##VIDEO ID:JpFVNwvMJ-4## oh my gosh know that actually worked the solemn business of County government's about to begin another year right mon what's big news and said the solemn business of County government's ready to begin and Monty going to run the show he's so excited all right call our means order and let's start with the Pledge of Allegiance uh I am on I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all Beth could we please have call sure commissioner Beno here commissioner Heinen here commissioner ginsky here commissioner Johnson here commissioner pop pres thank you you need to hear me all right thank you very much now we need to select a County Board chair for 2025 are there nominations for chair of the County board for 2025 I nominate commissioner pop I'll second it are there any n any other nominations hearing none all those in favor of commissioner pop as our board chair for 2025 please say I I opposed commission pop you are now chair sir turn the uh can I just say one thing first all right he wants it back no I do not uh honestly when I got this position last year I couldn't wait for it to be done but I I will tell you it's been an honor to to be the chair of this board and uh we got a lot of we're getting a lot of things accomplished over the years and we look forward to another four years moving forward mhm thank you commissioner Pop please take your seat all right swapping up I'll take your paperwork cuz he's taking his sorry I did got your phone off too I noticed because I earlier I get you oh boy you know you should have just had that set before well you never know well thanks for the vote of confidence and well I'd like to welcome commissioner bite to the board thank you forward to a year of working very closely with you thank you we'll now select a vice chair I'll move for commissioner Heinen for vice chair commissioner Heinen is been motion then second is there any other nominations any other nominations any other nominations all in favor commissioner Heinen i i i opposed carried approve or amend the agenda is there anything that we need to yes sir we have a few changes um right after consent if you could please add the auditor treasure item to designate the depository Banks again right after consent next uh changes under Highway Chris's first item it says consider a letter of support report that should say consider a resolution of support please for the stock Rapids uh Grant application or resolution of support and then lastly uh Chris i' like to add as his final item the discussion about the Excel Energy uh power pole relocation issue for approval of the amended agenda second motion's been made in second it to approve the agenda all in favor I POS carried open form is there anybody that wants input today I don't have no okay County board meetings are broadcast live and video recorded on YouTube please restain from speaking from the audience area and come to the podium so that viewers can hear you the County Board observes Robert's Rules of orders for its meeting so comments generally reserved for the open form segment or public hearing however public comment on other agenda items may be allowed at the discretion of the board CH as we begin today please turn off your cell phones and turn or turn your cell phone to vibrate thank you consent agenda we have items one through eight move approval Mr chair second motion been made and and uh second it to approve the consent agendas items 1 through eight any discussion or anything want to be pulled hearing none all in favor I I opposed carried then we'll start with auditor treasure good morning commissioner morning good morning morning so before you is the resolution to redesignate myself the authority to designate depository Banks just looking for a motion signature on the resolution motion was there one in our packet yes should have been on the table Yeah that's what I didn't see I'll move approval second motion been made in a second to approve the designor depositories before the auditor treasury any discussion hearing none all in favor I I opposed carried thank you thank you than you CHR thanks Christine yep yep [Music] y all right Mr Sher are we ready Monty um regular meetings for the county board for 20125 yes sir um the the schedule of regular meetings is so there's allows you to basically set your schedule and then uh those become your regular meetings and then you can amend your agendas during the year and uh no further posting is required once this is adopted this follows the the traditional pattern of first and third Tuesdays at 9:00 a.m. with one exception the December 2nd meeting will be at 6:00 pm to accommodate the truth and Taxation public meeting purposes so again just the first and and third at 9ine otherwise the one change on December 2nd for approval of the uh presented County board meeting dates second um it's been motioned and seconded I have a question so if we have a meeting that we need to change the date where it conflicts with something we can still do that and post it absolutely becomes a special meeting okay and uh subject to three-day posting requirement yeah any any change to the set schedule becomes a special meeting I think we did this past year right didn't we have one yeah we had one you can always change the date time place and last Year Mr chair last year I cannot it it kind of um went along with the the Fourth of July if I remember right we wish we could have changed that at that point yeah yep okay any other comments or questions all in favor I I opposed carried designate the County newspaper yes sir so another housekeeping item uh the board is asked to then choose your official newspapers for a publication of County notices for example County Board minutes public hearing notices ordinances the annual financial statements and so on we've received a bid from Star Publications to publish in the soc C in Benton County news is know the agenda item the star Publications tells us they give us a 30% discount for publishing in both newspapers they cite a 2.5% increase in its rates for 2025 I'll move for approval to designate the Benton County news and Sock Rapids Herald as the official newspapers of beton County for 2025 I'll second okay motion's been made in seconded for the newspapers to be designated are beton County news and the so rabbits Herald I think they've done a fantastic job of covering us over the years so I I don't see any problem with that Mr chair yes Monty we've ever had any other newspapers come forward yeah to give a bid no I not not in my recollection no it's always just wondering well when I first started here I believe it was always a been killing news but as a courtesy the stock carpet H printed our minutes at no cost for many years and there was change in ownership and how things were done but you Mr chair yes um Mr hanar brought up to me that you guys were a recipient of award too um yeah we were the Sock Rapids paper was named in a general excellence category for its coverage but all our newspapers do well with our state associations we recognize and then of course our flip publication is the dairy star which covers Dairy and seven states so we're Diversified in terms of what we do but we appreciate the County Board um want you do the publishing our minutes they're important Public Notices are extremely important to a free democracy um and part of what we do so thank you thank you Mr Jerry if I could too Tim thank you for being here at our meetings I appreciate that and you're you're not afraid to ask us questions and we need to be asked and I appreciate that too so thank you for your part that you put forth for us yep about the openness that's what we like and I I think that star publication is growing a lot because I can remember when it was this one small Sterns County Dairy star paper and they've I mean broadened and you know broaden their Horizon I don't know how many papers you own but it's a few we own six okay I we go from Foley all the way up to Sock Center we 94 those are our our weekly newspapers we do special sections and then of course we do the dairy stars and Industry magazine but we're your community newspaper I mean that's something that we really pride ourselves on we need to talk to you about stories we do it with common sense um you know we're human beings first and Jal is second that's how I fly and that's how a lot of our other folks fly so thank you for what you do you appreciate it all right thank you thanks for you know so we got a motion in a second all in favor oppose carried pums Monty it's been a past practice of the board to set the P for Boards of commissions at your first meeting in January these include for example Planning Commission Park commission Board of adjustments Solid Waste advisory and extension committee historically the PDM for these these commissions has been the same as the PDM for County Board which is currently Le $70 per meeting move approval I'll second motion been made in second to approve the perum rate for boards and commissions without within the county any discussion hearing none all in favor say sign five is saying I I opposed carried consider the state of Minnesota safe and secure Courthouse Grant agreement excuse me Mr I'm Sor that's all right you'll catch up consider good thing you keep me in line consider career Solutions appointment we were we were told that career Solutions has a meeting yet this week and needs an appointee I believe it's on the 9th at 3M and needs an appointee to ensure that they have a quorum okay so asking for you all to make that appointment today and we can notify a career Solutions Mr chair it's a joint Powers board with two Commissioners for Benton County and two Commissioners for Sterns County and it's very important that we have a quorum and we generally don't know of stern County always makes it so it's very important that we elect a Benton County official set with me okay commissioner Bono are you interested sure I'll make that motion it's yes and I'll second it motion's been made and seconded to appoint commissioner benite to the career Solutions appointment anybody else all in favor I I opposed carried thank you congratulations your first committee and we'll notify Carrie and we'll provide her with that's Folks at C Solutions with Pam's contact information already done then it's already done Monty but go ahead and send a formal letter out if you'd like got it okay thank you sir consider the state of Minnesota safe and secure Courthouse Grant so Mr chair with the support of folks in our uh Criminal Justice System judges Court Administration and so on Sheriff's Office we have applied for a safe and secure Courthouse Grant to install Bullet resistant uh glass in court administration and uh we were awarded a grant of $2,350 to install Bullet resistant glass in court administration that does require a 50% local match and we do have the resources sufficiently in our Capital Improvement plan uh Capital Improvement fund so those resources are there so seeking your approval of this grant agreement to to receive again 21350 for the bullet resistant glass motion to approve the safe and secure Courthouse Grant agreement to install Bullet resistant glass in the court administration I'll second motion has been made in second to uh the safe and secure Courthouse Grant any other discussion Mr chair seems like a no brainer to me anything we can be doing to to make it safer over there we've never had this Monty before what's that we've never had this is the second Grant we got the first one is about 3 years ago and we got a grant for additional cameras in the court uh facility security system so this is a second for us yep okay yep any other questions other than that they really really want this okay yeah um mman maid second it all in favor I opposed carried all right okay we're gonna schedule close session for the Department of heads annual performance Mr chair back up one gez adopt review and adopt the County Board policy manual another housekeeping item uh the County Board adopted this uh County Board policy manual first back in 2023 it was amended in 2024 and primarily to add the remote attendance Provisions to it so I thought it'd be good your first meeting in January to have this on on your agenda uh to review revise so I am just curious if you all have any any recommended recommend uh revisions at this point Mr chair I'm going to move for approval that we adopt the County Board policy manual for 2025 second okay motion's been made in second it for the County Board manual for 2025 any discussion Mr chair Monty thank you for putting that together I think it's a it's a good document for all of us to read it chair if I may this is a good time just a quick quick refresher on the remote meeting participation ability so for example if you're not feeling well and you're you under the care of physician you can participate remotely from a nonpublic location up to three times per year and again that your location doesn't have to be published three days prior just tell us you need the you're going to be remote and and you're good to go then you can be remote up to per the board's policy four times per year but that is from a public location so we need to publish your a specific address not less than 3 days before the meeting so again that was a board decision and you you can use it four times for a board meeting and four additional times for Committees of the whole total eight just a quick refresher on the remote participation provisions and Mr chair one other small change that was made is it's in the U continental US I know when I first got on the board I was actually out of the country and participated oh okay that's changed now to the United States