Todd County Board of Commissioners

Local business talks to board about purchasing

by Karin L. Nauber
INH Staff Writer

Long-time local businessman Gary Brown, who owns the Long Prairie Leader and Practical Printing, talked to the board during the open forum prior to the meeting about centralized purchasing.
Brown said that he understood that the county needed to cut costs and could reduce some of their expenses by centralizing the purchasing of supplies, but asked the board to consider the local businesses when they looked at their cost savings.
He said that they do quite a bit of printing for the various county departments.
’ÄúThere could be companies who will offer supplies or premiums or free shipping’Äîlittle add-ons that they can provide that we probably can’Äôt’Äîfor you to do your printing with them,’Äù said Brown.
He said that the Leader was down to about 75% of their normal printing. He said he thought the Independent News Herald was also down.
’ÄúFor every action there is a reaction. This (centralized purchasing) would have a negative effect on our business and there are other area vendors it could affect.
’ÄúWe have ten staff who have ten homes or properties and all are in Todd County. I am not saying you should spend more than you need to, but for certain parts of this, you need to look at local vendors. There are other ways to save,’Äù said Brown.
He said that one way the county could save was through buying printing in volume because it costs more to re-setup for printing when smaller orders were made for the different departments.
’ÄúWe want the opportunity to be considered. We can provide what we’Äôve done in the past and show some ways we can provide efficiencies and save you money,’Äù said Brown.
Commissioner David Kircher said, ’ÄúYou bring up a good point. We do need to consider spending our dollars locally.’Äù
Kircher said they should develop a policy that will give some sense of support to the local businesses.
Commissioner Gerald Ruda said that the resolution they were looking at today called for ’Äúcentralized purchasing’Äù not ’Äúvendorship’Äù.
’ÄúWe have a record of supporting local businesses,’Äù said Ruda.
Administrator Nathan Burkett said that in many cases the local vendors were able to give the better deal to the county. He also said that most of the departments in the county still had funds in their budgets for purchasing their own stationery supplies and printing.
Also speaking at the open forum was Dick Wellsley. He asked the board if they knew about the redetermination meeting at the public works building in Alexandria on January 25.
They were aware of it because it concerns Judicial Ditch #2 some of which is located in Todd County.
Wellsley said that they are trying to push more of the ditch through into Todd County and therefore he felt the meeting should be held in Osakis so more Todd County residents would attend. He said the majority of the people that the redetermination would affect are in Osakis or around Lake Osakis.
He also felt that the 7 p.m. start time would be a hardship on dairy farmers in the area.
He said that a lot of people don’Äôt look at the legal notices and that this should be on the front page of the Long Prairie Leader.
Chairman Gary Kneisl said that he will check on the time and location again. He said that because this was a public hearing, no decisions would be made at the meeting.
Wellsley said he was concerned because the redetermination looked like it would be a 50-50 split between Todd and Douglas counties.