county commission

Karen Newman Midgarden 

The Clay County Commission voted to re-engage the Sentence to Serve (STS) program at their March 8 meeting. District Supervisor Probation Janelle Cheney reminded the board that STS had been placed on temporary hold January 8, 2022. Cheney explained that a work crew exists through the Department of Corrections, and another exists through the county jail.

In materials presented to the county board, District Supervisor Cheney explained STS’s purpose:

This STS program is based on Restorative justice practices.  Education, rehabilitation, and skill building is the focus for just-involved individuals who participate in this program.  Crew members are able to work off their court-ordered fines, supervision fess and complete in lieu of jail when the court authorizes.

Appearing before the board with Cheney, Clay County Facilities Director Joe Olson and Jail Administrator Kari Tuton reported that they met on February 25 to discuss resuming the program.  Citing the exemplary cooperation demonstrated by recently retired crew leaders, Cheney, Olson and Tuton plan to work together to reinstate a thriving, revived STS program in Clay County.

Cheney explained, “Our (STS) crew is more specific to those that are released from the jail to go on crew. We have some community members that meet up with the crew, so it is a blend of community members and those that are authorized, court order approved and authorized by the jail staff to go on a crew out in the community. They are lower risk to be within the community and work on projects.”

Cheney and Tuton characterized the jail crew as having an officer with them and work crew members are still considered to be in custody.

Olson said that he hopes to work with STS to do scheduled weekly work tasks for county projects. He said, “Things around campus can definitely use their help for summertime around here and other areas off-campus.  That new storage facility that we {Clay County} purchased is good timing because we are taking it over fully on April 1.  If this is approved, that is where they would work from and help maintain that facility. That works out really well for us and I’m excited to work with Janelle and Kari on this.”

Commissioner David Ebinger reported on STS news from the recent Association of Minnesota Counties (AMC) meeting, “This is good news. We just came back from the AMC meeting. There is a real effort to try to figure out how to reinvest our system into something that serves both offenders and the public.  I think we are going to see some pretty dramatic changes in our probation/parole system here in the state. Programs like this serve everybody.”

 Commission Chair Jenny Mongeau added, “I have had substantial conversations with community members about the value of these crews, not only for those that are working but…certainly the Moorhead Hockey Rink, the cleaning that happens there; the county fairgrounds, Ulen and Felton and all the smaller towns use these crews to help prepare for their summer festivals. Covid threw a major wrench into these operations, but I think we made it work.”