were declared as hazardous and dangerous buildings. We chose two because that’s what we can afford to tear down. The foundations are crumbling. You can actually see from outside into the basements.” This process follows Dakota County’s resolution process for hazardous properties on state tax-forfeited land.
Past assessments can be reassessed to the property, but the City cannot assess the cost of demolition to the property. Once the property is cleaned up, it goes back on the state owned taxforfeited list for bid. The property is not reassessed after the house on the property is demolished.
In other board news …
The board also moved forward with the landfill evaporator project. The board approved a proposal from Heartland in the amount of $58,710 to conduct a pilot project evaporation of leachate that is supported financially from the MPCA PFAS Treatment grant. Lyon County’s match on this project is 10%. The project will operate for three five-day cycles, each of which will include laboratory analysis of the remaining concentrate to demonstrate operational effectiveness.
The pilot project will run off electricity from a generator. However, if the project is successful and moves forward, the hope is the evaporator would run off of gas produced by the landfill.
• The board approved a new three-year agreement with SMSU for dispatch services.
• The board accepted the petition from the LaVonne Thooft Living Estate and Gary Thooft for the removal of benefited property from CD 12 and stated that the property cannot significantly or regularly use CD 12 and is not benefited by CD 12. A public hearing was set for June 2 at 10 a.m. The board also approved Josh James with ISG to do the memo to be presented during the hearing.
• The board awarded the SAP 42-615-016 culvert replacement project to R&G Construction in the amount of $252,000. The project replaces a failing large steel culvert with a 10x8 concrete box culvert on gravel CSAH 15 north of MN 19. It will be funded 100% with state aid regular construction dollars.
• The board approved the final payment for 2025 Duininck bituminous paving contract. This was for paving for CSAH 8, CSAH 10, and CSAH 24 overlays constructed in 2025.
