i don't know i wasn't paying attention good morning everyone we will start the meeting with the pledge of allegiance i pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God
indivisible with liberty and justice for all agenda do we have any um changes to the agenda uh Mr chair under consent agenda I would um I've got notification that Denise would like to remove number six
okay she wants to modify some language in there and then bring it back um next next round what's this number six number six uh number six is human uh regional collaborative agreement human services regional collaborative agreement okay and then in addition to
that I would like um to add under we'll put it under normally we would put it under me but since the sheriff has several items I think that should go under at the new number six because he wanted to have the ceremonial oath of his office last okay okay so the new number six would be the extension of the
sheriff's deputy investigator position under yours under the sheriff yeah normally we'd put it under mine but since he has several agenda items perhaps and he has I believe a resolution is that correct Sheriff what did you want what what um so the the new number six would be an extension of the
sheriff's deputy investigator position and then then we'll have a number seven we're just moving it down so we can do a ceremonial oath last i get it it's not in the consent she's talking about No I thought she meant she was moving the oath but she was just
moving the oath yeah number seven add those will be last no matter what and I and I'm making it confusing because normally it would go under me but with that that's all the uh additions okay do we have any other Do you want to I have a consent agenda I want to pull do you want Oh
do you want me to do that now or Yeah sure i would just like uh number seven a toz vending agreement just discuss that for a minute do you want where do you want to let's place that uh that you want to just discuss it before I don't care you can we can let's let's
I just want to I just want to put it under let's do it let's let's confirm the agenda and then we'll do it right when we get to the consent agenda we'll talk about it right away okay do we have any other any other changes to the agenda okay i'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda so moved motion by
Eric do we have a second second by Barry all in favor signify by saying I i all right motion carries okay minutes of the last meeting do we have any corrections to the minutes i just had one
um under highway consent agenda item one there i think the pound sign should be a dollar sign yeah I saw that also that's it you guys are You guys are You're catching on Mr chair yep um I noticed um on on
number one under report county administrative report the dot is offc centered just a little bit sorry about that no um the the one I didn't see anything any corrections but I just uh question whether we need to have on met with Brian Ruben Singh from
probation i mean it's under your report if it gives us no in I mean you've probably met with a thousand people a week i don't know if we need to know unless there's something in that report that you want noted in the minutes i don't know if that's needed in the minutes like what you met with them
about yeah so I would just not include that statement i mean unless you want to include everyone you've met with in the week i don't I don't so I mean that's just something I don't I mean it doesn't rise to the level of being in the minutes yeah noted and um then I was
just thinking one one thing to we opened the meeting with the pledge of allegiance so you could state that you know under number one and I don't mean to change the minutes but as you report the uh chairman chairman Dave opened the meeting with the pledge of allegiance with these in
attendance then it's just shortens it just air but I didn't see any else anybody else have any correct i have one more under uh land use which is
page five of 71 um number three motion and second to two for the consideration that doesn't I don't know how to it's got to be worded just a little bit different
motion second two four to consider you don't understand that two for the two for the I don't know peggy Peggy will let you fix that how about that less words yeah yeah that was all I had motion approved all right do we have a second i'll
second all right motion by Mary second by Erica any other discussion okay all in favor signify by saying I i all right motion carries all right consent agenda do we have any other items that we would like to pull out of the consent agenda besides number
seven all right i will uh entertain a motion to approve the consent you want Let's just if you want to Do you want to do it before let's just I just have a couple question and if we move forward we can just approve it but um it's a vending contract yep um
the the contract is so it's so bad that I just worried about I mean it's so it's a simple contract for vending machines but it doesn't doesn't state any price it doesn't state any how I mean it just it doesn't give us any there's no money involved in it nope it's just that
they're going to have them there so So historically human does it state how many or what's required of them it really gives them a two-year contract to do anything they want it doesn't give any requirements that they have to do or um there's no le there's no level of
service that's required of them if they don't do anything then you're stuck with two years not having any out so I just thought it was it was very simple i know two people can do that but when you're dealing with the county I think it's I think you need some I don't have a problem with them being a vendor but you
have we have no recourse for anything unless unless two years expire so I just thought it it wasn't in the best interest of the county to have Brian look at it and change well I just I mean if if inadequate just a sentence if inadequate service is
provided we we can get out immediately i mean I don't think there's any intent but this contract is it has no Yeah it does if we're guaranteeing them the only one in there for two years we should have some expectation of service is kind of where I'm at sure that makes sense
i'm thinking too as I'm listening to you perhaps service on the machine too if they break or responsibility it's simp it's so simple i mean I mean it doesn't address any of those things two people it's an easy agreement for you and I yeah this is good enough but that was my favorite contract
but but I I just I just don't think it's should we we have we have no I don't know that's that I just don't think it's an appropriate contract for us to enter into it without some further language in it mr chair what is the history of this
is this something that rises to the level of board approval a contract vending machine for vending machines well contract it's contract contract you You want to put your name on it without board and then we have to pay for vending machines i just think if the county and I don't
have a problem with authorizing us with with your review of the contract to be signed yeah i think I think this contract you just need more in-depth language you just need a little bit more i don't have a problem with Yeah someone getting in there but I just if we're going to sign a contract to give them a
guarantee of two years I think we have to have more detail in it for what are they going to give us for two years well and if we want to get out what what if they don't put one in there if we want to get out we can't get someone else in there then that's yeah if we want to get out of the contract because the only out now is I don't see we would for two
years yeah so if this was a month-to-month contract I don't care you know that's fine so I would say so then we'll we'll approve it with language changes that are approved by care or if you or if you just want to take out the minimum two years then it's like monthtomonth I don't that's fine so some
clarification and modification but if we're going to give them guarantee two-year contract for that building for services then I think you have to have more language so okay okay so we can leave it in there as a approve to to negotiate a contract with a toz okay
instead of this specific which then we we'll allow we'll allow Carrie Carrie to Carrie and Denise to work out the concerns and again I don't think anything would ever happen but you don't want to assume those things also motion to approve consent agenda all
right we have a motion by that stipulation on the Okay barry do we have a second i'll second second by Erica any further discussion on the consent agenda okay all in favor signify by saying I i all right motion carries all right commissioners open forum is there
anybody on the open forum okay thank you i got this one all right so Dave Shornack please uh please state your name and your address sit down here yes please yeah and then turn the mic on too
thank you i'm Dave Shorn uh I'm I live in Perm um 44393 Yellow Pine Drive Perm i'm here from Arvik uh we're are I'm director of business development and sales for Arvik and uh want to come to
before you guys to ask you guys for support uh for a couple projects that provide broadband to a couple areas that are either unserved or underserved um there's a program out there NTIA has a federal government program out there called bead which will provide the
intent of it is to provide unifor uniform service to all people within the country uh broadband service and so u we picked out a couple areas for that are extension of our Arabic uh network within Becker County that we'd like to
ask you guys for a letter of support and some financial support the reason that we're asking for those is that uh you get additional points when you apply for these grants these are competitive grants across the country and so that's what we're asking for today we have two
areas uh one is that uh and I think you guys might have maps of them one is that 280th Avenue um south of DL we're looking at um there's 18 locations that we're passing our cost uh construct to those locations
is Yeah we don't have any maps uh they said that you would Oh Piggy's going to put them up okay there we go okay this is an area south of uh DL um it's on two 280th Street Avenue it has 18
homes that we're passing our construction costs are about $138,239 and we'd like to ask for support of $1,500 from Becker County and the grant is just to make you aware is 75% 1500 yeah it's uh I like that number
i do too yeah well what what it is is 75% grant and then the other 25% RV has put up so what we're asking is $1,500 for support you know you're looking at less than a couple hundred per residents passed these are unserved or underserved
homes this is one area the second area that we're looking at is uh by Richwood and and Buffalo Lake north of town can if you can bring that one up okay yep
this here one we're passing 79 locations these are all unserved or underserved so the yellow versus orange pegs uh the yellow is uh under or the red is unserved yellow is underserved
and so um 79 homes past year our cost of construction is uh $412,780 and some change and we're asking for $3,500 from Becker County and a letter of support this application is
due uh next week the 21st we have to submit it by that time so and you get extra points if you uh have support from a third party we think this is a great service for the the county there are a couple other
projects that probably there's several rounds of this uh um application so there'll be probably another round um next round satellites can get involved but we'll be able to uh apply again for some other
sites within uh Becker County we have a couple others that we've identified that are underserved or unserved but our cost of construction is is much higher so is is this um something you're going to get for sure no so this commitment is a
possibility rather than a guarantee they uh we get extra points as I mentioned for letters of support and financial the application is due uh the 21st of April supposedly they are going to get a turnaround in 30 days but historically
government doesn't work that way so we might not find out till later this I'm federal government you guys well you No you might hit you might hit 30 days here but yeah well we won't be able to qualify then um it would have been nice
to have a little but had but they um they uh will determine sometime hopefully this summer and this a project that'll probably end up being done in 26 to be honest by the time we find out we got to get permits uh environmental
environmentals all kinds of stuff that that's required under this program so it will take us a while to get moving we'd like to get it to get a two-year window so if we get approved this year either this year or next year we'll get the construction done is is whose area is this what is this um is this your guys'
home area no this is Lumen what is it lumen lumen centry Link centry Link no they change their name every Are they uh are they um going to oppose this or can they oppose this no it's unserved or underserved right now so no so they've
they've lost their time of appeal well they can apply for it too right but isn't there isn't there if you guys apply and put together something can't they say "No we're doing that in within the year." And not underneath I don't believe underneath this program they can you know they can surely submit
that they're planning on doing it but it you know I don't think there's the border to border state the border border grants were that way where the incumbent or the somebody could uh um say that they're building that over building that
area and and then so that's what that's what I'm thinking of in the past that that if you came I mean back in the past when we were talking about the Pearl Lake area was underserved or not served and Arvig is will go in there and put
together something but then if they and isn't wasn't there an application fee i mean isn't it quite expensive to go through this and then if you then if you put it out there um and Century Link says "No we're going to do that," then you're out your money i mean you're just Well there there's cost putting together
the application and fortunately for us we'll be able to do it internally so we don't have any real cost other than time and and energy internally but um there's real no application fee for any of these here programs other than
internal Mr chair Mr chernack uh in the last 10 years wasn't Minnesota I hear about this broadband coalition is that the 75% of taxes coming back is is that Well in in the past we had borderto- border
grants that the state of Minnesota did and we uh won I don't know half a dozen or maybe even more of those types of grants where they were gave us uh there was like a 50/50 for the most part match and so the the company had to come up
with 50% then there was a line extension program that started 2 three years ago where they would pay up to $25 25,000 per resident pass i guess the bigger picture is is isn't this funded already why are you coming to the county for this is this No this isn't funded
already you know I see on my bill I'm an RV customer thank you um uh I see a broadband charge on there isn't that for That's a connection fee that's a broadband connection fee um these customers are completely unserved or
underserved they they can't most of them don't have any as you see on the yellow dot or red dots there a lot of them don't have any broadband service at all you mentioned um points for the letter is there points for if you get money too
so so it's not you'll get more points if you get a donation yes absolutely so how did it's a competitive bid too so it's not like like I said we're not guaranteed anything here so how did you come up with the amounts was there is there a percentage no we came up with the amounts where it it took for us to
get an ROI return on our investment that's really the quite frank that's what the uh those $1,500 to $3,500 we represent we did have some money for this we've no I don't know what happened to it but you
know the broadband's a long a long you know we have a long history of trying to support this and we've actually put we were looking at significant monies going into this years ago i mean to trying to entice the the county border to border basically in the county to get this and
some counties I mean every countyy's treated this differently some counties have um they've they've borrowed money they they bonded for money and did the whole county themselves to to get up to speed and and I mean I think I think this would have been nice to have quite a bit
in advance before and it should I think EDA is where we were doing this the the money where we were considering doing this i think EDA is appropriate place to have this um with this time frame i don't think it's it's possible um but uh
I I don't think 5,000 is is too much to ask but you talk about your your return on investment i mean there's a co-op i can't remember the co-op that provides internet service out east on the very east part of the county and and a little bit farther but their return on
investment they're not looking to make money you know they're a co-op so their return on investment stretches out a lot farther um we don't have a co-op that serves us which which for th for that area is um in my opinion a very a very good deal because their return on
investment if they can get paid off in 10 years is what their goal is and I think Harvard's probably you know it's none of my business but I would imagine three to five years is what your um time frame on return investment is so um I still think this is uh qu you know we have a local a fairly local vendor
that's uh trying to give us better service I I'm willing to stick my neck out and and uh support support this even if but I think it I think we should have the support from Becker County but it the cash should come through EDA would is
where now and I thought there was some money it must be somewhere well we didn't hear market specifically we tried to do something with this at the EDA and we couldn't get we couldn't give anybody nobody wanted to extend anything and Well I think that's that's when they're
in someone else's area it's tough to go in there and and put services in there am I not correct it's Yeah it is it's a competitive market you know there's competition now everywhere with uh not only with Lumen but you got u all the wireless carriers and all of that um and
these maps are are fairly um guarded by companies they're not you know so we're seeing a map and it's it's a guarded bit of information i'm I'm sure that that um you guys didn't like to share publicly um but to get this grant moving forward it's it's so I mean
