in your packet already what was the first one again excuse me safe assured safe assured safe assured safe assured yes if we could add that as the last item at 9:30 under County Administrator please who for approval of the amended agenda Mr chair second
motion been M second it to approve the agenda all in favor I opposed carried County board meetings are broadcast live and video recorded on YouTube please restrain from speaking from the audience area and come to the podium so that viewers can hear you the County Board
observes the Robert Rules of Order for its meeting so please obtain the board's chair consent before addressing the County Board public comments are generally reserved for open form segment or public hearings however public comments on the agenda may be allowed at
the discretion of the board chair as we begin today's meeting please turn your cell phones to off or unvi thank you open form Cory Wiman Wilman good morning Mr chairman morning morning and Commissioners my name is
Deputy Corey Wilman I'm with Venton County Sheriff's Office I represent the depuy's union I'm the Stuart for their Association um just here to talk a little bit about the senior position that the pay comp study funded um in the middle of last year when the pan comp study was done um we know the position
was first met recommended in the middle of last summer so um to give us something to look forward to to try to increase pay a little bit to try to help some Recruitment and Retention issues that we were having um and then in September it was formally approved and we were told that the job description
was being written by uh the company DDA to be provided for the sheriff um that job description wasn't given to him until about December 15th or so um so it seemed to take several months to get that job description done and it almost
mimics the regular deputy sheriff position anyhow there's very few differences between the two um and then in January um the human resources department here needed to create the per promotional evaluation form which was worked on starting I
would assume sometime in January like I said um and then that was given to us by the sheriff to get our input on it um on February 25th so this position that was created for us through the paying comp study in the middle of last
year um is still not been implemented yet um we've got everything we think worked out between uh our Union and the sheriff to try to get it done we agree on some issues that had to come up like one of the issues that we didn't think about they came up was we're creating a
new classification within our Union which changes or could potentially change our seniority list while we wanted to make sure that wasn't going to happen um so we came up to an agreement that we think we have a way that we can do that um so I guess what I'm here to say is we're the only group that was in
the paying comp Study middle of last year that hasn't seen a dime yet um so I guess my request would be to once the promotions do occur to the senior Deputy position ask to be back paid to the first pay period of the year which would
start on January 11th um I believe the monies were budgeted for the full year anyhow and we're just the only group that hasn't seen any of that money from the study you did for us yet so oh okay all right thank you Cory
thank you Cory Tom half Tom half I'm a resident of sock rabbits uh I came to talk to you guys about the the fiveyear road project for in front of Mayu Lake Road there for the school I uh suggest that we vote no on
that for for the school uh Bergstrom he made a he made a monster out there and and um he said that uh um with all the new buildings and everything like that going up other that the traffic's going to be outrages and stuff like that and
basically that people don't know how to make left turns and stuff like that um they they decided to build that stuff there um they built that uh they want to build that child development school on property that was a was a park at first they had property over on Golden Spike
road but they decided to put it over there and create more traffic over there so I'm just asking that we uh we don't do that we um I read Chris Bird's uh article here and Chris was uh flying all over the place from County to Federal to
City to try to find money for that but you know Chris is the greatest uh roundabout builder in uh in bton County boy anything that needs to be done a roundabout will fix it so but also want uh I want to ask you guys for a pay raise um I see that everybody else got
pay raises Troy hack and a bunch of the other County people got pay raises and uh the only way I'm going to get a pay raise if you help cut my taxes um and stuff so I was just wondering if I could get some of that I wanted you guys to I was wondering if you guys have gone to the grocery store lately and see how
much it cost to go to the grocery store uh um at the food shelf last year we uh distributed 1.67 million pounds of food to the people of uh Betton County um out there we're spending money like we like drunken Sailors here in the county and
um uh we just uh it's uh it's just crazy how we can just continue to spend and spend and spend other people's money and stuff uh I really liked Monty's uh article the other day that's what spurred me actually to come out today I reading that article and stuff so um I
can't believe you guys got in bed with the school and stuff like that I thought you guys were a separate entity and stuff like that uh you jumped in with that Bergstrom um you know he looks just like uh look just like our governor looks just like Tampa on Tim I can't believe it can't believe it so but I was
just uh um I was reading the park the park shelter article too in the paper and um I see that we built that with taxpayer money and now all of a sudden as a taxpayer I can't even use it unless I pay a fee wasn't that already paid for
with taxpayer money so we're going to pay a fee for that so guys and I went through my paycheck the other day and uh you know they take 30% right right out of my paycheck right off the top and I've been did a little number checking by the time I get all done I'm paying
over 50% of my pay checks going right for taxes and everything else that's going on out there today I just appreciate a little bit of consideration on part of the taxpayer out there um with the money spending and stuff like that and as far as the new building that we want to build over there I was
reading that article the other day and uh we need thicker bulletproof glass they're all afraid well who are they afraid of they're afraid of the taxpayer um you go over there to that building over there and um you get treated like you're like you're a criminal before
you're even I thought I was uh not guilty until proven guilty um maybe the taxpayer needs a little more bulletproof glass to protect us from them okay we're not guilty until we're proven guilty so
and I don't think we should be spending any more money on a new building um I like this building it's really nice so I appreciate your time and stuff today but uh spending other people's money is just getting out of control and stuff so appreciate your time and if you
got any questions I'd be here to ask answer them after the meeting so right thanks for your input thank you Tim Adelman good morning morning I'm here to talk to you guys about uh Cony Road 25 I know that um last year it was decided to
do an overlay I believe the countyy is going to take care of that um and but and I the reason for the overlay was because of the solar that's going in there um and that's like five years down
the road when that's done um but I guess I'm here to to ask that you consider starting the study I know this takes 5 years to move to build a road you know get a new road constructed um so I'm here to ask that
you guys consider starting that now so that in 5 years when the solar is completed that it's ready to go um you know pushing it down the road five more years after the solar's done well you're looking at 10 years the only
the cost is only going to go up and so I'm my suggestion is to start the process now now so that in 5 years when the solar's ready it can be done you know I don't know when the last time a road study has been done on that road as
far as traffic uh but you know in the summer you're looking at there's a there's a dump truck whether it's a whether it's a semi or a or a regular dump truck it goes by I would say within every 10 minutes you
got a you got a dump truck going by there in a some and there's a lot of other traffic too because I think that they use a lot of people use that road to get to Highway 10 instead of going to St Cloud from 23 so there's quite a bit quite a bit of
traffic on that road in the summer um that's about all I got thank you okay any questions thanks you bet okay so we got the consent agenda items 1 through 8 what's your wishes move
approval second motion been made in seconded to approve the consent agenda items 1 through eight all in favor hang on I opposed carried I OHS go ahead I wanted to pull consent agenda item five and
six okay sorry that's okay um so good can we amend your motion I'll amend I'll amend the second also so the consent agenda has been amended to we'll pull items n and five and six and approve 1
through four and seven and eight all in favor I I oppose Carri okay commissioner Bon uh consent agenda number five yeah um I just have a question um
for Kristen on the um the attorney's feedback on this have those were those things corrected in the contract uh the attorney's recommendations from Michelle memo no they are not typically what we've seen in the past with empg funding um and
great Grant state grants is that they won't make those amendments so often if we want the grant it's as is um that is this one's the 2023 Grant so the 2022 Grant would have been signed as it's
presented to you today as well I can I can mention we've been getting this grant for for two at least two decades right and this is a very old Grant yeah sorry there's no match requirement that I'm aware of Mr chair yes Monty then why
are why is our County attorney looking at these and noting them up if nothing's ever changed uh I think that's a fair question we could POs to Kathy at some point okay uh it's unlike the state's always been unwilling to change your agreements and I canvert to guarantee will take the money yeah yeah so yeah I
yeah that's a good question yeah but this is a match gr Grant I didn't think it was but I I'm not aware that we have a match requirement well on page two it says original agreement was
$2,285 with match requirement of $2,285 oh uh which we pull typically out of salaries so this grant we use this to offset my salary um and we submit a payroll report to them okay that's the match then y corre it's not like we're
it's a match it's not a it's a match in words okay okay so you want to take take that one and make a motion if you I'll make a motion to approve agenda item number five second mman m a second to approve agenda item number five all in
favor I I thank you Commissioners number six and is Chris online that I believe Chris is with us up on goto yeah there he is okay on on number on on six it's our paperwork all
states that this is 100% complete but if you go to the second page on on here it says it's 97.4% complete on this um job is that now complete after that or that
difference is the 97% complete is a mathematical calculation based on the final pay when compared to the original contract amount so yeah the physical work is 100% complete but dollarwise it's only 97% of the original contractor
am all right that answered my question I'll make a motion to approve item uh uh agenda item number six second Mo been maid and second and to approve consent agenda item number six all in favor I oppose
carried roxan from Land Services all right good morning Commissioners morning morning I've got I'm going to pull up a map here very quickly I
can should I share it on goto or is that good enough um what we have before you is an amendment to our development code uh in relation to the Cannabis uh facilities C uh cannabis cultivation and testing facilities manufacturing
cultivation and testing facilities in our egg District um we had set a setback that was 660 ft from the property line of where that cannabis facility was to the property line of a parcel which has
a dwelling on it so if we take that into consideration um that now creates a very extensive setback so for example if someone were to place one of those facilities on this t-shaped parcel um
you can see that there are dwellings highlighted in pink that are on Parcels where the parcel line is within 660 ft of the parcel line of one of those facilities and so this would not be allowed even if there was a dwelling or
due to the fact that there's a dwelling that may be on the complete opposite end of a parcel uh and that could be thousands of feet away so rather than um measuring property line to property line we felt it was appropriate to measure
this very similar to the way that we measure feed lots and that it would be from the nearest point of the facility 660 ft to the nearest dwelling um and so that brings us to our next and you can see that when I put that 660 ft um
buffer around each of the dwellings that that reduces that setback significantly and it now makes more of these Parcels a lot more feasible to place um structures on and this came up from somebody who was interested in potentially having some cannabis
cultivation and he said you know that your your ordinance makes it almost impossible to find a property and when I did go through and tried to figure out if that really was true I did find that that that was pretty consistent in that it makes the majority of parcels um
unable to be developed for any sort of cannabis use um so we are requesting um and suggesting that 660 ft be changed from Cannabis facility nearest point to the nearest point of the dwelling or other cannabis facility and I did
present this to the Planning Commission on uh March 13th there was a public hearing there were no comments and the Planning Commission jid recommend bringing this forward to the county board for another public hearing okay Mr chair I have a question
we we'll save it for when we have the public comment okay um the next item next item on our agenda is to consider a public hearing for ordinance number 499 amending the Bon County development code ordinance 477 to modify setbacks
requirement for Cannabis Testing cultivation and Manufacturing before we open the public hearing do we have any other staff reports no if the applicant is present or a representative is here please come to the podium and state your name is that that's me that's you okay we'll now open
the public hearing is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the County Board on this agenda item if so please come to the podium and give us your name and address anybody here or online I guess we could do too anybody want to address the public
here or online okay Final Call for anyone wishing to have public testimonies seeing none will now close the public hearing are there any emails letters or Communications to be read
no has the department received any concerns from state agency cities or any other entities if an official action was required by an affection was it was their action no no okay the County Board will now have time to discuss the County
Board will now have time for questions and staff and discussion as remember from reminder to the audience the public hearing portion isclosed are there any questions comments from board members before we take this action okay uh roxan the only question I have is if this is
changed what does it do to those adjacent Parcels if somebody comes in and wants to build on those adjacent Parcels for example if someone wants to build on this parcel yeah on the on the partials on the outside are they're
going to be required to move their structure that far away from it so if let's say for example if somebody were to construct in the uh in this corner um on the parcel here there would be a 660
setback for the the adjacent parcel and it's very similar to a feed feed lot so if a feed lot were located here they would need to be 660 ft from that feed lot from the nearest corner of the feed lot be very it's reciprocal y okay yep y
whoever's there first more or less right okay okay any other questions or comments Mr chair I'm going to move to uh approve uh ordinance number 477 to modify the setback requirements for
Cannabis Testing cultivation and Manufacturing facilities as presented I will second motion been made in second any other discussion hearing none I'll call the question all in favor I opposed carried go ahead all right so the next item is a
public hearing on the 2025 solid waste facility licenses for Waste Management Republic Services or the m and Transfer Station inam Landfill Tri County Organics and Tom Kramer Inc um and so this is an annual license uh approval by
the County Board we uh had no violations that we had to uh deal with last year and they're all in good standing with the mpca and with this uh generally we the board establishes um a requirement minimum of 1.5 million in liability
insurance and a $10,000 bond for each of these facilities and we would ask that that be part of the motion that's made today after the public hearing um and then Hanam landfill has paid in the maximum amount into the um test uh test
well closure and so they are not um paying into that anymore they've paid in what they can uh statutorily um and then I do believe a number of the applicants are here today if there are any questions on any of their applications so we'll now conduct a
public hearing on the 2025 solid waste facility license for Waste Management Public Service M Township transfer station hem landfill Sand Hill Organics doing business as Tri County Organics LLC and Tom Kramer Incorporated doing
business as East Side transfer and Recycling and we've heard from staff on their the staff report from public hearings so if there's if the applicants or applicant are here and the with the and they want to have representation please come to the podium and state your
name and address you have any comments or anything okay we'll now open the public hearing is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the County Board on this agenda item if so please come to the podium and give us state your name and
address anyone that wants to come to the to the podium and state your name and address or online if there's anybody online we'll take them too final call for anyone wishing to address the County board for testimony
and seeing none the public hearing is now closed is there any emails letters or Communications to be read no has the department didn't receive anything from townships or cities or anything
okay the County Board will now have time for questions from the staff and discussion as a reminder from the audience of public are is closed there any questions or comments from the board members on this agenda item one quick question roxan you said that I think you
said h mayor uh maxed out on their um contribution what is that number do you know happen to know it gosh I don't I'm sorry I do not have that in front of me I want to say it's 115,000 we might
