--------- Hang on. We're muted. Yes, sir. We hear you. Good. All systems go. All right. We're going to go back and mute our mics for a moment. Ben County Board of Commissioner special meeting. Please join us for the flag pledge.
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. [Music]
Beth, roll call, please. Commissioner Benoy, here. Commissioner Heinen, here. Commissioner Pop. Commissioner Pop is uh absent this morning because of an illness. Okay. Commissioner Johnson here. Commissioner Kapinsky here virtually.
Thank you. Thank you. Ben County Board meetings are broadcasted live and video recorded on YouTube. Please refrain from speaking from the audience area and come to the podium so that the viewers can see and hear you. The county board observes
Robert's rules of order for its meetings. Please obtain the board's chair consent before addressing the county board. Public comments are generally reserved for the open forum segment or public hearings. However, public comment on other agenda items may
be allowed at the discretion of the board chair. As we begin the day, please turn off the cell phones or turn them off to vibrate. Thank you. Open forum. No one was signed up. Nobody. Okay, great. We'll move on. Consent
agenda items. What would you like to do with 1 through 11? Mr. Chair, uh, I'd move for approval of items 1 through six and 8 through 11. So, like to pull number seven, please. Pull seven and I'll pull 10.
Mr. Chair. Um, we probably should all pull number poll number four for a correction. Okay. And we have a correction on change my motion to four, seven, and 10. 10. Or seven and 10. Okay. I'll second. Okay. We got a motion, a second. Any
further discussion? If not, to call the question. All in favor say I. I. I. I. Oh, I'm sorry. We missed that by roll call, sir. Correct. Thank you. I'm sorry about that, Beth. Roll call, please. Commissioner Benoy, I. Commissioner Heinen. Hi. Commissioner Johnson. Hi.
Commissioner Gapinsky. Hi. Thank you. Number four, Monty. Sure. Yes. So on the table where it lists the outside agencies, the historical society is listed as 50,00070. That should be 15,070.
That would be our correction, sir. Okay. Move for approval of consent agenda item number four with it a correction as noted. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion on that? If not, I'll call the question. All in favor say I.
We got to roll call it again. Oh, roll call. Sorry. Commissioner Benoy. I. Commissioner Heinen. I. Commissioner Johnson. Hi. Commissioner Gapinsky. I. Thank you. Okay. Number seven. All right, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Um Christine, in regards to the application
for 32 malt beverage license, I I just need some clarification. To me, malt liquor is stronger than 32. So, I'm wondering why the application would just be for wine and strong beer because there is no strong beer license
in in the state's eyes. In order to make a strong beer license, you have to have a wine applicate, a wine license from the county, and a 32 license from the county. And together, those make a strong beer license in the state's eyes. Interesting. So the wine application
that's also on our dis will that count then will that create a strong license? No. Okay. It'll just be for wine and just 32. Well it's it's having both of them creates a strong beer license. So they
have their farm winery license which is separate through the state. Then in order for them to serve strong beer through the county and the state, they need to have that wine application and the 32. Okay.
All right. Makes sense, I guess. All right. There's mud, right? Yeah. There you go. I'll move for approval of item number seven. I'll second. We got a motion in a second. Roll call. Beth. Commissioner Benoy. I. Commissioner Heiden. I. Commissioner Johnson. I. Commissioner Gapinsky.
I. Passes. Thank you. Number 10. I pulled number 10 for clarification and I'm hoping Sheriff Hec is online. He is great. Thank you. Uh, under theformational
background, it was $75 to house inmates and I thought we ours was at 80. So, does the state set their own uh dollar amount per day? Yes. So that the state sets the dollar amount with us in in this joint powers
agreement. So regardless of wherever the inmates are housed, whether we choose 80 or up to 100, 125, it's still statemandated only $75. Then so the that that figure that we set in
our fee schedule, that's the figure that we charge other counties to house inmates with us. This would be this would not be according to that fee schedule if we were to enter into the joint powers agreement that's before you. Okay.
It would be according to the $75 in joint power. Commissioner Bono Bonoy. Uh Troy, I just have a quick question on I mean do you know what it costs per day for inmate um for us to house them? What
our cost is? I don't have that figure at my disposal. I know that we've calculated that in the past, but I would have to research that and and get back to you. I I off the top of your head, would you say that that $75
per day covers our cost or not? I believe it does. Um that's that's my recollection and I can get that that concrete answer in the future. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions for Troy? With
that, I'll make a motion to approve number 10. Second. Okay. Got a motion and a second. Beth, roll call, please. Commissioner Benoy, I. Commissioner Heinen. I. Commissioner Johnson. I. Commissioner Gapinsky. I.
Motion passes. Thank you. Next. Monty. We're going to modify the agenda a little bit. So would you like to proceed with the budget lovely first? Yes, Mr. Chair. Okay. Alrighty. So I hope you're seeing this on the screen and I believe we're
sharing the screen as well. So let's jump to the budget item here. All right. So Mr. Chair, today's action represents consideration adoption of the what's known as the proposed budget levy. So
counties and cities are required to adopt what's again a proposed budget levy by the end of September. Our budget process started back in June with the development of the base budget work of the departments on their estimates for expenditures and revenues. Uh then the board held budget presentations back in
August and a recent budget committee the whole to reach consensus on what you see here on this one-page summary. So, I kind of like to use this onepage summary uh to uh talk about what's in the proposed budget and levy. So, we're
looking at a 9.56% increase. And I'd like to pause there just for a moment. You may recall we when we had the committee the whole I believe we landed on about a 9.7 and you see 9.56. The reason is, as you may recall, uh, I went through a list
of, uh, adjustments that occurred since we completed the budget book, and one of those I mentioned to you was the addition of the halftime position in the auditor treasur's office, the technical analyst position. Well, I failed to remember that I had included that in the
base budget. So, when our starting point, I believe it was like 11.36, that included that halftime position. So we needed we didn't need to add it again. So that's why instead of having a 9.7, you got a 9.56. So that's actually was a good mistake in
this in the scheme of mistakes. That was a good one. So all right. So looking at a 9.56% le 2.4 million uh from 2025. Uh our uh our 10ear average levy
increase is a 3.7 3.7% increase over 10 years. And that's I'll show you the graph later. We heard from our assessor Brian Fulen that we're going to see about 4.1% tax capacity increase in next year. So it helps to offset the effect of the lev
increase to some extent. So we'll see our rate go from um go to 48.15% that's up from 45.61. But we want to note that we're still down from a peak of 77.6% in 2014. So, we're down substantially from when it
peaked in 2014. Often times, people want to know how the how the levy increase affects a median valued house. And I get these numbers from our assessor. Our current median value is $267,000. Uh on a median value house, this would
result in a lev increase of $116 per year or $9.69 per month. And that's I think folks often ask what's the effect on the median value house. So, uh, the operating budget, uh, sometimes you see some sort of large increases and
decreases. Often times it's driven by the RO program. You know, as you've seen, we have sometimes we have a really huge row program, sometimes it's smaller, and that can cause the the operating budget to go up and down substantially. It's decreasing 1.1 million next year. And again, that's largely because of a smaller row
program. The next thing down, Mr. Chair, are all the pieces that make up that 9.56% live increase. So you can see the largest portion is the new debt service on the government center project. Of course, the board authorized the issuance of HA lease revenue debt over a
20-year period and the first year debt service levy that's required for that is 1.7 million. And then pretty much, Mr. Chair, what makes up the rest of the lev increase are what you've heard uh me say many times in past years. It's compensation and benefits. So 755,000 is
as a general wage adjustment for employees. step increases, uh, career ladder adjustments, um, that make 729,000. I should note that SE step increases average about 3.2%. And as you, if you may recall, we have
now in many instances with our apartments these career ladders where folks can move up to a senior or to a one or two or three. And that accounts for some of the cost in in that particular item. We're going to get a 3% health insurance funding increase as
recommended by Marsh McClennon. That's 100,000 105,000. Something new for 2026 is Minnesota paid leave is starting. And this budget assumes that the cost of that the 88%
premium on on wages is shared 5050 between employees and the county. The 103,000. the board or recognizing we had we have uh good um uh reserves decided to use some reserves to bring this levy
increase down. So the board chose to use $500,000 of of reserves uh to bring that levy increase down. We're going to see some increased state aid uh for road maintenance which is a great great news helps reduce our our levy costs and then there are some other miscellaneous
changes. So basically Mr. chair. The next item just explains what I just went through before. And the last bullet point talks about our fund balances. You know, we have good fund balances. They're not they're not extravagant. Uh they're solid. Uh we're a little bit above where the state auditor recommends. Uh the
state auditor recommends you have fund balances equal to or greater than about five months of operating expenditures. At the end of 2004, we had 6.7 months of operating expenditure coverage in our general revenue fund. So that gave the board some flexibility to use some
reserves to bring down the levy increase. So Mr. Chair, uh the rest of this is just a bunch of spreadsheets and tables. Um I did not intend to cover in detail. Maybe I will pause at the
the Yeah, I did mention this earlier. You see the 10-year, this is a 10-year graph showing uh the the um red line is the levy. Uh the green line
is the tax rate. And you can see this just goes back to 2017 when the tax rate was 66.01% and this would put us at 48.15%. That's the green line. And Mr. Chair, I believe that's all. This this also shows a summary at the
end of the what we call our outside agencies that proposed funding for outside agencies and we also include the capital improvement plan which was discussed in the budget presentations. With that, Mr. Chair, I'm happy to answer any questions that you all may have. And before you in
your packet, there's two resolutions. One sets the levy and one sets the budget. Again, proposed uh this sets the maximum levy. the board can certainly reduce it between now and December. Any questions from the board? It's pretty much what we talked about in
our call. Okay. What would the board like to do with this? Mr. Chair, go ahead, Jared. Yep. Just a question. I know that halftime position wasn't uh or was put in there twice. You know, we can always take that
out at the end in December, but what happens if we just leave that in for a buffer right now in case something came up for 40, you know, 40 grand between the end? We can always go down. We just can't go out. Correct. I'm fine either way, but I just wanted
to throw it out there. Commissioner Johnson, Commissioner Kinsky, how would you want to list that? Yeah. Yeah, good point. Maybe we just stay as planned because it would it would be actually have to be listed as a buffer and that
wouldn't go over very well, right? I think we leave it as is. Leave it as is. I I agree. Yeah, Mr. Chair, I also if I may if I may note for you is that the board did uh have some policy issues from departments and uh given consideration
of the of the levy increase level this year adding the debt service the board chose not to fund any policy issues and I tried to explain that to our departments and I think they understood that just this wasn't the year to add more positions. So, um, wanted to mention that. Go ahead. If we wanted to, we could put it in
commissioner contingency. That seems to get used quite a bit. Means I've got to go grab a calculator and I got to change a bunch of numbers in these in these resolutions. I I'll do it. Don't worry about it. I say I'll make a motion to approve the budget as presented. Okay.
