Sentence to Serve could see increase in workers

Although there is not an increase in the crime rate, there could be more people working on the Sentence to Serve work crew through Todd-Wadena Corrections.

At the Jan. 24 Staples City Council meeting, city attorneys Kyra Ladd and Joe Krueger gave their annual update. Both attorneys said the numbers of prosecutions in 2016 were similar to previous years, but Ladd said thanks to changes in the drug laws, more people could be sentenced to the work crew instead of to jail time. She said it is a way to hold people accountable and give them a chance to give back to the community, and suggested the council discuss what ways they could use an increased work crew.

Krueger said he is seeing more after effects of drug crimes and second and third time DUIs increasing.

Library update

Staples Library Services Coordinator Cathy Perish gave the board an update on 2016. She said more people came through the door in 2016, although they checked out fewer materials. She said part of that could be an increase in e-book usage.

Library programming and attendance was also up. Perish said there were 42 children’s programs with 1,197 kids participating in them, 22 adult programs with 267 attending and eight teen programs with 53 attending. She said it was a seven percent increase in program attendance.

In other news, the council debated looking into a lodging tax that would be used for tourism and marketing.