Poor Farm building secured

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- The Poor Farm's future appears secure for now, and New Ulm's teen-aged partiers have lost a secluded site for their beer busts.

Last weekend, developer Jon Hartley of Lafayette began closing up and securing the building that was at the top of the city's short hit-list for demolition last spring.

In addition to putting wood or metal panels over all the window and door openings, Hartley is enclosing the entrance on the back side of the building. He intends to have the work done by this weekend.

"I'm also having electricity brought to the building so that I can install an electronic security system," Hartley said. "It doesn't do any good to secure a building without some means of determining whether someone has broken into it or not."

Hartley also has removed most of the brush lining the chain-link fence which surrounds the building.

"I may just remove it," Hartley said, referring to the fence. "With the building properly secured, there's really no need for it; all it is then is just a temptation."

The building's demise appeared assured in June when the city went into District Court to enforce its order of last December that Hartley either raze or remove the building.

The city's attempt was derailed, however, when District Judge John Rodenberg ruled the order was not enforceable because it was not signed by both the mayor and the city clerk. Rodenberg also found another violation, this time of the state opening meeting law, because there was no record in the council's minutes of "who made the motion on the resolution, who seconded the resolution, or the votes upon the resolution."

The judge went on to chastise the city for not giving Hartley the option of securing the building and its building inspector for overstating the hazard which the building might represent.

"It appears that the Poor Farm, if so sealed, would be merely an abandoned, ruined building that is of little or no value but which also poses no 'hazard to public safety or health," Rodenberg ruled.

Building Inspector Al Gag had testified the building was "an eyesore" and a public hazard. After an on-site inspection, Rodenberg found the building constituted a hazard only to would-be trespassers who entered the building. Rodenberg remanded the case to the city, urging the city give Hartley a chance to secure the building.

The City Council debated the remanded issue at its first August meeting and decided to do nothing more about either having the building secured or razed.

In the meantime, Hartley had called Gag and promised to have the building secured by the end of September.

At that council meeting, Gag estimated it would cost about $10,000 for the city to go in and secure the building.

"Well, I'm expecting to do it for a lot less than that," Hartley said, "but a lot of it is surplus material."