Yes, we are live. Good. Good. 9:00 we'll call the county board meeting to order. We will begin with the flag pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call back. Sure. Commissioner Benoy here. Commissioner Heinen here. Commissioner Pop here. Commissioner Johnson here. Commissioner Gapinsky here. Thank you.
Approve or amend the agenda. Mr. Chair, just one item as consent item number 12. It's Chris Bird's item on the Rice project, the Rice Road project. Move for approval of the amended agenda. Mr. Chair,
second motion been made in the second to approve the agenda. All in favor? I oppose. Carry. County board meetings are broadcast live and video recorded on YouTube. Please restrain from speaking from the audience area and come to the podium so that viewers can hear you. The
county board observes the Robert's rules of orders for its meeting. So, please obtain the board's chair the board chair's consent before addressing the county board. Public comments are generally reserved for open form segment or public hearings. However, public
comment on other agendas may be allowed at the discretion of the board chair as we begin today. Please turn your phone to vibrate. Thank you. Open form. We got a quite a few people in here. If you're
if you're here to discuss other items than in the that are not subject to the public hearing, you can come up. We have Kerry Steenicker. Just a Carl. Oh, Carl Stufficker. Sorry about that.
Do you need my glasses? Morning. Uh, honestly, this is kind of my first time ever being in front of something like this. So, I was just coming because I was knowing about the dispute about the
con uh, how should I put it, the expansion and new building for the county. And I was I like the idea of it. And I don't know if it's this was one of the things that was I was supposed to sign for at that I
like I said I'm kind of learning on this but I think it's a really great idea. I know we are I'm don't quite know on the population if it's increasing or decreasing right now in Foley. I don't
know if you guys the population is but I view that I know for myself I have done had to go into St. Cloud into Malaca gone to other counties to do stuff for state reasonings like getting going and
get a m motorcycle license permit and for the knowledge test and stuff like that. And I'm honestly I'm hoping that when if and when this goes through that some of them services like I even had to go into St. Cloud to get a passport
done. I hope that when we actually that does go through that we can actually expand to start doing more of the stuff that our county seat right now can't do. It's a very big benefit from the P county and the people of Foley because
it's it might not bring people in right away but it'll it has more room for expansion more possibilities that we that I myself don't know what can come but it is for
something that expansion and something new in Foley is going to be good and I that's where I think this is don't what I like and what I wanted to voice my opinion on it with is that the new
uh building is going to give a lot of benefit to the county. I don't know anything else needs to be said or thank you. Thank you for your input. All right, Rick Walter.
Good morning. Morning. My name is Rick Walter. I live uh at 427 Wilson Avenue Southeast in Benton County in the southeast part of St. Cloud. Um I'm a part of a group called Faith in Housing, which has been gathering monthly for the past three years to
address homelessness and housing concerns primarily in the city of St. Cloud. Our group is made up of representatives from local faith communities and social service organizations united in our shared mission to provide dignified responses
to homelessness in our region. This month, we're meeting with county commissioner boards to share both the work we have done and the plans currently underway. More importantly, we're here to invite you to a regional partnership that brings together the three counties and five cities to
address the ongoing need for emergency and short-term housing for people who are unsheltered. In spite of the two shelters on the east side of St. Cloud in Benton County and the place of hope, there were still about 25 to 30 people with serious mental illness who needed placement last
winter. So from December through April, Faith and Housing organized a network of local churches to provide overnight shelter for individuals experiencing homelessness. Each site operated for a two-eek stretch and relied on volunteers
to transport guests in a donated van to and from the host location. At every site, we had paid staff from the Lincoln Center providing oversight. Over the course of 131 nights, we provided more than 1400 overnight stays
supported by approximately $41,000 in community raised donations. While this effort was a success in terms of impact, it is not a sustainable model. Although we're now in the heart of summer, winter is fast approaching. The faith and
housing leadership committee has been actively working on plans for the coming season and long-term strategies that reflect our values of safety, dignity, and sustainability. Last winter, an average of 34 individuals per night still went without
shelter in our area. While cities receive some CDBG funds, they have limited resources specifically earmarked for homelessness. That said, the cost of inaction is real. police, fire, and emergency services across all five cities are already
bearing the burden. We want to recognize and express our appreciation to the considerable human and capital resources that Benton County already provides in bringing critical social services to those struggling with homelessness. We
come to you today seeking a collaborative approach, not just with Benton County, but with the two neighboring counties. To that end, we invite you to attend a meeting with the commissioners from the three counties and the city council members and mayors from the five area cities on Monday,
August 18th at 9:00 a.m. at Atonement Lutheran Church in St. Cloud. I'll be sending each of you an invitation with more details this afternoon. At that meeting, we will address preparation for the upcoming meeting with regard to providing safe emergency
shelter and steps needed to collaborate on a shared vision from each of the cities and counties. This kind of work requires cooperation and a shared vision. We want to partner with you and the area communities to ensure we are welcoming, humane, and safe for all,
especially those experiencing crisis due to homelessness, mental health issues, or economic hardship. We appreciate your time and consideration and look forward to exploring what we can accomplish together. Thank you. Thank you, thank you,
Mr. Chair, can I ask a question? Sure. Can I ask you a question? Which which counties and which cities are on that list? Do you know? Uh Stern, Sherburn, and Benton counties will be there. Um St. Cloud, White Park,
Sartell, um S Rapids, and St. Joe. Thank you. Next, we have Mike Leandowski. But I think Are you for the public hearing or for this too? Okay, this is not the public hearing. The public hearing will happen later.
Um Mary K. Nordman think public hearing. Um Darl Watercotting. Uh Chad Pop. Um Mike Deppa and uh Frank Leot. Okay. So that concludes the open form.
Then thank you for your comments. Consent agenda. We have items 1 through 12. Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, I'd like to pull number four, please. Mr. Chair, I'd like to pull number one, please. And Mr. Chair, I'd like to pull seven and 11, please.
Oh, boy. Oh, okay. So, right now we have what? One, four, seven, and 11. Yeah. Mr. Mr. Chair, I'll move approval of consent agenda items 2 3 5 6 8 9 10 and
12. Second. Motion been made and seconded to approve items 2 3 5 6 8 9 and 10 and 12. Yes. All in favor? I opposed.
Carried. Um we'll start with number one then. Mr. Chair, I just wanted to bring the members up to speed. I did have a conversation with Beth and also Roxan Oman in regards to the minutes um from the last July 15th meeting when the
board discussed the um faucet plat. It was mentioned at our meeting that the Maywood Township board approved that plat. Um it was it's not correct that they approved it. They acknowledged it and there is a difference. Um, I did talk to the Maywood Town Board about
that and they asked for clarification. So, I brought that forth in the draft minutes. Had Beth put that in there that they acknowledged it. They didn't approve it. Okay. So, I just wanted to make sure I was clear on that on on those draft minutes. So, that was for that. Do you do you
want to do these separately? Okay. So, I'll move for approval of consent agenda item number one as corrected. I'll second. Motion's been made and second to approve consent agenda number one. All in favor? I opposed. carried number four. Commissioner Heinen.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, at this point in time, I was not able to make that July 21st committee of the whole meeting that was discussed about uh with the auditor treasurer. So, I will be abstaining for number four. Okay. I was wasn't there either. I was
out on vacation. So, um I will not vote on it. I would ask that we have um we do have a deal in there on number four on the funding part of package of it. So Christine is here if you have questions. Okay.
Time technical analyst request. I guess the estimated estimated cost is fine. Um and we do have the where where we're at today in that we are generating enough income to support this. Yes, with the DMV we can cover that. It's $36,000.
But but I mean, are we ahead of the game from last year compared to this year? Yes, we are quite far uh about 29% ahead on the salaries used. So, so we do have
um the projected income from the DMV or the budgeted income was 250,000. And the projected income for this year is 367,000. Okay. All right. I'll move approval of number
four. Second. Motion been made and second to approve consent agenda item four. Do a roll call. Yeah. Let's do a roll call on that one. Beth. Commissioner Benoy. I. Commissioner Heinen. Abstain.
Commissioner Pop. Abstain. Commissioner Johnson. Hi. Commissioner Gapinsky. I thank you. Carried. We'll move on to consent agenda number seven. Um I guess this is a question for
Sandy Sandy and Nikki or Nikki. I I'm just curious this this grant funding is that is um there a county match for that grant funding? No, there's not a county match. Okay. I will move consent agenda number
seven. Second. It's been motioned and seconded to con to approve consent agenda number seven. All in favor? I opposed. Carried. Uh number 11. this one. I just have some questions because I'm new on the board
and not sure what some of this is. So, if Kathleen is on the line, I'm wondering if this is a contract um for services or a software lease um for
um uh you are we on the same I know consent agenda item number 11 is Chris's final payment on Yes. So which and I'm sorry which one were you in which item were you intended to address this Kathleen?
I was intending to call Kathine for for the contract that endcaps number three endcaps. Okay. Well Kathleen is with us online if you've got questions. So, Kathleen, is is this um a a contract
for services for MCAPS or is this a uh software lease for it stuff? We can't hear her. She's talking. She's not muted either.
Yep. Michelle, maybe you can hear us. We're not able to hear Kathleen. Perhaps uh you could prompt her to with her audio. I will have her come in my office. Excellent idea. So, we do have There they go. We'll do that after we get done with
this. Sorry, Commissioner. I I missed that when we were pulling items. I thought I'm sorry. Didn't catch that we didn't pull the one you were interested in. Good morning. I'm sorry. Sorry. I don't know why my volume wasn't working. That's okay. I just I Go ahead.
Go ahead. So, this is our office case management software. This is the um renewal and maintenance program. Um it lasts apparently for three years. Of course, this is my first time dealing with it, but it it will be renewed then
for 2026 through 2028. So this is this is not a contract for services with them. It's just a for it a software system a software system right Steve and I had spoke uh a bit ago
about it because it comes out of IT's budget um but is is used for our case management software and I can add Mr. here is uh this is one of several applications that we obtain through MC our it's a joint powers organization and they go out and they
negotiate the contracts for us which is great and plus they also get the benefit of group pricing for all the members of MC. So yeah we don't have to negotiate nor again uh draft the contracts. It's done for us by MC the Minnesota county's computer cooperative. Yeah.
Okay. So yeah been around a long time. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. We still need a motion for number 11. Yeah, I have a couple of questions on that one, too. I miss is Mr. Bird on May's online. Okay, I'm here online at my desk still. So,
I just I have a a couple of questions because this is for a final payment on So, we require bonding on each road project, correct? Yes, they Yes, we require them to be
bonded before we enter into a construction contract with them. Yes. Okay. And we hold those bonds for how long after the project is completed? Well, until they complete all the contractual obligations, including any final pay paperwork that we received.
So, technically, if this final payment is approved today, um there's a couple things. So, we have a contract bond and we also have retain each. So basically approving this final uh contractor payment today would release the last
about amount of retainage and release the contractor of any further uh obligations on the project. So by me submitting this agenda item I'm certifying that they've completed all their contractual obligations to date. Okay. And I I guess the reason that I'm
asking is because I did some questioning of some uh contractors and counties and cities tend to hold bonds for 2 years in case there's an issue with the project down the road. And I'm just thinking of 11 and 22 with that issue because we
didn't have um and now we're obligated to fix that because there's no warranty with if we held on to bonding we would have the the funding to pay for that once we found out that failed.
Um yeah, unfortunately on those projects we we already issued final payment on that one. No, I I I I I'm understand that. I totally understand that. But I'm What I'm questioning is the 2-year bond
hold on all projects to make sure that something doesn't arise a year after the project is completed. And then we still have the bonding amount to be able to go back and fix that without putting that to the taxpayers to fix an issue that should have been fixed by the
contractor. Yeah, I think that's going to require some more uh investigation. Um our experience has been if we still have some retainage um withheld, it's a lot easier to get the contract to address
those things under the contract. Once we have to start going into bonding, going to bonding companies. Um unfortunately, more often than not, we have to get attorneys involved, too. uh because then we're requiring the bonding company to force that contractor or another
contractor to come in and complete the work. And and then to do that then you have to pre provide proof that there was some deficiency uh in their work as if they didn't meet the spec or um some other things and then then it becomes a
lot of fingerpointing and um it's not a quick resolution uh to say say the least. Okay. Um, and maybe we can explore uh I just would not expect any quick resolution to that on that that road. Okay. I I I would like to explore that
further, but we can do that at a later date. Um, and I'm wondering if when we did our road tour, I'm sorry, I'm not sure if it was Mr. Johnson or Kapinsky that brought up the fact of putting signage out there by that bump on 22 and
11. Has that been done? uh to date has not been completed, but uh maintenance has been instructed and they're they're working on getting signs erected here soon. Okay, I'll move to move 11. Second motion been made and second to
move 11. All in favor? I I carried. Monte Hedley, county administrator. All right. Uh Nathan from Aunt Micah is here. Legislative update. There you go, sir.
Uh good good morning. Uh Mr. Chair, members, uh my name is Nathan Jessen. I'm the executive director of the Minnesota Innount Association. Uh so Micah is a volunteer organization of about of 17 counties. uh essentially like the largest counties in Minnesota
for the most part that aren't Henipin or Ramsey. Um so it's just our job to um establish connections at the capital. What the issues that we're working on aren't county specific issues if it's something that's only a Benton County issue. It's not something we work on. We work on those issues with kind of broad
statewide impact that affect counties generally. Um we provide weekly updates at the capital, work at the capital and then also end of session reports and do work with uh county staff and our board members uh throughout the year. Um I did want to provide just kind of a quick
like picture of uh we do a lot of work on property taxes at Micah. So I did want to provide kind of a quick picture of like what Benton County's uh property taxes look like compared to the state as a whole. I would say that Benton County is somewhat unique because uh they've got lots of different uh property types that actually line up pretty closely
with the statewide average which usually you see uh counties are more heavy in residential or they're more heavy in a land or commercial but Benon County really does have kind of that that broader uh a broader set of tax base across different tax types.