of America okay and I I think one of the other changes we had is if it is the board chair that would go to the vice chair to run just for the ease of meetings yeah yeah that's very respectful to the other exactly any other questions any other comments okay we do have a motion in a second all in favor I I opposed carried now we'll do the Clos session for department heads performance uh it's that time of year to schedule uh Clos sessions to meet with your department heads uh to conduct annual performance evaluations so you've got let's see here one two three four five there's six so I was wondering do you want to try and have them all at one board meeting or maybe spread them out maybe have three at one board meeting and three at another uh it could make for a really long meeting if you had all six at one I mean I would prefer to have three and three three and three basically because if you have you know any comments or you want to have discussion by the time you get done with all six it's like who was I thinking about or yeah yeah I agree maybe over the next two meetings we'll have three and then then three at the last okay just Mr chair just a note I will be on vacation our next board meeting 21st okay well then we we'll delay then and make sure that you're here um I think I'm going to be gone on the first board meeting in um the fourth y okay well I'll let you know on that one well yeah we want to make sure that everyone is here so again these are important but they're not like urgent that we have to have them run away so we'll we'll make sure that we schedule on dates that everybody's here okay okay sounds good I think that wraps it up for me Sandy schelberg Human Service director well I'm actually gonna ask Nikki nolles to come up and present the the board agenda item good morning Commissioners Nicki NES mental health supervisor for those of you who don't know me I am bringing before you a recommendation for approval of our projects for assistance in transitional homeless Grant um that's actually called our we call it our path Grant we apply through the Four County Community adult mental health initiative so Sterns bet and Sherburn and Wright applied for this grant to fully fund our Outreach worker um she's been doing the work for quite a few years we've been able to fully Grant fund her this is just a another um incentive to be able to do it so each of the counties is getting fully funded that Outreach um the grant is through August August 18th 20124 to June 30th 2025 we have been told this is a renewable Grant so not sure how many additional years we'll get but for sure we will be getting it for the next year um the county applied for $226,700 with this grant we do have additional tasks and requirements um that we need to do from the state a lot of it is just really heavy paperwork um with our hmis system which is a homeless information system we'll need to be logging the contacts that we have so it is a lot more computer paperwork heavy to support this grant which means in turn unfortunately a little bit less time in the community for our current Outreach worker um to be doing her work within at Salvation Army Lincoln shelter and then running out to those camps and meeting people in the community um the need for homeless Outreach in our community continues to grow I think this has been a hot topic for quite a while in our County and neighboring counties we're seeing seeing overpopulated shelters and um we have been seeing an increase of people living in RVs and cars um our Outreach workers been seeing a lot of um those parked RVs and having to outreach um those people see how we can help support them we've also been seen an increase in families and children experiencing homelessness um just last month we did have um an individual that had been sleeping outside and ended up losing all of his toes due to severe frostbites we continue to work with this individual at this point um trying to get Services supports and then hopefully long-term housing to um eliminate that need in the next month there's going to be another a grant opportunity to apply through the state to possibly get another adult Outreach staff to help support this growing need um but at this time we're asking the path Grant um to be approved and then um we get a docu sign over to commissioner pop to be able to continue this needed work within beton County for the current path Grant Mr chair uh Nikki since looks like we're about halfway through this contract already it started in August um hypothetically going forward the grant dollars do disappear and hopefully they don't but if they do um are we going to get some notifications so we're not in a knee-jerk reaction 6 months into a contract and having to decide whether or not we can fund that position we will we already know it is a renewable um looking at the past we have never received the path Grant in Benton County Stern County hasn't it was a fiveyear rolling Grant um so the hope is that it'll be a rolling grant for for a few years um but of course we a little bit slower with getting our contract in place and everything so we were able to Bill back to the 18th but we are asking for the grant to be signed now sure okay thank you Mr chair yes how many uh home or like encampments do we have you know you see the issues with Minneapolis right now with all the fires yep it's hard to say the numbers um a lot of our encampments are smaller two three four t0 um in a certain area so they are also harder to find so a lot of times we'll get community members calling us and then through um our bcat team um our Outreach work and a lot of times the sheriff's will'll go out to those units very rarely probably never does she go out alone to those encampments um I would say we always have a few in the area um with a colder weather there is another program that's opening up to serve the churches so a similar program to church of the week which years ago we had um but we still have people sleeping outside the example of the the gentleman that we're now working with um but we have those examples every week of of people that we encounter are working with Mr chair uh Nicki just an FYI tell Victoria that we'll be scheduling another radio interview because Jay Codwell want wanted to talk to us in January to give an update on the homeless issue we're having right in St Cloud or in Benton County and Sterns County I'm sure she'll look forward to that um she's done very well in the past okay with that I'll make a motion uh to approve the contract for the path Grant second W been M second it to approve the project for ass assal transition path Grant um all in favor I SEC opposed carried thank you thank you thank you for everything you do now move on to Chris bird County engineer wait a minute one more what just kidding commissioner pop yeah Mr chair I got to say you don't have to follow the lead because I did exactly what you did a year ago okay I jumped ahead twice I'm just trying to get us on time yeah well then why' you have me speak yeah good morning commissioner good morning oh that is true we got a Hot Topic coming up all right well I believe the first item I have before you is to consider um a letter of support uh to the sock oh wait a minute I got the wrong agenda item up item letter of support to Sock Rapids to accompany their transportation Alternatives Grant and then uh requested the agenda to be amended to adopt a resolution uh for Sock Rapids to apply to active Transportation Grant uh for them to construct a trail along mayhue Lake Road between Osaka Road and that unnamed road which is water water tower so um we've had some discussion in previous board meetings uh commissioner Heinen and pitsky we had a meeting with Sock Rapids last month I think to gain a little bit better understanding um whether they are in or out of the rideway it was uh brought up that the since there's an existing Trail South of Osaka road that was previously approved and constructed by the city of Sak Rapids uh they'll need to tie in a new Trail into this existing crosswalk so even if they construct majority of the trail outside of the County Road rideway there would still even be a portion of it within the county road rideway to come into this tie-in point thus the need for a letter of support So this Trail project they're applying to two different Grant programs it's confusing because they're ta and at so Transportation Alternatives only requires this letter of support from the County Board the active Transportation uh grant program requires a resolution of support and that's because it's it's two different group groups of people that review the applications uh with menot down down in St Paul so um yeah there's the trail um we discussed the the you know the concern about if we reconstruct Mayu Lake Road at some point in the future if the trail becomes you know in conflict with the roadway I think there's an understanding the the city will be liable for some costs we don't have hard numbers at this point of what that would be but um regardless they're they're still seeking a letter support from the County Board uh for this Grant application Mr chair uh so when we had that meeting with commissioner ginsky and uh Chris with the city we outlined our concerns about having that trail in our rideway you know and let them know you know that if they do get this grant hopefully they can move it as far out as the right away as possible so that in the future if we do get gr to rebuild that road we won't have to rebuild that trail because once they put it in and if it's in our R of way and we need it we have to rebuild that trail yeah I think furthermore Mr chair I think furthermore we all Express the uh non-interest of rebuilding a trail that was paid for once by taxpayers right right so I think we're all on the same page on on making sure the Trail's in the right spot and it's not going to it'll minimally affect uh the the road moving forward so Chris is their good hard language that says if you know if that does the trail does affect the reconstruction that the city's going to pay for the moving and cost to do it I still think we have an opportunity if they're successful in receiving the grant they'll have to go through some engineering which will be corresponding with their engineer and their engineer understands in the past we've required them to acquire uh a road rideway permit to construct and have equipment and stuff I think that's an opportunity for us to put language into that permit that that says some of these things so that that that you're going to be in our rideway by permit and and some of these expectations on on you as the Constructor uh to relocate in the future will be expected M Mr chair excuse me go ahead um and question for commissioner Pinsky and Heinen you know we can do that at that time but as a really good understanding yeah that at that time that language is going to be put forth y Mr chair we did have that Communications with the city of Sock Rapids in our meeting too okay you know so they're well aware of it you know the the whole idea is to see if they can't uh get a little gr get a little right away from the school to where the school fence is okay and then split that go that direction you know my only confirmation is we've had that issue with another city recently where they're like well we didn't know that right yeah no that was clear brought up it was thank you mhm because I mean know on the county road one in front of the school we don't know um as we move forward for the raise Grant and that you know that I mean we may be lucky and get a pile of money out of that and then we can do it the right way but I you know I just don't want to see him put that there and then the Count's on the hook for you know a million dollars or something to remove that trail I would you know and we let the city know that you know in our design if if we get the raiseed grant for that road there is a trail already on that raised Grant form of where it's supposed to be it's just the idea we don't want to do it twice yeah so a letter a draft letter of support this is just some recommended language the board can take it or leave it or come up with their own I do realize that since we had talked about this in previous years I I did have the former board chair's name uh in the signature block so at a minimum that would need to be updated but um and then the resolution um was it U is here so and procedurally maybe might you do could we do it as one motion or should we have two separate motions for the two separate documents or does it matter I don't think it matters okay so the board's wishes then all move approval second Mo been Maiden seconded to approve the transportation Grant application and what was the other one so uh we've got to to um approve board chair signature on the letter of support Y for the uh Transportation Alternatives funding and uh adopt the resolution of support for active Transportation gr okay that is my motion Y in your motion that's your second okay you've heard the motion any other Mr chair with the noted changes of the new chair yes yes name on it very good okay um any other discussion amongst board members heing none all in favor oppose carried all right well we're on the topic of grants that uh uh another city of ours so um this would be another Transportation Alternatives Grant application but this would be to construct a trail along County Road 55 uh within the the city limits of rice um uh that does that Grant application does require a resolution of support from the board um because we would be the applicant the county would be the applicant in this case and I believe yeah Emma's here Emma uh worked really hard on this Grant application