--------- 3:00 we'll call the county board meeting to to order. First item on the agenda is the introduction of new employees. Do we have any new employees today? No, don't see any. So we'll move on to the identify future work meeting topics
Carlson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh couple items. Number one, I think we all get in the mail the bulletin from MCIT on a regular some kind of a periodic basis. And they
talked about new open meeting laws. And I thought it might be good for us at a at an upcoming work session to talk about what are the new open meeting laws that were changed or I mean maybe refresh us on the things that didn't change.
um think that' probably be worthwhile doing that. The other item um could be very controversial. Um I was at uh I had a beer that's the Bel Tramy County Lakes and River Association yesterday and there was a
considerable amount of discussion there regarding the wake surf boats and the damages that they're causing to lakes. Um the reason I say that that could be controversial is someone goes out and spends a hundred to
$150,000 on a boat and expects to use it, right? Um and um so there's um I'm guessing and I'm just I'm just putting this out there for you to start thinking about. At some point we may be
asked by the Belrammy County Lakes and Rivers Association to talk about it because what they're saying is that the only way to get anything done usually is through the uh commissioners uh whatever countyy's involved and I
wasn't sure about that. So, I'm just I'm giving you kind of a heads up about that. Just it may be it may be coming. Just just just so you're aware of it. They're suggesting that we would have to initiate something because we wouldn't have any jurisdiction over the water, I believe. So,
I I think I I think just just a heads up that that that request could come. So, just and maybe it won't. I don't know. But I just wanted to give you a heads up because of that meeting I had yesterday. But the open meeting law I think is something we should do for sure.
Yeah. Any other uh Bel Tramy H was interested in coming in doing an update presentation. They mentioned that at our last meeting so thought I'd bring it up. And then the only other thing is uh
Medicaid cuts impact uh since the passage of the big bad bill out of DC. Um I think it'd be helpful to have both Sanford and someone from HHS kind of uh explain what's
going to be happening. I mean, we already know um rural hospitals are going to be facing a tough time because of this uh new legislation. So, um, we're going to have to be dealing with it from a budget standpoint at the county.
Mr. Chair, I guess in regards to, uh, Medicaid and SNAP, I did forward the um, um, a virtual listen and learn to Tom about, uh, about that uh, from AMC that
taking place tomorrow. the dependent commissioners or or staff might be curious to to learn about the is it from AMC or is it the there's something available tomorrow. All right. Thank you.
I'll forward that to the commissioners too. Tim, anybody else? Bon the MCIT report to members. got something delivered to us here and gentleman here from MC.
Yeah, Mr. Chair, board, thank you for having me. My name is Richard Mihi. I'm a riskmanagement consultant with MCIT, Minnesota County's Intergovernmental Trust. Um, by way of introduction or reminder, I would take a little time today. It's not my intention to read verbatim the information in front of
you. I'll try to highlight and touch on some things and allow some time for questions. Um, and I'd be remiss if I didn't note the significant weather event that uh we're still in the wake of. Um, I don't have specific claim information, but if it's generally speaking, um, some questions or
concerns, I I'll try to take those or at least uh get them and get back to you. So, again, my uh it's uh love this part of the world. Uh, difficult to see it in the current state. So, you know, again, hope everything gets buttoned up as quickly as possible and we want to be part of that as much as we certainly can. So um what I wanted to do is again
uh by refresher or introduction talk about what MCIT is and probably what MCIT isn't. So um we are a risk pool. We are your insurance entity but we are not your insurance company. We are not a company. Uh we do not have a profit
motive. We don't have a growth motive. We ensure 81 of the 87 counties. That's the correct number for us by way of size. Uh we're nearing about 500 members with the other soil and water conservation districts, historical societies, a societies and the like. Uh
once we hit 500, there will not be any confetti or celebrating. Again, we provide the coverage for those who need it if they qualify and and are a good fit for our members, our membership. Um we're led by a board of your peers, uh county administrators, commissioners, uh
auditor treasures. So, we're intimately aware of the struggles and the and the challenges that you face and we try to tailor our coverage um to do so. So, um our ask of you is engagement. Uh it's it's more fun to talk about perspective issues and things and projects versus uh putting Humpty Dumpty back together
again on the back end. So, again, your engagement on the front end of things you're looking at and doing. Um that's what we we'd really like to do. So, um with that, um congratulations. You've been in the pool for 40 years. Uh we started in 1979. Belrammy got in uh in
1985. So um again we look forward to uh thank you for that partnership and we look forward to many more years. So I will get into the stats and graphs now. I'm going to look at um the first u are there folks tuned in online. Am I narrating appropriately? Are they seeing as well? Okay. So I'm going to look at
program changes moderate reinsurance costs. So uh the way this operates is very simple. We are a risk pool. We take a contribution from our membership. We take that money. We use it to pay claims. We invest it. And at the end of the coverage term, we'd like to provide
return a dividend if it's financially prudent to do so. What we need to do as a risk pool, we being MCIT, is we need to purchase reinsurance for situations where we hit catastrophic levels. Um, so we have to procure that as well. Those
costs are increasing significantly just like our home, our personal homeowners and auto insurance. We're seeing significant increases with that. What we have done, the only lever that we could pull is we raised that retention rate. So if we look specifically at liability,
we went from 850 to a million, meaning us as a pool are going to take on more risk before we more dollars before we tap into reinsurance. So that was a savings that we're able to joy enjoy to our membership. Uh limited that to 1%. On the liability side, work comp, we
jumped it from uh $500,000 to a million. That equated to to $470,000 in savings there as well. Again, so it's the risk we took on to keep the membership costs as low as possible. Um, now I'll talk about total insured
values. We're up to $9.2 billion of total insured value. Um, if we look back to just 2021 and kind of appreciate the 21 to 22, 66 to 7, not saying that's insignificant, but that's a pretty tolerable step. This little gentle trend
line we've seen is now getting too much like a hockey stick. Um, and again, this is indicative of kind of the world we're living in. It's more costly to build. It's more costly to have labor build. It's more costly to rebuild. Um, again, so to ensure it, that's where those
numbers tick up. I'll speak briefly about rates uh anticipate expenses. What we're seeing um is uh this isn't an effort we highlight this because we want to collect as a contribution what we need. We don't want to take a significant
contribution in pay claims and then return a hefty dividend. That's that's hedging too much. What we'd like to do is give you the smallest dividend possible because that meant we didn't take too much on the front end. So again, that's just a philosophical um approach that we're taking. I know
historically there had been some hefty dividends returned. Those have probably gone down in year and it's not as a punishment again it's just to kind of rightsize the contributions and the like. So um those graphs that we're sharing uh seeing with aggregate sorry to interrupt but Diane could you I
know we had that in our work packet maybe the folks online see that it's sorry I'm sorry to interrupt. No, absolutely. Think we're down to race anticipated expenses. Right by the dump trucks there as you keep going. Sorry.
No, I like calling that one out. That's a good one. Um, all right. With that, I'm going to talk about cyber for a moment here. So, this is a another challenging and interesting peril. It's difficult. Uh, the industry is struggling with this. The reinsurance industry is struggling
with this. U, but I'm I'm personally motivated by it. This is one peril that we have the ability to attack with training and technology and the like. When we have hail coming, we don't take the gymnastics mats off the floor and throw them on the roof to save some shingles. There's very little we can do
to brace for mother nature. Um when it comes to threat actors and nefarious folks out there, we can through training and services and and programs and the like u try to drive that down. So if we take a look at our numbers, risk and insurance operates on two very simple
metrics, frequency and severity. So, how often and how bad? Typically, when you see things happening more often, they tend to get worse. Uh, we are pleased with the fact that although we've seen the uncomfortable increase in frequency, the severity did drop down from 23 to
24, largely explained by the lack of a ransomware claim. Um, so again, that's human. The the physical firewalls, the technology firewalls that we put in place are great. the human firewalls are much more appreciated when we're starting to recognize this is spoofy, this is phony, this is something I
should not do. So again, uh pleased with those uh trends. All right, I'm going to flip to the back page now and talk a little bit about workers compensation. Now uh when you procure insurance through MCIT, the rate is the rate. It
costs the same for everybody. You might pay a higher contribution county to county based on let's talk about uh liability. If you employ more people, if you have bigger or more buildings, your contribution will be more, but the rate
is the same. That gets affected or changed when it comes to worker compensation because you get a score. It's a experience mod. It's a numerical rating that you get that that uh illustrates how safe you are or how safe of a working environment that you provide. A good score, a normal score is
one. Um, so Belrammy sits at 1.3. There is some room for improvement. It's a difficult number to come up with. It's a complicated formula. It's your quarterback rating. It's your golf index. It's your slugging percentage. It's your erra all rolled into one. It it it takes into account severity of injuries, how long people are out, which
classification of job code um is injured and the like. So again, this is something uh much like cyber, we can put some focus and some effort and some areas into attention here with loss control and risk management and work to to drive those numbers down. Challenging thing is it's a sticky number. It sticks
with you. It's a three-year average that you get. So if you have a great year, that's great. You hang on to it. If you have a bad year, it's it's tough because you hang on to it as well. Um I just call out some claims data from 20 to 24 just showing where claims are happening in the dollar amount. my eye
tends to go to the law enforcement liability and uh you know the average paid claim is over 40,000 for that and that's not an MCIT uh specific issue that's law enforcement in the world 247 365 uh those folks don't get nights weekends holidays off
and and and uh you know they are needed um sign significant events um constantly so not an anomaly there all right I'll wrap up my portion here with just some things I want to call out that we do offer um we're proud to help sponsor employee assistance program all all
membership employees and elected officials. So those are the obvious things. Grief counseling if there's tragedies in the workplace need to bring some people in to help with counseling from a personal standpoint for our our our workforce. Grief counseling, marriage counseling, financial counseling, those types of things are kind of the obvious ones. Um some other
things to highlight are things like um professional development. If you have somebody that's into a leadership position, maybe for the first time or struggling with it, there's some u areas that they can improve on there. We can provide some coaching or our EAP provider can provide some assistance if they have to have difficult conversations with staff for the first
time. Those types of development things are nice to call out as well. Uh lastly, I just wanted to highlight um Belrami's participation in the patrol program, police officers accredited training, online training. So that's an ability for your sheriff's folks to be able to get their required compliance training
done online. It streams I'm not going to call it lowhanging fruit, but it's the the bloodborne pathogens, the things we know that need the brushing up on. It allows them to access that training in an online manner to just speed it up and and again get it out the door and get them on the streets and and helping
serve the public as as swiftly as possible. So um happy to participate in that. All right, that's my shiny brochure. Um, I'd love to take any I'll pause there for questions and comments. Commissioner Carlson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, when you said
the 1.3 mod on our work comp, how does that relate to the other 81 or the other 80 counties? Are is are we good? I mean, I know one is best, but yeah, comparison is the thief of joy. Uh, we could be better. We could be
better. Um, this is difficult because it's what we're saying here is we have to charge you more for workers compensation because the history that you've had or the significance in that history dictates that. Um, I'm excited to come back in a couple years or or half a dozen years and talk to you about
how you're getting you're paying less than your than your peers. But my my question is yeah, how do we how do we compare with other counties? I mean, are we we're generally seeing folks start with a zero? Uh so there there again politely and candidly there's some room for improvement there. Okay.
