BROOKINGS — The groundbreaking ceremony for the Ivy Center’s expansion project kicks off at 4 p.m. on May 7, and the public is invited to take part.

Commissioner Mike Bartley provided the information to his peers on the Brookings County Commission at Tuesday morning’s meeting — and included the fact that the fundraising effort is “going extremely well.” So well that they’re roughly within $600,000 of the overall estimated project cost of almost $6 million.

“There’ll be some fundraising requests at the open house for opportunities for people to donate to that facility,” Bartley said. “It’s a phenomenal project — it’s taken a long time to get there, but it’s there and they’re going to start construction here shortly.”

Regarding the open house, he said participants will be able to walk through the current facility.

“On that tour of the facility, people will see different video screens, placards and posters that explain what will change in that facility and what the new facility will allow them to do and how it will work,” Bartley said.

Refreshments and coffee will follow the open house, along with the actual groundbreaking where spades will be put into the soil near the Ivy Center, which is at 211 Fourth St.

In other business, commissioners heard reports from department heads regarding roads, pocket gopher trapping and red flag conditions.

Highway department

Superintendent Brian Gustad spoke about, among other things, concrete patching on county Road 23 north of Aurora.

“There has been some traffic delays over there, but we are completed with that project,” he said. He noted some work remains to be done in Aurora, but the plan is to wait until the city sewer project begins. “The truck traffic is quite extreme over there, so we’re going to hold off on the ones in town just a little bit.”

Beyond that, he noted that work will begin shortly on cleaning bridge decks and drains.

“It’s nice to be able to catch up on some of those odds and ends that we don’t always get to,” Gustad said. “The weather has been cooperating and the (recent) rain was very welcome.”

He also discussed plans to buy new radios for use in the county. The units would cost $3,000 apiece and the county will need 54 of them, he said.

“Thank you for getting those quotes for us — we’ll, obviously, need to take it under advisement. Study it a little bit. The need is there, so we’ll have to study and figure out how we want to approach it,” Bartley said.

Gustad said the highway department would be able to communicate with the sheriff’s office and with the dispatch center, and they, in turn, would also be able to tune into the highway department’s frequency.

“I think it would adapt to our department well, but I know it’s a large expenditure.”

No funding decisions were made, and it’s likely the issue will return in a future meeting once commissioners and staff have determined how to tackle the topic.

Sheriff’s office

Sheriff Marty Stanwick brought up red flag conditions and automatic burn bans during his presentation to commissioners. He said the state kind of recommended a ban during such conditions, but didn’t really give him the power to cite somebody if there was a violation.

“I think it’s something that we need to, probably going forward — and of course I would not make that decision totally by myself,” he said. “I would make sure Bob (Hill) and all the fire chiefs connect with me when we do that.”

Hill, who is the county’s emergency management director, said at a commission meeting earlier in April that he, too, planned to talk with the fire chiefs about the issue.

Stanwick then moved on to the April 9 vehicle pursuit on Interstate 29 north of Brookings, praising law enforcement’s role in safely ending it.

“I just want to commend my deputy for doing a good job. He was really cool,” he said. “I listened to the pursuit and I want to thank (the) Codington County deputy who put the stop sticks out, and he was able to put them in an area that he would be safe. I had visions of Flandreau as I was listening to the pursuit — he was able to put it up in kind of in a bridge area, and he radioed that he was in a well-protected (area).”

Trapping gophers

Weed & Pest Department Director Misty Moser let commissioners know about the youth pocket gopher trapping event set for May 4 at 1 p.m. at the corner of 459th Avenue and 204th Street. This is open to youth and adults alike, and there is no charge to participate.

“The only thing I ask is parents drop their kids off and pick them up,” Moser said. “We’re not going to be driving children from here to there.”

— Contact Mondell Keck at mkeck@brookingsregister.com.