so I believe you had the Grant application attached in your packet if you're you're curious about that uh one of the things that was uh expected of the city of rice since the trail is within the municipal boundaries was the routine maintenance of that trail um and I believe they had a city council meeting last night and they adopted that resolution so it sounds like the city of rice is uh expected to complete the maintenance if we are successful in getting the Grant and the trail gets constructed they will do the routine maintenance uh on that trail um so yeah so this would be considered a resolution of support to construct a trail now this is that same grant program Transportation alternatives um the city or the since the county would be the applicant uh we would be expected to come up with the local match uh and the grant only covers construction costs so engineering costs many contract Administration things like that would still be an additional cost that the the county needs to be prepared to to come up with Mr chair so it's all going to be on the county even if half of in the city of rice for cost sharing the way the Grant application is written um the yeah since the county is applying for it the county is uh yeah and you know willing to accept the the local share and um I guess the engineering cost isn't for certain but that would be an additional cost not covered by the grant that would have to be uh arrived at somewhere so I just brought I was just trying to find the map there's the map of the the expected trail location along the east side of how much of that is in the city limits my understanding was that the city limits borders the park property which is as you know the park just completed a bunch of Trail network uh in there and that was to this Trail was to connect to the city or to the county park property Mr chair just for clarification Chris so my understanding you saying that the there's a grant available to the county for 80% of the construction cost but the county then would also be responsible for the 20% plus engineering and inspection yeah somebody would be because that's not covered by the Grant application so um and we don't know what that dollar amount is roughly you could 20% of the 372 but then he's got to well no it would be an additional probably 10% for engineering and inspection costs so it's the 20% match plus another 10% I yeah I would expect that much for for engineering of the of this Trail it's a good budgeting number hopefully we come in under that in actual costs but and where do those funds come from if I can add so this would be the third time we've applied for this Grant and in the past times the the board has agreed to supply the local match for construction so in conversations with the city they told us that the city could not participate in the construction costs but they were willing to be responsible for maintenance so that's the trade-off I guess is is do you feel that that's fair and reasonable the county covers construction the city covers maintenance uh but again that was made clear to me that the city could not participate in the construction costs and how are we funding the 20% and the 10% well you know there's resources sitting in CIP which could cover this as they were the last two times that we applied so um the resources are there so it really is matter more of a policy matter do you all is that something you're comfortable with um is it Mr chair is there resources in the park commit reading my mind no not in a there's no par Park dedication no that's pretty Bill used up yeah so Mr chair I'll albe it that it's uh it's a lot of money the County's got to come up with I also believe it's reinvesting in our communities and this is a pretty good size trail that hopefully we keep drawing people to move to that area uh it would be a shame to turn down that kind of money I I agree um the other part is that you know there's a 48 House Development just to the to the west of that where it's uh no it's down right in where that little opening is there yeah somewhere in there there's for they're and I think they've got 17 or so I don't know there's a bunch of lots already sold um and this is a this Chris if correct me if I'm right or not this Trail is going to be not connected to the road it's going to be off ways because we bought the property when we did the road correct yeah the city the city actually acquired additional EAS Min so to construct this Trail separated from the roadway yeah okay but there's going to be a like a fair amount of space between the roadway and the trail correct there maybe about 10 ft yeah cuz because it's expected to be you know this is a 10ft shared use path for biking and walking um yeah with the shoulders that we have now on the roadway in the open ditch and the city did purchase the RightWay right when we did that that is correct correct y okay they do have some stake in the game already and I agree with that Mr chair I remember this coming up to us and we told them we you know we would like this we would join in with but we're not uh paying for the RightWay you know and they did actually do all that Chris I have a question explain maintenance yeah well I think one of the things when we first started talking about this Trail we didn't expect that like in the winter time snow would be plowed need to be plowed off of it and I think we heard some from some residents that like no we want to be able to use this Trail year round so I mean I think that's at a minimum uh clearing the trail of snow uh in the winter other things may be litter removal um uh debris removal uh on the trail what about deterioration of the trail you know any kind of paved surface does require some kind of Maintenance whether that's crack filling or something um I would think just like a roadway um significant maintenance like an overlay that's that's above and beyond routine so is that a a county function I I don't I don't know that's why I asked the question explain maintenance you know because if if they're required to maintain everything to me that means if the trail needs to be resurfaced or something that should be on them instead of on the county but that's just my perspective Mr chair yes how uh how many county paths do we have that we would that we maintain currently zero although we do have other paths in County Road RightWay there they happen to be in Sock Rapids correct and Sock Rapids maintains those Trails yep so we're not changing precedence there right yeah that's all of a sudden they turn that back ex Sock Rapids did pay for the construction like the one along May Lake Road that's already constructed they they applied for Grants and they came up with the local match they paid for the engineering of it the one between Highway 10 in Lake Station that was part of a larger Project funding package and socer had a significant financial contribution to that the one down the hill that was a negotiated thing we paid for um sidewalk on one side that project also received a grant for a trail on the opposite side and and Sock Rapids Financial contribution on that project went towards the local match on that trail so um but I believe that one was a want for sock rabbits right yeah and I don't think the county was too we had one on one side already yeah and and that was part of the Regional Trail program too though yeah I mean yeah it's it's a good deal and I think the maintenance part you know other than an overlay is pretty minimal but um some point in time 20 years 30 years down the road you might have to have a maintenance overlay correct good point M Mr chair how long would would we be looking out on a overlay or something of that stature um you know it doesn't well I was going to say you don't have vehicle traffic but removing snow a lot of times that's a skid steer or maybe even a pick up plow removing that I mean you would expect 15 years probably before you need to do something to the surface um by that time I would think the city I mean we should have something in there that says City over rice is going to maintain these because of if all of a sudden you know they we take care of overlay there in 15 years we might be in a little trouble with some of them with Sock Rapids coming back and going well you overlayed that one yeah I correct and I Mr chair I agree commissioner ginsky I think it's got to laid be laid out in the maintenance agreement yeah moving forward but unless Mr chair unless I miss it I didn't see the maintenance agreement in the resolution uh that was a separate resolution and I don't think uh that was is that part of the grant application yeah so it was just signed so the resolution was just signed by rice at their meeting last night I don't know if there was a copy of that resolution included here and that resolution talks about the maintenance agreement okay it says maintenance I don't know if it references or uses the word agreement Mr chair so at this time Chris this is just for a letter support for them to get this grant or to apply and get this grant correct will it be a resolution that would accompany the application du uh Friday actually right so if they do get this grant at that point in time is when we uh join into a maintenance agreement yeah so uh they're due now I think spring time is when they announc the it's like April or so yeah the recipients of this uh this would be for uh I think 2029 money so almost the way things are going with project development and environmental reviews you know if the Count's successful in getting this grant start looking at you know that preliminary engineering stuff in 2025 it successful so that would include probably maybe some agreements in place maintenance and stuff so hiring a consultant so on and so forth Mr chair with you being the commissioner for the rice area I think we can in my opinion I think we could move forward if we so choose and we continue these talks about the maintenance and we explain the I said we don't take care of any Trails once they're built right MH you know the maintenance is all on them but I think my my side I would make a motion to approve moving forward with this uh Grant application I'll second it motion's been made in second to move forward with the Grant application for a trail for race um on that I would I would be pretty sure you know there's a lot of a lot of people that want that because they want to get down to the park at a very safe way so I you know I think the maintenance part would be pretty easy to to handle through the city yeah so I mean there's a lot of people like when you going to build you know when you going to build the trail along the road and it's like well we got to fly for grance I'd agree Mr chair I just think it's going to be important that it's clear for both the county correct yeah so with that we a motion in a second is there any other discussion hearing none all in favor I opposed carried okay Excel Energy presentation all right as the Commissioners are aware you know we've been working with Excel Energy to relocate uh from transmission polls that would be in conflict of a new roundabout proposed at the intersections of May Lake Road and 35th Street our County State Highway 1 and County State Highway 29 back in June of 2024 the board uh reviewed and approved what was in known as an Appropriations estimate uh to kind of get the process started on excel's side that Appropriations estimate uh said that an estimated cost to relocate uh well there's one poll in Conflict but that requires two other polls to be reconstructed from wood poles to Steel poles on concrete foundations and that cost was estimated to be about $935,000 that Appropriations estimate required Benton County to pay Cel energy $134,000 uh to get the project started and then um that that document referenced an appropriation relocation estimate would come later with with some more detailed costs my office received that uh updated estimate uh just before New Year's uh in December and that's attached here a couple things to note uh to keep Excel moving to the next step in the process expel Excel is expecting up to 80% of these new costs to be paid for by Benton County but giving credit for the uh already paid $134,000 so that number uh is a little over 600 ,000 it's expected at this time I think that the number is in here uh 672 672 958 958 would be what would be expected now uh check to be written so we were hoping that our uh roundabout construction would occur in 2025 um with the updated information um Excel is now uh proposing an inservice date of the end of September of 20 25 so looking at it internally that most likely would preclude us being able to construct the roundabout in 2025 does that do to our excuse me Mr chair what does that do to our grant dollars um still working on that uh through men. state aid and Federal Highway um in in St Paul we already knew as part of our roundabout construction we were going to have to construct a bypass road um that's something that would most likely probably we could still construct we could get our plans finalized and approved by state aid this winter get our project authorization to go to a letting um but then write our project specs so that the contractor had to construct that Bypass Road in 2025 but that the roundabout construction would happen in a subsequent year what that does is shows that we incur costs so we could seek reimbursement of a portion of our federal dollars and show that we started using those dollars in the in the correct Federal fiscal year I should say the state fiscal year so that that's the key thing to be able to keep our grant dollars we need to have project authorization um before the end of June of 2025 and that means that our plans