127,000 127 we'll look it up and let you know specifically go okay thank you and if I could real quickly um we have not received the license application free fee excuse me from waste management and they're just there was a mix up with the
address um I think they were not using the PO box so it did not get here in time so I just want to make sure that um just stating that their license is contingent on receiving that uh and I I suspect it may even be in our mailbox today
okay any any other questions otherwise I'll entertain a motion I'll make a motion to approve the um uh Waste Management Republic Services and and hm landfill
uh licenses is there a second was Tom Kramer in there oh Tom Kramer Tom Kramer and doing business as East Side transfer you include them in your motion all of the licenses here we go I'll
second any other discussion hearing all in favor say I I I opposed carried one more motion just to set the shity bond and insurance okay so moved second it's been moved and
second to set the insuring Bond and license oh anybody any questions no all in favor I I opposed carried thank you you good thanks roxan thanks everybody thank you
next era will be up next HDMI works great good morning my name is Adam grai I'm a senior project manager with nexter energy resources and the developer for the Benton solar project um so just wanted to um meet with you all today to give a brief project update and uh
discuss the next steps um between the project and the county for ongoing coordination prior to uh construction and operation of the project um so I know um a lot of a lot of everyone in the room is is familiar with the overall project but again it's a 100 megawatt solar project um located
in Minden Township um there's also a 100 megawatt 4H Hour Energy storage system that will be connected to the the solar project and both the solar project and the battery facility will share a half mile trans transmission line 115 kilovolt transmission line uh that's
located entirely on Great River Energy's property and connect to the Benton County uh substation that Great River Energy owns here's our preliminary site plan um this was uh shown in our um Public Utilities site and Route permit application so on the left you see the
uh solar site plan and then on the right that's our transmission Route um neither one of these have changed over the last 6 to nine months um and again these are available um to the public in our um State permit application we are still on track for
2027 operations of the project so right now we are uh in our state permitting process um towards the end of this year we're going to start procuring the equipment that we intend to use on the site um and then at the end of the year we're anticipating a final decision from the public Public Utilities Commission
on both the uh battery and solar site as well as the transmission Route um with a favorable decision from Public Utilities Commission we would aim to start construction in the spring of 2026 and be in service by the end of the year 2027 here's a more detailed breakdown on
the Public Utilities Commission schedule so we're about halfway through this schedule right now so um I know um a few of you in the room were were at our environmental scoping meetings that we held in Sock Rapids uh back in January um so since then they've closed the
written comment period for the project and ER is working on their uh the scope of the environmental assessment so that we expect that to be issued at the end of this month so the scope of the environmental assessment just sets the parameters for the research that ER is going to do as they are developing the
environmental assessment that they're going to issue in July so they take in all the concerns and the comments that they got in the public comment period dig into the impacts um that the project will have on those concerns and then issue the environmental assessment which often includes recommendations to the
the commission um for the project to take there will be a set of public hearings in August of this year and then we expect a the administrative law judge to issue a report on the um on their findings on our application and then the Public Utilities Commission to make a
decision on the permit in December of this year so what we wanted to focus on today was kind of the next steps for Benton solar um and and how we intend to to work with Benton County um in the near future so um I heard some some talk about um the road use for the solar
project earlier this morning um so one of our our next steps is to begin drafting our road use agreement with the county um so our that road agreement will in will cover the hall routes that we intend to use to bring the equipment and materials to the site um it'll sorry
uh also cover you know this the roads that we intend to use during construction so um what the impacts of that would be on traffic and um ensuring that the safety needs and requirements of the county are being met um during construction and then um that last bullet there is probably the um the one
that's of the most interest is the road use repair and Improvement right so um the hall route and our road scream is going to designate the roads that we intend to use and then in the road scream we're going to clearly outline our plan to assess the roads uh prior to construction and then assess the roads
after construction and make sure that the roads are at the same same condition before and after construction for uh so any damage that is done is is uh incurred by bent and solar um to fix you know any um any repairs that are needed as a result of of the solar
project um our next item that we' like to continue coordination on the visual screening plan so again that was the source of a lot of the comments that we got um during the public comment period um so Our intention is to follow the the Benton County ordinance and right now we're working on finalizing uh that visual screening plan and working on
some visual mockups so um our goal here is to um you know work with roxander Planning and Zoning um and and with with the county to make sure that you know we do a visual mockup of what we are interpreting the ordinance to be to make sure that actually meets the needs of the community in the county so just to
make sure that we're on the same page prior to um starting construction on this project uh and then lastly the decommissioning financial Assurance plan so in our um site permit application appendix e um is decommissioning plan um
and one of the things that it states that bent and solar will do is that we will identify agon and provide a means of financial shity to Benton County um for the decommissioning of the project so uh the decommissioning plan states that Our intention is for Benton solar to be the party that decommissions the
project um however there have been you know other projects where uh the there are concerns that the company could go out of business or won't be around in 25 years to do that obviously that's not our intention but the purpose of this financial Assurance plan is to make make sure that the county is insured against that happening and is the beneficiary
should Ben so not be able to fulfill the decommissioning duties so this is typically a permit condition from the Public Utilities Commission prior to construction um so that would be coming in their final order in uh December however we do want to start those conversations earlier um so that we're
all on the same page before that happens here's a few more uh details on the decommissioning plan again this is in our site perit application in appendix e and the objective of the decommissioning is to ensure the site is restored to the pre-construction conditions at the end of the Project's useful life so about 25 to 30 years
again the costs are borne by Benton solar with the financial insurance plan in place and we intend to update the plan um prior to construction and then every five years during operation um another question that we we commonly get is is when what else could cause decommissioning if the project just sits
idle um what then so um decommissioning is triggered if the site permit expires and is not renewed so there'll be a time limit on our Public Utilities Commission permit um and then also if the construction is halted for over 12 months for whatever reason then we no longer have the permit
we need to decommission the the project and then if we don't generate electricity for 12 consecutive months the project is not Opera operating as it should and is on us to decommission and restore the site I know I've showed this slide a few times but again just want to highlight the the benefit benefits of the project to Benton County and to M Township um so
it is a substantial invention in investment in Benton County um we're expecting 150 to 300 temporary construction jobs and two to three full-time operations jobs um in addition to the the compensation for participating land owners we're also paying uh pretty significant property
taxes to the community um or to Benton County intimate in Township so we estimate $200,000 a year in solar production tax and to Benton County in $50,000 per year to m in Township those uh the tax breakdown is set by the Minnesota Department of
Revenue for solar energy production so uh we pay based on the energy that is produced by the site um and then again on the the charitable contributions to local organizations um that's something you want to continue doing through development and operation of this project just this morning we were over
at the sheriff's department um presenting doing a check presentation and we donated $112,000 for them to to upgrade their radios um in order to be in in state clients for um for the encryption on their radios so that's something we want to continue to do um like I said throughout the life of the
project thank you that was all I had um believe you all have my contact information um but happy to answer any questions if okay you have any right now Mr chair uh Adam thanks for the presentation what that 200,000 and 50,000 did that go down cuz
I thought that was higher before so it's based on our assessment of the solar the megawatt hours produced produced um by the project so that is those do change right we're we have a analytics team that says based on the the solar resource and the size of the project what our estimated production is per
year okay so the Department of Revenue says it's going to be a120 C for every megawatt hour produced okay so that's how we got those numbers all right sir Mr chair so along that line Adam um so do you see that fluctuating a lot year to year that was my question um it can I
mean that is what when we do our analysis of it right that's going to be the average cuz we're we're doing this we're also looking over the 30-year life of the project right um I think the the change between you know the last time you saw those numbers now is a change in our assumptions and our ability to you
know come up with a realistic average based on other operating projects um there shouldn't be a significant fluctuation but again it is there there would be some bar are you talking 200 to 190 are you talking 200 to 110 um don't I mean I mean I'm not holding to the
number I'm just trying to find out I think the original numbers were in the unds right or close to it at least yeah so it's a significant drop yeah um I can get a better answer for you on the I talk to our analytics team and see what what our deviation is expected to be year to year and to you Mr chair a
couple more questions um does PU the Public Utilities Commission set that bond amount um based on your project who's setting the bond amount so the bond amount is uh outlined in our decommissioning plan so it's the cost to decommission minus the salvage value of
the project so that bond amount is is going to it will change right every do you know what that bond amount is going to start out at um I don't know if top of my head I can look in the decommission plan and find that number and second last question any update on phase two um phase two is still on on track to be at least a year behind phase
one um in St George Township um we're still finalizing our Our Land um for the second phase of the project so working with the a few land owners to to get easements um and then our Our Hope would be to be permitting that project by the end of this year and then in regards to phase two are you still in a position
where you wouldn't be looking at going north of County 50 correct okay um just go ahead so I got a couple questions one is that almost 100% of this land is leased correct correct so would it make a difference on your decommissioning in
that if you own the property and then you know it would give you the option to walk away and tax forfeited um versus leasing you know if you're Leasing and and the value land's going to go up mhm and you know the people that own the land would be would
still be paying the taxes and everything else where if you guys owned it you know the one what I'm getting at is the one up by in the western part of the county that is owned by a power company now okay and so if they if they up and agreed to walk away and let it go to tax
forfeited property the county would be stuck to clean that up correct if we own the land yeah um I'm I'm not sure how that would work to be honest with you that was some questions that came up okay that's that's a great question I can um yeah I'll look into that get
there's a difference if you got a a a family entity that's still owning that property and they walk away well they're they're more apt to clean it up and say well now I can sell it to somebody else you know because what I see is the cleanup is yeah it's substantial but not
not impossible to clean it up and pack put it back to the original site actually it's pretty easy when you're not pouring concrete and all the other stuff that goes with it so I think that the other question I had do you know how many comments you had after that were written comments after that meeting in sock rabbits um I don't know the exact
number um the all the majority of the written comments were about um visual screening and and property value impacts we're also um updating our um economic impact study as well to answer the the property value um questions and look at
the overall economic benefits of the project even outside of the land owners who are participating so we're working on refreshing that and if you're doing the the economic impact you know I mean this rent is substantial and that's an impact to the county too because these people are definitely going to spend money yep Mr chair and just I thank you for
bringing up the screening issue I know that that was brought up heavily at the Sock Rapids thing and that's something I think for myself and probably the majority of the board that's the biggest thing we hear um of course A lot of people are still in the position they don't want it which we get but pu is permitting this as we all now no um and
I know that next a has commented that they're going to follow the County ordinance but I guess my hope is that they're going to go a few steps beyond that um because I think that's been something that's been highlighted heavily in public hearings yep and that's that's the purpose of the providing the visual mock-ups as well so
that you know you we make sure we're looking at the same ordinance and interpreting it the same way and making sure that meets the needs of the county okay perfect thank you Mr chair yes Adam when you look at Phase One and phase two the dollar amounts for the taxes were just based on phase one correct would
that would the Assumption be be double that for phase two correct it' be the same same size project the okay solar resource and assessment will be about the same so all right thank you I have one question sure go ahead so and I've asked for this before not necessarily
from you but from other companies is it possible to get an SDS report on the build of the panel themselves uh and I know that you go through several companies different companies but they're all built the same with pretty much the same stuff in them so I would
like to get an a copy of an SDS a safety data sheet for those understand um we can provide that to you when we have um procur the equipment so when we've decided the the vendor that we're going to use it like I said that's going to be towards the end of this year um we can also I can ask see if we can get you a
list of what we SDS from preferred vendors as well so someone that we'll likely choose okay thanks I guess my one final question is that you know where Federal government's going is this all locked in place or is there still room for you know might not happen yeah
that's an excellent question um so um one this project is not relying on on federal grants or federal permits so that's um the recent executive orders don't have a direct impact on on this project um we also you know budget our
projects to be with and without F FAL grants so um yes I we intend to move forward regardless of recent executive orders thanks then DNE Monty do we need a motion for to accept the the resolution that's on the back of
the page yeah me got picked up on the copy machine oh yeah okay double double copy I didn't see one okay all right I don't have that on back so I'm sorry we do on ours unless he wants to do it twice right
thanks Adam okay Monty Great River Regional Library got it you're Gooden is here welcome Karen thanks good morning good morning morning and you can just minimize this
go screen oh go Oh I thought Jerry was leaving too powerp Point's trying to be extra helpful today all right good morning I'm K Pac I'm the executive director at Great River Regional Library and I have
our staff member Jen Thompson from the St Cloud Library she'll introduce herself when she gets to that part of the presentation uh we are a sixc system Benton County is one of our strong partners and in that six count system we
have 32 libraries our headquarters is in St Cloud but we go from Staples to Delano and fley to Belgrade so quite a wide wide range of services that we offer last year we had a really successful year we coming out of the
pandemic we didn't quite hit 100,000 card holders were almost there um at the beginning of this year I think we were at 99 something so it's climbing we had over a million people through our doors last year across the entire system and lots of different ways that people are
using the library the three main service points for button County residents are the St Cloud public library the Foley public library and then sell tells Locker GRL to go that Locker is located in the sartel community center last time I was here we
talked a little bit about where are people using the library from Benton County and what does that look like you can see the breakout on this slide uh we had over 2 million physical items circulated across the region and almost a half a million out of the digital
library so that Library usage continues to grow it hasn't quite surpassed the use in the St Cloud Library but it's getting closer closer every year the main service points Foley Sartell and St Cloud you can see have a pretty substantial number of borrowers but the