I I would support moving this I mean I don't know put on our agenda if we want to make an action item or or commit I mean if we're going to make a motion to commit to anything we'll have to put it on our agenda for later in the meeting and discuss it in full you know a little bit more deep little bit more i would
support it too it's very important for people who don't have it it's it's become a very important thing and so I I you can't do anything without internet nowadays unfortunately mr chair my only concern is I mean we're just kind of setting up EDA here to find $5,000 that
they don't have uh which I don't completely disagree with but I don't want to I don't think we should lay that on them well I think we put on our agenda for later in the meeting you know add it to the agenda show a little bit more discussion but um we can't commit EDA funds to us this board shouldn't
commit EDA funds or no EDA discussion but we could get we we could um give a guarantee after that if if EDA funds don't come through we'll yeah we could do that well we had money married do you remember this
right but we got some money for that study didn't we have and didn't we have some money for this that and I don't remember how where it came from but We were but we were I think that's where it ended up going but I thought we were and that's where we got the money for
the study do you remember where we got the money for the study either one way or another we must so we have EDA meeting on Thursday we do have a meeting on Thursday but it doesn't have does it have to come out of there can it just we can we
can we should put it on the agenda for late should we put it on the agenda let's put it under the agenda under uh the county administrator report if EDA is if our economic development is going to be meeting on Thursday though that falls within the timeline yeah it does
and I I truly think and that's where when I was on EDA a few years ago we were looking to do grant opportunities for to entice a better service and we were talking you know that might be big bigger numbers so um I think we can and
I think we did over by Island Lake we put some we helped with service there at one time it sounds familiar right i I I still think we should put it under the administrator's report because we do have to have a letter of support too which we need to would need to approve okay do you have any language that you
if you could jot together and get us we'll discuss it in about 15 20 minutes if if you have a do you have a a draft let me see what I got from No I don't but Ottertale County uh sent me a letter in financial support i'll see if I can get that copy
yeah and and yeah just get us uh shoot shoot us a quick copy so we can I'll call you mirror that one for letter of support so Mr chair so we're moving to this later i mean we still have the Who's on EDA richard okay so we
would approve this pending last time we just took it there we We I think with the timeline we have we just need to give a letter of support from the letter support uh EDA can commit to the money yep okay i think that's and the EDA has a fund balance that would easily I mean
they have a significant fund balance that and that is providing the grant does come through correct correct there's no obligation if we don't get the grant if Mr chair if I may um perhaps what this board would like me to do is I can certainly work with him and do the
letter of support i'll be attending EDA on Thursday it is a $5,000 threshold so I mean if the consensus of this board is that we would like to support that I can certainly talk to EDA and figure out where the money is going to come from when it's under my decision and then I can bring it back next board meeting and
update you if you'd like so so what you're saying Carrie is we probably don't need to move this under you we can just agree i think if I we mutually agree to there's a consensus of support for this is what we're hearing mr chair Commissioner Nelson you always
say is it in the budget um like here's something that I think we should support it's not in the budget i just I worry about putting something on a department head that that is unexpected even though I think it's a good thing i mean well I think how do we navigate that this is
the purpose of EDA right is economic development which No no I'm not I'm not arguing that i'm just saying that's why it should be an E in my opinion under EDA and and we've discussed this for years on how we can I mean how we can get everyone served in Becker
County and it it's a very difficult road and and we've tried I mean I've tried on Pearl Lake you know trying to get that area better served because there's a dead spot kind of on the believe it's on the east side of Pearl Lake that's very underserved
um so how do we how do we ask if it was I think with the EDA budget that's the goal is and I'm I'm thinking that they have um there was funds earmarked for that years and years ago and we never got them spent so I mean it's not
it's not the same I can't justify doing it i mean I can't tell you that you know but things pop up that you see are beneficial and cost there's cost to value so I mean I I can't say that it's every you look at everyone specific and seeing if this is reasonable or not we
just went through this a couple years ago and I don't know where that money's at but we spend a lot more on that on just a study probably four times that so it's really not that big of an amount to actually get something done and and I think I don't know what happened to that
money but I think it's still there yeah it's it's just stays in the Yeah general I think it's still there so because we were we were trying to have a program at that time and ARVIG was I mean we had Arvig representation here and um we're trying to entice projects like this to
get those underserved and we were talking I mean considerably more money at that time to help offset that but that was through EDA but so I think we need to put this under your or Mr mr i just add add the letter
of support for Arvig's application under administration under number Yeah I agree let's do that that's a motion i'll second okay any uh further discussion number five put it as number five all right all in favor signify by saying I i
and I'll carry I'll get you a letter of support that I can that you can work from okay very good okay anything else you guys like from me oh yeah i can reduce my bill can I get a Can I get a credit oh thank you guys yeah thanks take care
all right we have no more open forum so let's go to reports and correspondence who would like to go first i can go first um I had our we had our senior council uh just a couple of things to note they did lose a federal grant it's
called their RSVP grant which um is no longer available to them um it's it was a grant that helped with giving mileage and gift cards to volunteers um so that was just it it's a very competitive grant and they're
hoping that maybe they um can get it get it again but at this point they they've lost that um they're also we had some discussion the the fair is considering not having or is not going to have the outstanding senior this year they're
just going to do a pie and ice cream social so we Well we can recognize Richard ourselves can't we yeah we sure can wow but they have had a very hard time senior himself they have had a very hard time finding um nominees the last
several years so the um plan to move forward is just to have a pie and ice cream social and then I just wanted to recognize the sale program again I think I do every um meeting but the there's one in Lake Park I believe and one at
Trinity Lutheran and the one at Trinity Lutheran in a 12week period had 363 hours of of exercise with senior citizens which is pretty spectacular I thought so um that's the senior council human services just a couple shout outs
to the um units in human services the Becker County Income Maintenance SNAP program met the goal of 90% or higher in expedited and 30-day timeline thresholds for quarter 4 2024 so they met that criteria and then the adult protection
services met their five-day timelines for the second half of the year in 2024 so July 1st to October 31st um their their timelines were met at 97.94% and the goal um the the
performance measures to have at least 90% then a couple other things to note about human services is they also lost a couple federal grants but there would be very little impact to the services over there um one was a COVID public health
COVID but that one they would have likely had to send back anyways because it went for I think training and immunizations if I remember correctly um and it had to be used up I think by next year and they weren't going to be able to use it all anyways
the only thing that they did make note of is Minnesota did or this region did lose their epidemiologist with 17 years of experience due to budget that that grant being cut but that's through the Minnesota Department of Health and then
the SAMA behavioral health grant was another one that was cut which didn't impact human services but there was some community impact i believe one of the local um mental health services lost a
provider due to it but no impact on our services at this point yep and that's all I had go ahead um Mr chair um I met with we had a library um subcommittee to discussing uh the rental rates of what
we're going to be looking at moving in Lauraore Laurel facility into the new Morehead public library um our negotiating team was looking at that i contacted um a local person in the reality business here and got some numbers so it was he was very helpful
um um uh Ingstead um what was Anglestead um Jace so thanks to Jayce for getting me some information just to help me you know know what the values are so we're going to be meeting with the city of Morhead
um and let's see had uh MRC uh we discussed uh Senator uh what's his name hashchild was there a Democrat from the Arrow Arrowheads area uh he was really concerned about the PILT payment
reduction possibility too so he said he you know felt targeted on this because he would lose significant funds and and I think we would also lose significant funds i I don't know which PILT funds they're talking about though if they're they're just the tax forfeit land ones
or if they're you know the school school based ones or their DNR you know purchase ones so there's lots of different pools mary how many do you think how many different types of pill payments are there four or five from the state and then Yeah and I actually have a slide on that that I'm going to talk
about later um we also talked about the MAFPCWDA um they found some money I guess so they found some money to help fund the SSIS software update i don't think they found money well that's the term
that um I would say I don't think they they found money i think the house and the senate each are coming have come up with a number which is significantly different than the governor's budget and then they then he also mentioned that supported I think um MRC's position is we should have a trial on two rural
counties also before because that's a whole different game than Henipin and Ramsey which are doing the trial right now so um that was good to hear that he could support that i think with that with MAPA that the biggest concern for rural agencies and why why there's such
an expense for us is because we don't have a lot of services in this area and when you have to provide active efforts you have to pro ensure that all these services are provided so what's going to happen yeah so what's going to happen is we're going to spend a large chunk of
money either developing services or a trip or sending people out of area so that's I I would 100% agree we need some rural pilot counties what was the reception to that was there a good reception for them to do a pilot
study in rural counties or Well I think um I think this senator was I mean he was I I think they realized that you know and and it's hard to argue that this isn't a fair program i think there's improvements need to be made by the state but um the rural the rural is
going to be treated I mean the rural difficulties are a whole lot different than metro difficulties so I think that that would be fair um had u um one thing I want to mention Sheriff Glander sent us some information too on on on some property of the city
um we've discussed long-term goals and I think this is a a long-term goal i mean a long longterm goal i don't see I don't see any any near future but um if if we are still interested in that I think we should we should figure out our
long-term land needs um if we ever do consider moving you know dispatch and the and the offices um I think closer to the and have more of a campus area for law enforcement i think I think if we do decide that we should be holding that
land now I'm not saying this is a two I don't even think that's it's not a two to four year goal i mean I'm saying that would be a in my opinion a four to 10year goal if if if at all but um I think his point is if you're going if we're going to do that maybe we should
look at purchasing that land um that's a long that's some long-term strategy that we'd have to it's right across from the jail it's just city it's a city lot right across the jail just east across Tony Brook Road mhm um from the jail right on the corner where the city
compost site yeah i don't correct yeah somewhere in that area it's right it's actually there's a few different spots it's the first lot on the corner is that fair to say then so it's the wooded lot between the jail and the compost yes and it's the first one on the corner i mean that's the one that we were looking at
mr chair didn't didn't the county own the property along Highway 59 there oh yeah but we s we sold that and and it sold it for more money than what this one would cost us also that highway 10 frontage was more valuable
for so of business opportunities so the point the point you were making though is is that we didn't see any goal we didn't visit the future at that at that time
and sold that land so are we should we I don't know that's a bigger discussion but I just wanted to mention it to you um the only other thing is um I've been getting a lot of complaints about the land values on eggland
um and I there's a packet for you that um that um Lee put together um some information regarding it if you want to look at i I think you just this is just something you keep so when we have our board of appeals this this summer it's I
think just keep it in your desk and something to refer to um the first one is the is the states number that 20.9% that's the state number that so if we sell a piece of land in January
um I think this is an annual number that the the adjusted sale price will increase that much by the end of the year and I think that's where we've gotten in trouble this year last year we increased our egg bare land sales by 40 48% and so I think we should have looked at
that number and this number is appealable at the state we should have looked at that number and said you know that's probably a little bit high now that we we've increased our land values that much i think we should have we should have changed that number
um so you go to the next page and you can see what happened down in the south part of the they obviously are now caught behind nobles County is reducing their land values by 9% swift is 8% so I mean I think we're I think we peaked and
I think now um we should have we should have argued see we're the only green state or county in the state we should have argued that um that 20% should be lower than we should not
automatically be increasing 20% i think we caught up and now that 20% has increased so much that now we're overvaluing land in my opinion um so I would I would recommend to everyone every landowner that with bare
egg to go to their local assessment because you have to go to your local assessor and before you can to to stay in to possibly get reduction unless the county does a mass reduction there are some there are some requirements
um to make sure you don't go too too low or because there's a one you can only do 1% of your total estimated market value totally to reduce anything so there's some numbers that come into play but I just want to bring this to your attention cuz it's probably going to be coming up in the future um land values
out there now for bare land are there's numerous people if you talk to any farmers Richard I'm sure people have talked to you that their land now is valued over $10,000 an acre and and we don't have any land that is sold for $10,000 an acre so we are now valuing
the land and I think if anyone know has watched the farm economy the farm economy is tanking very fast and and uh we could be in a real tough shape if nationally or internationally with the if if we don't sell our markets to China that's a whole another tariff concern
but the commodity prices do not support these type of land values whether you're investor or a farmer so I would um I just want to bring this to your attention there is a possibility that we can reduce but not we're not going to be
reducing a lot i mean we could probably look at a small reduction um in June as a class but those there are some numbers that we have to figure out and do we do that at the the board of appeals then or that would be that would be when it is
so so Mr mr chair Commissioner Nelson so are you saying Becker County can appeal to the state the next level up is that how that happens becker County this board can reduced a class a percentage- wise the whole class so if you think bare if you think bare
land agricultural is too high and value too high we can make a reduction for the whole class cannot be more than it cannot be more than 1% of your total estimated market value for the you know so you have the whole market value you can't reduce this more than 1% of your
total but we can reduce it um excuse me some some so you're not it was it was my understanding I mean these go on land sales is what I understand and before uh our assessor our new assessor came in um
we did not hit that 90 to 105% threat threshold that's why the state raised these because they said ours we weren't doing correct what was required correct that was last year correct the state came over so we raised it 28% and
the state came over 20 another 20% so that that we increased last year by 48% i'm talking for 26 now going forward okay moving moving forward not for not we can't we're not doing anything for our taxes due this year i'm talking about if taxes do 26 that's what we're
talking about assessing they're sub substantially higher they raised it the county now went ahead and raised it another what 30 40 30 to 40% again but but he didn't have to do that he had to do that because that's statemandated you got to be between that 90 and 105%