So did want to talk a little bit about the omnibus tax bill that became law this past year. I would say that there are two really big pieces that happened uh in the tax world. Um just at a high level, the the state was looking at cuts uh across the board. Taxes was no
exception. Um and when we're looking at taxes in the when we're looking at cuts in the tax world, that is essentially looking at cuts to aid to local governments like counties and cities. We were able to prevent any cuts to county program aid. That's that's good for Benton. Uh Benton County receives 3.3
million in county program aid and receives more than uh other counties on average. Um the the downside to the tax bill this year was that under previous law um obviously the cannabis market has isn't established yet, but in 2023 the
state legalized cannabis statewide. They did say we're going to set aside 10% of cannabis uh of the tax on cannabis will go to counties, 10% to cities. Uh but this year with them looking to cut they decided to repeal that. So um there is
not any of the gross receipts tax that would go to counties directly as have been previously in law. There is still for any city or county that has a local sales tax. Those uh those sales are still subject to sales taxes though. Um
I'll be back in a minute but then want to turn over to Amber to cover transportation capital investment. Great. Good morning, um, Mr. Chair and fellow commissioners. My name is Amber Bakis. Um, I've been representing Micah, um, this past year at the state legislature. Um, the transportation bill
was something that, uh, took a long time to get to. Uh, the committee chairs in the House weren't really getting along that well with themselves or with the Senate. So, this was a bill that was negotiated behind closed doors, and things were compounded by the fact that the committee had a negative budget
target. They had to cut $115 million in general fund money in the upcoming coming bianium and more in the outy years. Um and that's tough in transportation where very little of the money is general fund dollars. So about a third of the general fund dollars they had to cut. Um so to get there they did
a number of things. They cut metro transit, greater Minnesota transit. Um but they also reduced the amount of money from the sales tax on motor vehicles that was going to be dedicated for transportation purposes as passed in the 2023 transportation package. Um fortunately they were able to offset
some of those cuts by increasing the fee on electric vehicles. So in the uh 28 and 29 bianium the hit to the CASA formula the county state aid roads is going to be negative8 million. it would have been a lot worse without that
increase in the electric vehicle sir charge. Um the one bright spot amongst all the cuts is they did find some general fund dollars to put $3 million into the local government road wetland replacement program which is a credit bank. Um and those credits are paid for when you're doing a road construction
project on your county roads and are impacting wetlands. Um I should mention I didn't include it on this slide. There was also um some language to increase fees that your deputy registar can collect for some motor vehicle and license transactions
right now when you aren't um getting fees for those. So things like a change of address when a customer comes in or some of the services around um disabled veterans who don't have to pay any um license tab fees or driver's license fees. So you will get some reimbursement when you're helping those folks at your
service counter. Um there was a lot that didn't get in the bill. Um and from our perspective that was great. There were a number of policy provisions that would have either taken control away from counties or um made it more difficult for your engineers to do their jobs. Um some of
those things would have been changing the state aid design standards for county roads. Um setting statutory speed limits, taking that control away from you. That wasn't anything statewide, but there were some attempts to do that on some other county roads around the state. Um there were also some
provisions that could have impacted your um highway budgets in terms of creating a new business mitigation account to pay for businesses whose um who are interrupted by uh highway construction projects. Um that was not enacted. Um one thing we were trying to do was get a
delay in the state's new program regarding greenhouse gas mitigation when you're building road projects. Um we wanted to delay that for a year but were not successful. Um, and then lastly, just wanted to share some updates on a bonding bill. We weren't sure if there were going was
going to be one this session. We didn't know until the special session was announced that in fact there would be one of $700 million. Unfortunately, the amounts for transportation were much greater than what we were anticipating. It still is just a drop in the bucket compared to the overall need for county
roads and bridges. Um, but $42 million for the local road improvement program, $20 million for local bridges, and then another $5 million in general obligation bonds for that wetland replacement program I mentioned earlier. Was great. Um, on the environment side, a lot of
money was dedicated to drinking water and wastewater programs. So, more helping your municipal partners with regard to that. Um, but the one thing that counties will be able to take advantage of is applying for $6 million for capital assistance programs and your solid waste management. So there are
some new resources there um if you have any capital projects with regard um to managing your solid waste and recycling. Um and with that I will turn it over to Nancy. Good morning Mr. Chair and commissioners. I'm Nancy Celeleski and I do public health and human services for
Micah and it's a pleasure to be here with you this morning. I want to just uh start off by saying that we along with the other organizations, county organizations, had three main priorities in health and human services. And I'm happy to say that progress was made in all three of them this year. The first one you've
been hearing about forever, the SSIS system that um counties wrestle with, the green screen technology. We're thrilled to say that the legislature um appropriated $35 million this year for that. there's an additional $10 million that was appropriated last year for the
system and so with that we'll be able to draw down matching federal funds. So that did happen. We also had a bill to reform the min choices long-term care assessment tool uh for folks that their situations are not going to change from year to year at all. Um we can do an now
do an abbreviated assessment uh for three years. The client can request at any time a full assessment be done, but then after those three years, we do have to continue to do the full reassessment after that. We also have language that replaces a
written attestation with verbal attestation to get the service started from in choices. Uh once that the assessment is complete, the assessor then has to get a written attestation within 30 days. But to start this initiation, it's it can be done verbally. There's language that allows
uh counties to contract with hospitals on min choices. We are responsible for the oversight of of those uh contracts, but we're allowed to do that to try and alleviate the backup that's that's occurred there. Couple changes changes related to the assessor qualifications. You only need a two-year degree now
rather than the four-year degree that was that was done previously. And then counties must um begin an assessment including an estimated timeline for completion within 20 days of replace of of the request from the client. And finally, DHS has to create a DHS uh
dashboard on assessment completions. The third item again has been on our list for a very long time dealing with priority admissions and direct care and treatment. As you know, we have a very much a shortage of mental health beds not only at the state level but in our communities. We did make progress this
year. The human services finance bill did include $10 million in 26 and 10 million in 28 to address capacity at the Miller building, which is at the In Noa Metropolitan Regional Treatment Center. They also put $34 million into operating
expenses beginning in 2029. And finally, the bonding bill that did pass included $55 million to to complete that facility. So to complete 50 beds or to add 50 beds in the state um is a $75 million cost and we did get that.
Uh the the priority admissions review panel is extended. They have a report that's due next February. And I want to mention a couple things that uh did not happen. And that is we as you know we had a reprieve for those folks that are deemed mentally ill and dangerous that are waiting a bed in one state operated
facility waiting for a bed in another. uh we did not have that cost. It was um alleviated for the last two years. Unfortunately, that did sunset. So, that's coming back to us. The estimated cost statewide is $14 million for the first bianium and 18 for the second. And
then I would mention again that the the um the issue of community needs still has to be addressed as well. The next item is cost shifts. And I'm going to show you this very colorful chart and just direct you I guess to the
bottom of the chart. You can see the green is house, senate is blue, the governor had uh purple and then the conference committee result end of session result is in the the last column. Um as you know human services
had a negative spending target. So they were looking looking for money and there were a myriad of of proposals that would have shifted to county property taxpayers that we were fighting all all along. Thank you to all the commissioners and other county staff that showed up. They they definitely
heard from us. So you can see on the b on the right hand side the the bottom line. What we did end up um getting is again the sunset of that uh MIND is is listed. Um that's the 14 million or is
it 8? It's in there somewhere. I'm see it's yeah the 14 million and the 18 million in the middle of the graph. We're getting that back. Also, I would just um mention that the very there's $18 million for flat reimbursement for long-term care assessments. Currently,
we are reimbursed by a random time moment study. Senator Abler's been working on this for a while and is directing the Department of Human Services to come up with a different kind of methodology. He believes that we can find $18 million there. The other thing I would mention is uh there's a
work group that's charged with finding service or finding savings within the human services. Micah does have two appointments as does AMC and Maxa. So, there are six county voices on it. And if you look at um I'm looking here, it's
it's the disability waiver. The fi fifth item on the on the right there, there's a a cost share of $89 million. That's what they they are charging counties to find within the system. If that isn't found, then we'll be dealing with this again in a few years. So, just wanted to point that out. And then the total in
the bottom again is um county shifts of $61 million or the 151 if we don't find those those cost savings. In terms of the health and human services bill, I mentioned SSIS. That was a a big win. They also extended uh
the ability to do audio only teleaalth and they did take over non-emergency medical transportation. The state thinks that they're going to find sorry the state thinks that they're going to find um savings of $50 million almost in the first bianium and hundred million in the
second. And then they did take unexpended grant balances. They canceled those. There was $21 million in savings for repealing the public option and uh 56 million in the first bianium, 91 in the second for eliminating Minnesota
care for undocumented adults. I think our slides are slightly out of order and I apologize. Um something that I just wanted to mention uh related to public health is emergency medical services. They have been in a financial crisis particularly in rural Minnesota
for some time. So they're trying to shore up that account. They put in fairly significant money 27 million the first bianium and then seven in the second for the office of emergency services. There's money for an operating adjustment and an operating deficit
grant program. Non-emergency medical services I mentioned we counties took that over. I apologize these are a little bit out of order. Um, we took that over probably 101 15 years ago. Uh, the state had previously run the non-emergency medical
transportation. That's for those folks that need a ride to their doctors that are that don't have have the ability to do so. Um, we uh took that over in the middle of the night during conference committee. It was gifted to counties. So, we have, you know, set up our own system. The state has decided now that
they're going to take that back and so we will not be responsible for that any longer. In terms of public health, they did put some money into infectious disease prevention. Um, and then last year they did cut from
uh public health cannabis related prevention, education, recovery programs. They cut $5 million a year last year from us. We did partially recover that this year. We're getting $3.6 million recovered per year there. And then I would just mention that there
were a myriad of uh Department of Health increases and that's kind of how they came up uh with the money in public health. What didn't happen? I would just mention that uh you're all familiar with the Minnesota African uh African-American
Family Preservation Act. Uh we had tried to work with them to extend the timeline for that. Currently, the state has to go online on January 1st of 2027. We don't think counties are going to be ready. Henipin and Ramsey County are currently doing a pilot on this and we're supposed
to be learning from their experience, etc. There's a statewide work group that has been appointed and they are kind of just starting starting the process. They're supposed to have a preliminary meeting or preliminary report in January. And so, if we're not ready, we've got next year hopefully to change
that. In terms of the statewide working group, we've got two Micah commissioners, uh, Kurt Kurt Mortonson from Ottertale, Carla Bigham from Washington, and then the other two county commissioners are Angela Connley from Henipin and Joan Lean Joan Lee from Poke.
Couple of other things that I would mention. I already talked about the MIND. We're picking that up again. Um there was language at one time um in the form of an amendment that would have prevented counties from contracting for case management, which is a real problem because counties do contract for that
service. And so we're expecting to see that we were able to to convince the legislature not to deal with that this year, but we are expecting to see that conversation continue. And then I would just mention that um there was a proposal from the judiciary chair in the senate that would have
established a civil commitment coordinating division within in the office of the attorney general. That did not happen. They determined that there was a lot of duplicative work already being done in that area. With that, I just want to mention your staff that I work closely with. um work very closely with both Sandy Shoberg and
Jacqueline Litfin and just want to mention them both as being assets not only to your county but to Micah and you know all all counties statewide. And with that I'd be happy to answer questions. We kind of breeze through this. We know you have a full full agenda.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Good morning. My name is Rachel Cnoic and I am Micah's environmental leazison at the capital. Uh I'm going to keep it pretty short uh because while there was a lot of uh discussion and debate in uh a number of different
committees whose jurisdictions touch on Micah's environment priorities, I would say ultimately there wasn't actually a ton of real change. Um I think because of the divided uh divided house and uh narrow majority in the Senate, uh just not a lot of shared priorities uh
between committee chairs and between the chambers. Um our big priority uh when it comes to environment is really around solid waste management and seeking additional resources for counties um as they try to meet statemandated recycling goals um which that deadline is coming
up uh in 2030. So just in uh a few years. Um but given just the the overall state budget situation, there really were uh just low or even you know slightly negative targets in a lot of the relevant committees. And so obviously that has an impact on um on
the ability to seek increases in funding. Um the exception to this was uh were the legacy bills um in the clean water fund uh which is over $300 million uh in funding for clean water projects as part of the legacy committee. Um and then the bonding bill um Amber just
touched briefly earlier on some of the uh funding that was available there for for issues related to our priorities. Um, another place you know with with uh limited opportunity uh for additional funding around solid waste uh a kind of
a attack that we've t uh taken in recent years is really around just reducing the amount of waste that's coming uh into the into the waist stream and and trying to share some of the responsibility uh for managing that waste with uh those who are producing the waste. And so last
year we along with other uh counties um and local governments advocated strongly for the packaging waste and cost reduction act uh which is legislation that established a product stewardship program for packaging and paper products. Um that is in the early stages of implementation. There's an adv
advisory board that's been established and so we're tracking that. Um and counties are involved in in that conversation very actively. Um and so this year we tried to expand that type of approach to batteries and electronic waste. Um just knowing that that there
is a significant cost to counties for managing that waste. There's also additional risks when that waste those types of products are disposed of. Um you know just put in the landfill rather than through like a household hazardous waste pickup and things like that. And so um we tried to get that legislation across the finish line. I think because
of the packaging bill that passed last year and that's really landmark legislation. I think there's some interest among legislators to see that implemented a little bit more before we try to expand to other product categories. Um, but I think that's a conversation that's going to continue in in future years. Um, data centers became
kind of an unexpected point of contention. Um, and especially, you know, for for environment purposes, uh, the conversation around the use of water required for those projects. Um and lastly uh there was also a lot of discussion around uh dealing with the
wood waste created by uh the emerald ashbors that spreads across the state. Um lots of conversation you know lots of concern from legislators but again with lack of funding uh just really not a lot of action uh action there. Um I do have
just an overview of some of the kind of specific uh line items that were included in uh again the various committees um and omnibus bills that we're tracking. I don't I'm not going to go through all of those uh just given I know we want to keep things short today, but hopefully that's a helpful resource.
So we have the legacy environment tax bill uh as well as a the standalone data centers bill that passed. And that is it for me. All right. Just quickly on corrections and public safety, the majority of funding, these are positive targets that this committee got, but the majority of
funding went to state agencies to kind of fill deficiency and operating adjustment requirements. Um there was a three-year averaging uh implemented in the community supervision funding formula that'll allow for some more stable and predictive funding of probation services from the state. So,
make it less subject to the jumps and dips that might have been there before. Um, and if you have questions on any of this, you can always follow up with me individually uh afterward if that's simpler. Um, on some general government issues, we've been pursuing broader changes to earn sick and safe time. One change that we were able to get across the finish line is pretty minor, but
under previous law, if you you didn't have to provide documentation for using ESST until you'd missed more than three consecutive days of work, that got bumped down to two. Paid leave. This program is coming online January 1. They reduced the premium rate cap from 1.2%
to 1.1% but right now it's at 888. So there's not a functional impact on your bottom line there. Um there were also some changes made to the open meeting law and uh absentee ballot drop off deadline moved back from 8:00 p.m. where it moved 2 in 2023 back to 5:00 p.m.
this year. um pensions. There's a probation officers and 911 telecommunicators working group that they're looking at enhanced benefits. We're participating uh in that process along with AMC to see if there's a middle ground that can be reached there. Uh the duty disability or PTSD provision
was also made more sustainable moving forward to uh future CA cases limited to 60 months total um rather than guaranteed through age 65. The one thing that's notable here is that that's just prospective. if you're already receiving benefits from that, there's no change uh
for for those officers. Um so just really high level picture of what's next. Um so far general fund revenue has been coming in above projections but still below spending. So just the notable parts of this table just kind of show you for the state uh spending is higher than revenues and continues to be
uh through fiscal year 2029. But we do, the state does have a pretty significant structural balance after this past session of $ 1.9 billion dollars. There will be a new economic forecast that comes out in December. These numbers will change. Um but right now, if you look at it, the structural imbalance uh
if you were to put all 1.9 billion towards the future deficits would just be 300 or a little less than 300 million. So this is kind of an ongoing issue, but it's not uh the in the kind of $5 billion range that there have been some concerns about. Minnesota still also has a really robust budget reserve.
Um there's the passage of the OBBA um in in July. It's just it's not clear yet what the impact will be. We don't have data on that. There's some special elections taking place. Uh they're unlikely to change the composition of the House or Senate. Um the legislature
does return uh on February 17th and at least most recently the governor's indicated any special session is unlikely before then. Uh did want to just briefly uh end with talking about our policy process, policy committees, our meeting from now through uh
November. Uh our board is setting uh our priorities and that's going to begin with a meeting later this month. Our board is made up of county commissioners. Um so but these committees will hear ideas from experts. They'll kind of uh work with your committee staff and figuring out what should our priorities be, should we what
should we change, what should we not change. That gets adopted uh later this month. And so just here's contact information. If you ever have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. We're here to be a resource for you. That's all we've got. Any questions from anybody?
