--------- all right all the work session to order we have any new employees to you no move on then identify future work topics anybody have
anything they want to bring up for future uh yeah how about a an update and a report from the Sanford Center advisory committee or Bobby Anderson at the Sanford Center uh just
because the Sanford Center is a huge economic driver for our County um it'd be good to uh get the latest numbers and and uh some plans for the future there so um yeah okay anybody
else okay we'll move on to easement with the city of buiji hope we have any um anything presenting tonight do we administrator Barry yeah Mr chair uh Sam Anderson the city engineer apologizes but he had to
take his little ones to the Urgent Care so he's not to be here today okay but uh I don't think it was his show anyways it actually our County engineer who is going to answer some questions the board had requested at the last time okay uh that you all had met so uh Bruce hasb
baran's here he'll uh stand for any questions you might have we also have um uh Shane Foley here as well who's handling the project on behalf of the County uh we believe that essentially all the easements and all the negotiation items and the the fees and all that stuff is is ready to go we
don't have any addition issues or concerns but we do want to make sure that the board is comfortable so okay um engineer house hasain will address any questions you might have additionally good afternoon Commissioners uh just a quick summary
from my standpoint uh the whole project the trunk Highway 197 project I've been involved since the very beginning uh through the first public meetings they had uh the second phase when they uh changed in kind of Direction and got more business uh input I kind of step
back at that point the projects that they were or the improvements that they were proposing really didn't include many changes to the county leg legs of those intersections and again they kind of had more of a business uh twist to it so I wasn't as involved uh but I've been
keeping up on the the whole project uh along with the development of the project I get much more involved with that when they're looking at staging construction and using County Roads for detours and so I have been staying up on the project um and then with the city's
projects uh the roundabouts that they're proposing to do I guess again there's no County Road uh participating with them but I I do keep up on their projects em and I work together in a lot of projects I mean just a couple years ago we did
the the an and Iran roundabout and that whole Iran Avenue project was a joint project with the city and so we do work hand inand with a lot of projects so I do stay up with uh with Sam on the work that we do and with those roundabouts that they're proposing I guess I again
I'm I'm supportive of that project and the and the what they're planning to do even again there's no no need for True support from us what the city is looking for is more the land acquisition um and that gets to be more of a a board decision but far as the
project goes I guess I'm supportive of the trunk Highway and the city projects that are that are coming up and I guess I can answer any questions you might commissioner Carlson thank you Mr chair Bruce I I just feel like citizens are
getting a little round about fatigue um and maybe it's just me but I that particular intersection on 23rd in Middle School Road it it sounds like it seems like they're trying to build a roundabout to
solve a 45 minute problem a day during school days only and it just seems if you have a stream of cars coming from the Middle School going would bad be going north going
north and someone's at 23rd Street if they're hitting that roundabout that poor person that's heading westbound on 23rd Street still isn't going to get to go across anyway and there're and they're still going to want to budge in and we'll probably still have a fender bender at some point it just seems like
for 45 minutes that that's a that's a lot of money to spend for I just I just can't be in favor of us selling property I mean that just it just seems like a silly solution right there I just I don't get
it I would say for round schools roundabouts are the perfect answer I mean we see that down on Division Street with the roundabouts we put in down there the headaches that we were having were during those 45 minutes when schools starting or letting up but the
rest of the day the you know there's really not an issue there um but for that time when there is the roundabout roundabouts work really well they do help get that flow of the traffic off of those side streets um like the 23rd issue that you would have there um with
Middle School in 23rd but I I do think roundabouts are a good solution for around schools when you have that high peak traffic and then the rest of the day that traffic can free free flow through those round abouts at those intersections um versus putting in a
stoplight and then having to sit there and wait for any one single car that comes up on those side streets it it really again I I do believe around those school zones they are they are a good answer um that whole intersection was looked at uh prior when they were
looking at relocating not relocating but locating the Gan Dylan Elementary School there was a roundout being proposed there to deal with additional traffic and so again I'm not sure where they're traffic levels are at but uh they do have uh concerns uh with the level of
traffic and how much traffic is there at that those 45 minutes whatever those times during the day and so I guess I the choice between a signal and a roundabout I would 100% support a
roundabout any day just uh for the what it can do um and for those uh areas um and our developing community and any developing community and to me
it's a good it's a good problem to have when we're going to have these you know additional traffic instead of decreasing traffic with the increasing traffic and the development that we got going uh the potential future development that could be coming in on the county property and or anything that we've got happening
right there I think uh kind of planning ahead and and getting a roundabout in there is again I'm supportive of of that kind of a project so you're saying that a future development of the county property behind Target that that would
be beneficial for that yep I mean the it's going to just increase traffic at that intersection I'm assuming they're going to be accessing the south end of that property or the or west wherever it's at that that intersection itself is going to see more traffic and with more
traffic that roundabout is going to help Hope help address that those increased levels thank you Mr have anything no issues no um that Mak sense my one of my other
concerns that I brought up to Sam was um why the you know the the bypass going east to west versus north to south you have any thoughts on that Bruce or you know there's obviously a lot more traffic north to south is it because of the construction happening to the north
of it or what yeah and again Sam walked me through the different phases that they're proposing that is a luxury there of not having as much development in that intersection because building roundabout really does shut down an intersection for a long time and to be
able to put in a temporary Bypass or allow traffic kind of arounder that intersection at times is is kind of a luxury that we didn't have on on our other intersections where we put our roundabouts in um but my understanding is the
utilizing the the ball field quadrant uh that the county has and then the the the schools other quadrant there to to allow that east west traffic will be used in one of those stages um and
the north south uh potentially yeah could have been like you said asked for or used for north south but again I don't have the exact stages how he was doing it but the he was going to finish the the stuff to the
North First the roundabout up by Target and at that time Target and that whole strip mall there would have access from the East side and once that one there by Target is constructed um then you know
they' be working on the south ones the all the traffic on the North or Target would have access from the north side so you don't need the north um South through traffic I mean yes it would help but the traffic would be able to go around and have access to to Target and
those other businesses from the north side so the through traffic isn't mean it would be beneficial but I guess it's not not needed there's a cost to do on those temporary bypasses I mean menot
did it with their roundabout on 71 know you're having to build a whole another road section and gravel or treat the gravel or or something with the the traffic that it sees there and so I can see why they they're doing it and why they're
not doing it because there's a cost it's just kind of a cost and benefit there and I guess I I I agree there's a concern there but they I guess they're seeing that they're going to have access to the north uh from the north at that time so do you
know if there's any way or if the city is um specked out anything as far as the timing of it like for instance when the 187 or not 187 but Highway 71 project in front of the fairgrounds they worked with the fair to make sure that it wasn't shut down so it didn't mess up
the entire fair in August and um you know is there has there been any forth thought of that so uh starting the project in that intersection and doing that cut off of the their bunch of their parking area for the ball fields um after the tournament season in July or
