BELGRADE, Minn. -- The town of Belgrade decided after all to proceed with a drunken driving case that was slated to be dropped because the town couldn't afford the possible $2,000 cost.


The City Council in the town of 750 voted Tuesday night to go ahead with the case. City officials declined Stearns County Attorney Janelle Kendall's offer to try to case if the city couldn't.

Brad William Lieser, 29, was charged with two gross misdemeanors after his arrest in September.

"We are going to prosecute the ticket," City Clerk Corinne Bahe said Wednesday. "They agree that this has to go through."

In a letter earlier this month, City Attorney William Spooner asked a judge to dismiss the charges because the police department's budget was insufficient to prosecute Lieser.

In her offer to take the case, Kendall had cited a 1957 state attorney general's opinion that allowed a county attorney who normally wouldn't have jurisdiction to prosecute a case if it "would otherwise go unpunished."