We're we're not very good in other words. We're above average. Yeah. We're we're number one in the wrong direction again. Yeah. So but there are levers. There are mechanisms to do this. There there just
certain philosophies. So, we'd love some engagement there and and again, it's uh it's it's it's worth some attention because it's real dollars and at the end of the day, we do want to have a happy, healthy workforce, you know, we'll start there. So, um you know, folks are getting hurt on the job, it it behooves everybody to get them back and and take care of them.
Commissioner Gold. Yeah, I have a question. Um still, bottom line, what the heck is going on? because we see these rates go up year after year, even years where we
haven't had a lot of claims the previous year. Um we're the second poorest county in the state um poverty-wise, tax base. Um is there no um flexibility as far as
taking into consideration the actual budgets of the counties? No, it's paramount. And again, our our board feels it, sees it, lives it as well. Uh, and again, we want to illustrate the rate. Um, so let's be very cognizant this year when we release
uh shortly the estimates that will show what the rate increase will or won't be from 25 to 26 and and and look at that percentage and then we have to apply that to what do we actually have. you are one of the you know you you've
stressed your financial um standing throughout your in relation to your peers. This is a beautiful building that we're standing in. So uh to re to ensure this to rebuild this at at replacement not cash value at depreciation with actual cash value that's where the
numbers get staggering. Other things are if you've had added headcounts, uh added employees, um done payroll studies to adjust wages. When those go up, that's wonderful for the staff and wonderful for the community. It just makes it more expensive, frankly, to ensure. So again,
the rates are are kind of holding, but we are adding squad cars, we're adding square footage, we're adding buildings, we're remodeling buildings. Those things are what's driving the number up. It's an excellent question, and it's frustrating, but that's the reality. Well, Mr. Chair, I guess I'm still kind
of at a loss here because um you say you're not an insurance company. Um maybe that's true on paper, but you still act as one. We we do not sponsor any hockey tournament. Pay in. If there's a claim, then you
hopefully pay out. But um I'm still um grappling with the fact I'm looking at a KSTP article here from a couple years ago. Scott County, they paid a over a $12 million settlement to a man held in their jail after a bacterial infection
caused him to lose both of his arms. And the county still had to pay over $10 million for that. You guys paid $2 million to help with that. So, I guess I'm not really seeing the value here. And and I need a lot more convincing to, you know, keep us an active member here.
Uh, sure. And we welcome your your engagement there. Commissioner Summer. So, Mr. Chair, I was kind of curious uh about, you know, our membership with MCIT and and you know, you know, what is
the possibility of going out to the market and looking for something else? Um the also curious always MCIT helping us bring you know our numbers down you know because I mean
we we're always best and the worst and uh you know I guess this is no no exception. um seems like we're we're being penalized for adding squad cars, you know, trying to do the right thing for our employees, increasing benefits, wages, but it just
everything just keeps going up, you know, and and um you know, I I didn't understand, you know, our our fair share, but it just it's frustrating. It it is. And I was, you know, before the meeting, I was admiring the easel
out there talking about it looks like there's a jail program that's going to happen. It will cost more to provide insurance coverage for that, right? So that we can staff and supervise and avoid, you know, tragedies in the in the correctional facilities uh should they
have. So the the improvements cost more that and that's simply put. So what what is MCIT doing to help Bel Tramy County? We want to talk specifically on work comp like the moderate. I'm all ears.
Yeah. We would want to engage and make sure you have uh return to work policies. Uh make sure that you have near miss reporting. Uh again uh we want to know what's happening. It's nice to ride the horse looking forward. So when we know what concerns are from the uh
safety meetings and and the like uh and then acting on those instead of being reactive to claims data, that's the the world we want to live in. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yep. Anybody else? All right, we'll keep things moving. Thank you, Richard. Appreciate the presentation.
I appreciate your time. Thank you. That brings us to the Black Deck Library facility renovations. Christina, I don't know which one. Is that the one that's on? They both They both go right. Uh, good afternoon. My name is Christina Riggus. I'm the
city administrator for the city of Black Deck, Minnesota. And I've been invited uh by Commissioner Gold to address you guys and let you know what we're doing at our library. I apologize that I'm by myself. Um, our librarian, Kelly Hanks, had a dental emergency today, so I'll do
my best to represent her. Um, oh, wonderful. Thank you, Diane, for the slides. Um, so basically, me go to the next slide. Um, I'm going to give you a very short uh summary of the last five years that
the city has been trying to work on um improving its very small little local library. Oh. You're awesome. Thank you. Back in 202021, right around COVID, uh, Kagami Regional
Library System came to all of their entities and said, "We have these capital improvement funds that belong to you." Um, they created a policy to get this money back to their libraries to use for facility upgrades. Um, several
other cities in the region have used theirs for HVAC and building impair repairs. And our city decided after having a town hall that the best needs that we needed was either a a larger facility or better facilities within the
existing um location. We took a couple of years to try to find a um alternate location that was already being used vacant or not used vacant in the city. Um did some feasibility studies of a couple of locations. Our city council um
came to the conclusion on both of those that that was not feasible financially. So we proceeded to find the best way to utilize the footprint we already had in our in our actual facility. Um, in doing so, we are also tandemly trying to get a
local option sales tax passed in our city, which took three tries successfully, 2024. Woohoo. Um, and on that ballot, we had five questions for our voters. One of them was to improve our local library, and that successfully
was approved in 2024, and just started um receiving those funds just this month. Um the other caveat to the whole um funding facility was in December the
Minnesota Board of Education came out with a grant opportunity to improve local public areas for multi-purpose rooms to give people teleaalth options, um private meeting spaces, study rooms of that nature. And that was our Hail
Mary. So, we tried to get that and we were awarded $200,000 for that. So, between the Kitigami money, um our local option sales tax money and the board of uh education grant, we have a little over $350,000
to work on our library, which is great. It's going to become like a phased program. Um, we didn't really know if we were going to get the board of education grant, but we knew we had local sales tax money coming in and we knew we had the Kitigami money. So, we decided to
take a phased approach to our facility. Um, these are a couple of concepts and our existing floor plan of the library that our engineers did for us. Um this was needed in order to do several of the
funding requests. So we provided these options to our city council. Uh utilized a square footage uh plan for the existing facility and also thought of an option of adding on to the existing
facility. Ultimately, we settled on renovating the the existing floor plan to accommodate the needs of the multi-purpose room. These are some photos of the existing library. Um the photo on the right is
what you see when you first walk into the facility. That wall is um an office which is very underutilized. And then the picture on the left is um looking towards the west towards the
entry door. So what you're seeing is a lot of space that isn't really being used very well. And what's behind all the bookshelves on that corner is an existing bathroom.
The library has two restrooms, both very large. Um, and our plan is to take the existing restroom that is on the south of the um of the facility
and renovate that for a multi-purpose room. It's large enough to hold um a fairly decent size table. It can be closed off. We're going to have technology put in there so people can utilize it the way um the library system
really needs it to be. So, we have a couple of plans. Um, the first plan is to break out the wall of the office and to get rid of the reception area. Um, you can kind of see
it. It's near the bottom. Is there a laser on this one, Tom? This guy. Yeah. So, this is the office and this is the reception room right now. And when you walk into the building, you see a location where they
have some uh books and sometimes they put food shelf items there for our community, but the office itself is completely closed off and the reception area is very big. So, there's a lot of square footage that we're trying to um reimagine in the space. So, we're going
to break that off completely and then relocate the reception area over to this area by the door without having to break any walls. Then, what we plan on doing is taking this self restroom and turning that into the multi-purpose or the meeting room
and then making this a family restroom so that we can still accommodate everybody in the community. That will give us more square footage down here to have more periodicals, have a better sighteline. Sorry, I'm sorry, Christina, but I can see
that, but the rest of the board can't see or when you used the pointer, we can't see that on our screens. Um, it's hard for me to explain visually, but um my pretty much my last slide, commissioners, has an aerial with
renovation plans that I've xed out. Um those are the areas that are going to go away in the facility. We're going to break those walls out and we're going to relocate the reception area closer to the um entry door. So that will give us a better sight line from the main door
all the way into the facility as well as being able to relocate some periodicals. Does that help, Commissioner Ser? Okay. Sorry about that. Yes. Yes. So, the women's restroom will be the one that's the multi-purpose room.
Exactly. Exactly. Um then on the drawing over to the on the previous slide, your slide six, I think it is or nine, whatever. Um where it shows the uh um black duck library concept plan option A.
Yes. It is that changed from what you're talking about because it shows a conf big conference room over on the right and I don't see that on this blown up version. You're right. You're right, Commissioner Guzig. Um the city took the option A as its tipping point. They didn't see the
need to have all of the rooms, the office, the study room, and everything uh still there, especially because the way they're using using that office existingly. Um, Miss Hanks could actually comment that that office right now is the one that's
being used for the private meeting space. So, she allows the public to come in because it is an area that has no windows. It has a door. It can be locked and you can have private meetings there. Um, she did not see the need to have all
those specific rooms. Um and then the conference room on the far uh right side that you spoke of um was an idea that our engineers came up with that was needed for that meeting space.