are approved by men. state aid and Federal ways um and they we have permission to go to letting then Mr chair Chris it's a little disheartening for me because I was just out in DC um and talking with uh Senator kashar Senator Smith uh Mr ammer and this was one of the projects as was brought up cuz they felt that oh they could do you know that they could be there for the HP Grant opening and then the following year be there for the uh the the the um extension and now putting this all into the one is going to make that area disaster right by a school in one year this is not a good situation that's correct that was our intentions was to construct it in those months that school was not in session because as we know there's a lot of school traffic with buses and and those uh arriving departing from the school so we believe that we could get the roundabout Circle and Lanes construct Ed in that time frame but um even trying to do partial construction before that poll is relocated may not be ideal for the traffic flow through that if we were still constructing after school was in session in September Mr chair you it is disheartening another issue we have in front of us is that we stand to lose $400,000 for this project from the APO if we cannot get it redirected for the next year how is that going to tie into to what we're doing right now Chris yeah so as you recall we had two uh grants that we received one of them was the highway safety Improvement program grant that was $750,000 to construct this then we received carbon Reduction Program money which was just under $400,000 so that was about one you know little over a million dollars we received of grant money to construct this and that's the whole thing to receive those Grant dollars we need to have this project authorization before the end of the state fiscal year at the end of June of 2025 um and so that's that's our goal that we're striving for still to get that our our road construction plans approved and authorized there's another trigger that we have to have we we must incur costs within six months of that project authorization or a project becomes inactive it's an inactive project in the terms of uh Federal highways then that's when we have to start answering questions as like Benton County are you going to deliver this project or do you need to you know forfeit those dollars to some other entity and that would probably mean it would go to some other project um within the state that that was ready to go uh or something like that so we we don't want to lose our dollars uh we have a demonstrated need a safety concern there with the crash history at that location so I mean in response to the public we need to address those concerns if we lose the grant money we'd be forced to do that with 100% local tax tax money Mr chair you didn't answer my question Chris about the 400,000 from the APO though I mean where do we stand with that I I know you know commissioner ginsky is on the APO I'm the alternate on the APO we worked very hard to get this grant you know and well yeah so I use those at this point they're both being kind of treated the same the H zip and that carbon Reduction Program uh dollars from the APO they they're both at the same level of risk if we don't have our project authorized and start incurring Federal eligible costs within six months of authorization so if we if we can't deliver the project it would go to most likely another project in the APO region um that that is ready to go and eligible for the dollars Mr chair can I ask question sure um so Chris these costs that are occurred this money that we have to pay forward to XL Energy would not be considered part of the project expense no that's good good question the those Grant dollars uh HP the and the carbon reduction the 1. million can only go towards road construction costs so that's where you know utility relocation costs have to come from local sources and that's why we pursued other grants to try to um offset some of those costs Mr chair Mr kinsky um Chris when did we pay the 134,000 again that's what I was going to uh that was the June June 20 something of 2024 so how are we I mean this has not been a a secret uh cor correct uh um yeah is there somebody better that can answer that yeah so uh I believe Excel Energy uh uh we have some members in the audience here one of the concerns that I think we had was that Appropriations I um I'm sorry scoping estimate that we signed in June had some time frames laid out one of which was engineering and the engineering time frame was 15 weeks and it had some language in there 15 weeks get started from when all the signatures or the last date of the signature on this agreement and there was multiple Excel Energy signatures already on that agreement and it appeared that Benton County was one of the last ones so we anticipated that engineering would take about 15 weeks or so after signing that agreement the last week in June which that puts at uh let's see June July August September sometime let's say October we learned that October was about the time frame that Excel Energy had finalized their contracts with an engineering consultant to start the engineering um and I think that's now that we're looking at instead of like an early summer a late summer in service date that may be some of the concerns that that we had as an engineering department County Highway engineering department um but yeah like I acknowledged the excel in the audience I don't know if the board is interested in asking them direct questions if that's permissible or not I I would like to ask ask that direct question because as we know at Phase projects we're going to end up paying more on taxpayer money to get this job done the only one here that's going to be made whole is Excel Energy and we paid them back in June so I think I think it's time we ask the direct questions yep please uh good morning board Cody Holmes uh Excel Energy uh transmission project manager okay um I'm here to you know answer your questions but also we have Josh Tomlinson of uh from Excel Energy also uh via video and he may be able to talk to the 15 weeks Chris can you minimize so we can see the the go-to screen if we said J who who's joining us again Josh JN let's see it's Josh up there Jos Tomlinson yes so he's the project the direct project manager who has been working with Chris and his team team on this um so um speaking to the timing of the 15 weeks and the uh engineering that has been uh or when it was started and where we are with the process with our relocation and signing of that scoping estimate um and Josh if you're available you can uh just I guess give a brief update to the board as far as engineering getting started you know when when we and and where we are with uh coordinating the uh drawings and just initial engineering that that was completed so far or up to that point yes hello guys um thank you for having me today I appreciate oh can you guys hear me right now oh yeah yes you're you're loud and you can turn your camera I'm I'm going turn it down we're cool I got it okay my apologies to the board there we go there we go thank you yes for an update from engineering um I understand the 15we uh timeline that was uh put into the scoping estimate um that 15 weeks essentially starts when we bring on the engineering team um as an update for where we are now um that update would be that we have finished our final designs so uh from when we started our initial Engineering Process uh in October uh we have finished those designs by the middle of December which is where we are now with that uh Appropriations estimate that was uh submitted to Chris bird uh on the 1 Comm kinsky um Josh with that being said when you guys finalize your signatures and get this engineering going that's when we should have paid the money money the 134,000 in my opinion not back in June and I get yes understood so uh I can touch on that too um so that first scoping estimate is essentially just paying for the design work to see what uh resources are going to be required and what design work is going to be needed um the secondary estimate that has been provided to you which is the Appropriations estimate um that is a much more accurate and all-encompassing estimate that um allows us to purchase the material that initial sum of $134,000 just paid for the design work uh the secondary payment that we are requesting now is for the actual material um without that secondary uh payment uh we typically do not move forward no I I I 100% get that Josh but when we paid you back in June for the $134,000 that didn't start until October the design work the design work yeah and and and I guess you know there was design work in engineering work going on um as far as I'll call it internal labor and Josh you can speak to that I know you know the the final design was going to be executed well at the end of October when the design firm was brought on but we there was work being done before that I mean so there it wasn't sitting at a standstill there was work being completed we Mr chair we were led to believe after we signed that hund for that $134,000 that the engineering would only take 15 weeks here we are 35 40 weeks into it and now it's just starting so we've lost in our my opinion we've lost 15 weeks on this project and we're trying to understand how or why more importantly we lost the summer construction correct which puts something yeah something I'd like to point to as well Wells uh past that scoping estimate that was originally discussed uh we also were uh instructed by uh Benton County to identify different options um that might save the county money and time um that allocated our internal engineering team that originally put together that scoping estimate to uh identify different options um so that did postpone our final design work okay any other comments I guess you know we're at this point now and is there anything EXL energy can do to speed up this process uh yes sir so we were actually uh like I mention we typically do not uh order material prior to the signatures on the Appropriations estimate um we we went ahead and shoulder that burden uh for Excel Energy uh typically like I said we don't uh order material long we time material and we've gone ahead and done that uh we streamlined our process to actually order some geotechnical Services um so some soil boring uh that had a longer lead time as well uh but seeing as though we would essentially blow our schedule if we did not start that earlier um we grin lit that about a month ago so we're really trying to expedite this as fast as possible one of the pro one of the options that we do have is maybe making some construction um compromises where we might might be able to do construction in tandem with uh the County's work on the road okay well that's that's a good comment I mean if we could what what do you mean by that though they could coordinate the construction of the line I believe at the same time as the County's construction constructing the roundabout but Chris had spoke to that and um and and that would be something we could do but I I don't know if the county the timing isn't going to be you're talking in September I think this big the big unknown right now is materials materials delivery I mean that's what um Josh and others have shared now that their material supplier can't guarantee delivery of materials until August so that that's a risk too if we open up the project and we get to a point where we can no longer proceed with road construction because of then the project it'ss idle uh closed whatever traffic driving through a work zone until material are delivered so that's kind of a risk do we open up a project if we don't have confirmed delivery uh of materials that's a risk that we would have to assume if we let a contract and a contractor bids on our project expecting to construct it during this time frame and then we have to tell them to stop at some point um we would have to assume that risk to that that road construction contractor you know what what was the total cost of the roundabout um the the design that's that's another thing I'm sitting here I think most of the public look at it and say you're designing three polls and it's $134,000 yeah we well our design contract with our consultant for the roundabout design was uh right at two $200,000 for a whole roundabout uh we're looking at construction cost of our roundabout a little over3 million Construction and design yeah no just for construction for con so Mr chair that that's that's one part of it I look at it this way and and I'm I'm not trying to Grand stand here at all but I'm telling you you look at it $900 and some th000 to move three polls and then we're on the hook for moving the construction date to a whole another year which puts a county potentially online for losing grant funding and you guys are a profit I mean I we're told oh we got to tread carefully so that we got our we got our team on board on this I I look at from the other side wait a minute here maybe this got to go further up the up the hill to to the you other higher up elected officials because I feel like we just got I mean we're we're going to be basically given a situation that we got to tell the tell the taxpayers why they're going to pay pay more money on a phase project because we don't want to lose these funds we're going to have to start the project and have it cost more in the end so not only is is Excel going to have three brand new polls which correct me if I'm wrong Chris we never got credit for right the depreciation there's there's two two new polls two new polls but steel polls that the count that taxpayers are paying for to increase their trans Mission line I I I see