No. I I'd like to just make one comment. Nathan, what I'd like to see pushed down there is a lot of this stuff is mandated by the state, but then pushed off onto the counties. And if they're going to do
that, they need to remove the mandates because as far as I'm concerned, Henipin County and those counties have different needs than what your outlying counties do. And I if they need to remove the mandates so that we can decide what our area needs the most help on.
Thank you. I appreciate those counts. Take that back. Okay. Thanks, Nath. Thank you, Nathan. Thank you. Thank you. Good point. Good job. Thank you. Sh. Are you ready to move on? Yes.
Okay. Let's see. So, you can see he's with us on go to. All right. So, Miss Sher, uh, the staff report for your next agenda item will be provided by Jessica Green from Northland Securities, but if I could pro provide
just a brief overview of the agenda items that are before you today and later on HA and I think maybe also a little bit of a commentary on some of the reporting that's occurred about the project and so on. So, today's public hearing is on the
financing plan, not the project. Uh and some may be wondering why are you having a public hearing and the project is already started. Uh I can point to two specific dates where essentially board approval was given to start the project.
The first June 23rd of this year board had a special meeting to award the bids the 27 bids to the low biders. That was June 23rd. July 1st the board approved 27 construction contracts.
Again, that was July 1st. At no point was the construction manager nor were the contractors ordered to pause. So basically, when contractors approved, that's the message to contractors, get to work. Get to work.
So again, no order was given to pause the work. So that explains why you see dozers moving dirt today. So again, today's action is a public hearing on the financing plan. the HRA financing
plan, the redevelopment plan. I suppose ideally, Mr. Chair, the financing plan and what I call the project plan would have followed the same exact path in tandem. Uh but as you may recall, we had to take a couple of steps before we could come here today.
The first is on July 8th, we need to go to the city of Foley and get their consent to operate an HA project within its city limits. We did that. The city granted that approval on July 10th. We had to go to our own planning commission
and ask them to review the redevelopment plan. We did that and they they passed a resolution signifying that they had reviewed the redevelopment plan. So we had to go through those two steps to get to here today. And uh so I wanted to just kind of give you that overdue if I
could and uh set the stage for Jessica to present the uh the staff report on the redevelopment plan. All righty, Mr. Chair, commissioners, good morning. Morning. If
I can get my stuff situated here. Okay. So, the county has determined, excuse me, that it is in the best interest of the county and the residents of the to issue HA lease revenue bonds to finance the construction of the new county
government center. In order for the HRA to utilize the full powers of Minnesota statutes 469, the governing body of the HA, so the county board must first establish a redevelopment project area and adopt the redevelopment plan related
to that project area. Prior to the approval, the county board must hold a public hearing to allow for public comment. And that hearing, of course, is scheduled for this morning. the county's bond council or your bond attorney, Taft Law, has prepared that development plan
that is in your packet today. The plan is drafted, of course, to satisfy the statutory requirements of 469. And in doing so, it includes various sections, plenty of details, etc. So, with that in mind, I do not plan to read in its entirety that development plan to you. I
know that you have all reviewed that information. So, I'll provide a bit of a brief summary and the steps taken to date. Monty highlighted a few of them already. uh prior to today's public hearing. Uh these steps are of course required by statute prior to the adoption of the
redevelopment plan. So as Monty mentioned um first the local municipality so the city must take action to authorize the HR to undertake a redevelopment project within its corporate boundaries that did occur back on July 8th. The county's planning
commission then must review the plan that occurred on July 10th. And then the HA on July 15th requested that the county board scheduled the public hearing for this morning. And of course that occurred from there. Um those public hearing notices were published in
both the Benton County News and the Sock Rapids Herald. Both of those publications fell within the necessary timelines that are required for publication for an HR redevelopment hearing, which is not less than 10 days prior to the hearing, but not greater than 30. And those uh notices are also
included in your packet. The findings for the redevelopment plan in summary uh that certain parcels of land within the project area would not be redeveloped without some public financial aid. And of course here that is the issuance of HA lease revenue bonds. The plan for the
p project area excuse me prefford affords maximum opportunity consistent with the needs of the locality as a whole and conforms with the general plan for development of the locality as a whole. And finally that the project is necessary to maintain core public
services that are consistent with the county and the H's goals and objectives. Following the public hearing, the county board does have a resolution for consideration uh later this morning after the close of the hearing of course uh to adopt the
redevelopment plan. So big picture uh today the public hearing again is on the redevelopment plan itself. It is not taking any action related to the issuance of bonds. The bonds are scheduled to be sold later this month. So again, we're looking for public comment related to the plan itself. Um
while the redevelopment plan does facilitate the issuance of bonds, that's not what the plan itself uh is discussing. So with that, I'm going to conclude my comments there. That being said, I am happy to dive into that redevelopment plan if you do have
specific questions about process and any of the steps taken to date or steps to occur in the future as well. Any questions? No. No. Thank you.
So, we've heard before we open the public hearing, we heard from county staff and we heard from staff reports and the applicant is present, which is the county. Um, we'll now open the public hearing. If there's anyone in the audience that
wishes to address the county board on this agenda item, please come to the podium, state your name and address so that we can get it on the record. Anybody wishes to come to speak before
the board for or against this Good morning, Mike Levenes, B Township. I think it's safe to say without the approval of this uh development plan, the project would not go forward or would not have gone forward. Um so today's hearing is pretty important
um because the plan has to be established. Uh I don't know. I guess uh county administrator cleared up some things about why things are running over there today in the public hearing or actually yesterday and we're here today at the
public hearing. Um it it would appear that someone maybe should have said, "Hey, let's pause. Let's pause the contractor. See if they'll wait a day or two to see if uh we can get the public hearing done. Get this final plan, this final step in place. might have been a
good decision. However, it wasn't done. There was no pause given. And so, uh, you had the media here yesterday and they're aware of this public hearing today and they turn to me and say, "Hey, I thought
the last public hearing is tomorrow." I said, "Yep, that's right." Well, why all of a sudden the the dozers are lighting up and they're moving dirt. Well, how is that possible if you don't have the plan approved? if the county doesn't have the plan approved. I said I I said, "Welcome
to Benton County. Welcome to Benton County." Uh Jessica read the four findings and declarations. I don't know if I missed it. Um and maybe at some point somebody in the board can address how uh the new building is going to maintain public services because I think public services
are going on today yet. And if nothing happened and if there was a a remodel or a an addition, public services would still go on. Um, so somebody maybe if you can explain how you got to your findings and declarations. Number two, I have a number two that says for the
redevelopment of the area by private enterprise. I don't know if that's uh pertinent or not anymore. Um, but I don't know how private enterprise enters into this redevelopment plan. Um, for the gentleman that spoke in favor of the project and he specifically talked about
DVS services and getting a passport, I would recommend uh suggest that you go online, see what they have capable online for, uh, that sort of thing. U, last week I received my renewed passport in the mail, did it online, send it to me in the mail.
um Jessica also talked about when she reviewed the uh the redevelopment plan in front of you, she said uh you know this is in the best interest of Benton County. Well, I don't know how she determined that and I don't
know how the board determined that. There was one way that the board could have determined what was in the best interest of the county and um we got a little taste of that with a petition. Um and the best way to determine would have been to have a countywide vote. Of course, that's not going to happen. So,
um for her to get up there today and say county determined best interest of Benton County, um is uh kind of rich. So, I guess uh the optics from yesterday and um it's going to be very useful in
the future. Um would have been nice if somebody would have said pause at least till we get through this today. Uh it uh I think would have went a long way at least in the public view. Um but it's uh unfortunately kind of
typical. So Mr. Chairman, I'd like to thank you for your support um in allowing people to speak like they have. It's not always been easy. Um it's really hard to see what's going on over there, especially how it transpired
at the end um with uh the project started before this final step. And this is the final step because if this board would not accept this development plan, it wouldn't go forward. And so today's vote is very important. Um, one more thing I guess before
a generic uh Google search with a definition of a public hearing. Public hearing is a meeting or gathering where members of the public are invited to promote input, feedback, testimony on a specific issue or proposal. These hearings are typically organized by government agencies, bodies, legislative bodies, or other organizations to gather
public opinion on matters that may impact the community. Public hearings are an essential part of the democratic process as they provide platform for citizens to voice their concerns and influence decision-making.
So, as we sit here today at this public hearing and listen to the bulldozers across the road. Okay. Anybody else wishing to speak? Mary Norman, 9511st Street Northeast. Um, I do have a couple questions, but um,
when I seen the news last night and realized that Benton County was on the news for all the wrong reasons, and I know commissioners have pointed out the previous commissioners, their legacy. Um, just remember this is your legacy by
doing this and what your vote is today. And as you, I'm sure, have seen and heard. And I know some of you are denying that people are calling you up and nobody's complaining to you or nobody's saying no about this government center. I I find that hard to believe.
But there's a lot of things I found really hard to believe with all this. Um I guess when I seen the artic or seen the TV report last night, I was thinking, you know, I can't build um a house or anything without crossing my
tees and dotting my eyes in Benton County. It's very important, isn't it? to have that all done prior to starting a project. So, yesterday was a huge slap in the face for this county. I really, you know, feel like you guys have the thumb on everybody to do the right
things and that didn't happen. I'm kind of curious about the interest rates if interest rates drop in the near future. um which could happen just like you know prices of the building could go up and could go down like you said. What's going to happen with these interest
rates with with what's going on here? Have you taken any of that into consideration? Um I believe Sterns County has their budget set at 12% for this increases this next fiscal year and I'm looking at comparing Benton County
to them. We have a government center that's going to be another 8% on our taxes. Uh I know we're as transparent as possible with the commissioners that are up here. Did you take into consideration um what's going on in the world in the county and the state and at the federal
level and what our taxes are going to be for this? Um there's been a lot of information kind of leaked out or gossiped out about, you know, what are we going to do with how much the cost is once we get the government center there and the old government center. Um I've
heard that care is going to come into this part and the dentist office and maybe a senior living center. um what if all those things don't happen and who's going to be paying for keeping this part of the courthouse up and who's going to
pay for the demolition on the other part. Have you considered all of that in your numbers? Just curious. Um and then Pam, I I do recall you saying um couple meetings ago that you wouldn't be breaking ground in July and August. You
made it very You told me that. Um it was about two meetings ago and I'm just kind of surprised that we didn't hit July but we're definitely into August. Um again we worked hard at getting the signatures.
Commissioner said you know what get the signatures and we will put it on the vote and then not doing that was really another slap in the face. But this is your legacy. You decide how you're going to vote today. I truly believe that if you would
say no, that cost would not go to the county on the back of the county. That would go back to the people that started this project. So, I hope you vote the right way. Anyone else? Good morning. Morning.
Uh Darl Watercut, 551 53rd Avenue Southeast. I want to reference my my new hat. We're making giving a name to our group, make Benton County great again. So, starts by by openness and transparency
and um and I'll echo what Mike and Mary Kay said. This meeting this morning, this public meeting uh seems kind of pointless and we're supposed to be here for public input, excuse me, for or against the project that's already been
started. So, what's the use? What are we here for? But anyway, um what I want to address is some of the hidden costs that I that I think are in this project that haven't really been uh talked about.
Last time I asked about the interest rates of the CIP and the HR H bonds, and I excuse me, I I didn't get an answer. Uh, I was told they they were out there.
Well, I looked out there and um there's there was something referencing back at the CIP bonds where I looked at the Benton County website and by the way, the biggest slap in the face to me on on this what's going on across the street is this morning I go to the Benton
County website and here there's a live cam looking at the construction project. So, I mean, tell me this was not uh it it's it's frustrating. But anyway, last time I I said uh I looked for the So I
looked for the interest rates and I I think and I can ask the finance lady here. I think Jessica Jessica well the uh I believe the CIP bonds were going to be 4% the H four and
a half. Is that correct? Okay. Um so I I did the simple work of and the other question I have Jessica is would uh these bond rates and interest be calculated the same way as a mortgage as
you would get from a mortgage banker and no because a mortgage has a single rate that's attached to it with bonds each maturity has a different interest rate and I want to clarify that we won't know what the rate actually is until okay but starting out right now we this
project. We're at 4 and a half% for 20 years. I can't hear him. Mr. Water, could you if you're gonna either have Jessica come up to the mic and share it or something there with the questions? See, I can't hear very good through you
address. I'm sorry. So, this may be helpful. Um, and for the board's benefit, this is in your finance plan that's um, included for your HA packet. But to visualize, get to the debt service schedule. So, in
the early years, the coupon or the interest rate is going to be lower than at your later years. So, think about it more so as like a CD. So, if you were to purchase, for example, the first maturity of the Benton County bonds at 435, the interest rate at present is
about 3.3%. If you're buying the 20-year maturity, it's at about 4.90%. So, on a blended rate, we're at 4.51 currently over the life. Yes. Um, and that assumes, of course,
that the bonds would be outstanding for the full 20-year term. We've discussed this. That is uncommon. Oftentimes, um, communities will refund bonds. Okay. Well, that that helps. And I So, my numbers might be might be a little bit off, but I went to mortgage
calculator.com.org and I plugged in 24.5 million for the value the and two two million down payment and four year or 4% interest for 20 years. And I just to me the the
interest rate isn't as much as what the public needs to know as what the interest cost is for this thing. And you know my and I'm not sure if you had that Jessica but by at 4% I should just go to five. Um at 5%
the total interest paid for the life if you were doing this as a mortgage and I know this total interest would be 11,663,000. Well, that that ends up being when you look at the amount being financed, it's 51.8%
of the amount being, you know, the general public doesn't know this yet. You know, they don't know what we're paying for. And you, nobody's nobody's been transparent about that. And um and I think it's important, you know, I I kind of have a little bit of a finance
background and understand this stuff. So the total cost of the project being the the 245 it ends up being um with interest is really uh the number we're looking at is 34,163,000. So you know compared to 245 that you've
been that's been advertised that's a big difference. We're talking We're talking um get back to my We're talking um hidden so the hidden cost of interest expense is approximately 1/ half the total cost of the budget project of the
building project and uh so it's a big number that was hidden and and basically I want it hidden no more. I'd like and I don't know how close I am to the total because things will change. Is that you think that's a pretty accurate at 5% obviously is high.