whatever um do you know if they've looked at anything like that I do know that some of that was in consideration I don't know the details and dates and things like that off top my head I do know that Sam was in discussion with the school you know about how they would be routing traffic you know if it was still or what parts were going to be under
construction at various times and so they were you know he was having those discussions I guess I I don't know the specifics on you know the the impacts and dates and Wes but the ball fields I'm trying to picture
that isn't there's a there's a entrance to the south of that intersection there's an entrance there but they'd be cutting off a bunch of the parking yeah you know and that I mean it's already constrained whenever there's a tournament in the first place and if they are whacking off a whole bunch of
that parking that's just going to make it that much more difficult even dangerous potentially from balls that get hit over the fence somebody going through that that bypass could get get a baseball in their windshield um so there's actually a a safety issue there
too with that so um I just wondering you know what kind of answers we could get as far as the scheduling and instead of just letting them do whatever for the timing on it say that it has to start after whatever July 20th or something if that'd be feasible to do the project
starting it later in the summer uh the again I know the phases that they were doing they were going to do the the roundabout up towards Target first and then they were going to be working on whatever a small portion of that one on the end but the the U I think that was
going to be the last part done and so that's why there was the extra discussion with the school on how they would be routing traffic when that was the last one being constructed and so the ball field times again I know those are kind of middle of the summer through the middle of the
summer that's more like from when school's getting out to Mid Midsummer yeah so I again I I don't know the specifics on those discussions but you know the I'm just thinking off top of my head here on
how how they would be able to address you know those concerns I'm again I how long would a construction time Fray be for around about like that could they if they didn't start it till end of more the end of July would they have enough time to still get it get it completed
before freeze up it is harder when they're doing it piece by piece with uh allowing temporary traffic when we close ours down and shut them you know shut the intersection completely down it's a it's an all summer project just to do it
that way and so by you know restricting time frames and and or doing it already peace meal with temporary bypasses makes it makes it a long summer to do it I guess my my first recommendation is not to restricted to a specific date but if
you can leave it General to work that they work with the school and work with the youth whatever the Youth League Baseball would be who they would need to work with more more so than the school you know I mean the school will be done you know end of May so they've got that
other their concern should have been addressed when they gave the right away right to their quadrant so the youth baseball I guess if there was a general statement of a cons you know to work with them to help alleviate or minimize their their
impacts um I guess would be my recommendation yeah anybody else have any further questions of Bruce on that okay thanks Bruce appreciate it thank
you Housing Trust Fund an and den good afternoon commissioner is an Lin Seth director of Health and Human Services and I'm here today with Alano who's the director of the United Way of
the bigi area we want to talk to you about the belamy County Housing Trust Fund so I'm going to give a very brief history of the Housing Trust Fund because I've been before the board a number of times but for the public and perhaps our newer commissioner I can let you know that we established our Bel
tramy County Housing Trust Fund in August of 2023 through the passage of ordinance number 5050 um following the establishment through the ordinance then we followed the recommendation of the ordinance and we opened up a request for proposal for an administrator of the belamy County
Housing Trust Fund and that RFP was open late 2023 into early 2024 and awarded to the United Way of the bidi area um the Housing Trust Fund is funded through two funding sources um one is the Statewide affordable housing aid and the other is
the local homeless prevention aid and both of those funding sources are legislated and come from the Department of Revenue to the county and then we pass those funds along to the United Way of the BMI area the goal of our Housing Trust Fund is to support projects that
provide innovative solutions and enhance housing availability affordability and accessibility for individuals and families in Bel trammy County and we do that by following the requirements of the ordinance but also the funding specifications so the funds that go into
the belamy County Housing Trust Fund have their own specifications on what we can cannot do with those funds in 2024 it was our first year um we spent a lot of time as a Cabinet we established a cabinet first um in early
2024 and then we spent a lot of time learning about housing in our area um and much like when I came to talk to you before about our belamy County Housing collaborative there's a lot of things going on with housing and so our cabinet is made up of a lot of professionals who
knew a little bit about this or that but we as a group wanted to learn um a lot of the different things that were happening already in the community what gaps there were what specific areas some of our partner organizations would prefer we focus on with housing um so we did a lot of education and we did that
so that we could Define our priorities and then start the initial funding allocations so today we just want to talk to you about our first initial year kickoff and some of the achievements and Milestones that we had C to the next slide so here's the cabinet a list of cabinet
members that we um chose we really wanted to make sure no one on the cabinet would be asking us for dollars so there's other people in our community that are e experts in housing but we assumed there may be an opportunity for them to apply for funding so we uh we
chose um titles that would have expertise in uh Housing Development um first though having a county commissioner on it along with a director of Health and Human Services the director of the United or the United Way
and then a commercial Banker who's uh Carl Johnson a United Way Board member we have Megan styf she works at Sanford uh a landlord we have Mike strotman he's right now I believe the head of the Landlord Association or
VP uh outlying uh County representative is Daryl Lumberg who happens to own Northwoods Lumberg a county staff representative we wanted uh multiple County representations in different forms uh and mercy white uh is
the one that holds that spot the project ma manager is Tom Tessier he works for cruss Anderson and then Halen uh grinkie who's here with us is the liazon from the United Way and uh we did put out an RFP for people to apply to be on the
cabinet and happen to have one in every role apply so that was easy on on us in choosing who would be on the on the cabinet so some of our key accomplishments in the first year I mentioned already we did a lot of education and we wanted to share some of
the people who came in to share and agencies that came in to share about what was happening in housing and we did hear from Northwest Minnesota Foundation they have Northstar Neighbors which is a shared Community um we had one roof community housing we had greater buiji
coming and talk to us and we heard how important housing access is for economic development in our area and Dave also encouraged us to think outside of the box with the funds um we heard from Headwaters Regional development commission and they have a lot of plans for housing but those plans are tied to
funding availability uh we heard from by County cap who does a lot of work in the housing space to help people to Access housing um and also to keep the housing that they're in um so as you'll learn later we opened up two rfps one which is
specific to agencies and one which is specific to development um and then we also heard from the Shu company and the Shu company is who owned the Red Pine Estates um and they are planning to rebuild in our area so we're very happy that they are hoping to contribute to some of our housing
needs in the future um so the other thing to consider um that we also learned about was Alice and Alice is an acronym for asset limited income become constrained individuals and Alice is um a project that the United Way of the mgy
area has become part of for Minnesota and I think these funds are really targeted towards that population that asset limited income constrained population um and that also is some of the restrictions around the funding that goes into uh the Housing Trust Fund so
we do want to learn more about what that population needs and how we can support them and all of that education came to together so that we could look at okay what are our priorities for funding and one of the main priorities that we identified as a Cabinet is Workforce housing um Workforce housing for that
lowincome um population specifically um so that's where we're at right now with our prioritization for development and it was very helpful to hear from all those organizations so that we could make an informed decision about that so uh we first opened our program dollars uh so we have the program and