Okay. We've got a motion. So, if I may, Mr. Chair. So we we need action first on the levy resolution and then the budget. The statute actually requires that sequence. Correct. So the mo first motion should be a motion to approve the resolution setting proposed 2026 levy at
27,315,659. So moved. Second. Got a motion, a second. Any other discussion? Yes, m Mr. Chair, if I could. One more discussion item. Monty, just for clarification and to maybe share with people our discussion about why we're
collecting levy dollars for the new debt service coming up in 26 already before the building's up. Yep. Maybe you could share with the first interest payment is due actually next year. Um, and I'm sorry I don't recall off the top of my head, but that is but then the first principal interest
payment is due in February 27. And it's very typical when you issue debt is you want to make sure you got the dollars in hand to pay that first uh principal interest payment that's due in February and 27. So that's the sequence and the reason again is because we wouldn't have collected taxes until No, we wouldn't have right until the
first half was it May of 27 and second half, right? So that's very typical that you you levy in that sequence. So you've got the dollars to make those debt service payments. Okay. Thank you. Great. Y any other questions? If not, roll call. Commissioner
Hi. Commissioner Heinen. Hi. Commissioner Johnson. Hi. Commissioner Gapinsky. I. Thank you. Carries. The second motion is a motion to approve the resolution establishing the proposed 2026 Benton County budget as presented.
I'll make a motion. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Roll call. Beth. Commissioner Benoy. I Commissioner Heinen. Hi, Commissioner Johnson. Hi, Commissioner Gapinsky. Hi.
Motion carries. Thank you. Uh, let's let's Monty, can we just take care of the the TNT item and M. All it requires is for you to make the announcement that's in the action requested section of that agenda item. It's simply just the making the
announcement and then we put that into the record. That's all we're required statutoily to do. M Mr. Mr. Chair, just for clarification before you do that, um are we intending to hold our regular board meeting that evening or just in the morning? We have typically. Yes, we've held the we just moved the entire meeting to the
evening. That's been the practice for quite a long time now. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Okay. So, the board chair Ben County Board of Commissioners will conduct a truth and taxation public meeting on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025 at 6 PM in
the Benton County Board room. All right, we're good. And that's all we need. Yes, sir. Yep. That's all we need. Would you like to move now to Jim from Integrity? Actually, I would like to do the consider recommendation and we have Commissioner Gapinsky still online on FF.
Yep. Okay. Yeah. Great. All right. Let's see. Let me see if I can get to that item. Um, all right. Let's see here. FF. All right.
Okay. So, uh, first off, what is FFE? Furniture, fixtures, and equipment. And, uh, basically, Mr. Chair, um, in our entire project budget, it's roughly 25 million. There are there are certain
things that are described as owner items and these are items which really most of the responsibility rests on us to arrange for the acquisition of these items. FF is one of those. Another example would be technology like uh
screens and uh door control systems and cameras and so on so forth. That's another owner item. I think there's another one for landscaping and I know signage is an owner item. So uh it's important that we get started on this. It's going to be a long process to
acquire uh all this furniture. So what I did first is I I think I mentioned to you all my my plan was to meet with Evan and folks from Ctegrity and bring back to a plan to acquire FFE. So I did. So Jeff and I went over and we met with
Evan and uh Pete and Jim and uh were there and and gave us some really great uh guidance on how to acquire FF. I want to pause just for a moment and and review exactly what is FF. So this many things that are obvious enclosed office
furniture, cube furniture, uh waiting room chairs and tables, uh conference room meeting and tables, meeting room and tables, uh boardroom chairs, break room tables and chairs, community room appliances and so on, the election
equipment shelving, wellness room furniturees and public health clinic equipment. So it's a lot of stuff lit hundreds and hundreds of pieces of furniture. So this moves on into a possible two paths to acquire FFE. One
would be the seal bit and that is for example then we would have to develop an extremely detailed listing of every piece of furniture that we need uh its dimensions uh features and so on so forth and then that would be put out to
bid and the consequence of that is you you take the lowest bid you take what that bidder proposes in terms of the kind of furniture. GLT identified another path and they they suggest we use the state contract
path and I want to pause there for a moment and mention to you is when you use the state contract you have satisfied the state statutory requirement to put things out to bid that takes care of that requirement for competitive bidding when you use state contract.
So, GLT tells me what you can do is is we can then uh we can choose from various vendors that are on state contract and then that vendor will come in and consult with us on all the kinds of furniture that we need. They can actually bring in samples of chairs,
samples of materials and surfaces and finishes and so on. And then we can make really good decisions about what's the best kind of furniture for this building. And then once those those decisions have been made, the the the consultant then
can tell us, okay, here's what it's going to cost and we can see does this work within our budget. What Evan told me is that let's just say, for example, um you want some choices. And here's the example he used. He said, well, you'll have like a standard office arrangement.
You know, you can't have so there's lots of offices in this building. You can't have 20 different office configurations. You're probably going to have more or less one standard configuration, but you could get options of that standard configuration at different cost levels.
So, that's one thing you could look at help kind of, you know, manage manage the cost, look at options for different standard configurations. And I think the same thing applies for cubicles. So, uh let's see here. Um, this moves on
then to uh I'll call this my recommended uh acquisition plan. So, GLT would assist us in doing a what they call a request for for qualifications. So, they send this RFQ out to all these companies that are on state contract.
My proposal then is that GLT Integrity, Jeff and I would review these responses and recommend two to meet with you all and then you all would make that ultimate decision of which company we would go with. Um, and then as I
mentioned earlier, the selected vendor would start consulting with the purpose on their specific furniture needs. Uh, again looking at different kinds of chairs, colors, textures, surfaces and so on. and then present that total cost back to the board. And ultimately, I I just want
to make that clear is is you remain in control of this. In other words, the vendor comes back and says, "Here's our plan. Here's our cost." And for you, it's a thumbs up or thumbs down. It's got to work within the budget. So, um
that's the general highle overview of the plan. I again, Mr. I think what appeals the the appeal that I can see is the ability to make choices about what works in terms of, you know, the ideal
kind of chair or desk or so on and not simply have to take the low bid. And I I guess I look at it this way. We're going to be sitting on those chairs and using those tables and desk for a very long time. So, we want to make some good choices going into it. Some very
wellthoughtout choices. So I that's a that's a recommendation uh to all. Mr. Chair, Monte, our intentions are to use some of our existing furniture and everything too though. Yes, sir. You know, and I think I tried to put that in here. It was on
number six. A vendor evaluates what existing furniture can be reused. And I I think this really sort of tends to highlight the benefit of using this path because a a vendor can come in and say, "Okay, let's take a look at what you have. Let's find out what can work.
If you think about it, if we do this competitive bid process, we almost have to guess ourselves what can be reused. Well, maybe it will, maybe it can't. It depends if it can work with this vendor's furniture brand. We don't know.
So, I I I really like this idea because again, they can come in and they can say, "Okay, well, you know, those stands that you all just purchased within the past few years, those can be reused. for sure. Um, you know, we do have mostly newer there is a lot of newer furniture
in the annex area, Roder Treasure and Land Services and we would do our best to repurpose that furniture. Um, especially the motorized sitst stand kinds of desks for sure. U wherever we can where it makes sense. You there's a
lot of really old furniture in these buildings though so I'm not sure it makes sense to try and repurpose 30-y old furniture in most cases. So, Monte, what happens with the old furniture then that we don't reuse? You know, um I haven't really thought
that through. I think you could certainly try and Well, let me ask your question, answer your question. Sort of like just sort of strictly speaking. When when governments dispose of uh excess unneeded equipment, you must do so pursuant to an auction. So, we could
certainly attempt to auction it first and that's probably would go that route. So you would have some big big auction and uh attempt to sell it. I know a long time ago we used to take stuff to Henry's and it would be auctioned there. We've used the online auction for things
like squad cars and a few other items. So we probably would attempt an auction first and if it doesn't sell at auction then you can just essentially declare it junk and um you could for example dispose of it for its scrap value. like for example the anything that's metal
you could take to a metal recycler. Um so but I think you try the auction route first. Yeah, Mr. Chair, Commissioner Gapinsky, when it comes down to the uh electronics and that whole package between the
infrastructure cabling, the access control surveillance and audio video there's I I agree. I used to uh we used to be on the state contract at one point. It's a two-year contract with up to one uh three one-year extensions. The
only problem with that is we might be from from a technology standpoint limiting the people that can bid it locally that are within our county and from and that would maybe probably be giving some good service to our buildings.