No, I went four. Oh, I thought you said no four. Um, I think this is important. So, it is important. Um, and I want to clarify something. So, at every meeting that we have had where we've discussed numbers, we have always presented the
information in terms of average annual debt service which includes your principal payment and your interest. Mhm. It would be incredibly irresponsible to provide you with information just based on your principal payment and we would never do that. I want to make that very clear. We have always expressed any sort
of estimate in terms of total principle and interest as your average debt service per year. When we've done any sort of tax impact, that has included the interest because that's that's part of financing. So, respectfully, I disagree that that's
been a hidden number. Um, in terms of looking at, you know, the actual debt service runs, I'm not saying hidden number to these guys. I'm saying hidden number to the public. Sure. I understand. People think we're paying 24.5 million and we're paying 34.5. That's correct. Obviously, there is an
interest component anytime you're borrowing. And when we look at this over that 20-year spread, I do agree with your numbers. We're close. Um, however, I would again stress the point that it is very uncommon for any type of bond issue to stay outstanding for the length
of time that it is set for with the original issuance. It is very common for bonds to be refunded, particularly so with lease revenue bonds. Okay. All right. Well, given that and then um you know, I know you might refinance and stuff like that and and
really but the the levy rate that we're going to be assessed on our taxes, is that going to go down when when you refinance and stuff? I mean, what do you what happens with that? That's a savings and it should be passed back to us, you know? I mean, does our, you know, let's
say our levy rates, which were published, and I don't really believe that they're going to be that low, but like $88 for a year for a for a medium household, is, you know, once you refinance and you got less interest you're paying, does the levy rate go
down? Um the only thing the only thing I can reference to that is that a number of years ago we refinanced the bonds that the county has now and there was a significant savings as from what I can remember Monty and that was used we offset that with an increase in levy. We
did not increase the levy as much as we would have had because I believe we were saving maybe I don't know 80,000 a year or something. There was a number I don't know. So is that is that levy done every year? Yes. you reassess. Every year we set the levy and that was incorporated into the levy. So we maybe
we saved a 1% on the levy for the years following the refinance of the bonds. All right. Good. Good. Um so uh that that was my my point on the the interest. The the other one and I think Mary Kay brought this up was the the
current building structures that we have. you know what's going to be done if you close your eyes and visualize a year and a half from now or next fall to 2026 we're going to have two building and you know there's been little there's
been a lot of gossip about what's going to happen but really no direction and I know you have time but um you know the we're going to have two buildings and you got to pay uh cost utility costs and
all that kind of stuff I don't in both buildings. Now, you may be selling selling some of it, but it's been advertised that it's in the the these buildings are in such bad shape, who's going to buy them? You know, they're almost inhabitable and uh could lease it
and and hire a leasing company. Those are there's hidden costs. You know, I I really don't know what the plan is. I've I've heard the care group is staking claims to like the DMV area and I don't know what their agreement is if they get the the land or the building over in the
county sheds if they get that stuff for free or how that works but it if it is it doesn't look good because there's two members on this board that are on the care board and uh it'd be terrible if they're getting even though they're a nonprofit and I love care I love what
they do but you know they need to be treated equitably. if somebody else wants to come in here and pay for that, you know, as a taxpayer, I want them to have it, you know, and uh so I um these are just things that uh I wanted uh you
bring out that I I feel that you guys have been transparent in the building, you know, the architectural process and stuff, but the transparency on the financing and what's going to be done with the or uh to the public, you guys might know, but we have no idea. Um, the
last thing I wanted to ask for is the last time I was here, I wanted uh I asked if the property tax increase that we all get would be itemized on the property tax statement from this so that people would see what they're paying for
the next 20 years or whatever it is just for that building because I didn't like how some of you attacked Commissioner Pop uh the first meeting I was here May 6th for something with the airport commission and again I have poor hearing
so I don't hear everything but um you know and they you wanted it itemized on the property tax statement just so that you could pin it on him and and and uh make him accountable to that. Well, I want to make you guys accountable to this. This is like Mary Kay said, this
is your legacy and and uh we need uh we need to let people know what what they're getting, what they're paying for and get that out there. So, thank you. All right. Anybody else? Oops.
Good. Good morning, Mr. Chair and fellow commissioners. Morning. Like uh Mary Kay said, you know, we've name Well, we first seen the mic. We seen this is Chad Pop, Graham Township. We've seen the mic of folks present budget shortfalls that are getting
pushed down to our county levels. We've seen a fellow or we've a lot of us heard that a fellow county neighboring county is proposing a 12% property tax increase just to cover those shortfalls. So if you take that 12% I'm sure we're
going to have to do something at our level as well. But if you take that 12% throw our building costs, I wouldn't be surprised if we see close to a 20% tax property tax increase all said and done. I hope not, but I guess I just advise
people to watch your property taxes closely and see what's what's coming down the what's coming down. Thank you. Right. Thanks. Anyone else? Michael Deppa, 1283185th
Avenue, Northeast, Foley, Minnesota. Um, today I got a few questions for a few people. Um it was pretty relevant this morning that uh Headley mentioned that uh the
reasons that they're moving dirt across the road. Um was that approved by any of you commissioners? Was it discussed? did and he made his own decision the way it sounds that he let the contractors just go out and start moving the dirt
because there was a meeting either on this June date and this July date um to let the public know that Mr. Headley works for the county. The county's you commissioners and the county's the taxpayers.
So, not to not to point fingers at anybody, it's to agree to disagree. Um, but you have a person over here that I consider that's railroadingness to you people and I you can call it
railroading, you can call it the CIP bond, you can call it the HA bond. I got a question for a couple of the commissioners. Jared, we'll start with you. You uh mentioned that you would honor the CIP
bond. Is that correct? What do you mean the the CIP once the signatures were valid that they would honor the signatures? And that was my vote back then is I honored the signatures and put I my vote
was to put it No, it's just a yes or no. Yes or no? Did Did you honor your word? Yes. Thank you. I thank I appreciate you for honoring your word. Okay, Miss Voit or Miss Benoy, we had a
meeting here and I don't have the exact date when we did the CIP bond that they said that they'd put it up for a vote in 2026 on the ballot if the signatures came through. Is that correct? Yes or no?
Restate your question. The question is is once the be the signatures became valid and the signatures were going to come through to the board and to the people that it would go on a ballot
for a vote. Yes or no? Are you asking me what my point? What did you say? What did you say that you would do once the if the val if the signatures became valid that they got the petition and the signature became valid? What did
you say you would do? I'd put it to vote, but I didn't know the information. No, listen. You're getting your chance to speak. You want my answer. I don't ask you yes or no questions. So, I have the right to
explain myself. I didn't know all the information that we had when I made that statement. So, yes, I made the statement. I will own up to that, but I also did my due diligence to do pros and cons to that. And I have chosen a
different path from that because it could cost this county a whole lot more money if we waited for that vote. That's the reason I did what I did. And I stated every one of those, Mike, at every meeting that you were at. I read my facts of findings and everything. So,
anybody in this room that wants those facts of findings and how I came to that decision can go back and review that meeting that I read those at. So, you changed your you changed your mind. I did. Why can I change my mind? I'm a person
my word. I'm honest. I honored the honesty. I I'm I'm honest, too. I I answered your question and said yes. That's what I said. And when I got the facts, I changed my mind. So I am being honest.
So you weren't honest to the taxpayers. How am I being dishonest to the taxpayers? There was 1,900 signatures that you went against. And like I said, out of 42,000 people there, that's 4ome%
of the people. And irregardless of what Mary Kay stated up there, I'm telling you that other than one phone call that I received and one out of the emails I received after explaining
100% of what I know to be true to those people. Everybody, we ended our conversation either agreeing to a disagree or agreeing with what I had stated. I got one really bad phone call that was
reported to our sheriff's department and we will leave it at that. And if somebody wants to hear that phone call after this meeting in private, I'm more than willing to play that phone call for that for whoever wants to hear it. Mine's not about a phone call. Mine's
about the 1900 or 1900 signatures, correct? That that we're going to be approved on the CIP bond. Okay. This is for Mr. Headley. We came up and you come up with the CIP bond and there was they said that they
were going to use the CIP bond. There was nothing directed as an H bond period at the beginning of the process. during the during the CIP bond, you brought up the only way that they
would um the project would be put to a halt is if the people could put it to a vote. And the only way that they would go to a vote is is the petition. A reverse referendum. The petition.
He he brought the sheet up, stood there, says that you'd have to use this sheet by state law or whatever that if you guys got the signatures that we would honor and put it on the ballot for a vote that came from Mr.
Headley. You can go back and listen to all the tapes from the meetings and that's exactly what was said. Okay. Mr. Mr. Hedley works for the county. He works for the commissioners. This
morning, he gave a an option of why they're over there digging. There's no bond approved for them to give digging. So, is he is he running the county or are the commissioners running the county? He works for you people.
Okay. Then once they the signatures came and were valid and approved, he comes up at the first thing at the meeting. He comes up and introduces an H bond. Hey, I'm sorry people about the
CIP. People forget that. I appreciate your signatures going out and doing all your work or whatever it is. That isn't how it works. There was never even discussed about the HA bond to the public. Mike, um, one thing I will say about the
HA bonds, we all up here sat here and knew about them as a deal, but we elected not to go that route. um Monte Hedley did not um spring that on us um on a spear of the
moment that we knew about that going way back, but we chose not to go that route because of the higher interest rate. I mean, it comes with a higher interest rate. I'll agree with Mr. Water. Okay, I can agree to disagree. Okay.
And you said that, but that should have been brought to the public. the public would have No, hang on, Ed. Nobody would have even went out and got a petition to put it to a vote had the H been
discussed. Everybody knows that if everybody if somebody would have been forthright and honest and brought it to the people, we wouldn't be here today having a discussion of what's going on. You know,
it's about it's about honesty. It's about integrity. It's about being truthful. You people have a decision to make today. Just because they're over there moving that dirt, that's not what the
people wanted. Not I'm not saying all the people. It should have went to a vote. Whatever the vote would be, yes or no, that's the way it would have played out. Okay? That's the way it would have played out. I read an article
in uh Star and Trip. This is to Mr. Headley. They said that the remodel they're going to do a remodel or revamp would be $19 million. In the Star and Trib unit, it's quoted as 23 million. What is it?
Is it 19 million or is it 23 million? Was in the Star Trip this week. his words to the star and trip. I think we've always said it was going to be 23 23 to 24 million is what it was after our third or fourth
meeting when we started this process. That number hasn't changed. Here here's what I want. Who who did who did the walk through and how many bids did you get for the remodel? How many how many were done? We we went
and did a we went and did the project that we're going to build this com government center over there and we put it out for bids and all these bids came in. How many bids came in on the remodel?
I I want the doc I would like to see the documentation. Is it one people, six people, 10 people? You can't just do one and say, "Hey, this contractor said this is what it is." I I think how we got to that I know how
we got to that point is when you look at a number of 23 versus 29 and you get a brand new building for 29, the economics just didn't make sense because that 23 is a is either it's a rough estimate on what it would cost.
And we did have people go through the building and Pete is one of them back there. So you got the person that's going to be the new contractor on the new building and the remodel do the estimate and we don't go get other opinions. That's not
right. Our architect also came back with other numbers too. Mr. Chair, can I ask a question? Just because I was not on the board when when that happened. So, am I wrong in in asking? Okay. So, you
guys, this board sent it out and had have a draft done of the new building. I mean, the whole architectural plan in order to get it out for bids to get proper bidding on everything. Correct. Y. And we spent over or just under a
million to do that. Am I right? Just more. More. Okay. Um, and then if you needed a full estimate of this project to do this project, would you not have to spend
that kind of money again to do a design and everything with this building and spend that kind of money again? I Okay, I'm just asking because I don't I want to make sure I'm understanding. And Mr. Chair, correct me if I'm wrong because I wasn't here for it. is past
boards did do a a discussion with better Johnson I believe on a remodel in past years that's been discussed for a number of years and a number of different estimates is that right I believe you were here for that yes okay
I believe and I'm not going to say believe is is that when you come and do the CIP bond and The signatures weren't there. The signatures were there. And you don't honor
what you say. You wrong the people. You wrong the people. And today you can change that. It's your decision. They're not far into the project of moving that dirt. That's nothing. Look at the new
prag situation that went on with the police department. What happened there? Research it. Today the project started out there already under somebody's command and told them to do it. I don't believe the
board Ed did the board approve it to start yesterday moving of the dirt the project. No I I mean not that I know. We approved the the construction company and I believe it's under the construction manager. So we have approved. So we have
a person that's we approved the bids. You approved the bids but the funding's not approved. Correct. Correct. The So how do we start a project across the road without the funding and the
approval of our elected officials of Bettton County? We have five chair people up there and they're over there moving dirt because Mr. Headley said so. He said to give the contractors a go-ahad to start the
project. It doesn't matter to me if they start the project or not. Apples are apples. Oranges are oranges. And what I mean by that is facts are facts. Lies are lies. And there's some lies in here.
I believe that some stuff that's scripted that didn't even get to Mr. pop that all of a sudden we're with this H. All of a sudden it just pops up on the screen and your signatures ain't valued. We're going with this. Mr. Chair, could I ask uh Mike, could I
ask you a question? Yes. Um were you or were you not in attendance at a committee the whole meeting we had when we looked at all the different options before us when there was a a significant material change to the bid of the project. We talked about
multiple funding uh and that is in the record and that is in the minutes and I'm quite certain you were there. So it bothers me a little bit when you are projecting that we're lying about it when you were actually at a meeting where we talked about this and we're at that meeting.
Explain what you're talking about. We had a committee of the whole meeting where the board was June June 10th June 10th we had a committee of the whole meeting where the board sat out here under committee of the whole not a board meeting but a committee of the whole and yourself I if I'm going by memory
here I believe Mr. Leandowski was here. I believe the watercotts were here and you sat right in this area and you were here for that meeting when this board had discussions about what our options were going to be. So I remember for you to say that we're
lying about that is absolutely incorrect. You were here. Okay. I I need to clarify that because I don't like being called a liar. I didn't say I didn't say you were lies and lies. There's lies and lies, but you're you're you're projecting that we're lying to you about the funding
options and you were here when we talked about the funding options. So, please don't say that we didn't give that information to the public. You were actually here. I was here, but there was nothing discussed about an H bond. Absolutely was. You need to go back and
look in those minutes. Okay, then I'm wrong. I can agree to be wrong. I'm just wanted I'm trying to clarify here because we're we're getting on touchy water here where we're being there's no touchy wat there there is when we're being accused of things that aren't true. So
there's there's a way different on if we disagree with something than if you're calling some of us out or one of us out for I didn't call anybody out. I says I says there's lies there's you're referencing the lies to the financing options and you actually here
for those discussions. Um, Mike, I I do have the minutes from that meeting in front of me and the list of people on there is there. And then if on page two, it it does say that um Green discussed the HA lease revenue
bond as another funding option that the county could pursuit on section 465.1. And please correct me if I'm wrong, but if I recall that day, Mr. Chair, you allowed public input during that discussion. Mhm. So, and it does say that if the bonds are
issued, it would they would be a $1 million in excess. It absolutely it was after the signatures. I'm not saying it wasn't. Yeah. I'm saying we held that meeting and Mike, please correct me if I'm wrong. You and I had a conversation about I think your question to me was why are
you having this cow? And my answer to you was I believe the board needs to do their due diligence on seeing what our options are because there's been a very material change to the bid documents. That was my answer to you of why that committee of the whole was happening. We called the committee of the whole
meeting to discuss what the options were and you were all here in attendance for that discussion. I'm not saying we agree on it. I'm just clarifying that that discussion happened. I never said that it didn't happen before the bids. It happened or excuse me the petition. It did happen
after the petition. You're absolutely right. And we called that meeting to get everything out on the table about what our potential options were the petition. So we had a full understanding before the petition then we would have probably Mr.
petition. This project is dead. But hopefully hopefully what we can agree on, I hope is I don't think there's anyone in this room, including this board or any of the public, anybody who signed the petition, anybody who's for it, whatever. Nobody knew where these bids were coming in at. That was a
totalion. We're mixing stuff here now. We had already spent this board had already spent $1.3 million to get the spot where we were funding cost at least a million more on the tax neverition that's based on overall the whole
duration of the project. Right. Right. And the bonds as as Jessica said it they get sold way before then and refinanced. Yeah. But there was a million dollars that right there we could have did a bid on the government center to have it
fixed up. You're saying Pam's saying, "Oh, you know what? We didn't want to spend any more money on the government." Okay, don't put words in my mouth cuz that's not what I said. I asked the question I asked the question to You guys have called me out many times
while I was sitting here. So don't think that I can't call you out. No, you can call me out, but but don't put words in my mouth. I never once said what you just said. I asked I asked Mr. I asked the chair because I was not on
the board back then what was spent prior to putting that together and would it not cost to do the same thing to do the same amount to do the same thing for this building. That's what I said. They did an hour and a half walk through. Is that correct? How long did
it take you guys to walk through the government center to give them a price? I'm wondering, Mr. Chair, if Mr. Deppa could be allowed to finish his comments. If we're we're going to have to have people come to the podium if you're going to speak. Um, you want to finish?