the development dollars and knowing that we want um the priority is mainly in development our program dollars were uh an easier smaller amount to open and close it's what United Way does uh is prog is support programs and so
specifically asking uh agencies to apply for dollars and programs for housing we allocated uh funds to St Vincent depal uh their dollars are uh to provide faster more efficient support for new
housing placements or crisis so um a lot of programs for housing take a long time to get in and the these are people who need a house today and so they're able to provide first month's rent or other resources to get them into housing right away and then also by County cap uh was
awarded funding to fix up a duplex that they have that hasn't been uh available for over three years so it's been sitting empty and we're able to to give them the funds they need to fix that up and and open it back up for housing so where we're at in the process
now is that we opened up a preapplication for developers and we wanted to do a pre-application because we didn't want a developer to spend a lot of time and effort filling out a full application only to find out that they weren't eligible because of some of
the straints of our funding in the fund um so right now we have six pre-applications that have been submitted and we're going to be reviewing them as a Cabinet we we will score them and then review them as a Cabinet next week um and then whoever is selected or eligible um will be invited
to complete a full application once they complete a full application that will be submitted to the cabinet we will evaluate score review those and we can allocate if it's on under $50,000 if it's over a request for over $50,000 then we would bring the
cabinet's recommendation to the county board for approval um to release those funds and we do ongoing monitoring and reporting for all funds released out of the Housing Trust Fund so there's contracts and expectations around reporting we want to know that the funds
are being utilized for what we're authorizing them for and then understand the impact that's having on the community and some of that is very clear I mean what da uh talked about with by County cap we have housing that's sitting not being utilized now we have
two more houses available and it might seem small but anything we can do to increase access to housing is a step in the right direction so that impact I think is significant and we will always be coming to the board and letting the board know of what's happening with the Housing Trust Fund and also we are
putting things into the newsletter regularly as well as on um the United Way of the beiji area's website um just to be transparent about what's happening at the fund So currently the principal funds were
1.25 million and uh we put th we put those dollars as we received them because it wasn't all in one lump uh into CDs and have earned interest as of the end of January $113,500 that's extra dollars going in U making the total the
1.27 then we just allocated like we shared with St Vincent depal and uh buap the 495 to housing programs and have the 1.22 uh available in the fund uh and you heard what we're we're hoping to have
some pre the pre-applications make full uh application requests for the dollars um and we're also working on our end at United Way to find other ways to grow the dollars uh and one is through this local Housing Trust Fund Grant program
through the state if we have any dollars that are not coming state or federally into the fund they can match those dollars and we did call and ask and we can use the interest that we've been uh earning to get those dollars matched so it's not a huge amount but by the time
it that that closes uh it would be about $20,000 that we could get matched so that's that's a win and then we're also looking at United Way of putting uh the information into our program solicitations and different things as an option for community members to donate
to as well so in conclusion um we've had a productive first year we've completed a lot of the groundwork to get a Housing Trust Fund off up and running um we don't have a schedule for when we would be releasing rfps in the future because
it's very dependent on how much is in the fund and how much is allocated through the process that we're in right now so if we have a lot of great applications for development and we spend a significant amount of the fund to support those we may wait a period of time until we get more into the fund
before we would open up an RFP so it's kind of open-ended right now as to a schedule of RFP openings related to the Housing Trust Fund um we have had a great partnership with the United Way of the piji area we're both of our agencies the county and United Way are committed
to transparency and collaboration and the Strategic growth to address our housing challenges in Bel tramy County I think we've made some great strides I'm really proud of the work that we've done um and together we can do more than any one of us can do alone so with that Commissioners do you have questions for
myself or Den Mr Carlson thank you Mr chair uh just an observation um and this is not directed towards you D it's directed towards the media whenever I see an article in the paper about the housing
fund it's always called United housing fund and it hasn't been it's never been called the Bel tramy County Housing fund and I know that's not your fault um but I just for the media folks uh this is the Bel tramy County Housing fund um in partnership with United Way who by the
way are doing a great job I appreciate it thank you yeah I just wanted to thank da and Halen for their work um especially uh recently finding the an additional $220,000 through that new state grant program program with the interest earned
uh that's awesome so appreciate your facilitation and administration and um yeah hopefully we got some even more good news to come soon here with the six applications wi anything I had some questions but I
think he answered everything so um no I'm impressed so looks good how many of these six uh applications would potentially all six of them qualify to move on or are you going to for sure narrow it down to two or three or how
any thoughts on that I don't have any thoughts at this moment there's a meeting on Monday where all of those decisions would be made by the cabinet to see to go through the eligibility both looking at the eligibility through our ordinance our
County ordinance and the specific fund eligibilities okay and then how about the U um I was going to say the um are the is there a specific project that has been asked for them to apply for or are they just basically thrown
out their ideas and applying there's a lot of ideas um and we don't want to limit that so we were fairly broad um with the RFP because we do want to take um the advice of Greater buiji and be creative and look at um
anything that any developer has great thank you thank you Mr chair just just wanted to verify we don't have a time certain that that has to be spent by is that's why we did the f is act correct so that so that we don't have to hurry up and spend it there is very
specific time frames that we as the county have to spend it but spending it is um if we move it into a Housing Trust Fund then it is considered spent right right so the answer is you're
right yeah I think that's it thank you appreciate it thanks for all your work that'll move us on to the Beltrami County Investment Portfolio I think Jody's going to come up and educate us a little bit on where where all of our money is invested and
stuff good afternoon commissioner is Jody treat belamy County auditor treasur you're right I will go through a quick overview of our Investment Portfolio so where everything is invested um to start with just an
explanation of the portfolio consists of any funds held in belamy County deposits that are not presently being needed for a purpose or being restricted for a purpose so being needed means if we need
it for cash flows for operations for the county or restricted for a purpose would be a really good example with of that is our e911 grant funds specifically have to be in their own designated fund so
they are in their own um investment account and that's um managed separately outside of the belamy county deposits um those funds then are
invested in in the manor and conditions set forth in Minnesota State Statute so I don't have a whole lot of leeway on how I can invest funds um all investment activities are dictated by
Statute um in in fact if you saw I have an investment policy on the consent agenda and the reason I put it on the consent agenda is because I don't have a lot the board doesn't have a have a lot of freedom on how we invest those funds
it is dictated in statute and this policy is just to memorialize what we do um in accordance with statute so the objectives of our invest M policy
um are to ensure the safety of the principal we want to ensure we're preserving our capital in the overall portfolio we do this by limiting
um what those Investments can be invested in according to what's allowed in statute we also accomplish that by taking a advantage of FDIC insurance so any
$250 and Below investment in a financial institution is covered by FDIC Insurance anything over that amount we get pledged collateral from that institution so you'll see when we get a little further
down on the breakdown of where the funds actually are some of those financial institutions have more than $250,000 in them they are then covered by pledged collateral um the second objective is
