Sheriff Reports Fewer Incidents at Fair - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Sheriff Reports Fewer Incidents at Fair

The Ward County sheriff says even with the record number of visitors to the fair this year, the crowd has been pretty well behaved.
Steve Kukowski says there have been rumors of sexual assaults, but says there has been just one such crime charged during the fair.
However, Kukowski says he'd like to see the fair stop selling a particular product that seems to be leading to some problems with drunkenness.
He says a drink called "Mike's Harder Lemonade" has a higher alcohol content than a well known drink called "Mike's Hard Lemonade."
And he thinks the fair should consider stopping sales of the higher alcohol-content drink.

Meanwhile today, Kukowski was asking a committee comprised of representatives from the city of Minot, Ward County, Minot Public Schools, and the park department to approve a higher per-day charge for having the county house prisoners.
Right now, Ward County charges local cities - such as Minot - $23.08 per day to house a prisoner.
He presented information showing that rate is less than half the amount charged by other county jails in the state.
And he asked the committee to approve a new rate of 50 dollars per day.
Kukowski says the actual cost to care for an inmate is 54 dollars per day.
He says it's rising - along with the number of inmates at the jail.

(Steve Kukowski, Ward County Sheriff) "We've really overburdened our correctional staff.  In our budget for next year we have four more correctional officers assigned because we went from a population of 60 inmates to close to 100 a day.  It fluctuates from 95 to a little over 100 so the cost has gone up and the workload has gone up so we're trying to get on par with the other cities in the state."

The committee voted to approve the new, 50 dollar rate for prisoners.
Their recommendation goes on now to the Ward County Commission.