e yeah e e e e everybody ready yep we call order to Ben County Board of Commissioners meeting please join us for the Pledge of
Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay roll call note that all
Commissioners are here except for commissioner pop and he is excused approve or amend the agenda Monty we have no changes board motion to approve the uh agenda is presented Mr chair second got a motion
in a second any further discussion if not I'll call the question all in favor say I I I oppos motion carries thank you County board meetings are broadcasted live and video recorded on YouTube please refrain from speaking from the audience area and come to the podium so
that the viewers can hear you County Board observes Robert's Rules of Order for its meetings so please obtain the board's chair's consent before addressing the County Board public comments are generally reserved for the open form segment or public hearings
however public comment on other agenda items may be allowed at the discretion of the board chair as we begin today please turn off the cell phones or turn them on to vibrate thank you Beth nothing on the open form thank
you uh Cent agenda what would we like to do with one through 10 move approval I I'm going hold it okay we've got a motion so we have to act on that motion I'll second it okay we got a
motion and a second further discussion commissioner Beno I would like to pull consent item number five and consent item number 10 and abstain from two okay I'll amend my motion to include
those also amend my second thank you thank you motion May seconder okay with that I'll call the question all in favor say I I I oppos motion carries okay commissioner Benoy number five that one I just I wasn't on the board when all of this came up so
just a brief explanation as to what that [Music] is sure so uh 2024 was the first year of our three-year class en comp maintenance program so the the county board entered
an agreement with David drown Associates to review a third of our classifications each year for possible reclassifications or Market adjustments and uh I believe those recommendations were presented last fall well with your any employee that's covered by a collective bargain
agreement in order for you to implement those changes you have to have an agreement a negotiated agreement and we have because we have contracts in place through the end of this year you you formalize that agreement through this document a memorandum of agreement so
it's kind of a an addition to or an amendment to the existing three-year CBA and basically the union says okay yeah we agreed how you want to implement this and there the members vote on it and then they sign off on it so that's why this is on your agenda and this is
actually we have eight bargain units and this is the the last one uh that we have an agreement with so this will then have all of our groups settled okay thank you good got your clarification on that I did okay we'll take uh number 10 too
commission uh number 10 I just know that we discuss some stuff in the cow on how to reduce costs at the sheriff's department yes so I know this was brought up at oura to try and see if
there was other options to try and cut that back I agree commissioner but night did commissioner Heinen commissioner kinsky have an opportunity to meet with the sheriff about this no we have not yet I see Troy has with us by goto just Troy would you like to comment on
that certainly so we routinely seek um what the updated pricing is going to be for the the coming year um this is the the price that our food vendor asking I know that
in preparation for the meeting with uh Commissioners ginsky and Heinen we have s some additional bids to see what uh what else is out there and how competitive this bid is I don't have results of that I do know that uh in the
past when we've gone out for bid that some foods have been has been very competitive and or they've been willing to match the other pits uh a 3.8% increase I think is is very reasonable given given the times we live
in and it's the lowest one we've seen in several years so I I'd be willing to entertain any other questions that board might have Mr chair Sheriff um that 287,000 was and I haven't done the math here but it's based on how many inmate population because I know you have a
chart here that shows that it you know obviously the price goes down the higher number of inmates we have but what was that number based off of for inmat you know yeah uh I believe when I did the math on that I I figured an average
daily population of 40 35 or 40 okay and right now what's our current population it's it's been going in between 35 and 40 okay thank you any other questions for Troy uh actually Mr chair I do have one more what's the
timeline on this uh Sheriff I I mean I you know the Commissioners haven't met with you yet about this for some other possib IL so do we have a strict timeline or is there something we can hold off on a little bit so I of course waiting commiss High's return uh we discussed getting with these two board
members and getting some dates today uh to have that first meeting so so do we have time to hold off on this then I guess is my question that's a question for Troy I I what is the time frame to get this adopted when does the current contract expire by the way the the
current Amendment expired on February 1st okay uh um if if uh if you'll permit I can uh I can find the original agreement and find what our opt out is my suspicion is that
we have the ability to terminate um this amendment for the for the terms of the original agreement I can if you'll uh if you'll permit I will see if I can find that quickly yeah you can certainly table
this and discuss it later in today's meeting if you wish yeah yeah it's your poll you what would you like to do with it I'd like to table it till we have more information okay okay excuse me so commissioner buono
what would you like to do with number five um I'll make a motion to approve to approve I'll second that okay we got a motion and a second any further discussion on that I'll call the question all in favor say I I motion carries and then number 10 table it
uh I'll let her it's her I'll make a motion to table that till later in the meeting okay thank you and I'll second that also okay got clarification on that everyone's okay with that okay if not I'll call that question all favor say I I post motion carries thank
you we'll be getting back to you Troy okay next up Monty uh the next item is agenda is a public hearing to consider creating a local Housing Trust Fund uh before opening a public hearing we will first
hear from County staff and mich I'd like to ask Amanda if she could come to the podium and address this issue for you you were kind of ready for this weren't you yes was okay figured I would be good morning um Pony board morning um
I'd like to just kind of give you a little bit of background on uh establishing this local Housing Trust Fund for the county um essentially the Housing Trust Fund is um going to be a a permanent source of funding for
continuing to re um meet some of our housing needs as it relates to um when we established uh the or I should say we established the housing study back in 2023 um finalized that housing study and
there's a lot of um information in that housing study that suggests that there's a a huge housing need in the county um we identified a need of of 3,800 units across the county um part of that is um implementing that housing study across the county right um and one of those
ways is to establish this local Housing Trust Fund and the local Housing Trust Fund is essentially a tool to park some of the local um housing aid dollars into so that we can utilize those funds for various different programming um across
the county in addition um establishing the local Housing Trust Fund um allows us to leverage um additional dollars from the state of Minnesota and other sources um for example um Minnesota housing um
right now has uh an RFP out there um for us to um apply to leverage additional dollars um we can apply for up to $225,000 um but the only caveat to that
is that we have a a tool at the county um such as our local Housing Trust Fund to um Park those funds if you will uh the Housing Trust Fund um really is uh a tool
to uh establish different types of programming so one of the programming um options that we're proposing um after the establishment of this Housing Trust Fund is to um create a revolving uh Loan
Fund a fix up fund if you will um for uh some of our existing housing stock we know that our our existing housing stock is um needs some work in their County um it's older um so that this Housing Trust
Fund is a tool to kind of help establish some of those programs such as that fix up fund if you will so part of um establishing this ordinance there's a couple different um components to the ordinance itself so the obviously the purpose is is that it
it Parks those funds for us um that we receive from the state of Minnesota um there's eligible activities um that you can designate within the trust fund um to utilize those funds for different programming as I mentioned we can make
grants we can make loans um it doesn't necessarily have to be for lowincome project it can be for market rate projects it can be for a wide variety of different projects that we can create programming for the caveat to that is that we need to create a a program um a
policy and an application and that's identified within the Housing Trust Fund ordinance um another caveat to establishing the Housing Trust Fund is that we have to have a dedicated re um a dedicated
source of funding for this particular ordinance and the dedicated source funding is um a couple of different things that we have already established um the local housing a dollars um has been um uh dedicated or allocated to be
to manage that on behalf of the county and those funds are in a separate account already and earning interest um they have been earning interest um since the time that we've been uh securing those funds on behalf
of the county and our current balance in that local housing aid um account is um 242,656 a31 and of course that's with earning interest over the the past couple of
years um so that's a dedicated source of funding also the investment earnings from that fund is considered a a dedicated source of funding so we must have a dedicated source of funding in order to establish the Housing Trust
Fund okay so those are two dedicated sources other dedicated sources can come from um local uh municipalities if they're doing projects in their city and they dedicate a portion of fees if you
will uh to the trust fund they can do that um we can have private investors um dedicate source of private dollars into this trust fund so really it is a tool uh for us to park additional dollars
whether it's private or public money okay um the administration of the Housing Trust Fund really um uh we have it uh identified here as the nonprofit administrator um
be has been um dedicated to provide the administration of the housing trust fund and as as well as the local housing uh County's local housing aid dollars and so we would be the ones um bet and economic partnership would be the ones
to administer the Housing Trust Fund and any U funds that go into this uh account um so we will be the ones administering specific programs authorized by the ordinance um again creating applications
programs policies um and then determining the terms and conditions of repayments of the loans or the grants that we issue so any projects um that we work on um utilizing these Housing Trust
Fund dollars will have a program in place we'll have an application in place um and will be the ones administering it on behalf of the county so essentially those are the nuts and bolts of creating this ordinance again a tool for the
county to to Park public and private dollars and leverage addition funding through the state and another um you know Federal apparently too as well so I will open it up for questions if
you have any uh at this time we'll we'll save that for the end at this time we'll now open the public hearing is there anyone in the audience or online who wishes to address the County Board on this agenda item if so please come to the podium and give us your name and
your address anybody wishing to speak on this matter Final Call for anyone wishing to address the County Board okay seeing none the public hearing is now closed are there any emails letters Communications to be
right into the record other than what you've already read uh no has the department received any comment ments or concerns from any state agencies cities or townships on this agenda item no thank you uh let's see if if any
official action was required by an affected Township was that what was that action and there was none I'm assuming none okay County Board now will have time for questions of staff and discussion as reminder to the audience
the public hearing portion is closed now we can open it up for questions Mr chair a couple questions Amanda um County board or Eda which board is going to be helping manage this making decisions it'll be the County
Board okay um also if I'm understanding you correctly um the Statewide affordable housing aid those dollars year after year will go into this local trust fund it'll be it's already going into an account a separate account but
it'll be um facilitated and managed through the local housing aid and then I and I knew the 120,000 plus we had last year and now I see the 25 certified Aid is down to 50 what you know what the formula is why that's so much less yeah
so it's going to be all over the place it maybe um and and it's it's not certain um whether or not the state is going to continue to dedicate local housing aid dollars to communities um but again um we do have to have a dedicated source of funding and even
though it is uh even if that funding source is is shut off if you will um we still have the interest earnings from the account to consider it um the dedicated source of Revenue and then you'll treat that revolving Loan Fund
like you do with the other where you the paperwork comes in let's get reviewed and we approve or deny it um essentially we will work with a third party that will actually um administer they they specialize in administering um small
loans like that okay and so they have it already set up we already have a I have a draft policy in place and um an application and I'll come to the county board with that information um and uh essentially it'll be up to um be to
manage that once that policy and program and application is already in place so I won't necessarily need to come to the county board for every loan okay that will be that will to be administered thank you yes any other questions for Amanda I'm good I just got one comment
Mr chair thank you again for be stepping up on this if not we'd be figuring it out on our end or not happening right be has taken on a lot of things for us and truly appreciate this too thank you happy to do
so okay all right then with that M Mr chair I'll make a motion to adopt an ordinance establishing a local Housing Trust Fund and directing its publication in the county official newspapers a second okay we've got a motion and a second any further discussion if not I'll call the question
all in favor say I I I opposed motion carries thank you Amanda for doing this truly appreciate it yes thank you yes thank you okay at this time we'll recess the County board meeting to conduct an economic development Authority Eda
meeting might as well just stay up here then you might as well just keep standing um I'm going to try to pull up a Pres real quick Mr chair why she's getting ready or do we want to do our housekeeping and the other stuff that is
correct so at this point in time we'll have to select a chair and a vice chair for the Eda and in the past it's always been the chair and the vice chair of the board that is on this so Mr chair I'll I'll make a motion that we uh nominate
the commissioner pop as the chair and commissioner Heinen as the vice chair for the Eda for the 2025 calendar year I'll second okay we got a motion and a second any further discussion on this if not I'll call the question I'll favor
say I I I opposed motion carries approve or amend the minutes of June 18 2024 meeting move approval second we got a motion and a second any further discussion if not I'll call the question
all in favor say I I I opposed motion carries thank you am Amanda consider a microloan request thank you um chair and um Commissioners we have a new microloan request from odm Medical Group um odm
Medical Group is um 100% owned by Dr Robert Odum um he's been in business for eight years um they operate as a primary care clinic um they are uh offering a bunch of different Services they're considered a rural Health Clinic um they
offer primary services including acute care routine preventive care chronic disease management um physical behavioral and mental health um care for the community um they also operate um they currently
operate out of two locations um in Crystal and in St Cloud Minnesota this will be their third location um in fully Minnesota they offer mobile services which is quite unique for a medical facility um they um will be able to go
out into our rural communities and um offer Medical Care um they are proposing to build a brand new Clinic here in Foley Minnesota um located at 700 pen Street um this is the location I don't
know if I need to do anything for my our online folks I don't know if they can see this or if they need but um I'd have to do a share screen and inside goto meeting so um do we need do that if
you'd like me to sure okay um so the the new location will be at 700 Penn Street um the construction of the building will be one floor roughly 6,000 square feet oh we could just leave it if if
that's fine if that works for you um it will include 12 exam rooms um an x-ray room a lab three offices a large open office area mechanical room janitorial room um and a secure record storage
area uh the applicant is requesting a $140,000 microloan to construct their new facility um the request that they're um proposing represents about 4.4% of the total project cost um obviously
underneath the maximum allowed by thank you um a maximum allowed by the County's policy it's underneath that um our threshold is actually 35% um their um project is you know has
gone through all the government zoning um requirements and um and all of the uh state and federal regulations they comply with all of that they are proposing to create at least seven full-time jobs at $25 an
hour um the primary lender is franceen Bank in fulley total project cost is just over 3.3 million and um they are putting in roughly
$191,000 of owner Equity um total Bank participation of 1.6 and um their request from Minnesota business Finance Corporation of 1.3 so that leaves um a
rough gap of 140,000 so our loan Comm I'll just give you a quick synopsis of their the rendering of their facility it's a very nice facility um the be loan committee
reviewed and vetted their loan on January 10th 2025 they thoroughly reviewed it excuse me and recommended approval of the $140,000 microloan request um advertised over 20 years with a 10-year
balloon payment uh interest rate of .5% and it is proposed that the county will take third position on their collateral and real estate which is um typical in this type of um project it is also going to be secured
through mortgage and um personal guarantees the applicant also understands that the County's policy it requires full collateral coverage personal guarantees and life insurance policies on the loan
itself I just have one one uh statement that um Dr Odum was not able to attend today he has a another meeting that he just could not um uh cancel to be here but he wanted to thank the board for
supporting this loan to build a primary care uh clinic in Foley Minnesota it will provide Health Care access in the county and Beyond the city and much of the county are designated medically underserved um and this is a rem remarkably important loan to help
improve this need so I just wanted to provide that um little statement even though he wasn't able to be here um he wanted to express his gratitude to the county board and the E and the Eda um again just kind of a recap of the
revolving loan fund request and the county action this morning is to approve by motion a resolution approving um a $140,000 micr loan for Odom Medical Group with a 20-year am um 10-year balloon 5.5%
interest and execute of the loan documents by the county administer and the board chair one comment I would like to make um in relations to the um the loan documents that you have
in your packet um at the time that those loan documents were delivered to you on um with the packet in general General there's just been some minor changes to the overall loan documents some um just minor very minor administrative changes
and then the only major change would be to the actual mortgage itself instead of AO aom Medical Group um being the mortgager it's actually um
Odum realy Holdings because they're the ones that own the real estate so that's it's just a um administrative change there but I just wanted to point that out in your loan docs and those changes will be noted in that then correct the the changes um are
already uh updated and um they will be ready for your signatures but thank you commissioner kinsky uh Amanda all the other the banks and everything are all on board with the changes to yes absolutely M Amanda how much how much do we have in
a revolving Loan Fund I think you knew I was going to ask you that I knew that you were going to ask that um so we have uh as of December 31st um our ending cash balance was $933,000
60 um we have four loans out to date and the total principal balance is uh $ 25,33 7.77 um last year interest earnings um we received just over
$199,000 in interest earnings from those loans thank you you're welcome I'll make a motion oh go ahead no go right ahead I'll make a motion to approve the microloan for Odum medical or Odum reality autom Medical Group
autom Medical Group for 140,000 I'll second it okay we've got a motion in a second do we need to include the 20 year actually if you just um amend your motion to approve the resolution um
it'll help us execute the okay the Lo amend my motion to include the resolution thank you I'll second that also okay great thank you motion maker and seconder okay we've got a motion and a second any further discussion on [Music]
this thank you for everything you're doing once again yes on behalf of the County Board happy to do it okay with not with that I'll call the question I'll in favor say I I opposed motion carries once again thank you very much Amanda thank
you anything else in front of us Amanda for Eda board unless you have any questions I wanted to review you know the the loan summaries that we had which you asked about so I don't have anything else further okay thank you at this point in time we'll adjourn the Eda
board at 9:29 and recess our regular board meeting reconvene Rec uh reconvene sure sure recess reconvene you know all the same well yeah so far
okay next up I don't see an in the audience extension educator introduction to the new extension Educators that'd be you great morning to the County Board morning morning morning is not with us this morning but two of us um my name is
Lauren Hees I'm the small farms in Local Foods educator for Benton as well as Stern moris and Sherburn counties um since we both started I started in August Jackie started early September um my areas of focus since then have been
largely land rent um grant writing support and AGR tourism the AGR tourism question has been brought up many times the first um the first Workshop I held for AGR tourism was last Monday um that
was in St Joseph but we had attendees from all four of the counties that we serve several from Benton as well um and last fall Jackie and I both hosted a few um land rent workshops as well a few in person and then um one webinar format as
well um and coming up we've got an organic row crops day that we're holding um right outside of St Cloud at the end of March that's going to cover um from soil and Crop Production to marketing
and economic side of things it's going to be um like 4our event with a range of speakers covering those topics as well as a farmer panel and personally next fall I'm working on building a small farm startup School that'll be with um the other
Educators in the quad counties as well as partnership with another educator in a neighboring County who's done this program before so we're now working on what format it'll be whether it's um single day event that is brought around different locations or one location
that's spread out in more of um multi-day Workshop type setup um additionally I have a grant writing curriculum that I'm working on that's carried on from my predecessor Anthony who had been working on grant writing program um and when he was in this
position too he had noted that grant writing and Grant support was something that was um very established as being in need so and I'm I love working with grants I've done um grant writing in the past and served on Grant boards review boards and I've done um worked in a
