Rock County’s largest taxpaying company, Gevo Inc., received a $3.2 million drop in market value, according to information presented at the annual board of appeals and equalization meeting on June 22.
The meeting is the final local appeal option for property owners who question the assessed value of their homes, land or buildings.
The 2021 market value is used to determine property tax amounts paid in 2022.
No one from the public attended the county’s appeal hearing Tuesday night.
Assessor Tom Houselog outlined the positive and negative changes in property values, which are primarily based on sales occurring between Oct. 1, 2019, and Sept. 20, 2020.
At an overall value of $2.973 billion for 2021, the county’s overall property value totals dropped below $3 billion for the first time in five years.
In 2020, overall value was $3.1 billion.
The overall 4.47 percent drop is attributed to a decline in sales amounts, Houselog said.
Ag/rural land, for instance, dropped 7.07 percent in value followed by a 12.96 drop in apartment market values.
Overall industrial, commercial and residential properties increased 11.78, 5.44 and 7.83 percent respectively.
Non-commercial seasonal recreation and mobile home park values stayed the same during the same period.
 
Market value drops for Agri-Energy LLC
Each spring property owners can appeal estimated market values that determine the following year’s property taxes.
Gevo officials appealed the $12.5 million property value placed on the 23-acre industrial Agri-Energy plant west of Luverne for 2022.
Gevo currently pays $376,674, the most of any company in Rock County.
Gevo officials told Houselog, based on the unique nature of this small ethanol plant and the lack of isobutonal produced in 2020, a reduction in market value was warranted.
Houselog negotiated a 27 percent decrease (or a decline of about $3.2 million) in market value, and both parties agreed.
Gevo will pay about $107,000 less in 2022 taxes using current tax levy rates.
The new market value for Agri-Energy is $9.1 million.
More reductions may be negotiated next year, Houselog said.
 
Grand Prairie Events sale means no taxes
Another reduction in 2022 property values occurred when the non-profit Generations (formerly Rock County Senior Citizens) purchased the Grand Prairie Events building in Luverne.
The building sale prior to July 1 means the new non-profit owners will pay no taxes in 2022.
Under the new ownership, Generations President George Bonnema told commissioners prior to the June 22 equalization meeting that he met with the three banks in Luverne.
Each bank will share in the $600,000 loan to the organization that also operates the local meal site. Generations plans to also operate their new building as an events center for now.
By completing the sale from Mike and Wanda Jarchow prior to July 1, the group is exempt from paying the estimated $23,000 in taxes.

Rock County recently switched to a new phone service and so far has had no issues with emergency 9-1-1 services.
Deputy county administrator Susan Skattum oversaw the transition that finished in late April.
“The E911 issues were resolved immediately once the call paths were built within our network and the (phone) numbers were ported/switched carriers,” she said.
The county’s phone provider is now Alliance Communications. Previously the service was provided by Vast Broadband.
The law enforcement center on North Blue Mound Avenue was the first to be switched from the hybrid system of copper lines and fiber, Skattum said.
All of the county’s 15 departments are now entirely on the fiber network.
County commissioners supported the change from Vast Broadband to Alliance Communications in March, shortly after a problem with the copper phone connections through Vast.
The problem left the county intermittently without emergency 9-1-1 and/or administrative phone services over a two-month period.
County administrator Kyle Oldre brought the problem and potential solution to commissioners at the March 16 meeting.
“We are having a bad time with our phone system,” Oldre said. “A lot of it is out at the law enforcement center and that is a bad place to be having trouble with phones.”
On March 8 the Rock County Sheriff’s Office posted on their social media page that the office was without administrative phone lines as well as the 9-1-1 services.
“Our 911 is being rerouted to Nobles County,” the social media post said. “They will answer and call us over the radio if it is an emergency.”
The problem was traced to the copper lines and a third-party phone company trying to transfer out-of-state calls to Rock County.
Under Alliance the phone system is entirely on the fiber network. The county now pays rent for handsets located in each office.
“At this time it is difficult to determine what the savings are as things are still changing,” Skattum said. “The biggest benefits we have seen are efficiency and quality of service.”
Since the transition the county’s number of phone lines went from 51 to 36 lines, a 70 percent reduction.
Fifteen phone lines remain with Vast for fire alarms, elevator and boiler alarm services.
In two months, Alliance technicians reduced the original 20 call paths down to 12, which are used by the 22 business numbers (office and fax numbers) and 68 phone extensions.
The rental for 68 handsets averages $4.75 a month.
“This rental cost replaces a phone system purchase and will ensure that the equipment remains current,” Skattum said.
The county purchased the previous phone system in 2016 for $54,500. That system used copper lines for incoming/outgoing calls and the county’s fiber network for interoffice and transfer calls.