Um, just a thought there because I don't know who's on the contract anymore or anything like that. So, I just don't when it comes to technology, it's a little different because these people are going to be servicing uh doing updates, you know, helping helping Jeff
and Steve manage the systems as they're as they're go through their lifespan. That's a little different than uh than the furniture where you you pretty much buy and and and you go they go away. Yeah. I just want to add m chair. So uh
this of course is very totally separate from technology. Uh our technology group is going to convene I believe next week and start to see yeah to scope out a process for tech acquisition. So totally different separate process. Okay. How we might break that apart and and
and and go. So, um, yeah, this is just just the FFE. So, perfect. I just want to make a clarification there, and I'm not saying the state contract's bad on the technology either, because it gets bid by a lot of people. So, that's why it meets the the the the
state standard. Sure. Okay. Commissioner, good night. So, Monte, just for clarification, this is an item that's was bid in the initial contract. Yep. No, no. That's you kind of have the two buckets. You've got the the 27
building contracts uh that the board awarded, you know, a month and a half, two months ago, and I think that was around $16 million if I'm remembering correctly. So, that's again what's the work that's going on right now. And then below that line, you have again these
so-called owner items. And again, FF, technology, landscaping, those are separate. I mean, let's put this way. It's all part of the overall project budget and uh it's part of the financing plan. So, in other words, the debt that
was issued can can and will be used to help finance these items. So, it's all part of that. It's not extra. It's not on top of it's all part of that project budget. Yeah, that is a clarification that we're looking for. Thanks for asking. Yeah, I I just want to make sure that we can
refurbish reuse a lot of stuff. Makes total sense, Mr. chair to do as much as we can to repurpose good furniture. Sure. Yep. Okay. So, at this point, Mr. Chair, I think what I'm just looking for is just a motion, if you could, if you're so
inclined, to uh to approve this recommended FFE acquisition plan. And that starts GLT doing an RFQ. Okay. Board, what would you like to do? Mr. Chair, I'll make that motion. I think this is the smartest way to to
make sure that we can reuse the uh any furniture that that still can be utilized. So, I'll make that motion. M Mr. Chair, just to clarify, Commissioner Kapinsky talking about the state contract. Sorry. I'll second it. Thank you. Go ahead. I'll second the discussion. So, you're
you're talking about the state contract, correct? Okay. Thank you. So, my second stanza. Thanks for that clarification, Scott. Okay. Any other discussion on this? If not, we have a motion and a second. Beth, roll call. Commissioner Benoy,
I. Commissioner Heinen. Hi. Commissioner Johnson. Hi. Commissioner Gapinsky. Hi. Thank you. Passes. Next. Government Center Project. Anything else you want? How you doing, Commissioner Kapinsky? How you doing on time? Anything else you want to move around? You good?
I'm good. Keep rolling. Okay. All right. Jim is here from Did you need anything up here? No, not this time. No. Okay, let me just close this out. Next time we will. Okay. All right. Well, good morning, commissioners. My
name is Jim Oman. I'm from Integrity Group. Um I'm the project manager that's managing the day-to-day operations of the construction um on the office side of things. So, today we have just a brief update with our construction so far. Um, as you've all seen, we're in the midst of all the footings and
foundations, which means that the vast majority of our site work uh phase is over. Um, currently we're about 25% I would say through footings and foundations. Um, after which we would start steel erection and that'll carry
us uh a good good part into the winter. Um, as you probably heard, we ran into some soil um some contaminated soil issues. Um this was something that was uh partly expected. Um as we all know
that was the old Foley school there before. Um so when we were digging we found uh contaminants. It was just largely um just shiny water which obviously some sort of fuel right. So we had a plan for this and we had money in
the budget for this in case this occurred. Originally, when we didn't know the scope of the soil contamination, we had almost a million dollars in the budget for this, but we did our due diligence on the front end. We did a lot of soil testing, a lot of soil borings and some test pits. And and
according to that, there was no contaminated soil. Knowing that we probably find something, we kept $200,000 in the budget for that exact reason. And sure enough, we found it about, you know, between seven and 12 feet down, mostly in the center uh
center of the site and then back towards the far corner a little bit. Um once we got it all out, it end it came out to be 1,500 tons of material, which sounds like a big number, but um in terms of some of our more recent soil corrections
we've had, it's it's it's a medium amount. Um it's not a horrendous issue. Um that 1500 tons of material was shipped out uh to Vonco down in Becker. Um they have a process there by which they can have a certain cell that it all
goes in. It gets profiled. It gets tested in a lab so that it's all you know treat treated to environmental standards and stored away there. Um we had testers on site, third party testers to make sure that we're not taking out more than we need to and we're not
leaving in anything that we shouldn't. Um, and so those third party testers are here every day watching what we were taking out, testing. I think every other truckload that went out, they would take a scoop and and test it with their instruments and provide reports on that testing. So, um, it was pretty standard
in terms of soil corrections. Uh, the tests came back that it was number one and number two fuel oil. And the difference between those, it's just a summer and a winter mix of fuel oil. So the what we concluded is that there was a buried tank um that used to feed the
boilers over at the school and like all buried tanks from back in the day it leaked its contents. Um the contaminants were confined to that that one part of the site and we're pretty confident that we got it all. We dug until we've got into fresh clean
dirt on all sides of the hole and we back filled it in with with clean granular fill. So, um, at the end of the day, we only spent about half of that $200,000 that we allocated. I believe it was $111,000 was the final tally there. And the vast
majority of that is the cost to remove and then truck down to Becker all of the contaminated soil. But also included in that is the testing, um, the lab work and the the cost that Vonco has to store it. So that all the costs altogether
it's about 110 111,000 of the 200,000. So now that's done. Um we only lost two weeks of construction time from August 25th through September 4th. And to be quite honest with you, a project of this size, we're going to gain and lose two
weeks a bunch of times between now and the end. So I'm not worried about two weeks at all. So uh yeah, now we're on the footings and foundations. I think we have a good solid three more weeks of that if the weather holds. I know the contractors are pretty excited about the
forecast right now. We've got some beautiful weeks a beautiful week ahead of us. Doesn't look like a lick of rain in the 10 days. So, we're looking to turn and burn as much of that footing and foundation as we can get done uh in the next couple of weeks. Take advantage of good weather before it turns. So,
with that, do you guys have any questions for me? Mr. Chair. Yes. Jim, were you aware of the clean bill of health letter? that we received from MPCA a number of years ago on that site vaguely. Yeah, I believe when they gave you that they did 30 I think it was 34
test borings and or 34 test locations. I think almost nine of those were test pits. Um this landed pretty much square uh in the middle of all of those. Well, and the reason I asked because that particular contamination started back when that building was demolished and it
was with number six fuel oil which basically was tar. I mean it caused the whole demolition to come to a complete halt and so that was located right at the center of the building too and that's where the boiler room was. Yeah. So I was just wondering how that tied in with how you perceive the clean bill of
health from MPCA because that is an item we talked at thoroughly before purchasing the property. I looked over the the soil boring reports myself. I think they were done in 2023. Um, I looked those all over myself and they were all pretty much clean. And then I compared and overlaid
that with where the extraction location was that we ran into and I'm pretty positive that they did made a good faith effort to find what they could and they just missed it. I guess what I'm specifically talking about is a clean bill of health from MPCA back in approximately the year
2001. Oh, okay. That was in the file. And so we received that. The school district at the time received that letter and I was just wondering if you had any chance to cross reference that at all. No, I guess not not one from 2001. No, I I looked at the 2003 reports.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Kapensky. Piggybacking off of what Commissioner Johnson said. Uh I think what what he's looking at is I feel like it's a double-edged sword here. We got a clean bill of health which went to why we paid
what we paid for the building or the building site. And now all of a sudden we get digging and the state can back away from what they originally said was good. And and not only did we pay the the price that we negotiated with the seller of the land, but now we had put
another 100 grand 110 grand into uh trucking out material they said was a clean bill of health. Does that make sense? Well, my recollection, Mr. Chair, is that not to belabor this issue, uh, but
we had those the communication from there's really a dated sub from MPCA, but there wasn't definitive or conclusive evidence that the site was in fact clean. If it was, we wouldn't have had Bronn come in and do test scoring and
testics. So we needed additional evidence and assurances that it was the the cleanest possible site. So I again I and I know we shared that information with Brun and I think they reached the same conclusion is that it didn't give us definitive guarantees that the site was in fact completely clean.
It didn't. I I recall that. So again that led the board to say look okay we want Brian to come in and do a phase one and phase two. A phase one is a review of all the documentation and you kind of go that's first step and you say well okay is this conclusive
evidence yes or no the answer was no so that way proceeded to phase two which actually was putting holes in the ground and and doing test boring and that was what Jim just referenced was done in 23 and uh it's true right that they found very trace trace u existence of
hydrocarbon in the but it wasn't of of concern and I I think Jim's right. They just didn't sink a hole where this happened to me. So, Monty, I stand corrected. You are 100% right in the in how this went. I completely forgot about the step that we
did with uh the test drilling and everything. Jim, I know we were a little bit worried about asbestous. We didn't find much though, did we? We found uh I believe one sample of ACM or asbestous containing material and it was a bit of
it was a hunk of pipe if I remember correctly was 10 or 12 ft long that had some pipe wrap on it that contained asbestous that was disposed of um according to MPCA standards as well um and testing was done on that to confirm ACM. So but that was such a I didn't
mention that because that was such a small occurrence. We didn't find nearly as much uh chunks of asbestous as we feared we might. Right. So that that was pretty much non-issue. That that um I should add though that the amount to mitigate that little bit of asbestous is also included in that
110 111,000 number I figured I mentioned. Okay. Anything else? Thank you, Jim. Yep. another month update in about a month's time and uh we'll have hopefully we'll have some pictures and some better stuff for you to look at that time. So, okay, thank you guys.
Thank you very much. Next, Christine, consider the sale of county owned parcels. So before you is um two parcels that are currently county
owned. One in mind township and one in the city of St. Cloud. I don't know if you've been able to review. Do you have any questions? Lots of questions. Are you trying to get out of this or what? So anyway, let's just go through the
first parcel, the Midnight Township one. Mhm. So, that one was originally offered for auction by sealed bid in 2018. It did not sell. No one bid on it. It was has
then been offered over the counter at the estimated market value of 5,000 and has not sold. Uh the estimated market value for assessment year 2025 was 5,800. I had a discussion with Brian yesterday.
He reviewed it and he brought it to 1,900 for 2026 because it is just a nonconformant small wedge of property. Great. Thank you for that one. What about the next parcel?