breakout below is uh a a little more of a snapshot of where Benton County borrowers are actually going um one of the things that's notable is 70% of the people from Benton County actually isuse our largest location the St Cloud public library that Library if you haven't been
in it is enormous it all the other libraries would fit inside so they have uh great access to uh really phenomenal resource in downtown St Cloud the other thing that's notable is while sartel Locker GRL to go is only 1% of the
borrowers makes up 10% of the people actually using sartel so it's a a substantial Resource as well it's on the other side of the river but the city of sartel pays for the majority of that service so it's interesting to see the
level of usage out of that location um our borrowers in Benton County are kind of all over the board in terms of how old they are we have a lot of younger users I know Terry out in Royalton has a pretty good partnership with the rice uh Elementary School to do sign up there
and then we also are seeing a good level of use from you know the 30 to 45 range which are your younger parents and people who have kids um it's interesting to see how the breakout looks from one County to the next uh it's uh Benton
County in particular you see a lot of younger people come into the library and last year we hit a record regionally we had 13,000 kids registered across the region for the summer reading program and then the winter reading program was also um very successful we
also have a new youth advisory Council that is part of Great River structure um Ed pop your chair is on our library board and he's been helpful in giving us guidance and how to set things up and that youth Council presented last year to the board for the first time so we
have representatives from the entire region who meet on a regular basis on zoom and then they're informing us on what young people want to see from the library one of the things that may not be a surprise is they actually want books um they want physical books they want nice physical books and a nice
quiet place to read so we're looking at uh really emphasizing those services for our younger people in our next strategic plan and I'll let Jen tell you more about the Fantastic things happening at the stcloud library hello Commissioners thank you so much for having me and thank you Karen I
am so excited to be here and share some of the amazing things that we are doing at our libraries I love that stat that she talked about and how 70% of Betton County users utilize the ccloud public library because that was me I grew up in Sock Rapids and one of the first core
memories that I have is getting on the Metro Bus as a little kindergartner a first grader and going to the St Club public library and walking into that shadowy building and being just so excited with all the amazing things that were going to go on in that building and all the things that I was going to learn
I have just carried that with me for the 30ish some years since that point and I am now so honored to be working at that exact same institution I worked at the St Cloud public library a few years ago stepped away and then just recently came
back in January and I am so honored to be there every day working with our community members and helping them find the things that they need one of the first days that I was back on the desk there was a woman that came in and as I watched her walk up to me she was just
so heavy and tired and run down and she walked up to me and I could tell that she was sad and she came and she interacted with me for a few minutes and by the end she was giggling and she looked at me and she said thank you
I love that we have the ability to create this awesome Community with our patrons I love that when I have an older gentleman that comes up every week and he checks out materials and we chat for a few minutes that I know that maybe that's the only conversation that he's
had with another individual that day and I love that I'm able to connect with him in that way I love that we have these Printing and internet stations they are a massive resource to our community my husband is a commercial truck driver and
he knows that his fellow truck drivers utilize their public libraries to come and print the logs that they need every day I've worked in positions where people are starting their new jobs and they utilize the public library to print their I9 and the other documents they need to start their new careers people
are coming in and they are searching for those new jobs they're looking for apartments I had a gentleman who was there with his two daughters and he asked me for help finding language learning games so that his little girls could help learn English there's just so
many amazing things that are going on we also have access to LinkedIn learning this is an incredible tool that every individual who has a library card can access and what it is is it's this huge database of resources I'm currently using it to help brush up on skills for
Microsoft Excel my daughter was taking coding classes at stcloud State and she was using LinkedIn learning to help opset and you know get a step up and that that's a huge benefit to all of our library patrons because an individual plan is $240 a year it's free when you
have your library card library cards are magic I just love it and speaking of my husband with those driving tests that we offer in our collection every four years he has to take that Hazmat test and before we found this tool we used to sit and make flashcards and he would sit and
try to like cram all the things he already knows in his brain but whenever he has to sit down and take a test he's just like ah so it's awesome that we have this resource because now he can sit and he can feel at ease knowing in that when he goes to take that test that he is set
and ready to go my daughter utilized it when she got her ID and help us all my son is turning 15 next month and he is going to be utilizing that exact same service so in addition to all of these amazing things and all of our incredible books we've also introduce things like
try yourself snowshoes this is so much fun I had a little boy just last month and he came up to me after his dad filled out the waiver and he was like we're going ice fishing this weekend and I am going to use the snowshoes on the ice he was so excited it was just the
cutest thing and we also I brought this as an example this is one of our this is one of our kits we have so many incredible kits you can learn how to make jewelry you can learn how to knit play the ukulele frisbee golf pickle ball this
particular kit is is for Dungeons and Dragons and it goes hand inand with a program that we've been having at the library which is Dungeons and Dragons adventure and it's such a great Community Builder because people are coming in they're meeting new people that also want to learn how to play
Dungeons and Dragons and they're spending a night like learning and growing and then they can check out this amazing kit so that they can go and teach their friends and play too there's the books inside and the dice and everything it's very very cool I also
love one of our programs that's not only at the St CLA Public Library but here in Foley is paused to read this is the cutest thing ever it's tiny humans reading books to bunnies and puppies it's
adorable but what an amazing community service that we have these awesome individuals in our communities who allow their service animals to come into our buildings and let these young minds sit and learn and read and just have their anxieties melt away because free friends
are never going to judge them with how they're learning to read just all these Community things and this building we've had some social workers that have been coming into the Sy Club public library and this has been an awesome resource for our community members because
they're able to come in and ask questions about health care which is confusing uh housing assistance Social Security Disability Services they can come in and they can ask questions and if they can't get answers to those questions they can get referrals so it's
just such an amazing resource to help keeping learning and growing and I know Karen mentioned our Digital Library a little bit that's also this incredible service where you can get access to ebooks and audiobooks and I don't know about any of you but when I'm trying to like go to the Y and work out on the
treadmill the only thing keeping me going sometime is my audio book because it's like no Jen just keep going just find out what's going on in that murder mystery it's going to be great you're going to do it I've also heard from a lot of our patrons when they're doing some Snowbird things traveling down to
Arizona they love being able to check out some eBooks on their iPads and instead of carrying around a bunch of library books that they might not get back in 3 weeks now they have them right there and they're still able to utilize their public library and speaking of those iPads we've also had these things
called Tech time that we've been doing and they've changed a little bit since we started them but what's awesome is that our community members can bring in their very own devices their phones their iPads their Kindles and we have people at the library that can sit down with them and answer their questions and
maybe even help them get some of those Digital Library things and those collections like pulled up on their own devices so that they have them right there at their fingertips just continuing a little bit more with some of those electronic things is our Wi-Fi hotspots and these
have been such an amazing resource for our community and actually ironically just last night when I was on the desk I had a mom come in and she was like ah our Wi-Fi is down and it's going to be down for a week and my son has e-learning on Wednesday and I don't know what to do and I wish that I had had one
for her because these are so popular that right now there's about a 370 person weight limit for them but they are definitely something that our community members are like man we need them and man this is amazing there's just so many awesome
things going on in our libraries Girl Scouts meeting in the meeting rooms and book clubs and orchestras practicing sepen Arians going and having a safe place to read the newspaper every day NA meetings and the summer reading program we are about to be bombarded with
thousands of children and it is going to be just awesome and incredible so thank you so much for helping us just create this community and just grow and be amazing thank you thank you yeah we can def we question kinsky
Jen um uh we hold our APO meetings there for that's amazing at uh I forget what room it is uh Mississippi the Mississippi room no it's uh Brar room Brar room anyway what are the chances that we can get upgraded Electronics in there so we could actually broadcast
those meetings out I know that got brought up in our La last Thursday meeting yeah so good question um we would love to have Electronics in that room the S Club library is owned by the city of St Cloud and we have a
phenomenal partnership with the city of stcloud but ultimately it has to be funded with their their funds so we would be open to putting it in there it's a really great room I love that room um well both of them are yeah yeah and it' be nice to have a screen instead
of a projector and bumer but um they did work with Marco to upgrade the equipment the last time um but that was right before the pandemic and that was before hybrid was like a really big deal so yeah that'd be the ideal room for H for
sure I brought that up and and mayor Anderson was there so uh oh well maybe yeah opport he's still getting into his position so guess he was on the St Cloud Library board so he has used that room for those meetings as well so there is opportunities for discussion for sure
maybe at our next APO meeting might not be bad to come in and just explain that oh yeah I'll talk with Brian and and maybe uh see if we can't get you we can have someone down come down and talk about it Karen so we did the lighting and that was in conjunction with right so great River and St Cloud are the only
places where money actually changes hands for Library service other than the SEL Locker um and so 82% of the building is public library and 18% is headquarters space and so every dollar
that gets used for maintaining the building gets split on that 82 18% split So Great River would have to fund 18% of that project potentially but you have to get St Cloud to be willing to fund the 82 so but there are you know there's
opportunities where we could talk about it for sure any any other questions so the Dungeons and Dragons kit is up there if you wanted to take a look at the stuff inside there's dice
it's oh it's heavy yeah it's heavy I was going to just pass it around but it was heavier than I thought it was Karen one over overview on the on the funding and stuff you look at the libraries we have one actually in Bon County how does that funding go because when you look at our
neighboring counties they have five to eight of them so a lot of the buildings just for the public yeah that there's a sixc count agreement the agreement says each County pays based on three parts of the formula borrower numbers population
net tax capacity the actual number of sites are partially determined by the cities themselves and uh most of them have been in existence since Great River was formed in 69 those that were added later were added with the approval of
the Great River board and so um we look at it as one budget over the entire six County system and people do not have to worry about are you on the Bunton County side of the the line or not when you they're borrowing materials returning
materials or using any of the services so it's a seamless service but there's only one physical service point in Benton County if Foley is your person but place but most of them are actually using sacloud okay and Jared I think part of the was when they built the the
new library there was an agreement between like the city of sou rabbits and sell and that you know when when I first came on the board my biggest question was Morrison County with all their libraries and their funding is actually less than ours and Karen explained that that they were grandfathered in so yeah
yeah Little Falls was one of the last ones to join in Morrison County and that was because the Little Falls Library was a hold out when the region was being formed they didn't want to share the Little Falls collection with anyone outside of the city of little fall Falls but once they saw the St Cloud public
library and all the resources that were available if they became part of the region um that was one of the last ones that was add there's no doubt it's a large uptake for the county you know to fund the library but I think I think Karen has done a really good job in the last three to four years of upping the
what they do and Catering to what the needs are more than what so any other questions thanks Karen all right thank you thank you come visit us
yeah Jen would be happy to help you see if go to is still with it go ahead well let see I this is on your agenda at the request of a board member who wish to discuss the status of the government center project so I'll defer to you all what um well I had
Monty put this on there and as as you go through the project and you start looking and you look at where the county sits I have real real concerns about adding more money to the taxpayers pay because we got a lot of
things that are coming down the pipe and this is all going to be done before we do budget um one is you know we got the lack of funding coming from the state on some projects that would add a lot more money to the county uh two as we got U
paid our Paid Family Leave we got contract negotiations coming up and if this is going to be a burden on the taxpayers of you know double digits or more going forth I mean I don't know if I can
support that kind of take that County I just did my property taxes and when you look at it it's like boy that's a big uptake for 20 years for me to pay that kind of money and and the base of it is going to be it's not going to be the
300,000 house that's in the city of rice or city of sock cabbits it's going to be on our industry it's going to be on our agricultural land it's going to be on those people to to pick up the bulk of this and right now things are not that great that we should be adding more tax
to the community at this point in time if everything was known and we were running straight ahead and we knew exactly where was go I think it's you know I it's really a good idea because we got we have to do something everybody knows that but boy it's a tough sled
right now and I've been just you know I can't find anybody that I talk to that's like why you know what big of it is why are you guys doing this now why you know what's the deal now so I don't know that was why I put it on there to have some discussion about Mr chair I don't I
don't care to see the county go backwards to our 60 70% where we were in the 60s you know 60 and 70 um percentile of uh County taxes for the county we just got that down to where we're kind of in the middle of the
run now and I I got a feeling that this could put us backwards you know a few years Mr chair please don't take this the wrong way past boards have really put this board in
Jeopardy we we've we've when when I took over four years ago I'm in my fifth year we were struggled with the wage and comp study right ditches yeah I mean it goes on and on the passports didn't put any money into
these buildings um it I mean so that that's one of the things that bothers me right now I look at I look at what we have to do if we say no to the building which I'm fine with we've got to do something here and that's what what a lot of the
tax pay payer payers don't know we're looking at 5 to 700,000 a year just in getting this building up for many many years to come and then when you start when you start um um renovating these buildings
to get things up to code that we being mandated to do I.E the elevators stuff like that we lose the ability to use that lower level right we're out we don't have the any space the way it is so I I'm I'm struggling too I don't I
see all these referendums that went through with Sock Rapids with with Foley you know it's just you know I you have to be considerate to the taxpayers and I mean like I told Monty that day if
we don't move forward with this or something happens to this we're not going to put a sign out in front that says close for business we still do business as normal we will have to do something I will agree with that but to what degree I don't know we you know um
I mean I don't know you know Labor's going to be 3% probably minimum when we do labor negotiation contract um with 4% on the Paid Family Leave um school districts going on
Foley's had a big Levy increase I just think it's a another one's the airport Authority which we didn't have anything to do with we didn't have anything to do with well you guys did y I did okay I'm the only one up here um and I think you know um if if we could do the government center for the three bucks or whatever
it's going to be you know it be but I mean the the the amount of amount of uh taxpayer dollar that's going to come from from this is just beyond what I I mean personally that I can with take for the next 20 years well that $3 I think