what you're you're asking like basically depreciation costs we're we're paying brand new costs for an asset that has a depreciated lifetime because we know those have been in the ground for 40 plus years already um and yeah and we're we're paying new price uh at their timeline yeah Mr chair a question for Josh Josh I assume cell was aware of our Construction timeline I do not have record of any explicit timelines other than trying to have construction completed in the year of 2025 Chris um yeah I mean to to their credit uh we we first notified them in March of uh 24 is when we started having these discussions with relocation um I'm just bringing up on the SC screen the scoping uh estimate now granted uh this scoping estimate you know has terms like proposed inservice date of 331 2025 that would have fit in with our our time frame um this is where the costs were laid out this is where the $134,000 here this is where the scoping estimate said schedule starts upon return of this estimate the assoc agreement and payment for engineering so that's that's where the county comes from that what we thought that based on this statement 15 weeks would start when we signed it and sent a check um I will note there's a number of Excel Energy signatures here except for one um but you know even if that still need to be acquired we we signed it in June of 2024 with a check mailed I mean it was mailed so give a couple few days before to get through the so-call July 1 but um assume it was cashed yeah um that's that's where if engineering had proceeded uh within 15 weeks could the construction have been backed up 15 weeks sooner instead of September was that would that mean a newer inservice date of instead of March 31st 2025 so uh May or or June of 2025 Mr chair so the original estimate was 935 and now it's 9.97 too so it went up uh that that is correct now we're looking at a more detailed estimate uh with some additional yeah costs and I I don't have a good answer uh that would be an Excel question there's some explanation of why the costs increased I mean you guys put yourself in our shoe I mean we We've Got a roundabout that has me many accidents on it and now we're putting off uh potentially building this because of this transition line and these polls that we thought we had going back in end of June beginning of July if we would have had that going my guess is is we would have made that time frame so we need to explain to the people sitting in here and online and and everybody else going why why should we pay for more on a phase project and it you know EXL gets not only you know the 935 which was orig a rough estimate now we're almost at a million dollar just short $2,000 short of a million and and Josh you can speak to it or I or I will the rise in cost um the majority of that is uh the easement acquisition that has had to take place uh uh originally uh we were assuming the county was going to acquire those easements needed from the property owners and now Excel Energy will be uh working to acquire those those easements that are needed to reroute those polls or reroute the line so um and commissioner ginsky I I I understand your you know your frustration in the whole the whole boards I I understand that and you know I you know I I I if if we could have gone back and and you know done that I I I think we were working towards that I think there were other uh engineering you know design and reviews going on at the same time where um we didn't have a final design and until we had that we weren't going to be able to order these long Le materials so so I I understand your concern and you know I I wish it could be better and and I uh I I know you know we want to work with Benton County and we want to you know see what we can do to help and execute this in 25 if possible you know that that's our goal as well so okay I I know you guys are the the the carriers of the of the message right now and I get it I you guys are kind of at the firing line if you will but you know I we got to be good partners moving forward on everything because we can't do this without you guys and um it just it's disheartening because it's is excel's a big company is there these are specific polls there's nothing in anybody's yard that you can borrow borrow from that's that's not how we that's not how we operate we pick and pull we that's our standards are you know something that are hard and fast and we'll and like we're installing steel for many different reasons but but that's uh that's why would sure hate to have two of these poles sitting in a yard that's going to get used in 2026 but you got them on for a big project and they can't be pulled for understood that yeah these are you know designed specifically for for these loadings and design for this you know different tensions and and uh and factors what's what's really weird is I I I I do design of cell towers and I can get two 400t cell towers for this for these two poles that's amazing decided throw that out there Mr chair the question I think is for Josh so when we write out a check for $672,500 sell and you guys cash it at that point in time you order the materials and at that point in time do you have a understanding of probably when the materials will be ready uh yes sir so typically on the uh on the first order when we submit a PO uh we contact our vendors and the vendors will give a delivery date that is a suggestion but also one that they are committed to and those those dates are typically pretty set in stone so as we've submitted our long lead time materials we should hear back within the week or two uh to determine what uh our delivery dates are for our scheduling purposes we do have uh it logged in a schedule at this time with estimated lead times that we've seen as in uh industry standards so we have a very decent idea of what we're looking at for our material so that was with the that was with Our intention to get our AE signed in our material order that at a time frame that was comfortable to the county but also to excel so we can meet that in service date of the end of September so as it stands now uh with our material ordered we should still be able to uh meet that in service date at the end of September but that that's that does nothing for beton County that's what I'm that's what we're trying to say is it we can't get the roundabout done until 2026 now it meets your in service state not the counties my my follow-up question is that when you go ahead and put a PO and they give you an idea of when the materials will be ready and if the materials are ready sooner could this project be done sooner on excel's part yes good question Mr commissioner I would agree that that would be uh a possibility um we can reach out to our vendors and see if they can move this along in any way um if they can expedite it I will point to the steel vendor drawings that we just submitted that is probably our largest risk for the project and I think that would be the one that we'd have the hardest risk of of paining um and earlier um we can work to see if that's a possibility um I had our engineering team actually do so yesterday um so we should hear back and see if they can uh expedite in any fashion okay thank you yeah all right could we get a letter from them too if you get a yeah because I I feel like there's there's less of lead time than it was a year or two ago a point of clarification here is are you asking for a letter from from the steel manufacturer or a copy or a copy copy of the letter absolutely Chris uh if I may uh Josh could you confirm uh The Ordering of materials because earlier you indicated that um to kind of keep things expedited Excel had already ordered the materials is that true or is it still not confirmed until you issue what you just referenced a purchase order or a PO yes a good question uh uh yesterday rpos went out so those are sitting in pending internal uh our construction management team needs to uh approve them and then it goes out to the vendor uh so that's a part of an internal process that precludes actually getting a response from the vendor commission so what what did you mean that went out a month ago that you were helping the county out on then that was the geotechnical service so that was a soil boring so that was a process that is done for construction to understand what needs to be done for foundation work okay but the lead time to uh to get that test done for someone to go out and do soil boring uh the lead time on that was about six months and uh to get Returns on those tests would have been well with in our construction or well without our construction window so it would have delayed the project if we had not done that a month ago okay they oil Bings before they can do right y y got that Mr Mr chair Johnson Josh I would have to assume XL Energy is probably one of the very largest buyers of this type of material from the vendor that you're using would that be a fair statement I would agree with that so is it is it possible then with that that Excel can put a little pressure on the vendor to move those items up I mean again you're you're probably I can't even think about the dollar amount that you'd be spending on these vendors in the year but you know as as a way to put a little pressure on them to get this this product in front of us as soon as possible fair question I would I would say that we actually are stream uh using our relationships now to actually guarantee those delivery dates and to work with them to get a favorable lead time um the process to design and to um manufacture those HS is what we're looking at now okay thank you anything else any other questions um Tim question for engine sure you mentioned Excel used Consulting engineering firm on this project can you elaborate on that and cell explain is that common industry practice to kick this back to the Consulting engineer I I would say our design team has been conferring and communicating with uh a Consulting engineer that had been as part of this these conversations as early as March of 2024 and I think some of the correspondents that Josh has shared that I think it's that same individual that now Excel is Contracting with this individual works for a large consulting firm that that that I'm familiar with um HDR so that that's been our understanding that yeah Excel has hired a Consulting engineer to do the design work as far as industry standard I'll I'll defer to excel to answer that question and this is Cody Holmes and I can answer that one yes yes it is our common practice that we have internal Engineers but also we have a large staff of Consulting Engineers who work and and complete the Consulting engineering for us for Excel Energy are they experiencing a backlog they experience backl during this process or not I can't say thank you all right thanks any other questions or comments I guess my question would be is to between Chris and Excel Energy once you know that uh the delivery Daya the polls can you work at the same time or do we need to get XL Energy out of there before we start construction or do anything I think I'll leave that one to Chris as far as you know the coordination and he had talked about before about uh you know not opening it up and then with a chance we don't receive it and then having further issues you know with construction but someplace in there you're going to have to have a delivery date yeah I mean so when you hit the delivery date is that the time Chris we could start I mean they're not going to come the middle of August and say delivery is gonna be September one it's probably going to be you know somewhere I would think quite a bit earlier than that it see due to our our statutory requirements for publication of bids and things like that you got to back the time frame up so think about when do we want to construct it uh say we want to start construction as soon as they're in the ground let's just assume that that's September uh it takes about a a month before that we need to be at least awarding a contract so that's say that's August it takes a month before that that we start advertising the bid so that's July uh um those things if we're starting to prepare a bid advertisement in June time frame will we know in June that we have confirmation that the material will be here in August so that we go ahead and start that ball rolling downhill once we start that ball rolling downhill it's hard to stop it and we start assuming risks or we put that risk on the contractors which we end up seeing in bid prices and so on and so forth so um the lowest risk would be to wait till it's clear and then proceed to a bid opening so I I'm not sure how to answer the question commissioner equating it to level of risk and how much risk are we we comfortable with with assuming yeah which in our in our world risk equals dollar signs so um and a PR nightmare yeah yeah well it's dollar signs for everybody sitting here yeah yeah yeah I you live in Bon County by chance so you don't have to pay for this I just want to correct something I said I just checked my correspondence we started corresponding it looks like with this Cody Oswald of HDR Engineering in the at the end of June talking about design uh things so end of June yeah I I just have emails here um that show June June 26 7th 2024 there were some email correspondence with Cody Oswald to start working with bitt County on uh option design option so why did it get going in October can Excel answered I guess I I guess from my my assumption and Josh you can confirm you know if if you know they were working through preliminary design from that June you know that 15 weeks and then final design started at that point that that was my assumption Josh and if you if there's something