liquidity so we need to remain uh sufficiently liquid to enable the county to meet their cash flow requirements so we're doing no good for the county if we have an impressive
Investment Portfolio but all of a sudden we have a need that we can't cover so I do I take very good care in making sure that we always have cash flows covered the third and final objective is
yield and this is to earn a rate of return throughout the budgetary cycle taking into account those first two objectives safety of the principal and liquidity um those are the top two priorities we don't want to lose money
for the county and then the third priority is getting that infusion of budget Revenue um to help with all of that budget revenue or all of that investment interest Revenue comes back as a reduction in the levy so it does
help with taxpayers um by investing those funds the investment policy that I use is actually the same investment policy that K Used prior to me becoming the auditor and it's considered lading of
maturities um so the the lading of maturities philosophy is Investments are purchased with staggering maturity dates so that the portion of the portfolio remains consistent regular interview
intervals um similar to the rungs on a ladder so we don't want all of our investments coming due maturing in 202 25 nor do we want them maturing in 2028
so we like to have a nice consistent lad sections or rungs of when those maturities happen having that nice consistency is great I mean I could just say I want to I want maturities out five years divide
the portfolio in fifths and have a fifth of it come due each year in reality there are few things other than that that play into it um our current cash flow needs is a major item that plays into that so I calculate what our
current and future cash flow needs are taking payroll into consideration um seasonal expenditures for example if we end up having an early spring and Bruce can get the crews out there working on highway highway
projects earlier that's consideration I have to have I have to make sure that cash flow is available when he does start paying those contractors um revenue streams the county is very dependent on Revenue
stream timelines I think approximately a third of our Revenue comes from property taxes and that first half property taxes are due May 15th so leading up to that time the February and March of each year
is a low cash flow time for us so that's a time when I want to Target to make sure I have maturities coming due um so that I'm able to cover payroll to cover any other expenditures that we have come up that starts to turn around about
April our statements go out the last week in March and um starting mid April a lot of people are coming in and paying their property taxes so that starts to give us an influx of Revenue starting already in
April um the third item that I wanted to talk about is the stability of the jail project so in the early stages of the jail produ project we had a lot of unknowns and so I very strategically
kept us as liquid as possible in case something would come up that we needed to pay for um a review of A needs assessment or something like that that we had those funds available that we were able to move forward with the
project in fact one of the items when Tom and I went through the the credit interview one of the items that was listed as a positive for belamy county is that we did have good liquidity going into this jail project and all the
unknowns that we had in it um you'll see the effect of the jail project on the next slide because of of all of those unknowns we are very liquid right now but now we're transitioning into a new
phase of that jail project where it's more consistent we have a good spend rate projection that we're getting from um our contractors and and we can determine a little easier when exactly
we're going to have payments going out so I use those spend rate projections to to to estimate when to construct our ladder sorry to estimate when maturities
should become due and I say I very Loosely I work with an investment team from Ellers um Ellers is the company that we invest our bond proceeds with so that $40 million in bond proceeds that
we receive is invested with Ellers I meet with them probably on a quarterly basis plus as items come up um so monthly if something comes up or a a meeting by zoom in there um I was in
Minneapolis for other meetings mid-February and met with our investment team in person in February and we talked through some strategic planning for um our Arbitrage issues that that I will
talk a little bit about on a slide later on in the in the deck um but we were able to get some planning in place and hopefully um address our Arbitrage issues so starting this is what we have
for Investments this is not in our checking accounts these are not small CDs that I have throughout the um the city of bigi area um these are just our larger Investments so to to start
locally I'll start with First National Bank um we have CDs that are maturing in 2026 um we also have a money market with First National Bank that also pays us
interest on the funding that we need that's liquid so if Bruce does have a project that all of a sudden needs to be paid or we have um payroll that comes up we do have that liquid fund money market that's earning interest that we can move
into our checking account this is a a place where we have more than $250,000 covered or invested with First National Bank so we hit that FDIC threshold First National Bank then
pledges collateral to us to cover any amount of above that $250,000 um next down the line is Security Bank USA we have with Security Bank a relationship that's called a reciprocal deposit we hold $5 million at
Security Bank and they do rolling Investments on that money on the CDs external CDs this is the account that all of the commissioner warrants are paid out of so as you're signing those commissioner
warrant Sheets if you have if you sign $500,000 worth of warrants as those warrants then go through Security Bank they pull that money out of our reciprocal deposit and cover the balance
of those um those warrants that are paid so any money that is above what is paid is being invested at a CD rate um once that $5 million gets down a ways then we replenish that
with other funding to keep that up at $5 million we have one other local one I want to mention that wasn't up there I have about $250,000 with the First State Bank of Bigfork in kellier um and this is kind
of a relationship with the conon funds so it's not designated concon funds in in the First State Bank of but it gives that area an option to use that funding for mortgages or auto loans
or something else in their area um so that's just a another local um investment option that I have that that maybe didn't hit the threshold of the higher larger Investments I have here the next one I have is called Magic
and it is Minnesota Association of governments Investing For counties all of our state funding Revenue comes into our magic account and the magic account is made up of term investments
and money market fund and we earn interest again on the money market fund but we can earn a greater interest on term investments so I can say I want $5 million invested for one year and they have different interest rates that those
are invested at the fourth um entity is Wells Fargo advisors they are a brokerage firm out of Minneapolis that I work with that we purchase agency bonds with Wells Fargo
advisors and we have um about 8.6 million dollar in um agency bonds so your federal home loan banking Corp type of Investments the these were Investments back in
2020 that were you had to go out 5 years to get a decent interest rate and now that decent interest rate is is looking like a low interest rate but those will be coming due now next year Jody how many more sides do you have because we're running up against the clock here
pretty soon so I have three okay and you know if we can try to P the Russia but we're going to be running out of time here and we have another item to get to yet sure um the final institution I have on
here is Ellers and again this is where we invested the $40 million of bond proceeds that we received Ellers then invest that for us in US Treasury bonds agency bonds
municipal bonds and CDs so when you look at how our ladder is out it's not equal parts in each year um because in 2025 that's when most of the jail
construction will happen so just looking that in graph form again the the biggest category that darker blue category is what's maturing in 25 and that is mostly going to be used for the jail
construction as jail construction happens as we make payments to on the jail construction we are transferring funding out of that bond fund into a general fund and then um lading that out
into 27 and 28 to give us that longer maturity so for Arbitrage that I mentioned earlier as it relates to bond or to Bel tramy County's Bond issuance if certain spending benchmarks are not met
Arbitrage is triggered an Arbitrage is the interest earned above the County's Arbitrage rate this interest is paid to the IRS as a rebate at the completion of the project so Bel tramy County's
Arbitrage rate is 3.72% our spending benchmarks are listed below there so our first Benchmark was 10% of our 4 million or 4 $40 million Bond needed to be spent by October of 24
we did not reach that Benchmark um so because we postponed the groundbreaking until spring so not making that first Benchmark threw us into Arbitrage right now our investments are
earning about 4.98% % so anything above 3.72 up to that 4.98 which is approximately $410,000 is considered Arbitrage and due
to the IRS as a rebate um like I said I was down in the Minneapolis area and worked with our in investment advisors and we're working on a strategy where we can and purchase tax