you're referring to Sock Rapids right yeah that we all know that that's not $3 yeah there was like $200 coming off the tax roll at the end of 2025 that was not explained the correct way we've been
explaining this at least and and I think commissioner Johnson's been at the Forefront of that making sure that on an average house everybody knew what that total dollar amount was because it it is very important for people to understand that and I'm not I I I just look at it
and go we're kind of danged if we do and we're DED if we don't what's the alternative but Mr chair if timing could be better in my book If I Could I I mean I one of the uh biggest things I take Serious is we we do have a fiduciary responsibility to our taxpayers right and everything and everything that we do
with that said I do think it's our responsibility we've gone through a tremendous amount of time effort and cost to put together a potential Government Center we're on the verge of trying to get public hearings put together tours and an educational time
to bring it in front of the public right and I think at this point it would be crazy for us to pull that rug out and not continue to get that information to the public and let's hear from the public I I don't doubt the public a lot of the public is going to be upset and I
understand that I don't think there's five of us here that want to raise taxes to build a government center at some point we have to quit band dating if the general public knew what we're spending maintaining these facilities they would also blow gasket so at some point we
have to address it now may not be the time that may be but I think we have to hear from the public when we have these open houses and I would highly encourage the public to attend um there's 80 cents on the dollar going
out the door to Band-Aid this place and it will continue to cost more and more money but if the public decides we're not doing it and they reverse referendum it then that's the way it's going to be I'm not going to overrule the general public and say by the heck we're
building the building yeah but I think at this point we spent so much time and money trying trying to get to this spot we need to inform the public and they need to be at these open houses they need to do the tours they need to understand the background and what we've
got through gone through to this point and again if the public says no say no well I agree with all that except the part that the timing is just not you know it's not there and I think we're putting the burden on the public
to go out and do the reverse referendum and everything it is a this is all on the public every bit of it we're all taxpayers and it's on every one of us countywide as taxpayers to become educated and decide if this is something the county should do timing or not we can't control the sock rapid School
District pass a referendum that doesn't help us we can't control that we're in a major drainage uh system update throughout the county that's was out of our hands we can't control the class and comp that we sat down here four years ago class and comp has been done for a number of years right but I'm saying
this board came in with that being done already passports haven't touched drainage passports haven't touched the long-term goals of the government center and so at some point if they did we wouldn't be here today I think we did address the
past points of the government center when we move some of the people to sock rabbits because that was and I know we don't all agree on how that was done but that was something that took some of the some of the people out of the building and got them over to St Cloud where 80%
of our business happens but it came at a high cost not as high as that government said it would be a pretty nice debt payment and the county seats here I will never support a facility in East St Cloud right as it this is the county seat and if you want services this is where you can come to get them that's my
position and again we've got to continue on with educating the public I'm not I want to be very clear I'm not in a position where I'm going to say the public said no and byy heck I'm voting for the government side I want to hear from the public yes and I'm not saying that the people you hearing from don't
count but there's 42,000 people in this County right and a lot of people on this end of the county forget we go all the way to the river so it's not just District one's vote and it's not just District Two every vote we take affects
everybody in the county oh yeah so it's important that we get this out in front of them timing may be crap and that's okay I want to be able at the end of the day to say we did our work presented it to the taxpayers and the taxpayers said yes or
no and I think if you if you look at it we got behind the referendums that got passed because what happened we went from 21 million to 24 million to 27 million to 31 million and we pulled back and said whoa every time we turn around
and we're meeting these numbers keep going up we no we need to pull back and that's why we took a henus on this is like wait a minute here we need to get our duck role with that said and I think you know this as well you've heard from another a number of people in your
District who are opposed is that correct oh yeah Okay so we've also this board has also heard from a number of people especially at township and City G that's one person in the township one person in the township agrees with this they had
multiple multiple opportunities at those meetings and I walked away from there saying these officials are in support mhm that's my opinion that's what I got from I didn't hear anybody I not and I didn't hear one person at any of those meetings say you're crazy they didn't say you're crazy but and those are the
Grassroots people representing everybody in the county that's where it starts now again just because they said so doesn't mean we should do it I'm just saying I'm not there's there's lack of support and there's support so that's what we have
to weigh out here when we do these educational times and tours and no different than than the ditches the ditches we have to abide as as a ditch authority to what people above us right have re have have put on us to make sure
we we follow the procedure follow all the rules and regulations it's no different here than with all the building codes oh yeah it's we're being told that we have to do this this this and this or you get we're in violation so
we're we're once again sitting in the crosshairs going what do we do do we keep band-aiding this and hiding it from the public that oh here's 200,000 here's 300,000 you know they're they're paying it regardless a lot of these these dollars they just don't know it because
it's not in a new building I just think it needed you know we needed some discussion on what's going to happen and and from the townships I was to the two townships nobody at them townships supported it see and I only have one Township in my district and what I'm hearing from the people that are coming
to my Township meetings is that some they'd rather put it into a new building versus dumping money into an old building to bandaid it but I I agree with everything Scott said I think this that we need to take this to the public we I mean you guys pretty much did most
of the work before I got onto the board and now that we have public hearings and public meetings set up for the public to come in and give their input hopefully they'll come in with other suggestions that the board can enter entertain but we they need to be aware
of what's going on they need to see what the building looks like they need to take a tour of the building cuz I will tell you that was a huge eyeopener for me when I came on this board I was unaware of the things behind the scenes the things in the basement the elevator
stuff the look at the um boiler system going down what twice since I've been on the board no Twice The Boiler systems went down so there is things that we definitely need to fix so one way or the other we are going to be spending money and I do think it's important to get the
Public's input on this and you you can tell this is very um we'll call it not emotional but I mean we're going through things because we don't want to spend everybody's money we don't cuz it's our money too yeah but the thing is
is we got to figure out a good path and the public needs to be involved and and we've been trying to do this as much as possible is get everybody involved and and and I know we got these tour meetings one you know one in rice one in Sock Rapids couple here tours all of
that stuff to to show people what what is behind the scenes like commissioner Benoy said so my hope and my prayer for all of this is because I know from being on the Township board for 13 years that to get the public to show up at this stuff is like pulling teeth sometimes
and sometimes you only have 25 30 people at an annual meeting at the township that decides the whole Township for them and I don't want to see that I I would like to see the p and that's the reason we went to the length of getting it in the paper and making sure that the
public is aware of these things hopefully we get enough people to show up at those meetings and those tours to actually see what's going on and I think I can speak for the whole board I don't think anybody's here trying to pull the wool over anybody's
eyes we've been very upfront on what this costs all the way through it's not a matter of we we uh Monty correct me if I'm wrong other than 300,000 the county is debt free right yeah right that's correct that that and and most people
don't understand that I mean we we're sitting here going in and we don't compare ourselves to other counties to spending money and stuff I get that because there's a lot of variables that go into it but we look at counties you know that are around us that are they got they got buildings that are 20 years
newer than ours that are doing major upgrades to their buildings because of mechanical issues and everything like that we just keep band-aiding everything you know we we've been fighting over parking lots for two years that's a you
know hey we've been holding other boards and and whatever we do potentially puts other boards in a bad position down the road too so I'm not throwing any not trying to throw anybody under the bus but it's it every
board has a reaction to the the previous board and and has an assumption of the new board coming in yeah oh yeah everything we do I just don't want to be part of the board raise taxes for 20 years that's
going to be detrimental to this County but in my opinion I don't know how you can be a county and not have any debt you know well there's some let's do I would love to to to see the debt load on all the counties out there I would bet we
are in the bottom bottom Bottom of Everything But at what risk at what risk what risk I mean one one former commissioner says well he goes um look at what the County's done they built a new government center they
built a new jail they built a new highway building and as soon as we get it paid for they want to add more debt he said it's it seems like we're in a continuous flow of you know similar to school districts they want to keep building and keep building I would have to imagine that that past commissioner
on those three facilities must have been involved in a vote on it yeah and uh two of them okay yeah so at some point he or she whatever understood that they had to do something right and I think that's our big problem we Face here today is we have to do something to me if the
estimates are right at a $22 million upgrade rental a renovation yes thank you I that makes no sense to me well I've heard on that part that that's absolutely insane that it would cost that much so okay let let's even
take that 22 down by 30% and let's just say it's 17 million yeah that's insane to put $17 million into this because remember we lose the bottom level right we're we don't have a space right now we lose a bottom level we got
to do something on on we got to add on I don't know it's just you know it was something for thoughts I hear you commissioner Pop I don't the timing of it sucks sucks really sucks I get it yeah I totally get it and at the same
token that again we have this fiduciary responsibility to address the potential needs of the county right we do it with our roads we do it with everything we do every day again that doesn't mean the answer is we will build right no we've got to get this out there yeah yeah oh
we're this far we have to get it out there well I tell you you know what what uh uh Mr half said in the the opening you know it it resonates with me for sure it it I knew this was coming on this discussion and everything like that
this isn't Fun to sit up here and do especially when you hear what what what you have to say I mean it's it's not a not a fun Topic at all Tim y uh Sher pop question for your administrator Monty
how much the county owns the land across the street correct that's correct how much how much what 600,000 how much did it no uh we paid 250 okay can you provide a back of the envelope estimate on GLT and contegrity what you've spent
so far if you can't do it right now could you get me that number yeah you know Tim when I usually when I guess I'm wrong and I don't want to give you the wrong number I'll need to look and see currently what we paid up to to date and then let you know okay so yeah and the
last number that you had in your March 3rd Committee of the whole for a new building was 29.7 because I round everything I don't go six digits that sounds accurate so your new is 29.7 estimate estimate estim it's all estimates right now right I think that
was what they call the DD number the design development estimate yeah okay I mean just I want to ask you for that if you can provide it so so State the question one more time okay first I need to know exactly how much you spent
on the property next door you okay yep and the dollar figure on Services everything for GLT and contegrity because you've met regularly with them for the last year and a half on planning
that's a rough stage yep okay I'll ask that in the next four meetings we're going to spend time with when you're out there I'll ask the question that needs to get out okay absolutely y y that's the main thing I wanted to ask okay so I did
mentioned is is Evan I invited Evan and Pete to join us they're here virtually if you have any questions of them so they're they're with us okay I don't if you're if you're if you're ready to move on I I wanted to share with you a very
brief uh Open House program uh gave you kind of a sense of what we've been thinking about talking to GLT and so on so uh this is a draft program for open housee it begin with introductions and then I would provide
an overview of the openhouse format next thing we go into is is a video it's been done for us uh by Bill Colton C Communications uh Bill's already been on site and he shot a ton of video he did two on camera interviews
with Christine shering and Steve Stang to highlight issues with elections and it so he's done those I have sent him a script to begin working on as he sort of layers uh voiceovers with video and
still pictures I know Evan sent him many many uh still pictures of things that they had seen so then we go into the video and and U it just try and focus on some of the key issues that we're seeing in the building you know the the Aging mechanical systems decaying exterior
surfaces uh Ada issues the data center those issues with fire suppression and elections um Bill happened to be here in a good time he caught um two folks from our Treasures Office actually carting
voting equipment across the parking lot and those carts you know as are shaking and so on uh back over to the storage in the Old Highway building and then lastly the video was that we hope have an on camera uh wrap up by a board member so
far commission Heen has has volunteered to be the on camera person uh if that's okay with you then we'll arrange for him to to have a short on camera wrap up and then the next we would go to a preview of the new building so I would ask um
Evan to take us through those three-dimensional renderings and focusing on really I guess so you've identified a problem or issue with the old building how does the new building address that so that's kind of we want to create that connection um we've been
having meetings here on site with departments you may have kind of heard about that and Evan has been sharing the newest three-dimensional renderings and they are I think uh very powerful because it's it's so realistic to see exterior interior it's like you're
walking through the building so I think that's going to help folks see how do you address an issue with the old building with the new and then lastly then there would be ample time for for uh we talk about the financing plan the tax impact and then it's opened up for
comment questions and so on um I thought we would have you you kind of remember when we had those employee means we had lots of uh poster boards on easel so I presumably we'd have quite a few uh images of of the new building on on
easel so folks can take a look at and a QR code to project web page on our on our website that website does not exist at this moment but we'll work on it so um I I'm guessing we we would put the video out there and other
information on a website project page so I wanted to get your thoughts about this this possible program do you see any issues or concerns and please let me know Mr chair I don't know if it's part of the program but one thing I need and I think the all of us need is a
estimated tax impact on different classifications and simplifi down so you may remember uh during one of Jessica Green's visits with you all she shared with you that tax impa of a median Val valued uh residential industrial and in Agland I
asked her this morning to update that so I I'm thinking we'll actually we'll have that display on one of these poster boards and so folks can can see it Y and I would like to see it before that as soon as you get it yeah because that's a question well she said she was she we blind it back she's going to work on it
right away she's actually uh working on the the CIP document uh which must be published prior to the public hearing there's a 14-day uh publication notice requirement for the public hearing on May 6th so that's actually going to get
uh posted sometime mid April um so as soon as I see it I'll I I'll share that with you sure I think that would and I of course want to share with you all a preview of the video and make sure you're okay with it before before we blast it to the public so yeah that a
copy of that dollar amount for the for the households might be good to be on that video too uh I'm sure bill could incorporate a shot and you know he's really good they can incorporate that into video sure yeah and commissioner pop to your point on a timing thing and correct me if I'm wrong but our last
Committee of the hols we kind of talked about you know I think June 3rd is our board meeting date that's kind of our quote unquote drop dead decisionmaking date we're supposed to have bids in by then and that will be the time where it's decided if we're moving forward or