Uh the next one was tax forfeited in 2009. It's in a development um just north of Cisco off of Highway 10. Um, it was sold at tax forfeit land auction in 2012. The individuals who purchased the
property did not know about assessments that were on the property which is 11,522.112 that is due to the city of St. Cloud for water, main, sewer, storm, drain, and surface improvements for the roads. Um,
so at that time the county purchased the property back from the buyers and has been trying to sell it over the counter since 2012. Um, the minimum bid price was previously set at 10,000
plus the assessment of 11,52212. The estimated market value for this year was 25,000. Commissioner Johnson. Mr. Chair Christine, I realize these were these came up long before you were here. Yeah. What's the the process? Um
are you a are you able to just put this out there whenever you have time have to come in from the board each time for it? How does that process work? Well, this is county owned property. So that this is different than the tax forfeited property. So this one we would need to come before
you and ask you to set the minimum bid price. Yeah. And did you say Brian changed the value on the first property to 1900? Yes. Yep. So I'm assuming that's probably what you're going to want for the first
parcel then is to put a price because you're wanting us to set the price. I'm assuming. Correct. You're going to set the minimum bid price. Minimum bid price. Okay. So, I know um when the first one was um
offered at sealed bid, the minimum bid price was a dollar. And because of where it's located, it's it's really only the people that own the property next to it would be the only ones interested in
it. And apparently he had some emergency that happened that day and he ended up not being able to bid on it. Okay. And we haven't had anything since then. Okay. Commissioner Berno, this is not that first one is not a buildable site.
No 11. Yeah. Of an acre, right? Yeah. More someone wants to put a billboard or something on it kind of. Sure. And so it's located directly north of the Joy Christian Center,
right off of Highway 23. So well, it's on Quebecor Road, which is north of the Christian Center. Okay. So previously on this site, we put a minimum bid of $1 on it before. Correct. Okay.
Let's take these individuals individually. What would we like to do with the first parcel for a minimum bid? board thinking. I know you're thinking, Commissioner Johnson. You know, the last time the
minimum bid was $1. It's valid at $1,900, though. So, what do you want to do with it? Anybody? Keep it at a dollar. Would that be your motion? I would do a motion. Okay. Do we have
It didn't sell the first time, right? Correct. Yep. Do we have a second? Second. Okay. Discussion. Commissioner Johnson. I know you're still thinking about that. I don't like the dollar specifically,
but it is what it is. It hasn't moved. It hasn't had any activity on it. So again, we don't have to accept it at the end of the day. I would imagine what the bids are. If they meet that dollar, don't we have to? Because we put that minimum out there.
That to me is just the minimum though, isn't it? Yeah, it's just a minimum. The idea is hopefully both parcels, one on each side, would try to figure out who's going to want it. It's not doing us any good. No.
The whole point of it is to get it back on the tax roll, right? Yeah. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on that for the minimum bid of a dollar on the first parcel? Partial number 09.00541.03. Any more discussion? If not, roll call.
Commissioner Benoy. Yeah. Commissioner Heinen. Commissioner Johnson. Hi, Commissioner Kapinsky. Hi. Passes. What do you want to do with the next minimum bid for parcel 170155300?
What was the last minimum, Christine? The last minimum was $10,000 plus the $11,000 assessment on it. Um, this parcel is buildable, but it's a very weird shape
that because there's wetland in it, right? So, we reached out to the um city of St. Cloud and they drew a area. It's a wedge that could be built on, right?
So again, it's not not a real desirable M. May I ask a question, Mr. Chair? So So I remember uh Christ seeing back I think during the great recession um there were lots in a in a different city
that had a fair fairly large special assessments attached to them and the city was willing to reduce those to make them more attractive for sale. Is there any possibility the city would have have any interest of reducing the assessments? We already tried that. They are not and it was a hard no. Okay. Yeah.
Thanks for asking. Mhm. So that means our minimum bid should include the uh special assessment then at that time because they're not willing to reduce city of St. Cloud. Correct or not? So I no I believe it's
the minimum bid and then plus the special assessments. So Mr. Johnson, Mr. Chair, so did Brian adjust his estimated market value of this property at all? He did not. I'll move to have the minimum bid at $10,000 in addition to the sales price
of $11,52212 of special assessments that must be paid at the time of purchase also. Okay, we got a motion. I'll second. Okay, got a motion and Yep. Okay, Christine, can I say something? Um, so this has
been for sale over the counter on our website at that price and has not sold. Uh, for how long has that been on I didn't see since 2012. 12. Yeah. Okay, Christine, what's your recommendation then?
I don't have a recommendation. My my issue with it is he hasn't he hasn't dropped the estimated market value of 25 grand at all. So, right, we're already 15 grand under the estimated market value it has assessments on it. I understand that.
Okay. Well, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on this item? Commissioner B to get it back on the tax and hopefully somebody builds a house and puts it back on the tax. Sure. That's the intentions. Monty, may I ask Christine a question? So Christine, after many attempts to sell
this through this means, is it possible for counties to list property with a realtor? Is that is that permissible once you've exhausted and you've tried your best to sell it through an auction process? Can you list it with a realtor? That I would have to check into I guess my thought there might be worth
exploring because to give this more exposure because see right now it's not listed on the MLS and you have to you have to be looking at our website to see it or see a social media posting. So, I guess my it's getting very limited exposure, but if it was on, you know,
the searchable realtor.com, you would actually see it then. I would assume there would be a cost to the county at that point then because right now what we're planning on doing is the public service. Well, I guess my thought is we can keep trying doing the same thing over and over again and and expect different
results or we can try something different, you know. So, I like that idea, Monty. I'm going to resend my motion and table this uh until our next meeting and we get an answer back from the under treasurer. Yeah. Thank you. And I'll resend my second and do the same.
Okay. Okay. We'll table this parcel until the next meeting. Okay. Until we can gather further information. Okay. Anything else, Christine? Nope. That's all I had. Thank you very much. Appreciate it, Chris.
All right. Good morning, commissioners. Morning. Good morning. Just allow me a moment. I always like to bring things up on the screen so we're all I think I still sharing screen so you may just let you know that. So, very good. Thank you. Yeah, that way those playing bingo at
home can follow along. Um, all right. Let's see. My first item is to consider the bids for project SP00005- 090-00005. This is the railroad crossing, the pedestrian railroad crossing in Rice.
So, we opened bids on September 5th and all the bids came in higher than the engineers estimate almost by double. So, we received three bids. All were responsible bids and followed all the bidding instructions. But the lowest bid
of Tyizac Concrete LLC was uh $213,321.86. And for this portion of the project, uh the engineer was estimating uh just about $103,000. So this was considered at the Rice City Council meeting last week and they voted
not to move forward with the project. So that would be my recommendation to the county board is not to move forward with the project. reject all bids at this point and then talking with their engineer, what we would do is reconsider uh readvertising uh later this fall and
maybe have a winter bid opening. Um one of the things that we think or a couple reasons why we think bids came in high is the compressed timeline. Uh that was one of it. Uh and working with the railroad. So, because you're working with the railroad, there's railroad
liability insurance that you are forced to buy and you buy it from BNSF. You don't get to shop for your own. Uh then you pay for a railroad flagger to tell you when a train's coming and you need to clear the track. And so those costs
aren't broken out. They were just incidental other items. So biders had to had to include those costs with with other items. you know, the concrete, sidewalk, pavement, uh, and earthwork and stuff. So, we may reconsider breaking that out as a separate bid item
and have the the biders bid that. Another reason why I think, uh, Rice chose not to move forward with this because they are receiving a transportation altern at that grant award amount. Anything additional would be on the city. And so
it would it would amount to about another $100,000 of cost that the city would have to come up with to to if these bids were awarded. Mr. Chair, Chris, do they are we subject or are they subject to losing that grant if they don't act on this? Is it I I've been in contact with uh Mandotate
a um and we don't think so as long as we don't let it sit for too long. That's why we think this a winter bid opening would be advisable. Um, and we should be able to, well, we can keep the grant amount for them. So, we'll just rebid
it. Um, and then it would be a 2026 construction as opposed to a fall of 2025 construction project. Mr. Chair, I'm going to move to reject the bids and readvertise at the county engineers and city of Rice's timeline in the future.
Got a motion and a second. Any more discussion on that? Beth, roll call. Commissioner Benoy, I. Commissioner Heinen. Hi. Commissioner Johnson. Hi. Commissioner Kapinsky. Hi.
Okay, Chris. Move on. Very good. We will I will continue working with the city of Rice and their engineer uh to get that reverted and keep you informed of that progress. The next item is the consideration of
bids for project SP00005-070-014. Now, this is our roundabout project at Mayhew Lake Road and Cassad 29. So, we opened bids on September 12th, 2025. Uh we received uh
we received quite several bids. So, uh seven six bids here. The lowest responsible bidder was Knife River uh North Central Division, but they are 2.7% above our estimate. So prices came in a
little bit higher than what we were recommending, but um so six bids there. The highest bid was 116% of our bid or 16% over our estimate. So that being said, it is my recommendation to go ahead and move forward with this.
We've got a lot of things that are riding on this to get this project done. Uh 2.7%. So overall, um that is $76,559 overall estimate. This bid also includes
city utilities as a portion of that. So the county's portion of this project will come to $2,65,440.3. That portion is $56,924.38 over what we were estimating. One of the things you may be wondering is what what drove to be over and really
the biggest thing was uh the batuminous pavement. Uh I have that here. So we were estimating uh batuminous pavement to come in at $70 a ton. Uh all the bids came in at $108 a ton or higher. So
batuminous prices seem to be going up. Those batu those really good batumis prices we got earlier this year. We we don't have that that now. So there could be lot of reasons why uh just crude oil prices. Uh the fact that a lot of that
batumous construction is going to occur next summer. That could be part of it as well. But that was the that was probably the biggest driving factor. We had a lot of things that were over. We had a lot of things that were under our estimate. Uh but that item right there was uh
$100,000 over what we were estimating. But once again, overall the project is $76,000 over our estimate. Just to recap though, this project uh is receiving federal funds. So all said and done, I have that uh here. We're
receiving $1,940,000 of uh HSIP money. And we've got we got what was called a carbon reduction program grant as well that was only $440,000. So the remainder anything above that
$1.9 million uh will be local option sales tax or sales tax for transportation will be going towards this the construction of this project because of those two funding sources. That's why it's my engineer's recommendation is to go ahead and award this construction contract. If it is
awarded this fall, we will proceed with constructing the bypass road so that next summer, it was written into the bidding specs that the Monday after school uh is done next spring, we're closing that intersection down and um
come H or high water, we're opening that intersection back up before Labor Day weekend. So, it's open for school in the fall of 2026. So, uh, Chris, this you said this includes the cost for the city utilities.