We know that by doing that it's going to lower the footprint of periodicals we can have on the floor that we existingly have in the square footage. Um, and we're trying to do it, of course, on a budget that everybody knows. We're also
trying to do it in the existing footprint, too. Um, that concept was basically chewed apart by the council and our staff and said, "We can do better. We can do something with the existing footprint that we have now." And what we needed to do was
um basically take our biggest needs that we had in the community and try to implement them in the facility on on the budget that we had. So we have a contractor that's a great community member and uh he's doing this with some
subs um and he's given us a great deal on uh the initial phased of being able to make that multi-purpose room. And then once that's completed, we're going to do all new flooring. We're going to relamp, um, paint, and then, uh, hopefully we'll be able to add some more
bookshelves and everything else for for the public to be able to have that because they do all sorts of things. Our library is great. I mean, but it's definitely a central meeting space. And contrary to what a lot of people do, Audible is a great way to listen to a
book, but libraries are more than books. And even myself and our council has realized in the last 5 years that we need this facility in our community. It does a lot for the people and the people
that um are relocated, our kids. Um and it can't go away. So, we're going to do the best we can with what we have and we're very fortunate and grateful to have some funding coming in and we hope that it'll be completed this year. Um,
any questions? Commissioner Summer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, Christina, thanks for coming in. I do appreciate the update. Um, and I and I know and understand the importance of, uh, the library and the black community. Uh,
there are very few, you know, places, uh, public places where, uh, people can come and and have meetings and gather and things like that. Uh, so I appreciate the you and the city council's work on on bringing this forward. Um, but I do have a couple of
questions about what what is the cost? I don't know if I missed it. Uh, what the cost of the renovation is. I I seen that um there was a 100,000 coming in from the loss sales or the loss tax and a state grant of 200,000.
Is that does that cover the entire renovation? It should. Um the estimates that our engineers gave us is $275 a square foot. So we're using that on our estimates. Um we use that on our estimates with the
lost um application to the state as well as the grant. The grant itself um will also pay for FFN which um we didn't expect to be able to do. So the technology we need to put into that multi-purpose room will get paid for at
that point. Um the other caveat to that grant is because it's a reimburseable. It's a state grant. If we don't use that full 200,000, we we're not penalized for it. So we'll use what we need. I've always been in the mindset of not asking
for more than what you can what you need because it just hurts everybody. So, uh, the council's in the mindset where that will be the next thing that we'll use to finish off the rest of the building and make everything all clean and cohesive. Um, instead of just doing the first
phase that we anticipated, which would include flooring, lighting, electrical, and the remod of those three three areas. Okay. And uh my uh last question is um
you know I know that uh KRLS has a a reserve fund that may be pretty healthy. I'm just kind of curious and I don't want to put you on the spot, but you know, just wondering are they putting anything towards uh the renovations or
or are they helping uh the Black Duck Library in any way with those reserves? Because So, um Melissa Wheatley really did help um uh Kelly and I get this grant. I would say help was more in the form of
inind and her staffing. um she brought it to Kelly's attention um in the fall and I mean anybody that's ever applied for a grant knows that you got a really short window in order to apply for it and then it's a Hail Mary if you get it right. Um we found out about it the week of
Thanksgiving and we had to have it done by Christmas. So I would say yes. Um KLS is putting forth what they need in order to help us. Um, our cities always put in to their levy exactly what KRS has asked
for because they understand the value in our community for that. But the um capital improvement money that is due to us will all go towards this renovation. It's what we have left is about $53,000.
um it was a little bit higher but we used it to create a feasibility study for the library to ultimately get the other funding. All right. Thank you. And chair if I could uh go ahead answer Commissioner
Sumar's question a little bit on that um capital improvement reserve funding. Um those dollars have significantly been reduced over the last three years um for different projects all across the system. Um and additionally those dollars have been used to um what we
call do a levy buy down. So the less levy dollars that a city or a county puts in, we've been using the that reserve money to kind of help make up that difference. And I know that I shouldn't say no, but I believe that they use some of that um
capital improvement money to redo the the ramp and the front entrance outside the building. That's true as well. Yeah. Yes. Ultimately this year, in addition to all the rest of the renovations, we're also going to be replacing that entry door. We've had it realigned a
couple of times, but it gets a little drafty in there. So, we're hoping that that will that will change that. Heating costs are not cheap. Everybody knows about it. Anybody have any other questions, Commissioner Gold? Or just wanted to say thanks for coming in. Uh, you're welcome.
Looks like you're building within your means, which is I was good to see. So, well, our means are kind of small. Again, not going super. It's not a Taj Mahal, you know. Uh, it's not responding to the community's um survey. Yeah. I mean, if you're familiar with
some of the vacant properties that have been in Black Deck, one of them's already being remoded into a um wash. There's a coffee shop, an arcade, and a local chiropractor moved into it. That's the old Wells Fargo building that's been empty since 18. So, very thrilled to see
that um reused. That was one of the options that the um local library board thought we should buy, sell the existing one and move into that. But after having an inspection and a study done on that one, it just took too much in terms of
heating. Plus, it's two levels. It's way too big. It would need an elevator to be a public meeting space, and we don't have that kind of funding. And then the alternate area was the old wound drug building. um that building's even older um with its own issues. So, and we just
said the best thing we can do is let's let's try to resurrect what we have. Um I have one city council member who's very adamant about taking care of what you have so that it doesn't get destroyed and just don't let it go. So, we're trying really hard to keep the
facilities that we have running. All right. Thank you, Christina. The report. Thanks. That brings us to the base it together. I believe Chris is here. Come on up.
I'm Chris um from the Bullhead Clan. Um I live in Baiji and I'm enrolled in Red Lake. Uh and of a way I have um some uh flyers. I didn't create a presentation.
I'm a full-time student in BSU and creating powerpoints is, you know, kind of a lot. And so, is it okay? Do I bring them to you? I just hand Sure, you can just hand them out up here and Yeah. Yeah. And we used to have a
commissioner on here. We We had a PowerPoint adverse commissioner on the board at one point, too. So again, um my name is Chris Earl. I'm the executive director of Face It Together Bumiji. Um we are a recovery
community organization located in downtown Baiji. Um we received that accreditation to become a recovery community organization in 2020. Um we are the only one with between Canada to Brainard to Duth all
the way to Fargo. And so our range is pretty great. Um the need for peer recovery services is is high. Um and what peer recovery services look like would be um an individual can come
in through uh the doors or they could call ahead of time, schedule an appointment. One of the main founding things um from our one of our original board members named Warren Larson uh he told me he wanted Face It Together to
always remain free to the public. And what that mean what that means is that anybody at any time can come in receive services as long I mean within business operating hours I'm sorry but uh they can come in and receive services and get
help um traversing whatever uh challenges they may be. Um part of your training to become a peer recovery specialist is meet people where they're at. And I know a lot of people use that word, but do a lot of people know
exactly what that word means. And what that means is if somebody's coming to you and they're saying, "I need help." You the help isn't conditional on what I think you should do or what I want you to do or what I think you should do. The
help is what you want your life to be. What you want your life to look like. That's what I'm here to help you do. So, if you want to cut back from your use to, you know, um, from five days a week to just on the weekends, let's do it.
I'm here. I got your back. And the conversation will always be, hey, let's try and work towards, you know, this goal. But I'll always kind of throw in, hey, maybe abstinence. Maybe we'll maybe we'll go all the way from, you know,
non-use. We can look at what this substance could be doing to your body over the long term. We can look at studies. We can do other things, but the initial meeting is, you know, whatever you want it to be, that's that's what we're going to do. And so if if that
means you want me to come to court and, you know, help say a few words on your behalf, um, I've written notes to different judges, different probation officers. Um I do
um a lot of transportation. Uh we end up doing that on our own out of our own pockets to get individuals into treatments to get individuals to groups um just because there is not there's not funding for, you know, to purchase a
vehicle. That's just something that is uh really hard to do with a small nonprofit, you know. Um I'm no by no means a tax expert or anything, but you know, you get into capital gains and that kind of stuff and I'm just like, "Yep, no. Uh we'll uh we get something
donated or we could use for a little bit that that would be really cool." But um and so uh continuing on with what what a meeting would look like after we've kind of sat down and had a conversation. Um we are working to become a billable
service. Um peer recovery support is billable through Medicare or Medicaid. Um it's just you got to have some things, you know, some things in order. We have those applications in. We have those things going. Um it's just,
you know, there was a couple people or a couple organizations who build not Great. And it ended up changing the whole legislation. So now we're kind we're not at square one, but we're definitely set back to the point where
now I have to file a new um application with Marco. Uh which is a good thing because that means that there's invest, you know, they're looking into what what these claims are when people are saying that they're providing peer recovery services instead of just signing off and saying, "Yep, you got pure recovery
services." We are per we are um we are also um doing forensic peer recovery and what that is is um in the jails. Uh so an individual can get a forensic endorsement on their peer
recovery uh certification if they go through another um 80 hours of training. A lot of times that's supposed to be with lived experience, right? So, an individual who has been incarcerated for um good amount of time is usually a
pretty high candidate for that. I have my forensic endorsement, but I've never spent a long time in inside of uh jails or or prison. And so, do I do I make the best uh forensic peer recovery specialist? Probably not. But, you know,
at the base, it's about relating to that feeling and what um they're going through. Uh we have currently our forensic pure recovery specialist who does have that lived experience going to the jail twice a week providing free
pure recovery services at our jail just across the road to individuals who Amanda Sasho identifies that could potentially um benefit from working with those individuals. Those individuals then get out of jail and then come and
see us down at Face It Together and we work on trying to break recidivism. Um the second or third portion of what an RCO does is uh advocacy and education and that's what I'm doing at this point in
time right now. Um you know it's odd. I spoke at the capital and I wasn't as nervous as I am right now which is really weird. I don't know why. like it's it's um it's really weird, but um you know, I'm
I'm passionate about this. Um I love this community. I I do everything that I can to um try to make sure that nobody's left behind. We bring everybody with us. Um, and you know, and that that that
goes for everybody, housed, unhoused, um, native, white, what, whatever you want to name or categorize a group, that's it doesn't matter to me. Addiction doesn't see any of that stuff.
Um, and finally, we are a harm reduction um, based facility. That is our core principle. That is what we do. That is what we believe in. I have been told that that word is not liked. I'm not
going to avoid using that word. The word harm reduction is so simple. Harm reduction is when you get in your car and you put on a seat belt so you don't go flying through the window and you crash into somebody, right? same exact
exact concept except for we're preventing um diseases, disease spread, we're preventing deaths, we're preventing overdose, we're preventing um you know those numbers being inflated in our county. I know there's a big um
celebration or or I don't want to say celebration is probably the wrong word, but there's a lot of people that are happy and excited and they're reading, you know, overdose rates are down in Belrammy County and you know that's such a great thing and that you know that was
a lot of work. a lot of people that didn't agree with Nlloxxone, didn't want Nlloxxone, didn't want it around, said it was enabling, said it was just letting people do whatever they want to do. The only thing the lock zone enables people to do is breathe and continue
living. And so, how can somebody find recovery? How can somebody become a meaningful and contributor to our community if they're not alive? And so, um, those are kind of the four
basic things that we do at Face It Together. Um, they may seem small in the in the grand scheme of things, but the way that we're going, um, we're snowballing, we're getting bigger, we're I'm getting smarter, I'm getting better
at being a director every single day. And um you know, I'm I'm really appreciate you bringing me in and letting me kind of inform you guys a little bit about what our organization is and what we do. Um and feel free
anytime you would like to stop by and and see the facility. And um I'll give you guys some time to ask any questions if if you're good. Thanks, Chris. I I just have one question. Is is the face it together is that just in our area or is that part of
a national or a statewide program that you just you know started up here as a like a branch so to speak? Um so what what it initially started as was part of the national um organization. So there is a national organization. Okay.