not we're not going to drag it out forever no well unless the board chooses to drop it before then and so correct but we still have from June 3D we have 30 days well the 30 days will start May the
30-day period begins commences on May 6th um and I and I'm sorry I'm maybe Evan can you rem Evan can you remind us when do we expect open bids maybe Pete can tell us when do we expect open bids Pete or or Evan can you un unmute your
mic and remind us this is oh go ahead Pete sorry was at the end of May I think we had picked the that 527 Mark something in that nature so uh we would be ready to roll for potentially a special board meeting I
believe on June 9th okay okay so that's after the expiration of the 30-day period so y yes everything was orchestrated work on that yeah got it and I think I think we got to be very clear with the the public about what the
building costs areh because if if we just say no to the building and they don't know the background on what we're spending and what we need to spend moving forward on this building that's giving them 50% of the information that's a good point
commissioner Pinsky Monty that may be something that needs to be included in there as our you know we've got a budget set in our CIP for the next year and next five years right of what we're going to be spending on these facilities and that's you know highlighted information of that would be
beneficial because those dollars will not be spent here obviously okay well I we'll continueing we're kind of on a hectic pace because this first one is April 9th so uh to get these materials ready for that first open house and again I'm working with
jet on the CP uh cuz that'll get published here in about two weeks my oh just one last item Mr chair is um my plan was that we would advertise separately for two consecutive weeks the openhouse dates time and places so I
intended to get that noce to the newspapers this week to get those and can publish them to consecutive weeks before the first open house uh Mr Mr chair if I could Tim I throw this out there you're going to do what you got to do but if those could be
highlighted somehow in the Bon County news and the herald because if it gets stuck in the Public Notices you know a lot of people don't always see that or read them yeah it wouldn't be in the legal this week because it's Sunshine week which is open government which okay put them in the story at the end so they were in The Herald Saturday already they
in theal okay so I'll see them in the B County news today thank you we wouldn't Place him in the legals get lost there right okay he's talking about display advertising is totally different I'm news yeah advertising but you could always put a nice word in D and you know
we we can't we can't make people come to these we can't make people understand what is going on I just talked to three people this week this weekend and actually they just all happen to be at Coburn's they all think that Sock Rapids is getting an
indoor complex like a like Fieldhouse like a Fieldhouse and I'm like no you don't no there's nothing Indo no well that's why I voted for it I'm like I don't know what to tell you that's where if they go to the meetings and they educate
themselves on what's going on well yeah I can't wait to run on that indoor track that's not an indoor track yeah you're going to be running in the winter in about 2 feet of snow yeah when they came to the city of rice to socer RIT School District there was one person
there me yeah and I just happened to be there for some other you know no showed up you know and and to defend my area a little bit you know they were two to one they voted against that you know and and I'm not I'm not trying to be mean to
townships or anything like that but when we have these bcap meetings and all these Township meetings we've brought this up for the last year and a half and everybody seemed positive so it's news to me hearing that they're not because we could have taken a step back and not
spent additional money yeah to moving forward you should have been to the township meeting last Tuesday afternoon You' have got a clear message on how that Township and that's unfortunate because they had multiple opportunities with this board to share those feelings and they did not well it
was your Township supervisors and now you have the general public well all right let's move on consider a resolution for the supporting the application for the state of Minnesota
Department of Natural Resources for trail funding uh if I may explain why this is here so um folks in public health uh had applied for a men. transportation
Alternatives Grant otherwise known as tap and this is the third time we've applied for it it's really it's very competitive it's a tough one to get um as we've applied and seen the evaluation some menot some pretty tough hurdles to
get over to get that um so we thought as an insurance policy to apply for this Grant and actually as we studied it it seemed much more appropriate for what we want to do it's all about Trail connections and it's as you read the
description it seemed to fit perfectly and it's actually through DNR so it seemed like okay we're going to find out about the tap Grant April is I think mid April is mid April 15th is when they're going to announce uh the deadline in this one is actually the end of this
month so we thought okay we applied twice haven't been successful we might not get the tap Grant let's apply for this one as an insurance policy uh this one won't be announced until July July um not as good in terms of the finances
it does require a higher I'm sorry the the maximum allowable Grant is smaller than tap so which increases the County's match requirements I Tred to highlight that in the agenda item that I used the estimated project cost from our tap
Grant application 375,000 uh the local match for the tap was 77 almost 78,000 the local match on this would be 125 would be 125 so ventually again Mr chair the the
goal here is to give us an option and I and I skipped over a whole bunch of details this is the trail connection between the city of rice and benon River Park I apologize I assumed I yeah uh again we've been trying on this for three years through menot uh it's about
a mile Chris is a mile uh yeah maybe roughly um to to connect folks who want to bike or walk safely from the city of rice to the Ben River Park uh the we already possess the necessary rideway
along c 55 it' be the East Side for the trail I think that's an added strength in our applications that we already have the right away so that's the story Mr chair and asking for your consideration um I got a question is the city of rice participating in this at
all too uh not in terms of the match no I mean they they they've agreed to be the be responsible for maintenance oh yeah maintenance right yeah yeah Mr chair just just for clarification Monty so the match you're looking at 100% of it would come out of the CIP
fund balance yes yes sure yes Y and that's the same place where the match for the tap would come from it's just a higher there's just a higher Lev for match because again the cap on this is 250 that's the most you're going to get so to complete the project you have to have more local dollars I assume I
assume there was no other Pro uh Public Health Grant dollars that could pay for the match uh Emma has not told me of any so I'm I'm not aware of any other local match dollar so okay now I have a question if the first
grant goes through and we are granted that okay the tap Grant yes if that if we are approved for that then are we getting both grants if we're we would of course if we get the tap of course we would reject this one because
it's got a higher local cost right yeah and again the issue is timing we'll know on the tap by April 15th we know we won't know on this one until July so if we get tapped we that's good to go we're good to go then the only Mr chair the
only thing that I'll say is if we start setting a precedence like this we're going we're going to have all of our cities because I know the city of Sock Rapids just did their Trail on their own we just had to support that agreement and they could come with the
same dollar amount they could be coming back to us too and so just so I'm clear city of is not involved financially at all they're going to do maintenance they they have committed to the maintenance that's right the board previously committed to the local match for
tap whereas the city of rice committed to maintenance by resolution so and we for the tap gr we actually had to have a resolution from the city showing who was going to maintain it and I think that hopefully that helped helped the
application and it just based upon past history our our our success rate hasn't been good with tap so one more question sure and I can just add one thing I mean the city did through their clerk make it clear to me that they were willing to accept
responsibility for maintenance but they were not they were not willing or open to providing uh cash local match for construction or design that was made clear to me yes so you're ask asking for permission
right now just to apply for that Grant yes apply so if we apply for the grant because the deadline's coming up and can we then reject the grant later if we decided not to Ely right yeah I mean it would require the the the board
approving a grant agreement and if you simply not approve it then it's the bets are off right yeah once you uh once you not approve a grant that comes in though that that's a stain on your yeah okay I don't know I bet your area would
be in in favor of this one though well I would imagine they have no cost yeah I mean they got to have some stake in the game but it is a cost it's on beton County that's what I mean they don't have any stake in the game how much of this Trail Chris is in the city limits would you
guesstimate all of it because what I understand the city limits go goes down to the county property right so this is this is adjacent to County Road 55 if you remember when we we redid that a few years ago and the city I mean give the city some credit they did pay for the
additional easement to put that trail in but um What's the total cost my computer's gone 376 that's I I'm I'm struggling because I know if you listen to Amanda from be and the development that rice has got
going it it's huge the new water tower coming in the the development that's happening a lot of businesses moving in and they're building homes every time you turn around there's a new structure going up but I mean it's also it's also
building on their tax base where they could they could pay for this help help us out let me share a little history so about four years ago the city of rice did a park plan and it identified the priorities of the residents for parks and trails development and this was if
not if it wasn't number one number it was number two in terms of their highest priority uh parks and trails projects uh so that's really frankly what got to our attention is seeing hey this is a high priority for this city we thought okay
we know we're developing B the river this gives people a safe way to get there they're not on the road uh so that's really where it started is really seeing the city's Park plan which identifi it as a high priority Mr chair to commissioner pin's
a point though what kind of Precedence I get a little nervous about that what when does this have to be turned in in March that's why again it's the timing issue it's it's due into March that was the issue and we know about know about tap until mid April and
when would this money come available it's actually sooner so tap is like 20 Federal f year 29 I believe this is 26 or 27 it's much sooner yeah much sooner it's $125,000 I'm not one
to do what you know commissioner Benoy asked about is we can always turn it down but I think if we turn this in it gives us the ability to go back to rice and say listen we need a partner in this because this is going to benefit not only bet but it's going to benefit
the city of rice a lot I think Chris we were there for the city and there was a lot of discussion about the maintenance yet Alone come on up don't don't L well yeah um as anybody
would I mean we would have the same concerns of it was our department I mean you're adding additional assets and features that need to be maintained in the long run you're adding some you know Capital assets so yeah they had some concerns about that additional maintenance burden put on on
them so but if we look at it it it doesn't really help fully Gilman Sock Rapids well it it helps the people go into rice that are at at band The River maybe they're going to go into the old crey or something like that but it gen
it really is the city of rice I think precedents you know said precedents that well we'll have another 125,000 for so grabbits are 125,000 for Foley pretty soon we're at you know half a million
bucks we already spent our herpa yeah yeah we've already given in home Monte do we know what a rough estimate of what the total of the County's investment would be towards this project is it just it's it's more
than the 126 isn't it because that's our match so maybe a question so Chris you the 375 came from tap did that that included engineering too right no because engineering is not eligible for the tap grant that was just estimated
construction costs so yeah addition you know engineering costs would be additional but we're not getting reimbursed for your engineering cost yeah usually the grants for Road and Trail construction will not cover engineering um or any environmental work
that's needed uh to clear the project so so I guess my question is is the Cy commitment 125 575 towards this whole project or are we in already we're in already I would say already the cost have been very minimal uh em and I work
together on coming up with these estimates based on some recent Trail projects and bid prices and you know kind of escalating those for future costs so I would think our costs so far have been very minimal but you know tap certainly since that's Federal money
you'll be required to follow the Federal process for plan development which requires environmental review um hopefully we don't have any architectural or archaeological stuff that needs to be done out there in that area but you will be required to put together a state aid set of plans
construction plans which would require engineering costs and when you mean you do you mean you or are we hiring an engineering firm so our capacity I think is consumed with just trying to deliver our 5year road plan so there be additional engineering cost coming to
the county yeah so to put it bluntly I I don't think our staff could put together the trail all of our other work so I would if it was put on me I would it around and ask the board to authorize a consultant contract to to develop those plans well commission yeah do you have
any idea what that cost would be what did we spend on just the trails in B the River Park so so road construction consultant plans are about 10% of the construction cost
so I mean engineering could be upwards close to 40,000 so so now we're in for 165 yeah so Mr chair to commissioner pin's point though I understand if we applied and
then said no but if the Leaning is we're not going to do it why would we apply and put ourselves in a position to say no true I I can't argue with that rice would be off the hook for maintenance then
yeah I think this is an easier grant to get but we're putting ourselves on the hook for a lot more money well I'm smelling $160,000 here and this grant will be around in the future Chris this would be this is not on the road this is a set
aside Trail right yeah so there would be the property the intent based on Rice's parking Trail plan was a 10- foot uh shared use path we call it so bicyclist and Walkers could use it and the easement is wide enough that there should be a grass area in between the
roadway and that trail so I'm going to make a motion to not support the trail grant funding application okay is there a second for that I'll second it any other discussion Mr chair yes I
think we can I think it's a great um project for the city of rice I think it's a great project for the the county but we need Partnerships in this and we need time to build those Partnerships on this and
we can apply next year if that's the case but uh I don't feel comfortable going in applying for something knowing that the there's a probably a 75% chance of us having to turn down the grant if we get it and putting egg in our face so I'd rather get our ducks in a row and
come back at this later on any other discussion way I mean if you look at 165,000 is a lot yep ask a question so um with a tap uh we didn't count on any City Financial
participation in the construction or design we only asked them to commit to maintenance so I'm wondering should we should we kind of regroup on that particular application and and seek some City
participation in the in the construction design cost Mr chair tonti's point it's going to take a significant amount I would think which I don't know that maybe they'd be prepared to do and I and I recognize they have maintenance costs well I I guess what
I'm thinking is is and I don't remember exactly uh I was thinking of the city of Sock Rapids Trail that's going to go along May Lake Road uh to the school that was safe and uh safe ways of school in other
words I I wonder should we use that as perhaps the model for what we would seek and I I I'm sorry I don't recall the details on that one I think we were pretty clear on they wanted not in the county right away yeah I guess where I'm going with the side Mr sh in other words
if if if if the board expects local participation from the city of rice on on this this or any other Trail that's you know associated with the city I need to be able to send that clear message to them that in essence you know folks if if you wish to see this done it's going
to take some local cost participation up to this point the message has been this is what I've heard in terms of local cost participation so if the message is different I need to make sure I send that message very clearly to the city then yeah and if in other words if
they're unwilling to then we simply won't pursue it you know preparing these Grant applications is very very time intensive and again this is the third time it probably doesn't make sense to continue doing it uh unless we have some
is a city on board with some cost participation okay I think it's an absolute Home Run for the city right to me that that that builds how many cities can say other than like a a Metropol like a sock
Rapids you know outside of St Cloud where they can they got Trails go right to bigger Parks fully I mean they've got a they got the the park but they got this is a major Park M I think we we sort of we we've heard this kind of issue before maybe a little bit is that
it's a County Road and I think there's a perent ception that since it's a County Road the county should be responsible for it but I I guess what I've heard from you all you're saying look primarily this is going to benefit the citizens of the city of rice yes it is a county road but the beneficiaries are
largely the residents of the city yes uh so by virtue of that there should be some local cost participation even though it is a county road so to call a question I have a I have one one question