Yeah. City responsible for that. That's right. The city is responsible for the relocation of their sewer and water lines underneath that intersection. So, okay, Mr. Chair, uh, Chris, do you recall I was trying to remember back when we did
our five-year road plan, uh, did you have estimate in local oper sales tax for this road to help with offsetting this? I I just don't remember that dollar amount in there. Do you happen to remember? Uh I do not remember that. What I do know is that in the five-year plan
though, the total construction cost was estimated to be about $3 million. Right. So, of just the county's costs. So, um uh I don't although I don't recall the specific sales tax amount, our official estimate when we got all said and done
with the plans is a little bit less. Um, so conceivably we're using less sales tax than when we adopted the 5-year plan even though it's over our estimate. Um, we could be using a little bit less. So, okay. Thank you. So, it would be the difference between
um 2,65,440 and 1,940,000. So, I didn't do that math real quick. Okay. Okay. It's about 700,000. Yeah. Dollars.
I'll make a motion to uh cons uh uh for project SP 00570 014 to accept the to accept the bid. Second. Okay, got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Chris,
I just want to for clarification make sure the the resolution or the the the motion includes authorizing the board chair to sign the resolution awarding that I do need to add that it is contingent upon the mindot office of civil rights and compliances with uh the
disadvantaged business enterprise uh program. There is a 7.5% DBE goal meaning seven of work equivalent to 7.5% of the value is performed by disadvantaged business
enterprises. So um that office is reviewing those submitts by the contractor right now. I was hoping that we'd have them by today but we we do not. So I will include that in motion. My second's fine too.
Okay. Any further discussion? If not, roll call, please. Commissioner Benoy, I. Commissioner Hein. Commissioner Johnson. Hi. Commissioner Kapinsky. Hi. Okay. Uh, Commissioner Gapinsky, you have to leave now. I'm going to be stepping away, so I do
apologize. Okay. Thank you for your time this morning. Appreciate it. Thanks everybody. Yep. Thank you. Have a good day. Okay. Next, Chris. All right. Uh the next item is uh a discussion item and maybe a consensus.
Uh I know today is a is an important meeting where the preliminary levy uh was established. Um just just for record there was no increases into the highway department of levy for engineering services. So, I
think I would like to continue discussion on the need for hiring outside engineering services to make sure we complete our 5-year plan. And this is where it gets tricky. You know, we we do an annual budget and we're looking at 2026 budget. But as an
engineer, we're looking at projects that are 27, 28, 29, and 30. Some of those projects require engineering and planning work now just with all the regulatory review and approvals uh uh
and stuff. It requires a multi-year process before we get to construction. Then throw in bats where we have to be clearing trees over a year in advance so that utilities can get out of the way the summer before we're going to construct it. So that backs up our engineering. we almost have to have the engineering done almost two years
sometimes before uh we do construction. So this this document here um is our five-year plan kind of truncated and colorcoded of all the projects here. So over the five years, this is what essentially the list of all the the road
and bridge construction projects that we are expected to to deliver. And when I say deliver, that year that's listed is the year of construction. What we see on the screen here in green are projects that we plan on designing
in-house and therefore we would also inspect it inhouse with our engineering uh technician staff. We have three engineering technicians. Um and so simple terms you could expect well three construction projects a year could be
inspected by in-house staff. Um, but we we do some things to to kind of cheat cheat that I shouldn't use the word cheat to maximize our uh availability where we will we will tie projects together as it's called. So if they're projects of similar scope, let's say all
the overlay projects, we'll tie them into one construction project. So therefore, we have some governance over the contractor's schedule and we can uh assign one inspector to that project. If we had let those all separately, it's conceivable we would have multiple
contractors and if those schedules over overlapped, we wouldn't be able to to staff it. So, we do things like that. The projects in pink here are projects that we would uh need to use consultant
design and consultant to inspect. And immediately in 2026, there's two projects and these are bridge projects. So what's interesting is the 12 and 13 bridge projects we had budget in the current year for the consultant design
of those uh bridge design is kind of a spe specialty uh aspect of engineering which we don't have that expertise in house. So we've always uh consulted that out and likewise the inspection of those uh
we would need some that that same expertise to inspect it. In Minnesota though we use the bridge the term bridge to refer to any structure that has a span of 10 ft or greater. Up until this current year, a lot of our bridge replacement projects
have been just box cover culverts where we have been fortunate to inspect those construction projects with our in-house staff. We're getting into a period of time where the bridges we're replacing now are actual bridge structures, more of a traditional bridge structure that
you would imagine on driven piles and peers with bridge beams that span the stream or water. And so those are those are more complicated and would require um that that higher level of expertise from a consultant. Um then you see some
projects in blue which would be projects that we intend to or we would probably need to use a consultant to perform all the engineering and final engineering work. But we would have the full intentions that we would con inspect those with our in-house
inspection staff. And for an example there, the 2027 construction project of CASAT 2. Here's the reality of that. We've been working on engineering on that for two to three years already. We have budget currently to to do engineering. It's anticipated though
that engineering contract will go into 2026. Um, and so we would need some engineering budget for that in 2026. But we would we would inspect it with our uh one of our three engineering
techs um in house. Um we're hoping so you see a couple more bridges here. Once again, higher level of expertise, but by 2027, um although we may need to use the consultant to design those,
we're anticipating that we will have one or two of our engineering technicians through the the proper classes and training and they would be ready to inspect that in in house. Um
uh there's a there comes into to some more projects here. That's Yeah, that's that's the blue color, right? Consulting inspection. Um uh inspect in-house. We got some more pink in 2028. Um we we try to manage our workload and
that's basically because in 2028 all these projects we just think that we would be over capacity. the volume of work to deliver in 2028 would be greater than what our in-house inspectors. So, we would possibly need to use consultant design and inspection in 2028 because
our inspectors will be inspecting all these other projects that same construction year. Um uh likewise in the later years as well. So, we've got some in-house cons
inspection, but we may need some outside help uh with inspection as well. This this kind of pinkish color here is one that we're we're uh unsure of yet. So, um most likely would
need to use some uh Oh, this is the big one. And this is the Mayhew Lake Road. If we're constructing that big project all the way from Highway 23 up to 29, we're hoping in 5 years from now, we would have we're going to have the Rockstar technician staff in house and
they will be able to inspect that uh big project in house. The reality of it is we need to be doing the engineering and planning of that right now. So, um that's a big one that we would need some budget for outside help. This
document also these these square boxes um are projects that are in the current um five-year plan to use local option sales tax. And why I think that's significant is um
we've had some discussions up till now we've we've been using levy for engineering services whether it's to pay for in-house staff or hire outside consultants. It does seem feasible that maybe if we've identified the road construction
portion to be funded with local sales tax, maybe we need to consider funding the engineering portion of that project with sales tax as well. Good and bad. The problem is only these projects with the the thick border
around them are ones that are identified on our current sales tax list. So that's the discussion that we should continue to have I believe is first of all do we want to use some of the sales tax proceeds to pay for the engineering
portion. The downside of that is uh maybe that makes a little less sales tax available for the actual construction costs. The plus side is well we're not having to use levy for those engineering costs. And I would propose if we're going to consider that consider it for
reimbursing in-house staff as well. If we have an in-house technician inspecting a sales tax project, maybe there should be some levy offset from the sales tax for that as well. The other thing is there's a lot of
projects on here that are not identified on the sales tax list that could be maybe up for consideration. Um, we've mentioned it before to add it to that sales tax list would require a public hearing and a new resolution adopted.
Mr. Chair, Chris, um, I know that the projects would take the public hearing, but does the change of funding using local option sales tax towards engineering public hearing also or is that something the board can decide? I believe the board can decide um because we would
make a statement maybe we make a policy statement that the engineering is necessary to complete the capital improvement of this project. Um and what I'm finding is a lot of counterpart my counterparts across the state have already been doing this. They've been using the sales tax for for the
engineering portion. So, well, I guess if it's already on the list, I feel like we could uh I'm confident that we could make that policy statement that we're going to use the sales tax to to pay for the engineering. I guess the other plus is we're receiving approximately double on our local option sales tax than we expected.
Yeah, we are starting to see some actually leveling out now. So, we're about $3.8 million a year sales tax. And that original study before we adopted it was estimating at 1.9 million per year. So, we're leveling off at 3.8. Yeah.
Well, good and bad. I guess the only question I have is I just want to make sure that it's we we can legally use have sense tail stacks, you know, for the engineering portion of it. Yeah, good question. As an engineer, I
say you can't have one without the other. So, um, and Mr. Chair, Chris, just to clarify on on the agenda item, looking at estimated cost of 1.3 million. Yeah, that's over the five-year road project plan. Well, that would actually that would be
engineering just for uh next year. Just for 26. 2026. Yeah. [Music] What was in your consulting budget for 26? So, what what it got approved is about $200 and some thousand.
So, do we have to do the difference or an addition to? Well, it would be the difference between what was just adopted as a preliminary today and 1.3 million. So, it's maybe 1.1 roughly. And I can tell you confidently a big
portion of that engineering cost is this big Mayhew Lake Road project that we're pursuing all sources of funding for. But as an engineer, I feel like we we keep getting some questions that I can't effectively answer until we've get some
engineering more engineering out of the way. We have done some preliminary planning. We have some concepts drawn. Um I hate to tell you this, but Excel Energy is going to be be a big thorn in our side on that Mayu Lake Road project. So we need to get some engineering done.
And so that one mill nearly $1 million of that 1.3 is for engineering on this Mayhew Lake Road of uh an $18 million project. So, every time we go for funding at the
state and Commissioner Johnson, you were in DC, they've always asked us, "How far are we with this process?" Okay. And when we told them we've never started the engineering yet, pretty soon they looked a little differently at the
project. I I think unfortunately it's it's a huge expense but in order to capitalize on funding we have to do this. I mean correct Chris would that be your opinion too? Yeah even for the construction cost I
think it may behoove us to consider adding that to the sales tax. That's another thing that always gets asked too is what other funding sources do we look at? Yeah. And I think at the state level when they see, oh, Benton County has sales tax, but then we have to say, oh, yeah, but we didn't identify any sales tax for
this project. That that may help us to say that once again, it doesn't seem like the state or federal wants to be the sole source of funding. They want to help out knowing that you've got some other funding to to match it and stuff. It may
help us on on raise grants, may help us on uh federal congressionally delegated spending. And and that's correct, Chris. Every time I've been in front of, you know, down at St. Paul, it's first thing they ask us, what other type of funding
options are you going for or have and and Commissioner Johnson, you were in DC, you know, anything brought up about that too or not? It's it's the same question. you know, they want to know, yeah, where the funding sources are coming from. I I just need to make sure I'm got
my head wrapped around this. So, an estimated cost of 1.3 million, you've had 200 grand stuck in your budget. So, we're looking at 1.3 1.1 million plus or minus in addition to what we preliminarily set already today.