Yeah, I think if uh we'll move on if unless Mr. Dep's got any more uh comments. Um, well, I I do have other comments is is that with the Star and Tribune, um, I appreciate I
appreciate everything that the commissioners have done. This is not this is not on Jared or Scott, Ed, Steve, Pam. I'm a person that if you tell me something, I believe that.
and he brought up that they would honor the CIP if the signatures were validated. We come to the next meeting and they start talking about the H. Okay.
I I I missed it, Scott. Okay, I can agree to that. You know that you're saying that it was brought up at the whole meeting or whatever, but also at the whole meeting. I will mention to you if you recall if the signatures become valid did you
you said that you would put it on the ballot in 2026. I'm pretty sure you're mixing the committees the meetings Mr. Deppa. Um so on the May 6 public hearing which commissioner Kapinsky referenced uh his backing that he said he would put it on the 26th ballot.
I'm quite certain I said we would likely do that. There is no way I would commit to putting it on the 26th ballot. I had no idea what that would cost. We had if we would have said, "Yep, we're going to put it on the 26th ballot based on what? We hadn't. We wouldn't have gone out for
bids yet. What if it came in at 35 million?" I probably wouldn't have put it on the 26th ballot because of that. I didn't have information for my vote to say yes, we'll put it on the 26th ballot. And I think I have the support of the board to say that. I I never said
I will put it on the 26th ballot. I There's no way I'd commit to that because I didn't have enough information. What would you say, Mike, if this board chose to put it on the 26th ballot? They went out and they rebid. It came in at $35 million. And the question on the ballot would have
been this. Are we building new or are we remodeling? Are we building new for whatever that bid comes in or are we remodeling for whatever that bid comes in? That's going to be the choices. That's what would have very likely been the choice because we've all agreed for
a very long time that something was going to happen. So, if you can fast forward to the 26th ballot and facing those two questions now, none of us know what those costs were because we hadn't bid it. So, I would never say I'll put this on the 26
ballot and I have no idea what it's going to cost. Why would I do that? Scott, I uh I disagree with you in the Wait, wait, wait. We'll get Frank. We'll we'll have you come to the podium when you understand my understand. Yeah, you've done this clarifying it.
Okay. I'm going to clarify that the five commissioners run the county, not Mr. Headley to go tell somebody to go start digging dirt across the road. I I don't know where that come I don't I I don't know if that's true for sure, Mike. Oh, I don't know. Yeah, I don't think you know the
contract. Well, M perhaps you could ask Pete if I've ever given him any direction. Why don't you have It's probably under the direction of if you want to make comment Pete at all. What? Yeah, probably.
Good morning, commissioners. Uh, basically I'm going to echo what uh Mr. Hadley said to start the show off with is when the county board approved those contracts. Uh that was the notice to proceed with the work of the the project. Uh it's not just some bulldozer
showing up to move top soil ahead of uh IEA doing some future inspections with what we have to deal with with the MPCA. Uh little known fact, a lot of the material and stuff has already been on order or being placed. So for example, all the steel for the project has already been shipped from Chicago tube
and iron to Fargo uh North Dakota. Mid America Steel. So, a lot of those processes were put in place at the action of the county board to approve those contracts. Mr. Chair, just to clarify, Pete, is it and I want to clarify for Mike's sake and our own too. I don't believe any of
us or Monty called you and said, "Pete, start digging." No, you moved ahead based off of this board's approval of contracts. Yes, that was be the logical spot as long as everybody has their insuranceances in place. And nobody here controlled that timeline. No, sir. Okay.
So, We do have as a schedule though that we need to get these footings of foundations in ahead of winter to uh alleviate potential extra what is the funding to Mr. Gapinsky's comment was is this uncommon or is this a common practice to get moving
once the contracts are approved you have now let the horse out of the barn as far as getting these contractors going? Yes. So Pete, I got a question. What would happen in a case like this if the funding didn't materialize? Well, if you think back a couple meetings ago, I think there was a parallel path besides
the HR funding that potentially could have been looked at as well. Uh short-term, I think you were going to potentially use reserves to get this project started off the ground until such time as this financing mechanism was in place. What if it wasn't? What if the plan
wasn't approved? What if it wasn't? Yeah. If the if the plan never got approved, what would happen to the cost existent? because it would be a notice to stop the uh the contractors. Uh at the same time, you would incur costs with what these contractors already have into this
project. But let alone it's not just one day of moving dirt with the top soil off of the the site next door. It would have been further reaching than that. What if there's no money to get? Okay. Thanks, Pete. Okay,
Mike, can you make We're running really long here. So, y uh I want to end with uh I think he already ended for you guys that um there's nobody that comes and builds for me without having approval and bonding
down payment. The board hasn't approved no bonding. They come in from somebody's direction, start moving, start building. No bonding, no funding approved. You don't do that in the real world.
This is the real world because it's the taxpayers who fit the bill. You have a decision to make today and you can feel the um energy and that's something that you have to
make with your decision. There's no way if I seen somebody come to my property and I was building a project, it was a chicken barn, a dairy barn, a hog barn, a house, all of a sudden I don't have the funding approved and all of a sudden they ordered a material and they start
building it that somebody would say, "Whoa, I ain't got the funding or anything done with it. I'm just going to leave that." Leave that in your mind. Would Would you would you allow that? Is that right? Is that honest?
No, it's not. Thank you for your time. Nothing's personal to Jared, Scott, Ed, Steve, Pam. You know, there's people that don't want to speak or whatever it is, but if I feel that something's wrong or I feel
something is scripted, I feel it's scripted. you know that we get to this point today that we are having a meeting after the fact of what's going on.
The public has an input and the input is not taken. You people are elected by the people to do a job. Do the right thing today. Just because that dirt got moved out there,
that doesn't mean anything. Does doesn't do the right thing. Do what the people want, not what the people want. Put it up for a vote. If it goes through, it goes through. They're going to say it's going to cost more later. You don't know if it's going to cost more later. They
took the tariffs off. The prices material should be coming down. Thank you, Frank. State your name in. Hi, I'm Frank. Uh, okay. Scott, name the Srapage Rag said with this
re reverse referendum, they said a couple of times you would honor the constituents whatever they voted and they had the 1900 signatures. And then, you know, when I called you,
thanks for talking to me. you have, you know, you found two million bucks in a slush fund. Shouldn't that money be going back to the taxpayers or you shouldn't you lower the levy for the next year?
I mean, you allocate so much money to run this dump of a county. If if the money ain't spent, you shouldn't be overcharging. Frank, do you would you like me to share the explanation I shared with you that day about that? Yes. Would that be okay? Because I spent an
hour and 45 minutes on the phone with you, I think. Right. I know. Okay. So, my ex, just so the board knows, my explanation about the $2 million in cash that I explained to Frank was this. And Monty or anybody else, please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm going to simplify it way down. Let's
say that the county budgets $100 a year. Okay? $100. We typically spend 97 to 98 of those dollars on our budget. That's typical. and we take the $3 that are left and we put it into reserves. Okay,
next year we might spend 101 because all of a sudden we had to buy a new plow truck. I'm just throwing out hypotheticals. Okay, now we've overspent by a dollar. So we go to our fund reserves and we take the dollar out. Instead of raising the levy, we've already collected that money.
So we're taking the dollar out of our fund reserves. Okay, that's the very simplified process. But then if you push that forward on a $60 million budget and over the last number of years, the county has established a a larger fund balance. And so when we sit down and
look at budget time, we we look at it and say we have x number of dollars in our fund balance. So this board unanimously said we could afford to take $2 million of our reserves and put it towards this project if it goes through. That's where the $2 million came from.
We don't if if we have a hundred extra dollars at the end of the year, we don't go through the effort of diving that up between the 20,000 parcels that are in this county to refund it. We just we recognize that in the coming year and try not to raise the levy as much. So, that's the discussion we had that day.
Yeah, we did. But I think I don't know how much you got in your slush fund, but I think 2 million is a lot. It It absolutely is a lot of money. But again, we're what at a $60 million budget, plus or minus depending on So, in the scheme of is it a lot of
money? It absolutely is, Frank. But in the scheme of things, we have to look at that at budget time and and figure out what we're going to do with that. We abs like this year, I don't know. I don't have the fund balance off the top of my head, but when we come to levy time, we might ask the administrator, what would
happen to our levy if we took $750,000 of our fund balance and put it towards our projected budget. So, we may take some of those reserves out to try to keep our levy down. That's happened in the past. Some years we'll say we can't afford to do that. It needs to be all levy. So, there's all kinds of
discussions that go on with that at budget time, which is coming up in about two weeks. And we'll have those discuss next week already. Next week we'll we'll have those discussions then at budget time. So you got a limit as how much you will ever get to end the slush fund. Well, I I don't think anybody here wants
a very large slush fund. You're absolutely right. We've already collected 2 million is a lot. It's a lot of money, but not on a county our size. No. And so but we're a small county. Well, I I I think I explained to you this time, too. We're we're certainly not large, Frank, but we're the 25th
largest county in the state of Minnesota out of 87. We have 42,000 people here. We're not large, but we're certainly not small. We're 25 out of 87. So that's I'm I'm just trying to keep that into perspective.
And then on the Taj Mahal deal, I would prefer it went to the vault. And if it would have costed 35 million, I would have been happier with that because the people decided
that, not Monty and his five bosses. Well, I think Monty decided all that. I'd have to disagree with you there, Frank. Monty's not the one responsible for those decisions. He brings that stuff to this board. This board as a whole makes those decisions.
So, how do you guys justify a tens? I mean, justify what? I'm sorry. The Taj Mahala. It's It's a liability to the county. It's not an asset. How much tax revenue is that going to
bring in? If you look at it from a business standpoint, not a dime. That's a little hard to to mix those two because we're obligated to provide services for every taxpayer in this county. You got a building right here to provide the services and we've had we've had 53 meetings and
we've had those discussions and all of those meetings about how we got to that point. So, I guess I'd suggest to read those minutes and look at those meetings because that was all discussed. We don't we don't have the time here today to go over all that 18 months worth of meetings. And then when I talked to you,
you know, you said at the 11th or 12th hour, everybody comes up against this plan. You said, "No one ever comes to meetings." Well, number one, most of us got jobs. We ain't paid 70 bucks per DM.
We ain't paid mileage and we ain't paid a salary to come to these meetings. That's why people don't go to meetings. We got jobs to pay our high taxes. I understand. And we're responsible to pay our taxes, too. Right. But you guys are getting paid to
come here. The constituents ain't. Right. That's That's true. I I I didn't make up how that works. That's how it works. Well, I know that's how it works. Is there a better option out there? I mean, we've tried to I I Well, we've had these discussions. We've had these discussions. You You
might like it at 6:00 and Tim might like it at 1:00 and Mike might want it at 2:00 in the afternoon, and Pam over there wants it at 8 in the morning. There's no way we could make anybody happy on the time we set. The timing of this one is though. Time isn't There's never going to be a
perfect time for everybody, but I think during the day it's a bad time. Okay. Okay. And then why should anyone trust any of you guys anymore as far as
on your integrity on that? You know that April 16th meeting you had that outfit out of Little Falls. Well, I know why they were here. They they stood to gain 3 million bucks, 10% out of 30 million.
They stood to gain three million. Headedley, he had was gone home. We got to get it going by the end of July. And then, you know, you guys were going to honor your vote. But boom. What do you guys decided? All the taxpayers are so stupid. You guys know
better than everybody. I think we had follow-up meetings about that, Frank. And I don't remember that. I can't make every meeting and I understand. And I got a damn farm to run to pay my high taxes. Well, I gotta go. Okay.
This is a corrupt county. Anybody else that wishes to speak? No, I'll bring it up at a different meeting. Hi, I'm Becky Lesnak. Um, Becky, could you go to my Becky Lesnak? I work in Benton County. Um, I just
think the people are upset because of the lying. I I was at the meetings and I did hear that you would honor the signatures that were brought in and I understand we had like 1,900 signatures um and we only needed 1,146.
They said, "Yep, we're not going to do anything. We'll put it on the ballot whether it be in November for a special election or next year's election." And then all of a sudden we're hearing, "Oh, there's an HR loan. Now we're going to go forward with this building."
Do you see how every why everybody is so mad? Because you went back on your word. That's exactly what you said because I was here and heard the same thing out of all of you that you would not move forward. It would go to the general election
if if we got the signatures needed because I think it's the public's right to vote on something this big. I don't think it's the administrator. I don't think it's the five of you that should be making that decision for everybody in the county. You say there's 42,000
people in the county and we only got like 2,000 signatures. We only needed 1146. We surpassed that. Why would we have to go out and get more signatures or why are you saying, "Oh, not many people signed it. That's all we needed." So,
I'm just letting you know that that's to me that's the reason why everybody's upset. If you would have done it on the up and up, we wouldn't be having these conversations today. Thank you. Anybody else? Nick Schumacher, Gimlton Township. Same
thing. I was here at that meeting. I can't make every meeting. We have jobs to do just like everybody else. And at that meeting, it was made clear if there's a petition signed via signatures, it's going to go to the ballot and let the people of the county vote. It may cost more money. It may be
less. Who knows? But then it's off all of your shoulders. You could say, "Hey, the petition was signed. Our hands are tied. Let the people vote." You wouldn't be sitting here getting scrutiny or anything. I mean, it's And if someone came to you, could you say, "Hey, the petition was signed. We we have to honor that." And go back to all the people
that signed a petition. Who cares? but it's not on your shoulders. And at that meeting, I thought the county said we're in debt 1.6 million, give or take. Why don't we take that slush fund and pay our debt off and start saving for a little bit and
open this up for bids to come and remodel it? I'm almost certain there's a lot of construction companies out there scratching right now. They'd be happy to come give you a bid for free. On what design? Let them come up with a design. Hey, prove prove what you guys can do for us.
What What more do we really have to change? The roof fix the roof. The roof's leaking. Fix the furnace. The furnace is not working. We could get by. Correct. It I'm going to tell you, you start opening up walls, you start doing any of these fixes, it it it brings in
other code issues. We've talked about this numerous times. There's other code issues that that will be presented once we start opening things up and fixing things. What what is detrimental that would absolutely have to be fixed in this building then?
Well, my background is IT and I'm going to tell you anybody who who uh says our IT room is good, I'll I'll come I'll come back any day. Yeah. And I'll I'll echo that even though I don't know and that runs our whole county that our
it is a mess. But how much of that is liability off investments in that been held off? Yeah. So you could justify building this building. You know that's that's I was in IT too. I was it 32 years.
I know how to fix a lot of this stuff. And why wasn't that done? You know it's terrible the shape that it is in. Correct. But it's been neglected for how long? Because we wanted to build a new building. No, Darl. As far as I know that was never an issue brought up before me when
we were on we always kept just doing what we had to do to make it run efficiency I don't think was ever say you know I can't say 5 years ago we said we're not doing anything in it because we want to build a new building that I that has never come before me and I've been honest with you people on my
thoughts all the time but the main reason is when we were at that meeting and when you guys said the petition if it were to get signed be enough signatures it'll to the ballot. Y then to hear ah the next meeting we came up with something better. We're just
going to override you and do it anyways because we think it's better. That was just the the misleading. Even if that wasn't what you intended to say, it's what was said. I think you know well enough that two of us were I know and I was here and like I'm not pointing fingers at anybody.