granted we want to be at 90.001% we we are higher than that now well what are we at 97 okay we're within the threshold though yes but when we're going down next time we're going to be going down so I mean we can we can maybe look and see if we can do a 5% reduction
get us to 92 yeah or even we got to we have to stay within 90% but I tell you something it's really really difficult to justify these land sales the I mean there's some land sales that are high and there's a list of land sales and look at the actual sale price
per acre in here y it says that there's no $10,000 anacre land sales the highest is well the first one's 99 but that was two parcels bought together so you average those out and it's about 95 96 maybe and then you look down you know 32
75 65 85 89 24 4,000 there's a lot more a lot lower than there is higher yeah the we should be at that 90% we should be as low as we can it's really hard for people to make a living with land values this high you certainly can't buy it and
go out and it's hard for the assessor to come in and he wouldn't be here but he has meetings today so he could not be intense this if we do anything we have to be very specific on what our total estimated market value is because we can't do more than 1% of that which
which we will not if we if we do the 1% will hit us before we hit the 90% is what I've been told so we will not at least do 1% yeah well no the the total 1% of our value if
we max that out we won't get below 90 we won't get below the 90% sales so in Klay County I talked to the Klay County assessor also and I got land values along the border they raised theirs six 6% Yulan was 15% um their land value in
in Highland Grove Township you go on Becker 12 and you go into towards Hitall the property on the county line on Becker County is $9,800 and the property on the the next property is 5,600 i mean so we are we are we are way
ahead of what the values are yeah and I've had I've heard the same complaints so I I don't I mean we're not going to fix this but we can at least acknowledge that uh we see this trend going down significantly because a if you sell land now a fair price would be between 7 and
8,000 would be more than fair i mean I think we settle in there you know in the next couple years but 10 there is just not $10,000 an acre land sales there's a couple that there's a couple that are but there's you know there's some people that came in obviously you probably know
that West Central sent out a lot of money so there was a lot of funds available in for some farmers so they wanted to pick up a piece of land and I think that's driving this a little bit um I also think there's some investors that needed to move money so if you see some sales coming in the near future
there's some investor investors that have bought land that that um sold a bunch of property in Fargo and and purchased um 10 quarters up in Klay County but he paid about 80 in the eight high mid high eights for that um that
was just just recently within a couple months so Mr mr chair Commissioner Nelson if you go forward to this and lead this I' I'd be happy to be a part of this to because I'd like to learn how this all happens uh if you move this forward and with the state to see how it this this will be our decision and in in
um June in June and and Lee we'll have to you know Lee will have to figure out what we can do if if we can you know how much we can do if if possible um so a lot of those numbers have to be so when when we're looking at doing this this would be
across like all ag like bare land or only those that come in all egg tillable all egg yes all that's what I mean y all you can't you can't you have to do the whole class you have to do the whole class if if and then you then you hit those limits of 1% total market value
which will hit us we can't go down what I was told we couldn't even go down to 90 so 90 is you can't go below 90 so I I think it's important for to answer you know hopefully hopefully the land owners see that we recognize that
this is a concern and we see the trend and I think our every I think the assessor's office will agree the trend now will will start to taper down on because I mean you look at I mean just just think if you paid $10,000 an acre land 7% interest is what loan what
you're borrowing money at that's $700 an acre of interest alone on that and that's I mean you that's just that's just uh anyone has any knowledge of farming that's not something you can no do so the so the when we tell farmers to
come in to the board of equalization meeting it's really just to for us to hear their frustrations well I mean I think if you go you have to go to your local assessor i mean because we're not I mean they can argue this at the local level and then see if they can get any reduction there also that's your and I
would recommend that everyone if you feel you're overvalued i think we're recognizing but we're I I don't want to take that away from anyone either so I'm not saying oh we're going to fix this because we're not going to fix it we might we'll address it and acknowledge it anyway is basically um the amount
that we're going to adjust it probably is not going to be significant yep but at least it's something if hopefully something we can show it it's something we can do yeah they'd like to know that we're paying attention and that we understand the problem do you want if
you want to solve the problem don't let people pay $10,000 an acre i mean you go on comparables around the area right you can't pay that how do you stop how do you I mean stop that yeah i don't know well you know in the example if you're doing an a land exchange you know so if you're if you 1031 if you've sold sold
property and you want to reinvest it those aren't included in a a land sale that affects the adjoining land owners because that's not because they have a tax savings so they take into account that there's a there's a another benefit besides that so these aren't what I've
been told those aren't good sales that you that you compare with so um and I do know that there's you know probably some of those also it's a science it's we have the most difficult property tax system there is in the in the state so
it's it's nothing easy about it so um have to see what we can do all right let's uh okay I'll try to go quickly here uh last week I had a teams meeting with uh Jim Joy and uh DNR head Bob Meyer uh concerning Eagle Lake uh so
hopefully that's in the hopper right there and hopefully we can get something going there um uh last Friday went out to Dun Locks for just kind of a an overview of what we're doing out there the structure the new structure is done um we were talking about maybe having
June 1st is the deadline but then maybe having something a grand opening or something after that that's to be determined um one thing that uh uh uh Stephen Mitch asked was the old structure there we we had originally thought we're going to tear it down but
uh I went out there and looked at it i think we should keep it um there's nothing I guess in the rules that said we had to tear it down um it's gutted now it would take a few thousand dollar to you know where the bathrooms and drains were we'd have to level that out maybe put in a couple windows a door or
something in that old structure but it's still sound so if we are going on a tour in May that'd be uh something to probably to look at um but but they were looking for some direction um about the old structure um I'm a
proponent to keep it is there anyone who is definitely against it i'm not saying we have to vote on it but they if they're going to come up with some estimates to get some of that work done in there i think that's why we wanted to go out and look at it see what the how aesthetically it is with the stuff removed and Yep
uh that if if we're going to wait until that do we have a date set up for going out there yet my plan was to schedule it for our first May meeting okay may 6 so that's um I mean Okay i was just going to say if I may piggyback too I think the county had
received a donation potentially for this old shelter update too that's being held until we decide what we're doing i just wanted to mention that okay so okay all right i guess we'll just have to wait then that's that I mean that's
going to push everything back but if that's what we want to do that's that's okay um yesterday me and Barry had a zoning ordinance review committee we talked about altering some waterways north of Callaway which was a big deal um we talked about some cannabis
setbacks trying to distinguish between grow areas and retail areas um then talked a little bit about some retaining wall tweaking the language there a little bit um last thing uh I just want to bring this up because this is going
to become a big deal here in the next month or it's already a big deal but at the wershed um we did some major rules revisions on the 28th of March um uh tomorrow the watershed has their regularly scheduled meeting um I would
guess that the public comment area is going to be the room will be filled um and Richard Watershed kind of starts in your area dave it goes through your area and kind of finishes in my area and it maybe touches both you guys' areas but um I know we can't have open meetings
there but if one of you guys I I I think you should be there so you're up to speed on what's going on and what's happened um I'm going to be there so only one other one of us can be there but it's up to you uh but uh there will be public comment and and and what what
it's coming to is next month we will have to decide on there's two manager positions that will be up and it'll be up to this board to decide i've got my own opinions but I'd rather you guys find your information on your own accord i think you will be heavily solicited in
the next few weeks um and then we can discuss it um after that but it it it's some some big stuff going on there i'm aware of what's going on in there Bill and actually I'm I'm all in favor for me it's it's it's a good turn for the
watershed dave you might want to go on there and and and get up to speed on it then like I said just a suggestion just so you're not illprepared when we come to a point um last thing uh that magic remember that investment thing that you guys allowed me to apply for the county
investment funds of all the counties of Minnesota um I got word yesterday there were six applicants and I was not appointed so I don't have to worry about that and that's all I got um just to piggyback on Phil I the we did discuss
the cannabis in in committee yesterday um we were the committee recommended so this will go to planning and zoning and then come to us but we're looking at setbacks and so so for the growing the the wholesale we are looking at a 100 foot setback from property
lines um any any part of the business that's what we settled in on um did not include any setback any increased setbacks for schools or playgrounds but then in the plans I think it requires some adequate fencing um that protecting and and lighting so those will be in
kind of the requirements um also in in the growing or in the selling of the retail um we did not have any setbacks at all on those because that's a 21 and over facility that's that's kind of dictated
i mean I I we didn't the the people there said well if there's no if and I think there most of those are there's some requirements being blackout and I mean the windows are blackout i think you have to I don't know if the state requires IDs and signing in so if if those are the if those are the
heightened ads of security or and um then we didn't see a need for any further restrictions if you have to but maybe that's that's you know that's not a state requirement maybe that's what our requirement is but it's it's we did find out it's not the same these the
sales that you see in these other places whether they're um other retailers now they're hemp based materials supposedly so they're not they're not the cannabis so they're different they're different uh supposedly they don't have the same
kick but they might have some kick just like ecigarettes do and they're flavored why don't you report back what's that go out and find out and you can report back no I don't want to i've always said I'm I've I don't need to be sillier i'm
silly and dumb i don't need to be I don't need that i did say if there there we did say we shouldn't have any burning on site and I said because you don't want to be downwind on any um fire sale so um Richard do you have any I had ADA
with Erica i don't have anything to add there i had the safety committee meeting and so we haven't done much with safety but we're finally Cody's finally doing getting us in compliance and we're going we're talking about maps so if you're in the
courthouse it'd be like a kiosk in a mall you are here a way to get out um uh we're going to put some first aid kits in and do some different stuff there uh just Mr chair Commissioner Vber who who's in char cody cody cody and myself
cody and you have taken on that safety role yeah and so it really it it's been there but it hasn't he's really he's really getting it up and it's just taken some time and that's all I got on that but I do have something else to report on so I got a call yesterday from a guy
in Brandy Lake Estates and this is this has been going on there's a there's an actual junkyard in in that trailer court and the sheriff knows about it it's been a problem for a long time the And you
know I I'm not much on telling people what they can do with their property but this is actually terrible and we tried to get it cleaned up before we got the county attorney involved they started to clean it up and then they went right back to where they are and there's some
land there that's a commons area on the lake they've got they they've got cars and lawnmowers and junk down there they've got the road I took Charlie from Detroit Township with me they've got the road down to one lane cars on both sides
um they're threatening people they threatened our two guys from our zoning office threatened to kill them um so I I'm not much but we I somehow we need to do something here this can't go on
people can't even walk by there they're not only doing that they got to close the road on down there because these guys are mud running through and tearing it up and there was evidence of people spinning around there you know so I I don't know um I want to put it on
you guys radar i want to do something about it when they get this extreme and the same one Erica that you you've got this problem down there yes and and the pollution control agencies involved and still can't get this cleaned up yeah yeah and that one I mean that one's not
as like there's not the threats like what that one is but that one's it's just plain old garbage and it's right on the Redeye River and it's it's I agree we need to do something and I don't know what what it is i' I've pondered on it and I don't know if
there's something we can do a process where maybe we partner with human services give them an opportunity to get some help obvious usually when your house gets or your property gets to that point there's you know other things and if they refuse to do it then I think we
here there's go in and clean it well I mean I don't know we I mean you you'd have to go through the county attorney's office or whatever we need to do but both of these properties have been given opportunity and opportunity and opportunity and opportunity and there's very little
progress that has been made i the the property that I'm thinking of I've been a commissioner for two years and I bet you I get six phone calls a year on that property because the farmers next to it have to go through and clean up the
garbage out of their field before they can do their field work and it's I don't know what I don't know what it the solution is but I would agree Richard we need to do something well I think we need to do the maximum with these people who won't
comply it's springtime now kids can't even ride their bikes past there people can't you know people like to go out for a walk after supper or whatever they can't do that there and I'm I'm to the point with the threats and stuff that I want I I I'd like to clean that place
out get the sheriff we'll get some tow trucks put it clean it out put it on their taxes uh the the pro the problem the problem we have is we don't have the ordinances to do that i mean we
we don't and and the township would have to have parking the township would have to be the one calling removal of vehicles from the roads i mean so it I think we all would love just to blow our magic wand and get this these type of
thing problems fixed but um it's hard it's very very hard to write something up that addresses the problems that we want without having effects on other properties that we don't want to be intrusive on for property rights so and I get that very I can't remember what
can we have three unlicensed cars is that what it is so I don't want to come down on everybody with four or five cars in their yard but at some point we So we do have an ordinance there they have I don't know how many cars are there 20
maybe 25 i'm not sure it's a state law I think about three unlicensed vehicles i I believe Well there it's way over that and I don't know i I know we have to do something Sheriff i don't know do is there something I I I think we should do
whatever we can legally do that's my opinion and I don't know how to move this forward but um well I think if you're talking about changing or taking going on their property you would you would have to have a county ordinance to enforce
anything like that um and I don't know i think there'd have to be a lot of homework to to try to figure out what what that ordinance would look like and how do you do you had how do you measure how do you measure these things you know how do you measure when one finally gets
to a point where you want to and that's exactly I know exactly what you're saying Barry and I agree with you but I I yeah I the this guy is that and I don't know how we'll do that but um I know the zoning's been out there the sheriff has been there um I think this
is something that maybe we try to draw from other counties or cities expertise is is that was my suggestion can we look at other counties and cities and then can we send it to the ordinance review i know it might take a little while but
another out on their blight ordinance i mean you could put some pretty high thresholds on that so we're not so we don't have uh neighbor to neighbor fighting because someone left the snowmobile out all summer or something i actually drove by there and looked at it it's You
bet yeah it's terrible it's bad former former commissioner ShraMM has a comment um the president has been set there was a place along county 29 in Burlington
Township and I don't I just don't remember the details be nice if this still works anyway that was cleaned out i I I don't know how many years ago 15 years or so and that that place was cleaned