Uh, or use local option sales tax dollars. Yes. And if we use local option sales tax dollars and receive other types of funding, I would assume then we could potentially reimburse local option sales tax. Yeah, that's the thing. The like at the
state level for a bonding bill, it's all in how that bill gets worded. The draft or the bills that got introduced last year at the state, the house file and senate file did include language that included engineering costs. Well, here we are a whole year later, no
funding there. So, um, yeah, that could like for at least at the state bonding level, we could include language that says that that money includes covering engineering costs. The problem is, yeah, we need to do we got to get some of that done before we get the funding,
but to approve 1.1 million in addition now is another four and a half%. Or comes off half sun sales tax or comes out. You know that's I know we're both problem is we've already approved the proposed budget so we can't really raise
can't do that. No can't raise it. No. So we're only stuck something we're stuck with local local option sales tax kind of. That's the only option we have. The thing is is you wouldn't necessarily be using the whole 1.1 million right
away. No. Um yeah I guess that's conceivable. So, um, and it comes down to scope, too. This this big project, I think we've all recognized, yeah, $18 million of construction cost, that's a big animal.
Maybe we say, "Okay, we're not going to do engineering for the whole length Part: 2
23 to 29. Let's just focus on engineering in front of the high school entrances. That's that's a lot smaller scope. But for budget purposes, I I went bigger than than smaller. So, and you know, I I'm not uh ignorant to
the fact that Monty mentioned it cut. I mean, that is maybe not the preferred option, but there's an option, too, is that we just cut projects out of the five-year plan. But I I think we've all we've been making great progress on our road and bridge infrastructure. I don't know if that's in anybody's best interest to do that at this point either.
>> Yeah, but we can also keep moving projects further down the list too though, Chris. >> You know, so instead of having a big year in three, we could have a little bigger year in four, you know, take some of that off of three and we got what, 12 years left on the local option sales tax list. We're already halfway through it.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. at at this pace, even if we didn't add any projects, we would we could potentially have all those projects funded before the sunset date because yeah, we've headed in place five
years now. So, and yeah, we're more than halfway completed with that list of projects >> and we're confident we can use local option sales tax dollars for engineering. >> Uh, it is occurring now. >> Okay. So, I hope I didn't implicate any of my
neighbors, but no. Um, well, you didn't list any names anyway, so that was good. >> That's where I I I learned it that it is. Yeah, others are doing that. So, >> I just I mean, I want to make that for 1.3 million, how many employees could we
hire this in house? that that's my biggest thing is that or or possibly adjust wages. You know what I you see what I'm saying? I mean that's a lot of money >> we've uh
>> that we're spending for outside that we could could possibly >> I don't know >> keep in house. >> Yeah. Keep in house. Th this has always come up every year since I've been a commissioner, too. And we've always tried to figure out how to get good
quality technicians to on staff and keep them. >> I mean, what but what I mean, what would it cost to hire a bridge consultant that actually works for the county? >> Uh, good. I forgot that I had that. Good
question. I forgot that I had this attachment in the agenda item. So this is this is basically was my my policy request. So it's um all the projects in the next four or five years that I would anticipate that we'd have some engineering costs in 2026.
Um I actually anticipated that maybe we would have a little bit of engineering costs um of the roundabout next year. Um at the time of the budget wasn't confident that we'd be able to do that in house. um we'd have a little bit of engineering to pay on the county road 43
construction project. Now bridges specifically um uh like these 12 bridges anticipating about $15,000 of expense uh for those remaining in 2026 even though we're
doing some of the design here now. County Road 56. That would be complete design of that bridge in 2026 for 2027 construction. That cost about $50,000 to have that bridge designed. Um
uh Cassell 1 construction. In our five-year plan, we have County Road 80 um listed as a reconstruction. That's that portion from Golden Spike down to Wapakotta Road, the next part of the, you know, the Saw 29 extension. um
engineering costs completely could be upwards of 400,000. I'm anticipating if we get started with that next year, you know, a quarter of that cost would be incurred in in 2026. Um
oh, here we go. Here's the 12 and 13 replacement. to have a bridge inspector um uh a certified new bridge construction inspector on site is about $150,000
per bridge. That's is what we were quoted this current year. Now I think we're we gained some efficiencies because once again we tied those projects together. We have got a really good contractor. the inspector works on one bridge and then when he goes with
the contractor, they go to the other bridge. So, they're not working on both bridges at the same time. And so, I I'm I'm confident that our consultant costs are going to be under what we were estimated because they they happen concurrently, not consecutively. Didn't didn't inspect one bridge and then go to
the other. But for budget purposes, once again, if these were two different inspectors, it could be upwards of $150,000 per bridge to inspect uh the construction of those bridges. And I respect the the the question too
about hiring. Um if we could hire them, I think that's the challenge right now is finding quality candidates. Um uh get out there. We could we could add positions, increase the the pay.
They're just they're they're just not the market's not there as it was 10 10 years ago. And the the technicians that we have now are great highquality people. But we knew when we hired them that because of this career progression,
we hired them at the low end of the career progression anticipating that it would take multiple years to get them there. So >> because at this point they're not qualified to do bridge inspections. >> That's that's correct. Yeah. >> Chris, do we do we ever see Mr. Sh do we
ever see for see a point where those folks could actually do the design work in house on a bridge design a bridges? Uh maybe not because the next 5 years we have a crop of like six bridges and then
we may not have a new bridge construction for 15 years after that. Um we're in in the history of of time we're in a section where the late60s they were they were building quite a few bridges in this county and so they've aged out and they're deteriorating. So we'll get
we'll replace these bridges and then there wasn't a new bridge built in Benton County until the 80s. So that's why I say we've got another 15ear span before we we hit another round of five to six bridges that were built around the same time and need to be replaced. >> So it's one of those things that like at
least for bridge design you'll have peaks and and valleys. So we're at a peak right now. We'll soon go into a valley where where any box or bridges replaced would be box coverts that we would we would design most of that in-house and inspect that inhouse.
Well, it certainly is a quandry because it's either levy money or we're going to burn through local option sales tax dollars and maybe probably get less projects done. >> I think the point that we have to use local option sales tax because >> we already did the preliminary.
>> Yeah, I would have to agree. >> Well, it probably wouldn't have flew in the >> No, preliminary. >> It wouldn't have. >> It would have. So we we need a consensus on how to proceed, how to proceed for the next two years or the next five years. I mean,
>> you know, today was a discussion. Maybe it's something that's best suited as a as a cow. That could be an option, too, if you want to consider looking at the cow. So, um, >> yeah, I I would like to have both commissioners here. >> I Yeah, exactly. Full board. >> Yeah. >> What's your timeline, Chris?
time to have a cow and get some good discussion going or >> Well, yeah, I just I'm not going to hire any additional outside consulting until something. So, we'll just >> we'll just be patient. So, Chris, anything that you've contemplated requires an amendment to the authorizing
resolution at this point >> of the five-year plan? >> No. >> The sales tax resolution. Does anything you contemplated here require a revision to that resolution? possibly that would be the only thing is if
so >> I guess what I'm trying to get to is is ultimately to make this happen what formal action is required of the county board >> at some point >> well okay I guess at this point the >> the only formal action I I would be requesting I guess is to authorize using
sales tax for previously identified projects and that won't require revision to the resolution. >> Correct. >> Okay. Got it. >> So, it's more like just a motion at some point to say, "Hey, uh, Chris, you can use it on design." >> But, >> yeah. >> Okay.
>> With that said, I think we better have a full board together to have a committee of the whole so we understand how that's going to work. >> Yeah. >> And I would have to agree. >> So then, Mr. Chair, we could set that date at the end of the meeting. Then, >> y >> hopefully the other two commissioners will be able to make it work.
>> Yeah. the resolution would be be need to be revised if there was additional projects you want to and it's quite honest there's engineers across the state I've talked to that they basically put every project on their sales tax resolution and the
board still reserves the right that when it comes time to actually deliver that project choose whether or not to use sales tax for it kind of like rather have that available and not need it as opposed to need it and not have it available Okay.
>> Okay. Well, anything else, Chris? >> Uh, that's all I had at this time, unless there's any questions about roads and bridges. So, >> Oh, I I have none. So, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
>> Well, Kathleen Rutder, Tony attorney, you're up next. >> Morning. >> Good morning. >> Good morning. Unfortunately, what brought me here today is I'm losing another attorney. Um, she's going to be she's put in her notice and October 3rd is her last day.
Um, under staffing is in my office is causing a lot of burnout and turnover unfortunately. Um, and as the board is aware, we've had a vacant um long-term attorney position. Uh, he's basically been gone since September of 23. um that
originally was supposed to be for a year. He was supposed to return September of 24. It got extended for four or five months. I believe it was in January of this year. He was back for about 3 weeks before he took another military assignment. And that is supposed to um go through December, I
believe, of this year. Um in speaking with him, he's been offered a full-time military job. He's accepted that, and the only reason he has not resigned yet is because they're waiting for congressional approval. uh he had told me he's 99% sure that that will happen.
It's just a matter of time. So, because I am going to be trying to fill uh the new vacancy, what I'm asking essentially today is if we can go ahead and fi overfill that position and essentially try to hire two new attorneys. Uh knowing that once
um he is able to resign that that, you know, that position has essentially already been filled. Um, I suppose it is, as we've discussed previously, it is a a small risk if he were to decide to come back. I suppose he could, but from everything that I've understood, he's
not returning. Um, he's moved down to Texas with his family and has accepted this full-time position. And quite honestly, it sounds like even if that were to not happen, he's going to continue to try to get more military assignments. >> Any questions with that?