I'm just talking to you as a whole. Mhm. And I think a lot of people in this room think the same way. It's like why are we coming to another meeting about it? We already had that meeting and what was said was said whether or not you knew the findings or not. At that time you said it will go to a vote. That's what's frustrating.
Mhm. And then now you're making headline news for crepes sakes. How's that make you guys feel? Don't it kind of like maybe we messed up a little bit here or something? Like I say, it's moving forward with the project without the funding. It doesn't happen. But we're also making headline news on
incorrect information, too. like what the contracts were approved, Mike. They had the ability to start moving over there. Sure. Yeah. Yes. This is the financial piece of the puzzle.
That's where I'm pretty important. But if you go to build a house, you could approve the contractor that, hey, this is the guy I'm going to go with, but you don't get the approval from the bank. That contractor ain't starting. He wants to see approved funding for the project before anything is bought. Jessica and and Pete, is this a common
deal? make it right. Come to the mic. Yeah. Uh commissioners, typically we'd start the process a little bit differently. Um, and you'd have some approvals prior to um, so but no, I wouldn't say that it's
it's entirely uncommon to have some of these sort of some of these tail um, I would say procedural steps done after a project is awarded. Um, certainly with uh, street projects etc. there's a little bit more
of the front end of procedural steps that are done from feasibility reports etc etc. Um so all projects are done differently but it's it's not uncommon for a project to be bid and awarded prior to a bond sale.
Okay. Thank you. And with that being said, if this doesn't go through today, what happens? I think we just heard from Pete what happens. There's no money to give them. Well, who do you think that falls off of? Um,
everybody here, including us. Someone jumping the gun a little bit. I mean, there's no funding. Sorry, you shouldn't have bought it. You didn't have a check. You didn't have What's I mean, how you supposed to pay for it? Pulled out of the blue sky. I mean, it ain't Sorry, the bank didn't give us the money.
It's just the timing is way off. I mean, can you guys say if you were to go buy anything, can you go pick it up, do anything without having the funding? Yeah. I mean, I I tend to agree with
you, Nick, because there's you can't build a new barn. You can't somebody that's built a lot of buildings in Benton County and you know, and you go you want to spend million dollars, they're not starting until your bank says they got the funding. They're secured funding. M Mr. Chair and Nick. Jessica, could I
ask you a question? Is it is it or is it not typical that counties have way different financing options than are available to even cities, school districts? There's all kinds of different funding mechanisms. And what
really threw the curveball in here again is the material change to the bid opening. There was never ever a plan to say screw the petitioners. No matter what you the petition was handed in on the morning of the 29th. That afternoon we opened the bids. Everybody was
shocked. They came in where they came in. So again to my point about asking for a new committee of the whole we regrouped and said what are our options? We're not making things up for financing. We have options available to us as a county board through statute.
School districts are the same way although they're different. Cities are the same way although they're different. Is that not correct? Commissioner Johnson, you are correct. So, we we we gathered around and said, "What are our options here?" Y, that was the purpose of that cow. Wait a minute, Scott. I don't ever
remember at the committee of the whole that we said we were going to go to the H option. Well, you were at the committee of the whole, Commissioner P. We discussed it, but it was never brought forward that we were No, we had we had to bring it forward. Bring it forward to the board, right? And I was totally shocked when that
happened to tell you the truth. Well, I don't I guess I understand your disagreement, but I don't know why you were shocked because you were at the committee the whole where we had consensus to bring it to the board. No, we did not. We had consensus of discussing it. We never were going to bring it before the board until that meeting.
I cannot remember that that part of it if I didn't I I I don't know how else it would have got here without the consensus of the committee. The whole correct we didn't just make it up and it is in the minutes there. Yeah. I just I wasn't at the full meeting. But let's go back to the minutes when you guys all
said if we had a petition it's going to go to the ballot. That's what's frustrating. And why that's the problem with this country right now. Why are you guys or not you us or the county or whoever school? Why is there double standards? That should be the same for anybody else trying a private person
trying to win money. Why is there double standards for the government? There should not be. That's like the senators and the representatives. Why are they getting a better They don't have social pay social security. They got a better retirement plan. They have better health insurance.
No, that's not how it's intended to be. You should be treated the same as a private citizen. And that's why we have corruption in this country right now. And it's got to come to a stop. And what's happened today is like I said, I'm not pointing fing anybody.
It's it's the frustration of if we get a petition, it is going to the ballot and that's our only right. Like I say, thanks for your time. All right. I just have one because I called out. I'll be clear.
Pam, you said that again about the 5% you're looking out for all the people of Benton County, right? When you made your decision. Yep. And you said you only had one person contact you with being inappropriate.
Did you have any other people call you and contact you or talk to you and say, "I really don't think this is a good idea." Because what I see out there and what I hear out there, I mean, they are very angry with your decision. Very angry and very frustrated with the fact.
And it's not just a couple people. I mean, I look on Facebook and it's got pictures of you guys all over there saying, "These are the commissioners that voted to go ahead with this other funding." So, I don't feel like you're looking out for everybody because if you
really took a real hard look and listened to what everybody's saying right now, can can we agree that that's misinformation? Because there once again two commissioners that said no. But but but all five of us are on there. Can we agree that that that is
misinformation? There are a few there are a few of you um Pam, Steve, Scott, I mean every what everybody wants to know who are the commissioners that are pushing this through. Yes. Are they frustrated? They are angry. But can we agree the information is
inaccurate? Information is inaccurate. That these are the these are the commissioners that approved this other funding. Oh, vote today. Scott, you you got to vote today. You vote. No, I I'm talking the past, right? Is it is it so so Mike, you want us to
vote to turn the building down and and to pay all these uh fees right now to the do what you got to do. You got yourself into a mess and deal with it. You do what you got to do. I I don't believe that if you if you stop this project today, if if you do what's right, what
what the people of Benton County are asking you to do. If you do what's right today, you're going to have an issue with those contractors. I guarantee that. But that shouldn't be your responsibility. There was no funding for this. Did you write out a check yet for them? We had reserves.
Well, then then you spent money without getting the funding. That's not the people's problem. But you now made it our problem. But I'm just saying, you got to know that there are a lot of people in Benton County. A lot. More than 5%, more than 10%. Probably anybody
that knows about this is upset. They felt that it was underhanded. And it's not fair to say that you're looking out for everybody in Benton County for the 45,000 because there are hundreds of people that are saying bad things about this. And that's just the people that
talk to me about it. Yeah, I get a handful. Oh, you know what? Yeah, the guy sitting over there. Yeah, we should maybe do this because of whatever his reasoning was. Okay. But if you're really invested in this and you really start talking to people, that's what they're saying. So, don't
don't throw that out there that you're doing what's best for the county, the people, because that's not what Well, that's how I feel. And irregardless if that's how you feel or not. And I am I have no reason to lie to you about any phone calls, emails that I
have received. And I had one bad phone call, like I said, that was returned or turned over to the sheriff's department that I did not return the call on. And I'm just saying the people that are saying that they don't want this phone calls from people who
wanted more clarification and we agreed to disagree or we agreed to agree and then the rest of the phone calls and the emails that I received were saying that we're glad you're doing what you're doing. So, okay, each one of you, more
people are for this or against it, Jared, that have talked to you that are vocal in in here. I would say more people are well in in this room obviously against it. All across the board, all across the board. I'm going to tell you there's probably
10 15 people signed a petition said that they were pressured and that that that point blank told I'm not asking you that. I'm asking you what is your feedback? your feedback. Truthfully, I'm expecting the truth from you. Honestly, what is the feedback more of that one?
I have heard very little in Sock Rapids. Very little. Scott, the my feedback would be obviously everybody here at these. No, I mean, I'm giving you my feedback. Yeah, you want the hole. You want the hole. Okay. The majority here obviously opposed. I I believe I probably received
15 to 20 phone calls. To my recollection, all but one of those were positive. I've I've ne with the exception of one phone call, nobody else called me and said, "You guys are nuts. What are you doing?" All that all that kind of stuff. Now, obviously, we've had that here and I'm recognizing that, but
you asked me that as a whole. Okay, Steve, what's yours? So, in my district, all my neighbors and everything that uh came up to me and had a conversation with it and I laid everything out, they were for the project. Okay. Pam, you you said that they're for
it for like I said, I had conversations with a couple people that wanted more information and we either agreed to disagree or at the end of the conversation we agreed and the rest of
mine were agree and like I said I had one phone call that I did not return and that was reported to the sheriff's department. And Ed, what what is your opinion of your constituenc? not going to get any cheaper. But for the consensus since March, I've had
people that were angry, people that think, you know, we don't need it. Um I've had hundreds of people that have sought me out to say that, you know, they want to vote on it, basically. Yeah. So, one other surprisingly, I I I've heard only that
they wanted to vote. And I'm talking about hundreds of people. And I'm talking about being in areas where people bring it up to me, birthday parties, at the bar, you name it. People People called me and actually said, "What do you what's going on? Is this for real?" So, I'm just telling you that
I don't understand how you guys could not have that information. If you're not looking at Facebook, you should maybe look at it. I want to go back and and recognize from our June 10th meeting. It says that at the close it said, "He headed sought out directions on what options the county
board wanted to take on this action. There was a general consensus to reject all bids at the June 17th, 2025 board meeting and put it to a public vote on November 26th." That was the bottom line of the minutes. That's what's frustrating.
That was there. Can a special election still happen yet in November? No. No. Probably not. No, I think it's too late. I just want to make one comment. I appreciate everything that's gone on.
You know, if a person's for the building, not for the building. We have people that spoke that are for it. I that's that that's their right. You know, I'm not for it. I'm not against it. What I find hard to believe is that
you tell somebody something and then you don't follow through. Do what you do what you say, not as not as other people say. You said that you would put it to the people's vote. Come on. It's about honesty and integrity.
You know, if it goes to it goes to a vote and it goes through, I'm happy. If it goes to a vote and doesn't go through, I'm happy. But you need to honor your word. People's words means a lot. Their
integrity. You said that if you were going to get the signatures that you would put it on a ballot. They discussed the 20 special election. people says no that's not a good idea the 20 to put it on a ballot in 25 he says that we would
put it in 26 and then I guess I I guess I'm wrong so I can agree to be wrong with the H but when you come and bring an HR from the administrator after the signatures become valid that's wrong
that is totally wrong Mr. Headley is wrong by coming up. Even if you guys discuss this H bond in the beginning process, you didn't discuss it with us, but Scott says, "I
missed it. I can agree. I probably missed it." Do the right thing. Honor the people's vote. If it goes through, fine. If it don't, that's fine. just because they're digging. He should have went out there if he made the decision to the bond
person that's here to say, "Hey, we don't have the funding. We can't dig till after the meeting tomorrow." This is a I mean, it's not it's not it's it's common sense. You I just I said enough and I
appreciate everybody's time. Jared, Scott, Ed, Steve, Pam. Okay. Honesty, integrity. But somebody brings something up, the county's paying him a lot of money. I would not pay him the money that he's
getting to make that decision to come through the back door of the taxpayers of Bettton County. And you know what his salary is? You can look it up online. There's no way I would pay somebody that type of money to come through the back door and do this
to the public. He works for the taxpayers. He works for you. You have a decision to make. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Is there anybody else that wants to make a comment here before we close the public hearing? Want to ask if anyone online wants to We
got quite a few folks online. I want to ask if anyone online would like to Anybody online want to make a public comment before we close the public hearing. Last call for anybody online that wants to make a public comment.
We have the final call for um anyone wishing to address the the county board. Um has there been any emails, letters, or anything like that? No sir. Has the departments received any concerns from state agencies, cities, townships? No, sir. Agenda?
No sir. No. This is not a township deal. The county board will now have time for time for questions of the staff and discussion. As a reminder to the audience, the public hearing is closed. We will not be taking any more comments.
Um the this portion is closed. Is there any comments before board members before we take action on this item? Anything? Can I have a ask a question? Absolutely. Um, so in at least what I've noticed
from when I've been on the board, is it common practice for this board to give direction to the uh administrator to look for information or bring information back? Is that not the
practice? So I I I'm I'm sorry, but I don't dis I don't agree with the fact that Pam does stuff on his own. You talking the mic? I don't agree with the fact that he does stuff on his own. At least that's not what I've seen. He's usually directed by
this somebody on this board to do something. You know, it's the whole board that he's directed by. Yeah. years ago when I first got on the board, one of Monty's common uh statements was um what are your wishes? And you know,
he's held pretty true to that. I mean, that really surprised me, I guess, a little bit when I got on the board that that was one thing that he said several times. You know, it's it's your decision. What are your wishes? So, I just was asking
Well, Mr. here. Uh your your next item is a separate agenda item. It's it's the resolution approving the redevelopment plan. And Jessica, would you be able to join us back at the podium to cover the resolution? One moment, please. Mr. Chair, commissioners,
just get to Excuse me. One second. So you have a we are resolution for your consideration approving the redevelopment project area and the plan thereof. Uh this resolution has been drafted by Taft which again is the county's bond council. Um so there
are a number of different sections that are included within the resolution itself going over those findings that I mentioned previously. Um the approval and the adoption of the plan. Um and then beyond just the board meeting today, um the HR would also meet today
to also consider the plan itself. If you do have any specific questions related to the information that is in the resolution that is before you, please let me know and I'm happy to speak to that. I think we're some are doing some reading. Any questions? Any
No, I don't think there's any questions if you read through it. So, this is a resolution to approving the redevelopment plan for Benton County Government Center Project. I'll make that motion. I'll second.
Motion been made and second it to consider the resolution approving the redevelopment plan for the Benton County Government Center. to the resolution to approve the resolution. Any other discussion? Any other discussion?
Do you want to do a roll call or not? Sure. Okay. Yes. The chair called Mr. Chair. Commissioner Benoy. I. Commissioner Heinen. I. Commissioner Pop. Nay. Commissioner Johnson. Hi. Commissioner Gapinsky. I.
Thank you. So now we'll reassess the recess the county board and conduct the HA redevelopment plan. I got to find the right one. Oh,
here we go. Here we go. I got it. Got the agenda. This is the agenda. Oh, okay. Thank you. Um, we'll call the meeting to order. Roll call. Commissioner Benoy. Hi.
Commissioner Heinen. Hi. Commissioner Pop. Hi. Commissioner Johnson here. Commissioner Gapinsky. Hi. Um the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? I'll make a motion to approve the
agenda. Second. Motion been made and seconded to approve the consent agenda of number one. Yeah, Mr. Chair. I was just going to say to clarify, you're you're calling for the consent. Yep. for the consent agenda for item number one for the it's to approve the
redevelopment housing meeting from July 15th 2025. I'll make a motion for consent agenda item number one to approve the minutes from July 15th 2025.