actually and you guys are more familiar than I am being newly on the board has the county participated in other Trail um like the one in Sock Rapids that's going by the school we're not funding any of that and that's on a
County Road correct so I guess I would say that with you know we're set in precedent so the motion's been made and seconded to not apply for the what do they call it DN our
grant all in favor say I I opposed carried all righty I think the last thing is the safe assure um I make sure Chris is back in here so he can possibly help out with this issue yeah so
uh here's the the bigger picture so in the past I understand is that the highway department and Property Management would join together and they bring in someone from the outside to provide both mandatory and discretionary safety training onsite out of Highway and I believe over time that Arrangement
kind of fell apart where they couldn't find a resource to come in well we now use this company called safe assure and a lot of counties use them they provide uh policies uh the online training for example OSHA training that we're
required to do uh and they can provide also onsite training for our our folks so uh Highway and property management uh got with safe assure and they uh came up with sort of a menu of various trainings
that could be delivered on site out of Highway for both property management and Highway I put up here on the screen uh the first block it says here it says April 17th so these are the trains that Highway has worked out and property
manager has worked out if it's in yellow it's OSHA required if it's in yellow it's OSHA required if it's in that kind of I can't describe that next color down what would you call that color hot light green oh hot pink no that next color down like a purple I don't know
yeah mon color pink yeah excuse me magenta hot pink hot pink hot pink okay hot pink is uh it says trainings that are recommended but based upon the hazards these employees
encounter uh the green is is also he uh safe as sure did this color coding for me the green is also required the light green or dark green excuse me there's a lighter green and a dark green a light green
is I'm not sure I quite follow this it says training commonly cited under the general duty Clause annually oh recom it's it says it's recommended it's recommended so um if you're if you're yellow or you're hot pink it's required
so um so the first batch is the new stuff that they would deliver to Property Management Highway and then there's also another batch here on the bottom same same in January uh most of which is required um so the additional
incremental cost is about I think I have in here it's $1,300 for them to deliver this training right now we pay safy sure about 8,000 a year so it's another 1,300 on top of that for this training for these this group of employees and obviously these
they encounter substantial risk out in out in the field think about them doing crack filling they're they're using chainsaws to do brushing and so on uh so I I I would imagine most folks would agree this training is is necessary and important uh so that we have good and
safe work practices and we can fund this out of our countywide training budget I'll make a motion to adopt and amend the agreement with safe assured to provide training to the highway department and Property Management I'll second okay most been M second it to provide
training and safety for Highway and I think it's very important um any other discussion hearing that all in favor signify by saying I I and I and I should I should compliment Mark ednet and Chris and um and Jeff Dingman for making this
connection with safe assure and getting this this training and range appreciate them doing that M Mr chair if I could I don't want to push off our friend Jerry but what do you would you consider moving Community Health Board up we could get these three ladies onto there you okay with that Jerry he might be
quicker he might be quicker he's got an annual report he's going to present okay how long is yours going to be I actually have an uh an appointment in the Twin Cities I need to leave at 11: I was going to request that you table this okay respectfully is that all right yeah y sorry about that Jerry sorry oh no it
happens I uh thank you Jerry I'll do that I move to table this to our next County board meeting all right I'll second we don't we don't need a second I always love hearing you so yeah and I don't want to try to cut this to a two-minute discussion it's important we'll keep it to that five minutes later
on just kidding thank you thank you Jer thanks Jerry all right this time we'll recess the County Board and we'll go to Public Health and I'll turn it over to Vice chair the night uh
can I ask for approval of the agenda is there any additions Madam chair at all any additions jacine no additions today okay move for approval of the agenda is presented
second and can I ask for approval of the consent agenda you got to call the question call all in favor say I I I I now can I ask for approval for the consent agenda item number one so moved
second I'll call the question all in favor say I I Jacqueline go ahead all right so we just have two items today the first of the two items is to consider the Shimp Grant amendment to include capacity building funds um if
you recall our community health board approved us applying for a small amount of additional ship Grant funds made possible by the jewel settlements to help support training for staff for for tobacco work so um that's primarily what this additional 5,000 would be used for and so just looking for approval of the
contract amendment to our ship Grant and this doesn't require match funding either um our ship Grant does but this additional 5,000 does not yeah and a little bit about that you know a lot of the times with some of these grants it's it's Community work that we would be doing um and so those grants
really help to offset the county investment into that you know that work um this 5,000 we don't have a match for but our typical ship Grant it does have a 10% match but usually that's used and met by my staff time my supervision time
other indirect costs like our our fiscal staff um and so forth but yes move for approval of adopting the ship Grant Amendment I'll second I'll call the question all all in
favor say I hi hi hi okay so then we will move on to our next piece um today um today I am happy to um have our mayor Corps members here with us our two Public Health Corp members they have been partnered with us um Tina has been here for two years and
Tabitha has been here uh half a little over half a year at this point in time um americore is a partnership um that is with Benton County where americore funds their staff time um their salaries their benefits um and a couple of other
benefit um Insurance options things like that and then they're partnered with the county and they're um able to work on County initiatives projects and programs so today I have them here with us they're going to provide a presentation overview of the projects that they worked on and um some of the things that they're currently working on so I think
you'll be excited to hear all the um impacts save made community and I'm just going to share the screen here because I know they have their program super visor online um I'm not sure let's see the entire screen here we go all
right okay so I will call go ahead and have you guys come on up and then I can pass these out for you sure and then you'll just use the arrows here to navigate is there a way for us to like show the video too yeah there's
a mouse dou sided thank you is this present oh it's even one huh mine's even one all right so good morning good morning um so I will be introducing
myself my name is Tina TOA and this is the other americ member my name is Tabitha young all right and we are the two americ members at uh Ben County Public Health Department so a little bit about myself I am a second second year
americore member so I my first term was here last year um I am currently a St Cloud um student um a senior I going be graduating um this spr uh this spring in May in community health and a minor in Psychology um my goals and interest are
in environmental health and Refugee health and I am just a fun fact about myself I'm also a reservist in the Navy thank you for your service thank you for the support so one of the topics that I'm currently working on is the day in the life of public health professional
series um the day in the life video series is about the public health professionals here at Ben County um in this series it will show you what their daily task looks like as a public health professional some of the projects that they have completed and are currently working on and the people they've impacted uh with the work that they do
so throughout this project um I was able to interview each group um and learn a little bit more about what they do um and film and get all the projects that they're done and worked on um so I traveled to different locations across Benton County such has been in the river um that you guys mentioned before and um
basically showcase their hard work you know through all the grants that they've done um in the Partnerships and collaborations they were able to make a lot of these projects come to life and I was able to go out there and record and put it all in a little nice video for you all um so yeah I I did a lot of
interviewing and then now I'm on the editing process so um there are specific videos for each group so the wick staff the nursing staff the Community Health Specialists the case AIDS um us americore members and our supervisors um within the near future
our first video of the series is with the case a will be coming to your email soon so just keep an eye out for that um another project that I've done um and I've completed last year was the safe routs to school so with the safe routs to school the project that I've
completed was the Pleasant View Elementary School um so safe routes to school is a public health initiative um this is a collaborative work with many other stakeholders such as the Department of Transportation local counties and City Halls um nonprofit organizations and um
Minnesota Department of Health in the movement uh of safe R school is to create a safe safer and easier way for students to walk and Bike to School um also making it fun and healthy as well um to promote and encourage healthy and physical activities um this particular
project I worked on was at Pleasant View Elementary School as I mentioned before and if you guys look at the slides here on this right side uh this shows a good representation of what it looked like before and what it looked like after
um so if you could see on the bottom right here if you you guys have the slides or even here too shows pretty a good image of it uh we painted on the road it was a red pinkish border on the road uh represents extended curbs um and
we installed um plastic bellers to provide more awareness to the area and to basically discourage speeding um because oncoming cars aren't able to really tell if this curb is real or not um so just by that visual look it's just to discourage speeding and make it safer
for pedestrians to walk by um in this special Slide the St Cloud APO which is also known as St Cloud area planning organization uh they are active partner that uh we work with when it comes to Safe roster school um on the left side hand left side hand here um we
have a video that was created by Alex McKenzie um he's from the a APO um is basically shows a good video of like a summary of like what we did if you don't mind I'm going to play the video here hey stock Rapids we're excited to
share our new safe robsa School demonstration project happening right here at Pleasant View Elementary School with a grant from the Minnesota Department of Transportation we're transforming this intersection to make it safer and more comfortable for kids
walking and biking to school first we chocked out the dimensions for our new curb extensions this will help reduce Crossing distance and increase visibility between pedestrians and drivers next up the fun part painting
the road a bright red surface makes this new layout super visible we got students involved too it's all about Community ownership in making sure everyone is part of the chain then we installed ballards to define the new pestering
areas yes commiss and also help on the project Le L to drive the pavement first finally reflective tape was added to make everything clear and visible especially at night and there you have it our temporary safe to school project
is ready for you to try come check it out this summer and let us know what you think your feedback is super important visit the intersection of 11 Street North and 6th Avenue North and tell us how we can make walking and biking to
school even safer and more enjoyable thanks for watching and I'll see you out there so I don't know if you guys got a quick Glimpse but I was also in the video and featuring Mariah as well the other community health specialist and commissioner Heinen the next project here is the
central Minnesota Alliance uh mental health T kit uh this is a project that I completed last year my first term uh this is a collaboration between all the other americore members from the different counties of Sherburn and Sterns uh we coll collab collaboratively
researched um within the central Minnesota about uh mental health and the resources um that that are that are out there and um if to the right here are basically the photos of us four as we receive an uh an award at our CMA uh
leadership leadership meeting towards the end of our service um I can just briefly go through the metu kit here actually oops sorry just to click kind of Click through um we can definitely print this out and
email to you guys later if you guys are interested in looking to what we created um so we kind of give it over what mental health is some data and research about um the different um different areas of of the centr Minnesota
here and some resources too so if you guys are interested I'll make sure to follow up afterwards and email them to you all and then along with the central Minnesota Alliance I've been doing a bunch of projects with them uh another project that I've completed was the
video survey recording and I did the English version um so they were three different recordings of the survey in languages such as English Spanish in Somali uh we had uh Lily from Sherburn do the Spanish version Yasin who is also
another americore member at Stern County did the Somali version and I recorded the English version the initiative and collaborative effort uh of this um recording was to create an auto recording for people across the county regardless of barriers and disabilities
and that way they can um you know access the survey and take it in the in in in a way where it's appropriate for them um hand hygiene so another project that I completed last year uh I was able to have the opportunity to go to fle elementary school and I taught first
graders how to wash their hand properly um uh the importance of washing their hand was to basically show them that um it's important to protect themselves and also their peers because you know kids they touch a lot of things and sometimes their hands aren't always
clean and so um this is the power point that I created uh super simple it's just just basically show them you know how to wash your hands some basic steps uh and also you know towards the end of the slide like 20 20 seconds Happy Birthday
song like the best ways to try to like try to get the um hand hygiene to stick to the brains um I was able to coordinate the education lessons with the support of the Community Health Specialists um Mariah and Kayla and also uh the school
district nurse Michelle so in this photo here uh I have tab with the um my amazing model here with her hands what we did was we had the glow GMS in the B bottom on the top left picture here is the glow germs and what I did was we would squeeze a little
bit of glowm into their hands and then they would rub it into their hands right so as You Follow the photos they're rubbing through the hands and they have this blue UV light that you would shine on their hand and whatever glows is supposedly the germs right so that's the germs sticking on their hand and me
educating them how to wash their hand properly and hopes to hopefully and on the bottom P bottom right picture to be clean even with the UV like shining on it so at the end of the lesson I would give students handwashing and germ coloring sheets and and hand washing instruction
sticker right in the middle and a personal uh hand sanitizer bottle for their backpack explaining um what they learn in class to their parents um another project that I've done is the child and teen Dental varnish so as part of the dental varnish
program and the Chen and child Chen and child checkup um I help community outreach events alongside with Kayla and Mar the other community health specialist on helping out uh with educating children and um families about dental hygiene and the importance of
applying Dental varnish uh we usually do our Dental Outreach at CK Rapids in fully elementary schools and sometime we occasionally do it them out at other Outreach events such as um Project Connect Pride um Health the healthy the Health Equity fair and many
more um our goal is to provide Dental varnish at these events and locations to raise awareness and offer resources to individuals who have limit limited access to dental care in the area uh as we know in Benton County there's a lot of challenges um accessing dental
services and as you can see in the photos here we have a uh lovely um volunteer which is Jack Jaclyn's nephew I think in Mariah and Kayla uh we're over here just applying Dental varnish and what it looks like um we USS the
mobile Outreach trailer uh at the Hispanic heritage her Heritage day at Lake George and then here here are just some photos of me um at some Outreach events um and during my
time with Benton County as an americ member I just want to say I had a amazing opportunity to explore and gain hands-on experience in various Public Health sectors including dental hygiene mental health health equity and maternal and child health I've also learned how
to set up and manage event tables while educating the community on important Health topics um lastly I just want to end this off and say that one thing I've learned about attending these tabling events is how to build good relationships and connect with people it's not just about
sharing health information um but it's also about really listening to people understanding what they need and creating trust it's a great way to connect with people and work together to improve each other's health and it's great to it's a great way to learn how to talk to all kinds of people and make
a positive impact in their life now I will be turning it over to Tabatha it's going to be really hard to beat there but um so a little bit about myself I am a first year americore member uh I do have a degree as a
registered nurse with my bachelor degree uh some of the goals and interests that I have here in public health is uh Suicide Prevention women's infants and children so Wick and public health nursing and I'm an army uh veteran who serves thank for your service with one
