County fights paper tiger

Talk about it

How does the county save enough trees to stack up to the height of the Statue of Liberty?

For about 10 years, various departments have been using an imaging system that can help get rid of some paper waste.

Last week, the Lake County Board of Commissioners continued to go forward with the process by approving a payment in the amount of $22,282 to Mid-America Business Systems for the imaging system’s annual maintenance.

As of right now, there is no concrete data for how much money the county saves, said Angie Dickison-Palmer, the county’s director of information systems, but it can save quite a bit of time with its efficiency.

According to the auditor’s office, one benefit is being able to retrieve information when needed from computer files rather than having to find which vault it’s stored in to locate a physical copy.

In the highway department, workers used to photocopy all bills and claim forms before sending originals to the auditor’s office. With the imaging system, they simply scan the documents.

The human services department also benefits in retrieving information electronically.

“We have more than 1.2 million imaged items,” Dickison said. The system has no capacity limit.

County Coordinator Matt Huddleston said he can search by name, along with many other different categories, when searching for a specific document rather than by sometimes sketchy dates.

“In a lot of cases technology allows you to do more with less,” board chairman Rick Goutermont said.

Garden talk

Wayne Seidel, extension educator and conservation specialist discussed the current master gardening program in Lake County. There are seven master gardeners in the area.

“These are hard-working passionate folks,” Seidel said.

Among the projects gardeners have worked on include the rain garden project at Minnehaha Elementary and the North Shore Mystery Garden Tour. They also offer a series of classes about gardening.

If you are interested in becoming a master gardener, contact Seidel at seide002@umn.edu. To become a master gardener, you have to take an online or traditional course.

Watershed moment

Several people representing the White Iron Chain of Lakes and Water Conservation District members, along with someone from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency were present to discuss the proposed Kawishiwi Watershed Protection Project. The board agreed to serve as the project sponsor for the Clean Water Partnership grant funds project when funding becomes available.

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