Monty, what's what's the time frame to keep that position open? Military leave. >> Sure. Right. Yeah. There's I had to look up what the there's the acronym for this form of leave. It's called USERA, uniform services, Employment, and Reemployment Right Act of 1994.
So, it entitles members of the armed forces to uh job protected leave of up to 5 years. um uh while we need to keep that position open while they're deployed to active duty. >> So, >> okay, thank you for that. >> Yeah.
>> Yep. >> Mr. Chair, I'm going to share my thoughts. I I think it's appropriate for Kathy to go ahead and post for the immediate vacancy. Part of me says I would like to have full board contingency in regards to discussion on the long-term one just out
of respect for them. they're not here today and so I don't know that that's something I'm necessarily comfortable making a decision on without their input. But that's my two cents. >> I I do know one commissioner had the same thoughts that you just brought up
and and I would agree with that. I would agree with posting the new position with the one that's resonating and then waiting till next month when all the commissioners are in have a discussion about posting the one that's on military
leave. >> That sounds like a motion to table. >> That would be a motion. >> Yeah. Okay. >> And then we would just table the other one till the next meeting >> so that the rest of the board is here. >> Should be and the re The other reason we
ask is of course going through the entire process with Emily and Shannon, it takes a period of time. >> Um, so we were hoping we could kind of two kill two birds with one stone. >> October 7th. October 7th. Yeah, >> October 7th. I think between now and October 7th, if you find two good
qualified people, >> that'll make a very good discussion for that board meeting. >> So most likely it'd be posted for usually a minimum of at least two weeks, sometimes a month. So by the seventh, it's probably still going to be posted. You know, in other words, you won't have made decisions about who you're going to
invite in for interviews and so on and so forth. So there's still an opportunity, I guess, for the board to consider the two the second one at the seventh. >> Mr. Chair, so what I'm hearing, Monty, then if the board chooses on the 7th to add the second one, not a big deal. >> That'd be fine. Yeah. Because again, I
can't feature it's going to close before the 7th. It isn't even posted yet. >> Mhm. So, uh, you typically positions, especially, you know, a position at this level would probably be open for >> more than two weeks. >> Yeah. >> So, that puts us past the seventh. So,
>> what I was hoping though is just to be able to list it as two different positions that was that would be open >> to get that much more. >> But I I but I think you you most likely will get multiple applicants. Even though it's just it lists one position, you'll get multiple candidates and hopefully but then if the board approves
the second position, hopefully you'll have someone in that pool that's qualified. >> Correct. >> Second. Yeah. >> So, >> so Mr. Chair, maybe if I could just clarify your motion is to approve the uh immediate vacancy and then have
discussion about the second one at our next board meeting. >> Next board meeting. Correct. Yep. >> And you seconded it, Commissioner B. Any other discussion? I >> I just have one more question. >> When do you expect to get an answer from
this? >> I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine. It's It's been a great strain on the office. >> It's been two and a half years already, right, since he's been out? >> Years. >> Two years.
I I can understand the strain. >> And now we're essentially losing another felony attorney. So, we're just we're we're going to be in real dire straits here for a while. And we I mean we we have been since I took over last July. We were down three
attorneys. We finally got up to we were only down one and now we'll be down two again. >> Okay. We've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? If not, I'm going to call the question because we don't need a roll call because it's only three of us. All in
favor say I. I >> I oppose. Motion carries. Thank you. >> We'll have an answer next meeting for you. Okay, Kathleen. >> Thank you. >> Okay, with that, I'll reconvene the regular board meeting and turn it over to the ditch chair. Board chair.
>> All right. >> Recess. Yep. Sorry. Thank you for the termination. >> Call our uh county ditch authority meeting to order. Um we did have a prior roll call that should be taken care of already. There are uh consent agenda
items here. I guess from my perspective, and I haven't talked to Chris yet. I had a short conversation with Beth. Uh I'd like to pull all four. I think there's additional conversation and we need to revisit the audio on some of these. I know that we all received an email
yesterday that was questioning some of the minutes. So, I think for now, and as you well know, having our minutes correct is important. So, I'd like to pull all of those and uh move them to our next scheduled ditch meeting, which I'm not sure when that'll be, but
>> probably we'll have topics discussed at the next >> So, if we could move all four of those items, please to the the uh October 7th meeting. That'd be great. Move on to the regular agenda. Uh first item, update to the landowner request to keep a tree
within CD14's buffer strip. Chris, >> yeah. So if you recall, we had a discussion about this. This was part of the CD14 repair project. Uh the board or the drainage authority has adopted a policy that within the buffer strip uh
all trees be removed to that point of 16 1/2 ft from um the top of the bank. Uh this tree has remained. There was some discussion that this may be governed by a treaty between US government and uh
the tribes. So, um our drain inspector has had some conversations uh with this individual, the land owner, where the tree lies, and then I'm going to turn it over to Adam to kind of recap the conversations that he's had with the the land owner. So,
>> morning Adam. >> Morning. Thank you, commissioners. Um yeah, like Chris said, we had this discussion, I believe in our last meeting regarding um this tree in the buffer strip. Um you guys tasked me with um contacting that landowner and just
making sure that they know that they would be responsible for any damages caused by this tree. And also you guys suggested that um if the property were to be sold or transferred in any way that that responsibility would be um
given to the the next landowner. Um so basically the update there's there's this is just anformational thing. I called the landowner after the meeting and asked them. I was like, "Hey, is this something you would be okay with having the responsibility of this?" And
verbally they said yes, that would be fine. So, right now, I sent them a letter um with this just stating everything that I just said. And then on the next page, it's their signature and then Chris and I's signature here. Um,
as of today, I haven't received that letter back. I sent this probably a week ago, give or take. Um, so right now I'm waiting to hear that back, but like I said, I got a verbal confirmation that they would be okay with signing this. Um, we just wanted to give you an update
on where that was because we we discussed it last meeting. Um, so obviously once I receive this letter back signed, um, if I don't receive in the next couple days, I'll probably do a checkup, just call them and see if make sure they received it. Um, and then
hopefully by our next ditch meeting, I will have that letter signed and then I can basically we we will be good by then. >> Adam, quick question. Do you happen to know, and I just thought of this now as I'm looking at it, is Pat the only one listed as the owner or is her husband on it?
>> No, her husband is on it as well. Um, the only reason I have Pat Johnson on here is because she was the one who came up to me. Um, but like you said, maybe it would be more pertinent if both if both
>> I just I mean, Lord forbid something happens to Pat, but then she's the only one that signed it. I guess from my perspective, the land owners >> should be signing off on it. >> Um, >> other than that, I think the agreement's great. I'm glad that they're willing to to do that and acknowledge the liability
for that tree. So, I I think even after discussion with our attorneys, uh it's probably not worth the time and commitment it would take to check out a treaty from the 1800s to find out what's going on over one tree. So, >> no. >> Anyways, uh with that, I will move for
approval of this um with a contingency that both owners sign the the agreement, please. >> All right. And yeah, since I haven't received it back, it doesn't hurt to just send another letter with the update. >> Yeah. >> With it. All it costs is postage obviously. So, >> right.
>> Um, >> so that's my motion >> and I'll second that motion to and Mr. Chair, I agree with you. Both land owners should be signing that. >> Okay. So, we have a motion in a second. Any other discussion? >> Hearing none. All those in favor? >> I opposed. It's carried. Thank you for
your work on that. >> Thank you. >> All right. Move on to considering the petition for removal of property from Benton County ditch number 12. >> All right. So, uh, we received a petition, um, on September 2nd, uh, of
2025 from a landowner. Uh, these land owners were reviewed and it is confirmed that these, uh, parcel IDs, uh, do exist in the benefited area of CD12 and they are
petitioning, uh, to be removed from um, the dish system. Excuse me, Chris, I interrupt you. They do not fit in there >> or they do. >> So, right now they are as of the last redetermination of benefits, their parcel exists as a benefited land owner.
Therefore, they are a valid petitioner, meaning they do have interest in the ditch system. Thank you. >> But they are asking for the um drainage authority to review it further and consider being removed from the system. So, in accordance to Minnesota statute
103E.85, 805 and in consultation with our ad drainage attorney. The next step would be to set a public hearing uh on the petition and then notification to all the benefited uh parties will be
sent out and then uh at that hearing the drains authority would have to consider uh the next course of action. So, the action today before us is just to set the date and time and location of a public hearing. And I didn't get it included in the packet, but um let's see
if I could do this. I did I do have a drafted uh there we go. Form. Um how do I zoom out? Basically, we can This would be the official notice after being adopted
today. So listed the parcel um there the address and then once we determine the date and time uh of the hearing this will become the official notice and then I think Christine's office will have to send out letters to all of the the
existing benefited owners. >> So Chris um have you and Christine and or Hannah had a chance to talk about the 4th or the 18th of November? That's the dates we threw out at the subcommittee. Do you have a suggestion on when you want to hold that hearing?