Yeah. Um but what we did was we purchased our naming rights and became our own standalone 501c3. Okay. And so we're while it's face it together, our name is technically face it together bumiji. Okay. So yep, we are all in stand alone. Commissioner Winger,
I won this uh nlloxxone. Is that similar or how is it different from uh Suboxone or methadone? Um, nlloxxone reverses the effects of uh, opioid overdoses where um, suboxone or methadone is used as a
treatment um, for individuals who are coming um, off of those uh, opioids or different uh, drugs and they're us it's you know um, administrator administered by a nurse and
so it's similar to like Narcan or something. Yeah, it is Narcan. I'm sorry. It's the same thing. It's just in the lock zone the where technical name for it. Yeah, that's what that because we're in the lock zone access point through Steve Rumler. So, great. Commissioner Carlson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh Chris is is there any statistics about folks that have almost died and then we you were able to um save them with the use of the Nlloxxone or Narcan that that was maybe a tipping point where they go maybe I
ought to think about not doing the drugs anymore. Is there any statistics about that that maybe that near-death experience was enough to shake them up a little bit? Um, I don't know if that's if I I don't know if I asked that right, but I I I wouldn't say that there's
necessarily a a statistic. um but conversations I've had with individuals who have um overdosed um usually end in like let's go to treatment and
let's try and get some some help because you know we the last thing we want is um you know people dying in the streets. So that's but um as far as like a statistic or or um how many reversals we've we've administered and stuff, we uh we don't
track that because we've not we don't necessarily um administer it. Um we inform individuals how to use it and then you know let them uh take over. And um we've been able to uh secure more um
nasal nlloxxone and that's been or narcan. That's been kind of the the main go-to for for individuals as of late. Um I personally um part of what we're doing uh is partnering with the recovery space a um
and we're trying to open uh a project called the drop in center which will be more of our harm reduction based services. It won't be necessarily come through the door. It'll be um kind of you know through the back. It'll be its own separate space. So that way people
can potentially um not get triggered from seeing those items. Um and with that um I go around um every other Saturday if you've noticed and you see the little red boxes in different
areas around um downtown here. Uh we place those in hot spots where we've been informed that there has been needles that have been seen, different things, and we go and check them. We bring them in. We work with public health. Amy's been absolutely wonderful on taking our used syringes and
disposing them of of them for us. Um, and uh, I have picture I don't have a way to show you it, but I have I have pictures of um, opened nasal nlloxxones used and if it was an EMS individual
that administered it, it wouldn't just be left laying on the ground. And so I mean that's two that I've seen with my own eyes when I'm going and collecting um needles off of the ground. Um we respond to Facebook messages. Uh we
respond to parks and wreck when they call us and they inform us that they've seen something somewhere. We go and do that. Um that's not paid. That's that's just us going out to try and help and mitigate the risks completely. And so I
understand that while we, you know, um, provide clean supplies, we also have to be responsible for where they go. And so that's why we, I take it upon myself and my staff to um, make sure that we
respond to that accordingly and fast to make sure that nobody um, gets harmed at all in that. Anybody else have any last minute questions for Chris? Right. Well, really appreciate all the great work that you're doing, you and your team, Chris,
and thank you for for the the brochure. It's very informative and and try to see if I can make a point of stopping by and and uh seeing where you're at and checking out. So, thank you for coming in and Yeah. Thank you. informing us. Thank you.
All right, that brings us to the child care assistance program. Is that Kurt? Yeah. tilt these up just a little bit and apologize. I'm at the age where I have to have my readers and I'm not going to get bif focals. So, um with that, uh
good afternoon, Mr. Chair, commissioners. Um, as the director of uh, economic assistance here within the county's Health and Human Service Department, I really appreciate the opportunity to provide you and those of our county residents who are watching or will watch the YouTube video an update
on our draft child care assistance fund plan for the 2026 2027 year that currently is posted to our county website. um which if you open up our county website and you click the services button and go down to public
assistance, uh the actual draft plan is one of the first things that you see on the top of our county website thanks to the assistance of Diane of getting it to where it needed to be. So um with this um child care assistance program is like
any other state public assistance program in that it's supervised by the state but where the rubber meets the road is here on the ground at the county. So with that um as a county we are required to submit a bianual plan um
to the department of children youth and families which is the new uh state uh agency that is now controlling child care assistance. Um, and this then allows us to kind of provide our own
county, um, based on our county needs, uh, policies and procedures that the commissioner then uses in case we have to have appeals based on determinations that we make on the child care assistance program here. Um once this
plan is approved by the department of children, youth and families, this fund plan and attachments are will be posted to our website underneath our child care. Um so that our residents can have points of contact if they have questions is really kind of the big thing. it it
helps provide as well as uh just some basic definitions of the different types of child care assistance u programs uh pieces that that they can fall under. Um
the big difference this year um from the plan that was submitted two years ago um really has to do with changes in the statute in the creation of the department of children and families. Um,
with that creation, it basically changed the statute, which used to be 119B09, which childc care assistance used to be under to 142E uh with the statute. So, I've encompassed that uh within this policy change. The other thing that has
changed is uh previously each county had to register its own child care providers. Um, and so there could be some issues. Um for for instance um Red Lake Nation Oshki Majitata registered
their own providers. If they weren't registered with us then we couldn't provide payment with childcare assistance. Now the state is centralizing that registration of all child care assistance uh centers non uh
legal non-licensed providers that want to be part of the childare assistance program. So that then opens up more individuals without maybe some of the complications that we've had. um really not really complications just but just
some of the things that have required some maybe extra coordination between ourselves and our partners at Oki Majitata with our Bel Tramy County residents. So that's a that's a good thing. So all of that provider registration piece is taken out. Uh that
stated, we still have a responsibility and our social services team does a great job of licensing uh child care providers here within the county. Um the the other thing that I want to take this opportunity to really plug the
child care assistance program is that it is one of the few programs uh that we have that helps families who are either working, looking for a job, going to school or participating in activities
with our employment services unit with an employment plan. help them pay for quality child care, understanding that the costs of child care are relatively high and really eats into that income and allows them then to utilize what
they're making potentially with that job to help better their family. So with that, um I thank you for the opportunity to inform you um about this uh program, this fund plan that the period for open
comment on it is from now until the 16th or the 15th of August. And I will also be sending this out to um our partners at CRC um so that they can get it out to the inter agency uh to their inter agency group as well. um and then
distribute it to some of our local providers. Pending your questions, commissioners. Commissioner Gold. Thank you, Chair and Kurt. Um just two quick questions. Is there still funding for um full-time college students that
have children? Are they still able to receive a scholarship or um extra assistance, I guess, through CCAP? I seem to recall something. CCAP can be received if you are going through an education plan and an educ an education
u is is one of those programs that uh we can you can be given credit uh and you can apply if you meet the income limits and receive. Okay. Thank you. And then I also understand that for any families experiencing homelessness, they can
still apply for CCAP assistance, but they have a certain number of days to find and do you know how many days that is? Yes, Commissioner. Um they can apply they're immediately well they they are expedited with their approval process
and they're given 90 days in order to provide the verifications that are needed um with that to to help those individuals. Commissioner, thank you. Anybody else? Commissioner Sum. Uh, Mr. Chair. So, I guess I I need a little clarification. I think it was a couple
of weeks ago I I asked for child care be put on the agenda. This isn't it, is it? I don't know. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Probably not. This is because I forgot those uh those questions in my luggage. And yeah, well, they should be get getting
here pretty soon. Thank you. And Kurt, I was just wondering, you know, the facilities that are registered and to receive their funding through this program that you're talking about, do they get it directly from that or is it funneled through the county or? So, the way the system is currently set
up, there's both a paper um reimbursement forms that the providers are are um able to fill out. There are also the um we have a online system basically. I I'll call it MEC Pro that they can uh actually put the hours
that they are watching the children on. It goes to our county um within our finance department. We have one of our great workers, Mary Beck, who goes through um all of those and then uh submits the payments out. So we're
administratively the county has to receive those requests for reimbursement and then we have to then approve the payments to go out. So we we're kind of a pass through for that with 100% funded but we do end up
doing the administrative piece of it. the the only um the only part of child care assistance as far as a program and I and I have the numbers written down here. Um the allocation for basic sliding fee families which are not our
MIP families but uh these are individuals who are not on public assistance but still uh can can qualify. um we receive like uh here in 2025 our county's allocation of dollars for that is over $632,000
that we receive to be able to um cover those costs. Uh the county does have a share that we have to pay in order to have that allocation which is 46,000 about $46,000 a year. Our allocation amount has res
remained consistent. we got a slight $4,000 boost to our overall allocation from 2024. So, this is one of the few programs where I've seen an actual boost in reimbursement or potential reimbursement dollars uh from the state.
Great. Well, I think Oh, did you have something, Mr. Carlson? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um Kurt, some of the programs that admin that are administered by Health and Human Services are we get reimbursed or we get to charge the state for office space,
that sort of thing. Is is there is there any monies that come to Bel Tramy County for the administering of the program or is that just all on our on our dime? There there is some small reimbursement state and federal for administration of child care. Um, but then when you weigh
it, excuse me, against what our county share is, they kind of offset each other. So the 46,000 comes in and goes out. Yes. Okay. All right. Great. Well, thank you, Kurt. Appreciate the presentation. Thank you. And that brings us to the 2025
legislative overview. I think I've been trying to I'm trying. Thank you. Appreciate Appreciate the assist there, Tim. Oh, there we go. Uh, thank you, uh, Mr. Chair and commissioners for having me.