grant writing um group as well work um I think cyber security is another program that is in the works something that has been established as in Need No Farmers who've had um a lot of trouble with that and it's a growing issue so that's
something that is going to get developed over the summer um as well as next year looking into 2026 an AGR tourism passport situation so it's still very broad but it's likely
going to be a um a document that is a self-guided tour setup which would have locations for different um producers farmers in the Quad County area where we work including Benton um that have AGR
tourism operations whether it's upick situations Flower Farms tours educational things um and so that's out into 2026 I think that's it for the current
planned and then proposed things um but Jack you want to go and then we could take any questions you have well hello everyone my name is Jackie estam I am the sustainable egg soil Health mod quality educator for stern bent Morrison and Sherburn compies um I just want to highlight a couple
events that have coming up for the area um the first chronologically is PES private pesticide applicator training that is a training that basically anyone who handles restricted use pesticides needs to have a certification and that training helps um everyone with that
certification renew their license so it's basically like a three-year license and they have to renew it um so one of the workshops will be in duelm on February 25th um there are also other workshops around the state and U ofm extension has um a website with details for those so if Growers can't come to
that specific Workshop there are also other options and if they're a little bit far away or if Growers just don't want to come to the workshop there is option to retest as well um so that's one of the constraints of agronomic efficiency um and so that program it bounces around the state a little bit um
but this year it'll be coming to Becker that'll be the first three weeks in April uh the program is a requirement for the irrigation endorsement on the Minnesota egg water quality certification program I don't know if you've seen maybe signs on farms that see say um clean land waterer Legacy uh
but those uh that program there's an irrigation endorsement and the Minnesota irrigators program is a requirement to receive that endorsement um it is also um eligible for CCA um ceu credits so for certified crop advisors they need to do some continuing education that
program is um is is good for that uh so that's kind of what I'm working on just for the upcoming few months to be brief does anyone have any questions Mr chair ahead uh Lauren and Jackie maybe just for the sake of the board to understand maybe how where your officing out of and
you know how you kind of do some of your travels between the four counties I think would help them get a bigger picture of how you guys do your thing yeah so both of us are officed out of Elk River um quite honestly I do spend a lot of times a lot of time in the different counties I think last week
um I was not in my main office at all quite honestly but I do bounce around a little bit so I'll be at different offices depending on who I'm meeting I know I've come to Benton County a few times um just to meet with um local Growers with s swcd I've met with um some folks I guess I would say prominent
growers in the county um so just depending on what I'm doing that day I'll be kind of Hosting out of a different a different office each day thank you yeah each of the four counties has a dedicate extension space so we do have a desk to
work at depending on what area we're working in then um but yeah like it really depends on what we're doing the our desk space is in Elk River but we spend a lot of time out outside of that and just as a side note we do have our annual meeting with the quad counties coming up next Monday so Ed and I will
be at that with our Educators and'll be our annual get together so great you thank you thank you welcome yeah thank you thank you okay next up Human Services Sandy and at this
point in time I'm actually turn this over to commissioner ginsky because he was chair at the time this letter was sent to him yes uh thank you commissioner Heinen uh this uh this letter is basically giving uh Kudos and on performance and Reporting from the
whole human services staff um we had a perfect performance record what I find is uh a little bit alarming this is based on uh uh a perfect reporting performance and and this was for the year of 2023 and they finally got it to
us 2025 25 yeah and they're and and they did say they're hoping to get the 2024 out in uh in the summer of this year so go ahead maybe explain a little bit what what is all included what you guys do in this and well this is kind of impromptu
she wasn't expecting this but I do have two of the people from our fiscal unit here um I was just going to read a sumary the letter but let you I'll let Ashley here and talk a little bit about the 32 reports I think that were involved in this they were all timely um we got a nice Kudos letter as you all
are looking at um but I think that's pretty impressive and I'm hopeful that our 2024 will look the same way Ashley I I think Sandy I think at this point in time or during this presentation we should probably read the letter yeah absolutely because I think the word
perfect is is pretty strong exactly yeah right I can do that while Ashley's preparing what she's gonna say um um so it is from commissioner jod harpstead from the Department of Human Services dear commissioner ginsky it is my pleasure to commend you and your staff
for the perfect performance in meeting the department of human services financial reporting requirements for the calendar year 2023 all key quality fiscal reports for programs in your county your county participates in were submitted to our financial Operations Division on or
before the report deadlines in perfect order the effort required submissions of 32 major reports covering four calendar quarters of 2023 these reports are the local collaborative Time study mhib Consolidated fund client statistics
Seager Income Maintenance expense Social Service fund title 4E and the brass based grant fiscal report I know that this accomp accomplishment requires planning and an efficient operation and teamwork within your County Human Services Department
the result of this timely revenue for your county in compliance with federal reporting for us at the state please congratulate your management and staff on this subb effort thank you for reading that Sandy yes Ashley want make
comment are you sure oh I really didn't come to give a presentation today so I guess I won't call it a presentation um I can't take full credit for 2023 is work because Peggy celiac my predecessor was here for
the first 6 months than I was here for the last six um so hopefully our 2024 letter will look just as good as our 2022 but we uh we do have many reports that we do quarterly as well as monthly um a lot of our monthly reporting that
we do does ensure our accuracy if our quarterly um I don't know do you guys have any questions specific to these reports other than there was a couple couple perfect words in there you know which very highly and it really I I
asked the rest of my group if they would like to come and they all said we're too busy which kind of stresses that it is a huge team effort on the fiscal group um it takes every single person so Mr chair and Ashley and Sandy if I can make one
comment we attended the Micah legislative conference last week and I know commissioner Bo Beno and myself looked at each other a few times when they presented the an very Antiquated systems that you use I mean we were totally shocked in how old these systems are and I mentioned that a little bit
yesterday at the Cow but it's amazing when you put that together with this type of congratulations and perfect letter because of those systems being so outdated and it was a whole new thing um coming in a year and a half ago looking at the systems and kind of you know what
you're used to and then sort of like you said going back in time yeah exactly like 20 plus years so anyways you could get lost in one of these reports let alone 32 so that's off to you and your your team and Sandy thank you we
appreciate the recognition too thank you thank you thank you commissioner ginsky for running this one great so let's move on Monty consider County Board attendance to the National Association of County
and City Health officials jacine ask as you all could make some choic voes today about who's going to attend this event April 29th through May 2nd in San Antonio Texas I recall she said there's resources to send up to three board members uh to this conference so are you
prepared to make some decisions today so I am a member of this organization so yes I plan on attending Mr chair I did check my calendar I will not be able to attend um I was going to check with AMC about paying for my portion but uh
things got a a little derailed down there so I I would like to attend but uh I'm still working on the AMC portion of it baring to mind though I think jacqu says we have a Brant covered here so so we you still need to
check I I would like to attend too yeah okay all right um commissioner pop well that certainly gets uh uh jacine started in terms of making reservations and and so on so forth so I think that was the
issue is the need to get some things reserved and get that going commissioner pop wanted to attend but he's got other things he has to attend during that so we'll ask jacqu to follow up with commission kinsky soon okay no I'll I'll go it's just a matter of we're going to cover on this grant or the AMC oh I see
kind of the source of funds okay that helps thank you cuz this fits right in my AMC uh got it and and I they can go ahead and make reservations and that started and I'm glad you're going to attend because this sits in with your public safety all
righty next um your report Monty yes did you clarify it a little bit so we can understand it there it is yeah all
right let's see of course I should have had this ready beforehand so we'll get there let's see here talking to
himself enough that he can hear it all right so at your at your at your goal setting meeting you asked to have this monthly financial report uh discussed as a regular item rather
than consent so that's why it is here for you a little bit of History so I think when I first started uh 22 years ago there there wasn't a monthly financial report coming to the board and I think there was the desire you know I remember back then uh you know there was
a lot of fiscal stress going on U Levy limits state aid cuts and I think uh it was really important to keep a very close eye on the county budget and and fund balances I recall uh the county was spending down
its cash balances to help you know have lower levies and so there was a lot of interest in what what's our cash balances and so on so there's a lot of history behind this report of you know why you got these pieces and why it was done so it was really initially done as
a tool for the County Board I do share this with department so they see what you see um so so they they know what's what's coming to you all it's really pretty simple it just shows you budget versus actual for each of the months it gives you a year-to date total and it
shows you percent of budget collected uh in terms of Revenue or percent spent uh this is a good time to look at this because it's to the end of December and uh most departments ended the year under budget which is pretty typical most departments going to spend about 97 98%
of their budget there was one notable area that was over and it was in Corrections and you can see here I mean if I can make this a little bit larger make it a little bit larger it's one click too
many with uh Corrections you can see they spent 10 14.9% of their budget and that was that was all about line of lakes in juvenile boarding it went way over that is a really tough one to predict it it can be very volatile from
year to year up and down and obviously 24 was a was a big year um I know there's had been discussions about should we have another contracted bed and so on my response there has been because we're a member we pay the member rate so it only becomes an issue if they
run out of beds and we've got to board our kids elsewhere so I think so far we're able to get beds and we're paying the member rate so may that's a good discussion for criminal justice Committee in the future so uh you this
report is it's broken out by the major funds so for example you see the General Revenue fund first then here you have the Road and Bridge fund fund 13 I should also just mention is you know why do we have these funds why why is it set up this way well generally counties are
required to follow an account structure set forth by the state auditor the state auditor puts out this big book it says okay counties this is the fund structure you should follow and we follow that that's where it comes from and even the within that the accounts that you use
the account structure that's also set forth by the state auditor so that's what we follow so you got the Human Services fund which includes Public Health and Social Services and uh that fund ended uh spent
95% of its budget one of one of the things you can you can see here is that uh revenues exceeded expenditures by 675,000 so that was a a nice Improvement to the fund balances in Human Services on down the line you see capital
projects a capital projects Highway which includes you can see there the wheelage tax so we budgeted 3.5 million we collected 3,553 th000 so just a little bit over that's been a very solid 3.5 million for a while now and wheelies tax came in
just a little bit over over expectations um so this is where again we accumulate resources for local road projects and then as Chris does a local Road Project we transfer those resources over to the Road and Bridge fund to cover those construction
costs Debt Service fund and then a tax abatement fund so basically these are all the funds that you adopt budgets for so when we talk budgets in the summer these are the funds that are budgeted
for and bottom line you can see we spent 98.3% of the budg budget and again that's very very typical very typical and we we talked in the past about you know how does our fund balance grow well this is a primary reason year
in and year out you spend about 98% that difference is going to is going to go to fund balance and and as usual you know sometimes you spend you you collect just a little more Revenue than you expected that also adds to fund balance so those two factors together why those fund
balances grow gradually over time and I try and footnote um it's it's sort of unusual things that are going on that maybe require some explanation uh that's kind of what I do and the footnotes change from month to
month as situations change and so on so that's really the the key behind the footnotes is something that's kind of unusual uh that may require some explanation for example the revenue in the in the Govern General government was way below expect ations and it's because
our MCAT dividend was way below expectations it was 47,000 it's interesting to note is the MCAT dividend has just plummeted uh it used to be uh two or 300,000 and it just it's really has plummeted so I imagine
their Reserve levels have gone down so the dividend that they're paying out has gone down to so that's another big reason for that so the next Edition is and I I know there's lots of folks here so I'll talk faster this restricted Revenue fund what
is this restricted Revenue fund creature well when I first started here all of this financial activity was in the General Revenue fund so for example the solid waste funds 911 funds
well here's the deal those are all restricted and having those in the General Revenue fund really distorted the resources that you had available for your general purposes so it's really it mischaracterized and it overstated the
res the revenues or resources you had available for General governmental purposes so we created this fund 10 and pulled all that stuff out into this restricted Revenue fund and that's why it exists today it's been pretty stable
over time of what's here uh occasionally We'll add something new like a new GR or something will go away because the grant goes away you can see the the current balance here is almost $6 million of restricted revenues 3.4
million of that is solid waste 3.4 million is a solid waste fund almost 900,000 is the 911 uh for psap those resources so that those are big parts of that there's lots of the smaller ones but those are the
two largest ones by far and and uh basically departments the limitation on this is they can only spend what they have it's they see what the cash is and this is what they have to spend out of these resources so one
thing we try and do I as noticing for example here you got Land Services you got Wetland shortland we always try and maximize using these resources before we use Lev dollars that's always a key part is you know try and use these for
functions to the extent that you can and not use ly dollars do you all have any questions about anything you see on this restricted Revenue fan like you know what's that for what's that all about anything of those catch your eye of you'd like an explanation Mr chair one quick question
on the solid waste Monty is there a maximum that we can continue to build that fund no keep building it yep yeah so when I first started here uh a lot of those resources were getting used because we had uh issued bonds for our
proportionate share of the so-called Morrison County Landfill and so that was a a legitimate reason to continue that assessment because we were paying off debt associated with that landfill that debts been gone for 10 12 years or
more U so the balances on this have grown more rapidly because that the the assessment's been kept at the same level but that debt went away so yeah it's it's grown pretty substantially over the years and we've used it as a source of internal internal borrowing um it's been
an interest free source of so we have a project we want to do we can use this cash to pay for it and then we have to repay it but there's no interest then so that's one thing it's been used for thank you any other questions on
restricted no okay thank you um back a couple years ago the the county decided to go sell funded for insurance so we added this new fund 60 to track the Self Insurance trust fund this is one reason we added this because uh this is a really important
one to keep an eye on you know this is where we pay our medical claims Dental claims Pharmacy claims the revenue is the premiums the county contributes that employees contribute it's also includes reinsurance reimbursement so when a
claim goes above that $75,000 threshold we get reimbursement from the carrier now there's also the the prescription drug rebates I'm sure commissioner kiny you've heard about those we got 252,000 in prescription drug rebates last year
so this has been this was added I added this one because again it's a really important fund to keep an eye on because you know health insurance claims can be very volatile and your your situation can change really quickly so we keep a close eye on this one and one thing I do
try and track at the bottom is okay where do we stand to relative to our um our Reserve threshold our Reserve level well right now we should have reserves about 2.5 million excuse me 2.1 million we should have reserves about 2.1
million we're now sitting in just about a million so we need to continue building those reserves to get to that six month of coverage um so and we're doing that it's just a very slow pace a very slow pace and we track the contingency
account in the old days it was called the commissioner's suspense account and I never knew why I don't know why it was called the suspense account but that's what people call it so I changed it to contingency because that's what it is so you've got
currently 43,000 left in that bucket um you can see there's been a pretty big obligation for the Len Hoffman state capital lobbying and then the BB be funding those are obligations had been paid out when I produced this so after expenditures and obligations there's
43,000 left in the commissioner's contingency lastly cash balances again historically there was a lot of interest in our cash balances and I try and just track those you can see you the blue line is the General Revenue fund so you see that volatility taxes come in twice
a year spent out taxes come back in so there's a lot of that up and down what I really focus on is the low cash point in other words what point in the year have you reached your low cash that's the one I probably watch the most and that's typically in in I
believe it's typically June is when you have that low cash point so pay a lot of attention to that the yellow line is a human services fund balance you can see it's a slow gradual growth over the years Highway and red is very volatile as projects are paid out and and so on I
pay the closest attention to the Blue Line in the yellow line and then you can see the balances and the rest of the governmental funds uh restrict Ed uh and so on and so forth you can see for example we still have 4 let's see 3
3.4 million sitting in oura bucket to be paid out um and so on you can see the balance in the highway Capital project 6.5 million again that's local option and sales tax and so on so again historically that's just a lot of interest in cash balances and and
something we keep a close eye on Mr sh I wanted to just I'll wrap really quickly um so again this report is really you're the audience for it you know could give you that high level summary what's going on with our finances I do share it with departments
what depart I wanted you to see though very quickly what do departments see every month to Bal to monitor their budget so they get two reports they get this one this is a budget versus actual so that I remember I mentioned all those accounts so they get detailed reports
that show okay here's my budget here's my actual for the month here's my year to date so they can monitor things and then lastly they get this account activity report so this has actual detailed transactions to show here's
what you spent your money on yeah and uh this is a good internal control because you know a department can watch this and if something catches their eye and they say hey I don't recognize that I don't recognize that expenditure what was that all about they can look into it and
ident identify if there's an issue so I wanted you to see you know again lots of detail that the perits get that shows what they're they spinning their resources on and this is cumulative for the year it's starts accumulating in January and it builds over the course of the year so they they can see this
Jackie runs this every month and sends out via the Imaging system so Department Mr chair that concludes this do you any thoughts or questions for me on the monthly financial report any questions board thank you appreciate it yes you know what I
thought I would do maybe is like uh uh have this as a regular maybe begin in June so halfway through the year yep uh have it again and review it for you all so maybe a couple times a year at the middle and at the end that sound okay be perfect EXC all right one last thing
Monty one of the things that we should look at is that uh Correctional the line of legs find out how many beds are left there because we ran into that at Anoka where they were down a couple beds that's why we ended up taking that other bed and it's paying off it is yeah we have the member rate M well no because
the member we get member rates on both of them but they were down to like two beds left and people are buying them oh okay then then they don't have we only get the one yep so we bought the other one and it's paying off and I just want to make sure we're monitoring the line of lakes one correct right okay I will
ask Deb to help me with that one so Mr chair if I may move on last item is uh uh mayor of boy from the city of Foley has agreed to be your representative to the region 7w so just asking for your motion to approve appointing mayor uh Voit from City of
Foley to 7w so moved second got a motion and a second any further discussion on this if not I'll call the question all in favor say I I I opposed motion carries thank you thank you Monty okay next Chris Berg all right good morning
Commissioners good morning morning today we're going to talk about our reconstruction project on County state aid 2 if you recall we had originally received uh some partial funding from federal highways for that through the surface Transportation block grant program well because of that that
triggered What's called the section 106 uh process of the National Historic preservation act um even though we've since been able to swap our federal funds away to get additional toate money for this project it triggers the cultural resource unit to mot to do a
review of the project so um that's what's before you today is two resolutions so what needs to be completed is um an archaeological review of the project limits and an archetectural
review there are some land formations based on lidar surveys that possibly indicate possible sites of significance I.E is it a Native American burial ground or something like that um then also the project or the