further clarifying you can speak to that that is correct so in June is when I uh when they started working on those two additional proposals that were asked to be uh provided by Benton County to see if we could lessen the uh expense and shorten the time frame um after identifying this it looked like uh working with Chris the determination was to proceed with the original estimate and time frame um so that was determined I believe also in June that was the relocation of the road maybe yeah we looked at yeah we looked at that we looked at yeah okay moving that existing pole a little bit farther north and Chang the alignment Mr chair I I don't see any other way around us we got to do it I mean it's no different than my house I I don't get a chance to say I don't want Excel I have to pay whatever they choose to pay you know charge me it's just frustrating that no this this is at this point yeah I mean we have to move forward and probably hope for the best and hopefully we're you know beton County and EXL energy are good enough partners that everybody moves as fast as they can on this I don't from my standpoint I don't want to put the county at more risk no no at point we can't we we can't if they got a projected uh proposed service date at 92625 unfortunately we're going to have to work with that either way this is going to be a phase project now and the count is going to pay more we can't yeah we can't get it all done or or we lose the money the only one here that is not going to lose the money is Excel right only and well you mentioned at the beginning they they'll be the one that's whole in this yep okay all right Mr chair yes so by Excel we are guaranteed 925 completion date 9:25 yeah okay and I know we need that earlier but irregardless if they can push to get it done earlier that's great but we are 100% guaranteed a 925 completion date and thank you for your question um you know I will I will say no because you know there are some factors that are outside of excels and are you know something that could happen with the supply chain and uh steel pole vendor or other equipment Hardware insulators or conductor that that we need to this work you know so as of right now you know we've everything will be ordered everything the timeline construction crew scheduled and everything will be ready to complete by end of end of September but I I can't commit 100% to you know it will be done knowing there's some factors outside of our control so you're not saying there's no hard timeline no with weather or any other factors well that's why it say proposed state Mr chair even at that at that point in time it ain't going to matter because that puts our construction regardless in 26 I mean we got to have the polls relocated I guess we're going to have to look at options on partial Construction or something if we have to eat up some APO grant money or something there I sure hope we're not in a position where we've got to eat up grant money yeah well either way it's I mean we all know a phase project it's going to cost more money Y and obviously Excel you're you're not going to pay for that no okay so you're not going to pay for that not give us a firm timeline not a lot of real good answers today no there isn't and I I but we got to go back to everybody in the room and and in the county and explain why it's going to cost us more money weay and then we have to go to our grantee APO and ask for forgiveness because we can't uh pursue and use that money in 25 M maybe we'll just start with the legislators next let them know okay all right I'll move approval second Mo been made second and to approve the XL Appropriations estimate timeline any other discussion it'd be for the 600 to pay for the $600 6 72958 and cut them a check for 67298 Mr chair if I could could I get clarification on um who's signing it would they is the board desire the board chair or they authorizing the County engineer to sign that agreement I will note the signature block has my name but we could actually we could easily have the board chair sign that uh just maybe have some clarification of who's being authorized to sign the agreement Chris I think Chris can sign it correct thank you yep I would with that with the County engineer signing it is that okay with your motion yep second all right any other discussion on that thank you for trying to explain I know this was hard for you guys to come in front of us hearing us out I it's just that you have to understand our position to yeah all right we got a motion a second on the table all in favor I opposed carried all right I have no further items okay commissioner meeting updates no screw that go into that one go to this one yeah well you have one IAD one yeah you can use yeah go that one right away we'll do the public health I'll turn it over to come on to Monty for just some quick housekeeping next to Mr chair so uh call the order looks like everybody's here still here uh we need nominations for we for chair of the Community Health Board make a motion for commissioner Heinen second okay Heen has been nominated as chair of the Community Health Board any other nominations not hearing in all those in favor commission H as Community Health Board chair for 25 please say I I iOS commission H it's all yours sir great now that I've been reelected shair thank you everybody now we've got to go through the process of a vice chair for the Community Health Board nominations please I'll nominate commissioner benite I'll second okay we got a motion and second any other nominations any other nominations any other nominations if not I call the question all in favor say I I I opposed motion carries thank you Vice chair commissioner bite approve or amend the agenda anything Monty or Jacqueline no move for approval Mr chair second got a motion and a second any for discussion if not I'll call a question I'll in favor say I I I oppos motion carries uh consent agenda item we only have one uh did you do the meeting the me the schedule meetings oh sorry we'll back up oh catchy I've only been share with this how long uh sorry schedule the regular meetings Community Health Board for 2025 which would coincide absolutely it mirrors your County Board same dates moved second okay we got a motion in a second any further discussion if not to call the question all in favor say I I I motion carries now we'll go to the consent agenda item we only have one what would you like to do with that move approval y second thank you we got a motion in a second any further discussion now I'll call the question all in favor say I I I oppos motion carries Jacqueline anything thank you very much at this point in time the Community Health Board is adjourned at 10:30 and I'll turn it back over to the board chair and now we'll move on to ditch to ditch okay same thing call the order roll call everybody's here are there nominations for the 2025 chair of the county disch Authority I nominate commissioner Johnson commission Johnson has been n are there any other nominations heing none all those in favor of commissioner Johnson as chair of the dis Authority for 25 please say I I I posos commissioner Johnson is all yours sir thank you Monty members we'll move on to selecting the ditch Authority Vice chair for 2025 and open up those nominations motion goe motion to elect commissioner po I'll second that okay we have a motion a second for commissioner pop or any other nominations any other nominations any other nominations that will act on commissioner pop as the vice chair for 2025 all those in favor I I opposed it's carried thank you commissioner pop Mr thank you too for stepping up on this this is not a fun committee and I think you can see that we all jump to nominate others on us yep so we do seriously appreciate what you guys do we're moving forward we're we are thank you appreciate the support all right move on to approval our amendments to the agenda Chris any changes to our ditch Authority agenda for today any additions all right is there a motion to approve so move okay second motion a second to approve our agenda is presented all those in favor I oppos it's carried schedule our regular meetings of our ditch Authority for 2025 M chair gon this mirrors your County board meeting dates uh but I should mention though and you did this with in 2024 the second meeting in August is considered the annual meeting to consider the maintenance assessment so that's just the difference from County Board to note that August 19th to consider maintenance assessments your annual meeting okay is there a motion I so move okay I'll I'll second it uh to approve the scheduled meetings for ditch Authority for 2025 is presented all those in favor I oppose is carried we do have a consent agenda item approve or amend the meeting minutes from December 17th of 24 move approv okay there second no second second any other discussion on the meeting minutes from December 17th of 24 any discussion hearing none all those in favor I I opposed I'll thank you for the exstension you have your exstension Beth okay thank you any other business Chris Mr chair I apologize uh I did realize there's some individuals here that was anticipating there would be an open Forum as part of the ditch Authority meeting not the Reg ditch meeting so we have some individuals here I think that would like to speak open form okay thank you if there's individuals here if you could please come to the podium and state your name and address or I'm sorry yet it's already written down here thank you him and Mike rusy you'd be willing to come forward and and just give your name and address for the record and we'd be happy to hear you rusy I live at uh 675 plump Creek Drive in S Cloud Minnesota and my name is Mike rusy I live at 3368 Little Rock Road sock rabbits okay thank you go ahead um we filed a petition um for the county to abandon ditch for M um I had some conversations with Chris bird about it this I don't know if it's I guess it's not up on the screen but anyways ditch 4 is is uh like 2,835 ft long it's it's on a 75 acre parcel that Mike and I own together and then the very little portion of it where it comes to the road is owned by Jim Gans and uh so we went to and we got a bunch of signatures from the from the land owners and then we filed a petition and then the petition was rejected because um unknowns to us that uh you can't accept a petition when there's outstanding assessments well um we weren't aware of that but obviously um there'll always be outstanding assessments so we wanted to come here ahead of time before the next meeting and we had some questions um with the the total assessments 15,000 and Mike and I um we we got a bid uh you know to clean the ditch for much much less than that one time annual fee um we understand um from Christine that there's a negative balance on Ditch for of $695 60 um to date there's only been a, $19.88 collected on these assessments so I guess what we're wondering um is if Mike and Jim and Lewis Meer and jansson PID their their assessments that'll take about 90% of this total away and if we pay the remaining balance of that can we go ahead with the petition and then our second question in regards to that is the 15,000 that's assessed annually on this minus the negative balance um roughly it'd be about seven what happens to that $7,000 if and when you would Grant the the ditch to be returned back to us okay the other question I want to have you clarify is is uh how did they come up with this 6,000 for they just looking at the ditch when we can get it clean for 3,000 I mean there was nothing done nothing was ever done on that ditch the guys that I brought the property from Rich rusy and Elvin yokam had it cleaned out in 2001 they had to go to the AFC office and got approved so so that ditch was never a county ditch which I realized that the statute made them take them over but it was never looked at never clean you know so this is why you know I get this here stuff is just like the thing you had before pay it and go ahead but that's what I'm willing to do but I want to get this extrait it I don't want to drag it out M and then the other thing I want to just address is the county paid me money which I didn't cast a check yet I'm willing to return that so is Jim and there's only probably one other person which I don't know why he got anything because buffer zone yeah yeah right pay you know this the check is still in in escrow I never did anything with it so you know I want to know if that kind of goes away if I return that or you know I'm willing to do all that you know what I mean there the ditches on no one else's property but our M and we talked to I would say all everyone we talk to were 100% agreeable with us which is probably around 18 out of the 23 24 yeah yeah benefiting land them are the benefited owners or benefited the rest of them we just never talk to because it's hard to find them sure the church won't right yeah y acreage wise we probably have 90% plus sure of the people that that had signed the yeah go ahead said the ditch is 90% on our profit commission pop could Christine or Chris comment on the outstanding balance and I'm sure that that's the checks that are not cashed I think that was basically for all of figuring everything out on all these ditches H2 overiew and we done that beer and all you know all the other things you know I went to a lot of those ditch Authority meetings so I understand where that that they're assigning that that their cost from but irregardless if that's paid there's still $7,000 that if we take the ditch back I mean it's not a party fund does it get refunded land owners or you know or does it get since we're taking it over is it applied for us cleaning it out you know what I'm