exempt Investments and buy down that Arbitrage rate so we are hoping that by the end of the project that we have that that dollar amount of rebate that we owe down to zero so that's that is what our
plan is that's what our goal is um the just the last piece of information that sort of relates to to Investments and Investments of jail bond funds and allows me to the flexibility
to invest more long term is that we now have our local option sales tax coming in um started July of 24 we're averaging a little over $400,000 per month so at a minimum
should bring us about 4.8 million to 5.23 million somewhere in there um a month or annually and then you'll see in 2025 our debt service payments amount to
2533 million this leaves us an excess of around 2.32 and A5 million do somewhere in there that really gives us a lot of flexibility that can be used to um buy down the incoming debt that we have we
can pay off some of this debt early I believe even in the resolution it was mentioned it could be used for um options with the existing jail these are absolutely just estimates you know
the E economy depends largely on um this sales tax revenue depends largely on the how the economy does but this just gives you an idea of where the county sits for now
and that is all I have if you have any questions any question yeah go go ahead commission Winger okay one question the interest on these things um coming from the different departments does the interest go back to those or is it just
general fund the interest goes not specifically general fund the interest goes countywide and then that interest is used down used to buy down the levy each year so if I'm budgeting we are going to
get $500,000 in interest that's a reduction in what we have to Levy for um for that next year reversely if a a fund has a a negative cash balance that is also then
covered countywide and the fund does not receive any interest re or payment we do not charge interest for if a fund goes negative so that's all countywide um managed
countywide chair yep go ahead so let's say the economy takes a nose dive soon um what do you uh let's say recession levels um what do you think that 2.5 million would end
up um if we're somewhere between a recession and a depression so I'm I'm sorry to I'm not a Speculator I'm very conservative I leave that those sort of investment decisions
and advice from our investment team I I couldn't even give you a number of where it would end up I think this is a pretty conservative number I think if the economy stays where it's at right now this number will be much higher um but again it's so driven by the economy that
it's really hard to tell I know there's a lot of negative indicators coming up here so that's why I ask I also wanted to point out um the fact that there's an opening on the magic fund uh board of directors so if anybody is interested uh
Commissioners or or auditor treasurers I think it's open to staff too um but anyway AMC sent out an email about it it might be good to have someone from the county on that board so we're running pretty pretty tight on
time here so any you have anything commissioner Carlson no but my questions got answered about the Arbitrage I talked to Auditors earlier about that and so you answered my questions there so thank you appreciate it perfect thanks all right thank you the last thing that we had on here
was uh other than administrators report which we'll have to move to the the regular meeting um 2025 Development Fund Grant appropriation um what were we going to cover there administrator Barry Mr chair uh you can just uh move that
also or actually that's actually already on the agenda so we can just deal with that at the regular meeting the idea was to give you some time to discuss it here and then save time at the regular meeting but we could just have the conversation and make the decision at the regular meeting wouldn't be an issue sounds good so commissioner Winger we
will move um the administrator's report to item 12 on the uh on the regular agenda anything else that anybody wants to pull from the the Ministries report
anything that anybody needs to pull from the consent agenda no okay yes yep yeah we're going to take a quick break here anyway so all right so thank you we'll close the work session join
for a couple minutes and be back uh right around 5 12 correct yes Part: 2
start it then all right r the Pledge of Allegiance we'll start the regular meeting I pledge allegiance to the plag 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 all right all right we try to get us back on track here for time are any citizens wishing to address the board anyone wishing to address the board on an item
not on the agenda may come forward at this time and be recognized by the board chair please state your name address for the record comments are limited to five minutes a Personnel complaint against an individual County employee may not be heard initially at a board meeting Personnel complaints may be submitted to the board in writing through the county
administrator's office a person addressing the board may not use profanity or vgar language is there anybody wishing to address the board I assume nobody online no we will move on seeing no one to the
approval of the agenda Mr Winger okay I move to approve the agenda with the following changes administrators report move to item 12 I hear a second second second from commissioner
Carlson all in favor of approving the amended agenda say I I I any opposed motion carries 4 Z approval of the consent agenda you hear a motion for the consent agenda so moved thank you commissioner
Gould he a second second second by commissioner Winger any discussion on the consent agenda hearing none all in favor of the consent agenda say I I I any opposed consent agenda is approved moving on to
the jail project velopment agreement administrator Barry y do you have that one I do thank you Mr chair uh just wanted to uh make a few comments about the development agreement as you know uh we're required to re to acquire all local uh Regional and Statewide
permits for the construction of the jail' been doing that over the last several months this is one of the last remaining approvals we need is from our local uh government entity the city of beiji city of B miji uh follows a development uh agreement process for
approvals including Landscaping site work utility connections those types of things um we had received this initially uh several weeks back and had run the documents through the design and operations committee uh and also through
our county attorney's office and uh they were rejected by the design and operations team and also our County attorney uh and so we have worked behind the scenes with uh the city representatives to update and amend
various documents and clarify certain concerns and issues and a revision was issued uh just a couple weeks back that revision did go back through the design and operations uh team as well as the county attorney's office and we are in agreement uh at this time with those
documents and would recommend that the County Board favorably consider those so we can uh require the last or essentially the second to last remaining permit approval we need to move the project forward thank you administrator Barry any comments um from the
board U Mr chair I would uh move to uh uh accept the jail project development agreement with the city of amiji okay thank you commissioner Carlson you're a second for that I'll second that thank you commissioner
Winger discussion um so my understanding has this already been accepted by the city then or yes so Mr chair it has been accepted by the staff of the city uh who tell me it's an administrative action essentially okay and uh they are waiting
for us to make the approval before then they'll sign it I'm told that they can do a pretty quick turnaround because it's an administrative approval okay uh so we have to essentially sign first so to speak so your approval tonight would allow the board chair to sign and then for us to deliver it to the city and
then um I suspect within a week they should be able to turn that around for us okay thank you anybody else have any questions all right I'll call for the question then all in favor of approving the jail project developers agreement with the city of binji say I hi I any
opposed motion carried 4 Z next one is the easements with the city of buiji is this is for the the roundabout project um and that's a you want to any update on that administrator Barry uh thank you
Mr chair this was part of the discussion that you had a little bit earlier with the County engineer and so uh we had presumed that because at least from an administrative standpoint everything was in order we had negotiated the the pricing and uh we're okay with the easements language and their locations
and had satisfactory um um answers to questions and concerns that were addressed internally that uh we were recommending approval uh if the board still has questions or concerns certainly now is the time to address those unfortunately
the city Engineers as I mentioned earlier is not available for those questions I sens this regrets for that U but we're in good company with our County engineer and Shane Foley or natural resources uh director who have both been working um on this project in
some capacity and I can certainly help as well uh we do feel feel like the you know the question about the roundabouts is um one that I think will persist regardless of whether it will be with this project or the next project or the