My name is Darren Lee with Flarity and Hood. Uh, normally it would be my colleague Eric Simson up here delivering this recap. Uh, I'm sure as he did last year, but he's since moved on to a new role and so I've been assigned to fill in for him today. um looking forward to
working with you. Uh I've been with Flidian Hood for two and a half years and prior to that I was with the state senate for 11 years. I recognize a couple of familiar senate faces here. So good to see you again. Um uh my contact
information is on there if you ever need to get a hold of me. Um if we can go to the we can go to the next slide. Just a little background on Flity and Hood. Uh oh, I've got the clicker. There we go. Um,
so little background on us. We're uh very experienced in representing local governments, a lot of cities, counties, uh, such as yourself. Um, couple of past outcomes, uh, for Bel Tramy County, uh, the local sales tax authorization 2023
for, uh, the county jail. uh and then an exemption on construction materials sales taxes and then waiver for outstanding debt cost of care uh at ANOA. So recapping the 2025 legislative
session. Um it's hard to really describe on a slide how bizarre it was at the legislature as I'm sure you heard. Um but uh because of sort of some idiosyncrasies with the way eligible candidates uh that there was an
ineligible candidate on the Democrat side. So there was a temporary situation there for the first month where Republicans were claiming they had the majority. They were meeting by themselves. Uh eventually it got back to a split 6767 in the House and so
everything was a four-way negotiation. There was co-chairs on each side which had not happened since 1979. So it was it was fascinating to say the least. There was court cases. Um so Lisa Damoth
became speaker. Uh and then everything was a four-way negotiation and there was a one seat majority for the DFL in the Senate. So, the tasks for the session, uh, pass a two-year budget, which they have to do in every oddnumbered year, and then pass
a bonding bill, which it's not typically a bonding year, but there wasn't a bill last year. And so, uh, they were hoping and we were hoping that uh, we would pass one. Uh, and I'll talk more a little a little bit more about that. Um,
here's your budget outlook. So, 400. So there actually still was a small surplus in the first bianium. Um but looking out in the second bianium is really where you see that structural imbalance uh totaling up to about 6
billion. And so that really kind of set the tone for the session that 6 billion dollar deficit in the second bianium. Um and so the governor proposing proposed
573 million in the first bianium uh 1.7 in the second bianium. So even with that proposal the legislature would have had to come back within the next couple years and work on that deficit in that
second bianium. Uh one thing of note uh is that in the governor's proposal he a lot of his savings was achieved by shifting costs from the state onto counties mostly through health and human services which I'll talk more about here
in a second. Uh and then here you can see where the house was and the senate was in their budget targets. uh the house had a little bit larger reduction uh than the senate. Ultimately they ended up uh in that
first bianium with a cut of less than either of those two targets. So that that tells you that they they had a hard time finding what to cut and so they actually ended up at like 283 million in the first bianium but most of those cuts came in the
second bianium. Um so this the tax bill uh there was cuts in the Senate bill for county aid uh along with local government aid to cities
similar cuts. Um the house had no cuts to CPA. uh the governor had no cuts, but the Senate did. And it was really interesting the choices that the Senate was making because they were also raising quite a bit of revenue in their
bill uh and spending money on uh sales tax exemption for PGA2 or golf tickets and those sorts of things. Um so these cuts were unacceptable to us. Uh and luckily in a final bill uh none of those
CPA or LGA cuts uh went into law. So we consider that a victory. However, the final bill does have 5 million reduction uh for aquatic invasive species uh
assistance in 28 and also 29. So, so as I was mentioning earlier, the governor proposing to shift costs onto county. So, here's three of the big things that he was going to do. So, a new 5% share for disability waiver
services, uh, increasing the county share for the sex offender program, uh, and then the behavioral health fund cost shift. So, those are some pretty big numbers that he was, uh, proposing to shift. And again, we said that's not
acceptable. And luckily, all of those those shifts were defeated. So, it was a tough year. Um, but we avoided some of those bad outcomes. Um, I wanted to talk a little bit about
the closed landfill, uh, demolition and, uh, construction landfills. Um, so I know that you've been following this rule making, but just a little update on this. Um, because the PCA just published
a draft rule summary in April, I saw. However, there's no text to the rule because they're delayed on that. But they're still planning to release a draft rule this summer in conjunction
with another comment period. And so I just wanted to encourage you, I mean, we all know that the MPCA is going to do what they want to do, but I would still encourage you to submit comment just to get on the record with your thoughts on these proposed rules. Um because
legislators will see they will look at some of that stuff um when they when they address these issues. Um, and so, uh, another thing in the rule, they've got, uh, either a two, five, and 8-year
transition period that they're proposing. And I know that's not going to make anyone happy, but so what we would say is that the state should fund those costs to um, close those landfills
uh, and get in compliance with the new rule. Other options would be, you know, an exemption. Also, uh, you know, I know that there's that bill still floating out there, uh, introduced by Senator Green,
Representative Duran last year, uh, that would prohibit the MPCA from doing that rulemaking. That bill is still sitting in committee. It didn't go anywhere last year. You know, there's a potential we could revive that. Um, I know when I was talking to Eric, he said that he thought
Representative Duran was really good on this issue. So, I hope to work with him on it next year and see what kind of creative solutions we can come up with um to sort of alleviate this this issue. I will say that, you know, the the bond
a bonding request for 67 million, the legislature is going to see that as a lot. And so I think it's important to think about some of these other options, too. Um, bonding. So, I mentioned bonding
earlier. It was a relatively small bill, 700 million, so there was no local projects in there at all. Uh and then it did have quite a bit of money for roads and bridges and then clean water, waste water and drinking
water. So I just wanted to mention the 42 million for local roads and uh 20 million for local bridges. So local road improvement, local bridge replacement program and then also wetland replacement. So there was uh 3 million in the transportation bill which is
general fund money and then 5 million uh in bonds for that program as well. Housing uh this is you can see what they have in the housing bill. Uh 50 million in housing infrastructure bonds. The
greater Minnesota housing infrastructure program I want to mention there that's a newer program. I think that was new last year. Uh, and there's there was 8 million in there. They did do a request for proposal uh that was completed, but there's some
additional money in there and so you could look for another round of requests potentially next spring. I think they uh Minnesota Housing is going to do another round of requests for proposal in the spring for that. So
looking ahead, um it'll be interesting to see what the November forecast comes out with because uh if we're running a deficit already, uh you're we're going to have to look out for uh CPA cuts and
LGA cuts again. Um so that's something that we need to stay on top of. um continuing to work with Senator Hoffman and Representative Newer on some kind of mandate reform or uh when we were when I
was talking with Tom uh last week, he was telling me about sort of how he had been working on some language on economically depressed status based on certain demographics of counties um that are unique to Belranny or Manomomen, for
example. And so I think that's something that we could continue working on with uh the chairs of the uh human services committee, but also I was going to say the demolition landfill, you know, maybe that's another potential thing where you
could apply some of that rule making and maybe carve out exemptions for certain counties based on that kind of those kind of demographics or those kind of statistics. So um there are options available And with that, I'll answer any
questions. Thank you for having me. Uh, look forward to working with you. Have a question for Darren. Just we give Brad Peterson a hard time for us. I I will certainly do that. Talked to him this morning. He said uh to give you his best. So
yeah, far as I'm concerned, Darren, that wouldn't cost the state a dime if they just extend our our current demolition landfill. we have about 10 more years beyond 2029 that we could use it and it wouldn't cost the state a dime. So you're current you're currently your permit was would be up in 2029 at the end of 2029
then you could you could apply sorry if they would extend it which they right now won't but if they if they would extend it we could actually use it for another 10 years beyond that 2039. Okay. Yeah. So good to know getting an exemption and using the you know poor
poor Belrammy County um story you know that would be what we would uh try to get them to do and I know representative Duran um is on top of that or knows that's what we would like to see just you know give us an exemption for that rule making that they that they're
planning on doing doesn't help the other counties that are part of our nine county hub and spoke plan but um but that's what would be appreciated Sure. Yeah, absolutely. And I will I will be talking to Representative Duran about that very thing. So, great. Well, thank you. Appreciate your
presentation. All right. Thank you. Yep. All right. That brings us to the solid brace solid waste debris management plan, which is kind of what segue from what we were just talking about.
And Brian is up here to wow us. I will pass these around. the stats for that's what we're all about is how many visitors we have at the at our second
phase. So you can see uh just with this um we've had a pretty uh steady volume the last couple days. It has uh it has went down, but uh I'll start uh um you'll see in your packets. I don't
have any PowerPoint slides, but uh we did it's kind of a follow on to the last meeting that we had as far as coming up with a solid waste management plan and how to deal with all the debris. Um,
we're looking or asking for the two temporary uh promotions from S1 to S2. We're looking for two employees to be hired. Right now, we have three
applicants that have applied and uh hopefully we will see some more applicants. When does that close, Brian? I didn't bring I don't know that exactly. It's It's online. I I know it goes I believe it's on for another week or so. Okay.
Um we're asking to lease a material handler and it's uh that's at $2,400 or $3,400 a month. And then the the other two attachments are the bottom two there, the grapple
attachment purchase and the two tree cutter attachment purchases. Those are actually for highway. And then one added uh looking at potentially a scale as well added to the list. Just don't have all the specifics on that yet.
Theou is also attached to your um packet which was on page 41 that has been um approved by the union. So that is ready to get signed if approved by the board. And then if you look at the
sight specific recommendations um and what current costs are uh you can see those as well. Uh looking at a forecasted estimate for the what what I went in for a dam a preliminary damage
uh estimate we're looking at about uh $1.8 8 million just for to do all the cleanup and processing all of all this uh debris. So that's what we're at with highway. We talked about that this
morning. We're almost at $3 million just in the public works. Any questions, Mr. Chair? Yeah, go ahead, Commissioner. So Brian, looking through these numbers uh for the temporary promotions and uh
the temporary new hires, you all everything that you put on the budget impact. It's kind of curious what where's this money coming from? I I didn't see that part of the presentation. So the money again, this will be part of
that 75% reimburse. So, we'll end up paying for 25% of this, but we do get uh 75% of this reimburse. So, it's either doing this or paying for a contractor to come in and which will cost us more money. We're if you look at the cost of
what we're paying right now for a contractor every every week to uh process this waste. It's a lot higher than that. Okay. 75% of it will be in reimbursed eventually. We we do have to frontload it though. So it's going to come from
our our reserves basically. Where where's that coming from? So are are we guaranteed that uh the reserves will be replenished with what? that that's that's what we are planning is the pay for it up front out of the
reserves and then when you we get a minimum of 75% hopefully more but a minimum of 75% reimbursement then we would replenish um our reserve fund with that money. Okay, Commissioner Carlson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um Brian, when is
the uh CND landfill going to stop opening seven days a week? potentially on the 20th. Would you We'd still be open six days a week. We'd do extended hours on Saturdays. We normally are only open
three hours a week or on Saturdays, but we'd be open from 8 to 5 now with the with what we're currently planning on doing. So, I think the guys are getting a little tired out there, aren't they? Oh, yeah. Any do we have any plan to give them any
relief at all? I mean, other than what we passed last meeting with additional people, but that takes anytime you hire addition what does it take almost a month to get somebody up to speed. We haven't actually passed anything. That's actually on our agenda for
tonight to actually pass the approving now that we've got the numbers and stuff and so we gave the head nod last so so they could advertise, but we haven't actually we're not going to we haven't hired anybody or whatever, but we do have the ad already placed. So, we're on track for getting those two hires done.