Second phone's been made and seconded. All in favor? I oppose carried. Regular number three is regular agenda. Yep. So So Mr. Chair, uh it's again just consideration of the redevelopment plan. Now you're sitting as the H. Uh Jessica,
did you want to make additional comments on on this first one? Not specific to the No, unless you'd like me to go over the same information that we had in the public hearing. Jessica, I have one question on the on the bond part. If if we have a are when
we issue the bonds, are we locked into this interest? If you know um if you listen to Bloomberg and some of them, they can expect interest rates to go down. Are we going to be locked into that higher interest rate? So, um very good question. Um there is a lot of discussion related to the Fed
potentially cutting rates. There's about a 90% chance at this point that there will be two rate cuts this year. Um potentially three. Um, so what I will say about the target federal funds rate is is it is an overnight rate. It is not a long-term rate. Um, and the correlation between the federal funds
rate and the municipal market information is a little bit different than what you'd see in the stock market, for example, or for treasuries. So with that in mind, um I did a little bit of um I ran a couple of scenarios just to kind of see what would happen. So in the um
typically what happens when we do have a lot of confidence or consensus around the fact that there is going to be a rate cut by the Fed, we start to see that information priced into the bond rates ahead of time. Um and again being that we're at that sort of 80 to 90%
level, we are seeing corrections in the market um to the degree of on Friday it was about seven basis points overall even though we're talking about roughly 50 basis points for the federal funds rate. seven basis points for the bond market. We saw another little bit of a correction yesterday. However, it's
about two to three basis points. That's on the front end of the curve, not the entirety of the curve. So, uh what I did is I took a look at potentially dropping the first three maturities by about 25 basis points,
which I would not expect to happen. Again, it's an overnight rate. So impacting years 27, 28, and 29 by 25 basis points, highly unlikely. That being said, I did run the scenario because I wanted to see what that would do to the overall interest for the
county. So, if we were to see a 25 basis point reduction, which I don't anticipate happening, the interest rate would go from 4.51998% to 4.51518%. So, a difference of 048%
for the entirety of the bond issue. That savings would be approximately $18,000 over a 20-year time period. Okay, the other thing that I would bring up is going back to we'll look at the most sort of recent moves by the Fed. So back
in 2024 in August through December, the Fed dropped that target federal funds rate by about a 100 basis points. Over that same period of time, the BBI, which is the bond buyers index for 20-year doubleA rated bonds, increased by about
25 basis points. So it was an inverse response to what you would expect. Oftentimes when people think about the federal funds rate and I'll give the example of mortgages. If a mortgage rate is six and a half percent and the Fed makes a move, people anticipate that that rate is going to drop to six and a
quarter. That is not the case. However, whatever the board wants to do in terms of do you want to postpone into September after that first Fed meeting, we're happy to do that. Um but I would caution against trying to time the
market. Um as again a lot of these sort of indications get priced into the bond pricing well in advance of when you actually sell the bonds. Does that answer your question? Exactly what I heard from somebody in my family. Great.
Okay. So again, right now the the first matter before you is the again sitting as H the redevelopment plan and we'll of course get to the bond matter in your second item. Um but we'd ask you to first consider the
the redevelopment plan. Motion to approve a res a resolution approving a redevelopment plan for county government center project. Excuse me. There is no resolution, right? Oh, now we're reconsidering the
redevelopment. consider read the development plan. It states in my it states unless I am wrong. So drop out the resolution approving. Yeah. Monty,
I'm sorry. Could you repeat the question? As I'm looking at this, our action request is a motion to approve the resolution approving a redevelopment plan for the county government center. That is correct. Correct. Yeah, that is correct. Yeah,
thank you. I'll second most been made and second to consider the redevelopment plan for the county government. Is there any other discussion on it? Hearing none. It's all good. Do we need to do a roll call or we can
just mature chair? I mean it's your call, Mr. Chair. All in favor? I opposed. I. So now, Mr. Chair, uh, Jessica can review for us the financing plan and then what's known as the set sale resolution.
Thank you, Monty. Thank you. As Monty just mentioned, your next item is the finance plan for the proposed bond issuance. So, we are set to sell bonds on Monday, August 18th at 11:00 a.m. and then we would come back before
the board and the HR on the morning of Tuesday, August 19th for your consideration of award of those bonds. So, you do have the finance plan, the cover looks like. So, in that plan, I would ask that you turn to it's listed
as page one. It's uh page 22 of your HR packet. And that provides the executive sub summary, excuse me, for the issuance itself. So, of course, the proceeds of the bonds here would be used to finance the county government center and the HR
would then pledge lease payments received from the county for the payments on the facility for the bonds. The full faith and credit of the county is not pledged to the payment of the bonds. However, the county would anticipate levying annually to make that
payment to the HA. The lease payments are subject to annual appropriation by the county. The bonds will mature annually each February 1st in the years 2027 through 2046. What that means for the county is that you would be certifying a levy here in 2025 this fall
for first collection in 26 to make that payment in 27 because again there's always that lag of certification to collection to the first payment. The estimated interest rate or true interest cost so different than the average uh rate is 4.63. The average coupon that we
discussed earlier is 4.51. So that true interest cost factors in um the interest, the cost of issuance, etc. versus just looking at that coupon. You do have a prepayment option here. So beginning February 1 of 2033, you can call the bonds in in whole or in part on
that date or any date thereafter. The bonds are subject to extraordinary redemption and prior payment at the option of the HRA in whole at the principal amounts thereof plus acred interest in the event of damage or destruction of the property and any part
thereof. The bonds will be rated by S&P global ratings. Um I can say that the rating report was just published yesterday. Monty and I held the rating call with S&P went very well, exactly what we were expecting to hear. Uh so the outstanding
bonds that the county does have which is one bond issue um was affirmed at that double A level these bonds are going to be rated double A minus and as the board may recall we talked about that one notch differential due to the fact that there is no geo pledge here however the
fact that the outstanding rating for the county's bond issues has been affirmed um it speaks to the financial position of the county and I'll um I mentioned this to Monty but when the rating analyst from S&P called me to give me the information. He described the county's financial position as rock
solid in his words. Um you don't have that rating report again, just that being that it was published yesterday evening. Um so we'll provide that to you with the um county board packet. But all good news and exactly what we were expecting. The bonds will be considered taxexempt and non-bankqualified
obligations. There are certain risks of course with the issuance of any and all debt and we have included the those risk factors in your packet as well. Type of bond sale here would be competitive and as I mentioned um that bond sale is scheduled for Monday, August 18th at 11:00 a.m. and then we'll come back
before the board at 9:00 a.m. the following morning for your consideration of the award of the bonds. Beyond that, within the finance plan itself, you have an issue overview. So it describes the sources and uses of the bonds. It describes the authority for the bonds as well. So leaning on 469 as
well as 465 with that lease structure. Um the security and the source of repayment of course and then the issuing process. We do have the proposed or preliminary debt service schedule that is included in your packet and in your finance plan. As I mentioned previously
today, we will not know the exact rate of the bonds until the bonds are sold on August 18th. And if something happens in the market where the there's a wild swing, I'll certainly be in contact with Monty and we can address um any need to delay the issuance again if the market
seems to be off. So with that, you also have a resolution um that we refer to as the set sale resolution and that uh states the the time and the date of the sale itself and effectively provides preliminary
approval related to the bonds. It is not an authorization or an award of bonds, but it is again sort of uh a nod to the staff and also the finance group that's working with you, bond council, to continue moving forward for the bond sale.
Mr. Chair, Jessica, just for clarification on the debt service schedule, I think you explained to Mr. watercott earlier. Um this starts out at a 3.3% and by 2033 when the option to exercise
reviewing the rate were at that time between 3.8 and 3.9. Is that the right way to look at that? Uh a little bit different. So within each bond issue when you're selling the bonds you will have an investor that purchases for example the
21 of 2046 maturity and they will expect to receive 4.9% on that interest because they're assuming that the bonds are going to be outstanding for 20 years. However, of course you do have the call date and whoever purchases the 21 of
2045 is expecting to receive 4.85% 85% on their investment with the bonds. So depending on how the investors hold the maturities and which sort of level of maturity they hold, they are entitled to that coupon or stated rate for that particular maturity. So when we say that
you can call the bonds in in 2033, it doesn't mean that you've only been paying 3.9%. You've been paying the interest rate prescribed to each individual maturity within the issue itself. Okay. Um, and then of course when you're calling in the bonds, and you can do that in whole or in part, um, you can
certainly just call in the last maturities because they carry the higher interest rate, um, if you're not looking to refund the entire series of bonds. So, there's a number of different ways of looking at sort of restructuring or refunding the bonds, um, once that call date hits.
Okay. Thank you. Interesting. So, we reviewed the lease bond revenue and consider a resolution authorizing the sale of H lease revenue bonds. That's what's before us right now.
Jessica, would there be any would there be any advantage or would it be detrimental to the county to see if we would have a correction in September or whatever they're talking about? Probably not. If you felt strongly that the impact
would have again that correlation to municipal bonds, correct? Then I would say sure, you can certainly delay. History has shown us that we don't see that drop again on an overnight rate apply to long-term rates.
It does certainly cause adjustments, but when we look at and again I'll point to those most recent sort of Fed moves back in 24 in the fall of 24, what we saw as the that target rate was dropping, municipal market information was
actually increasing. So there's all kinds of other forces that could impact bond rates. which makes it hard to say even if we are anticipating those Fed moves which I would again argue that are priced into the bond market already um just given
the level of confidence that there will be at least two rate cuts. There are other factors that could impact bond rates and it could impact them up or down. So unfortunately, if I was able to predict interest rates, I probably would
not be standing here uh today. But that being said, um I would never suggest that you try to time the market, right? You issue when you need the money. Um we of course know that the county is going to use some reserves to get some of these first pay requests out of the way.
Um but if you feel strongly that you want to postpone, we're happy to do that. Mr. Chair, with the August 19th potential award date, when are funds available? Um, let me see here. So, we do have a
calendar that is at the very back of that finance plan. So, the closing on the bonds would be September 17th. So, that's when you would have proceeds in hand. Okay. We need a motion or we need something here on the
do um resolution authorizing the sale. Okay. I'm going to I'm going to make a motion to set sale resolution authorizing the issuance of the Benton County H lease revenue bonds.
Do we have to have August 18th in there on that motion or not? I believe it's in the Excuse me. should be I do not have that in front of me. Yes, that's included on page 34 of the HA uh packet. So, it's the notice of
sale that's attached to the resolution. Thank you. I'll second. Motion's been made and seconded to um a resolution to authorize the sale of the HA lease revenue bonds.
Any other discussion? Mr. Chair. Yeah, I will be supporting this motion. Uh we unanimously accepted the bids and approved the the building to start. So that's why I'll be accepting.
Okay. Would you like a roll call, sir? What? Would you like a roll call, sir? Yes, please. Commissioner Benoy. Yes. Commissioner Heinen? Yes. Commissioner Pop? No. Commissioner Johnson? Hi. Commissioner Kapinsky. Hi.
Thank you. Okay. Uh we have no other uh matters before the H. We'll adjourn the H at 11:38 and re Would you like to take a break? Yeah. Or keep plowing through? You need a break. Plowing through.
Yeah, we need a 5m minute break. here. Back to you, Monty. Thank you, Jessica. Thanks, Jessica. Yep. But good news right there. Okay.
Hi. Oh, perfect. Oh, wonderful. Thank you. Going to overtime today. All right. All right. Michelle, are you ready to be to resume? Thank you, sir. Yep. So, um,
a number of issues to talk about, more practical, logistical, operational issues associated with the project. Um, and Pet of course is here to to join in on this discussion. So I'd like to try to follow the what's on your screen and what's going on now, what's going to
happen the next couple of months. Also to I've asked Pete to share with you and perhaps a bit of a refresher uh Integrity's role as CM what they do dayto-day to monitor what's going on on the site to monitor uh uh contractor
buildings, how they scrutinize and those and so on so forth. That kind of cut gives us items one and two and then we'll just go from there. So, I'm going to turn it over to Pete and let him cover those issues and then I'll come back. Good morning once again, uh, Mr. Chair,
members of the board. Uh, just to kind of give you a little bit of rundown on kind of where things have at since the approval of the contracts. Uh, we have assembled a contractor uh, pre-construction meeting here. I believe it was on the 25th, which was a Friday. Uh basically that's to get all the
contractors in one room, sit down. Uh we issue out an overall formal procedure manual on expectations of the job, billings, uh procedures and things of that nature. Uh this contract and the entire documents
was set up around the AIA institute, the American Institute of Architect. So the entire bidding documents, the entire front end is married together with the construction contracts, the general conditions, Evans contract, our contract. So it's one happy marriage under the AIA library. Uh with that
being said, uh behind the scenes, many of the shop drawings, uh submittals have come through from the contractors. Uh we have an online portal that we had talked about before called submitt exchange. So at the end of the day, uh, every piece of documentation on this will be in
digital format, uh, turned over to the county. At the same time, members of the county have current access to that as well, where all the budgets are tracked, etc. Uh, so started moving top soil. Uh, fence went up here on August 1st, started moving top soil in advance of,
uh, doing the soil corrections. Uh, we were working with IEA. uh they were the ones originally with some of the asbestous line items in our uh conversation with Colin down at the MPCA on a pro procedure uh to move through that as fast as possible. So that's why
you saw the top soil moved. Uh from there uh proposal came through from IEA I think actually this morning during the meeting and uh we'll get them on board to do the uh on-site inspections. Uh as we get through that once the soil corrections are completed we will turn
around immediately start digging for footings. Uh we want to get the foundations in and out of the ground uh ahead of freeze up. And I know we're sitting here in early August, but at the same time frame too, we know what's coming down the pike and we want to make sure that we have ample opportunity to get that to kind of mitigate any
potential co costs with our original milestone schedule. Uh item number any questions on site happenings? Item number two Monty has is how contractor buildings are reviewed for accuracy and processed. Uh during our
pre-construction meeting, we laid out a path where contractors have to put in for an AIA pay request once a month. Uh with that being said, we put a review memorandum together, which is a a review with our project management team, our on-site person to make sure that the
work in place is in concert with the work being applied for. Uh we also allow for uh stored material to be applied for as well with some of the long lead times, the fluctuations in the market, uh things of that nature. As long as
that stored material is insured at a place of u it's holding, it's allowed to be paid for. Uh it then goes off to Evans office for signature as well. So the architect will certify the pay application and then it's off to Monty
for u a packet for for you people to uh review and approve. That'll happen on a monthly basis. Uh at the end of the day uh couple weeks back we had a meeting with uh Monty uh Jackie and some of the people here Jeff at the county to make
sure that the process was going to flow correctly with your board meeting dates. Uh I'm just going to quick pass out. It's an example of a paybook that gets put together. You don't have to do a quick cruise through it, but kind of gives you a little bit of feel for the way these
books are put together. At the same time, monthly, they will be recorded into this budget. It's the same format you've seen our estimates come through on and of course the bid tabs uh and recorded monthly. The second page of that each one of the
contractors is tabbed and I just printed one example of Kim and dirt diggers. So at the same time we are also tracking some of those pre uh contract submittals the W9's the insurance certificate safety policies etc. Uh one of the big
ones is the insurance certificate expiration date. So we've got that flagged within our system. So, knowing next April 15th of 2026, we need to be chasing down an updated uh insurance certificate from Kimman. Karen from our office is our contract administrator.
Does a wonderful job of maintaining uh the budgets and the books at the same time tracking all these other uh submitts IE uh insurance certificates etc. So monthly and in person updates to the
county board. Uh the same time too. Uh if you would like us to be at the county board on a monthly basis to kind of give you a little bit of a a rundown of the project, what happenings are there? Uh any budget questions that may be posed, we surely could do that. Uh we're more than available. I did bring Jim Hman
along with me from our office. Uh Jim will be helping me co-pm this along with Eric Holland who will be our on-site person who will be in the trailer daily. Uh and with that being said, we'd more than happy to uh give the board uh as
many updates as as needed. Uh item number four, job site superintendent. We will have job site meetings uh scheduled for every two weeks throughout the course of construction. uh at that meeting it'll be the trade contractors that are currently working
on site uh those that are close to working on site and then we will also have a zoom or teams invite out to the rest that just want to stay tandem with the project same time too uh we encourage Monty and Jeff to be there as well to understand the current
happenings uh understand what's going on and uh at the same time too gla or potentially an engineering representative would be in attendance as Well, just to make sure that uh those meetings are attended by all all just to make sure that construction project
stays uh on track and uh all questions are being answered. And then item number five, uh I think more from the standpoint of potentially change orders moving forward in order to keep the construction process moving on
site. Uh is to I call it the hourglass uh theory that make sure that we have one person who's delegated by the county to approve change orders as they come up. Not to say that they won't be discussed at the monthly board update, but in order to wait 3, four weeks
potentially for an action to happen. and sometimes might be delayed. Therefore, we're recommending uh that uh money have an threshold of up to $30,000 uh to approve in order to keep things moving if need arises.