one following that um you know the the issue in regard to timing is it critical for the city that been expressed to us several times uh in order to save taxpayers money and Advance the project uh with a package that includes other
Road workor and uh sites as well so uh that's partly why we would recommend but of course we'll take your direction and uh that's what's before you this evening is uh to see if you're ready to make that decision or if you want to take a different path thank
you um open up for either motion or discussion I still have concerns about the the ball field piece of it and the timing of that and and so go ahead Commission Carlson uh thank you Mr chair I I I too have some concerns but I have not heard the baseball folks approach
anyone so I guess a couple things number one I'm just not in favor of that roundabout there however it's not our road um they can take it by imminent domain um but if they did that my concern is a taxpayer is now eventually
if they do that but it but they don't do it in conjunction with the other project now as a taxpayer it's going to cost me more because they have some money coming in that they would lose if they don't have that um and listening to our County engineer uh talk about safety concerns in the
school um I I guess I would be reluctantly infavor only because of those reasons so uh safety number one um and not having heard from the baseball folks um and saving some taxpayer dollars to get it done I guess again
reluctantly I would be in favor do somebody want to make a motion one way or another I'll move to approve the easement with the city of bigi as proposed motion by commissioner Gould no uh nothing regarding the time
timing of the project or anything on that uh uh as it's laid out in the project so it's fine I don't know that that wouldn't be binding anyways probably so um Comm do we have a motion by commissioner gold do we have a second yeah I'll second that second
from somewhat reluctantly too but uh second by commissioner Winger um further discussion I I would just U you know emphasize with commissioner Carlson I would I would hope that the city would try to reach out to the ball field just
like the state did with the the county fair um to limit impact to our our youngsters that are you know trying to have tournaments and and enjoy the summer so um that that being said if there any any other
comments all right I'll call for the question then all in favor of supporting the uh approval of the easements with the city of bidi for the roundabout say I I I any opposed all right that passes four to zero next up we've got Solid
Waste Site Foreman position got uh our Public Works director and Highway engineer coming up here thanks Bruce good evening Commissioners uh this topic I'm here to request uh a change in a position in the
solid waste uh division of the public works department uh this is not adding a full-time equivalent I guess I want to put that out there first this is just changing uh the position that we have currently um I'm asking for uh to create
a site Foreman position and this would be at the bidi transfer station I I provided a uh existing organizational chart and then the proposed organizational chart to kind of help explain what we're looking for but
currently right now uh we have a solid waste uh operations coordinator and he oversees 11 different uh people uh two of them are rolloff truck drivers it's the black duck transfer station operator the landfill operator then the remainder
are the people that work at the BMI uh transfer station uh this site foran position that we would create would take one of those people at the bidi transfer station and create a foran that would oversee the the six people underneath the remainder of the six people and then
they would report to the operations coordinator so it kind of reduces the number of direct reports for the the overall coordinator and give a foran for the operations at the Bimi transfer station um the bigi transportation is
the the big hub for us uh we up to you know on average 700 um vehicles coming through there uh that's not just people but it's how many uh visits we get to the facility and then we're sending uh all of that waste uh
out of there and so we're averaging the the six the um loads a day five to six loads a day that are going out of there every day that we're loading and shipping out and so it's a busy operation for us and that site Foreman would oversee that
type of the operations of the transfer station the loading and the shipping of the material and then all of the people that are coming through and bringing their wayte and so that foreman would oversee that that operation commissioner Carlson thank you Mr chair I would uh move to approve the
creation of a site form and position and a solid waste division of Public Works motion by commissioner Carlson I hear a second second by commissioner Winger so further discussion here um is this subject to the union approval theou that
was in the packet I assume they haven't approved it yet that they they subject to our approval they will they will take it under consideration so it wouldn't be official until they approved it correct I ran theou past them they ran it past their attorney and they're fine with it and so it's just a matter of then this
gets approved then they would take it to their their members for their their approval okay and budget uh I is the this position going to be a little more money then I would assume and is that in the budget or where's that what's or is that just coming out of the profit so to
speak so the position has been reviewed by Baker Chile uh to give it the the grade and then we have budgeted for it we had actually uh had budgeted for multiple changes but this is the only one that we're coming forward with and so yes there's it's the budget okay
that's that's all I have for questions anybody else have any okay and uh see you go further discussion I'll call for the question all in favor of approving the solid waste site Foreman position say I I any opposed all right it is approved for nothing thanks Bruce thank
you 2025 Development Fund Grant Appropriations so Diane are you g to pull up a spreadsheet or how do you want to handle that administrator Barry yeah thank you Mr chair uh we'll have Diane pull up the spreadsheet that then you can work off here live uh but just a little bit of background uh just a
reminder that the board did set aside $45,000 as a combined allocation for the Development Fund uh grants for 2025 we did following that direction uh post an advertisement uh both in the newspaper on our website and uh and send
out an invitation as well to all those who participated in the past that we were aware of uh an invitation on January the 22nd we gave uh applicants about a month or so to put their applications together and uh
and they were due on February 21st the application packet with all of the essential information was then emailed to the County Board on February 25th to try to give you a little bit of a jump start since it's a a pretty large packet I know that you're aware uh so uh what we have available here on the board is
the allocations um historically we have essentially pro-rated each commissioner's uh allocation uh so that in the end that they would sum up to be no more than the full allocation that the board had agreed upon um last month
or a month I should say two months ago now so uh that's what we have available for you and uh of course you know you can play with the numbers as you like uh try to influence each other's numbers uh that kind of stuff sure it could get uh could get a lengthy meeting here if we
get too far too crazy on this but but anyway you do have that capability here and U eventually what we would like after you finalize the numbers is a formal motion and approval and then I can go in uh let the um applicants know what their allocations will be for this year okay
thank you somebody want to go first you have numbers written down and we can just tell them to uh to Diane one at a time and and she can punch them in and then we can decide if we want to make any changes go ahead commissioner Carlson all right thank you Mr chair
[Music] um start at the top yeah Bel tery County Agriculture 15,000 Beltrami County Historical Society 2360 black duck Golf Course
$440 black duck area history and art center $11,200 Boys and Girls Club $66,000 Greater buiji $20,000 that should be 45 I do have a question
for uh attorney Hansen uh David uh I am a board member of Greater buiji and I'm just wondering if when it comes time to vote that was that was my it was my offering but I don't know if when it comes time to vote if I have
to abstain because of that I just wanted to get a clarification I believe you're a member of Greater bmigi due to your presence on the County board right is or are you a member of Greater bidi from a different
avenue um it's a little more complicated than that um there's not the greater buiji board is an invite board now because the typically they invite a county commissioner but they
don't have to but in my case when commissioner lukach um was done serving as County Commissioner uh Creator buiji reached out to me and said we'd like to have you on the board so I accept that I am on the board so I just need to make sure
that I don't do anything that's not right you're you're serving on that board in capacity as accounting commissioner yes if if if that the answer to that question is yes probably yes yeah I would say yes yes yeah then then there's no conflict of interest um
if if because I know you're involved in a private business as well if you're serving on that board as John Carlson um part of a private business entity you know then yeah then there would be a potential conflict Within interest and you would you know choose to recuse yourself if you want to the choice to