year of in Afghanistan uh one of the first um projects that I worked on um it was with another americore member in the beginning of the year we were uh researched um cannabis laws in other states uh we researched
state level county level and Township levels um not many states have down to Township level unfortunately um after researching all those States we compiled one uh report
between me and the other mayor Corp member and we then or I sorry presented that to the Cannabis work group and then that has also been shared with other counties as well correct because they like the research so much um Kayla also
will be using that in future cannabis prevention and implementation activities um the states that we did research are all listed there as you can see um I also worked on the community partner assessment committee with uh
Emma and I believe Julie was on there too and then um so Bon Count's job was to do The Branding of the report so I took the report from a Word document and transferred it over into canva and made
sure that everything was in the correct CMA coloring and then uh as you can see all the tables and stuff like that I made sure that they were legible that they were readable and they weren't um blurry or
anything uh also I worked with yasen who's a uh aeric cor member at cerns County he developed this one-page uh document from the CMA uh CPA report um just so that if somebody didn't want to
read the full report that they would hit the main um topics from the report into this one pager um I sat down with Yasin and worked with him to make sure that all the information that uh he wanted on there was correct and then I uh made it
more appealing as you can see one of the projects that I'm currently working on is immunization vaccination rates within Benton County um so this was brought to my attention just um you know as a nurse it is kind of a important thing for me to
make sure that people are vaccinated and just wanted to get an ideas to what those vaccination rates are out in Bon County so I did have a sit down with um the the Minnesota immunization information connection uh also known as
Mick um to get that information from them uh the top uh graph there from the Excel spreadsheet the one that's all nice and pretty and colorful sorry um was the original report from
them I then took that report and I broke it down into the second report there that you can see um comparing Years cuz they gave me a 5year gap and so I compared the rates from uh as you can see like the Early Childhood the 2017 versus
2021 um so and then they also gave us States so we compared Bon to the state levels as well uh they gave us early childhood vaccines adult vaccines middle child
adolescence 13 and 17y old so there was quite a few different aspects of vaccines um this is a one that I've been currently working on as well it's a community Faith Outreach project it um
has come to the attention that we have a disconnect with faith community out there with um projects or services that we here at the county offer so we wanted to get the word out of our services to the community of the faith leaders and
so I developed all of these uh handouts and and um then as you can see on the top four those are uh public health programs on the bottom those are I worked with the human services department and developed handouts for
their services as well I then uh had a meeting with Pastor Doug at The Waters Church in sartel uh he is my pastor and he was very receptive to the um handouts and he actually also took them and took
them to his monthly leadership um meeting where there's 30 other leaderships there and he handed those out to them and they took it out to their churches to hand it out to the community uh this is a project that's in
the works currently um it's called the Resource Bank so it's um this project was started as uh many people and also departments all have their own resources and some departments may not know about
a resource that another department will have um so this project is to bring all those resources into one area um so it is still with in the drafting process and the goal is to have the resources for all of Benton County Employees to
help the public um there are many categories such as housing um veterans uh family support social Social Security um so many many categories so
what the goal is is that somebody within Bon County any employee could go into this Resource Bank and search say somebody came in from the public and said I need help with housing they would just put the word housing in and all of the resources for housing would show up
and they could just print them from there and hand them to the person uh righty and then um I have also attended some Outreach events not as many as Tina but um this is the one of the first ones
that I went to this was the Project Connect um I also went to the St Cloud standown for veterans to um get information actually for the Resource Bank to um bring back and then I also recently on the 8th of March attended
the a toz mental health event for the central Minnesota Suicide Prevention Coalition all right you ready sorry no you're okay okay so thank you for being so patient we are almost done halfway there so some now we're
going to be introducing some of the projects that we worked on together so this one is called the St there's a lot of acronyms but it's the College of St Benedict and St John University nursing student disaster simulation so we have some photos of
Tabitha and I we definitely look beat up and bloody but don't worry it's just makeup um we are we partak on this natural disaster simulations for the nursing students so what had happened was we were to you know we had to dress
up with bloody clothes and have make up and look like we were injured and the nurses would come around and cess us and we would have a lanyard with Vital Signs and we would have to act our part and as you can see in the photo here we have Caleb our program coach and
um also another americore member from Sterns County and then myself in Tabitha and then here are some awesome photos of us reenacting our our our role as uh patients and victims at the
scene and then so these pictures um so the scenario was that um there was a tornado that hit and they needed to come in and assess um the p patients to see who needed um help first who could wait who
uh was impending death of those people um and so the middle picture you see that is my point of view on the floor that's uh as you can see it's dark foggy there's things everywhere people walking
around people laying people screaming I myself was one of those people screaming yelling about a scissors in my leg um and then the other two pitchers are out in the hallway where um as they were assessing another tornado was coming in
and they had to evacuate patients and then when they got the patients out there they had to uh see who would be able to get on the ambulance and get out um so as you can see we have people on the floor um
and we you know personally I had a like I said scissors in my leg I was screaming I was yelling I was had somebody pull the scissors out of my leg and determine if they could figure out what to do after that to see if they needed to do anything so it was a pretty
fun experience um another one we are currently working on it's kind of a ongoing one is a monthly Health topics in the public health and human services so for each month we um or every two months every other month we
will pick a uh choice of topic and the first one that we chose is out in the hallway over by the um Public Health and Human Services waiting room it's in the
hallway we chose the heart healthy or healthy heart sorry and um we this one was kind of close and dear to my heart just because nurse I also like the heart I'm a very big I've just love the heart um and so on this board we put
statistics and data we put risk factors prevention resources and a couple fun facts out there um including did you know that uh heart attacks happen on Monday that's a pretty fun fact
there good thing is to um and then for me um this is the board that I created it's the dental hygiene board uh board um this is also in the waiting room of the human service so if you guys ever stop by take a look at it um for the month of February uh we chose
um dental hygiene which is also known as National children dental month um and fun fact um as I mentioned before I'm also a part-time reservice in the Navy but I'm also a dental assistant so I know a lot about a lot about teeth so it makes sense that I did did a dental hygiene board um but yeah if you guys
have the chance definitely take a look at it oh go ahead no oh you want to come back afterwards yeah okay sorry nope don't worries and then we also created a human service and public health newsletter board so with any news news update
announcements of any kind you can definitely find this board on the outside of the break room on the first floor um the purpose of this is to encourage a space for building connections and share information across different departments um so for the month of April
we are already working on the boards the one in the hallway we chose mental health that is to focus on the importance of having a me healthy mental health and to PR further actions of people who have a bad mental health um the one for the waiting room we are
choosing National physical fitness and health board for uh children uh for that we've chosen this because it's an importance of the physical activity and why it is healthy for our overall health this is one of the another one of
the first things that I've worked on uh with uh Tina and the other America member is the central Minnesota Alliance survey handouts um we placed roughly 200 to 250 Flyers throughout businesses and
handing out to people to get the word out to have this survey taken as you can see um there was three versions the English SMY and Spanish versions and so we did have all three of those versions
with us when we were handing those out so this is a photo of uh Benton County and we split the county into three sections for um me me Tabatha and the other previous americore member to go out to the community and hand out
surveys uh usually once we were done handing out with our own sections as you guys may know um you know towards the St uh East St Cloud and South Rapids is a lot more busier than the rest of vitton County so once we were done with our own section we help helped each other with the other
sections um and for me I had the lovely opportunity to help assist the elder population and filling out the paper forms and Survey so I actually went to an assisted living and gave paper back um version of the survey and help them out and fill the the survey by answering
questions and providing guidance uh roughly assisted about 20 elderly individuals with the survey so this is um another project that's very near and dear to both of our hearts it's the central Minnesota Suicide Prevention Coalition this um is
where we attend monthly uh meetings with them and we go to volunteer Outreach to just get the word out of um mental health and the 988 Lifeline um this is a picture of the booth that I
worked uh at at the A2Z mental health um and as you can see I also order 988 material for the building and I passed that out throughout the human services and public health departments um as you can see there's popsocket there's
magnets there's little strips that you can help with stress scene there's um pictures you know safety plans so anything and everything that people could do we also just today when I walked in received yard
signs so if anyone is interested in obtaining one of these you are more than welcome to reach out to me via email or at extension 5342 all right so another project that we've worked on is building Equity through action um one of the main uh events that
we do through building Equity through action was is the dine and dialogue that happens about three times a year um it takes place in the St Cloud Library um space and the purpose of this um committee is basically to bring Equity to the community by shining lights on barriers and conversations about what
the community needs to accomplish their day-to-day activities and their overall overall and health and well-being so so tapa there's a lot of different um Community communities within um the building Equity through action but tapa and I are on the health committee so um
our committee focused on meeting quarterly to promote events like d and dialogue uh last year as you can see here um we have a flyer on the left side hand here um that took place over the summer on July 13 2024 and then some of the photos are in the middle and then on
the far right side we have the Health Equity fair with jacine I and um a few other um Community Health Specialists and we had a lot of vendors in the bottom right photo um is all the people that came out to the fair all right so the Gold Star Family
project um not sure if many people know what a gold star family is but a gold star family is a title given to spouses parents and children of military service members who have died as a result of military service in this picture we have the Gold Star
Family Monument located in Zimmerman Minnesota um the American Legion had put that up um the Gold Star Family Memorial monument are they are two-sided tributes made of black granite on one side Bears the words gold star families Memorial
monument a tribute to Gold Star families and relatives who sacrificed a loved one for our freedom on the other side of the monument there are scenes etched on each of the four panels Homeland family Patriot and sacrifice at the center of this tribute is a silhouette of a
saluting service member which represents the legacy of the loved ones who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom okay so this project basically stemmed from um Central Minnesota Central Minnesota Suicide Prevention Coalition um with the connection with
other stakeholders this idea was spark among um other or organizations um really the reason why we wanted to create um gold star families was that there was a concern that was brought up about the lack of resources available for friends and family after one year
losing their military family member um so our goal is to create a community-based initiative and resources for friends and family who have lost a military member after the one-year Mark um so as of right now we are currently brainstorming ideas on how to find resources and data pertaining to
existing and affected veterans um in their friends and family um basically networking with other resources and organizations on how to get this wheel rolling um so upcoming events for this week uh if you guys are available um March 20th is a dental varnish at fley
elementary as I mentioned before um Kayla and I will be there so if you guys want to stop by and see us working in action um you definitely can and then also this Saturday March 22 we have the fley community Expo connect event Al also in um the fley school district so
if you guys have the availability definitely come see us um and lastly I just want to say there are a lot of projects that are being done behind the scenes that we aren't um able to portray in this um PowerPoint but I just want to
say thank you uh for giving us your time and the opportunity to present to you today thank you thank you thank you okay so then also lastly thank you to the board for giving us uh America members the opportunity to work along and gain experience through the beton
County Public Health thank you thank you thank you both nice job um so this was just a really good portrayal of the breath of Public Health and the capacity that we've been able to build in our Public Health Department all of the projects that they mentioned um working out in community changing the
environment and the systems and creating resources and working with these different committees this is all work that we wouldn't have been able to done had we not partnered with americore and got this extra capacity so just a huge thank you to americor for allowing um this programming um thank you to the
board for supporting us to have AER cor members it's been very impactful to our community and and just the the um uptick and the reach that we've been able to do with our schools and Community Partners so really appreciate that support and I really appreciate and want to thank Tina and Tabitha for all of their hard work
and dedication to our Public Health Department so yes thank you thank you J thank you I'll entertain the motion to adjourn you can hand it right back over to the board I can okay we'll reconvene the County Board
and Chris bird is up next all right good morning good morning still morning isn't it it is okay very good um well thank you uh thank you for amending uh the agenda with a revised resolution and I would like to bring
that up just to have it uh on the screen here and then I have the document with pictures we always like pictures too so uh this time of year we always like to take a uh the
opportunity and I should maybe make sure I'm sharing this as well uh to update our Bridge resolution this resolution once adopted will be shared with the State Bridge office here you
go and this is used to uh determine funding needs across the state so this this resolution doesn't guarantee that we'll get funding uh for our Bridge replacement projects but is
the first step into receiving uh federal funds or not federal funds or state funds uh some of these Bridges were successful in receiving federal funds so the difference between this resolution and last year was that we added two two
Bridges at the bottom this bridge L 0043 which is County Road 59 over Bunker Hill Creek and Bridge number 0554 which is Casas 7 over the rest branch of The Rum River so those were two bridges that got added to this uh
these are all bridges in our County that need to be replaced uh and haven't occurred yet but since we were updating the resolution after I submitted the agenda request um my assistant looked at it and thought you know why don't we go ahead and update the total project costs
since we have some of these Bridges uh in design now we have better estimates so I want to point those out one of them was this bridge 0551 18 this County Road 51 bridge over St Francis River just southeast of town here uh originally it
was in the resolution estimated to be $731,000 500 total project cost now we know that's closer to 1.1 million a little over $1.1 million to replace that bridge structure uh the good news is that uh we are receiving a little over
half of that uh in federal funds and we're anticipating that we can get some State Bridge replacement funds to to pick up the local match the the next one Mar below that uh similarly it was estimated to cost 754 th000 we now know
that that's closer to1 milon $124,000 uh but also receiving federal funds for that uh we updated this bridge uh we think that's going to be closer to a little over $1 million as long as as
well as Kad 12 uh so that's what we're kind of seeing is the Futures and we have these span structures we're getting to mode where we're replacing Bridges not just box covers anymore and it's going to cost about a million dollars a bridge to replace those um and then like
