I just tried changing to using a DataSet instead to see if I would get the same results and I did so even though .hasRows is coming back true I am somehow not connecting to the database properly.

Back to the drawing board. Thank you for you help.

I finally solved this particular issue. The resolution to the problem was using ExecuteScalar rather than ExecuteReader to retrieve the information I needed. Here is the code that resolved my problem, in case anyone else can use it:

SqlConnection sqlConn = new SqlConnection(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["conn"]);
sqlConn.Open();

int knownID;

SqlCommand sqlCmd = new SqlCommand();
sqlCmd = new SqlCommand("SELECT MAX(ID) FROM middle", sqlConn);

knownID = (int)sqlCmd.ExecuteScalar();

    if(knownID > 10)
    {
        Response.Redirect("RegFull.aspx");
    }
    else
    {
        Response.Redirect("Registration.aspx"); }
    sqlConn.Close();