saying so but you know the other thing is is if you know the 6,000 or 7,000 you know just about is that Pro I not pro rated but a percentage being paid back to each individual landowner like a guy pays 10 does he get a dollar back yeah what do you mean if these funds are paid in good questions maybe Christine if you want to answer some of commissioner Pop's questions or if you have answers yet at this point I don't know so that maintenance assessment that was approved for the 15,000 again the negative balance on the ditch was the 6900 and then the buffer the other part of it was the buffer strip payments which was 8700 um of those buffer strip payments like he said there was three checks that went out his was the largest um it was yeah about around I have it in my envelope his was 8,300 Jim gans's was 300 and then Todd lubis Meer was $83 and only Todd's was cashed okay so you know if it has to exodite that I'd be willing to pay that back to so I think I don't what I don't know that we have an answer for you today on is all your questions because I mean we we got an answer on on how the $6,900 deficit showed up right right but what we can do about the other things we're going to need to find that out for you because I don't know that sitting here today we can answer you and the statute that was referred to about not being able to accept a petition because of the unpaid assessments right um you know we weren't aware of that it looks like it was just installed last year probably was because everybody was petitioning to have their ditch cleaned well you know so I'm I'm sure that was a tool that was put in place to say okay well we can do that but we want to make sure that we have the money to do it so exactly I understand that that part of it you know um when when Christine said you know because of the unpaid assessments we're like well if you meet in August there's always going to be unpaid assessments so that is the main reason why we're here today so that we can make you aware of what we would like to do you know and how we can go about this so that we can you know speed up the process I guess sure you know because the longer it goes and the more money that's paid out or paid in it's just becomes more of a bookkeeping Nightmare and then you know the other question would be that if we decide to pay these assessments you know you know now if these people are getting tax and do paid in double dip thing what happens there does that so you know this thing is going to get really kind of messy bent out of shape you don't get on top so if the four main ones pay in and then we pay the balance and then somewhere along the way somebody else pays in then it's going to be a overpayment right I can do on my side is you know send them letters I probably or whatever you know what I mean telling what I'm doing so they don't you know pay it but I'm sure they're going to have it on the taxes now that it wasn't prepaid but if I can get that clarified with her maybe I don't know um Michelle are you online with us did I see you I am Y and I do have appications um according to the law um technically the time that they needed to request reconsideration of those buffer strips was when we did that redetermination because that was part of that damages award so they had the ability to appeal at that time and I did double check this answer um and did reach out to John CO as well as other attorneys um so unfortunately there isn't anything we can really do about those buffer damages now if they want to coordinate payment with their neighbors to kind of get rid of that that's something that they can do okay um regarding that annual maintenance there's no requirement that we charge an assessment in August for maintenance of this particular ditch if there is a desired to abandon unfortunately we can't consider any petitions to abandon until the balance is paid up in full which would include that entire 15,000 commissioner kiny Mr chair thank you uh couple things so the the buffer payment that that would be easy cuz most of it's not cash they could pay that back bucks and one of the the last thing is is the the uh maintenance of the ditch or the cleaning we haven't done anything with that if we resend it that back and that may that may fix its own problem because if they don't ever file a petition for maintenance or cleaning right they they won't get assess that so maybe we don't have to go through the abandonment well it's Chris Chris had said that that would be the best route oh and it's one of the out of all the ditches you know in Benton County it's short ditch four is probably the least of his concerns and just one last thing for him to deal with beond with we get it we got it it's totally on our property you know almost 99% right so it does go into a Wetlands but there is no ditch beyond that the did stop on our property I'll get back to you in a moment question I I thought I understood Christine to say that the the assessment this $155,000 for two things the buffer strip damages and then the original redetermination benefits costs so to to this point we've not assessed a quote maintenance assessment per se we're attempting to recover the cost of the buffer strip damages and the original redetermination benefits right so I I think my point is I don't know if there's anything to wave or to sort of resend at this point we still need to recover those costs well they're going to return the buffer strip payment so and I'd be willing to pay this I I guess I for maybe that's another issue I'll defer to Michelle on that issue but I know we need to we need to recoup the cost of redetermination benefit that was like the six or $7,000 number right yeah we understand that right I'm going to go back to you but before hand it off to you could we have her volume turned up a little bit please a little bit of a hard time hearing her thank you and and we've got several estimates you know to clean the ditch so you know $25 to $3,000 so I mean MH you know it really does it isn't a necessity yeah yeah the ditch is working yeah y sure all right Michelle go ahead thank you all right uh I will try to speak louder as well are we turn the volume I got you now good okay all right so that 15,000 like Monty clarified is both that buffer and redetermination cost and what I found out is we can't resend that that buffer cost we have to collect that they should cash their checks if they themselves want to facilitate with their neighbors on paying them back for what they were paid that's on them um but at this point there's nothing the board can do to resend that bucker strip payment so we got a cash and then write a check back to you make it all paper correct yeah which I'm willing to do we just didn't want to you know get ahead of the game do yeah no that's I appreciate that thank you commissioner piny did you have a comment no I I'll just uh I'm just going to reiterate we this is not a money-making deal for the county so I agree with that we want to do it right and and like I said you know even like Todd Lewis miners which is the other $80 I'm willing to add that to my cost and be done with it not going to pursue you know whatever just tell them he ow me a dinner or something yeah so what can I this question I guess I'm going to throw up for Michelle and Christine and Chris is what can we do to help get this process moving for these people to get it finished what what can we do to help expedite the process I I understand your point of we can't take care we can't resend the buffer payments but we just heard the land owners say they'll go ahead cash them turn around reimburse so where does that put us today Michelle the faster you can collect that assessment the better okay um it really once it's all paid and there's no outstanding assessment amount which this is a one-year assessment yep once we don't have that balance then we can proceed with a petition that means the requirements okay then uh just to clarify a little more so we need to pay the assessments and return the buffer strip money at the same time correct well well it just needs to happen yeah it just needs to happen before yes right yeah y but now Jim Gans is here he's the other one that got the the $300 so okay we gave all the land owner signatures to Christine already do we have to go through that process again there was some mention about we had to have P numbers with every owner like husband owner signature where you know I mean we didn't get husband wife son daughter you know what I mean it's just one of them from that property signed you know my my guess is I want I don't want to answer for you Michelle but I would assume we're going to require all signatures on the petition well according to the statute no it doesn't need it it's only 52% that statute 108 yeah but a parcel will not count unless it in it has includes every single property owner that owns that piece m kensy Michelle um if if we take if they take care of all the assessments that are on there we got a zero Net Zero and the only time that there would be an additional assessment is for maintenance from here on out correct it hasn't been repaired though it hasn't been yeah you it hasn't been repaired yet or so so or a repair order right that would be the only time there would be another assessment I guess where I'm going at is if we get this all cleared up it helps Christine with getting tax stuff out and everything like that in a timely manner and then you got some time to figure out if that's the route you want to go and and because it's going to be at a at Net Zero unless you guys put in a petition for for repair so well they're not going to if they're that's what I'm saying has not been looked at the one cost we still have the obligation to inspect so that's why it's probably better to abandon right um so you're not incurring any cost Rel Michelle timeline wise if if these land owners were to we were back to a net zero they move ahead with clarifying their petition signatures for abandonment I would assume this could happen before the August annual meeting where there's any uh inspections or maintenance requirements or anything done at our annual ditch meeting would that be a fair statement that would be a fair statement and again you are not required unless you plan on doing inspection work to charge an annual assessment sure so so at this point what I'm hearing is the land owners in this petition for the abandonment just need to make sure when they have the signatures of all land owners in this case husband wives whatever is on those Parcels is that correct yeah now I will state there will be a cost Associated withholding the public hearing that would be the only concern um so but we won't be at a net zero if if if they re cash the there'll be money they cash the buffer checks and and put them back in I mean yeah you have a you know you're 15,000 now because of the um negative balance and the buffer strips but once they return the buffer strips you're going to have you're going to have some money there correct oh but no you see you're getting to 7,000 but you have another 10 or 7,000 in there yeah that's not going to be used if this goes through and what happens to that you know no cuz I correct if I'm wrong go ahead the the H2O overviews and and the the determination of benefit's already been done a year and a half or two years ago yeah so that's where part of that $6,900 is that correct chrisy right but what happens to the money that they return that the buffer strips you know the assessments are over what the balance is in there so there's going to be a balance of 7,000 left in there after that that after the 69 is paid yeah so the math the I I get where guys are coming from but the two equal out so if you return a check for 8500 it let's just say that's what it was we're going to pay a total of 15,000 you got uh what is it where is that down there 7,000 that's Ed that isest ready okay now there's another 7,000 in there that won't be used no there wouldn't be because it if you if you took your it if you just took and rescinded the 8300 what you're not going to tax that but we're paying it to get rid of this statue of 103 to that y so basically it's a check out and a check in MH and then you still got the $6,900 well commissioner go ahead um Christine what is the total Bal or total amount of Assessments with buffers and redetermination on that ditch 15,000 15,000 and if they if they write a check for what they got for buffer strips there's still going to be a 7,000 balance right and that was already paid out you for the redetermination redetermination we can't go back and not get that understand they had to be so then there'll be a balance of 7,000 bucks yet not excess of seven it would be a balance of 7,000 that we've already paid out well but what we're saying is we pay a 15 I mean the 13 or the 15 amount that's dued yet plus the land oh 20 I ain't talking like you are 20 23 24,000 or whatever it would be no I I I think they could just pay the 15 and be done okay and not the 15 plus the eight right it'd be the 15 total pay the 15 cashier check and use that however you wish go ahead but I also have to get the tax statements out you know the beginning of March so those assessments since it is an approved assessment will go on those tax then that money might come in too if we can't contact that would go back we're willing to pay that I mean I am you know right you know any time if we do that got to try to get them all done before that and pay the balance before March so that you know right yeah because otherwise it's going on the assess preferably in February because February 15 that's okay and I I I think they've had really good Communications when I've talked to them