cultural resource unit needs to do an architectural review and look at houses or structures not necessarily houses but structures that may be 50 years or older and determine if they have any historical significance so this requires some additional consultant
work uh the state aid division of M do does offer an 8020 cost split so what that's what's before you today is two resolutions um agreeing to the 8020 cost split um and and moving forward with
that contract so mindat will hold the consultant contract and then we will reimburse uh mind based on actual costs uh from the consultant to do that so they've already gone through their RFP process and selected a couple
Consultants to to do this work um and those numbers should be in the resolution what are what our our contribution will be I'll just bring that up so we have that 17 220 yeah yeah so that would be total for both
contracts now um those costs do include there's like a level one and level two they may be able to do some uh research literature research and find that there's no architecture or structures within the project limits that have any historical significance and then they
wouldn't have to do some field review although we are being warned that most likely it will Revol uh involve some field review of the archaeological so there may be some test pits dug to see if they they find find anything Mr chair Chris did that field
review indicate anything isn't it Graham uh Cemetery there um I think you in your initial comment was that probably wouldn't be impacted yeah so when you develop these projects there's there's a a thing known as the
ape area up potential effect and so it's a it's a distance on either side of your project that may extend beyond the ride of way so that Graham cemetery is in that area of potential effect Although our construction plans we're moving forward to to not impact uh that that
Cemetery so our grading limits we're going to cut them short we're going to do some things with possibly some curbing gutter maybe some drain tile to handle drain each through there because we are going to widen the roadway with with a shoulder on this project so this particular study is going to verify and take a look at that too yeah the area of
concern though uh for archaeological is near the water near little rake little Little Rock Lake okay when we did that project a few years ago as part of the draw down the same thing occurred then and the results were inconclusive so
fast forward to today that same unit that reviews those wants to take an additional look at that area to make sure that we're not disturbing anything of historical significance and Chris this will be done this spring then I'm assuming it'll most likely be this this summer so uh once we send them the
adopted resolutions if they're adopted today then they'll finalize their contract and then yeah it's going to need to be wait till warmer weather so if they need to do field review they can conclude that so just an editorial this is why reconstruction projects take so many
years although right now we're at a point where we're we're stopped with our design until we get these results back and then then we can move forward so these are things that you got to factor into your timeline in case they they come up there a lot of setbacks through
this project commissioner ginsky yes uh Chris if if there is uh deemed to be some tribal or native there then you'll have to work with the Bia and everything and that takes a lot longer through these 106 uh findings that's right yeah and honestly it's better to do that
now than to Discover it during construction when you have a road tore up a lot of heavy iron sitting there not moving dirt and stuff so um it does behoove us to do this this homework before the project starts Mr chair I'll move for adopting the resolutions committing to the 20% cost share with
mot for this work I'll second get a motion a second any further discussion or questions if not I'll call a question I'll in favor say I I oppos motion carries thank you just for there was two resolutions both resolutions that motion
very good thank you seconder agrees yes resolution okay anything else Chris that's all I have for Highway issues today great thank you right now we'll recess our regular board meeting to go into the Bon County
Community Health Board just give me a minute please thank you thanks Jack those talking about okay moving approve or amend the agenda anything to be added to this I do
have two items to add today I think they should be quick um and given the amount of residents you have in the room today I think we can make them fast and and they are they are they are yep so one would be the regional um Dental coordinator job description that Tessa submitted back to us I just need
approval for that and then a decision on moving forward for that and then we also have an opportunity to apply for some additional grant funding under a ship Grant move move approval of the uh agenda with the noted changes second got a motion and a second any further
discussion on that not I'll call the question I'll favor say I I opposed motion carries thank you uh what would you like to do with consent J item one move for approval Mr chair second second okay we got a motion as second any further discussion if not I call the
question all in favor say I I oppos motion carries Jacqueline consider the letter support request yes so we received a request from the Central Minnesota Mental Center asking for a letter of support from Benton County Public Health they're going to be applying for a grant application to continue working on some um
interventions that they have for children um mostly ages from birth to zero to five um in their Mental Health Service capacity so would like to be able to provide a letter of support if the board is in support of that as well and the next page in your packet is the drafted
letter move for approval Mr chair I'll second got a motion and a second any further discussion if not I'll call the question I'll faor say I I I motion carries thank you next one consider Mo MOA yes so um in followup to our board
meeting that we had back on November 5th where we had approved um the Blue Cross Blue Shield Blue plus um funding grant funding that additional $75,000 for the year to hire a regional Dental coordinator um this is the contract so looking for approval on this contract I'll make a motion to approve
the contract second we got a motion and a second any further discussion question on this contract now I'll call the question all in favor say I I motion carries thank you next we're going to go into the review and approval of the dental coordinator job description yes
so um in that what I just handed out to you today hot off the press I got that back um just over the weekend here um Tessa reviewed our community health specialist job description and added on an addendum to serve as the regional Dental coordinator so that would be on pages six and seven if you want to look
over that um six and seven of that job description is really what that Regional Dental coordinator position would do while they're here with us for that one-year time frame um so I think I would need two decisions today one would be to approve the job description and then the second would be we need to
determine how we would like to um recruit for this position if we want to offer benefits um and run it as a community health specialist or I think it's my understanding and Monty can help me clarify on this one or we could do a contracted position which would not include benefits Monty
uh so this is employee of Bon County which would be covered under the under the abme collective bargain agreement so it would be entitled to all the benefits under the CBA so that really isn't a discretionary issue you can't have it not have benefits so okay unless they're contracted right H is that a Contracting
position though either you're an employee or you're a contractor yeah there's no such thing as a contracted employee yeah right so this person is an employee and because they're an employee they're cover by the CBA which means they get all the benefits under the CBA so it can
choose either or we don't I don't think we have the option to do a contract we don't you don't have the option to either to exclude benefits no but do we have an option to move excuse me Mr chair an option to move into a contracted position instead it depends
so there's there's tests for someone whether you can treat someone as a contractor if you're providing them with with Direction with an office with a computer all those things they're an employ you can't call them a contractor and and typically you know Union are very aware
of that issue because they they're very aware positions being disguised as contractors which really should be employees uh Mr chair Jacqueline maybe can help remind me um when we had the discussion about the approval for the position y the 75 grand did not include
benefits did not include benefits but however on the last page of the packet I handed out um there's a budget breakdown and so this would be my proposal for um so as you know when we asked for the position we had um mentioned that we would fully fund this position out of the grants so the regional Dental
coordinator position would be about 75,000 so my proposal is that we would use that 75,000 towards this position which would include that benefits um cover 75% of that that position cost and then the other 25% of that position we have a Workforce infrastructure Grant
through 2028 and I have the breakdown there so on the bottom lefthand corner in yellow where it says Workforce infrastructure Grant there's a breakdown there um as of today we have $129,000 $387 um left to spend I've got some items there listed that we have
earmarked for certain positions but we're still left over with some dollars and so that that remaining 25% we could cover with that Workforce infrastructure Grant and then there'd even be a little bit of excess there that we could use to cover the laptop and supplies if we needed to purchase and that Grant goes
through 28 this position was approved 25 is approved for one year um and Blue Cross did tell me that you know we they would not ask for the funding back so we would be able to utilize the position until that funding's gone so as you know December 30th um or 31st you know that P wouldn't have to go away if we still
have the money remaining we could continue to work with them until we've exhausted those funds so okay what are the chances that they're going to Mr chair what are the chances they're going to keep that uh going in 26 I think they're they're hoping that they'll be able to um ask again and ask for money
to be reallocated again to these positions regionally but Blue Cross cannot guarantee so at this point in time it would be we would have the position Under the Blue Cross Blue plus funds um to do that Dental coordination work which I think is timely if we're hoping to maybe get um a dental space in
our um in this County building here um in the future you know again if we still have those Workforce infrastructure grants that Grant goes through 2028 so that could be a possibility if we have funds remaining under that Grant otherwise again we'll continue to look for other grants or the position would go away Mr chair just clarify Jaclyn
that 75 grand uh it ends December 31st the cont you H somebody today or June 1st the contract ends December 31st but blue plus did say that they wouldn't ask for the funding back so we could continue to utilize those funds okay um and you could use utilize all of them
before you move into the other Grant dollars yeah yep yeah that would be the plan we would spend spend these down first and then go to our Workforce infrastructure so Jacqueline in the past Sherburn Count's has had this grant uh right do you remember how many years they've had this through them oh gosh I
know at least three well at least three because they had it when I started here right um so they did get renewal you know year after year but again it's not guaranteed y yeah got it thank you for that information so I just look at it as you know this is how many hours in a
year I don't know 20,000 or 280 hours a year of work that we could have put towards just focusing on and increasing Dental healthin our region in Bon County thank you for that board what what would you like to do with this I'll move approval of the job description and uh
move forward with uh recruiting as an employee to alleviate any Union issues I'll second that got a motion to Second any further discussion on this with one with one caveat to my motion is if this funding goes away so
does the position yeah do you mean so can we could clarification if we have grant funding um yeah if we've got grant funding continuing it we're good with it right okay good with that I am good with that any further discussion if not I'll
call the question all in favor say I I I oppose motion carries thank you next jacqulyn all right last item um so just wanted to Quick get board approval we have an opportunity to apply for an additional $5,000 for our tobacco work um for current ship
grantees so we just have to have a um submission put in by February 9th so looking for board approval for us to be able to put in to get some additional dollars under ship Grant so moved second got a motion as second any further discussion on this item not I'll
call the question all in favor say I I I oppose motion carries anything else Jacqueline no thank you for your time Monty Mr shair I was wondering if you could address the Jill food issues I see Troy is back with us perhaps to allow him to get on with the rest of his day
okay at this point in time we'll adjourn the Benton County Health Board and recess a regular board meeting Sheriff Troy hack do you have information for us yes sir so I reviewed the contract and the amendment spoke to the county
attorney's office and I received the advice that should the board opt to sign this amendment we would be obligated to uh continue with uh this vendor through January 31st 202 26 at the prices um
stipulated there I'll note that in the past we've had occasion where the amendment hasn't gotten improved in a timely manner and we've uh' been able to work with the vendor to come up with a plan where you know we would uh whatever
the agreed upon price was we would we figure that out after an agreement was uh reached I also just like to add to the um conversation about the estimate for the 20 the effect of this I reached that estimate by taking
the actuals from 2024 and adding a 3.8% increase on that that act that estimate wasn't based on a certain number it was rather based on historical data thank you Shar thank you commissioner ginsky uh is there something that we would like
to maybe bring back next uh next board meeting correct this was tabled anyway so it'll be coming back to the next board meeting okay if possible well my impression is you table it for continued discussion today I would think if you want to bring it back next meeting
technically that's like a motion to postpone until next meeting and M Mr chair maybe if we could clarify that a little bit if we're going to motion to postpone until commissioner ginsky and Heinen have had a chance to meet with so may not be by the next said it specific
date postpone until such time as okay yeah yeah and I would move for that Mr chair postpone until commissioner Hein and commission kinsky can meet with sheriff and review that contract I'll second okay okay yep thank you thank you Troy for that information uh we got a motion a second
call the question all in favor say I I oppos motion carries thank you okay with that I will recess the County board meeting and turn it over to our board chair commissioner Johnson for a ditch
Authority do you need a couple minutes to set up yeah okay okay we'll we'll take two minute recess take a two-minute recess let the staff get set up and we'll start our ditch Authority meeting and I think I'm GNA start with
that okay yeah so I'll let you guys get rolling good luck so we have six chairs up front if anyone would like to sit down no yeah well uh yeah uh I'm not sure if he is
but I know he's he's going is that today tonight and he's leaving tomorrow night Chris Chris control here okay it's okay we won't have to scream so
loud scream so loud this virtual this is virtual too so I'll have to we have to share unless it's already shared is this already sharing the screen uh yes so like that screen should
be so they're watching they already see it do a quick break you might be late even though it's not on the agenda think tomorrow I think I don't think so you never know depends how good you can keep it in
mind me yeah because you're G to help oh cuz he's not here where is eating or something I told him when he said are you serious be G 99% of
them he's used to that set right there you should Steve head off the back I think so he didn't leave did he ready Chris all right members I'm going to call our ditch Authority meeting to order at 10:22 uh all Commissioners are
present with the exception of commissioner pop who was excused earlier uh we'll move on to approval or amendments to the agenda members the only addition I would have is I would like to add an open Forum at the beginning of this I know that there's a few residents here that are would like to speak and it does not have anything
really to do with cd9 or 14 so we could maybe open that up for them to do their thing and then we can move into our public hearings later can we also note just for the for you all that we have a a person from rinky with us on on go on okay yes thank you and Hannah yeah Hannah could you maybe introduce
yourself to us please Chris could you minimize that just for a second so we can see the the goto screen can so we can see the go-to screen just hit Escape there you go and then close there yeah all right thank you yeah go ahead
Hannah good morning can everyone hear me yes perfect um yeah so I'm Hannah shakel Jensen I'm attorney with rinky Nan um work mostly under John cold and kale van buan on drainage matters um so I'm
filling in for um Michelle Moyer today Meyer excuse me um and so I am ready and willing to help help walk the board through this and um have an idea of uh
if there's any questions that come up regarding whether it's the contract accept acceptance and assessments or any other issues that come up today okay thank you Hannah thank you if I could ask uh folks that are online with us if
you could please mute yourself please uh want to try and avoid lots of background noise so please mute yourself and if you need to talk please unmute or raise your hand but please mute yourself thanks if it gets too loud I'll just mute everybody okay sounds good all
right so can we have an approval any any additions first of all Chris to our agenda no I have uh with the exception of the open forum is there a motion sir moved second motion second to approve the agenda is presented all those in favor I iOS carried move on to consent agenda approve or amend the ditch Authority minute meeting minutes from
January 7th of this year move approval I'll second okay motion a second to approve those minutes is there any other discussion in regards to the minutes hearing none all those in favor I it's carried we'll move into an open Forum I believe there's people here that would like to speak in regards to cd10
and possibly CD4 so you can please come to the podium and state your name and your address thank you hello good morning Commissioners good morning my name's Mark ebnet uh the land we're talking about today is 1800 35th Avenue street
or Northeast socer Rapids I'm asking you guys if we could uh look at vacating ditch 11 I'd like to get that on the record just for the simple fact is what I'm seeing here what it's costing everybody to to uh have these ditches
cleaned I just soon pay the piper and clean it myself um it sounds like a surrounding neighbors I've talked to uh they feel the same way about it so I mean I know there's a petition that we could do and I know I can get over 51% to get this
pass but I need it from you guys if it's if it's a green light to go ahead and do it or if you guys are going to go against it I don't want to spend a month to put this together and then all of a sudden you guys would say no we're not going to vacate it I guess I'd like to have an answer yes or no from you
guys I think Mark that we'd have to be pretty careful to give you yes or no without the information we have in front of us um correct obviously if you're going to provide a uh petition with 51% of the benefited land or the owners that
would probably validate as a valid petition uh for abandonment but until we get to that point I don't know that we would be able to say yes or no to that okay and also we have a would obviously have a concern because cd10 drains into CD correct and and it's kind of a chain
reaction because you got cd10 then you got cd11 and then we got a public waterway that goes beyond that and while you brought that up if it doesn't happen then we need to look at some kind of a hydraulic system that's going to control that water so it
doesn't flood everybody out Downstream I'm biggest concern I have is is eroding the the the banks that we have now that are getting roaded which you can see it and two is we got a golf course down there that's going to be flooded out because that's the lowest area and Chris correct me if I'm wrong we have a we
have a valid repair petition on cd10 that's correct yeah uh we have a valid repair petition that we're in the process of finalizing the repair report you know we've met on um and yeah abandonment is is defined in statute and
um I think I just caution the board to make any decisions because it statute also requires to have a public hearing if you receive a petition for abandonment so uh the drain Authority should not be making judgments or decisions until that public hearing is held for and Al and of course Mark I you
probably would realize that if if you and are your land owners that you want to get the petition on are probably going to need some legal advice to move ahead with that okay I mean because we wouldn't be able to give that to you right no I understand that okay so so go ahead and go with the partition and see
where it goes from there I I guess the only thing I could ADV you is you need to do what you have to do for that abandonment moving forward and if we get a valid abandonment petition then we'll have to start addressing we'll have to act on it at that point okay sounds good thank you all right thank you thank you anyone else not about cd9 or 14 I
believe was it did I see Tim here for CD4 so not in regards to nine or 14 come up and say I'm from ditch 4 um Jason aldri 9296 185th um just coming up here to say
thank you to the commission for moving forward to do the ditch cleaning because it it has helped considerably in that uh old Park area thank just for just for correction you're talking about 14 yep okay I want to keep and thank you Jason I appreciate that anybody else that's
this is not in regards to cd9 or 14 yet is there anyone else uh Mr rusy I thought I saw you back there but maybe not CD4 all right anyone else in the open Forum not on cd9 or 14 all right thank you so we'll move
into uh our public hearings we're going to have staff reports first here in regards of cd9 and Chris I'll maybe let you take the lead on that I see Joe is here from Houston engineering and our County auditor and our attorney so that's right so um Joe from Houston engineering has prepared a presentation
on the repair project so I'm going to just turn it over to him to to give us walk us through uh the repair of 9 and4 okay thank you Jo good morning thank you Chris and members of the board just give me one quick minute here while I pull up the slideshow
again I'm G have folks let me just yeah hang on thank you see I need to just Escape just for share share
okay that's better get your own Journey good to go if you want you can use this device to get you presentation okay it's going to work actually turned it off there you go okay there you go
here okay so what I'm going to do is give kind of a start to finish overview of the proceedings that have happened on on both 9 and 14 of course ending with the repair report and this acceptance hearing that is
you one of the primary reasons for this acceptance hearing is to close out the Construction contract but at Chris's you know suggestion we're kind of stepping back to the beginning of the process to kind of give that full story as we move ahead here so we'll review the overall
schedule summarize the repair report and a few steps that happened before the repair report I summarize the overall project costs and then a final recommendation to helmet construction for you know both both construction
contracts cd9 and 14 you know they are separate systems with 14 out leading into nine and there was separate proceedings and separate construction contracts with the same contractor on on both so cd9 just quick overview Maywood
and glendorado townships excuse could you turn the speakers up it's hard to hear back okay yes of course Joe maybe I'll have you move that mic up just to titch too because you're a little taller than us short people oh we'll crank them up for
