Five Year Plan Includes Local Road Repair

By Jill Fennema –

Last week’s meeting of the Pipestone County Board of Directors was taken up mostly by discussion and information on highways, roads, and bridges.

One non-highway item that could have an impact on local readers was the passage of a resolution of support for PrimeWest Health to work with the law firm of Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP to begin mediation or if necessary, other legal action against the MN Department of Human Services. PrimeWest Health is requesting mediation with DHS on their procurements of contracts for Medicaid services.

The board, along with the other 24 counties that are members of PrimeWest, object to the 2023 MN Dept. of Human Services selection of participating health plans, which does not include PrimeWest Health. PrimeWest Health is the company that currently provides low-income health insurance (Minnesota Medicaid) to 24 counties, including Pipestone County.

In highway matters, Cody Brand with Mn-DOT came to give a report on a traffic study that was done on the intersection of Highway 30 and CSAH 15 (8th Ave.) in Pipestone. That is the intersection by Dar’s Pizza. The city and county had requested a traffic study because there is a lot of traffic there, especially in the mornings when people are heading to Pipestone Area Schools and when school is dismissed around 3:15.

MnDOT recommended no change to the intersection. The report said in that study that there was acceptable levels of intersection delay there. They also said that the findings did not meet the requirements for setting up a traffic signal or all-way stop.

The possibility of a roundabout had been discussed, but the report said that such a change would be costly as it would require acquisition of right-of-way land and would encroach on the bordering properties due to the larger footprint that a roundabout requires.

There also have not been enough sight-specific crashes there to warrant a change of traffic control.

In conjunction with the traffic study, MnDOY did as peed study there and found that vehicles are traveling near the posted speed limits there.