recuse yourself is yours I can only give you advice yeah okay I just want I just wanted to make sure I didn't violate any so you're saying it's probably okay to vote for I think thank you very much thank you is everybody comfortable with that yeah absolutely all right go ahead
okay um belamy County egg Association 10,000 belamy County Historical Society 2000 uh skip down to Boys and Girls Club 6500 friends of bigi State Park
5,000 greater buiji 20,000 Watermark art center 1500 that's it thank you and commissioner Winger um B try County egg I'd say
20 um 2,000 on the Historical Society um boys and girls club 6,000 um go
,00 on the black duck Art Center greater bedi I'd go 20 I think that's more than you have left there was it y yep you got take over that take 4200 off of there so 158
15 158 I think isn't it okay there we go okay so I think I'll do let's try 30,000 on the the egg Association
[Music] and um the black duck area history and art we do a thousand and greater bidi will do 14 14,000 I think that's
it Mr chair yes I just want to say how I think this is a really good process I know there'd be some County boards throughout the state that would be here for six hours doing this kind of thing if we didn't have uh Mr Barry and Dian and uh uh guiding the ship here a little
bit with the Excel spreadsheet so this is a very fair way to do it and uh you know um and it allows us to massage things to to you know hopefully get a decent amount of money for those things that either are
affecting our district but I went through and I looked at some of these and and I'm not um putting some of the money down on some of the things based on the requirements that are listed in in this so there are certain things in here where you know it says that it shouldn't be the sole source of funding
where it shouldn't go towards Personnel unfortunately a lot of the stuff in Greater B midi actually talked about Personnel costs which aren't really applicable and we're not supposed to do it for wages or anything so um that's you know one of the reasons why I made the decisions that I made based on the
requirements that we're supposed to be going by it so is there anybody wanted to make any changes on anything that they of their numbers not they see where the numbers are all at from everybody no I'm good everybody good yeah and look for a motion to approve the numbers as presented
here move to approve motion by commissioner G I'll second that second by commissioner Carlson any further discussion all in favor say I I I any opposed motion is carried for to nothing
or so we have that now we'll move on to the administrator's report administrator Barry thank you Mr chair I'll try to make this brief since we're running a little bit late later than normal I should say uh just want to let you know I'm preparing for b day of the capital of course that occurs tomorrow it'll uh
be all day event probably 16 17 hours or something like that uh I'll be carrying the messages uh to the legislature in regard to our legislative platform uh concerns around the governor's budget and impacts to our operations uh also concerns around abbreviated facility Investments particularly around jail and
landfill that we've had to Sunset early due to regulatory changes and then of course the impact on unfunded mandates to our operation and I had mentioned that before I had uh undertaken an exercise with the staff to essentially
look back around three years or so in a not completely exhaustive but pretty thorough manner at the unfunded mandates uh regulatory uh adjustments rules interpretations and Rule changes
underfunding uh and formula adjustments that have occurred and impacted the county over the last three years or so so I put this onepage flyer uh that I'm intending to distribute to uh legislators as I meet with them to talk about and help them visualize what the
actual impact is to our operation so I just want to run through this with you uh the upper left graph or pie chart uh talks about one-time costs um associated with recent unfunded State mandates uh including all of those categories I had just mentioned and of course the new
JL is probably the biggest one uh $80 million that uh we've had to come up with uh through a 5/8 uh local option sales tax uh what's next on the horizon is 9.1 million plus or minus for the landfill that we are going to lose 10
years of life on because of the regulatory changes uh the jail we've lost about 15 to 20 years of Life on um other imp on a one-time basis include impacts to Health and Human Services human resources and the sheriff's office
um so in total you know we're we're approaching almost $90 million of one-time impacts over a very short period of time if you add that to the ongoing annual costs uh for recent and impending unfunded State mandates the
number gets much larger of course uh you can see Health and Human Services impacts um about 1.8 million almost 300 ,000 for human resources environmental resources uh or Services rather is about 180,000 and then 1 million for the
sheriff um the graph on the lower right talks about uh or shows the different types of mandates that are impacting our operation and you can see that uh by more than double or about double the amount of of impact is coming largely
from new mandates at least over this last two and a half to three year look back um they're about eight that are coming from reductions uh and are and or were underfunded and about six of them that are regulatory changes and then rule making and formula changes are about one
in each of those categories as well so uh these impacts from the past couple years alone essentially require the county to raise more than $92 million which requires property tax increases of approximately 15% and a new local option sales tax of 5/8 of a
percent so uh we just want to make it very clear that the decisions that occur down at the State House have very real impacts on our operation on our property taxes and other taxing uh that has to happen in order for us to carry uh the
flag that the that the State House essentially raises for us so uh just wanted kind of a quick simple way of communicating this uh that was easy to digest and very graphic I hope that uh meets the needs but if you have any
suggestions on this uh be willing to take those uh suggestions and make modifications time permitting uh moving on I just wanted to mention uh we did receive bad news uh or sad news I should say about the shade store closing in black duck which has been a big um
manufacturing and Retail facility that has served our community uh in Black Duck and certainly the county well for many many many years uh employing over 300 people at one point in time in its Heyday uh now 115 folks are being let go
uh so I've been working with other local area leaders uh in an attempt to try to reach out and see if we can't uh help those employees transition into new careers or new jobs or whatnot so we've been talking about maybe hosting a job fair up there and uh if we can recruit
some good folks that can fill our hard to fill positions or open positions that have been around for a while uh we're intending to do that so uh we don't have anything scheduled yet I'm trying to reach out and work with shade store Representatives as well as others um but that's something that we might plan for
uh here over the next a couple of weeks or so um and I'll give you more information about that uh as it presents itself uh just quickly the county newsletter should be distributed here pretty quick uh so you'll be able to see that uh I hesitated whether I should
share what you should expect to see but I think you'll be delighted we have a new look for the newsletter uh thanks to our principal Editor in Chief over here to my right so uh I do think it's actually a a pretty good Improvement uh easier to read
bigger font which I've been advocating for a long time uh in any event uh I think folks will enjoy the the newsletter lastly on the jail project uh of course we're nearing completion with the state permit review process uh the city uh excuse me the city development
agreement was approved this evening so of course that advances that so the last remaining thing that we have really is uh hiccup on the fire um the the Fire review essentially uh a specification that we have used uh or I
shouldn't say we but the Architects have used for 20 years regarding skylights uh is now all of a sudden for belamy County no longer um allowed we're the first organization that is seeing this change uh we've tried to take it and fight the
change all the way up the ladder and it's uh been fruitless it's been about a 3 to four week Endeavor on our part uh but essentially uh they're not convinced that the acrylic uh D skylights that we're going to put in can be broke by the fire department uh despite the fact
that the fire department for the city of beiji was more than willing to write letters to say we do it all the time and we're capable of doing it we have the equipment that was not acceptable so we're having to use a glazed glass uh skylights sealed um and that's going to add considerable cost we do not have a
cost estimate yet um but essentially we we feel like we're out of options on this so that's really the last remaining item and once again a regulatory change or interpretation in this case has once again added additional costs to our
operation and of course taxpayers are the ones that uh put the bill for that so it's unfortunate and again another reminder of how frustrating this can be and how costly it can be as well um anyway that's all I have for you but I'll stand for any questions you might