with everybody that's on the ditch and the benefited Acres that they should be able to Michelle brought up a good point though just so everybody's on the same page is any and all cost of that ditch system to do any of this goes on that system so we're going to have to have a public hearing for abandonment right right so there's a little bit of cost there we that'll be on that system okay I just I didn't want a later date yeah I just didn't want there to be surprises the petion that we had do you think that's good good enough or do we have to you know go back I mean I don't do we have to revisit all I got a question for Michelle on that because I understand that there's a few absentee owners on that benefited acre part do they have to have 100% or just what percentage do they have to have 51% 51% so so you should be good because I understand you're in more like at the 80% or higher yeah are you in agreement with that Michelle yes so that's not the issue you just need to have every owner of all of those people petitioning signing off so if a parcel has four Property Owners all four of those individuals need to sign the petition Michelle in the benefited Acres yes benefited Acres so there's two you can either get 51% of the Total Property Owners oh I get she 51% of benefited Acres 51 it said 51% of the land owners which which which Mike and I are more than 51% of the of the land owner that the ditch is on no it has to be benefited Acres okay so we did do the calculation you don't quite need that 51% but it was still it still you just need to make sure that you've got enough benefited Acres represented Yeah by percentage of Acres I didn't read where it said that you needed 100% wayo nope no okay so does that make sense gentlemen so we just need 51% of the benefit benefited Acres owners land owners so you shouldn't have to worry about the absentee ones are the ones I understand there was a few you couldn't find right so that should be a fairly easy fix yeah we just got to revisit them to get additional signatures yeah okay and and honestly if you take care of the 15 grand unless you guys pretty much petition for something there's going to be nothing in there until it gets if it gets turned back or whatever that's that's the point yep it's like you said just like EXL thing there yeah why we wanted to come to yeah thank you okay all right thank you thank you thank you Christine Chris and Michelle for working with them on this appreciate it anything else Chris all right ditch authorities adjourned to 1057 turn it back to Door [Applause] chair commissioner meeting updates anybody have anything commissioner Bon y start with you she's giving you the nice smile I uh I don't really have anything for I think I had just had the one um radio meeting other than that that was about it yeah and the other one we had together was with the city of Sock Rapids and Chris I can go next Mr chair if you'd like uh just a handful of things commissioner pop and I were able to attend the Soil and Water Conservation District meeting on the 18th of December Bernie th's last meeting trying to remember how many years 18 or something yeah that he served on that board so thank him for doing that of course we had our B Christmas party I think most of us were attendant on that um our 12:30 special meeting which was uh on the record books for commissioner kinsky getting it done in less than a half an hour and uh commissioner kinsky and I also were able to uh attend the BET Communications quote unquote uh what's the term I want ribbon cutting ribbon cutting down at St George township hall you know that's where their location is and and able to thank uh Donnie Martin was there from the their board and um Chad keenig and Cheryl scapanski for met Communications and so we did that uh last week down at St George Town Hall uh last uh Thursday afternoon so fun to be a part of that um and then commissioner pop and I had a uh a subcommittee meeting yesterday with Chris and Monty and our County attorney Kathleen and our assistant County attorney Michelle uh to to introduce ourselves and have a good conversation with John colb uh from rinky Nan who uh we do have on retainer to help us with some training Authority issues so that was really good was a good meeting lasted about an hour and so I think we left there with good communication and understanding of whose roles or what so that's all I had thank you I'm sorry M Mr chair I had one more so on December 18th we had uh career solution staff appreciation day and we served lunch to the staff okay great um and as Mr John said I went to the S swcd um you bailed out a little earlier when they got into this well sealing deal we have somebody that wants to seal a bunch of Wells up in Northwest bton County that are irrigation well is going to be sealed for that and I don't know how they're they were going to contact Bowser to see how much money they could actually put towards this but if they approved those well ceilings it was going to virtually take all of the funds that are available for the rest of the county for 2020 five so I don't know what they did with that um then we had the be board meeting prior to the the little Christmas deal yeah and we had uh we got one opening on the board and we haven't reached out to anybody yet to uh well they they selected a candidate and I don't know if he he actually um accepted the position but was application only and I was surprised we had five applicants that wanted to be on that board which was really interesting I mean couple of them didn't meet the requirements of you know they had a business and it wasn't in the county and they didn't live in the county they were just trying to do business in the county so um I thought that was really good and then on the 20th of uh of the month we had uh Micah interviews all day we've interviewed six candidates um we selected one and she returned she rejected the position when Rec so he went to the second one uh Nathan Johnson from uh private uh uh lobbying firm has accepted it so we we had another meeting on the 23rd on Monday and tried to do it we did it by Zoom to set what the compensation and all that was he did accept the position and we're still working on a salary package for him so he'll I I think he's really I mean I was there was four out of the six are really good candidates that you can work with um I think the one that rejected it from the league of cities I think the league of cities came back and says you know oh no no no we're going to give you this much more money so I think that's what happened there um so that part is we'll be moving forward and we do have be meeting tomorrow um and I don't think we've you know you going to do Zoom or do you want I'll do Zoom okay um or if if somebody else wants to be on it yeah it'll be you got I got yeah I'll I'll take care of it for this time yet I I'm probably have to take care of it for longer because I'll be on the executive committee one more year you let's talk about that on Monday yeah okay all right that was it that's all that I had if I could Mr chair just expand quickly I was there for the conversation on the well and remember uh did you about the guy that fell in oh yes that part that is actually what I was going to say but they had really good discussion about it put this the soil water conservation board in this position of if we expend all these dollars on one property owner is it a good use of taxpayer money because now you've got all these other well ceilings applicants that came in and there's no money there's no money because we spent them all on one which is going to be developing something MH yeah so that was good discussion and it was a and I don't know they were going to contact Bowser to see if it was even legal to to spend that all on one client their inclination was Bowser would tell them it's your Grant dollars figure out what to do with it yeah so anyways right nothing any other commissioner comments not requiring board action what on the ledge that's all I got you like that comment I do I like I I believe the pasture would have to sign some of those documentation no cuz we changed those um okay set Committee of the Halls M before I do that can I just I I'd like to read this email like I just got a little bit ago and it's from Laura Oley she's the program manager for bolock engineering she says the city of Gilman received wonderful news over the last few day weeks as they received their letter of conditions from USDA for their infrastructure project once again this project would not be possible without the support of Benton County again appreciate all the assistance and looking forward to seeing this project get underway great wow that's great news that is good news did you know that Chris yeah um I have a meeting with bag Engineers on Friday to discuss the project so that's awesome did you I did not so now it's back on schedule I I just learned this on Thursday last week I got an email so we set up a meeting for Friday to to talk about that so USDA Grant I'm assuming yeah um they found out yep that's right at the end of the year great yeah awesome I thought I'd mention that you thanks mon so M CH just a couple things for committ the whole calendar uh February 13th is transportation day at the Capitol um the event begins at 9:30 a.m. in St Paul uh any folks interested in attending Transportation day at the capitl February 13th that's a Thursday begin at 9:30 in St Paul uh this is Minnesota Transportation Alliance yes sir transportation of which we are a member yes okay of which we are a member um Chris are you attending do you know the 13th I believe I can I haven't I haven't signed up yet but oh that's January I got to get into February I have it on my calendar and I'm I would like to attend I do have a note to cancel it a week ahead of time for you but they do ask for registration prior so um and appears that they're they facilitate making meetings with legislators uh during the day so the event is like all basically all day 9:33 looks like y we're down there I think the week after is that for the legislator conference two weeks two weeks at this point commissioner Johnson and Chris okay and we can facilitate registration for you okay all right second Kristen sheeta uh invites you to participate in a uh update of the Benton County Hazard mitigation plan uh a little bit of a tricky Challenge on this one because this is going to be done uh virtually as a zoom type meeting so um board members certainly could participate uh remotely but again it would be considered it would need to be a publicly accessible location and we need to publish your address so one simple answer to this is perhaps you all could participate from here uh via Zoom rather than at dispersed remote locations now you certainly could we just need to make sure we' publish your address um three days prior date again Monty I think we have an email March 4th that is a Tuesday at from 2: to 3 March 4th Tuesday from 2: to 3 I have it on my calendar we should just schedule a bunch of Committee of the holes that day and take it a whole day day you out no I'm I'm in uh so for the moment we'll assume that you all will participate here in the boardroom uh will join the meeting virtually if somehow something comes up we just need your address before historically Mr chair you know at this first meeting you've scheduled like the employee forums the Human Services cows my thought may be it might be good to talk about this at your goal setting session first yep Y and before making any commitments on these yep uh so defer that to your goal setting session and that's all had today Mr chair if I could Monty um I was thinking about this the other day and I had made a few notes for myself but maybe the board should consider if they have any goal topics in mind that we get that off to him thank you yes like ASAP so he can kind of put that I was thinking about that myself having an agenda for you you bet yep some topics mon did you got the card for the township Association bcap meetings February 20th yeah that's why I pulled it out 7:30 p.m. at mindent Town Hall so that's the the wi meeting y ecat Bon County Association townships I'm sorry could you repeat that date again February 20th 7:30 at mindent Town Hall Bon Town Hall okay and just again quick reminders uh you'll be joining us here 8:30 on Monday the 13th uh you you'll be meeting first with GLT uh and Pete from kgr and also discussing the boards and commissions appointment and then we'll we'll uh recess and travel down to dwell then for goal setting at Jack and Jims on also on the 13th M Town Hall Mr chair go ahead um Monty uh Tuesday January 14th there's a meeting at the government center um that we should probably just make note on I know it's not um on our call right now but we should probably make what I'm sorry what is that that is the um Tuesday January 14th from 6:00 to 9: and it is on the solar project from open house open house Public Utilities Commission presenting what time I'm sorry isn't that is it that soet City Hall yes yes saket City Hall could you repeat that time it's a government center right y yeah okay oh that's this week right from 6:00 to 9: it's tomorrow yeah it's no it's the 14th isn't it the 14th oh I'm sorry oh the 14th next week oh good I thought we we were talking earlier was this week so but it's next week we're good to go then we'll add that to the committee the whole calendar okay y then we got the be annual meeting is on the and we carry those as standing we always have those on on our calendar you bet yep same day as County yeah motion motion to approve the call second motion made second and all in favor I I anybody opposed come on um we're adjourned at 11:09