Bob Kindler will take his oath to serve the people as Freeborn County sheriff on Jan. 3.

In preparation for this day, he went in front of the Freeborn County Board of Commissioners Tuesday morning to request a couple of vacancies be filled.

The first request was to fill the patrol position that will become open on Jan. 3 when Kindler will take over as Freeborn County sheriff for departing Mark Harig. The second was to fill a position in the jail because of an employee promotion. He also discussed the possibility of another jail vacancy coming up.

With these requests, Kindler also asked the board for permission to establish an eligibility distribution list for future openings as they arise. This list allows the Sheriff’s Office to hire for vacant positions in a more timely manner when they come up, because they can pull applications from the list rather than advertise these positions.

Kindler said with one deputy on medical leave until July 2011 and another serving in Iraq and not available to rejoin the force until at least mid-March, it’s important to have this list in place just in case one of these deputies would decide not to rejoin the force.

All actions were approved by the Board of Commissioners.

A public hearing was also held at Tuesday’s meeting, regarding the county applying to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development for Community Development Block Grant funding to assist with additional debris removal costs from floods and tornadoes earlier this year. No public comment was made and the board moved ahead with submitting the application.

In additional business, the Board of Commissioners:

• Approved the Minnesota Department of Health assurances and agreement document, which is presented annually by the Freeborn County Public Health Department.

• Authorized final payment to Ulland Brothers Inc. of $99,193 for road work and repairs, including aggregate shoulders along portions of County Road 19 and County Road 35.

• Set the first Freeborn County Board of Commissioners meeting of the new year at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 4, 2011.