out and then I think I think the same fellow did some boarding somewhere else and that one was cleaned out so it's been done yeah we did it barry you were on the board
does your head work yeah I think that that went to I mean I don't know if that was through human services because you know you know the true hoarders are it's it's a disease it's a it's it's not something that someone can just change i mean you they have to I mean I watch the hoarding
shows and and uh I mean it it's truly a it's truly a disease and they don't and many times don't understand it i mean they don't know they don't believe they have anything wrong with them which is evident by this one that you're talking about got it cleaned up went to another one and you
know that that I think we look at that aspect of it to at least direct them in the right direction i think we look at all aspects and we I think we have to come up with a a plan as soon as we can is that a subcommittee Mr chair or what does that look like because I think two
things that have to happen here is you have to find that threshold it's going to be very hard to do where we're going to go to this person and make that person do something and not this person over here that is close to that threshold so finding that is very important and maybe you can do that through an ordinance the other thing is
the resources of the county sheriff and the attorney i mean we're processing drug addicts out there and stuff i I'm not discounting this but what are we going to pull away from what we're already doing to make this a priority well this is this is Man you can't come
out and threaten me on the road and that we can't I don't care what that costs well I do care what it costs but you know something i'm not worried about those resources if a little kid when I find out that there's places in America
that aren't safe for the police to go neighborhoods this this scares me and when right here in Becker County little kids can't ride their bikes down that township road phil I don't care i I our
sheriff we have the manpower to take care of it that is my last concern uh and and I believe there is drugs involved here there's a lot i don't know how you prove that um I could sit there i I've been around this ain't my first
day and and there's something going on there so I don't know i We have the resources and Yeah go ahead Todd deputy is on his way oh oh really mr chair Commissioner Barber I I agree i
just I don't want this to become a You know you said it went back to the way it was after you fix it up before i mean we ded how much are we going to dedicate to this maybe it's an ordinance change i don't know who's going to who's going to figure that out and and I think this is something we've talked about since I've
become a commissioner you know we we had somebody the Floyd Lake one the Floyd Lake yep that where the whole community came in and asked for us to do something and at that point we said you know we would we would look to address it through a blight ordinance or you know something and and I think it's time that
we we look at a blight ordinance and I think we look at other counties and we looked at this number of years ago and we it was called a nuisance ordinance at that time um so if you get but I we have to do I think it I think you escalate it
not just a nuisance i mean there's a we don't want to have calls on just every everything but it get has to get to a point where it's hazardous and and detrimental to the good of the community so so Mr chair are we directing Carrie
to go out and see what other counties do who I think I think that if we if this is something that the board want wishes to do you direct your zoning officing information to to put together an ordinance zoning yeah I think so and we have a like you said we just met we
discussed I think four items yesterday and got through them fairly quickly and oh the other we should mention too we're we're talking about um less less work in for zoning and having office review on
small um um have more stuff permittable no yes we're looking at permitting um retaining short small retaining walls in office not having to go through the whole that'll come before you too so I I think we have an avenue i think this board needs to
give direction so if you're going to ask them to look at for for information from other areas we're not looking at small stuff we're looking at gets to the gets to the magnitude of um a negative effect on neighborhood the neighbors that Well
and and this is a neighborhood yeah right it's not a property out in the woods somewhere it's a neighborhood and when I I and it's not a safe neighborhood because of this so there's a safety issue most of them are there's there's a
couple houses in there and people have been working on them including but the agreement is what that threshold shouldn't be low it should be mid to high is what we're looking for we're not looking for we're not going out looking for things this is a complaint driven right yep correct where's this at brandy
Lake brandy Lake is one the one that Richard Do we Is there anybody anymore i have a couple no I don't have I'll do mine real quick we'll be done so I had two meetings i had the Northwest Emergency Communications Board and the main thing we talked about was the mapping of the schools and we we voted
and decide that we are going to have Henipin County um do the process of the request for proposal for for us with with a few other regions um some of the regions are going by themselves um so basically they're going to base the the
the amount that they're going to request from the state on the number of build schools that you have in your area to be mapped i think I think the Northwest region has 113 buildings to be mapped i think some of them and then after after we determine that then there's going to be
have to be more information that's needed so for example like um Detroit Lakes High School is already mapped uh it just needs to be put into the right process for the system so I mean there's going to be things like that but that'll be part of of the proposal after it's
done how much it's going to you know cost to do some it might be a different there might be a cheaper might be a different we might not need need as much money from the state then that money would be then transported over to some other regions or areas that need more funding because there's because there's only $7 million $7 million sounds like a
lot of money I could live the rest of my life on $7 million but But that's not a lot of money when you're looking at all of the schools in the entire state so so they it's probably not going to be enough unless they do some of those those things so that's the main thing we talked about at that one then I also had a DAC personnel
committee meeting and we talked about uh they talked about changing the insurance provider at the DAC because I think insurance I don't know Krie can probably allude to this more insurance is probably going to go up quite a bit next year good chance so there's there's actually theirs was actually looking at
a 28.5% raise okay um but the DAC does does do an interesting thing with insurance they pay for the entire premium of every employee so and they and it's based on their age so the older you get the more it costs
i'm not that old i know i know richard's the oldest am I not by much though okay I'll just leave it at that you know they killed me at Bible study on Sunday morning that one the teacher had the other guy accidentally kill me with an
axe and then we discussed that so I don't know what draws you people to was that I mean was that recently or on Sunday so can we reenact no no we we have no reenactments here at the board of county
commission all right last thing that we talked about is uh we have decided we had a we used to have a VRS supervisor that person is now finding another job so we are going to change that to an employment manager so that so the the day service coordinator used to be in
charge of all the employment services not counting VRS and that now with the more duties that the day service coordinator has because we've increased the number of day clients by a tremendous amount since in the last 18 months um we are now
going to shift this that person instead of having them as a VRS coordinator going to be an employment manager and VRS will be part of that and they're going to manage all the there's five staff that they will supervise And there's I think there are two I want to say 15 people that go out to jobs
throughout the course of a week i I can't I might be wrong on that number so that's we talked about those two things so and that's all I have does anybody else have any other uh reports all right let's get moving on
here to appointments so we have So we have an appointment um I I get to do this i'll I'll have we'll have Anthony come up here i'll read it over here hopefully I don't screw this up love reading out loud we should introduce him first oh this is Anthony Masten he's
going to be our new Hello Anthony hi hello our new uh our new veterans coordinator officer so welcome so come you got to come right here and stand right in front of everybody you got to turn here i'll go on this side so that Nathan can take a
picture of you so you you've done this before i know yeah put your hand on so so I state your name i do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Minnesota
i support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Minnesota and that I will faithfully and impartially execute and discharge the duties of county veteran service officer and that all faithfully all discharge execute and disar
discharge exeute and discharge the duties of the county veteran service officer the duties of the county veteran service officer in the county of Becker County state of Minnesota in the county of Becker County state of Minnesota according to the law and to the best of my judgment and ability according to the
law best of my judgment and my ability so help me God so help me God all right congratulations [Applause] um Mr chair perhaps you want him to introduce and just give a little background on you just go to the after
you're done speaking as I said and just tell us a little bit about yourself we met before yes we did excuse me so I get to talk huh i just thought it might be might be interesting just to have you give the board just a little
bit of background okay of yourself um born and raised here in Detroit Lakes uh joined the military battle in Germany and Florida and Georgia and and all over um was deployed i did 20 years in the military was a state trooper a federal marshal um
was living in Florida the last three years and then I recently moved back to Minnesota due to family uh family was going through some rough times so we came back to be part of family and help out and now I'm kind of watching a little grandbaby or my do wife is quite a bit of the time and uh so we're here
for family and uh I noticed uh the the VSO's been open for a while or well the the people that were here just weren't available due to whatever circumstances and I just I felt I could really help out the community and be part of the community and the veterans is a big part
of my life so if I can uh support the veterans and the community and their family members that's what I'm here for and I'm I've always supported the veterans and I'm part of several veterans clubs so I'm I'm happy to be back here and actually my hometown so it's kind of cool good we're happy to
have you thank you thank you and and one thing I got I got to build you up a little bit so Anthony used to be the recruiter for the National Guard and he would come to our I used to teach physical education at the high school and he would come into my classes and he would teach my class he he'd do a lot of PT stuff and and other things and
promote the National Guard and the kids loved I mean they complained a lot but he but they did everything he said because they respected what he did and what he was doing and how he conducted himself so now you can get out the door when you leave because you might
Mr chair just a formality I think this board should u make a motion in a second appointment for him okay yeah so do I have a motion to approve the appointment of uh Anthony Mass as our county service veterans coordinator so moved do I have a second i'll second so we have a motion
and a second do we have any further discussion okay all those in favor signify by saying I i all right motion carries congratulations Anthony thank you thank you welcome yeah thank you all right do we have any other appointments
u Mr chair um I think we should ask all the departments to to freshen our to refresh our appointments if needed i think like um yeah we were talking um Phil's appointment to ordinance committee asked if he was still on it so I think we should review those and and
if not reappoint so get get the if they've served out terms cuz that that one we haven't been very active with during co since co and I think Dave Canoff was on the zoning and he said I think I'm still review where we're yeah he doesn't know see if we're if those if
we need to reappoint those formality and if there's any others because we sometimes they fall on the wayside and on those type of committees and okay a and also please gather the the the um
the rules for what if they need to be in a certain district or not or uh what are those the rules of like the rules of the bylaws yeah the bylaw yeah thank you Erica yeah so we know where they have to be selected from if that is applicable okay all right do we have any other
further appointments all right so let's move on to our county administrator thank you Mr chair um I just with the appointment of the veteran service officer just wanted to update you our posting for the assistant veteran service officer has closed and
interviews well actually they're starting today aren't they so welcome um we did this uh purposely um so that we could get this position filled and then with the assistance of uh Anthony to assist with those interviews so those will begin so
hopefully we will have uh a new hire and the veteran service office will be up and functional so um with that um my next item um I don't have anything else specifically to report on other than I spent two days down in St paul and heard
lots of things of we what you're going to hear in my next uh points here with the with the budget and pay what I learned with paid family leave um so number two my item um is with regards to I I rec captured I believe the the
modifications to the contract for the county surveyor and I hope I caught all of those and I had it reviewed by Josh as well um so with that if there's no um with that contract it was included in your packet with the mod the there's just some minor tweaks i think it was a
negotiation with regards to a wage versus 10% and also pre-approval for travel um was the other one i think those are the two did I miss anything josh that that Okay and then so with that I would ask for a motion and approval of
the resolution appointing uh Josh for the county surveyor position if there's no questions do we do we have any um before we do the motion in the second do we have any issues with the current contract the way it spec is there any does anybody have any
corrections they might want to add or changes i think they were correct the last time i think they were correct the last time I went through I took notes i believe I captured catch any back so I didn't catch any either so Okay but one never knows okay so I will entertain a motion to approve 2C so move I do we
have a second second all right motion by Barry second by Erica do we have any further discussion okay all in favor signify by saying I i i motion carries all right so the next item I'm going to have Peggy pull up um I did a PowerPoint just so I could go through how long is
this PowerPoint oh hours till noon no it'll be very quick um I just put it together and if you would like a copy of this I can certainly uh give that to you um what I was capturing after my meeting in St paul was uh potential budget cuts
that we that we may have all right you go to the next okay so the first we've you talked a little bit about this Commissioner Nelson um the state PILT so what this is is a spreadsheet of where our money comes from if you look at the top left um that
is the total for state um that we are receiving and I got this from the auditor treasurer's office so if you go down that what you said top left is what we're receiving that's the total in pill payments yep
yes so this is divided out of where the pots of money come from and how it's distributed so if you go left to right DNR and then the total is on the right public hunting um the public hunting adjustment that was a journal entry adjustment um that they did when they
were looking at these figures so again the total is a 748 so the bottom column is a reduction of what you would see in reductions in each of those areas if there were 35% so the total reduction to county it's at
228,63904 the township reduction is the 32566 so going all the way across their school trust land is that not included um so the reduction is uh the the total would be that 261 205 that's the reduction or that's the total payment
that is the reduction that's the reduction that is the reduction the total is the 748791 so okay next slide so these are the proposed cuts and um I should have said at the beginning of this when I was in St paul and you probably all are aware of this as well
there's a budgeter or excuse me a governor's budget Senate and also Yeah so there's three different sets of this this is worst case scenario this was um tracked from the original um governor's budget so this could fluctuate these are the reductions in
human services with the reductions in potential grants and you've probably I I've sent this out before so this is just the total of potentially what you could see in reductions to funding for human services and all of these as I
understand it are all u mandatory services go next slide so this is Okay uh Erica do you want to the Minnesota African-American Family Preservation Child Welfare disproportionality yeah thank you so this is really those active
efforts that they're looking at to require um for human services so this is again this is an estimated cost um again lots of you know just the high points on this of you know needed staffing needed services of what we are anticipating
potentially and the cost that we potentially could incur again this is fluid best estimate so that is the um the total that human services came up with for um implementing this
program next one is AIS reduction by 50% so our total to the county if we were looking at a reduction of 50% is that 169,943.50 next what do we do with that AIS we we um de