It's still going to take 2 3 weeks to get somebody up to speed now. That is correct. Yeah. And so, any other plans to help help give our our guys out there, guys and gals, some relief? That just they got to suck it up and closing closing uh Sunday would would
help. Yeah. Um, but that's also a board uh action as well that uh you you would be fine with us being closed on Sundays. Well, it looked like they were down considerably last Sunday. That's what when I look at that those numbers, they
it was very I mean under a hundred for that Sunday. And when you say closing Sunday, you're talking about closing not only closing the demolition landfill site on Sundays, but also this coming Sunday, the 20th of actually shutting down the target site. Correct.
At after after after Sunday. After Sunday, right? Yeah. So, they'd have through this Sunday to utilize the target site for and the target site, just for those watching or whatever, is specifically for homeowners and not for contractors. The demolition landfill is is where all the contractors have to go. So there
wouldn't really be a lot of change for the demolition landfill contractor piece, but the the private people would have to bring their stuff to the demo landfill after Sunday. I I will have to say I was at the target site
once last week and twice today. And the folks out there, are they MPCA employees? Yeah. Yes, they are wonderful. I mean, they they were doing a nice job. I mean, one of the people was even helping an elderly couple take the stuff out of their trailer. That was probably above and
beyond the And I just they were doing a really great job. And I know the I know the folks out at the CND uh out on the county line, they're doing great work. I just thanks hats off to those. Yeah. Yeah. They've been great great support
for this uh event. Yeah. So, we've got on our regular agenda, we've got some decisions to make tonight regarding this stuff that he presented, but also about, you know, the closing of the the target site and so on. Mr. Chair, y Commissioner Summer,
I was just kind of curious, uh, uh, your staff are are they receiving overtime or any additional pay to They're receiving overtime. Okay. And maybe a question for uh Tom.
Are are there any other uh staff or employees that are eligible or could be eligible for uh overtime or some sort of compensation or recognition for for their work?
Yeah. Their FLSA status is what describes whether they're overtime exempt or not. And those statuses haven't changed. So those who are eligible for overtime are getting overtime and being programmed for overtime according to schedules. Those that aren't don't get the overtime. So those would be typically your management
team members that have not been getting paid for their additional time that's been contributed to this. But that's how it goes. It's been that way for ever and ever. And that's just what happens when you're an exempt employee. Well, I know that there was a few situations in the
past where the board did make some exceptions and I don't know if and when an appropriate time would be to have that conversation and I I think they're all, you know, doing great work. They did great work and probably all burnt
out and and I believe that, you know, they should all be compensated, you know, fairly. But, you know, I'm only one member. No, I I think that that's that's a good point and I just don't know um at this stage of the game because we're still pretty hot and
heavy in it that we probably should look at that uh at some point here though. Um I know you know obviously for emergency management director he's in that in that position and and uh I know there are others that that uh we should probably
consider something like that. Okay. Anybody else have anything else for for Brian at this time? Great. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate it. Thank you. It's on the regular agenda. Yep. I asked if we could bring it to the
board a few weeks ago and, you know, I just want to see uh you know, the the numbers. Um, I know that they were submitted when when he came last time, but I was a little rushed. Um, but I have no questions or concerns, so I
don't see Appreciate that, Commissioner Summer. And that, you know, um, because we did what we did, I think that helped speed up things. We were able to post advertise already and and that just not actually, you know, you know, so I would be in support of of it. So,
good. I don't know. Brian would need to stick around or not. Yeah, I don't know if he's actually I assume he probably is going to stick around, but uh in case we have any further last minute questions, but at this time we'll move on to the administrator's update. Take it away, Tom. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a
couple of brief updates for you. Uh thank you for attending the staff appreciate appreciation event for those that you that could last Thursday. We had good turnout and good food and actually good weather, which we were a little nervous about. So, I think we're four for four holding that event out
there in the courtyard on the weather side of things. But, uh, you know, more than just, uh, attending the event and whatnot, I just want to thank you as well, um, for your vision and, uh, your support of allowing us to do these types of things for the staff. You know, it's
really important. We get great feedback from the staff and they love to see you there. So, they're very appreciative. Um, and uh, I just think it it goes really well in helping to um, let the staff know just how much they're valued and appreciated. So, thanks for putting money aside to those types of events and
allowing us to do that and build the morale. Um, it's very very important and appreciated by the staff. Um, Tom, on on that, I' I'd like to, you know, just count out some of the management team that that went above and beyond those that were having to stay
working and they brought some of the meals to them um and things like that. So, I'd really appreciate the those the thoughtfulness of some of our management team that were, you know, so the people that couldn't attend the appreciation event were still in a lot of cases taken care of. Indeed, we have a great team
all the way around and and uh yeah, those who were left behind unfortunately because they had shifts scheduled or whatnot, we do our best to try to include them. Uh so that's also really great. Um but but thank you commissioner for that on the jail project. Just want to let
you know we're on schedule. We're actually just slightly ahead of schedule, but I hate to say that because then we're fall behind schedule. So we'll just say we're on schedule right now. Uh we are continuing uh to wrap up foundation work uh that's been going on for uh last several weeks and uh we also
laid out the helico anchors uh for the pre-cast panels and those panels are arriving this week and the crane is out there. If you haven't seen it is enormous uh and we're going vertical this week which is very very cool. Uh that's when you just like everything changes on the site right now. starts to
look like a building, whereas before it just, you know, looks like a bunch of earth moving around and occasionally some I went by there today and there were actually three panels already vertical. Fantastic. That's good. Like I say, we're on schedule. They were supposed to start yesterday on that. So, um yeah, this is great. So, in any event, uh you
know, we've got a little bit more foundation work to tie up. Uh we're going to be doing some waterproofing, some back filling as well. Uh and then those panels just will continue to go up. There'll be a few panels uh over the next several um weeks and months that that as the panels go up will be
strategically left out. Um and those are to allow for us to get the um pre-made jail cells into the building. So, uh those couple of panels will be missing. It'll look like, wait a minute, what's going on? But, uh that's intentional and they will come back uh and then put
those panels up a little bit later. Um but yeah, if uh you or the public uh haven't seen the site, it's it's probably pretty exciting right now to to start taking a look at that. Uh as it relates for the existing jail study, we have
narrowed down the options. We remember the board had directed three primary options. One was to kind of rehab the existing jail, see what we could make of it. Two was to uh demo part of it and rehab part of it. And then the third option was just, you know, demo the whole thing. uh each of those options
the design and operations team looked at ended up creating almost three sub options within each of those. So we we probably had close to seven, eight, nine different options. So we've whittleled those down and uh now just yesterday received um the final three options that
we've all agreed on. Those are going to be priced out. At our next meeting we'll be looking at that and talking about the pros and cons and maybe adjustments and tweaks. And the idea is to be able to make a formal recommendation to you at the August 19th board meeting where we'll also um give you a general update
on the progress of the project as well. So, uh so a lot to do between now and then, but uh things are are looking pretty good. I think the options that we've ended up with as a DNO team are actually pretty good options. Um, you know, sure there could be some tweaks here and there, but um, I think there
were really wellthoughtout options and appreciate everybody's contributions in helping us get to those. Uh, just really quickly, union negotiations, we're kind of in uh, I wouldn't say in the middle of, we're kind of at the start of we have met with four of the units right now. We have three more units to meet with uh, before the first week of
August. Uh, so things are picking up just a little bit there. uh on the county budget process. We are continuing to make a lot of progress behind the scenes. Uh the department heads did do a great job, I think I mentioned before, in putting together preliminary budget.
Um it wasn't as difficult uh because, you know, as I said before, they um really took to heart the principles and priorities that the board had set. Um the the bad news for the budget committee is that the department heads
did a good job. So all your lowhanging fruit is gone and the real work of trying to figure out how to get the levy where you want it and what needs to happen to do that is going to follow the budget committee. That's going to be pretty tough this year. So um so that's
something to sort of look forward to for those of you on the budget committee. Yeah. Um, I do want to say that we did have That's right. We did have quite a bit of cost shifts as you know this year and uh
uh some of those we were most concerned about were going to come from the state level as you heard in the legislative briefing. Uh not all those came to fruition which is great but we still have you know 700,000 plus or minus of state cost shifts, funding formula changes, funding reductions that we're
going to have to work into the budget. Um, and because every levy percentage increase is equates to only about $333,000 of revenue for the county, you can see right there, those state cost shifts are going to cost us, you know, likely more
than 2% on the levy, and we can't get out of that. So, um, those are those are the kinds of tough things that are driving driving our budget. Additionally, with the um with the federal bill that was just recently passed, those cost shifts are going to
be pretty significant. And uh the good news is they won't start right away. They don't start until about 2027. And then 2028, they really kick in, but we're estimating somewhere between a million and a million and a half of uh of potential impact to the county. We're still looking at that and we'll study
that more. Uh 2028 looks like a really bad year for our county because not only do those massive um impacts from the federal bill take place, but also that's the next bianual budget for the state and as you just saw in the legislative
update uh that deficit that is looming. uh there wasn't a big chunk taken out of it this bienium which means that all of that um is going to have to be dealt with if the projections stay the same uh in a very short period of time. So there
could be significant um growing pains if you will on the next uh bianual budget that impacts our fiscal year budget. So, um, anyway, that, uh, as I've said many times, is going to be sort of our
multi-year challenge going forward, um, with budgeting. It's just going to be reacting to whatever happens at the federal and the state level at this point in time. So, that's what I have for you, but I'll stand for any, uh, questions you might have. Questions for Tom?
Tim, you're supposed to suck up the time here with questions. Well, I got a I got a list of questions. Oh, yeah. Your luggage is lost. Yeah.