An after-school child care option returns to Hills-Beaver Creek Elementary this fall.
The H-BC School Board approved hiring a director and an assistant at their June 14 meeting.
Hourly rates were set at $25 per hour for the director and $20 per hour for the assistant.
The director will work with school officials to develop enrichment activities and tailor events as an extension of the school day.
With the two adult hires, the program will immediately accept 20 students and hire additional staff as demand grows.
“We’re starting small and working larger,” said Superintendent Todd Holthaus.
The yet-to-be-named program in Beaver Creek is open to the school’s kindergarten through fifth-grade students at a cost of $10 per student per day.
The program will operate only during the school year and will not be open during early outs, holidays, in-service or snow days.
Program hours will be after school until 5:30 p.m.
As the program begins, officials anticipate operating at a deficit, possibly losing $12,000 in its first year.
The district last operated an after-school child care program about eight years ago.
Enrollment opens in late August ahead of the opening of the 2021-22 school year on Sept. 7.
 
Survey reveals need for child care
Hills-Beaver Creek school officials surveyed elementary families about after-school child care options this spring.
More than half of the 66 responses indicated an interest in an after-school child care program. The majority (35 percent) of those interested had first-grade students.
In other survey findings:
•Participants would use the after-school child care at least twice a week. Twenty-eight percent indicated they would use the program five days a week.
•Cost was cited as the biggest factor that may prevent families from enrolling their children in the school’s after-school program.
•Respondents indicated that the program should focus on interaction and socialization activities (66 percent) and recreation and outdoor play (55 percent).
•Most supported paying $50 single-child/five-days-week rate (41 percent) and the same percentage of parents supported the $15 per day.
•The majority of the respondents (79 percent) agreed with picking up their children no later than 5:30 p.m.

I was recently invited, among other community leaders across the state, to be a Minnesota COVID-19 Vaccine Ambassador. As ambassadors, it will be our focus to promote and encourage fellow Minnesotans to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
I plan to continue communicating through the Rock County Star Herald to help inform, educate, promote and put aside any misinformation that citizens of Luverne and Rock County might have about the COVID-19 vaccine and importance of getting vaccinated.
It was March 6, 2020, that Minnesota had its first positive COVID-19 infection. On April 2, 2020, the Luverne Sanford Clinic had the Luverne community’s first COVID-19 positive infection, and on April 9, 2020, the first positive COVID-19 infection was reported in an area nursing home.
The infections of COVID-19 were on a fast and steep uphill climb. On April 8, 2020, Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, had their first COVID-19 diagnosis, and on April 15, 2020, JBS in Worthington had their first COVID-19 infection.
In September of 2020, Rock County lost its first resident to COVID-19. As you can see how fast this virus infected our area population, this was just the start of our pandemic locally.
These COVID-19 infection rates were mirrored and duplicated not only locally but nationally and across the world.
Over the past year, we had weekly Rock County partner meetings with our public health representatives into early 2021. These meetings were pretty grim at first as infection rates and deaths were reported by local, state, national and world health officials.
These meetings were very straight-forward and informative for area elected officials, school superintendents, nursing home health care professionals and health care officials. They gave us information and direction on how to help guide our decisions as we attended with our boards via Zoom.
In Luverne we have always tried to make the best decisions at the City Council level for our community.
This last year is no different in that decisions were made in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in trying to keep the pandemic rates under control, keeping our citizens out of the hospital, and most importantly, trying not to lose any more citizens to this deadly virus.
Losing one was enough; we lost 19 residents of Rock County to COVID-19.
The first vaccine doses were delivered to the Minnesota Veterans Home in Luverne on Dec. 14, 2020. Since then, vaccination clinics have been available throughout Minnesota to help any and all residents of Rock County receive their COVID-19 vaccinations.
Our current vaccination rates in Rock County are much lower than the rest of the state.
Historically our residents of Luverne and Rock County have been leaders in getting important tasks completed. One of these was the Census 2020. Luverne’s within Rock County finished as one of the top percentages in the state. Our citizens were up to the task of being counted so as to be fully recognized for our population count.
The COVID-19 vaccine percentages for our county are a complete opposite. Statewide, over 63.5 percent of Minnesota residents are completely vaccinated, but Rock County’s vaccination rate is one of the lowest in the state at 48.9 percent!
We are normally leaders, but this isn’t the case with our COVID-19 vaccination rates.
And with the highly contagious COVID-19 Delta variant taking hold around the globe, I strongly urge all citizens of Luverne and Rock County to step up to the plate.
Be the strong leaders that you all have been as residents of Rock County for generations. You care about your businesses, your co-workers, your neighbors, and most importantly your families. Please do your part and get your COVID-19 vaccination.