delegated over to to soil and water paring is the director so is that the units we see to decontaminate is that pretty much all of is that is that what we spend that on oh unless you have lake lakes that want to participate to increase hours but that's a significant portion of the
funds go to inspections mhm um and decontaminating decontamination units and Carl's and and and that started because of the zebra muscles i mean they came out after that invasive yeah a lot of lakes have that already why are we still
doing that there are other more dangerous aquatic invasive species that they're looking for mhm star stone wart if you get star stone wart in your lake you're you will not be using your lake as you have been in the past so um it's
a it's an educational tool now I don't know we can go and talk all day about it sure um the STS crew cost elimination by um by the state to counties so this is I took this number from a prior contract where it's that 77
um I can't say that 62 it's hard to see um so that is the dollar figure next is that to becker county yes um I want to touch and then I'm going to go to the totals of what this would look like um the other update that we
received when I was in St paul was really this this paid family leave and what this is potentially going to look like um what I learned was there's two buckets really that people um could get paid family leave from and what they're
telling me and I've heard 20 weeks and I've heard a total of 24 weeks it was interesting to hear I think I heard three different people speak on this paid family leave and really what the rules are and how this is going to be rolled out and I heard three different versions so I just want to say that um so there's two really different buckets
so one for uh an illness you have to be out from work longer than 7 days and then the other bucket that you can draw from is for family leave like parental leave those kinds of things um so we talk about the premium and what that's going to look like for a county um
they're talking about a 5050 split between employee and employer again what I heard was that is how it's going to be rolled out and then I heard others say that's what they believe is going to happen but this may be something that may need to be
negotiated with unions of what that's going to look like for the cost share so I figured out the uh 50% premium that our county would pay based on our payroll from 2024 2025 excuse me I'm on the wrong year and that would be our total cost in
26 is that 111,738 so if we had to pay 100% it would be double that correct okay that is a half that's a 50-50 split um there is some discussion and I actually met with uh Senator Coopek
yesterday to um the state this is the price that the state has put out there um premiumwise that county would uh what what it would cost for a county uh for the 50/50 split there is some language in this bill that would allow counties
to contract out privately to an entity outside of the state to run the program that potentially could be cheaper and actually we've looked at that and potentially that we we may be able to get this a little bit cheaper than what the state is offering
you have questions Erica you're you're looking seems weird that we would like we're hiring 400 people to run it down at the state but now they're going to let us contract privately i think it's odd too so is a look of perplexion because any
sense that's well and really what I heard when I was down in St paul is that nobody believed that you would be able to get this um I'll call it a service um cheaper than what the state is going to be able to provide this however I know Tiara has done a little
bit of leg work on this and it appears again if this is mandatory there may be um not a lot cheaper but again you got to kind of look at pros and cons of that right yep next slide
so here is what I came up for um at this point this will tell you kind of total of anticipated we'll say cost shifts reductions whatever we want to call them to the county so when I totaled this this is what I came up with with a
potential impact to our levy and yeah that's unbelievable i Yeah now now which is that the governor's proposal is that the state is that the Senate is that And that's the max amount
right well that's that's not including anything i mean that's just the new requirements that's just a new requirement it's not our wage increase we have a budget that's going to add on top of that mhm yeah so this is what I came up with the other thing that was
shared by Senator Coopek yesterday when he was in my office was there is some discussion and this the first time I've heard this and maybe some of you have heard this but there's also some discussion at the state level of reductions in local government aid on top of this
so great news what is our government I mean they just boosted that the last a couple years ago what was our we were down we were down we were way we were down to 200 something thousand for a while mhm i mean and we at I remember years ago we were like we could just as
well zero this out and not even because it's there it's used as a pawn on us all the time and but we are we are fortunate that we do have such good um tax capacity i mean our values are well
our farmland now is so valuable but we can afford it maybe we want to keep that up now but I mean our we we are a we are a fortunate county compared to many in this state so to be to have the values that we have so can you email that to us
too yeah I can i can yeah i just like the the summary page there you don't want the whole thing come on and one and one thing I think um many counties the SDS program that that's 77,000 for us that's something that we we look at and
saying this is valuable for our county this works for our county um that might be something we continue and fund the AIS um at 169,000 in my opinions I mean I think we need to protect our lakes but that's something that I don't think that this board will put that money towards
that so I mean there is so there will be cuts to that that we will say we're not we will not be funding this or we will not be funding that um I think but that's what we have to look forward to in the Yeah so I mean it's not unrealistic next year it unless they get
rid of push if they push one of those down the line you know the road a couple years you're looking at a double digit tax increase the math though CWDA that's um 2027 so we wouldn't need to budget for
that for which one i missed that sorry for the Minnesota African-American Family Preservation Child correct true so potentially you could take that off yes yeah yeah if you are correct here but the next the next two bienium next four
years yeah i was just giving you right that would be a year later so that's my big issue is they're going to they want to add 400 employees but they're facing a $6 billion deficit and and even but even in housing they they put a bunch of money in there and added how many employees did they add to low-income
housing it's like push this money out to the local EDAs and they will get it where it needs to go and don't add employees maybe the state could look at cutting some employees from some of these departments instead of just saying "Well the county's got to pay this much more because we want to balance our
budget there's no one for us to pass this down on unless it's a taxpayer." Well the worst thing is they wasted that huge budget surplus that we had they dumped it all out well a big portion went into the low-income housing which was which wasn't a terrible idea but you
can't just add staff like that and spend the money on staff that's that's just Yeah but there we can go through every department and argue that and so when I had uh met with Senator Coop I specifically asked about the hiring of these 400 employees and his response
back was um they had planned for that and that's really all his response was so I mean you think about that that's that's that's a huge amount i agree it just doesn't make any sense but so the last thing I just wanted to bring to your attention we're always uh kind
of tweaking and we just recently tweaked uh or looked at ordinance for our cannabis um the draft rules came out i have not had a chance to look at them yet but it sounds as though they'll go into effect in May um so couple things I learned when I and it's odd that I
didn't know this well maybe it's not odd i don't know um we need to put together a retail process which we knew but what I didn't know is that you know we had townships uh do a delegation you know like an or um resolution thank you uh to
the county to delegate that to the county and when um I learned when I was in the cities I learned also that there's also another form that all townships need to complete to with a delegation specific delegation form that has to be on file with the state so
that's just another step that I learned it's interesting every time one learns or here's information about these um things there's uh extra steps that you have to take and we also have to uh have a login account which I was talking
just very briefly with Kyle about yesterday from zoning and we have to have an account where there's a verification with the licensing process where the county is responsible to verify that that the business um in question is um in compliance with our
zoning ordinance too so there's a couple more steps that we'll be working on mr chair uh Carrie um Have all of the townships sent over their uh relinquish their rules can rules to the There's
still five left still five there was five left when we were at the township meeting i don't know if we've received any of the additional are they planning on doing their own i announced that at the township meeting but um I don't know if we have Roger Winter here maybe he
could ex expound on that all I like you said five left that's all I know too so I don't know kyle was going to reach out to those five and ask the question that's what he indicated but I have not heard anything additional
okay so when is your break i want to talk to you about that maybe maybe right now you had your break already no we haven't had a break was that two o'clock well I'll leave that to the chair when he wants to take a break we'll do it
after our egg report okay i don't know wait um so you wait that long i don't think so is that was that your only question yes it was okay do you need one now do do we do we need to actively go out and solicit they've been told several times if they don't can they
come on later is there a deadline to do this or They can come on but you know again we're trying to get things in order so yeah i mean if you I'm shocked that they haven't do I Do I just have the one i can't remember the list to be honest i have at my office there was five that's what I remember can you send
out that list sure i I I'd help like which ones were Yes yeah the five basically a checklist and which ones don't have checks are the ones that we haven't received anything well then we're going to have we're according to you we're going to have to get back to every one of them again and have another form sent to us well it's a state you have to go online and they have to do it
with the state it doesn't have anything to do with us but we could help them if they if they need us but I think that's information that we could certainly pass along to the townships yes so all right I'm done um can I interrupt you are you Are you done with Are you going to go on to your next So let's do this so let's
take a fivem minute break okay and then when we come back we're going to go to our egg report because he's here waiting for us and then after we're done with that we'll come back to you okay okay so we'll take a fiveminut break thank you he wants you to repeat she was muted you are muted what's that resume resume
resume our meeting yeah yeah okay well we are muted okay so all right we're ready to go all right good morning uh my name is Brandon Gil and I'm the Becker County egg inspector i know there's uh one new commissioner so I just want to give a general sense of what I do for Becker
County uh projects that I work on and then I'll do my kind of break down the numbers what I did this last year uh do you have that PowerPoint i do it's taking me a minute why doesn't I like me today here we go all right so uh just break down my
responsibilities into a couple different groups um we have the weed-free gravel pit program here in Becker County we're the first county to adopt it in Minnesota it's a national uh association of invasive species management uh is kind of the associate or the um
organization we go through to get this certification uh there's I believe 25 states involved in this now with uh a variety of provinces in Canada and it's continuously growing uh other counties have joined in now cook Countyy's really get in
uh delved into the program they've asked contacted me multiple times about uh how to set up this program how to go through the steps um then there's other counties as well that are just doing more uh siteby-sight basis weed-free gravel inspections so I'm a leader in the state
people contact me see how we can get it set up because we do have a great program here with great success so yeah the next bullet point down uh the program started in 2009 and we've had over a 75% reduction in noxious and invasive weaves in these gravel pits
since then uh that was calculated 2 years ago so I'll do I'll calculate that again next year and see if there's a bigger gap but so far that's great but why does that matter a lot of these invasive species cost people time money energy um and they can just be harmful
to public health so for example wild parsnip can cause severe burns if you get the sap on your skin uh I work with it a lot but I didn't even think I t touched it last year and had major blisters on my arm you can still see some scarring here uh huge blisters painful not fun to deal with and it's
starting to creep into the county and cities so it's very important to get that it's all over uh another thing important about this is MIDOT specs uh they might potentially change laws and require weed-free gravel certification in the near future that's been in the talks 2030ish is maybe the
expected who knows with the state these days but we're set up and prepared to do this um we're set up better than anybody else in the state and we can easily u get that done uh the program I visit the pits both spring and fall to ensure in
compliance train pit managers uh teach them about noxious weed control and we currently have about 75 different active gravel pits it fluctuates year to year what's active and what's not go to the next slide uh some more responsibilities uh we have a cooperative weed management
area where I write grants for noxious weed management as a head of the CWMA uh where I purchase herbicide for kosher for land owners to use to spray their weeds so it's no cost to them uh we also purchase other equipment spraying equipment supplies um materials that
help educate people uh for this I lead multiple meetings a year with CWMA members uh this involves US Fish and Wildlife DNR forestry wildlife fisheries Becker County Highway Department natural resources uh NRCS FSA MDOT Township Cities and
more people as well so that kind of helps get us all in the same room all the people that manage land in Becker County so we can talk about what the issues are and how we can work together to kick take care of these noxious weeds um I have a lot of reliable contacts with all these departments so if there's
any issues from public land agencies you can contact me and I can usually get it resolved within a week and next so other responsibilities are to my main responsibility really is to enforce the Minnesota noxious weed law um and through that I have an annual
local weed inspector training where I train all 47 townships and cities uh some of their supervisors to take care of their noxious weed problems to do their duties as local weed inspector this year it was March um I uh I was a township guy before and I know the last
two years we didn't have a a weed meeting that we usually do in February or March is that we did you did this year we did the last three years okay maybe we missed the invitation uh what township was that lake View i've sent it
out uh to the local weed inspector whoever that was i think it was Bill Jordan and I know he he's passed away yeah so that was the miscommunication yep and he was the weed guy yep so that would make sense right um yeah so it's required for all cities and townships to attend uh Lake View for
example has been great to work with so I haven't really been concerned there isn't as many weed issues in that township but uh to get more local weed inspector involvement this year I created a real legal notice from each municipality that I could to kind of say
um you don't have any excuse you can't say you don't know how to do this because we walked through it during the training gave them real life example and they'll send it out this year so we kind of got the ball rolling early this year and that should be 40 some legal notices sent to take care of noxious wheat so Brandon are are you for all of Becker
County yep what about the reservation do do you still All the townships do come to that yep no the the reservation do you their private land you mean yeah do you do we because really if if someone across the road isn't taking care of their weeds it's going to be in your
property so do you do all of that up there on White Earth too you you manage all of that yeah so each entity like Ward Ward is a hard one to deal with clearly um is responsible for the obnoxious weed control they're
responsible for their own so you you don't have authority there or how does that work it's a gray area in the state i keep updated with keep Emily Justin with um Minnesota Department of Agriculture and they have a tribal liaison so we work together try to get
things done there they they have a different way of doing things for sure so okay but yes they are required i can only get so many places in a year so we kind of just uh focus on our main core areas that we can take care of really quick and easy and we'll push back from there
that's kind of the goal right now i'll show you kind of a general map of where we're working this year so um yeah in that training we just go over weed ID uh how to do their duties and etc so other things I do is education of county noxious weeds through mailings
doortodoor meetings with land owners county fair education materials handouts create all that um get the word out there that this stuff is bad it's going to hurt property values even so like inv I also do invasive species treatment on