you is that better is that better yep that helps you too Monty okay okay thank you is that be good can you hear back there okay is that all right so 5 and a half miles of open Channel ditch on
cd9 and that drains nearly 11.3 square miles in total and its Outlet is at the St Francis River there in the southwest corner of the screen and cd14 which Outlets into cd9 that has 9 miles of open Channel
ditch and drains 5.2 square miles in total and crosses Highway 23 the main trunk does there on the center right of the screen so it has a main trunk and several branches I think seven branches in
total okay so on this screen we talk about we show the project schedule it's going to be a little hard to read but just to give the overview here back in 2019 a repair petition was reced for for cd14 which you gain as Upstream of
cd9 okay the first thing that that was undertaken uh when that petition was received and accepted by the drainage Authority was to go through a process to really Define where that system is and what its depth original depth and
dimensions were or as the term that's used in statute the as constructed and subsequently improved condition so that really defines what you can even do in a repair which is eventually considered as we propos a repair so that
reestablishment of Records is a drainage law provision that that lays out the procedure to establish the record so we take available documentation from when the system was established 100 plus years ago pair that
with field survey and looking at the constructed Channel bottoms throughout the the entire length of the system and we develop kind of a detailed set of drawings to show exactly where and how deep that ditch is before we can advance
to the repair step okay as that process was being finished on CD4 a repair petition came in for cd9 and that was accepted and after that
the drainage Authority appointed viewers for the redetermination of benefits so so the redetermination of benefit is a separate proceeding in drainage law that basically defines you know what percentage of project cost each
landowner pays on the system so the drainage Authority deemed that the existing benefits on the systems were out of date I am I'm not going to recall the date that they were last benefited or redetermined it may have been the
original benefits it may be someone the board may recall that last redetermination but it was decades old and likely um limited to those that were adjacent or fairly close to the system so now
with the with the approach that viewers take now is to look at the entire Watershed and kind of assess that the project costs over a wider area with the land owners adjacent to the system still generally paying a larger
portion so that viewing proceeding initiated in late 2020 and completed by mid 2022 at that point on cd9 we did complete that record reestablishment
proceeding in mid 2022 so both systems were essentially synced up with each other now and and that actually happened when they got on the same track in late 2020 and then once those viewing proceeding was completed
then we began development of a repair report which is Again part of the drainage proceeding in in chapter 103e of the drainage code so we evaluated Alternatives com I think I can advance
to the next slide here and I'll have a few things written out but uh I think I'll pause there on the details of the repair report and just kind of skip to the the finish in 2023 finish of the schedule 2023 in the fall a Construction contract
was awarded to helmet construction separately for both systems work occurred late that year and some site cleanup and a few additional items were done in 2024 and some seating and then you we're at the point now where we are proposing
to close out the construction contract and make their final payment so now I'll kind of come back and look at a few more details of several of those steps so so this slide is the same information as the previous graphic I
just put it up here in case there are some questions and this is for cd9 and there's cd14 so that record reestablishment process this is a snippet from the uh drainage law that a drainage Authority if it
finds that their records are incomplete or missing they can go through that record reestablishment process you know in this case we we did field survey to again collect that original Channel bottom through through soil borings or soil probes in the
bottom of the channel That was approximately every thousand feet we did that along the the miles of the both cd9 and 14 drainage systems and then used some of the original design information paired those together that design information that was available and came
up with our our modernized set of records for the systems sir I have I have a question about that uh Road pass by place I don't know what
ditch that is I think it's nine it's 14 last spring I was standing in the middle of the road and the way the water is flowing into my child out
land it's flowing backwards instead of going South it's going north until my low ground that's tiled out is flooded with close two foot of water on it now to get rid of that water takes a long
time on tile it doesn't happen overnight what are they proposed to do about something I don't know if I'm talking out of place here or not but this is a big problem sir if I if I could I want to we want to try to get an answer for that question but I'd like
him to finish his report and then we'll get into the public hearing and we can try to answer some of those questions if we can then you come back to that we we'll come back to it if we can we'll let him finish the reporting and then we'll open up the public hearing and the public can have an opportunity to speak I'm sorry if I'm talking no you're fine
this is my job R meeting you know you're fine you're fine come back to that okay go ahead Joe okay thank you so this is just the image of a field surveyor taken a boring in the bottom of a channel then behind that image is one of our drawings
one of our plan and profile drawings where you see the that information that's paired with the the slopes and the design grades and come up with that modern design updated design on the redetermination and
benefits you've completed these proceedings a number of years ago so some of this may look familiar but I just added a quick image here uh the image on the far right is a line classification map that viewers typically produce and for each
classification they they assign a rate of benefit you know how many dollars per acre of benefit does the just system create and through that proceeding after they've prepared their report a notice is sent out to land owners on the system
telling them what their benefit amount is that's not the cost that they are required to pay but their total benefit and then they're given their percentage of total benefits on the system then that percentage is is what
they what's used to calculate their their assessment based on the project cost so within the repair report you were looking at a number of different things we're looking at you know how much how much sediment has accumulated
in the B bottom of the ditch you know generally how bad of a shape is it in is there is there vegetation that's really restricting the flow is there tree or or debris in the channel that's really obstructing that flow causing it to uh carry water less efficiently than it
than it should or as originally intended and then if so you know is that causing is that causing an issue for the land owners that are supposed to be receiving a benefit from the system in this image it shows a covert
on the left hand side left center of the screen uh a cul that uh is above the proper elevation it's higher and therefore having some influence on how effective or efficient the channel is Upstream of it and the dash line uh that
extends across the screen from left to right that is the top of the sediment or Channel bottom elevation on top of the solid line which is the original or as constructed elevation so this shows you
know how much sediment has accumulated and here we see on the left hand side a minimal amount and that was half a foot to a foot of sediment As you move to the right you know there you have several feet of sediment that was you know causing that the channel to
carry water less efficiently we're also looking at like I said the condition of the ditch here we see on the Right image you know a tree not a large tree but several trees have fallen across the system and you can you see how that would impact impact
the ability of that ditch to carry water Downstream on the left hand side you see that you know there's there's shrubs and vegetation going within the channel I think some of these photos were taken during a a drier time period so you know
in some cases it's fairly hard to see where the channel is with the vegetation there's another example and this one happens to be on County ditch 14 near 90th Street looking south or Downstream you know the channel is there uh but it's pretty heavily
vegetated and this corresponds to that that profile where the dash line that we saw on top top of the solid line where we had 2 to 3 fet of sediment in the channel so you know when when your channel is only maybe 4 feet deep to
begin with um having 3et of sediment in there is going to be a problem it's going to cause water to you know more often come out of that channel and flood the land adjacent to to the ditch and Upstream then we're also looking at
culverts you know both for their elevation and how that relates to the originally established elevation of the ditch and also their capacity you know can they convey enough water to handle
again the system's intended function so we we apply criteria we evaluate their capacity their ability to carry water uh through the the repair project we did replace several covers both field Crossings and a number of CTS through
public roadways primarily Township roads and another large component is to evaluate the impacts on wetlands and our compliance or ability to comply with state and federal
regulations and on both cd9 and 14 meeting with the the regulatory people uh we did end up doing a repair that caused an impact and we purchased Wetland credits to offset that
impact so also within our repair report we give a an estimate or a projection of total cost on the project so starting with cd14 Chris this is the total summary I put in the wrong image here uh
so I'm going to throw out some numbers and they're going to be approximate so at the bottom row there we have the estimated in repair report number so this slide is repeated at the end so apologies on that but within our repair report we estimated a total project cost
of $979,000 of that amount the construction cost estimate was approximately 650,000 so of that 650,000 you we can break things up into
uh the open Channel excavation and managing the the spoil or the material that we pull out of the ditch leveling it and seating that or making sure that vegetation reestablishes and does not cause a erosion problem uh we can
also separate out the clearing tree clearing there was a significant amount of of trees and brush growing adjacent to the ditch within the 16 15 to 20t uh width that we need to use to access and
maintain the system and inspect it in the future so that's another type of cost in the repair report then we have the the covert replacement cost and then you know things like mobilization and some other erosion control
measures so hopefully in the next slide here I have the right image pasted in there for cd9 well it'll be the next one so with our with our cd14 uh bids once we receive bids from contractors to
perform the repair project uh we had eight bids which was good and this would have been in uh middle middle of 2023 and there at the top I see I put our Engineers estimate of 685,000 so I said 650,000
a minute ago so I was slightly off on that you know so the good news is that we had several biders below our estimate including uh Helman construction and being the low bid and uh we had several that were higher
too but fortunate you know at that time you know they were and others were were interested in the work and provided some good competitive bids and ultimately they were awarded the project and cd9 are opinion of costs so this is the right image so I broke
things into mobilization erosion and sement control and uh a few miscellaneous things like traffic control too and then that open Channel excavation and spoil leveling they're clearing Field Crossing culverts and
public roadway Culverts for a total of 440,000 estimate on the engineers uh for the engineers estimate to complete the project then the things at the bottom or other non-construction um items 20%
contingency would go towards the uh Construction contract if if necessary and then the other item is I guess the engineering admin and legal cost there for a total of 636,000 projected at the time of the repair
project and you once again we did receive eight bids we did bid these at the same time uh you know thinking that this two medium-sized projects would attract more attention from from biders which it did and we did get the same low bidder so
that that made things you know convenient moving forward and we were able to award both projects to that low bitter and that cost came in just under 300,000 so again well below our engineers's estimate and now I just have a number of
slides to give to give an idea of what the construction was looking like out there um this is some tree clearing so we're we're mowing down the trees and brush on either side of the ditch approximately 20 feet on either side to create that space
to pull out the sediment from the channel and level it and you know manage trees moving forward so that can be inspected and maintained and and not needed to be cleared again of trees another clearing image on the left on the right here I gave this
image just to show you know one of the before repair project completions so the channel itself is is not overly large there's vegetation in there you can hardly see it it was a drier year that late 2023 so they're able to get in
there and you know clean a lot of the ditch without a lot of water being in the way and a couple photos of the repair Channel so these would be I believe branches on CD 14 so we are Clean cleaning the ditch
out to the original bottom and kind of re shaping it to have its original Dimensions as well and another channel on the right and then on the left is a uh roadway Crossing or I think it's a a driveway Crossing going in some new
CTS that were that were placed at the as constructed original Channel bottom elevation and these were slightly lower to compared to the covers that were in place that we determined were above that original Channel
bottom and this is again on cd14 near 90th Street we had a photo earlier I mentioned its location and that's where you couldn't see the channel you know so this is a good before and after uh so
that channel is you know now got some depth again vegetation has been dealt with and you know if you recall this is this is near the area where additional excavation was performed in late
2024 and uh after Wetland credits were purchased okay so cd14 total cost summary this is matches the total number there in the order the draft order uh Construction contract 52,000 being the
biggest portion and Wetland credits there 44,000 and then engineering and uh through all all the proceedings the record reestablishment repair report and Regulatory coordination and then the construction management support and then
damages from the viewers uh proceedings redetermination of benefits were damages being the buffer strip payments are totaled there along with the the viewing cost and then the publication and
notices and again that total estimated repair project cost was $979,000 and that was included in the repair report and at the hearing for the repair report when the project was ordered that's the number that was
considered and then we you know received bids from contractors following that for cd9 a similar breakdown of costs so a total cost of just 500,000 our estimated project cost in
the repair report was 636,000 and you know finally with the construction contracts uh the summary that was when your board packet kind of detailed this out you know both the original contract amounts a couple change orders and then the previous partial payments and gave the uh
remaining partial payment amounts there for both cd9 and 14 now that work has been completed and we do have we did do asilt surveys on the majority of the system to confirm that you know they achieved the proper depths in the channel and the covers were set at their right elevation
and you know quantities were kind of tracked along the way for clearing an open Channel excavation and that is my last slide thank you thanks Joe Chris um and maybe you're going to do this but could you maybe give the audience a little bit of
a recap of the timeline of hearings and when you know we we did receive a valid repair petition to a hearing to a redetermination benefits hearing Etc so that we can kind of review that with everybody before we move into the uh public comment yeah that's right so
um Joe actually had a kind of a a slide that showed a good timeline too so yeah this goes on uh we're pushing almost 6 years so we received a petition on 14 to repair that we started that process we realized that we had the only documentation we had was when the ditch
was originally established uh or in the early 1900s those elevations do not match with the modern vertical datums that we use for surveying today therefore we had to do the reestablishment of Records process to find that where that bottom of that ditch should be and then kind of in the
middle that process or maybe near the tail end of that when it will looking more likely that we would be able to justify repair the downstream land owners or some of them on Ditch n submitted a valid repair petition so kind of simultaneously though we were also doing a redetermination of benefits
on all of our ditch systems um at that same time so that took place uh started in 2020 and we had hearings in 2021 and 2022 so the redetermination of benefits was finalized in uh 2022 on these dit es uh then we then we
finalized the repair report and had a number of hearings uh on that repair report um and they were continued uh several times so it wasn't concluded at one meeting um and that that's what uh
Joe demonstrated with the costs the the repair hearings that we had in uh 2023 um showed for for ditch nine the estimated repair costs uh he had it in
his slide there was was this one the $600,000 trying to find my yeah 600 yeah so I have the copy of the the repair order that was signed in July of
2023 here so um yeah well this this is a good recap petition was dated August 19th 2020 the drainage Authority met September 1st of 2020 uh the FI the repair report was filed March 29th of 2023 with a notice uh for a hearing to
be held on May 2nd of 2023 uh yeah we had a hearing on May 2nd we had a hearing again on June 20th of 2023 we had a revised uh memorandum of
June 14th 2023 and then finally in July of 2023 was uh uh the order to repair ditch ditch n similarly a similar timeline for for ditch 14 on the repair so maybe Chris just clarification when would land owners have received their
redetermination benefits report from H2O reviewers that would have been in 2022 early of 2022 and that that report would have included items like Joe showed mapping with the different colors yes yes okay and then would have had that statement that said based on a
hypothetical repair of $100,000 you're estimated assessment would be this amount but really what's what's critical is the percentage there was a percentage shown um that shows that that particular parcel and some land owners many land owners probably received multiple or
should have received multiple uh reports um and each one of those Parcels had to have a percentage and so you could take that percentage multiplied by the total cost to determine the the amount of the assessments okay thank you anything else in the staff report
uh no Commissioners if I may before we open public comments go ahead Hannah so I was informed that the cd9 notice that was sent out was not um sent
to everyone as is required by Statute um since cd14 is in Outlets into cd9 those land owners must receive notice for the cd9 repair contract acceptance as well and that was not done done so before we
open public comment the board should um deal with that first which my recommendation would be to direct staff to send notice to the land owners who were not sent notice for
cd9 and set a date and time for that contract acceptance hearing so that notice doesn't have to be sent out to everyone it is just the people that didn't receive proper notice the first time and so and I would recommend doing
that prior to opening public comments for cd14 okay Chris or Christine do you are you following what she's talking about so yeah although land owners on 14 received a notice about the hearing
about the 14 repair um it was noted that cd9 provides Outlet benefits to CD 14 and cd12 so what Hannah is referring to technically by the letter of the law land owners along 14 should have
also received a notice to attend the public hearing for cd9 and I think also that would have to extend to cd12 since cd2 Outlets into
cd9 even though there's no work that has occurred on cd12 system according to Hannah in drainage code they should receive notice to be able to allow to speak at the hearing for
cd9 at this at this time before it was done so so Hannah I mean I'm already thinking continuation here but are we even going to be able to move into a public hearing if they haven't had proper notification you notify him after the
work now the notification for CD4 the cd14 rep was proper and the board could accept that contract today it's just the cd9 um that would have to be continued and the board should direct staff to
send that proper notice to everyone that um did not receive notice the first time commission kinsky Mr chair Hannah how how do you do that when the work is done already this is just for the contract acceptance
hearing this is not for the entire the other hearings um that happened um it's just for the contract acceptance but the contract the work is done and we're looking at final payment yep and in order to do that
that's done under 103 e555 um and that requires that notice is sent to every benefited land owners um and owners of affected property and that includes property that Outlets into the cd9
system Mr chair just for clarification Hannah I hate to put you on the spot but wouldn't they wouldn't they have to uh should we have did this on the front side
too most likely yes it should have been done however the um other orders that have happened such as the repair order um the deadline and for that to be appealed um has expired it was a 30-day
deadline from when that board made that order so since the order has become final with that expiration of the deadline that's done and the board can't go back and remedy that but it must now that we know that it has to be done
going forward Mr chair um Hannah and and maybe you can go through uh just the legal side of things from the county or we'll call it the ditch Authority because I think I want to make sure that everybody understands that we are set at a bunch
of guidelines that we don't probably or sometimes necessarily agree with but the state and all the ditch people above us put this on us and we're supposed to explain it to the public maybe if you could uh go through just once we get a
uh a legal petition or something like that the timelines that we have to abide by or we could be held accountable I guess I don't quite understand the so question so you we're
we're we're acting as the ditch Authority correct and with that we're held by guidelines to say okay we got a um a petition report a valid petition report and we have to act on it and in order to do that we have to follow a
bunch of guidelines that are above us that we have to bring down to our local level correct correct 103e Minnesota statutes chapter 103e is considered the drainage code um and so the board is bound to act
within the guidelines and rules set out by the 103 statutes and that includes um how notice is given when notice is given who's required to receive notice and it also sets out um when certain hearings
have to happen um and and as well it sets out how the board as the Jing Authority can remedy defective notice for those who didn't receive it the first time um and so with
a repair once the board receives a repair report um or a petition for a repair and must appoint in engineer which it did so um through Houston engineering and it must hold hearings
based on that repair report um and then at that point the board must act on the um the the repair as um reported by the engineer which that
the board did so in 2023 and that order set into motion hire putting out bids hiring the contractor getting a contract in place and those um and the repair being completed so now we're at the point where the contract
has been completed and we're looking at accepting the contract and sending out that final repair so under 103e um 555 that controls how a contract is ex accepted
um and part of that is that the board must hold a public hearing and that notice um has to be given to owners of affected property which gets into um all better than fitted land owners including
