Residents of area townships will be heading to the polls Tuesday to elect township officials. And after the polls close that night, residents will have the chance to voice their opinions on township issues at annual township meetings.
According to the Minnesota Association of Townships, state law requires all townships to conduct an annual meeting on the second Tuesday of March. Annual township elections are typically held the same day.
MAT Attorney Kent Sulem said townships consider themselves grassroots government. He said residents have a direct opportunity to have a voice in how their townships will be run at annual meetings.
"It is a meeting of the people," Sulem said.
He said the most important item on a township's annual meeting agenda is setting the property tax levy for the next year - a decision voted on by the residents themselves.
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Most of the funding townships receive comes directly from the levy, Sulem said. He said townships also receive some money from the state gas tax dedicated to town roads.
Townships control about 47 percent of the road miles in Minnesota, he said. He added that the service people most associate with townships involves roads.
But, Sulem said, there are very few things a township can't do that a city, for example, can do. Some of those things, however, require voter approval at annual township meetings, he said.
In Bemidji Township, Tuesday's annual meeting will mainly focus on the township's budget and potential road paving projects, said Lanee Paulson, township clerk. She noted that the residents attending the meeting will vote on the township's tax levy for 2007.
And just hours before the meeting, Bemidji Township residents will elect two supervisors to its five-member board.
"And they're elected for three-year terms," Paulson noted. "Both of the incumbents have filed and that's it."
Township services
According to the MAT, the types of services offered by townships vary greatly from community to community.
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Bemidji Township, one of the area townships with the largest populations totaling nearly 3,000 residents, not only offers road maintenance services, but also provides residents with fire protection and animal control services.
Along with other area townships, Bemidji Township is a member of the Rural Fire Association and the Bemidji Rural Animal Control Organization, which hires its own animal control officer, Paulson said. Other policing, however, is done by the Beltrami County Sheriff's Office, she said.
Bemidji Township also has an employee who handles road signs throughout the township, she noted.
She added that the township also has a Planning & Zoning Commission that hears requests for conditional use permits and special use permits, as well as a Board of Adjustments that hears variance requests.
History of townships
According to the MAT, townships are the original form of local government in Minnesota, established as part of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. The MAT adds that the township form of government, which is a carry-over from Europe, served as a familiar building block to develop the state by dividing land areas into 36-square-mile units known as congressional townships.
Today, the term township generally refers to an organized, but unincorporated, community governed by a local board of supervisors and created to provide services to residents, according to the MAT.
In Minnesota, there are 1,790 townships, Sulem said. He added that most townships are small rural communities where everyone knows each other.
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Paulson agreed.
"You get to know your people," she said.