For the past four years, teams of Christian kids from the Luverne area have served on a weeklong, in-town mission trip doing the things locally that youth groups often travel hundreds of miles to do in other places.
Under the supervision of two or three adults, the teens paint houses, replace siding, build ramps, landscape, pull weeds, move furniture … and
even change light bulbs.
Yes, change light bulbs.
This particular recipient of the Service Over Self group had moved back to Luverne recently after living her life elsewhere. Her condo was nice, but a little dark. She had new, brighter light bulbs and a ladder, but age and health prevented her from using them. It seemed almost silly to ask for such a little bit of “help,” but she did.
Imagine her surprise when nine teenagers and two leaders showed up at her front door.
“Oh my, there are a lot of you!”
Two-thirds of the team quickly moved on to another project, while the others stayed to replace light bulbs.
Like gazelles, the teens scaled the ladder, switched out bulbs and jumped down.
A particularly tall teen dusted the tops of door frames and windows.
“This seems so small, I know,” the woman said, “but you have no idea what this means to me. It’s not easy getting old.”
As is their custom, before leaving, the teens asked how they could pray for the recipient of their service – then they did. They prayed that the Light of Christ would shine in her home along with the new light bulbs.
She returned the blessing.
“Before you go, there’s something I want to show you,” she said, returning with a faded picture of a group of high school kids.
Pointing to the tall, handsome kid in the back row she said, “This is a high school picture of my son David and his friends from Show Choir. In high school they performed in Europe. They had so much fun.”
The teens politely listened to the woman speak.
“He was accepted to West Point.”
“Twenty-three days after his high school graduation he was killed by a drunk driver.”
The kids looked again at the kid in the picture. Averting their eyes, they blinked back tears that were joining hers.
“I just wanted to tell you, and to ask you to tell the others, don’t drink and drive.”
They nodded.
A quiet group of kids walked back to their car and a woman in a condo stayed behind with brighter light bulbs.
Both having been blessed.

Before you know it, we’ll be hitting the unofficial midway point of summer.
I know the first day of summer was just a little over a week ago. Yet once the Fourth of July comes and goes, we unfortunately shift our thoughts toward the dog days of August, then Labor Day, then back to school, and summer is over.
Don’t shoot the messenger, but that is the way it goes … if you let it.
So here are a couple of ideas that have worked for me, and maybe they can help slow the passing of summer.
I just did this last week, mostly because I was too lazy to do it earlier. I finally moved our winter boots that have been sitting by our back door to the basement. Doing so helps me feel like winter just ended and we have the whole summer ahead of us.
Now would be a good time to start that summer diet you’ve been putting off since April. Watch a rerun of the Kentucky Derby.
Do that spring cleaning again.
Wear your sandals without socks. Get your bike out of the shed and actually ride it.
Go to JJ’s and pretend it just opened for the summer.
Drink a green beer. Hand out May baskets.
You do a couple of these things and then you look at your tanless legs and you’ll think summer has just started.
If none of these helpful hints slow the summer down, try this one: Christmas is still 177 days way.
Enjoy your Fourth of July! – There is still a lot of summer fun yet to be had

Ladd questions Star Herald COVID-19 editorial
To the Editor:
I am writing in response to the “BIG thumbs up” in the June 24, 2021, edition of the Star Herald.
According to your “Covid Corner” table on page 2A, 3,637 people in Rock County have the completed series of the Covid shot. There are approximately 9,687 people living in Rock County. That pencils out to approximately 38 percent of Rock County residents having received the completed series.
I disagree with your assessment that 38 percent of fully inoculated Rock County residents is the reason life in Rock County has been able to return to “pre-pandemic normal”. There are other factors playing into this return to normalcy, such as immunity due to having had the Covid virus.
I would also like to suggest a retraction of the last sentence in the paragraph written in the “BIG thumbs up.” It may have been bold and foolish of you to assume that you possess the insight as to why Rock County residents may or may not have been part of “the effort” to return to normal. I accept your apology.
Sherri Ladd
Luverne
 