those right on cd9 but also the outling systems cd14 and cd11 as well or cd2 go ahead Mr chair one more clarification Hannah I thank you for taking us through that process now let's just say we got a
valid petition repair and the board the drainage Authority chooses not to act on it what could happen there so under 103e if the board receives a valid petition um it is
required to let me so 103 e701 if the board receives a petition it must consider the petition and it is required
to appoint an engineer to make a repair report and then at that point the board would consider whether the rep whether the repair is necessary under the statute and so at that point once the
board receives a petition it is required to act could there be um anything uh legal against the board if we chose to just disobey and just say ah we're not going to we're not going to appoint an engineer could the person that that
filed the legal uh or we'll call it the the repair report valid the valid petition and we chose not to act is could that person have legal action against the drainage author Authority yes the a person who would
file the report and it's or the petition and it's a valid petition the board is required to act and um a district court would likely intervene and require the board to do
what it's supposed to do as the Dage Authority with jurisdiction over that particular system but Hannah just for review to to fast forward through your timelines here we're we're past the redetermination of benefits we're passed all of those hearings we're into now a
public hearing to accept the repair of those drainage ditches that that work has been done although noted that cd9 uh wasn't completely notified at the beginning of the process is that right correct and so those prior orders
have been finalized and case law is clear that even if there is defective not noce if that's not appealed within the proper timelines which is 30 days under 10309 that order is final even with the
defective notice but you're still suggesting notices be sent out even though we're past that yes for this particular um order
because we know that notice is is defective all right thank you staff any other Chris go ahead well uh Mr chair uh I would just like some clarification um so it seems like for each disis we have two actions we've got the as a
Contracting Authority we have a contract for the physical work that needs to be determined if the contract is completed sufficient and accept it and then and maybe this is a question for Hannah is there a separate action to to determine
the the repayment uh into the ditch fund for those those costs are those two separate actions or is it all combined into one I think we table very good question did you hear that question Hannah yes I
believe the way that the order is set up it is both so we have a single it would be a single order okay so then that comes back to on nine um based on the recommendation of the attorneys we should not consider
accepting the construction contract yet until proper notification of this hearing for all affected land owners uh on 12 and 14 what I'm understanding is that the the drain Authority can move forward with considering accepting the
Construction contract or the the repair contract on 14 and determining those um those assessment amounts correct so we'll move on them separately though I mean we're going to look at cd14 by itself and maybe another question the board can
they still accept public testimony on both systems today I would not recommend it I would recommend having the public hearing fully with cd9 um on the date that the board sets
it for today so no public input on cd9 for today because of the lack of um notification correct so only deal with
cd14 correct so I would recommend making the setting the date for cd14 and directing staff to send out notice to all land owners who didn't receive proper notice the first time um for that specific date before moving into
cd14 on and 14 will probably be notified separately then when this comes up again so benefiting land owners on cd9 will be R notified uh through this process because
we're going to have to act on that so for a clarification um on nine those what I'm understanding is those land owners that receive notification of today's hearing will not receive an additional
notification we'll have to send out additional mailings to those on cd12 and all those land owners on CD4 and N you'd have to send out notice so that there's a new date can can yeah can you
confirm that please so for defective notice it is only people the only notice that needs to be sent out is those who did not receive proper notice the first time so for cd9
it would be the outling um land owners so the land owners on cd2 and cd14 will receive the notice for the hearing for the land owners that are solely on cd9 they already received proper notice and
so if the board elects to continue the hearing they do not need to receive that second notice yeah but you're changing the date you're changing the date and we don't have input um Can the drain Authority direct
staff to to send notices to all understanding that the cost of postage and mailing is a cost to the drainage system and will be added cost to that system C can the drainage Authority direct staff to do that even though it's not required by Statute can they make that decision to go ahead and do that
extra extra work if the ditch if if the ditch Authority elects to do so yes there's nothing in statute that prevents that but it would be the extra cost which would be assessed against land owners
we get it I I think Mr chair go ahead I I think we need to send it to everybody Mr chair I agree it has to be sent out to all three parties 12 14 and nine okay so then I think we'll do is move ahead
with cd14 because that's pretty much all we can do do you want do you want us to take care of the notification issue on cd9 first or can we go into 14 I think since we've been discussing nine it would be proper to um look for a
motion to direct staff to for the dra authority to set a new date for the consideration of the contract acceptance for cd9 and direct staff to send notice to all benefited land owners um for that
new date okay commissioner Pinsky Mr chair I just want to make a note I I appreciate you being on Hannah uh I feel like you got thrown into a a wolves in here uh just for the record um uh rinky Nunan John C Hannah their team was just
brought on maybe three weeks ago a month ago recently yeah um for additional support on all of this they are they are uh Professionals in this Arena so that's why we look for additional support so hopefully this uh doesn't happen again okay members you've heard the attorney
suggestion what would you like to do with cd9 you've heard the suggested motion perhaps a question for Christie how quickly can notices be arranged and sent out though that might help guide your guide your thinking about a date yeah maybe a legal question again
is there a minimum time frame after mailed notices before the hearing could be held that could be the governing factor for timelines it may be it may be we may not be able to reconvene for a month um so would March 4
the notice of mail must be at least 10 days before the hearing so I think that pushes us at the earliest to the the first board meeting in March March 4th March 4th to give staff time to to draft letters um and get them in the mail and still meet that
10 days before the the hearing so is that going to work for you we have it in the evening a lot of us work during is that is that cutting it too close for Christine it's gonna work March 4th 9:00 am we could do the date and then yeah the Board needs to determine the time to
have that hearing yeah I've heard one comment about time for the evening is there could I just get a show of hands that that would be helpful for an evening hearing I took off Scot okay so that's obviously going to help land owners that something I think we need to
do it yeah in the evening okay so we're going to need a motion to move ahead with cd9 and get those notices out and set the next public hearing for uh March 4th at uh 6 PM okay so
moved okay we have a motion on that is there a second I will second that second other discuss location here location here okay so be the next hearing on cd9 will be March 4th at 6:
PM just for 9ine just for 9ine she just said I'm well the notific the ones that are notified notified now so that would include 12 14 so it's the hearing for ditch system known as County ditch number n the system is what I was talking about even though those
benefited land owners on 12 and 14 will receive notification too and we're still going to talk about 14 now and we got to go to 14 yet but I have a question that's not not anything involved with that once you figure out when the bills due you know once you get
all this done how long do we have before we have to pay it are say we'll take the assessment on our taxes and we're going to we're going to get to that but the short answer is correct me if I'm wrong first payments would be due in 26 this is the 25 assessment payable 26 and Beyond depending on how you decide to do
it no I'm just asking when you know I just don't want to pay interest on something that sure and I believe what's the what's the date Christine November 30th maybe yeah November 30th if we have payments so payment potentially could be in full by November 30th and then there's no interest this year or next
year this year okay ma'am I'm gonna I'm going to move into a public hearing so can I hold off on your question because otherwise I we're not going to get our done our business done we've got a motion the second have a public hearing well we can on 14 we will on 14 okay yeah so we've got a motion a
second to move the next public hearing on cd9 for March 4th at 6:00 p.m. and those land owners that will be notified are land owners on cd9 12 and 14 for that hearing correct any other discussion hearing none all those in
favor I I oppos it's carried thank you all right now we're going to move into 14 um what else do you have Chris uh no the I think the staff report is the same as what we previously heard with the presentation and everything so okay so now I'm going to open up a public Hearing in regards to cd14 may I when
may I please just remind the audience those that are are concerned about their redetermination benefits we went ahead and made up a a listing in the back so that the viewers could contact you personally to go over your redetermination of benefits if that's question that you have or a concern
because none of us here are going to be able to answer that specific question to your parcel so if if you're just concerned about redetermination benefits how did we get to that please sign up in the back we'll follow up with H2 overv viwers and make sure that they contact you about that information so really the
public hearing today on 14 is to talk about the repair and the final payments to the contractors so if there's anybody that wants to speak in that regard to 14 if you could pleasee come to the podium state your name and address and we'll
hear your concern yep go ahead come on up Mark my name is mar rat I got couple pieces one of the pieces the main branch runs through but I'm going to say that it's a huge benefit to everybody with having
that ditch clean and people got to remind the reason why this is so expensive is because there's nothing been done with it pretty much since the ditch was duck now going forward if everybody would take the incentive to clean the brush out themselves or take
care of it there wouldn't be these issues uh as far as the work that is done um for the most part they did a pretty good job there's a couple issues uh for one there's still some
Woody vegetation that's still standing in the easement or the buffer zone that's been brought up a couple times but that hasn't been cleared and to this day still hasn't been cleared are we talking sou and 90th Mark yes correct okay on the east
side we're talking about that and then South and then further south there's couple trees still standing right in the buffer zone okay thing of it is when that ditch was put out for bids all
these other contractors bid it accordingly you know the way that the bid requirements are set and when the current contractor comes through and only decides to do what he wants to do and doesn't think
that he needs to do some of the other stuff and the ditch Authority Houston engineering County engineer was brought forward that attention that this work wasn't completed and Scott you were out there
Chris was out there this spring we talked about them issues like with the mowing that wasn't done on the east side of the ditch and it was brought up well maybe it didn't need it yes it did There's Willows going right up to the ditch Edge
so they the contractor should be held responsible for doing the job that they're supposed to how is it fair to these land owners that that are assessed this work and that work isn't done and then the Count's looking at projecting
to collect to collect a maintenance F fund fund from us property owners and I don't think we shouldn't allow that couple reasons the work never got done the first time when when the bids were put out there and another thing is if
the county collects this money for a maintenance fund what's to say that it's going to you guys are going to come back through and do maintenance on it and a prime example is that years ago on Benton County ditch number seven that's how that was set up you guys back then
they collected a maintenance fund on that land owners complaining that the maintenance needs to be done where's that money the money was gone so again that costed the land owners additional money so going forward
I would recommend us land owners not allowing a maintenance fund on the ditch we'd be better off just to petition it every five years and clean up what needs to be cleaned up okay thank you thank you anyone else on cd14 commission Scott dears uh address
talking about is 7852 155th Avenue Northeast uh ditch 14 we assessed quite a bit of money on that and by looking at the maps that we've pulled up that ditch is even close to our property so I'd really like to know
how whoever assessed the property owners determined that our water flows that far across everybody else's property to get to that ditch so it's Scott I don't maybe didn't hear at the beginning but we've got a signup sheet in the back and I really like the H2 overv viwers who is a company that the ditch Authority hired
to do the viewing and and determine what benefits there were to the land owners they can contact you and explain that to a te on your property I I can tell you there's nobody here that can get that detailed for you on your particular parcel so ditch Authority at that time
hired this company H2 overv viwers and that's what they do is they go out and view this land to determine what kind of benefit there is to your property specifically and every property owner should have received what's called that determination of benefits it's a packet that describes all of that activity it's
a map of your property it shows the different layers of the Watershed shows where the ditch is ETC and they'd be able to explain that to you much better than we could the the problem with that is is we're two years passed when that redetermination was done and and of
course the repair has already been done but I wanted to make sure and or we want to make sure and offer you the opportunity to have that explanation of how your benefits came about and they're they're the people are going to be able to do that all right I can't do that so I would highly encourage you there's a
signup sheet back there please sign up and I will make sure myself that Brian Murphy or someone from his staff follows up with whatever land owners sign up on that sheet it's going to take him a little bit of time depending on how many people sign up but please give them a you know a name and a valid phone number email that they can reach out and
contact you with and explain your benefits all right thanks okay thank you anyone else on cd14 Todd you want to come up to the podium please I was just told that sorry name and address just2 65th Avenue thank you I was justo
that these assessments aren't contestable anymore so that's what I've heard explained but not contested that correctly that's the way I understand it Hannah anything else you want to add to that this person's asking about contesting the assessment I assume we're way past
that the redetermined redetermination of benefits yes but the assess Ms for the repair have not been set yet so are we so are you saying there's going to be an additional public hearing on the assessments only nope that would be
today so part of the order that the board would be considering would be setting the um the assessment amount for the landowners um but as far as what each individual landowner's percentage is
that was determined during the r re redetermination of benefits right I guess I guess we're Miss we're mixing a few technical words here because the assessment is based off the redetermination of benefits and the redetermined benefits happen upwards of
two years ago so that's established what their assessment is and the costs are already incurred the rate is yes the rate is and that's what determined this the assessment portion based on what the repair order was correct
correct so if they can't argue against the redetermination of benefits it's going to be pretty argu pretty hard to argue against the actual assessment is that a fair statement I think that's a fair statement but um as far as what the
actual dollar amount is that will be um set today yeah I I understand that yeah because we have the repair order in front of us and we need to finalize that which then in turn finalizes what their assessment is is that the easy answer correct okay thank you that
answer your question Todd okay please come to the podium and state your name and address Eric Jacobson uh 7808 175th Avenue Oak Park um just to kind of
uh I guess we can't debate our what we all um if you were to um look back and what we the property owners have done i' I've talked to a few people about this
um granted the 14 has it does a double Branch through my property and uh back in around 2010 we have maintain our own ditch and uh myself my neighbors the
brrs we foot this bill ourselves and our our ditch was clean and they they basically said all they have to do go through is and do the sediment uh clean out the sediment we both at at that time working with
uh uh cazelle hubday and Anderson it was they specified it was just a cleaning not a red ditching or draining of property so we had to hire adequate excavators to clean it out and you know
we kind of went with there the county came through and staked it we they cleaned it and so it's like well and then we had to have cattle Crossings or whatever that was also our our cost but now we got uh access to
property which turned into the whole project I don't I don't know and myself and the Bram rinks both have crossings they they still passed today they did not get touched so we didn't benefit
from that um I've been told that that if these culverts fail they will get changed out by the the ditch authorities um or would it be property or property owner owners I don't know
but anyways the other fake it's almost like a fictitious number so um along with this $100,000 bill to clean this whole ditch my my bill would have been $3600
$3,628 so you times that by 7.7 my total bill right now is $27,988 and like I say my our ditch or my little corner there you can see from County Road 52 people veered to the north it's like wow that's that's beautiful it's
clean there's no trees we uh tree falls down what do you do with the tree you pull it out so it don't obstruct anything um you uh if you maintain your own ditch it it it's going to benefit you that's why
myself and the brand Brinks did have this done and I I would just what what's the purpose of the um trying to spread the the money out to the people that are
[Music] um benefited by the land you go to the north I know that was that's been a swamp up north ever since I was a kid I I was born and raised in that area I know that property very well now we get new Property Owners coming in I know
specifically of a couple of 40s that were just swamp ground and now they have um new land owners let's clean a ditch well that that in involves everybody just to uh come forward with a lot of
money I mean to me this is almost a bad business you know if I were to buy something that that cost almost 28,000 I'm going to rethink it but now I have to repay out of out of my property taxes
almost $28,000 worth of value Brian if I can the short answer and please correct me if I'm wrong on in regards to yours and the Bram Brinks work on that ditch system I know myself and I'm sure the drainage Authority has asked us multiple times is there a benefit to the landowner for doing their
own portion of the ditch and I have always been told no statute says there is no when I say benefit meaning a reduction in your determination of benefit amount when when H2O reviewers came out and said this is how much your benefit fting y to my knowledge they do
not take into account what the land owners have done in their portion of the ditch is that a correct statement and that and Hannah maybe you can help me out there is a statute that talks about that because we've had that question asked well hey I've I've kept my ditch clean you know for how many years the
answer I'm typically given is that doesn't matter when it comes to the redetermination of benefits they don't reduce your benefit amount cost by that corre the answer I've got it's the same I'm sorry repeat that please everyone's
treated the same as far as it um based on how the ditch benefits your property um and as far as a repair everyone is responsible for that um as well regardless of whether or not you've done your own quote unquote cleaning and repair of your ditch through your
property correct and that's by Statute yes okay well how about does so now if this this don't even cover our ditch only but like if a new land owner would come into a neighborhood and come to the board and
want would say I want this little section of ditch cleaned and if you'd come out and inspect it and say it does need cleaning would that be enough to start it enough to start a thorough ditch cleaning well they would go through the process of a
valid repair petition and and make sure that that repair petition is valid you know is it something that's needed and if indeed and correct me again if I'm wrong if they did that short section that's a benefit to the full ditch not just that land owners so all landowner
owners would be assess for what you're talking about right but then it I would think it should be before it's done I don't believe i' I've seen a estimate bid of 900 some thousand for that ditch 14 so that should have came
out in the when we did a public hearing on the repair order where those estimates were put together by the engineering firm on what their estimates were that would have been at a public hearing not in a mail out the only thing I well you would have been you should have been notified of the public hearing
but that amount probably wasn't in there that would have been that amount would have been in the repair in the repair order well you know like like today you know many you know many many people work so they so they can pay for this stuff mhm but if it you know so I sat down
with a couple people and we figured out my my bill potentially under $100,000 well then we get the the what we owe is uh oh good we came under budget in there well I still well instead of $
35,000 I owe $27,900 you know what I'm saying and and the $100,000 one was a you know we talked to them about that that was a given as an example of if the repair costs $100,000 this is what your portion would
be now if the repair was $500,000 it would be five times that amount and that's what you're seeing yep right but then but there too how how far out start I'll get you a second guys because I got three people rattling off
questions and I I want to hear what Brian's saying first I'm gonna have you guys ER Eric I'm sorry Eric I'm sorry so how far out would you go until you actually send a mailing say say uh that whatever 9 miles of 14 come up to be what if that came
into uh 1.5 million so then I believe we would have to base that repair off of what the benefits are of the ditch we can't order the repair if there's not enough benefit there right so if there's a benefit of a million dollars but the repairs are three and a half million it
wouldn't we couldn't do it we couldn't yeah because there's not enough benefit we're facing that actually on a different County DCH system potentially sure I I'll let him did Mark does yours reference what
he's talking about yes it's in this redetermination of benefits yes okay every land owner got this and there was meetings held well actually all the county ditches were had a meeting in regards to this yes over at uh Henry hen
yeah anything else no and again if you if you have a question specifically about your benefit please sign up on that form all right anybody else cd14 Steve Steve wonderlick 14811 185th