>> Uh, yeah. Either one would be fine. So, >> okay, >> Mr. Chair. So, when we send out new mailings and all that, that gets assessed to this ditch gets added to this ditch. Correct. >> Yeah. The drainage attorney confirmed
that the cost of the hearing is a cost to the system. So, a and we had a meeting and because we we had some discussion about whether posting in the uh newspaper was required and did they say that it was not
required as long as mailings went out to all of the benefited parcels we didn't have to post it in the official newspaper >> and we would post it on our website. >> Yeah, we could do that because that's essentially no cost. So to Commissioner Heinen's point though, and correct me if I'm wrong, if I recall from the discussion,
even hypothetically, if this property was removed, that landowner is responsible for any cost up until that point. >> That's what I'm understanding. So >> So if if this property was removed, it would remove them from any future cost,
but it doesn't remove them from prior costs. >> Correct. So that the mailings and everything go out would be assessed to ditch 12 and these part of the ditch 12 at that point. >> Right. >> So, >> okay. >> And did you say November 4th or 18th
>> or 18th? >> The 4th or the 18th are two county board ditch authority meeting dates. >> I don't know. Is there a if you have a preference? Not at all. >> Okay. >> No, the big thing is we would just be allow staff time to draft letters and
stuff. But if the fourth is sufficient time, we can >> Okay. Well, if that's the case, then I'm going to move to hold the public hearing on November 4th, 2025 at 9 a.m. or as soon thereafter as the schedule allows and direct the auditor treasure auditor treasurer and drainage authority staff to send out notice by mail to the
benefited land owners of CV12 and to publish that notice on our Benton County drainage authority website. >> And excuse me, Mr. Chair, did you say 9:00 a.m.? Go ahead and publish it for 9 >> for 9 or thereafter is we can get to it. Christine, >> can I mail this public notice with their
invoice because I haven't sent that out on their maintenance invoice just to save some >> I don't know why not. I think that makes sense. >> Yeah, that would make sense. I I would have to agree with that. That would save a lot of Yeah, you're right. That would save postage and
>> money ditch. >> Again, the assessment notice is something they're more than likely going to open. >> Yeah. >> So, anyways, we have a motion for that hearing date. Second. We have a second. Yeah. >> Any other discussion on that then for November 4th? >> Hearing none. All those in favor? >> I
>> opposed. Carried. >> Very good. >> Set. >> Any other items on ditch? Chris? >> Uh, not at this time. >> All right. We'll adjourn our ditch authority meeting at 10:46. I'll turn it
back to the county board chair. We'll reconvene our county board and it'll be commissioner meeting updates. Who wants to start? Start. >> Oh, no. You go ahead. >> All right. So, back on se September 2nd, of course, we had our budget committee,
the whole meeting that uh was some very vigorous discussions and I think we got to a spot where we can start and hopefully maybe even potentially lower. Uh September 8th that evening, Commissioner Pop and I had an extension committee meeting here in the boardroom. >> Check our screen. 10th through the 11th. That was up at the AMC conference in
Alexandria. On the 15th, uh I spoke of it a little earlier. We did have a ditch subcommittee meeting in regards to CD12 and this removal of potential removal of property. Um and then last week, Chris and I had the privilege to be out in DC um for a couple days and had a very good
visit out there with our federal delegation and I was pleasantly surprised and pleased with how that went. So, I'm thank you for allowing Chris and I to be able to go to that. I think it's important. The take on there again was I can tell you that if you don't ask, you will not get. So that's
kind of the bottom line point of that visit. Uh and then that evening we had our uh fall BCAP meeting down at the St. George Town Hall. So that's what I had. Thank you. >> Commissioner Bernard. >> Um
I had uh Minden and uh City of St. joint powers board meeting on the 3. Um and then on the 4th I had a council of Minnesota aging
>> and RSVP meetings. Um I had a city council meeting on the 8th and then meeting on the 9th. Again, AMC um fall conference 10th through the 12th. [Applause]
A career services and the RSVP chili cook off and that BCAP for the town. >> How was the chili cook off? >> Yeah, >> it was really good. Good. Um they actually had like five different because you have to be licensed to enter it.
>> Oh, okay. So like they had um um like your uh Sack Rapids um nursing home um brought some in and there was different
>> Was there any of what I would call white chili? >> Yes, chicken chili. >> Chicken chili. >> White chicken chili. There was >> I actually do like that >> and they were good. Support those chicken farmers. >> They were all good. And they had also they had a wine there >> and they also had a silent auction there
>> to help raise money for that too. >> So and it looked like to me when I was there they had a pretty good turnout. I haven't gotten final numbers yet. >> Okay. >> Great. >> I do that's it. But I do have a question. Um I did
receive an email back from Troy. Am I able to at this time? >> Should we do that on our commissioner? >> Can't. >> Oh, >> concerns. >> Yeah, let's do it on commissioner concerns if you don't mind. >> Nope, that's fine. >> Okay. >> Can you write on there the daytime?
I'll go to the next one. Right. >> I had to drive place. All right. >> To get service to do a career solutions meeting last Thursday and I did get cut out because I had to be the third person there.
>> Mhm. Nice. Needed it. Yep. So, they had me for 45 minutes before my service went. >> But it went perfect. >> It It did. We We got everything done that we needed to do. I let them know ahead of time that I'm very limited on
service and it will go. So, I was watching it on my phone. Went from three bars to two bars over the clouds and poof. >> That was it. >> That was the end of it. But, but I managed we managed to get everything taken care of. Uh, and then I had a regional three meeting yesterday. Just
nothing informal. So, and that's all I had. >> Well, thank you for sending the photo of your elk. Um, >> well, you know, >> a little bit of proof in the pudding. I was trying to see if it was photoshopped in there or not, but I'm going to trust you that it was real. >> Uh, well, you know, it's got the date and the time and everything on it.
>> You know what would really satisfy it, Steve? >> I know, but I forgot to bring something today. Okay. So, I'll I'll put it on my uh agenda here to a little bit. Yeah. >> All right. >> Okay. Great. Uh comments, commissioners, comedians, and concerns. Go ahead.
>> So, in the in the meeting, we brought up the $70 per day. >> 75. Yep. >> 75 per day for the joint powers. Um, the email I received and I think Monty was copied on it from Troy was the research the numbers were calculated for the
predium cost for inmates in the jail and he says I must apologize for giving you an inaccurate information in the meeting. I found the calculation we make made based on the 2024 numbers and discovered our estimate is that we
encounter $103 per inmate per day. >> A report from the Minnesota Department of Corrections calculates per DM cost for all jails in Minnesota placing their estimate for our facility at 119
per inmate per day. >> Huh. So I guess um >> thank you. >> If if the states estimated at 119, why are they coming with back with a joint P of 75? >> Correct. >> Good question.
>> That's very good question. >> How long was that joint powers agreement good for? One year. >> I don't know. I don't recall. >> Seems like Troy brings it every year. >> It seems like an annual thing. Yeah. This is another conversation to have
with Sheriff Troy Hec. >> Well, and unfortunately he doesn't set that $75 by the state. >> No, but if the state is telling us 119, why didn't they set it for 119 instead of 75? >> Right. >> I suppose the consequence is you might
not get any state inmates boarded in your jail and then you'd lose all the revenue. So, >> probably. >> Yeah, >> probably. >> States's got it figured out. Yeah, they do. They do. Okay. Well, with that, we'll uh do we have anything else in
front of us? >> Convenience of the hole. >> Oh, >> okay. >> I guess we do have that. >> I know there's been interest in and possibly folks attending the St. Claude Regional Airport Authority meeting on September 25th. That's when they're going to set their budget and levy
themselves. That's at 300 p.m. September 25th in the airport conference room, the regional airport authority meeting. if you're interested. Uh, another cow is the, uh, legislated bonding tour visit to St.
Cloud. That is also on the 25th at 2:00, Herb Brooks National Hockey Center, the state legislative bonding tour. And September 20th at 2:00 p.m., Herb Brooks National Hockey. I believe Chris has been coordinating that with with you
all. >> Correct. with myself and Commissioner Gapinsky did say he'll be here because I asked him that this morning since we've been Go ahead. >> Yeah, I was just going to say if I could review that with you when our meeting's done quick, that'd be great. >> Okay. >> All right, you're good. Okay, sounds
great. The next AMC District 5 meeting is Monday, October 20th at Kabic County, the county jail training room in Mora. October 20th, that's a Monday at 8 a.m. the AMC District 5 fall meeting.
You are invited to the career solutions annual meet annual meeting uh that is on Thursday October 9th 3 p.m. Thursday October 9th at 3 p.m. Uh that's at career solutions facilities on I believe that's in St. Cloud Tech
College on Northway Drive. >> That is correct. And what they do at that meeting is they give they have a panel of five individuals that went through >> and they give testimony of how >> talk about their experiences, right? Yeah. It's an annual event that they've been doing for a long time. Yeah. Very
well attended. >> And lastly, I believe Chris Bird uh asked you to set a committee the whole to discuss local option sales tax etc etc. So uh Chris, do you have a preferred date for this command?
Um, and maybe also too, how soon must it occur? I mean, how how urgent is it that you get this matter resolved? >> Um, I mean, I don't know how urgent it is. This is just >> Yeah.
>> over when we hire uh outside help. So, do we already have a committee of the whole where commissioners are coming in that we could attach to a >> Yeah, let me see if I've got one on here listed. That might be a good candidate for that. Chris, >> I think that wasn't >> um
>> I think that's what it was. Yeah, I think you're right. >> Sorry. I do not see I do not see something that would be a good candidate for that, Chris, to combine it with something existing. >> No, >> I do not. So, >> either >> it may have to be its own subject. >> Oh, okay. >> Uh just throwing this out there. How about after our board meeting on the
21st >> of October? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah, if if you're okay sticking around longer, we could just have a cow then. Yeah, that works for me. >> 7th. You said the 7th or the 21st? >> 21st.
>> Um, mostly because there's employee form first on the 7th. >> Yes. Yeah. And we'll send out a reminder email on that one on the 7th. Right. Yeah. >> Right. Okay. >> Yeah. And that makes sense. I I would have to agree with that. Let's just >> make for a pretty long day. Yeah.
>> Let's just do it right away after that meeting. For some reason, we get a filled up agenda and a big ditch authority meeting, which I don't think we will, >> right? >> Because that's coming in November. >> Yeah. >> And that is all we have. Sir, >> I have a question. Tonight's meeting,
who's planning on attending tonight's meeting? >> Oh, good. Good. >> This is that is not listed on >> 29 open house. It is the KASA 29 open house. Extension open house. >> Jared will not be there tonight. and I will be there because I'm part of the >> I guess I didn't know about that.
>> It's just an >> I just need to It's not on our committee of the whole and I need to know cuz I've had a couple people from my district call me about that 29 one. >> Okay. >> And so I need to know if I can attend or if I cannot attend. >> Yes, you can attend cuz Commissioner Gapinsky will not be.
>> So it' be Commissioner Benoy. Commissioner Heinen will be attending. Okay. >> I won't be there either. I don't sick ed sick. >> So we should be good. We should be good. Thank you for bringing that up. >> You're good. >> That's that's all the cows we have, Mr. Chair, for your office.
>> Approve the cows, Mr. Chair. >> Second. Got a motion, a second. Any further discussion? I'll call the question. All in favor say I. >> I. Opposed? Motion carries. We're adjourned.