um certain areas that might be a public health threat or something that I want to eradicate quickly i can take the time to go spray that because I have my license for that i also do legal enforcement i send out legal notices to control noxious weeds um assist local weed inspectors do their
duties if they have any questions they come to me and I just listed a few of the main Becker County noxious weeds that we deal with which are leafy spurge wild parsnip spotted napweed meadow napweed common tanzi non-native fragmitees and purple loose strife just some more duties that I also
take part in and I proctorite proctor pest side exams for applicators uh so far we've had let's see 89 exams so far this year 45 testers so it's been a really busy year i also assist with applicator licensing questions uh PPE
requirements uh so if any applicators have any questions they can contact me instead of going to the state which takes at least 48 hours usually so that's good a way to uh help people out um I also am an e executive board member of the Minnesota Association of County
Egg Inspectors and I was elected the second vice president in 2024 uh we have meetings about new laws that might come into effect uh advising on the noxious weed list um protocols and we help with trying to get state funding for our projects through grant funds and it
other programs so there's actually a bill right now to try to get the county egg inspector funding each county uh I believe it would be about $10,000 to do their noxious weed control work so they can get more done and then I also partake in seed inspection
there's been some law changes so Minnesota Department of A does most of it but I also can assist with that next so these are just some general areas of some noxious weed concerns um
for 2025 this doesn't give a whole picture this is just some really core areas of where we're we'll be working some of these will be a little bit bigger than the map shows but on the west there's non-native fragmitees which is a aquatic invasive or kind of terrestrial kind of aquatic it can grow
on land and in water so it's a tough one to deal with and we don't want that getting into lakes it'll drop property values it's super tough to deal with um and it spreads like crazy uh wild yep in Salt Lake City apparently where they
first found it it just completely encompassed the whole lake and it's pretty nasty so there's also wild parsnip like I said that's a public health concern uh metapweed and spot napweed they out compete all grasses they release a chemical that would kill
the grass around them uh so any grazers any egg it really harms that and then tanzy it also just kind of takes over pasture land and native areas you go to the next and you go to next here's just kind
of a breakdown of my hours for the last year uh so there's those main programs I talked about the seed program total like I said through some law changes department of does most of it but I can assist with that a little bit so I only did 6 hours of that for the noxious weed program that's the majority of what I do
uh based on how I break down hours a lot of this has overlap but uh spent 1400 hours doing various control mapping inspection education violation follow-up legal notices some trainings that I
attended administration administration meetings I attended and ran uh and grant writing and implementation i also partake in that pesticide program subtotal so last year I spent probably 130 hours applicator
testing um which I believe we had 70 testers or so for about 130 hours i help with applicator license checks retail pesticide inspections um administration and then I also do my own herbicide treatment when I see the need for
something to be eradicated very quickly uh for gravel pit certification I spent 290 hours inspecting with land managers and mapping and then I also did a little bit of education on that as well as the administration on the back
end filling out maps and uh sending out the information they need to take care of their weeds then I also do biological control that's a kind of an offshoot of the pest side uh where there's for example leafy spurge beetles they eat
leafy spurge so you don't have to go spray it it saves a lot of time and money it's pretty effective so I collect those every year from an insectory that we have in Becker County and same with the spotted nap weed weevils so that way I can spend less time um spraying or
making people spray to just kind of put these bugs out there to let them do their work for them go to the next and this is just more of a breakdown what I attended what I did i'll just highlight a couple things here um so for C herbicare herbicide cost
share recipients was 62 this year that almost doubled the previous year uh they probably average 5 to 10 acres of noxious weed control and through these grants that I've been um applying for and getting funded which
on the bottom right hand corner uh total for 2024 awarded was $24,000 for a variety of noxious weed uh control activities and education so through that funds I can help people take care of the noxious weeds at no cost to them which makes me not seem
like such a bad guy all the time so so that's definitely been helpful in getting more um voluntary compliance and it's really helped the program grow um let's see something else to highlight collected 29,000 leafy spurge flea
beetles they're really tiny um I dispersed those to six different sites a lot of the county already has beetles and all their leafy spurge infestations whether they work or not it's probably 60 40 whether they work really good or not so there's still times you have to spray afterwards but it does a really
good job i met with 35 out of 40 different townships uh six out of seven cities um couple other projects we worked on Dunlocks Buckthornne control this last year used some grant funds to do that and I'm working with Mitch
Lundine of Natural Resources to uh get that CPL grant to take care of Buckthorn and Dunlocks um yeah and I administered 124 different exams last year and that's kind of a breakdown of what I did last year
so that's what I have any questions so when you release when you release those beetles to eat the the weeds or whatever they're um let's say that it let's say there's not any left there um what those beetles just die do they eat
something else or they just die they they're selective only to leafy sp which is a nice I I figured that was your answer i just wasn't curious i guess I also had a couple public land reports I didn't really touch on i had those I kind of compile a bunch of all
the township city data uh you can see that if you go to the next slide you'll see the totals for both township and city and how much they invest in noxious weed control uh how many inspections I do and we're trying to get these numbers to keep going up so it'll keep reducing the noxious weeds in the county if you
go to the next one or the public lands report maybe if that was back a couple and this I just kind of break down what different public lands invest in noxious weed control i I didn't get a response from DNR Wildlife for US Fish and Wildlife but I know they're both working
on things because I contacted them and they got their work done so that's just my breakdown for the year does anybody have any questions for Brandon just wonder uh did the state come in and do any control under that under that um fragmat fragmites have
they did any control in yes so I believe there's around 30 locations in Becker County that it's found now and they did they treated 18 depending on when it was found last year they have grant funds so they hired out a contractor and they got what they could do i didn't see any
improvement i'm was contacted by the state to ask if they could treat on my shoreline and and I said yes but I have I it has spread considerably since I've received that letter so I don't think they got to the lake depending on when I found it and when they could get to it
um not all the locations were hit last year but they told me they would get to it and this is a shoreline a shoreline weed that's mostly in the water but it goes up on shore to some degree so um has uh what's called ryomes and runners so it'll shoot up all the way up onto the road ditch basically and kind of
block public view so it they grow to be I I would guesstimate these are 15 ft tall they can get up to 20 I believe yeah i got a picture if anyone wants to see what they are it's we there i thought they kind of looked neat when they were just a small pocket and now they're And if they grow on the whole shoreline
it'll be not so not so cool but we're out canoeing and I if you want to see what they do look like it's this is what that is that weed on the shoreline they're about 15 and they're like a small small cane
there's actually a native species that's very similar to this but this one is a lot more aggressive um gets taller and yeah takes over a lot more different areas want to see it control has worked on this one i think they've eradicated probably 10 of the 30
spots that they've had in Becker County so as long as we keep up with that I think get ahead of it so thanks Brandon anybody else have any questions for Brandon all right thank you appreciate what you do too uh all right let's go back to our county
administrator the strategic planning oh we're behind yeah yeah we're way behind sorry we're talkative this morning i guess so some somebody talks too much i don't know who that was yeah I don't know um so the next item that I have is a potential
contract or a scope of work I guess with regards to Becker County Strategic um Commissioner Hansen and I um had a couple of different meetings with with Ryan and Ryan was recommended when we
were in a different meeting you you actually came up with the name correct with Ryan yes came up with a name what do you mean um the the gentleman that put together the proposal for us was Ryan Celac right
so anyway it was recommended through uh another meeting that we had with other counties as doing this work i'm just giving the background of how we got there so when we met with him and this board we did a very just brief um work session if you will talking about
strategic planning and what if anything we want to do here in the county so we scoped it down basically when we talked with Ryan i can tell you from my own experience coming into this role with the budgeting process there wasn't anything real
clearly laid out when I came into this role and and that perhaps is you know due to some short-term administrators and doing things differently um so again I think the argument could be made both ways with regards to um how we plan going forward with potential budget cuts
and you know how what criteria do we use to make decisions and putting some goals and some measurements in place so hence this is the uh proposal that came came from our meetings with Ryan after we asked him to uh scope it down from a
couple of different topics that we had and Mr chair i mean as a new member here I you can't manage what you can't measure i know I probably said that before but I you know I don't know where
it's so hard to come up to speed for a new manager um it would be a lot easier if we had and I think they're there they're just not at the forefront i think there's measuring devices there i think environmental actually has some good things about where we've been what
we've done how we got to where we are this would kind of just consolidate that and put it in a a better form um and with these budget if those budget cuts do come up I think this could help us get to the next step um if if some of
that stuff does come to fruition um I think it's a worthy cause all the the good organizations that I'm on it it really it helps it it really sets a direction um but I know I'm one voice i I think this would be good good to spend
some money on that's all I have to say you know I don't I I'm obviously on the little other end of the spectrum i I I agree with what you're saying we should have better direction and if
there's I mean I would kind of like to see us You know I think communication with us this board needs to improve i think we we I think we would be val more valuable if we would sit down and have lunches
and and discuss priorities and goals um I I think if we go back I mean I think we'd be changed into less i mean our meeting times now besides today I mean you throw the consent agenda and I I just don't think we have a lot of uh
dialogue or communication with each other like we we used to be we used to we used to go out every after every meal and have lunch our meetings always last till 11 i mean we So we're condensing what we're doing um we're just not having the dialogue we're not having the
the director's dialogue as much and that helps a lot i I I'm blessed with with having some knowledge on my just being here you know for so long but um I think if we I would I don't have a problem with this but I I hate to spend money on
someone that's going to go and ask us what do we think and then we're going to tell him what we think and then he writes down what we think i I mean and and go back to you know and then go back to go up upstairs in accounting and ask uh Mary and Nicole how could we better how can
we serve our budget process better and he's going to ask us what we should do better and then he's going to write down what we tell him and he's going to hand that back to us i mean I that's my that's my interpretation of this but so we're are the ones that are taking easy
way out asking someone else to give us the magic wand to show us how to do things better that's that's how I look at these type of but I recognize that there he would be an outside person looking in and have valuable input also
so I'm just I've I've never been a fan of mission statements vision statements that I think you kind of work work better together is what but one thing I think it does too is it gives department heads direction
um rather than jumping around a lot and us deciding to put out fires here and there um it gives a strategic direction um I don't know i I think that I'm I'm kind of in agreement with Barry on it i think you got to pay attention to what's going
on with the departments see who's in charge look at that you know our departments are actually uh for the most part run pretty good and uh as we're if you're going to have some outside guy come in and start giving our
department heads direction uh I don't think that direction from us right here he's they would be he'd be gathering information from us and gathering what we think our direction is i really I really think that if we have better communications and more contact I mean I
miss going to lunch with the department heads and learning just having and when you start you know there's a lot of simple things that escalate when you're not when you can't have communications if you can have communications and you have and and just for I think I think we
I miss that I think not having lunches with department heads and just sitting next to someone having talk you become you're you're more aware of who they are what their direction is i think department heads can say that back about us yeah we know where the direction is you know just in talking over the course
of the you know years and but I'm I'm not going to Well Mr i wonder if this might look better if we had a better vision of what the state's going to do after budget time maybe we could look at it then to see you know we have a better vision on
I mean there's going to be so many right now we're in we're in reaction mode and what's the state going to do to us I mean if we see all those numbers come through and now we're looking at that those kind of numbers our vision is survival I mean
honestly but Mr chair and commissioner Nelson and all I mean that's why you strategic plan so you're not playing defense so you're not jumping around here and there you have a plan you don't see it that way you know what and and ultimately if if if if we don't do this
I mean I don't want you guys to say yeah well let him do it and then spend the money and then not do and not not go through the procedure and do it and follow it so if we're not going to do that then there's no sense in spending the money I don't think there's any strategic plan that can say how how can
you manage a 20% levy increase there's no plan out there that we can there's nothing out there that no one could predict or or anticipate something like that there's nothing there's no tool out there that would help prepare for that i I don't care what what you have um so I
mean if I would you know if we consider this I would just like to see it after we see the state's budget say what what are we going to be hit with this year because honestly that will affect any strategic plan that we have where we see these numbers fall and what in what time
frame because if if the state had a surplus our strategic plan would be a whole lot different than if we see cut all these cuts and cuts to county program aid i mean if we see all these cuts it's going to be a whole different future than if there's no
cuts so and this would probably start after that so maybe maybe it help identify cuts in programs i don't know i think for me I I'm I'm with you Barry i'm not I'm not real big on strategic planning but I
also I also know that this board with the exception of you because you've been here for so long have never faced a budgeting sess budget cuts like what we're potentially facing
um I would be on board with this if I knew that that was going to help us figure out how to get through this budget session and I don't know if that's what this will do or you know I think one of the things I read would be
the budget process now I think this is this brings to light go I mean if it's not this individual we should you know Mary Nicole what what should we improve on the budget process because if we're if and have a standardized I mean have something more I mean I thought we've
always had pretty standard process it's probably hasn't changed but what improvements can we make I mean and that's that's the questions that are going to be asked but they're going to be asked Mary and asked in Cole and asked I mean for for budget and asked Carrie what what would make these easier here so I think it brings to light that
there's improvements to be made in our processes um for sure um again if we I think we should just wait until we see what see how bad it is at the state if you want to move forward with this and you know what maybe it'll be what's their dead well if they meet their
deadlines it's in May the end of May yeah and Mr chair I would refute that by saying uh or let's get out in front of it yeah but what do you what pro so you're looking for problems in our in in in our different parts of the county
here or looking for problems well what do you what do you look for us okay so I mean I I'm not sure what you're going to correct here when I look at I'll just use the DMV again as an example we did have some trouble there it's working