Avenue Northeast foreston um I'm going to touch on real quick just on redetermining these benefits uh that's just simply shorthand for spreading the cost there's a lot of places who really
have no benefit I did not get any on mine it's not going to change my land one I OTA um I talked to a couple Realtors and talked to the guy who leases it from me there will be no change there's not going to be any kind of an upgrade in the land there's not
going to be any kind of a value increase over this over this land and all going into the cost just a little bit and I not sure I understood her correctly but today you can also set the assessment um you can decide to assess differently if
I didn't get her wrong I think what she was referencing is we would we would determine the uh payback period and the interest rate okay is that what it was we can change the assessment amount okay like if the bill is 500,000 I don't think we can sit here and say it's only
400 500 you have a contract but you can choose to assess more you could assess the county rather than just the no only benefiting land owners statute's clear about that yeah where the county can be assessed as our Ro where we crossed with
culverts on County Roads or Township roads those uh Road authorities are assessed okay specifically for those areas okay um I did not receive the um redetermination of benefits I don't know
why I talked to you a little bit about it uh commissioner so I don't know why we didn't get it but it did not get to us this is the first time I saw it was last week I think Chris may have sent it out to me um your copy yep but I saw that I'm a little bit
surprised I mean I'm getting a $450 upcharge on the land and there's there's no possible way that it's coming through so I'm not sure where to go with that I will check on it um
I guess that's really all I have it's mostly you know that redetermining of benefits so again Steve I encourage you to sign up and have them explain that to you I'm signed up but does the explanation really make any difference at this point well I guess you'll have you'll have to well that's your choice I
I can't guarantee that but I'm not quite sure I understood the part about we're 14 and I believe 12 dump in to ditch nine so 14 dumps into nine first and then 12 dumps into nine later okay so there's going to be a a notice to
landowners again a Reen notice what is the uh the reasoning for that second meeting you still can't argue redetermination of benefits but in this point cd12 hasn't had any work done on it yet and those land owners are going to have to be
notified because their property is benefiting to cd9 okay all all right well you guys are costing us a lot of damn money believe you me I don't think there's one of us up here that enjoy pushing forward the
assessments anybody else on cd14 yeah I I don't think anybody's comments are going unheard here we we've been dealing with this a long time and it's not fun to sit up here and and uh make these determinations the counties other than
our ditch getting clean it's not like we're pocketing the money is what it false go ahead Nick Nick shocker Colin or Colin here for uh property 889 875th Avenue Northeast Oak Park again these determinations aren't
they just a theory where's the proof of all this value that they come up with need to be done being same we maintain our dites twice since 96 come back take care of it they came they said they if we measured only the quantity they completed
didn't pay them foras that they compl that would be additional qu their unit price we have to determine that out of our own pocket besides but based on a unit price we paid them only if they did
not mow through an area and the inspector did not the that you say we what we can do is verify our inspection quantities once again it takes more staff time but we can verify our inspection quantities and see if the area question the first went to the meeting at
Henry the redetermination you should have received a packet they would be ow additional compensation you know that quantity times price details in regards to your land and how they determine the benefit
do you do you know if you I don't recall what you're referencing right Mark that you Reed no and once again when everybody talks about the cost oh I can have it done some of these additional costs are having or
inspector contract work we don't just take the contract work so in this case I would think at this point it's going to take a statute change because that's what they're following right but that's contract it wasn't wasn't Jo they inspector that was
on and I know I've seen them they have inspect inspection they track town and you you live in town you got a city sewer system contract the process is the contractor submits to us what they think we have the
inspector that with their field notes one that wants to pay to goally we have a difference in quantities and we have disc that with the contractor you say you did five acres when we measured it it was only four and a quarter where's the difference and sometimes we
made an error sometimes they make an error and we we worked that out before they're finally paid got dumping into them ditches you should have to pay for that anybody in the W shed has to pay for this just get over them ditch has been there before you bought that
property yeah and that's where I mean coming before today we had a final contract amount the contractor requested final payment to a certain amount we verified it with our I'm going to I'm going to let you have that discussion side I know there's a couple locations that are question ask Chris and or Joe
if you could give a short verify whether those are the you know they're just not somebody off check like I said it's like a the cont they not that's why I want to have Mr chair to Mark's question
or your point it was out to bid but I'm going to tell you those bids have changed over you know we we went from one buffer Stone Zone to both sides and we've changed things along the way after we've heard uh people talk so I'm not
sure oh and to that point we've got to make sure that not and I think somebody mentioned it they take a wed approach I mean everybody kind of understands and what you're referencing is the area south and 90 on the East lande had
mentioned that's what we've got we've got to get verified we know the square miles or the area that either drains toward that Houston yeah they they take a very technical approach they look at wed they look at elevations they look at soil
types they look at crop rotation they look at whether it's mostly Farm or we really need to verify is whether or not that was in what Helman was as I sit here right now I can't tell you that until we check it out and really that number though Chris's Point
perent adding information to check on things is going to be hopefully signicant amount to the ditch system but the ditch system have to in my opinion I don't think we throw the existing assessments out the door we've got to deal with those and it's
probably going to be an added cost once again I think the idea of having H those individuals actually completed that otherwise every assessment that everybody's got is worthless correct I age the only alternative I think would be to say oh as of this date you know if
it's February 4th or if it's March 4 or something the repair project is complete boom that's what that total amount is and then like you said is that ongoing maintenance that's required of the ditch system we got to make sure that that
that that work is done there issues and then we can come back and say it's done that being said right getage before ditch was cleaned and after it was cleaned let's see what percentage the proper be verifi and I guarantee you
motion there's going to be Contin CD any other discussion amongst the Commissioners go ahead got PID $50,000 for they did 500t not even 300,000 we had a lot of water Upstream
that comes through two and floods but that's the way it is you can't do nothing about it you got to clean your ditch to make the water go downhill we better but like I said the biggest thing is how do we how do they prove okay they said okay you benefited
20% 10% 5% okay now let's go after the ditch is clean and let's go back and just do a Drone footage it'll take no time at all fly over let's see who benefit the most out of this figure fast and then how do they reevaluate that if they are whole buckets May messed up all right I'm going to call the question
you've heard the motion for the May 20th all those in favor this particular motion fails all right June 3rd would should reach out and ask them that have that conversation yes re and I don't know that they're going
to reevaluate the assessment cuz what if we find out their evaluation is wrong I'm good on take that up with them I think because that's on Jun I can't and not saying everybody's have to pay some but where they public hearing of CD to
June 3rd at 6m maybe other people I'm sure have would have all right any other discuss June 3rd two years anything else from staff that's the problem and the repair has been done all right all those in favor that's the is Carri public hearing of the continu of CD4 will be
June 3rd at 6 p.m. you know I think Landers had a 30 window in to C packet and whether you had it or not I can't answer that either I don't I don't know if you threw it away I don't know and I'm not accusing you I'm just saying there's no way for the
ditch authority to know that everybody received it number one number two opened it number three questioned it m right we did it kind sticks the number Big Numbers if you're benefiting from obviously we should at least if you're
on N if you're on 14 benefi remember though they didn't know based on that what this repair was going to cost well for bid so I think that's why they use the specific all right if it cost 100 here's the point right well they should send something they could have said well if it cost if it cost 900,000 but only
came in at six then it would be the other way well exactly so they didn't know what the repair was really going to cost until we went until we have MERS anything else repair ordered at 1226 thank you is there a statute they should is there something that has to back up their percentage after the project is
done back part of the evaluation question Hannah did you hear that question say Mr chair maybe we could wait a minute yes I did um the redetermination of benefit once that is final that's final until it's redetermined again um
and so that's not but there was like a 30-day window in there I mean for instance if we could back the clock up they would have had 30 days to question that redetermination is that correct correct after the board um set the redet finalized the
[Music] redetermination which the board set that do you want to ask him to move out or you want me to I'm sorry if you guys could go out to the hallway and have a conversation until we can uh finish our board meeting
that'd be greatly appreciated I I'm I hear what everybody's saying out there I wouldn't know I have 30 days to petition this does it say in the letters no it doesn't say anything don't it's too late so like I said how they they should I'm sorry get your attention please we still
have to finish our board meeting here so you got conversations please step outside 30% or 10% I mean don't at least totally wrong oh sorry screw you I mean we mess up I think and to play Devil's Advocate a little bit is there's that's
why we notice meetings and that's why things are sent out but how do you how do you technically know until after the project is done okay let's keep moving on talking any comments by Commissioners that need to be brought up have received it open it do we want to go into and appeal that
during that time meetings that you guys put in notifications last two weeks you want go that notific prer to not go over that right now move forward with setting Committee of the whole meetings it's not on the but we would have what I'm getting
that is there would have Noti at that point saying we just realized we omitted the uh commission meeting updates from your agenda I just don't think it's I just don't think it's out line I mean there should be a process they have to double check after the work is done that it did what they said you're invited to the career Solutions annual meeting
February 13th at 3 p.m. February 13th at 3 p.m. this is an annual event where they highlight I think success stories partipate in their programs that's 57 $558,000 it looks like there's a they
come plus we had pay9 outet it should have been when they started the trct come back can I encourage you to reach out over te col is there a certain person submit the list Brian or somebody from his office
so Comm for sure don't okay February 13th 3 p.m. y CH lutions on Northway drive next is the AMC leadership okay great I'm sorry we
do we have ledge conference on for other people here it's okay if I could ask else anybody else on CD y please come to come to the Pod sir are you would you like to speak loud from your chair yeah of course right the AMC leadership conference is coming up
March 26th through the 28th at Grand who might be attending ginsky Comm maybe and we will communicate separately with commissioner pop so any you know right out by my place the water
in the ditch there running north of South okay what's the early bird date on it and I own the land that's uh I'm looking nor early bird dat on last year says Reser reserve your lodging by the
26th February 26th to get this water out of you have a little bit of time it is tiled by me many years I guess you can rain the ditch and go north and fled my 40 AC
going now what should I do there go I don't know if they can correct it this is uh you know u i put some things on this Lis that's in your packet well and I think what we'll do can't check it today I'm not in position to recommend your next Government Center project meeting you
know because and I'm going to tell you right now persp because we to many concerns I guess likewise the government center public meetings going to be best got Pete and Evan here and their calar follow with you this I put it on there to keep it on our
radar the only other way are you prepared to to schedule your joint meeting of cities town we said last time sometime in April y are you ready to schedu that today you do the right Township we need to follow up with you on that and uh what night do they
usually meet then we can get it cleared up and I don't want to lose that 40 acres again this year sure because I lost it last year I couldn't get in there okay and I know I know I'm just like you right I don't know do I wait
longer I think it should be done now if be done maybe some little thing so much going I will say this and I'm not going to be here for it but you do have a BAP meeting coming up before we did theary 20th so you know maybe we
could talk to them at that point addition we did to verify all that do more work and not impact Wetlands through his location well actually just south not his property south of his property you just give a quick
update won't be asked us to do some additional work with the know what to tell you I won't be here vegetation management to open up the channel a little bit and not Wetland so I would suspect that the situation is different now be should be
flowing better than J should see it being corrected this spring with th evening at 730 conf you know maybe at that point in time you can get an idea to of them if they want toass Chan and we we'll read address the
time frame impeding well I'm I'm got it I'm going to say I had a request then finally to add the conversation about in put this onary were you aware that we were out there last fall some vegetation south of
your property basically changing the Le today into a sergeant and making it more of a full-fledged supervisor didn't we have that discussion with uh oh okay Tesla already or I think well this came
up during the class comp process and they wanted to transition it to the sergeant then and we said look that's not for this process that's more a budget time issue you I understand circumstances are all I got I just I
don't want this 40 fled again or your we took something off our February 11th meeting I guess something on it that's fine so that's all I have those items okay move to set the cows
second there's motion on the table second the motion and you can bring it up I'm sorry Mr chair Jared did second sorry okay my name is Al donabauer I live on 10112 175th Avenue Northeast Oak Park and uh I own the piece of property
just south Iran that he's talking about and they did clean it up aess one of the concerns I had was the fact that some of his property drained off uh so we got a motion a second for to
set the cows further discussion on that if no the question so his flow now has got to go it's passed straight South onto my other 40 yes I I how did you know that they didn't want me to clean mych out any
further because well it's going to invade on that well that is got to be the outlet for his so Al and let me interrupt you real quick because I want to make sure I understand this when you said it was abandoned was that a private bch or was it a branch of branch of the
main 14 and they abandoned I would probably said they abandoned it that's what they said when I got the information worst case scenario I can give you an address and if I'm here according other question that's one of
the problems like I said the ditch right what I'll do is I'll get you an address than the bottom of the ditch so yeah again I cover then okay anything else Township deal we're at
1235 um I I've got more water standing in there now than was previously it's understandable because the dit was so full of of sediment and everything else my other question is what was the cost initial cost to sit
there and clean out my portion of the ditch not sitting there saying benefit what did it cost asked the the um escavator what did he charge for that portion of the ditch I can't answer that without looking at the I don't know if he
supplies that data on a per foot basis well I'll and it's kind of addresses the comment earlier so yeah we we we calculate quantities we we pay the contractor on actually work completed so it's not like a lump sum I know there was a reference of like mowing the ditches it's not like the contractor got
a lump sum to mow both side of the ditches whether they did or not um Houston engineering had an inspector out there that actually measured quantity so although we don't have the numbers today we have you know a linear foot the contractor had to provide us a
price per foot to do excavation uh it was an area I think we paid by the acre for um uh mowing no we didn't call it mowing we called it uh remember with we had several different line items so basically it's a measured quantity does it get a specific to his
poent personal property though what we'd have to do is we'd have to look at the linear foot of open Channel ditch through his property multiply that by the unit price for uh a channel excavation calculate the area of um
vegetation removal in all those costs I mean it's it's possible it would just require staff time to put together those numbers and then I imagine if one individual wants that everybody's going to want it and then we'll be here till Christmas prob probably no one wouldn't
be here till Christmas but um it's possible um it's just time and money folks yeah yeah well the idea of it is if I had hired my own contractor to clean out that ditch where would have I been and and I guess
I could go out and get an estimate and and see what it is because if that's the case that that's the price I got to pay for the other people the benefit I got from my property is minimal I got 28 acres of tillable land with a a price
tag of $21,000 of of benefit I I'd really like to see how it's done and I will have my name on that list and they can explain it to me but it's kind of hard to
understand um I'm I'm supposedly I'm benefiting everybody else by having to pay my portion but just seems awful steep so okay all right thank you thank you anyone else on cd14 if you could
please come to the podium state your name and address um Julie Gunner 17746 75th Street Northeast Oak Park just a short question um and maybe it has already been answered because I was
you were talking about notifying individuals that haven't been notified but um has everyone who benefits from this bill truly been build I mean I know I asked if there was um I'd asked
Christine if there was ways that people can get their bill lowered you know um just just wondering because it does seem it does seem like you know a number of people are bearing the brunt of you know for
so to answer your first question I believe everyone that has benefited has been assessed okay okay okay and that would have been based on the redetermination of benefits that was done okay and your second question I'm
sorry sure if it can be reduced if it can be to my knowledge no the the the work has been done and the assessments have if anyone got build there was there's no way they could you know not be be buil right by you know I don't know
because it will be it's going to be on the assessment okay all right thank you probably oh yeah don't know morning morning Pat Johnson 17852 100 Street Northeast Oak Park um I have a question for the Wetland stuff
the ditch only goes you know about 150 ft through our property and it's right up to Wetland and we never got any kind of thing about permits or you know draining Wetland cuz a lot of our land doesn't drain there but we got a 20 some
thousand bill and it's actually making our property value worse because that that Wetland would replenish our groundwater now we're going to have less groundwater because they're okay draining the wetlands do you know where her property is or can no
I don't it's are you able sou south of THS and then South Pat are you able to could you maybe just hand that to um Joel quick so he can see just right where your property is yeah and then maybe he can answer that question yeah because we never got nothing you know any
information we should have saw something on permits or something or those let's take a look at your property and see if he can answer that for you and if not I'm sure he can follow up with you yeah Mr wonderlick Steve yeah I I had one question real quick um could we do just
a raise of hands who didn't receive paperwork when all this stuff comes out okay cuz one of the things I was going to bring up maybe we need to look at doing something like with certified mail because I'll tell you this I'm horrible with mail I know it's a lot of money and and again that's going to go
to the system it goes to the system I know but I you know I to guarantee it yeah I don't know I just wanted to go back to that cuz you had mentioned you didn't receive it so we have a tough time for some reason for some reason
up okay that's a whole another issue yeah I just wanted to catch you before you left Todd did you have another comment I'm sorry and there was are these reports available if somebody didn't get it can they get it through the company yeah fact we have it don't
we yeah we have them now okay they are available all right anyone else mark one quick question so why ditch 14 and n's have this issue and it looks like we're going to have a lot more issues coming down to fight with a lot more County ditches you think everybody should be informed on this so then everybody can
come and listen to this so I can get educated you know I actually had that same idea and I kind of got my hand slapped because countywide a lot of people aren't affected right well what's the percentage of the county because if you go out and look at the benefit
package is it a third twoth thirds of the county that's benefiting by this I I don't know the answer that I know we have 12 drainage ditches um I don't know the percentage I mean if it's half why would you that's something maybe we could look at
yeah uh just one recommendation if our ditch is done but if it happens to go through any other ditch say like this one come up to 990,000 was that the estimate I'm sorry was that that was the estimate okay if
you could send out a estimated going on your taxes to the property owners and if I would have known that I would have been assessed $35,000 I would have definitely took a week off to come here to this meeting you know so just and it it does
not affect everybody but send it out to the I think that was done that was done with the redetermination benefits that was mailed to you based on $100,000 repair based on 100,000 correct yes but say if you know when that estimate did come back
from what oh you're saying when the repair estimate the actual repair estimate yep when that comes back that that'd be great because you know the ones that did benefit a bunch they're paying like just a couple hundred bucks well heck yeah let's do it so you're saying an additional notice to
those actual land owners versus just public notice that will be taking repair yep testimony okay that's not a bad idea actually that's a good idea it's a really good idea okay anyone else on cd14 I just suggest something as overall on the ditches sure I deal with a ditch
over and the process of how it work for us is the terms and conditions after everything was set for payment was negotiated or not negotiated but was set by the public come to the hearings not that I agree with what's being charged everybody has