So, maybe maybe um Thank you, Mr. Chair. Elvis voice. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have I have one question. And I just didn't know if I wanted to ask Tom here or during uh my report, but uh just wanted to mention that um wife today we
got presentations uh from folks that uh mentioned, you know, transportation is a barrier, you know, and I think our public health director mentioned that, you know, also in the past that it was one of our most
uh it was a public health concern. So, I know in the past it was probably done once or twice where uh the county um donated a a vehicle that was, you know, an older
vehicle that was no longer suitable for the for the fleet. Um, and I was just kind of curious, is that something that we could think about or have a conversation about on how to maybe help, you know, uh, folks that, um,
need, you know, the these, uh, transportation, um, you know, satisfac, uh, the the family first and and things like that because it sounds like they're doing great work. It's just
you know, the barrier. Commissioner S, I know one of the things that from the HRDC standpoint, the challenge isn't the vehicle, it's actually the drivers and some of the situations, um, they require the driver to be over 25 years old and, you know, certain requirements of it that that
make it a little challenging. Um, I know we had a driver that was um working for our um for the um oh bank conifer estates uh area and and we had from um from oh what was it the
up in red lake not was I don't know if it was it wasn't Oshki Majitata but it was the um I think maybe it was that but anyways there was a a driver from there and unfortunately fortunately and unfortunately he's not no longer are able to do it. Um, and so they don't they've got the van, but they don't have
a driver. And so we're trying to be creative on how we can get a driver um for that. Um, you know, how however we could work that out. And I believe that uh the families program that Amy's was
talking. Yeah. Families first. Um, they said they had a van already, I think. So, um, the biggest issue is, I think, you know, getting, I mean, certainly we could look at at a a vehicle and providing a vehicle, but if we have any brainstorming, I was going to, you know, try to connect with Chris to see if if
he has the ability to maybe even partner with HRDC to drive their van cuz they've got a van, they've got, you know, paid for, brand new that, you know, wouldn't have maintenance issues or anything even because all that would be covered, but need a driver. So you know I don't know Tom if you have anything to add to that
or I I can uh Mr. Chair I was just going to say you know the disposal of public assets is pretty heavily regulated um and it depends upon the organization and its status and then what the asset is itself but it's possible to do uh we just want to look into that. The other thing I was going to mention
too is that um most of our vehicular assets are being get or where we're getting rid of for a purpose. they typ we typically are are with because our own budget constraints driving them into the ground ourselves. So, uh in some cases, you
know, it might be something someone could use but maybe not for very long or it's not in great condition or it has other issues or high maintenance costs or those types of things. Yeah. Yeah. You we borrowed one of those. Waiting for that to go.
And of course, the last one is what um our our board chair had mentioned too and that's drivers. That's that is a real big issue too. But um but certainly if the board wants us to um consider uh in our disposal because typically we just send it to public auction. Um if you know of an organization uh send it
our way. We'll have a look at it. We'll run it against the um um the legal test and make sure that it's it's an organization that we can essentially donate to. Um that five U face it first face it together said that they were a 501c3. So I would think that would probably be a
good start. Um, and if they where they're using their own vehicles and if we had something that they could put miles on a set of their own vehicles or whatever, um, that might be an option, you know, but depending upon, you know, I'd rather steal them for HRDC if we could. Yeah, there you go. You bet.
So, but yeah, good, good, good comment. Uh, Commissioner Sar, anybody else have anything before we Mr. Sure. Uh since we're talking about vehicles, uh and when it comes time to actually replace those vehicles that
need to be parted with, um I just want to put a plug in for shopping local. I know there's a state system that we look at vehicles statewide, but you know, if we're all about helping the local economy, let's at least, you know, see
if they can't match a price one of the dealerships locally here. Good, good point, Commissioner Gold. Yep. So, all right. Well, we will adjourn until 5 o'clock for the regular board meeting. Part: 2
5:00. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance 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.
Do we have anything online? Okay. I'm no no no no comments from the board chair tonight. We'll look to citizens addressing the board. I don't know that we have any, but anyone wishing to address county board on an item not on the agenda may come forward at this time to be recognized by the board chair. Please state your name and
address for the record. Comments are limited to 5 minutes. A personnel complaint against an individual county employee may not be heard initially at a county 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 vulgar language. Is there
anybody wishing to address the board? Seeing none and none online, I assume and we will move on to the approval of the agenda. I move to approve the agenda as written. Commissioner Winger makes a motion to approve the agenda as presented. Do I
hear a second? Second by Commissioner Carlson. Any further discussion? All in favor of approving the agenda as presented, say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. 5-0. On to the approval of the consent agenda.
I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda. So move, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Gould. I hear a second. Second by Commissioner Sumar. Thank you. Any discussion on the consent agenda?
All in favor of approving the consent agenda as as presented, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Five to zero. On to the resolution for state of emergency declaration extension. And Chris Mueller is coming up our
emergency management director and public information officer. Thank you, Chris. Well, good evening commissioners. Chris Muller, Bel County Emergency Management Director, public information officer here to request your consideration of
extending the state of emergency for an additional 30 days as emergency conditions still exist. We conducted our preliminary damage assessment last uh evening and anybody want to guess
just under 10. and uh that is for non-insured public infrastructure loss. And just in the last hour or so um we've been communicating with our partners at Homeland Security Emergency Management. They did take a couple of uh items off of that pending uh additional
information and review. So, it's down to just under eight, but we know there's going to be more applicants coming in uh once we find out that uh we're declared. So, just to put that into context, that is 88 times our state threshold
indicator. So, we're 88 times what we uh would need to get to for uh state assistance and 44 times uh what we would need for uh federal assistance. So, we're still working through that process with HSEM. Um originally, it was not
looking like we were going to go after a FEMA declaration. We are one of seven counties that are going to be going through the PDA process, we are by far um the largest and the one that has uh the most damage. But with those other counties, uh even if our questionable or
um further review items are not put back in there, um this still could possibly carry over uh to a federal deck. So, the main reason I'm asking for the extension is we still have work to do. Um we still have extended hours at the uh demo sites
and are working under some emergency provisions. Um the current state of emergency expires on July can't even read my own reading. July 22nd and the main reason I want to extend it for 30 days is I don't think
we're going to be done with our work by then. And if that expires, you guys are going to have to call another special meeting. And by extending him by 30 days, that will allow the emergency to continue until your next board meeting. So that is my request. Great,
Mr. Chair. So moved. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Gold. Do I hear a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Carlson. Any further discussion on the extension of the emergency declaration? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Any
opposed? Motion carries 5 to zero. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate all your leadership in this. Thank you. All right, that moves us on to the community resource connection lease agreement and looks like she's coming up to take this one. Thank you, Ann.
Good afternoon, chair, commissioners. Ann, director of health and human services, and I am in front of you today to respectfully request approval of the lease agreement with Community Resource Connections that you can find in your packet. Um, Community Resource
Connections is a local agency that provides support to the community through connection and referral. Their mission statement is to improve access to and the effectiveness of community services through collaboration, coordination, and integration. and their
presence in our building is a testament to that mission statement. They do serve four counties, Cass, Clearwater, Hubard, and Bel Tramy. They are an important connector for both the residents of our community, but also for agencies within our community. They find services for
our residents, but they also make collaborative connections with agencies when we have to work together, which we often do because we have a lot of challenges that we need to work on together in our community. CRC provides information and referral to almost any service that you can think of. And the other thing that they do is
they are approved mure navigators, which means that they're trained experts who provide free health insurance application and enrollment assistance to county residents. That service that CRC offers is complimentary to um health and human services work as well as supports
our teams that do similar work in the MA eligibility space. It is important for a collocation to support that collaboration, but it also provides the community support in one place when they need to access assistance programs.
CRC has been physically located in the CSC building alongside Health and Human Services for the last 5 years with some breaks um when they did work remotely during COVID. The creation of this lease formalizes the space that the CRC has
within Health and Human Services leased space and this will allow CRC to have the rights and responsibilities of a formal tenant. So with that information about the organization, do you have any questions regarding the lease agreement?
And if I recall, these were like a couple just a couple of like individual offices, not even connected or anything in your area. So kind of like you carved out some space for them to be able to to utilize. So it's not a not really imposing a lot on your any of your staff or your department.
It is not imposing on our department and actually they are located within space that health and human services teams also is in. So when we do that initial um public benefit eligibility intake and MA eligibility approval, the CRC team is
there to support the paperwork requirements that go along with that. So, it's really a complimentary service to what our staff is doing. Sounds like a no-brainer to me. I hear a motion to approve. Motion by Commissioner Sumar. Do I hear a second? Second by Commissioner Winger.
Any further discussion? I know Ruth and her team's been going above and beyond lately. So, thanks to them. Thank you, Commissioner Gold. Any other comments or discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you,
Anne. Five to zero. That moves us on to solid waste debris management plan. Motion by Commissioner Sumner for the solid waste management plan. Do I hear a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Gould.
Any further discussion or questions or anything? Commissioner Carlson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, I looked through this once, but I'm trying to remember. is does this include the closing of the target site on a certain date? I could I I I don't think that was actually in
this. So, we we'll need to address that separately. And who has separate? I I think so. I Bruce, do you um is it is Oh, is is it closing on on in there? I didn't uh I didn't recall that, but uh I didn't remember seeing it.
Oh, the recommendation. Okay. So the MPCA support ends July 20th. Would that not be a good time to then also just end that site so that we don't have to man that? Yeah, I I think part of that would you know that we we were only able to I
believe we were only able to keep the MPCA employees there while we were under emergency. And if our emergency was going to be expiring, they wouldn't be able to. So we possibly could could maybe still keep them. I don't know if that's a fact, but um as long as we're under emergency, then that that and the public um deal that the governor did
that allows us to to keep using state resources if I recall correctly. But uh regardless, I think um it's a good idea for us to with the numbers dropping that we got the updated numbers and stuff. We talked about it at our salt waste committee meeting this morning and and
agreed that we would um recommend ex you know going through Sunday so that you know that people would know that they'd have the rest of this week and the weekend to get their private stuff hauled the target site and then it would be shut down. Um and we would see how things go with just the demolition
landfill and if that um um is getting backlogged then we would look at at other we do have another potential option if we need it. So, but you want to just address that separately or uh I think yeah, let's let's well unless you found it in here. It's one of the recommendations in the plan.
Okay. Under that target or the temporary site old fairgrounds. Oh, yeah. Recommendations. Yep. Okay. Okay. In the middle there. Yep. I It's on page 36 of the MPCA support ends 20th. Uh close the
site after July 20th. Yep. So through through the weekend and then close it. So yeah. So that pretty much is covered with the current motion and second we have any further discussion hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Passes five
to zero. Thank you. Thank you, Bruce. Appreciate it. I feel like the running back that comes in at the one yard line and just takes it in. You know, Brian did all the work and I just show up. I thought you were doing the quarterback sneak, but
thanks Bruce. All right. So, we'll go on to legislative legislative lobbying and commissioner reports. We'll blend them together. Commissioner Sumar. Uh, Mr. Chair, looking through my uh calendar here, the
last couple of weeks have been uh pretty busy with holidays and fourth of July. Uh, Red Lake uh celebrated its independence on July 6th. Uh, wasn't much happening last week. Uh but this
coming week uh tomorrow I have the pilt meeting up in for town and in Kellier. Uh Thursday I have the Black Duck ambulance and the uh Northwest. Um so this is the time that I usually
alternate because I missed the Northwest last time. So I'm going to attend the the Northwest if if you're available to to go to Black Duck. To Black Duck. Okay. Yep. I can do that. That that'll be Thursday. I'm going to be going up there on Thursday anyways. So, yeah, I can do that.