I said the the two bridges that we added this one is going to be a box cover most likely just because the nature of the stream and the flows there uh unfortunately K saw 7 is a bridge today it will need to be replaced uh with a bridge in the
future so I did want to share um uh some pictures of why those bridges got added so we completed Bridge inspections this is the one 59 uh interesting structure if you can tell in the picture there is an old concrete
structure right here that was built in 1930 and then in 1971 they constructed a Timber a wooden box covert extension on this this project or this bridge um these Timbers
are uh deteriorating um there is noticeable deflection in the roof of the structure and they're starting to separate uh allowing you know sediment and and fill to seep in between them water to go outside of the structure and
saturate the the subgrade so that's the concern um when you see wicking up of the moisture up into the wood that's when you know that the waterproofing has failed on it and so the wood now is actually wicking moisture up from the water line up into the Timbers so that's
what's making this one eligible uh for replacement so kind of a unique structure that there was also there was an old concrete structure in the middle that's going to be 100 years old by the time this gets replaced uh but this this Timber structure is what's really driving needing to be replacing the
whole whole thing um there's just some pictures of the concrete the concrete has got an aggregate that's starting to pop out so it's not in the best condition either there's another good picture of where that that Timber is separated in so and that's underneath the the roadway so
this this structure is posted uh no overweight loads are allowed it is a gravel road but even a single unit 24 tons so 48,000 lbs is the max you should be driving across this so you shouldn't be really driving probably a fully
loaded dump truck tanm truck across that um yeah just some more pictures of that that's that's the surface you see on top of it so you see that the load posting signs uh are right next to the structure
there um here's the next structure so this is CA 7 what we're looking North here is Casa 22 up here um a an old restaurant the rum Shack is right up here in the corner just to give you context of where we're at this structure was built uh in
1965 um it was a concrete Channel span is what they called that back then these are known now to have a lot of issues with the bottom of this concrete spalling off and exposing the reinforcing Steel in it and then that's that gets corroded this is on
steel piling we also have greater than 10% loss in the thickness of the steel piling there at the water line so that's what's driving this structure to be replaced um and there's just a zoom in of where that concrete's falling out exposing that uncoated reinforc sing a
rebar to salt and water and when we start having uh thickness lost in that that steel that's when it comes really concerning as well so this structure was also repaired back in 2015 because we had deteriorated pile um or the the
thickness of the piling was deteriorated and corroded away then so we we had these plates welded on since that time concrete is addition has continued to spall out from that so it's one of those things you look at these structures where are some repairs that we can do to
um since this structure has already had some repairs done to it it kind of leads you on the path that we should be looking at replacing this structure so um there's just a zoom in on the the corrosion of the steel um and it's hard to tell but we can see that that it's
thinner here than it is on either side of that so you know that it's you've lost some of the the strength out of that steel piling this is what that pile looked like before we did the repairs in 2015 I mean completely corroded through that's
why we had to weld on angle iron uh to kind of scab over that and support the the bridge Beam on top of it so but yeah so once like I said once adopted uh this resolution will be shared with the State
Bridge office we is County engineered we were hoping for a bonding bill this year to provide some State funding to replace Bridges across the state whether that's going to happen or not we don't know um but yeah I mean look that that list
keeps getting longer before it gets shorter um all these structures are eligible for State Bridge replacement funds if there was State funds available so any questions I can answer about bridges or how they're
funded or these structures and particular than any questions motion to approve the priority resolution Mr chair second motion m m second to approve the priority resolution any other
discussion hearing none all in favor i i b is carried thanks Chris thanks Chris for the great news yeah yeah that's all I had unless there's any other questions Chris you able to hang out for a minute or so after the meeting I can
yes I sure can all right thank you commissioner meeting updates who wants to start I can start sure uh we've had a few but I'll I'll just highlight the two the all way at our criminal justice meeting everything
uh that was your first meeting you got to go to uh what do we have 30 or there there was like 40 people in our jail at that that dat correct seven female in the the rest were I believe so yeah so just an update on that APO we
met um we're going to be coming with the the belt line um the the share of the environmentals and stuff it's not the share of the construction or anything like that uh but it is going to it's going to be a a cost share of whoever's
jurisdiction it is gets automatic 50% of that and then the APO port por will be the other 50% broken up into our portions of what we would pay in the APO so and that's only for environmental
okay so whenever it happens it happens but but uh we all agreed that if this is going to be a plan we all got to agree to this and it can't change with our our positions changing we need to we need to lock everybody in so that this is a plan
all the way through yeah so so that's really about it um that uh is anybody going up to the leadership deal planning on it yeah I'm planning on it I don't know so that's the next AMC deal for for
me but that should be good all right I can go if You' like uh March 10th at a Judicial ditch 1A meeting with maax in Sherburn County I can't go into a whole lot of detail there potential litigation going on um March 11th I sat in on the second day of interviews for ditch
inspector at highway I also attended the St George annual meeting that afternoon and the Maywood annual meeting that evening uh 13th uh be had a seminar on tax increment financing and tax abatement I attended that at St Cloud State that evening had a Planning
Commission meeting which was referenced earlier with roxan um and then yesterday had a legislative update through the Minnesota Ro counties uh was a virtual meeting that was attended representative Schultz our local representative presented for about
a half hour or so on his updates as he saw them so that's it go ahead um on March 4th a few of you were in that was a Benton County hazardous mitigation um training meeting um and then on March 6
I sat in the sheriff's department Communications if some of you have not done that I highly recommend it it was very interesting what time of day there uh I went well my intention was 6:00 p.m. to 10: p.m. because I thought
that's where I'd get the most out of everything and I ended up staying till midnight so it it it was interesting cool and then March 11th um I had a Minden Township annual meeting and March 12th I had a mic meeting in the cities
and a joint uh Powers Minden and St Cloud meeting on that day also and they are currently going through their um reassessment of their orderly annexation to the city of of St Cloe and um and
then I had the men Township meeting that evening and March 13th I had the criminal justice and a career Solutions meeting okay I had the ditch interviews I thought we had a couple of really good candidates in the first day I don't know
what you had the second day and then there was some that were yeah maybe um Township meetings I attended two of them and then we had Micah and I thought Micah was interesting and or was pretty much nonone not much happening until we
got the health and human services and he started adding up and there's a $460 million surplus and Health and Human Services thinks that they should be awarded 140 million of that so I thought
that was like yeah probably not going to happen from the Health and Human Services you know if one sector wants that much of you know roads and everything else I thought that was but I thought I thought there was a lot of good things that come out um one thing I
got an email the other day is that um the sharing bill is still alive so like if Sterns County gets to put their tax you know in their jail um they have to share with counties or cities around them
because we're donating to something that's basically in that county and um commissioner sojan from uh Rochester gave an example that when Rochester wanted to build this stuff the cities around there got the share and that was how they actually came to support it off
their local option sales tax no off their like their sales tax for the jail they would have to share with other counties that you know on a basis of how much you contribute you know not all of it but a percentage of it I thought that was interesting and so I I contacted at
representative Schultz to see if it's still alive or I'm sure Sterns County's not going to want oh they're they're already pass that that ball though yeah right but I mean the sharing bill is still alive I thought it would probably die because of that so I had that and uh
then I went to the Little Rock um water shed meeting and rice with the irrigators and wow that was DNR there no actually the DNR but that company they hired out of Fargo Morehead to present the
plan was and they're not going to do anything now until November because of um even you know crop planting time and harvesting they just can't get them all there to the table um that's where I heard a lot about you know how how uh
this uh public hearings and the meetings we're going to have for this is crazy it's right during crop planning time so I got a good earful from them um and that was uh that was all that I had comments by Commissioners General Mr
chair yes I just want to make sure we keep this Airport Authority yeah on our our radar because from my standpoint and mine alone I will not support this board
unless we have a taxpayer or I'm sorry a a elected official on that board okay I mean I I I know Monty's looking at something but I I just I can't see that's another taxing organization that
we're all going to take the brunt of right and I get it what happened in the past but I don't want it to blow over because that I want to make sure we keep this in our Forefront MH I think the airport is a is a uh important asset to
the area at what cost we need to we need to stay on top of that there's a lot of Aging um equipment a lot of Aging tarmac that we're all going to be on the hook for right not that but I think there's a lot of Revenue there potential Revenue
that when they're not seeing they're just kind of looking the other way is my take I feel like I sometimes I feel like maybe they came in they took the brunt of the issues or the our attacks at them and then then now they feel like it's you know we're done no no I I want to
make sure that and I know Monty you got meetings with them coming up can I just give you an update so I had a meeting yesterday with Bruce mesal and Bruce's administrator for Sherburn and then Mike Williams and I was not able to extract
from them a commitment of a meeting of two Commissioners from each of the counties um the idea of of having um what's the term uh nonvoting members our County Commission
representatives to the airport Authority was discussed and um let's see what else uh sounds like the airport Authority has not yet met with Sherburn County so they're a weigh in the issue it sounds like from from Sherburn this issue isn't
perhaps quite as big a deal um one thing I heard is that did they get two new war members in November MH no one just one I I I just heard from Bruce well they've had some change in the County Board and that maybe has affected their approach
to this um my impression from Sterns is that there's not a consensus on this issue far from it so there's not there's not a consensus on this oh that's that's not what that's not what we hear well I I hope their their administrator has a
good read on his his County board but maybe not I don't know so um well from my standpoint and my standpoint alone I would like to move it forward to get out of the agreement then we and we need to have a discussion on that so so
again the idea I heard primarily Flo from from stern was again the notion of having uh nonvoting representatives from each County in the city to the airport Authority and not necessarily opening up the joint Powers agreement and changing
the composition of the authority so um anyway like I said my direction was to just simply to ask for a meeting of two Commissioners from each County I I'm I'm sorry I was not successful I so so Monty you're appointed
yep uh Mike is appointed and Bruce is appointed of course and there and and people are saying that we don't want to have two elected officials get together and talk about this from each County unacceptable sounds like there needs to be a refresher com
with people work for us not the other way around we we are asking my ability to control what they do is very limited I know absolutely you know so I I can ask but they're free to say no so again I didn't get a commitment well then we'll get with our commissioners yep we
will well I want I you know you want to have some kind of communication via a letter to those respective County Board chairs and saying look hey you'd like to have a a meaning some kind of communication yeah uh to their board chairs is that something you open
to we can't just make a call to them well absolutely you whatever you think is most efficient see them next week so because I'm in communication with Sterns County Board chair every other day it seems like is that is that commissioner Bertram yeah okay I think I can make a
text right now and I can get an answer from him yeah I mean we kind of know the makeup of their boards except maybe Sherburn County a well Sherburn is Gary gray right Gary Gray and then they got one new one that you can pretty much read and but he would definitely want to get together and at least talk about
this I just don't understand that yeah I I'm I miss I'm looking at sharp County's board and I would find it hard to believe that they wouldn't want to get together and talk about this yeah I do too especially after past conversations well yeah several conversations at other
you know so I I I I'm not opposed to Monty sending a letter to their board chairs so that it maybe that is read out at their meeting and they can get a a sense of what they want to do rather than talking each individually to every because I
mean my understanding we're all getting the same answer when we talk to them yeah and why we're getting a different answer from their Administration is beyond me but I'm not opposed to sending a letter to their board chair to let them know
that communication is being made Monty's tried yeah right we can't now now we should be a just yeah we'll just take it over y you're off the hook for now yeah he okay it just I don't understand
this it it just goes back to unelected officials making decisions for elected officials that have to right abide by abide by this I'm I'm tired of it I mean I I I hate to be like this Monty it just
and I I know you tried yeah again I I was just attempting to fill fulfill your direction and get a meeting set up that was it so we'll work on it from there yeah and the discussion quickly got into sort of like Solutions or or whatnot and I just want to set a
meeting that was it right so that's why we want those elected officials together to come up with Solutions so Monty are are are our people that we appoint to the board is that renewable every year or just when terms they do have I believe they have threeyear terms they
have three threeyear terms if I recall correctly but correct me if I'm wrong it's like any other board that we appoint you can unao people that is true the the uh enabling resolution allows uh the the appointing counties to to
remove them yes that's true yeah I I I think we need to have a callow on this as soon as possible and we need to we need to figure out the direction of the County Board because as we know there there's a there there's
a uh um tax deal coming y million bucks it's going to have to come sooner than later in order to get it on you know in the County's budgets but what what follows that one is even scarier this isn't a one-time thing
no yeah may I suggest that we have our conversations with the other boards yes in the next week or so and go from there you know I think that's really important to sort of get to the bottom of it is you know where what is the general consensus of the Sterns board the Sheran
board Y what I heard yesterday was quite different than what it sounds like you are hearing and we got to get to the bottom of that you know where do these folks stand on this issue right yeah okay well I think Sterns has their own issue with some of the stuff going on so
I mean I'll get with I mean I I can get with commissioner Bertram and I think that I mean most of us will touch base this next week yeah with both counties cuz they will be at the Leadership Summit we're GNA see does somebody want to handle uh Sherburn yeah
we can talk to them up there I'll talk to all I'll talk to both oh yeah we can talk to why don't we see if we can't have a meeting up there we should see if they're going we're already listed as a cow aren't we yes we do have those listed as Committees of the whole you yeah there's plenty of time in the
evenings you know I the thing about it is though is the posting is restricted to the subject of the conference if you want to have discussion about a different subject you need to include that in the posting why don't we see if we can't get these boards to agree to that agree to
two people at least and then we'll do when we'll we'll revise if it's two then you're obviously fine you don't have a when do we have to post it by then Friday three days prior not including the day of the meeting Monday yeah because we could do the meeting Thursday
night okay okay yeah because they they'll have to post too they'll all have to post yeah okay set Committee of the holes I just have one change for you as you have a previously scheduled Comm
hole on March 25th talk about the road program I would like to add to it some discussion about human resources staffing um I let Chris that I I'd like to discuss that issue first at 8:30 and then the rest of the meeting can be on
the road program so it shouldn't take more than 15 20 minutes to talk about H HR Staffing that's the only change that we had Mr chair move for approval of that it uh to that change second second been made and made motion been made and
seconded to approve the change of the 25th cal um all in favor I than