asset charges for the year but you guys can negotiate your terms of what it's going to be for payment your assessment going to be what it is but also be pushed push it off for seven years and and I would and just so we're on the
same page that once once we have that discussion it would be the same for everybody it wouldn't be individual right like right like for instance maybe it's a 10-year assessment at such and such a rate maybe it's a sevene I don't know we can't determine it today because there's other things be done but also
with that and I will tell you that we will take input on that what's going to be the most helpful to land owners we realize this is a kick in the shorts and so we we have no intention of saying it's due in two years but we also keep the opportunities because some people will like to pay it because they don't want to pay interest we had Gary was up
here saying that when do I pay it so I don't pay interest so those options will be available we're not quite there yet if I suggest before you begin that discussion you might want to ask Hanah are there any parameters around maximum duration interest rate and so on and I I she might be good if she can remind you that before you start that discussion
sure and I don't don't know that we're going to have that discussion today because I think we're going to end up continuing we've got few too many issues on C 14 to take care of here yet but Hannah to Monty's Point um what are those parameters on the assessment payback period and or
interest broadly I know that we said it but what are the parameters it is during leans against property benefited of um are payable to the treasurer in 20 or less equal annual
installments um so the maximum assessment period would be 20 years 10 years yes yeah anything about the interest rate Hannah so the interest is rate um must
be set by the board and it but it can't exceed the rate determined by the state court administrator for judgments um or 6% whichever is greater I am not sure what that rate is currently but I you
give me about five minutes I can find it Well I can pretty much say we probably won't be setting a rate that high but anyways we'll have those future discussions any other public hearing comments on cd14 commissioner b i I just want a clarification from Hannah she said 20 years I think it's 10 years
aren't they assessed twice a year that would be your 20 payments in 10 years my assumption would be is it's like your property taxes you have the total amount it's just split into two payments okay some people may choose to pay it all in May but that's how I look
at it is that right Christine or Hannah I mean there's one one amount assessed each year and that would be on the two property tax statements is that a correct way to look at that correct
okay so it is 20 years yep 20-year maximum assessment period okay Elaine Ela uh schaer if you sell your place is it assess to the new ERS good question um I we'll have to have that
discussion I believe in the past we've said that the assessments have to be paid on the sale of the property that would be between the seller and the buyer but at closing the assessments paid so if it's not due until the 26th
and if you sell your place in 25th you still be be assessed I would say that would be up to the seller and the buyer to determine who's paying it but the assessment has to be paid at by the closing okay thank you anybody else on
cd14 well I seen one sign went up for sale right across my road then our problem will be they're going to get 10 grand an acre and guess what happens to our property taxes right any other comment on on cd14 all right members I'm going to move
that we continue this public hearing on cd14 we've got issues that we need to obviously address give the land owners an opportunity to get some explanation from H2 overviews for the redeterminations and we'll we'll uh can we set that hearing now I I think
there's some things that we may be weather related and time related that we maybe can't take care of I I believe if you're going to continue the hearing you need to set a day time and place when when we'll pick it back up Mr chair can
can we just buddy that on to the one we just did for the other one I just think there's a couple things that we can't get finalized in two weeks like for example you know that they brought up different areas of a tree left or a area that hasn't been mowed I don't know that we can verify
that just yet so yeah so maybe if those things are weather dependent just a staff recommendation is to set that date to pick up the hearing at a time that weather allows us to inspect those things if that makes sense
let me just look at the future calendar here and see because because what I'm hearing is that yeah based on the construction there's some concerns with construction that you want staff to verify before accepting the the work yes so for example Chris we
have a May 20th County board meeting okay is that reasonable amount of time or do we need to get into June um I don't know I mean at this point it could be yeah I I wouldn't suspect that we would have what I'm thinking of is like from a field
perspective if there's snow in the ditches or the ditches are frozen may not be able to verify flow and and depths and stuff surely by May 20th we would have time to to inspect that so sure okay can Christine remind us when is the timeline to adopt this assessment so it's effective for 26 when is the
time when do we need nov excuse me November by no okay okay so we have time for that and I would assume Maybe by show hands evening ditch Authority meeting again yeah okay so Mr chair clarification we're we're not kicking the can down the road
uh we're making sure you guys are getting answers uh because we could act on it today without the answers and that wouldn't be fair to you guys so that's why we're we're kind of pushing it a little bit so then in my motion I'm going to have it that we continue this
hearing for cd14 until May 20th at 6:00 p.m. is there a second I'll second in a second any other discussion Mr chair go ahead Chris when we do these ditches does a state or anybody come out and inspect what was done the state or or
the legalities the tap the well yeah so I would say the Regulatory Agencies um Board of Water and Soil resources and as part of the T I think they have a responsibility to make field visits do
they our recent conversations they they indicate that they have or will be in the future moving forward I can't say every time in the past but but that's always a possibility um a regulatory agency could call us on the carpet any time and ask us to verify that we did
our due diligence to to follow all applicable state laws my my point being is if these agencies direct us to take 2 feet out and we can't go 2T 2 in if we do do 2' 4 in who are they going to if
they don't come out and check and they come out 2 months later or even 6 months later how can they prove that is a more sediment coming in you know what I mean yeah good question or or or it got or it got taken out by additional water
flow well and I think your I think to your original question though correct me if I'm wrong is somebody whether it's Chris or Houston Engineering in this case is verifying the work right yes so they've verified some of the work we've had land owners raise a question and say wait a minute this wasn't done MH and
until we can get out there and verify that yep that's the purpose of the continuing true not necessarily to point fingers go ahead cor correct and I agree with that but we need documentation and if not pictures too if and out there to do that and we've had some conversations about doing some Drone footage of things
so that be good all right so m go ahead do you need a new notice sent out for that May 20th meeting on a continuation do we need a new notice Hannah no Commissioners you do not okay
so has everybody in the room got that date because they're according to Hannah we would not be sending out a new notice for the May 20th 6 PM ditch Authority meeting for cd14 Mr chair um a question was asked if it could be put or published in the
paper we could go above and beyond though I would imagine right Hannah we just don't have to correct correct yeah okay so let me let me let me we got a motion and a second on the floor first of all so let's take care of that any other discussion and having that ditch
Authority meeting on May 20th at 6 PM it's a continuance of this public hearing any other discussion Mr chair if I may add um I think it's pertinent to the motion if there's additional engineering work even publication costs statute of pretty clear that that's a
cost to the system so it will increase costs on this ditch which would revise the assessment amount I just want that to be clear since we got a room full of land owners um the attorney can correct me if I'm
wrong but costs to inspect maintain provide public notice mailings are specified in statute as costs to the drainage system I think it makes good but then we would also then then the current assessments that are out there
are incorrect correct those numbers are changing then is is the is the point I'm trying to make hypothetically because our plan is again we plan on maintaining these ditches which means maintenance assessments are coming up so if hypothetically this cost $1,000 to do
what we're talking about today that would get put to that ditch so that ditch would have technically a $1,000 negative balance in it so when the maintenance assessments come in it would have to pay that off first before we move forward would that be a fair
statement I believe so so it's a good point Chris thank you any and all costs get put towards a ditch so the current assessments today would be incorrect if there's additional work now the question will be though as Mr RKA brought up is if indeed and I'm
not saying that's the case but if the uh contractor missed that were in the pair that need to be done then that should be done it wouldn't be an additional cost we should have them come back and take care of it it depends if we measured only the quantity they completed and
didn't pay them for areas that they didn't complete that would be additional quantity times their unit price we have to determine that it was on bid but a unit on a based on a unit price so we paid them only if if they
did not mow through an area and they the inspector did not what we can do is verify our inspection quantities once again it takes more staff time but we can verify our inspection quantities and see if the area in question was the contractor paid
for clearing the vegetation that area if not and we need to have them do that um they they would be owed additional compensation you know that quantity times their their unit price Steve I think but you said that earlier that
wasn't broke cont no no no and once again when when everybody talks about the costs oh I can have it done cheaper some of these additional costs are having an engineer or an inspector on site to verify the the contractor's work yeah we don't just take the contractor's work so in this
case who verify it does the county verify it no we we contracted with Houston engineering it wasn't it wasn't Joe that's here today he they have an inspector that was on site and and I know I've seen them they have inspection Diaries inspection quantities that they
tracked um we can get into contract Administration the process is the contractor submits to us what they think they're owed we have the inspector look at it and compare that with their field notes does that match up occasionally we
have a difference in quantities and we have to discuss that with the contractors it's like hey you say you did five acres when we measured it it was only four and a quarter where's the difference and sometimes we made an error sometimes they make an error and we we worked that out before they're finally paid but the problem though that
people had with some parts not being cleared some being overd whatever they have it's supposed to take care yeah and that's where I mean coming before today we had a final contract amount the
contractor requested final payment to a certain amount we verified it with our inspection quantity so I know there's a couple locations that are in question now we'll just have to verify whether those are the um it it would be like a third check I suppose to go back and see
if that were they was the contractor paid for an area that they did not do work sure commission kinsky Mr chair and uh to Mark's question or U or your point it was out to bid but I'm going to tell you those bids have changed over you
know we we went from one buffer Stone uh Zone to both sides and we've changed things along the way after we've heard uh people talk so I'm not sure well and to that point we've got to make sure that our specs are correct going forward right go ahead not that was put in the
requirements that both sides of the ditches were going to get mow the the buffer zones both sides that was in Prior and what you're referencing is the area south and 90 on the east side South and 90th yes South and there still trees
so that's what we've got we've got to get verified yeah okay and it was brought up to Houston Engineers inspector that was out on site it was brought up to his attention that fall that hey how come
you're not mowing this and certain trees aren't taken out well what we really need to verify is whether or not that was in what Helman was supposed to do or not and as I sit here right now I can't tell you that until we check out so again though to Chris's Point
adding this information to check on things is going to be a you know hopefully a insignificant amount to the ditch system but the ditch system will have to pay for it so in my opinion I don't think we throw the existing assessments out the
door we've got to deal with those and it's probably going to be an added cost the system going forward that's my opinion otherwise we're gonna be every assessment that everybody's got is worthless yeah correct yep I agree the
only alternative I think would be to say oh as of this date you know if it's February 4th or if it's March 4th or something the repair project is complete boom that's what that total amount is and then like you said is that ongoing maintenance that's required of the ditch
system so we got to make sure that that that that work is done though if there's issues and then we can come back and say it's done in your you're right that has to be double checked we have to verify that as a board or I'm sorry Chris that
has to be verified again a motion is on the floor for the May 20th 6m ditch Authority meeting to continue cd14 and there's a second on it any other discussion amongst the Commissioners go ahead I just want to bring to your attention that the 20th you're probably going to be down two
board members up here on the 20th for that 6 p.m meeting so you know that that's good to know oh is that the it's the library meeting I believe we better going to be out too we better uh redo
that June 3 since there's a pending motion I would let it die recommend a vote to deny it and yep bring a new new motion all right I'm going to call the question you've heard the motion for the May 20th date at PM all those in
favor opposed I motion fails all right June 3rd 6 PM I have a 5:30 joint power this will oversee that yeah is there commissioner Heinen I'm
good on June 3r commissioner kinsky fin on June 3 okay so then I will make a new motion to hold a public hearing continuance of cd14 to June 3rd at 6 p.m. I or I'll I'll I'll second that all right any other discussion on the June
3rd anything else from staff all right all those in favor I I oppos is carried the public hearing of the continuance of cd14 will be June 3rd at 6m our public hearing is closed in regards to cd14 for today uh staff any
other nothing nothing members could I ask one more question all right now with we're on 14 but now we're getting this letter for nine are we going to be charged another amount potential for the notice no
for the assessment for that one if you're benefiting from if you're on nine uh if you're on 14 benefiting to nine yes and 12 will be too yes yes right on top of our 20 some
now have to pay don't know well it's better to pay more and get the job done right all right members anything else we're adjourned at 12:26 thank you I'll
turn it back to board chair for a regular board meeting so now we'll finish our regular board meeting get in your yellow minute or say Mr chair maybe we could wait minute do we got any calls maybe we just
do away with our up got a list on oh say that it's not assessed he's got his own do you want to ask him to move out or you want me to I'm sorry if you guys could go out to the hallway and have a conversation until we can uh finish our board meeting
that'd be greatly appreciated okay we're just we're going to finish up a regular board meeting and I'll stop back and talk to okay I it but obviously moners I think it's too late for us but I don't think it's too late for you guys free I'm sorry could we get your attention
please we still have to finish our board meeting here so if you've got conversations please step outside at least outside this room okay let's keep moving on uh any comments by Commissioners that need to be brought up
okay set Committee of uh do we want to go into uh meetings that you guys have been on for the last two weeks or you want to go over that or not i' prefer to not go over that right now and let's just move forward with setting Committee of the
whole meetings it's not on the agenda Monty yes sir ready for cows yes we just realized we omitted the uh commission meeting updates from your agenda well then I guess we can't do it
sorry that's good fine you're invited to the career Solutions annual meeting February 13th at 3 p.m. February 13th at 3 p.m. this is an annual event where they highlight I think success stories from individuals who participate in their
programs that's um at it looks like there's a are they asking for RSVPs they would like an RSV they would like an RSVP any indication of who might go I will not be no no it would be over at the tech
college at their their their their offices on Northway drive right it's right I'm here to help so commission H for sure yeah yes got that Beth okay February 13th 3
P.M first Solutions on Northway Drive next is the AMC leadership I'm sorry we have we do we have ledge conference on here already we don't have ledge conference oh we do have yes it's on the 25th it's on there
already it's on the confence okay all right then I don't need this you didn't want the leadership though yeah of course right the AMC leadership conference is coming up March 26 through the 28th at Grand View Lodge in niswa who might be interested in attending
commissioner ginsky Comm I may commiss hinen Comm Johnson and maybe and we will communicate separately with commissioner pop so I need to let you know okay and actually oh is there a registration fee though oh yes it would
be yeah okay what's the early bird date on it I'm looking I thought I saw an early bird date on that one but maybe not it says Reser reserve your loding by the 26th February 26th so you have a little bit of time
yeah March 26th 27th and 8th Grand View Lodge Nisa Leadership Summit I guess you can re you can retain the lodging Beth and I can cancel so we at least that we're not on the hook there and then I'll let you know about the attendance so we don't pay the fee without me going all right you're going to go yeah good M
uh you know U I'm not I put some things on this listing that's in your packet but I haven't heard from Pete so I'm not in position to recommend your next Government Center project meeting um I waiting to hear from Pete whenever he
tells me he's ready okay um I guess likewise the government center public meetings that's going to be best done when you've got Pete and Evan here and their calendars are open and corre and we can schedule date so I just put it on there to keep it on our radar are you prepared to to schedule
your joint meeting of cities townships and the counties we said last time sometime in April are you ready to schedule that today the joint meeting of cities townships and the county um what night do they usually
meet we've done Mondays in the past yeah I know I'm I know I'm just like you right now I'm just I'm thinking that we've got a lot going on with you know it wouldn't be bad I'm talking on all sides of my mouth right now well we got so much going on with these I will say
this and I'm not going to be here for it but you do have a bcap meeting coming up on February 20th so you know maybe you want we could talk to them at that point yeah just a quick highlight and yep all that our spring meeting I don't know we get a quick highlight anyways at the bat
meeting we get a quick highlight it's just the County board right you know just give them a quick update and say Hey you know sorry your cities won't be there I don't know what to tell you I won't be here for it so yeah I won't be here for the bcap
meeting either neither will I AZ I mean sorry if Jared or pop or P I will be there was it the 20th 20th it's a Thursday evening at 7:30 in Minden you know maybe at that point in time you can get an idea to of them of if they want
to handle it or have one and then we'll we'll readdress the time frame after that all right got it um I had a request then finally Mr chair to add the conversation about the dispatch lead possibly transitioning that to a
dispatch Sergeant I was asked if we could put this on the February 11th Comm be the whole agenda are you acceptable of is that a career ladder movement thing no basically it's it's changing the lead which exists today into a sergeant and making it more of a full
eded supervisor didn't we have that discussion with with uh Tessa already or am I thinking came up during the class comp process and they wanted to transition it to the sergeant then and we said look that's not for this process that's more a
budget time issue um I understand circumstances are compelling folks in the Sheriff's Office to discuss this issue sooner rather than later so it's really your call well we took something off our February 11th meeting I guess we could add something on it okay that's my
opinion but that's fine so that's all I have Mr chair those items so okay move to set the cows second there's motion on the table second the motion then you can bring it up I'm sorry Mr chair Jared did second sorry okay bring something up now um
when I went to your emergency meeting for you um they do have um a free uh it it it's for cyber risk awareness um coming up and that would be for February
12th if anybody's even interest okay yep so we got a motion a second for the to set the cows any further discussion on that if not I'll call the question all in favor say I I I it's passed commissioner ginsky you
have something yes I I how did you know that was it just a smoke coming I think it was the finger up I don't um I do uh I I 18th or 17th 18th 18th um would you be in remote for the employee for him too or not I would probably have to miss
that okay so we'll let us know give us I'll let you know give us an address we just publish it worst case scenario I can give you an address and if I'm here according to what we then I'm fine you're fine correct yeah no you can't sorry gave what I'll do is I'll get you
an address of where I'll be I'm our the casino's opening in yeah good we'll be covered then okay anything else okay we're adjourned at 12:35 I got record Scott oh come on I don't like you right now yeah I'm sure you
don't e okay e e e e everybody ready yep sure we call order to the Ben County Board of Commissioners meeting please join us for the Pledge of
Allegiance IED aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay roll call note that all Commissioners are here except for
commissioner pop and he is excused approve or amend the agenda Monty we have no changes board motion to approve the uh agenda is presented Mr chair second got a motion and a second
any further discussion if not I'll call the question I'll favor say I I I oppos motion carries thank you County board meetings are broadcasted live and video recorded on YouTube please refrain from speaking from the audience area come to the podium so that the viewers can hear
you County Board observes Robert's Rules of Order for its meetings so please obtain the board's chair's consent before addressing the County Board public comments are generally reserved for the open form segment or public hearings however public comment on other
agenda items may be allowed at the discretion of the board chair as we begin today please turn off the cell phones or turn them on to vibrate thank you Beth nothing on the open form thank you uh Cent agenda what would we
like to do with one through 10 move approval I am going hold it okay we've got a motion so we have to act on that motion I'll second it okay we got a motion a second further discussion
commissioner bonite I would like to pull consent item number five and consent item number 10 and abstain from two okay I'll amend my motion to include those also amend my second thank you
thank you motion maker seconder okay with that I'll call the question all in favor say I I I oppos motion carries okay commissioner Benoy number five that one I just I wasn't on the board when all of this came up so just a brief