good now and I I I get different compliments on different parts of on a lot of parts of our county here what what So I if there's a problem somewhere then I think we need
to address that but so I I I guess I'm not sure what we would gain by going and looking at stuff where there's not a problem where something's going good i think this one of the things this would would help us with is like I mentioned before with the sheriff glander's buildings where are we going where are we going with space needs yes I mean I
agree that that's a problem those are that's something I think this would this would address wouldn't it this was one of the things I read in there so I mean this person would facilit this a facilitator basically is what you're looking for and then he'd write some recommendations a $10,000 facilitator
so that's but I we do we do need to move forward and and get kind of a game plan but you know like Sheriff Glander are we willing to spend you know $90,000 to project that we might need something in the future we know we need it we just got to figure out how to do it if we're
in if we're looking at a I mean is does it make a difference to anyone on this board if we're looking at a 15% levy increase versus a 7% levy increase i mean those I mean that's that's the and I don't know if you take that in but it
certainly would get g have some value if we knew what our direction was but you know if we've been moving you know human services been moving to to homework I mean working from home now we're transitioning back to the states requiring you to go back to so where does that where does that where's that
going to end up I mean I don't I don't know so there's lots of lots of questions that maybe he maybe this could answer too um Carrie yes i'm not going to try to put you on the spot but Thanks just give us a little Can you give us a
little information on what you've observed in general in general yeah um I can just give you just my take um and coming in here being new in the administrator role I wasn't clear um whose responsibility
who set up timets who did all of those things that would be you [Laughter] however I will say in the past other things had been done so um that's just one example or budgets you mean yes yes
and then you know my observation with regards to space I think how do I say this politely um we talk a lot about what needs are and you know not being reactive to different things that we are potentially facing
elevators boilers you know now I'm talking higher level budgeting but building maintenance and and again space needs I've I've said you know we need to have a starting point and how where do we start and where do we because I think everybody on this board has a different
idea of what that looks like and what the priorities are so my hope with this with regards to budgeting process andor space is I they do go together obviously you're going to spend money or not um so I do think they go together i think it could give us some focus as a board and
come to some consensus and agreement is that what you wanted yes that's exactly Yeah yes yes no no that was good thank you well Mr chair I mean if if you're on the fence or not committed to this I I don't want to spend the $9,000 or whatever it
is either i mean I don't know i just believe that you got to buy in to this uh if if if you truly believe it if you don't you know Barry you have the uh 20 years of being around i don't so maybe I'm coming
at it from a different vantage point uh you know how we got to a lot of spots we're at now but um I I I will say I will say one thing too uh and I don't know if this will make a difference but we didn't we haven't spent any money on our lobbyists at all
so theoretically this is is in within within our administrator's budget um so it's not I guess some it's not any extra money we would be spending i'm going to ask and you're not going to like this but Mary I'm gonna ask Mary and Carrie do you feel this would be a valuable
tool for you to move forward uh yes well I mean I I if you know Carrie being a new administrator and getting guidelines I if Carrie thinks it's a valuable tool for her that she could utilize to to un to make a process on
budget moving forward I certainly think that that's has value so if if Carrie recommends we do this that sees a need I will I will support it i will make a motion to move forward with the Becker County strategic
planning uh scope of work uh presented by Ryan Celock with the budget of up to up to 9,000 $750
so we have a motion do we have a second i'll second so we have a motion by Phil second by Barry do we have any further discussion if I may just add one comment i I appreciate the openness to discuss this and I should have said to you know I'm going to be here this is my last
stop and I've talked about that openly um hopefully I can stay here and um with that said with that said my hope really truly is once I exit this position that there'll be a good process in place for whomever comes in that was my hope and I
I I do agree that we do need especially facing what we could potentially be facing a a good budget process is good um you know it will be helpful for this board and hopefully we can come up with
a good process that the next board the next administrator can can have it in place i guess I'm not exactly sure so this is going to help us with with the these cuts from the state is is this going to help us i it's going to help us
set goals and how we make decisions in budgeting the budgeting process the board and the department heads how what is this process what is this guy it's it's it's a guy he's going to come and what's what's he going to do he's going to come in and meet with the board meet
with department heads um talk about what we have in place he's going to bring in information with regards to best practices of other things and other places he has quite a few years of experience in a specific county and I think it'll hopefully help the board
come to some type of a consensus of what our process is going forward to make it more efficient because again I should have added perhaps one of my observations too coming into this position is that you know uh budgeting by department and lots of our departments do well but I think we need
to look at a higher level as county needs not department needs and prioritize that and I think that's a struggle And which so to help answer it to Richard with with this strategic plan we will have priorities and then we can
match that up with the cuts and if we decide this is a priority then and and and then then we have and why is it a priority then we have to do that if this one isn't then maybe we can cut that you make yeah okay so it'll it'll move
towards so just making sure I'm understanding that this correctly it'll move us towards Currently we kind of look at departments individually separately budget updates department needs where this will help us move towards let's look at county needs and
I I truly believe that's where the focus needs to be we can bring it together to better meet the needs of the county all right so we have a motion and a second do we have any further discussion leiosa all right all in favor signify by saying I i opposed all right motion
carries all right we now will move on to the letter of support that we added oh shoot mr chair I'll make a motion to approve the letter of support that's drafted by Carrie and for the our big Oh thank you and then then he's you're going to get
Do we have a motion by Barry do we have a second oh second okay we have a second by Erica u where is that did we just get We we added it from from the draft i have to address so and then she and then he's going to get you a letter from Ottertale I believe um yeah he was going to give me a Yeah some something I could
go by all right so we have a motion and a second do we have any further discussion okay all in favor signify by saying I i all right motion carries all right we are on to human resources only an hour behind not too bad that's not bad
hour and two minutes i didn't say it you guys did all right good morning so before you I have a contract addendum for the teamsters human services contract we've already approved the job descriptions for this but this is getting it
incorporated into their contract um adding the individual dispatcher position and then regrading the combined dispatcher driver position i'll make a motion to approve the contract addendum i I will second are there any is there any further
discussion okay all in favor signify by saying I i all right motion carries thank you thank you all right highway Jim morning Jim morning Jim good morning commissioners
morning uh three items uh for you to uh consider today uh they're all approval of contracts uh the first contract uh is our annual dust control uh bid award uh we had three uh biders on this and um
again as in last year Corbin excavating out of Sabika is the low bidder using mag chloride uh for dust control on the roads um price is uh $1.24 a gallon uh this is up 4 cents from last year so
about 3% increase so and we've had no issues with him so we're recommending approval motion to approve 2D second all right motion by Barry second by Phil any discussion okay all in favor signify by saying I i all right motion carries uh
next item for consideration is the batuminous materials this is our seal coat oil that we use on our seal coat operations um it's pretty much our sole source supplier flint Hills uh gave us a quote of um uh
$578 a ton for the oil uh this compares to last year which we had probably a better deal it's 564 per ton but um this is a better oil that we're using and we saw good results last year and we feel
it'll just improve longevity of the seal coat and we'll probably have to do save on our striping needs too cuz uh we won't be losing the rock as much so motion app to approve 2e all right we have a motion to do a second second mhm
and the last item com So we have a motion to second any further discussion okay all in favor but you were going to the B oil instead of the C oil or No this the the silicode oil is they have a standard oil or one with a polymer
that's added that grew right because last year we got that upgraded one because of the flooding right we got that better oil last year so upgrading to that this year yep we had such great results from last year yep got it all right so we have a motion and a second any All in favor signify by saying I i
all right motion carries all right Jim go ahead all right last item is a bid award for the construction work in the city of Lake Park uh we had two biders central Specialties is a low bidder at 1,780,43.80 um they worked for us before
this is 35% under our engineers estimates we got very good pricing um I'm sure our estimate was a little bit conservative from our consultant but uh still we were surprised to see the good results with the two biders i was surprised with just two biders
but make a motion to approve two F all right we have a motion by Barry do we have a second i'll second second by Richard any discussion okay all in favor signify by saying I i all right motion carries all right thanks [Applause]
Steve morning Mr chair and board members morning Steve morning Steve i got a couple things uh one is we got a gift from the MPCA they're going to give us a a storage shed that we can store lithium batteries in we'll put it out at our on
our campus um basically it's the state had applied through the US Department of Energy to get a gift and they're giving these to different counties that want this and so we got a gift it's got a the storage shed it's going to be coming it's got it's worth approximately 14,000
there's also a lithium battery fire suppression kit that's got a value of 1,200 for a total gift of 15,200 to Becker County so I you know read it in the packet it says we recycled one ton of lithium batteries last year is that correct what is that how is that
comparable to other counties or you know I mean are we are we doing well or we we No I I think we are because we're one of the few counties that have uh as many public drop sites most counties do not do like we do well I thought I thought that's a great idea and and it's working
well so it is it's it's significantly increased the amount of batteries that we collect i'll make a motion to approve 2G do we have a motion by Barry do we have a second second second by Phil uh any discussion just just just to remember that this you know these
lithium batterings cause fires and if we can get them out of the the waist stream um and we all know we had a fire at from probably from a lithium battery in the past so um this not only puts them in the proper spot it say it saves long-term expense of then I'd make one
note the Peggy sent us a a corrected or an adjusted um updated resolution updated resolution there you go for the with the amount of 15,200 in it do you want copies of that no we got we got email okay so we have a motion in the second do uh any any any further
discussion okay all in favor signify by saying I i all right motion carries all right steve thank you the second item is resolution 04252H it's a personnel request we implemented a career ladder position for our clerks and this would
be moving one of our clerks up a notch they're both full-time though right no one's parttime and one's full-time so the other clerk is a part-time one that would stay no I'm I'm asking You're moving a We're moving a full-time clerk up one
to You're not changing the hours from these employees no that's that was a little unclear in the No in this the number showed it but I wasn't clear if you're So if it's just a It's just a change of from account one to account two or clerk one to clerk two yeah and
this committee approved we talked about this internally at at the environmental committee with the idea of the ladders a career ladder for both trans you were part of that meeting too do you want to I will this is all new to
me so So one one thing for clarification on that it's not just reclassifying a position this is a career ladder so upon the union agreeing to adding the career ladders the initial implementation of career ladders into a department has to
be posted internally for 7 days once that initial posting is completed then that is spurred by the department head and goes back to committee but just to clarify that that this isn't just reclassifying a position this is she'll who is currently in the position would
have to apply and anyone else within the county would have the opportunity as well and then this position in the future if she would resign would go back to an account clerk one correct yes or at that time maybe the other person that's in the
position would be ready for that that's currently in an account clerk one that's part-time would be ready for that next step and we would bring that to the committee at that point in time i think this was discussed when I was at Yeah because I me and you took my place that's why I don't remember but what we were stressed at that we're not creating
another position correct I mean it's not it's not another position so um that we have to work our way through these sometimes internally that we're not creating another position if someone out of the count I mean out of the
area we're not I don't know how you how we I'll leave that up to you how you manage that but we're not we're not looking we haven't run into it yet but yes it would would be something that we would have to navigate if by chance that were to happen and there was a more qualified candidate internally we'd have
to navigate that but one of the things too was was the department head has to approve the fact that this person has qualified to be the That's correct career ladder so that would correct that would take care of that mr chair um I I
came on this board and I know you guys had just finished this up this this career ladder and all this this is brand new and I know there are all kinds of issues before um I'm very surprised that there are still issues going forward about this and pretty much all of my
subcommittee meetings I'm in i'm not up to speed on it but I thought this was going to resolve everything is this what you expected or it's a new am I missing something it's a new process so with any new process there's going to be a learning curve would be probably my best
answer to give you on that there's always going to be growing pains so this is a brand new process we're going through this for the very first time now in the future once we've gone through it once I feel like it will be easier to navigate well this is a result of the um
I mean we implemented the class and comp and now this is now everyone filled out their their job classification or work isn't that what was the their prayer letter no but you did their their duties and their you know so everyone feels that now you're seeing there's different
levels of duties and different job description yeah the job descriptions differ within the department but I but I think as to to answer your thought a little bit there Phil like this is this will likely always happen once it's been identified we have an employee that
meets the career ladder this is going to be the process that process isn't going to change so the So I think if this is always going to change why didn't you just keep the last process you have the last process wasn't good needed a new process but I thought the good pro Am I missing something here i thought the
good process these questions would all be answered and wouldn't have to come to board i mean it would be you'd be able to figure that out because I'm depending on you completely i don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not are you are you talking about what we what we had discussed about whether these positions should come to the board
so if I if I may um the reason that this position is coming back to the board is because it's not budgeted for the the career ladder for this position was not budgeted for for 2025 hence the decision that we came to was anything budgeted could just go to committee but anything
not budgeted correct has to come back to the board so this is unbudgeted then so it really has nothing okay the increase the increase is not budgeted yep right correct and Mr if I may um probably another way you know for um the question
you know we implemented the this particular wage scales new scales and I I would say the career ladders are probably an enhancement to what we started it's it's really an opportunity internally for those individuals to move
through through up a scale up a level it's just another opportunity for employees so you know we we did the baseline implementation of this of these scales knowing that we will continue to have to modify according to market and