Dispatch report
June 18
•Complainant on S. Walnut Avenue reported theft.
•Complainant on W. Lincoln Street reported someone keeps throwing a ball in her yard.
•Complainant on W. Main Street requests a warrant check.
•Complainant on W. Main Street reported a vehicle repossession.
•Complainant on E. 3rd Street and Central Ave., Hills, reported a parking issue.
June 19
•Complainant at Redbird Field reported possible narcotic activity.
•Complainant eastbound on Interstate 90, mile marker 3, Beaver Creek, reported a possible grass fire.
•Deputies westbound on Interstate 90, mile marker 13, Luverne, assisted MSP.
•Complainant on N. Kniss Avenue reported graffiti on walls.
•Complainant westbound on Interstate 90, mile marker 6, Beaver Creek, reported vehicle without headlights on.
•Complainant eastbound on Interstate 90, mile marker 9, Luverne, reported a vehicle swerving.
June 20
•Complainant reported a lost wallet.
June 21
•Complainant on E. Adams, Luverne, reported a stolen vehicle at location.
•Complainant at 41st Street and 20th Avenue, Hills, reported a grass fire.
•Complainant north of 21st Street and 20th Avenue, Hills, reported a fire at location.
•Complainant on Highway 75 and 151st Street, Luverne, reported a bale of hay on the shoulder of the roadway.
•Complainant eastbound on Interstate 90, mile marker 3, Beaver Creek, reported driver almost ran them off the roadway.
June 22
•Complainant on S. Water Avenue, Hills, reported suspicious activity.
•Complainant on Hawkinson Park reported vandalism at the park.
•Complainant on S. Kniss Avenue reported theft from the store.
•Complainant on 175th Street, Luverne, reported a gift card scam.
•Complainant on 2nd Avenue, Beaver Creek, reported an incident of careless driving and road rage.
June 23
•Complainant on W. Gabrielson Road reported a possible stolen license plate.
•Complainant on S. Kniss Avenue requested to speak to a deputy.
•Complainant on W. Edgehill Street reported suspicious activity.
•Complainant on State Highway 23 and 241st Street, Jasper, reported a grass fire.
•Complainant on County Highway 4 and County Road 17, Beaver Creek, reported vehicles speeding and was almost struck.
•Complainant westbound on Interstate 90, mile marker 5, Luverne, reported a construction barrel in lane of traffic.
June 24
•Complainant on 120th Avenue, Luverne, reported a suspicious vehicle.
•Complainant on N. Spring Street reported a possible leak.
•Motorist assist on Highway 75 and 91st Street, Luverne.
•Motorist assist on Christenson Drive and Bluemound Avenue.
June 25
•Complainant on S. Kniss Avenue reported suspicious activity.
•Complainant on 41st Street and railroad crossing, Hills, reported train blocking road.
•Complainant on E. Howe Avenue reported damage to property.
•Complainant on S. Kniss Avenue reported child locked in vehicle.
•Complainant on Highway 23 and 181st Street, Jasper, reported a driving complaint.
•Complainant on Interstate 90, mile marker 19, Magnolia, reported a driving complaint.
•Complainant on S. 4th Street, Beaver Creek, requested extra patrol at location.
•Complainant on 20th Avenue, Valley Springs, South Dakota, reported a fire at location.
In addition, officers responded to 2 motor vehicle accidents, 1 deer accident, 9 escorts, 17 ambulance runs, 2 paper services, 2 animal complaints, 5 fingerprint requests, 4 burn permits, 1 background check, 3 gas drive-offs, 1 alarm, 3 drug court tests, 4 purchase and carry permits, 3 stalled vehicles, 7 traffic stops, 7 abandoned 911 calls, 4 tests, 3 welfare checks, 2 reports of cattle out, 1 curfew check and 2 follow-ups.

The Hills-Beaver Creek School District made a final payment of $3,156 last week to the Minnesota State High School League, ending a seven-month standoff with the non-profit interscholastic high school sports organization.
The amount is in addition to a $1,161 payment in December.
Board members were quiet before the payment was approved during their June 14 meeting.
The action reverses a resolution the board passed in December, where board members declined to pay an additional $28.22 per student fee while larger schools paid a lower amount. H-BC proposed a more modest payment of $1,161 because MSHSL was placing a “greater financial burden on smaller classification members.”
Representatives of the smaller classified “A” schools recently met with MSHSL officials who clarified the formula used to determine the additional payments.
They would reduce MSHSL debt and reflected students competing annually in more than one MSHSL activity offered in the winter, fall and spring each year.
Prior to the vote, director Ethan Rozeboom inquired if MSHSL officials have put plans into place to prevent falling into operating debt again. Superintendent Todd Holthaus was unaware of any solid plans to sell sponsorships to events.
Fees for the next school year won’t be known until the fall. A new, possibly more equitable formula is being developed, Holthaus said.
After the meeting Holthaus said the district is paying the amount the MSHSL governing board requested last fall. That amount, $4,317, was in addition to regular membership fees.
The extra money would assist to reduce MSHSL’s operating debt. The debt was created when the coronavirus pandemic canceled the large income-generating state tournaments in 2020.
H-BC had 104 high school students during the 2020-21 school year.