explanation as to what that [Music] is sure so uh 2024 was the first year of our three-year class en comp maintenance program so the the County Board entered
an agreement with David drown Associates to review a third of our classifications each year for possible reclassifications or Market adjustments and uh I believe those recommendations were presented last fall well with your any employee that's covered by a collective bargain
agreement in order for you to implement those changes you have to have a an agreement negotiated agreement and we have because we have contracts in place to the end of this year you you formalize that agreement through this document a memorandum of agreements so
it's kind of a an addition to or an amendment to the existing threeyear CBA and basically the union says okay yeah we agreed how you want to implement this and there the members vote on it and then they sign off on it so that's why this is on your agenda and this is
actually we have eight bargain units and this is the the last one uh that we have an agreement with so this will then have all of our groups settled okay thank you got your clarification on that I did okay we'll take uh number 10 too
commissioner uh number 10 I just know that we discussed some stuff in the cow on how to reduce costs at the sheriff's department yes so I know this was brought up at oura to try and see if
there was other options to try and cut that back I agree commissioner Bight did commissioner Heinen and commissioner Pinsky have an opportunity to meet with the sheriff about this no we have not yet I see Troy has with us by go to Just Troy would you like to comment on
that certainly so we routinely seek um what the updated pricing is going to be for the the coming year um this is the the price that our food vendors asking I know that
in preparation for the meeting with uh Commissioners ginsky and Heinen we have S some additional bids to see what uh what else is out there how competitive this bid is I don't have results of that I do know that uh in the past when we've
gone out for bid that some foods has been has been very competitive and or they've been willing to match the other bits um uh a 3.8% increase I think is is very reasonable given given the times we live
in and it's the lowest one we've seen in several years so I I'd be willing to entertain any other questions that board might have Mr chair Sheriff um that 287,000 was and I haven't done the math here but it's based on how many inmate population because I know you have a
chart here that shows that it you know obviously the price goes down the higher number of inmates we have but what was that number B based off of her inmat you know yeah uh I believe when I did the math on that I figured an average daily
population of 40 35 or 40 okay and right now what's our current population it's it's been going in between 35 and 40 okay thank you any other questions for Troy uh actually Mr chair I do have one more what's the
timeline on this uh Sheriff I I mean I you know the Commissioners haven't met with you yet about this for some other possibilities so do we have a strict timeline or is there something we can hold off on a little bit so I of course waiting commiss H's return uh we discussed getting with these two board
members and getting some dates today uh to have that first meeting so so do we have time to hold off on this then I guess is my question that's a question for Troy I I what is the time frame to get this adopted when does the current contract expire by the way the the
current Amendment expired on February 1st okay um if uh if you'll permit I can uh I can find the original agreement and find what our opt out is my suspicion is that we have the ability to
terminate um this amendment for the for the terms of the original agreement I can if you'll uh if you'll permit I will see if I can find that quickly yeah you can certainly table this and discuss it later in today's meeting if you wish yeah yeah it's your
poll you what would you like to do with it I'd like to table it till we have more information okay okay excuse me so commissioner buono what would you like to do with number five um I'll make a motion to approve to
approve I'll second that okay we got a motion and a second any further discussion on that I'll call the question all in favor say I I motion carries and then number 10 table it uh I'll let her it's her I'll make a motion to table that till later in the
meeting okay thank you and I'll second that also okay got clarification on that everyone's okay with that okay if not I'll call that question all favor say I I opposed motion carries thank you we'll be getting back to you Troy okay
next up very Monty uh the next item is agenda is a public hearing to consider creating a local Housing Trust Fund uh before opening a public hearing we will first hear from County staff and I'd like to
ask Amanda if she could come to the podium and address this issue for you you were kind of ready for this weren't you yes figured I would be good morning um morning board morning um I'd like to
just kind of give you a little bit of background on uh establishing this local Housing Trust Fund for the county um essentially the Housing Trust Fund is um going to be a a permanent source of funding for continuing to re um meet
some of our housing needs as it relates to um when we established uh the or I should say we established the housing study back in 2023 um finalized that housing study and there's a lot of um information in that housing study that
suggests that there's a a huge housing need in the county um we identified a need of of 3,800 units across the county um part of that is um implementing that housing study across the county right um and one of those ways is to establish this local Housing Trust Fund and the
whole local Housing Trust Fund is essentially a tool to park some of the local um housing a dollars into so that we can utilize those funds for various different programming um across the
county in addition um establishing the local Housing Trust Fund um allows us to leverage um additional dollars from the state of Minnesota and other sources um for example U Minnesota housing um right
now has uh an RFP out there um for us to um apply to leverage additional dollars um we can apply for up to $225,000 um but the only caveat to that is that we have a a tool at the county
um such as our local Housing Trust Fund to um Park those funds if you will uh the Housing Trust Fund um really is uh a tool to uh establish different types of
programming so one of the programming um options that we're proposing um after the establishment of this Housing Trust Fund is to um create a revolving uh Loan Fund a fixup fund if you will um for uh
some of our existing housing stock we know that our our existing housing stock is um needs some work in their County um it's older um so that this Housing Trust Fund is a tool to kind of help establish some of those programs such as that fix
up fund if you will so part of um establishing this ordinance there's a couple different um components to the ordinance itself so the obviously the purpose is is that it it Parks those funds for us um that we receive from the
state of Minnesota um there's eligible activities um that you can designate within the trust fund um to utilize those funds for different programming as I mentioned we can make grants we can make loans um it doesn't necessarily
have to be for low-income project it can be for market rate projects it can be for wide variety of different projects that we can create programming for the caveat to that is that we need to create a a program um a policy and an application and that's identified within
the Housing Trust Fund ordinance um another caveat to establishing the Housing Trust Fund is that we have to have a dedicated re um a dedicated source of funding for this particular ordinance and the dedicated source of
funding is um a couple of different things that we have already established um the local housing a dollars um has been um uh dedicated or allocated to be to manage that on behalf of the county
and those funds are in a separate account already and earning interest um they have been earning interest um since the time that we've been uh securing those funds on behalf of the county and our current balance in
that local housing aid um account is um 242,656 31 and of course that's with earning interest over the the past couple of years um so that's a dedicated source of funding also the investment
earnings from that fund is considered a a dedicated source of funding so we must have a dedicated source of funding in order to establish the Housing Trust Fund okay so those are our two dedicated sources other dedicated sources can come
from um local uh municipalities if they're doing projects in their city and they dedicate a portion of fees if you will uh to the trust fund can do that um we can have private investors um
dedicate source of private dollars into this trust fund so really it is a tool uh for us to park additional dollars whether it's private or public money okay um the
administration of the Housing Trust Fund really um uh we have it uh identified here as the nonprofit administrator um be has been um dedicated to provide the administration of the housing trust
fund and as well as the local housing uh County's local housing aid dollars and so we would be the ones um bet and economic partnership would be the ones to administer the Housing Trust Fund and any U funds that go into this uh account
um so we will be the ones administering specific programs authorized by the ordinance um again creating applications programs policies um and then determining the terms and conditions of repayments of the loans or the grants
that we issue so any projects um that we work on um utilizing these Housing Trust Fund dollars will have a program in place we'll have an application in place um and will be the ones administering it on behalf of the county so essentially
those are the nuts and bolts of creating this ordinance again a tool for the county to to Park public and private dollars and leverage additional funding through the state and another um you
know Federal apparently too as well so I will open it up for questions if you have any uh at this time we we'll save that for the end at this time we'll now open the public hearing is there anyone in the audience or online who
wishes to address the County Board on this agenda item if so please come to the podium and give us your name and your [Music] address anybody wishing to speak on this matter Final Call for anyone wishing to address the County
Board okay seeing none the public hearing is now closed are there any emails letters Communications to be read into the record other than what you've already read uh no has the department received any comments or concerns from any state agencies cities or townships
on this agenda item no thank you uh let's see if if any official action was required by an affected Township was that what was that action and there was none I'm assuming none okay County Board
now will have time to uh for questions of staff and discussion as a reminder to the audience the public hearing portion is closed now we can open it up for questions Mr chair a couple questions Amanda um County board or Eda which
board is going to be helping manage this making decisions it'll be the County Board okay um also if I'm understanding you correctly um the Statewide affordable housing aid those dollars year after year will go into this local
Trust fun it'll be it's already going into an account a separate account but it'll be um facilitated and managed through the local housing aid and then I and I knew the 120,000 plus we had last year and now I see the 25 certified Aid is down to 50 what do you know what the
formula is why that's so much less yeah so it's going to be all over the place it maybe um and and it's it's not certain um whether or not the state is going to continue to dedicate local housing aid dollars to communities um um but again um we do have to have a
dedicated source of funding and even though it is uh even if that funding source is is shut off if you will um we still have the interest earnings from the account to consider it um the
dedicated source of Revenue and then you'll treat that revolving Loan Fund like you do with the other where you the paperwork comes in let's get reviewed and we approve or deny it um essentially we will work with a third party that will actually um administer they they
specialize in administering um small loans like that okay and so they have it already set up we already have a I have a draft policy in place and um an application and it'll come to the county board with that information um and uh
essentially it'll be up to um be to manage that once that policy and program and application is already in place I won't necessarily need to come to the county board for every loan okay that will be that will need to be administered thank you yes any other
questions for amander I'm good I just got one comment Mr chair thank you again for be stepping up on this if not we'd be figuring it out on our end or not happening right B has taken on a lot of things for
us and truly appreciate us too thank you happy to do so okay all right then with that M Mr chair I'll make a motion to adopt an ordinance establishing a local Housing Trust Fund and directing its publication in the county official newspapers a second okay we've got a
motion and a second any further discussion if not I'll call the question all in favor say I I I opposed motion carries thank you Amanda for doing this truly appreciate it yes thank you yes thank you okay at this time we'll recess the County board meeting to conduct an
economic development Authority e meeting might as well just stay up here then huh you might as well just keep standing um I'm going to try to pull up a presentation real quick Mr chair what she's getting ready or do we want to do
our housekeeping and the other stuff that is correct so at this point in time we'll have to select a chair and a vice chair for the Eda and in the past it's always been the chair and the vice chair of the board that is on this so Mr chair
I'll I'll I'll make a motion that we uh nominate commissioner pop as the chair and commissioner Heinen as the vice chair for the Eda for the 2025 calendar year I'll second okay we got a motion and a second any further discussion on this if not I'll call the question all
favor say I I I opposed motion carries approve or amend the minutes of June 18 20124 meeting move approval second we got a motion and a second any further discuss discuss if not I'll call the question
all in favor say I I I opposed motion carries thank you Amanda consider a microl loan request thank you um chair and um Commissioners we have a new microloan request from odm Medical Group um odm
Medical Group is um 100% owned by Dr Robert Odum um he's been in business for eight years um they operate as a primary care clinic um they are uh offering a bunch of different Services they're considered a rural Health Clinic um they
offer primary services including acute care routine preventive care chronic disease management um physical behavioral and mental health um care for the community uh they also operate um they currently
operate out of two locations um in Crystal and in St Cloud Minnesota this will be their third location um in fley Minnesota they offer mobile services which is quite unique for a medical facility um they um will be able to go
out into our rural communities and um offer Medical Care um they are proposing to build a brand new Clinic here in Foley Minnesota um located at 700 pen Street um this is the location I don't
know if I need to do anything for for my our online folks I don't know if they can see this or if they need but um I'd have to do a share screen inside goto meeting so um do we need do that if
you'd like me to sure okay um so the the new location will be at 700 Penn Street um the construction of the building will be one floor roughly 6,000 square feet disaster oh we can just leave it if
if that's fine if that works for you let see um it will include 12 exam rooms um an x-ray room a lab three offices a large open office area mechanical room janitorial room um and a secure record storage
area uh the applicant is requesting a $140,000 microloan to construct their new facility um the request that they're um proposing represents about 4.4% of the total project cost um obviously
underneath a maximum allowed by thank you um a maximum allowed by the County's policy it's underneath that um our threshold is actually 35% um their um project is you know has
gone through all the government zoning um requirements and um and all of the uh state and federal regulations they comply with all of that they are proposing to create a at least seven full-time jobs at $25 an
hour um the primary lender is francen Bank in fley total project cost is just over 3.3 million and um they are putting in roughly
$191,000 of owner Equity um total Bank participation of 1.6 and um their request from Minnesota business Corporation of 1.3 so that leaves um a rough gap of
140,000 so our loan committee I'll just give you a quick synopsis of their the rendering of their facility it's a very nice facility um the be loan committee reviewed then vetted their loan on
January 10th 2025 they thoroughly reviewed it excuse me and recommended approval of the $140,000 micr loan request um advertised over 20 years with a 10-year balloon payment uh interest rate of
5.5% and it is proposed that the county will take third position on their collateral and real estate which is um typical in this type of um project it is also going to be secured through mortgage and um personal
guarantees the applicant also understands that the County's policy requ Ires full collateral coverage personal guarantees and life insurance policies on the loan itself I just have one one uh statement
that um Dr odm was not able to attend today he has another meeting that he just could not um uh cancel to be here but he wanted to thank the board for supporting this loan to build a primary care uh clinic in Foley Minnesota it
will provide health care access in the county and Beyond the city and much of the county are designated medically underserved um and this is a remarkably remarkably important loan to help improve this
need so I just wanted to provide that um little statement even though he wasn't able to be here um he wanted to express his gratitude to the county board and the E and the Ed um again just kind of a recap of the revolving Loan Fund
request and the county action this morning is to approve by motion a resolution approving um $140,000 micr loan for Odom Medical Group with a 20-year am um 10year balloon 5.5% interest and execute of the loan
documents by the county administer and the board chair one comment I would like to make um in relations to the um the loan documents that you have in your packet um at the time that those
loan documents were delivered to you on um with the packet in general there's just been some minor changes to the overall loan documents some um just minor very minor administrative changes and then
the only major change would be to the actual mortgage itself instead of a Odom Medical Group um being the mortgager it's actually um Odum realy Holdings because they're the
ones that own the real estate so that's it's just a um administrative change there but I just wanted to point that out in your loan docs and those changes will be noted in that then correct the the changes um are
already uh updated and um they will be ready for your signatures but thank you commissioner kinsky uh Amanda all the other the banks and everything are all on board with the changes too yes absolutely MH Amanda how much how much do we have
in a revolving Loan Fund I think you knew I was going to ask you that I knew that you were going to ask that um so we have uh as of December 31st um our ending cash balance was $933,000 and
60 um we have four loans out to date and the total ipal balance is uh $5,395 um last year interest earnings um we received just over $119,000 in interest earnings from those
loans thank you you're welcome I'll make a motion oh go ahead no right ahead I'll make a motion to approve the microloan for AO medical or autum reality autom Medical Group oh aom Medical Group for 140,000
I'll second it okay we've got a motion in a second do we need to include the 20 year um actually if you just um amend your motion to approve the resolution um it'll help us execute the okay I'll
amend my motion to include the resolution thank you I'll second that also okay great thank you motion maker second okay we've got a motion and a second any further discussion on this thank you for everything you're doing
once again yes on behalf of the County Board happy to do it okay with not with that I'll call the question all in favor say I I I opposed motion carries once again thank you very much Amanda thank you anything else in front of us Amanda
for Eda board unless you have any questions I wanted to review you know the the loan summaries that we had which you asked about so I don't have anything else further okay thank you at this point in time will adjourn the Eda board at 9:29 and recess our regular board
meeting Rec Rec uh reconvene sure recess reconvene you know all the same well yeah so far okay next up I don't see an in the audience the extension educator
introduction to the new extension Educators that'd be you great morning to the County Board morning morning morning is not with us this morning but of us um my name is Lauren Hees I'm the small farms and Local Foods
educator for Benton as well as Sterns moris and Sherburn counties um since we both started I started in August Jackie started early September um my areas of focus since then have been largely land
rent um grant writing support and AGR tourism the AGR tourism question question has been brought up many times the first um the first Workshop I held for Agra tourism was last Monday um that
was in St Joseph but we had attendees from all four of the counties that we sered several from Benton as well um and last fall Jackie and I both hosted a few um land rent workshops as well a few in person and then um one webinar format as
well um and coming up we've got an organic row crops day that we're holding um right outside of St Cloud at the end of March that's going to cover um from soil and Crop Production to marketing
and economic side of things it's going to be um like a 4-Hour event with a range of speakers covering those topics as well as a farmer panel and personally next fall I'm working on building a small farm startup School that'll be with um the other
Educators in the quad counties as well as partnership with another educator in a neighboring County who's done this program before so we're now working on what format it'll be whether it's um single day event that is brought around different locations or one location
that's spread out in more of um a multi-day workshop type setup um additionally I have a grant writing curriculum that I'm working on that's carried on from my predecessor Anthony who had been working on grant writing program um and when he was in this
position too he had noted that grant writing and Grant support was something that was um very established as being in need so and I'm I love working with grants I've done um grant writing in the past and served on Grant boards review boards and have done um worked in a
grant writing uh group as well work um I think cyber security is another program that is in the works something that has been established as in Need No Farm who've had um a lot of trouble with that and it's a growing issue so that's
something that is going to get developed over the summer um as well as next year looking into 2026 an AGR tourism passport situation so it's still very broad but it's likely going to be a um a
document that is a self-guided tour setup which would have locations for different different um producers farmers in the Quad County area where we work including Benton um that have AGR tourism operations whether it's upick
situations Flower Farms tours educational things um and so that's out into 2026 I think that's it for the current planned and then proposed things um but Jack you want to go and then we could
take any questions you have well hello everyone everyone my name is Jackie estam I am the sustainable egg soil health and water quality educator for Sterns bent Morrison and Sherburn companies um I just want to highlight a couple of events that I have coming up for the area um the first chronologically is PES
private pesticide applicator training that is a training that basically anyone who handles restricted use pesticides needs to have a certification and that training helps um everyone with that certification renew their license so it's basically like a three-year license and they have to renew it um so one of
the workshops will be in DM on February 25th um there are also other workshops around the state and the U ofm extension has um a website with details for those so if Growers can't come to that specific Workshop there are also other options and if they're a little bit far away or if Growers just don't want to
come to the workshop there is option to retest as well um so that's one of