Y Okay. Y So, that we could do that. And also um coming up uh I have the uh Bel Tramy County Extension uh meeting
on the the 28th and uh going to inquire a little bit more about you know the email that we received in regards to the SNAP education. Um it's it's unfortunate you know that uh SNAP added
you had to fire or lay off you terminate their their employees uh because I feel that uh they provide a valuable resource you know to our community. Um you know they're they're people of our communities. They they live within you know our communities. They they're
taxpayers. Uh they have families. Uh so these are, you know, 60 families that are impacted by uh um this federal legislation. Uh and it it's sad that uh the the
trickle down effects uh really do affect uh us locally. Um, I'm hoping that uh Tony will be able to provide some sort of update on on what uh what their plans are on on moving
forward with the SNAP education or or how you know how this will impact um Tramic County. So, uh that's my report. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Sumar. Commissioner Winger.
Yeah, I did did chat about on the third or second, I guess. Second. I think that went all right. Um, what else? Oh, did the employee appreciation day stopped by there, visited a little bit. Um,
still uh getting a lot of calls and emails about the debris pickup. still trying to explain why we just can't do all of that as a county. Um, we did the solid waste meeting this morning and
you all pretty much heard what we talked about. So, um, that's all I have. Thank you, Commissioner Winger. Mr. Ghoul, I've had a BCAP and H meetings lately and Northwest Juvenile Center meeting
coming up Thursday morning this week. I'm still getting a lot of calls and emails uh mostly from Baiji Township folks that are too thrilled about the township there not providing pickup. Um
so I did reach out to some officials there. I haven't heard anything back. Um, but hopefully they can reconsider at their next meeting u providing some relief to the residents of Biji Township.
Um, I too would like us to do something a little out of the ordinary special for Brian's crew at Solid Waste. Um, I don't know exactly what that is, but um, you
know, if we could have a couple of options to look at in the coming weeks, uh, you know, whether it's a couple more, uh, floating holidays thrown their way or or something, I think what we just passed is going to be helpful with some more crew members coming on and and
then not having to work the target site past the 20th. So, uh, but I'd also like us to do something special for Brian's crew and our, uh, PIO slash emergency manager, Chris,
who's gone above and beyond for, um, a month now. Well, really longer than a month. Uh, but, um, I wanted to share those sentiments with the board and of Tom uh, so that hopefully we can do something there. And
then uh I just wanted to um bring up the topic of uh the lobbying contract. I didn't want to talk about it while Aaron was here. He's probably watching the tape now. But um I did watch the board meeting um from last
time and it kind of sounded like we might not be super interested in doing that anymore. But what if I could save us5 $10,000 uh with another shop? I don't think Clarity and Hood is going to offer a
reduction in their price for what they offer, but um I'm confident another shop or two, like if we did another RFP type of thing, um we could find something for a little friendlier to our stressed
budget situation. So, um I do think trying to lobby for a a carve out uh economic depressed county uh to provide some mandated relief makes sense and uh with the landfill
project uh the debacle with MPCA there. I think we still have plenty of reasons to have our own individual lobbyists. AMC is great. MRC is great, but they do not lobby on behalf of individual counties. It's
great to have a coalition and be a team when we're all fighting um for the same things, but when we have our own individual things that we need, it makes sense to have our own person eyes and ears on the ground and and uh um going
around and and uh having those meetings for us and and with us when we can be there. So, just want to throw that out there. Um, you know, hopefully we're immuneable to finding finding some more lobbying services uh
for next year. Uh, if that means having to go somewhere else for cheaper, I'm fine with that. Now that Eric's gone, too. It's not a slide against our local legislators. I think they're doing great. But a lot of times it's good for lobbyists and legislators to team up on things, too.
So, Mr. Gold, thank you. We are on the um we're paid up through the end of this year though, correct? Yes, sir. You're paid up. So you you you still have them on a retainer until the remainder of the year. And so we Yeah. So we wouldn't really have to address that till towards the end of the year probably.
Right. Okay. Anything else, Commissioner Gold? No. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Carlson. Uh thank you, Mr. Chair. Um on the airport authority, I'm on the budget committee. So we had that meeting. Um we had two meetings on that actually. Um and then um I was on the
land commission meeting um that we had uh where we discussed what we passed tonight. Um and um actually actually worked out in our favor that the DNR didn't want us to give them more land. So okay. Um it it actually sounds I
think from what I understand it sounded like the state might be pretty favorable to our our idea of the swap of the land. Uh, I think that'll work out really well in our favor and I think it'll work out well in the state's favor also. It's kind of a win-win there. Um, jail design and operations. If you
get a chance, like we talked about, go take a drive by uh Pioneer Street and see the walls going up. It'll be kind of exciting this week. Uh, and then the work that we did. Um, Pine McCarthy did a really nice job of laying out a like
Tom said, we had so many different options and it but it became apparent right away that some just weren't going to be as workable as others, but they did a nice job of presenting many many options and I think that was helpful. So, um, and now, um, Krauss Anderson's
working on putting some I don't know what how would you I mean, it's rough estimates. I mean, it's it's probably rougher than a rough estimate of of what something of each of those conceptual ideas could potentially cost. So, that'll give us some idea. Um, and I
think they're going to try to have that to us by maybe next Tuesday, hopefully. Um, so we have our meeting coming up on Tuesday for that. Mr. Chair, yeah, Commissioner, uh, Commissioner Carlson, so you said there's three options. Are are you going
to be presenting those three options to the board or or what? Uh, we're going to present all three option. We'll present all three options to the board and then and then at the we'll also probably I'm guessing that we'll probably have a preferred option that we'll recommend. um I think if we come
to a consensus. Um but yeah, no, all three of those options will be presented per the per the board's instructions. Okay. Don't spill the beans about the childc care center, though. Um I filled in for uh Commissioner Winger on the Northwest Emergency
Communication Board. Um and uh nothing really much to report there, I guess. Um we had the airport affairs meeting last Thursday. um a follow-up airport budget meeting after that. Uh the staff appreciation event. I just want to give a shout out
to our HR department and to Diane, they're really the ones that that that do all the the heavy lifting on that. Uh and I think Randy was involved on that too, wasn't she? Probably. Um but our HR staff and Diane and and they just did a great job of doing that. So, thank you very much, Diane. Appreciate all the
work you guys did on that. Um and then we had a special airport meeting. I'll let you talk about that. So, you got something to talk about? I've got plenty. So, we we had um uh we had to some bids that were out um uh for some projects on
the on the taxiways. Um and we had to the reason we had a special meeting is because we had to get those we had to either approve them or not approve them and then get them to the state in time for the funding deadlines. And so, we were able to accomplish that at the special meeting. Um, and then I already
gave you kind of a heads up, Joe, you weren't weren't here, but the um I was at I attended the um Bel Tramy County Lakes and Rivers Association. That's always a Zoom meeting. Um and um a lot of discussion going on these days about
these the damages that these wake surf boats can cause if they're not operated over 20 ft uh of depth in water and over 300 ft at least from the shorelines. Um but there was some good news in that
that um Gant remember Gant's last name is uh our our representative to the Minnesota Lake U uh coalitions and uh and he came back and it sounded like there's some reason there's some reason to believe that
there's room for compromise in making sure that people get to enjoy these boats. I I guess they're fun. I I I don't know. Uh but um and and I I I wouldn't want to stifle that by any means, but if there's a way to operate
those on lakes in such a in areas that and and maybe more of an awareness thing so people are like, "Oh, okay. Well, I didn't realize it was causing a lot of damage." U the University of Minnesota is wrapping up a three-phase study on that. They started a couple years ago.
So, and again, it's more just a heads up. I'd love to hear from anybody that you know and I'm hearing of it from the lakes and rivers aside, but I haven't heard yet from folks that own the boats and you we're going to have to listen to all sides and maybe we don't have to do
anything at all. And and that's fine. I'm not suggesting that we jump in and do something, but just know that that's out there and and the the phrase kept coming up, well, it might be up to the commissioners to do something. And I I I don't know. I I don't know that that's
the case, but just a heads up. So, if you if you come across that and you come across information about it, you might want to think think about that. Um anyway, that's all I have. Thank you, Commissioner Carlson.
And yeah, um staff appreciation event was fun. Um and um then we had our special airport meeting right after that, which you already talked about. our salt waste committee meeting. We already talked about um Blackduck Ambulance is Thursday. I'll I'll take both those meetings since I'm going up
there anyways for the joint powers meeting. Um our airport authority meeting tomorrow night. We're actually um um we've been doing tours of different areas of the airport. And tomorrow night we're um I don't know if you saw that email yet, but we're um they take us on a tour of the what they
call the FBO is the fixbased operator. That's the kind of people that are there for the general aviation um for repairing planes or fueling up planes, things like that. They got a um the FPO they call it. It's just a um hanger and stuff and they also lease out hangers
and they're um just that's what they call them. So we take a tour of that tomorrow and then go to the go to the meeting u have the budget I think we are approving the budget tomorrow and uh and that you did a lot of great work on that that it's tough to print on 11 in paper
though I I was like I need my magnifying glass yeah got this Thursday I've got HRDC annual meeting um did a lot of work with the executive board there on the bylaws
we're um you know revamping and and updating the bylaws. So that was uh you know fairly extensive. Um we did get our roof replaced on the HRDC building which used the the same company that we used on the solid waste building out there.
Um we've been as Tom mentioned we started union negotiations. I have a couple more appointments for that and then I've got the Cast Lake Rail Fire Association quarterly meeting coming up too. So got a lot of stuff on the on the books between now and the next meeting.
That's all I have. And uh as far as who's got chat about Tim next or tomorrow, I think. Uhhuh. We got there.
July 16th. Yeah, Tim. I thought that's what I remembered. So, yeah. All right. Well, I'll look for a motion to adjurnn. I'll move. Motion by Commissioner Ser. Do I hear a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Carlson. All in favor of adjourning, say I.
I. We are adjourned. Thank you. Our