then also implementing some of these scales as well i mean I think it's fair to say that our our we're going to be doing this annually as far as looking at maintenance yep yep which we haven't done historically so that's part of the new process is we we need to keep up
with the the new process to make sure that the new process is sufficient to keep it in line yeah absolutely we spent a lot of money and a lot of time on this so I would hate to have this not be maintained this process in this system all right so do we have a I'll entertain
a motion to approve 2H so moved so we have a motion by Erica do we have a second second second by Barry any other discussion all right all in favor signify by saying I i all right motion carries thanks T thank you Tiara
and Steve all right sheriff Glander you are the last contestant on the price might be wrong save the best for last save the best for last before you get started is there any news or any update on that fatality no
just what was sent out the next day well before you get started is there any news on the the Brandy Lake that you said yes they were out there and the roads were not blocked it was passable they were
blocked yesterday all right just But they did go out and check today okay thank you uh good morning Mr chair members of the board first item I have this morning is resolution 04252B which is our 2025 Minnesota
annual boat and water safety grant motion of the amount of 29,903 motion approved all right we have a motion and a second any other discussion okay all in favor signify by saying I i all right motion carries thank you
item number two is a request to hire seasonal staff for assisting with our boat and water program um we do have this in the budget along with using the reimburseable grant for that
so do I have a motion to approve the boat and water seasonal staff i I'll make a motion so motion by Phil do I have a second second second by Erica any discussion uh Todd how just just FYI I see when I went and looked at the boats
we got four boats yes are they out every weekend during the summer how do you choose the lakes we we try to have them out um we we try to hit as many lakes as we can of course uh during the busy times we want to stay on the busiest
busiest areas of the lakes but all four boats out are out all week all weekend occasionally and it just depends on the availability of our our seasonal staff um we may have some that's another I guess I should add this to the request
um I think I mentioned two but it just depends on the hours so uh it could be three that would use those hours three additional staff um because it's a variable hour position obviously um they can only work of course when they're
available so so how many hours did the boat staff with the four boats how how many hours were they out last year estimate just I mean 10 or 100 or a thousand i mean I I did bring some stats uh the total boat and water safety
hours uh this is for um activities from January 1 2024 through December 31st 2024 were 2,137 hours and that includes all uh search
and rescue hours as well and we have one full-time deputy assigned to bone water and you know snowmobile ATV and such i don't you know the only thing I see in our packet is just the boat and water seasonal staff and grant funded i just
see the grant is yeah I didn't add anything else to that so what what are we asking for on that again this is one of those that's it's budgeted for I had indicated I don't I don't believe you're necessarily need to approve this i just said bring it forward approving the
grant or are we correct correct we approved the grant and then so we in the past we have all the seasonal workers have been brought towards to the board um but they're already they're budgeted so number two we have no action is that correct i I don't think I don't think we
need action no okay so you need the leadership training okay number three I'd like to uh bring leadership training to uh not only our office but we have I think believe eight uh other county department heads that won't be attending
it's through uh PDL training and uh what grant is it funded through it'll be through our public safety legislative fund yep so it's grant funding but it's taking away from that so how that's how much is it it
shouldn't say grant funded it's the public It does say public safety fund it say it's public safety $5,000 each day so I have a motion to approve the leadership training for a total of $10,000 you have a motion for that
i'll make a motion to approve the leadership training up to 10,000 do we have a second i'll second second motion may second by Richard do we have any discussion what is this leadership training for page 69 page 69 yeah it's uh the name of
the training is drive the road leadership training i think this would be a good program for all of our uh you know all of our supervisors within the sheriff's office including sergeants uh at the jail and
uh and the uh the patrol division so is this for group training or one person training no this is for up to uh 25 and as of right now we have it filled okay okay so we have a motion to second do we
have any more discussion i think didn't we discuss this that there'd be some mental health benefits also i mean for leadership and you know I think there's some I think mental health is a strong is a big leadership tool i mean it's becoming increasingly more Wasn't this
part wouldn't this help with that it would yeah it it's just going to help all around i think um you know our job no matter what position you're in it's uh it's becoming uh in all areas of those positions it's
it's nice to have somebody else come in and hey this is what looks like you're doing right this is what you're doing wrong and uh not wrong improve upon improve upon yeah this is what you can improve upon like what will the public see like is this an internal thing or
what will the public It's internal yes i would say the public will you would you would recognize better decision-m processes in the p for the in when you engage the public and and every situation in handling of situations yeah okay and I think in in your department
especially good leadership makes good decisions and helps longevity in your department absolutely i think all right so we have a motion second um all in favor signify by saying I i All right motion carries okay Todd item
number four is again going along with what Commissioner Nelson said I would like to bring in mental health training uh mental health awareness training uh this is for all staff in my uh office um I believe there's 94 and I'm going to
make it mandatory for everyone it is uh not only for themselves but to recognize it amongst their uh peers and other people that they deal with in this job it is uh becoming very important
to be cognizant of what they're going through and others and then we had a we should have a max amount to approve too you had a max it's not going to get to the max we didn't think but well it might right uh the the cost we have
right now uh this is a program that's coordinated through our AC which is our corrections healthc care program out at the jail uh we have one day of uh training that is free and then the other two days of course there's going to be a
cost and that cost just for the three sessions is 4,416 now there will be also be individual sessions uh that I will be making mandatory as well we do not have a cost on that where Pierre is we've been working
on that but um I think the original cost that we talked about is very high mhm um Mr chair if I may I don't know if you want to yeah um with this mental health training I think it's just imperative for the board to understand um know
increasing claims of PTSD with um the trauma that law enforcement is exposed to ongoing and I think the sheriff and I had started this conversation quite some time ago you know how do you get in front of this to make sure that your officers are healthy make sure that they
recognize their peers andor in themselves if they're struggling with mental health there's nothing to there's nothing wrong with trying to get in front of that so I think the first phase of what he's trying to accomplish here is is to give his officers and his department information about mental
health to perhaps more normalize this it's uh probably the first aid part of it it is um so it's recognition second part is you know to give them avenues and opportunities if there are things that can be dealt with now versus on the back end where we're losing officers
leaving leaving the profession because of the struggles that they're having i also want to add most sheriff's offices are doing this already um I've had uh I want to thank first of all Tiara for helping me get this set up because
it is a major uh major planning issue to get that many people signed up for for a three days of training that's mandatory or one day for each bird you know obviously but it's it's three days of training to get us
all in so I want to thank her for her help with this and uh I believe it's going to be a benefit for everyone this cost of up to $10,000 that does not include the individual sessions we're not sure what that we're not sure
that's what we're waiting on okay i think uh I believe it's going to be over $10,000 if you add the the three classroom sessions and it'll be over 10,000 total to total for individual N yeah we that's the thing we don't know
what that cost is yet and then it'll be paid for from the public safety fund and also I think this is super valuable because it it can hopefully it can have officers that have issues recognize help them and get them help and it'll maybe
it'll keep our officers longer um it'll also hopefully go hopefully prevent anything else that could happen you know and I think it's I think it's huge valuable it's a it's not only a big issue pro in our law enforcement but it's also an issue in our whole society and that and
we need to help and I think this is how we can help i 100% agree i think we need to support our sheriff's department um as much as we can so I will make a motion to approve the mental health training up with a cost of up to $10,000
i'll second you uh you said it would might go over 10,000 right it it might it I think we should want to amend that yes what what what do we want to say up to 4,000 per session so we're looking at up to 15 no
no we were preliminary numbers on the individual one-on-one sessions i'm trying to remember numbers right off the top of my head it was right around 100 per person so we were looking at potentially right around 12 I think was about the number that we were looking at so I believe if we would approve up to
20 we should be to include those 20 individual include that as well 20 20,000 as a max cost for both the group sessions and the individual sessions i amend my motion to up to 20,000 is that okay with you all right so we have a
motion uh and a second do we have any further discussion okay okay all in favor signify by saying I i i all right motion carries thank you uh the last item or excuse me not the last item but um number five public safety fun it was not in the
budget but it's in the public safety fund go ahead okay sorry item number five I am requesting out of state travel for two deputies uh as you know we uh ordered the uh Bearcat uh that's finally
done we got notified just uh I guess it was last week but part of that order the process is we have to go out and inspect it and uh train on it um the training is 6 to 8 hours and of course the
inspection we're trying to get this it should all be done in one day uh but the cost of sending two it looks like uh we have an estimated cost of $2,400 we're probably a little high there based on
the flight cost but uh for two two deputies it's going to be $1,500 for the flights rental car and fuel is $200 meals 300 hotel 400 um that's one room for two nights and then overall cost
would be $2,400 now uh this is again part of the uh u part of the whole process with getting this vehicle that had been discussed before um the uh uh of course the the bad thing
about this is we don't get to drive it back that's probably but um it is very important to have the uh the training again they're they're not going to release it without so and we I did ask the question in finance if they could come here to do
the training because I thought that would be better but they don't correct so and we have to go out there to inspect it before it would come here but I find this I mean I don't not going to oppose it but I find it hard to believe that they're requiring an inspection on site because there's warranty for this
machine for how long we have a warranty on it so if something's wrong I I don't know why we have to inspect it it's well I think if there's something wrong once we get it back here then it has to go back and well shouldn't they have the inspection assuming everything's right i mean what are what are we when you go to
inspect something at you don't have any knowledge of what you're looking for i mean to to I mean the company I mean I'm just it just seems kind of well we we do have knowledge of that because we're we are the ones that put in the order for what we wanted with this they just built
it they know how they know a lot more about that machine than we do and if there's something wrong they're going to be liable for it regardless i'm not saying we shouldn't go out there but to require an inspection on site is is my opinion
and training and training you know the the training if if our two officers that are going out there to get trained are they going to crossrain whoever here if they leave and take a different the teacher all right so we we have a motion to
approve the outstate travel to for and for inspection and training of the new Bearcat i'll make the motion so we have a motion by Richard do we have a second second it and Phil will second so any uh further discussion okay all in favor
signify by saying I i all right motion carries item number six is a uh continuation of limited term of a full-time investigator position uh we still have a vacancy with that position we would like to keep the
assignment going with our deputy and that is resolution 0425 2 I 04 How long are we two I we did it for 6 months the first time right yeah the initial was for 6 months
i we have this in our packet no this came later i we added it to We just found this out Friday that we were We added it to the agenda before the meeting i I would suggest perhaps that if you're looking for a timeline perhaps three months I think would we'd have a pretty good idea of how to proceed that would
be my suggestion we we did our best estimate on the six-month timeline because we have a deputy that was out on extended leave so that's not too deep oh in finance it looks like this was
9241D that was the original that's the original okay gotcha thanks Mary this is the new resolution yes ah okay i was confused too that date
i'll make a motion to approve resolution is that 2 I or 21 2 I two I but with the with adding three months with adding three months extending it three months yep yep so we have no six
and three for a total of three so we have a motion by Eric do we have a second second second by Barry any other discussion okay all in favor signify by saying I i all right motion carries
okay and we now have the uh oath of our two new deputies two newest I should say mhm that was designated about 960,000 yeah 960 it has to be spent by July 1st
yep the Marcat was big part of that was part of that i thought that was special wasn't it part of this one part of it too come on in oh thank you you're up here
oh do I look old i feel I feel I feel ancient you think you do feel really bad mr chair we should start out by apologizing for uh being so tardy in our and apologize for all We're only We're
only an hour and a half or hour behind 9 yeah I I asked him to be here at 10 but I think I think we'll be okay so thanks everyone for being here i'd like to introduce uh our two newest deputies and I'm going to actually start
with uh Ethan here uh Ethan's been with us for about six weeks and uh he's been an excellent uh addition to our team and I'll let him introduce himself and talk about himself a little bit my name is
Ethan lived in Back County for my entire life uh started my law enforcement career with the city uh decided to make the switch early this year and here I am one correction he actually started his
law enforcement career at the jail started at the jail working in the jail yeah that's there you go right yep yeah and he he did an excellent job out there as well and uh number uh two with his second day
on the job we have Derek Hansen and uh again we are excited to have him i'll let him talk a little bit about himself yeah i'm Derek Hansen i'm originally from the cities moved up to Wolf Lake in August wolf Lake yep uh nice before that
uh I was in the army for three years out in North Carolina and uh married one kid welcome y welcome to Becker County i can't say that to Ethan he's lived here his whole life they moved from the cities to Wolf Lake a little bit different population i live
out by Wolf Lake that's why I ask i drive a blue pickup she speeds a lot i've rode with her your your parents are here as well parents oh great all right let's uh start this why don't you guys stand
up here how old are you guys you don't have to answer that you can't answer that question i stopped and good job go back to Raise your hand i Ethan I Derek Hansen I Derek
Hansen do hereby swear do hereby swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and impartially discharge Impartially discharge the duties of the office of deputy sheriff the duties of the office of deputy
sheriff of Becker County Minnesota county Minnesota which I've been duly appointed which have been duly appointed for the best of My [Applause] ability to honored to have Mr be here
he's a deputy i was going to say I didn't know if you got promoted you're good [Laughter] who's this [Laughter] you can stick them it's okay
[Applause] you guys do you want some did you parents get enough pictures like without us in the background do you want different ones or something or get everything you needed we can get out of the way clear i just want to say I'm
very blessed to have this team congratulations congratulations congratulations former Buffalo Bill of Ring of Honor let's have some pictures oh yeah sure we can do that oh yeah let's get the three of you guys well we'll get the board in first and
then you want us in there first or we'll still I'm a girl dad so why am I losing my hair three girls that's you guys going to go together
take your time we are done with our board meeting so we are We're not ajourned we are not he is not adjourned you want to do quick yeah then you can do photos we are adjourned we're journed
we are ajourned get out of the way