have anybody have any questions commissioner Winger okay on the on the black deck deal do you know is it sounds like they're offering some sever packages once this is closed if somebody's hired between now and then because they made it clear they're letting these people go are they
still going to get that I don't know the details of the severance package I'm sorry to say uh we haven't been close to the communications or the agreements around this I can actually address some of that Mr bar I actually spoke with the senior senior VP of operations with the
shade store and um he their Council sent me a letter and told me you know kind of what the what the scoop was with the severance and and uh I actually asked him that specific question you know thinking if we hired some people away are they going to lose out on their because supposed to get a minimum of
eight weeks of severance pay as well as six months of health insurance and um he said they do have contracts that they do need to continue fulfilling through the end of April um these employees are are most ly expected to work through the end of April so depending upon what the role
was and and the it it sounded like it they would try to work with them on that but um they didn't didn't have a a definite answer for me with regard to the severance and health insurance um if they were to you know actively get a new
job prior to being let go so um it sound like they were they're going to try to work with the with the employees up there and their staff as much as possible to help them get re-educated they've got the the rapid rapid response uh Team from deed that is planning on
coming up and and helping all of their staff and um it sounded you know like this was a very tough decision for them to make but you know it was just uh you know something that they had to do apparently so I think that they will try
to work with the staff if they do find other employment but didn't give many specifics on whether they would you know be able to retain any of those additional benefits so yep anybody else have any questions for administrator Barry's
report okay you want to commissioner wer you want to go ahead with any legislative lobbying or commissioner reports of any meetings that you've attended uh yeah I did attended a couple of committee meetings uh one was on the
household hazardous waste over in Bagley um I was pretty impressed by what I was hearing Randy really does a good job running that um things look pretty decent they're looking for an intern for summer work so if anybody knows of anybody that might be interested in
helping over there to send them that way um went to the prime West Health board meeting in Alexandria uh there's some issues there that need to be addressed to help keep cost down uh so that we don't have to
see a rise in Insurance costs again uh but I think we're on the right track to making that happen so that's all I got okay thank you commissioner ringer commissioner G yeah um there was a black history a month event at BSU last week
that I attended um a former Community member uh Dr Gabriel Warren Warren was in town uh giving uh some Remar remarks uh former professor at BSU and and former School Board member uh midi schools and it was well attended uh he
had a good message and uh appreciated being there um um myself I noticed a couple other Commissioners there too A Child Care event yesterday uh it was a an awareness event um regarding the um Child Care uh
shortage of slots that we have in our community especially with those uh infants to twoyear olds um a lot of uh folks in the daycare industry in our community gave uh really good remarks and uh there was some good uh dialogue
questions on back and forth so um I I'm glad to have received an invite to there and and happy to uh help out folks on that front as we move forward um Hope House is meeting later this week uh they had a mental health day at the capital recently so looking
forward to seeing how that went um you know we have a Housing Trust Fund um important meeting coming up on March 10th to review those six developer applications and then uh I've had a few constituent meetings uh recently too so
that's about it great thank you commissioner G commissioner Carlson uh thank you Mr chair uh we have had the bumi Regional Airport Authority meeting monthly meeting um not a lot going on there um just kind of some normal stuff uh I did
attend uh via Zoom a men. Advanced Air Mobility webinar uh those are always interesting um I did visit I finally got a chance to visit nebish Township um and the great Folks up there they had a question for Bruce about why they didn't
get a grater and why they have a plow instead of a grater for their snow but uh we're working through that so we're uh good Folks up there so uh uh we've had a I had a greater buiji meeting um I attended the MRC meeting down that was in conjunction with the AMC legislative
conference um and uh and then while I was there then the next day I spent the entire day with Eric Simonson our lobbyist visited uh with Eric we visited I think six legislators uh and then without Eric I did about another four or five on my own
and went to dinner with a couple of them basically what we were trying to do is get support for house file 1231 which is the bill that would just make the folks at um the PCA stop rule making because
they're just it's that this is the one that's really causing us the heartburn on the cndd landfills and so it's just basically a cease and desist on the rul making um and there seemed to be a lot of Buzz about wanting to do that um and so they're reaching out and trying to get some bipartisan support for that um
but that was that was part of the main push that we had for that day um uh as commissioner Gould said we had the day without Child Care um I want to make sure that my take away from that was I I had no idea that we had open slots for
daycare that the that the slots that they need are for as commissioner G said are for the infants and up to two years old and so that was enlightening um and that really um it sounded like the the
inhome providers weren't having a problem with funding as much as they are with rule making again rule making always goes back to Ru making right administrator Barry and uh and so they
they they need some help with regard to Staffing for numbers of children I understand safety is a concern for sure um but there there did seem to be a couple different messages that I heard going on at that meeting um and and I want I I would be remiss if I didn't do
a shout out to Michelle Vorhees uh her name kept coming up uh in talking with the uh inh home providers about what a wonderful job she does for the county and I want to make sure I give a shout out to Michelle for that um and then tomorrow I get shat
about thank you commissioner Carlson you already mentioned a little bit about our Airport Authority meeting um I've had an hrdc meeting and we're doing a a reorganization of the executive board due to what I had mentioned earlier about the basically
the entire executive board being gone uh from either retirements or um hiring as the executive director or just losing their elections so that'll be happening at our next meeting and um at a Planning Commission meeting we are going to have
um a separate special meeting on March 10th to review the draft Shoreland ordinance um Brent roode's going to get that back on the front burner so we can address the the Shoreland ordinance that has been fitting out there for five six
years um and let's see went to the the day without daycare with the Commissioners Gould and Carlson and and was also very surprised to hear about the the fact that we've had this the seats available but just not for the youngsters the under two-year-old and
that they're not asking for the world they're basically asking for like one additional seat for especially for the inhome daycare is to have one additional allowed under 2-year-old and then uh adjust the the age range for school age um slightly to to I think to put it back
the way it used to be um I think they had changed it and now it got changed back or something um just uh some simple changes I think could make a huge difference in our in our child care around here so um it was very enlightening and and great to see the the other Commissioners um attend that
as well um the Shad store thing very very tough deal but uh we're going to do what we can as a county and and uh as a community to hopefully help those all those displaced workers get to get other employment and hopefully keep them
in our community I know the tough part will be um you know the black deck Community is probably going to have a tough time um because of you know those people are going to have to a lot of them are going to have to find jobs outside of the black deck Community which is going to be a tough tough deal
for them so that's all I have um commissioner Carlson mentioned that he's got uh got chat about tomorrow and uh I think I've got next couple of of man management team meetings and and I got the the uh chat about after after you
the next time so I'll be attending via Zoom next meeting Mion Carlson will be attending via Zoom next meeting so we'll we'll make sure we get accommodation and you've already got that under control as far as where you'll be attending from so we can get that listed and yep
great very wants to join me you're [Laughter] welcome no not okay all right well if anybody has anything else uh we can have a motion to adjourn if you
want commissioner Carlson second by commissioner G all in favor of adjourning say I I we are adjourned than not