Pete, is that normal to have a $30,000 threshold for change orders for one individual? You know, we have seen them all over uh the place. We have seen some counties go much higher in order to keep that process going. Uh we have seen some of them lower that probably be a good
average uh in today's world that we would say would be in the threshold what we typically see out there. Yes. These contingency, Mr. Chair, these contingencies are are the contingencies are a little bit more
um um in place on a remodel though versus a a new construction. There's a there's less change orders in a in a brand new B building. Yes, you have less chances for unknowns. And like I said, uh couple things and I
go back to why we saw a lot of these bids come through. We heard many contractors say these were a very clean set of documents and it was welcome to hear. Uh I do give my hat off to Evan and his team. Like I said, I think the products were well researched, which we
don't a lot of times see. uh it's already kind of gone through the plan review process with the building official. Very few items came up within that and uh therefore yes contingency typically would be somewhat lower. All right. Thanks Pete. Uh why don't we
backtrack then just for a moment. So Pete suggested he could do monthly updates to you all the entire board. How does that sound? That sound okay? Absolutely. Whatever you have a preference first meeting of the month or second meeting of the month is it mean whichever one he's going to have the most information on probably.
Okay. And whatever works for whatever works for him. So once a month for sure Pete Yeah. or Jim will be here and something he could come Yes. Yes to that. Okay. Um five. What's your thoughts about the change order
matter with Pete's recommendation? Yeah. Well, I and that's I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I I would have to go with Pete's recommendation just just for that, but it's up to the board to decide it. Well, and I'm fine with that and I assume that's something we could change
if we have to. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. Right. Well, I I my my goal, Mr. Chair, is absolutely flood you with updates. Anything I learn something new, you're going to hear it right away. I owe that to you. Right. So, soon as something comes up, I will let
you know. Absolutely. Kip. Okay. Thanks, Pete. If I may, Mr. Chair, wrap up um on a couple other things. Well, these are really I think described as owner items. FFE, furniture, fixtures, equipment, and then tech, signage, and landscaping. I'm
sure I'm forgetting something, but if I may, let's just take these one at a time. So, uh let's I'm going to start kind of at the end and and and go backwards. So, at some point, we need to put out our furniture to bid. So to get to put it out to bid, you need
specifications. You need quantities, you know, the design and so on so forth. So we're going to need some assistance from some competent professional to come up with a furniture design. Uh Evan from GT has told me he has some resources he
could help connect us to and ideas. So, what I would propose to you today is is I'd like the opportunity to sit down with Evan and hear his ideas and so on and then bring a process plan back to you. In other words, how are we going to get from point A to point B? In other words, knowing we need furniture to
going out to bid. So, I'd like that opportunity to do that with Evan Evans input and then again and of course Jeff too and come back with a plan for you. So, uh I should mention too, Mr. here. It's going to be really important that
we involve our departments in the furniture of of that's very personal. You know, furniture, your desks and chairs and so on so forth. So, we're going to make sure we include all of our departments in that discussion about what their furniture needs are. I it almost you thinks it kind of boggles the mind of all the furniture in this
industry building, you know, chairs, benches, desks, etc., etc. So, uh pretty big project. uh tech. Uh, of course, we've been conferring uh with Commissioner Kapinsky on the matter of technology. I I would
like to then at some point organize another meeting with Commissioner Kapinsky, Steve Stang, of course, Jeff, and maybe bring GLT into that to to sort of talk through how do we go, it's kind of like with FFE, how do we go from point A to point B? At some point it's
got to go out to bid and presumably there's going to be multiple bid packages based upon the different aspects of that tech. For example, you've got cams, cameras, you've got uh wiring, uh you've got um
presentation equipment like this, a lot of lot of lot of pieces. So, I'll I'll follow up and we'll set a meeting. We we'll get that going. I you know I'm sure the the the months will go by quickly and there's a lot to do between now and the day the doors open on this
building. So I I don't intend to just sit on this. Uh I my thought is let's get through August and survive August and then and really in September dive right into it. Dive right into it. Signage. I need to regroup with GLT to
understand the signage that's that's embedded in the project versus the owner the owner signage. I'm pretty sure the exterior signage is an owner item. So, for example, there's going to be a a great uh uh sign on the corner telling
people what's in this building and then there's going to be a ground mount sign on the front that says Benton County Government Center. I believe those are owner items. So, we'll have to work with a sign v and fortunately we have some great signage companies here in the St. Cloud area that we can turn to. So, um,
and then landscaping kind of same thing. We need to we need to get with Evan and see if he has any suggestions in terms of how to pursue the landscaping design. I just want to let you know is it of course hadn't forgot about these four major owner items and we'll we'll get
those into high gear into September. And um I think that was it. So, just to recap again, looks like the monthly updates from Pete and then um oh, let's see here. Oh, I almost forgot. I'm glad I moved my pages. This is actually the original reason that
this is on here for Commissioner Johnson. Uh, it's been a long morning. Uh, the old government center redevelopment planning. Commissioner Johnson, you had the great idea of maybe let's trying to formalize this re redevelopment plan a
little more and get it more organized. We've had a number of meetings with various folks on possible redevelopment ideas. Um, Commissioner Johnson, you suggested adding another board member to this group to pursue redevelopment ideas
and then that redeve group would bring recommendations back to you all. I just want to give you a sense of some things that have been talked about so far. Conveyance to the county EDA for disposition. And why would we do that? Well, if you convey the property to the EDA, EDAs have substantially more
flexibility as to how you dispose of property. For example, you can negotiate a sale to a private party and attach conditions to that first. Let's just say for example, you want to make sure this property is used in a good way in the future. You know, you don't want turn
into some undesirable business. You can attach conditions to that sale and if the buyer doesn't fulfill those conditions, the property can revert back to the EDA. Uh not possibly uh conveying a property to a nonprofit to some ownership. uh space leased by nonprofit
to various service providers, dental medicals and so on senior we we of course we can't forget the need to retain space of University of Minnesota extension and there's also the idea possibly private redevelopment of this site I think that's a great idea pursue uh to to return the property to the tax
roles and help possibly create some private redevelopment here in the city of Foley so that's another idea on the table so um and in the name of this are commissioner Isconin and would there any other board members that perhaps would be interested in in being in this group
or all board I don't want to exclude anyone of course how do you feel about uh a ask asking another board member to be a part of uh this um this redevelopment group and Johnson please add anything you I mean I think you're right on the money I think we need at least one other one
you know it's going to be tough if we do three we can't do that but I would say just keep it to two but whoever's willing I mean I I think our next thought process Monty helped correct me. We wanted to include Amanda obviously the mayor and the city administrator. Um
yeah, you know, yeah, number of people like that involved in this kind of a sit down preliminary idea. So I I don't know what the time commitment's going to be at this point, but it just for me it was important to let's get it rolling because a year and
a half's going to go by and we want to be able to answer some of the questions that were presented to us today about what our plans are. Well, and if nobody else wants to, I'll sit in on the meetings. That's fine. Commissioner Benoid is our volunteer. If no one else wants to step up and do it, that's fine.
I haven't got I haven't got the time. I If you want to do it, I can be an alternate. I mean, I and I could, too. I was just going to go that. Yeah. Maybe we just one of us can't make it, we can reach out. Yep. Okay. Yep. Don't have the next meeting schedule, but we'll we'll work on that soon. We'll
work on that soon. Okay, I think that's all on this one. Uh, I believe, Mr. Chair, the next item, and correct me if I'm wrong, is the DDA recommendation. Is that is that next? Yep. Yep. Yes.
And hopefully Tessa has stayed with us through it all. She is not here. I know she had a mean at 11. Do we want to table this? about how about you move on to other items and
we'll come back when Tessa joins other on the right. Yeah, you've got the next two items, sir. This is like the old days. We used to go past lunch and into like 1 2:00. Yeah.
I'm glad you're excited. Yes, sir. So, okay. Uh I believe the next item is the the the discussion about a private uh Minnesota paid family medical leave plan. So, as you may recall, the board authorized us to participate in a
in an RFP uh seeking bids on a private paid family mem. I call it Minnesota paid leave. That's easier. Uh and you did uh with this company called uh integrity employee benefits.
I included in your packet, Mr. Chair, a summary of those bid results. Um as as someone pointed out earlier the I think it was Nathan right that the the state rate is 08% point 88% of of
payroll uh only one uh pro uh respondent uh offered a rate blower metife 79 uh and if you went with the 79 rate it
would save the county about $20,000. Uh we've been asking area counties or at least anyone who'll care to respond uh who might be taking the state plan versus the Metife plan. It's about 5050. Uh state plan I see
here Aken Metro Bus Douglas Sherburn Metife is Minker Wright Becker and Malax so far taking um the the Metife plan. So, uh, I I know a lot of counties and cities are considering the Metife plan.
Uh, and seems like a lot of folks kind of on the fence, uh, seem kind of reluctant to to commit. This document again was prepared by folks from Integrity Employee Benefits and, uh, you can see they they provided
some analysis, our thoughts about the state plan versus the the Metife the Metife plan. Um so Mr. Chair I maybe just kind of if I may cut to the chase is um
it is true that the MetLife plan at least in the short term would offer some savings. Here's my worry. I believe if we choose a private plan then in essence it becomes our plan. It becomes the county's plan and we take ownership of it and I think then that
puts us in the role of doing many things. If an employee applies for benefits and is denied, they'll probably look to us to advocate for them to fix it. If if the if the the if Metife, for example, is slow in processing claims,
employees will look to us to fix it. So, I I'm reluctant to add additional responsibilities onto our already very busy HR staff to serve in that advocacy role. So, and I know for Commissioner
Pop and Commissioner Heinen, we've discussed this in our negotiating committee, and I think you heard those sentiments from Susan Hansen, our labor attorney, the concerns about taking that kind of ownership. Um, you know, some may predict that the state plan will be very
slow. We don't know. No one knows. Uh, it's possible the Metife plan could be very slow. For example, if many employers choose it, all of a sudden there's going to be a lot of employers just staying up on Metife enrolling
employees. It could slow them down, too. So, I I don't place a lot of value on all those predictions about fast or slow or otherwise. So, uh if the county does choose the state plan, you can get out of it after a year and go to possibly a private plan.
I should always mention though, Mr. share is that we can never ask employees to pay more than one half of what the state plan costs. So that's always going to be the benchmark. So let's just say for example, you know, you want to go with a plan that's even more expensive
than the state can only charge employees half of what the state plan costs. That is always the ceiling. So at this point, Mr. chair. Again, I I I think my my my recommendation is is to is to go with the state plan and u and for the reasons
I just described earlier. Okay. I I would tend to agree with Monty after listening to Susan Hansen. It seemed like she was really reluctant to take on a new plan. Like Monty said, she doesn't know. You don't know what your county staff is going to have to do
where the state plan, you know, it's it's on their book. Mr. Mr. Chair and and I would agree and it's really about the liability of time that the county employees would have to spend on the private one versus the state. The state you send it into the state now it's on the state. The state
created this thing. Yeah. But now it's on the state we're currently on, right? No, there ain't any yet. There ain't none yet. Oh, no. Mr. Chair, um Monte, this can be reviewed after a year, though. Excuse me. This can be reviewed after a year.
Yep. Yes. Like if you look at the Met Life items like for their rate guarantees, they tie other things to it like you have to have other insured products short-term, long-term, life, dental, vision, supplemental health, right? They did condition upon if you want the one-year rate, you have to also
allow them to market their it's either short-term or long-term disability plan. If you want the two-year rate guarantee, I believe you have to mark you all have to allow them to market two plan two plans, right? Right. That's right. So, they tied some conditions to it. Yep.
For the two-year, it's it's short-term disability, long-term disability, life, dental, vision, or something. One of two of those lists, you'd have to allow them to market those to our employees. Yeah. But again, we could review it in a year. You can. Yep. You know, there's been lots of dire predictions about the state
plan that, well, all the high utilizing organizations are going to go to the state. The state's going to take two months to respond to claims. We don't know that. So I guess time will tell. Time will tell. State. So I guess Mr. Chair, if you're inclined, I'd look for a motion. If
you're inclined to to My recommendation would be is to go with the state plan. I'll make a motion to go with the state plan. Second. Motion been made and second to go to state plan. Any other discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? I opposed. Carry. Thanks, Monty.
Uh well, Mr. I think my last let's see let's see if Tess has joined us yet. Um you just in in light of the employees do you think we should Yeah. You know, Mr. Chair, I I do agree. Thank you, Commissioner Gapinsky. It would be nice to move on to
public health right away and get them here and here. Okay, I'll recess the we'll get a hold of Tessa County board meeting and turn to public health. I'll call the uh Benton County Community
Health Board to order. Roll call. Note that all commissioners are here. Approve or amend the agenda. Is there anything to add to the agenda? Courtney, he's on that presenter she'll get you there. Let's see here. Wait, you got it. You take it from there. Okay,
got it. Yeah, go right ahead. How do you share it with uh Yeah, sure. We'll go ahead and open up open up the Yeah. So, I'm not really actually that good at this. Uh, it's about time I got good at it. Let's see here.
Courtney, is there anything you need to add to the agenda? So, you go down. You go share. No. And then I think you go I was going to ask to flip-flop the order if that's okay. Just for time. Flip flop. Oh, that's fine. Yeah, that that's minor. So, nothing else to add to the
agenda then. Okay. Need a motion, please. So moved. We're sharing. Okay. Got a motion. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? If not, I'll call the question. All in favor say I. I. I oppose. Motion carries. Number two, the consent agenda item one. What would you like to do with that? Move for approval, Mr. Chair.
Second. Okay, we got a motion and second by two members. Any further discussion? If not, I'll call the question. All in favor say I. I. I oppose. Motion carries. Courtney, the floor is yours. Thank you. Sorry for the wait. That's okay. We didn't know that that
was uh going to take a little longer than anticipated. So, uh, thank you for for letting us flip-flop this. So, um, I'm here for Jacqueline today. Um, the first thing I wanted to, um, go over is just, um, a consideration for approval. So, Medicica has announced, um, an
upcoming funding opportunity for rural health grant. Um, it's for addressing the needs and social determinance of health uh, in the rural communities. Um, Benton County Public Health staff would like to explore the potential funding source to potentially expand um around
dental health. Um, as we pres previously identified dental access as a challenge within our Benton County and wider community. Um, to be eligible for consideration of funding, an application must be submitted by August 29th of this month. Uh, Medicica will review the
applications made um and then make a decision by early December. Um the funding awards are up to a maximum of $10,000 per grantee um that will be considered. Uh there is no match uh within this. Um so I'd like to call
Tessa up here quickly just to um explain a little bit how those funds could be utilized. Tessa. Hi. My name is Tessa. I'm regional dental coordinator. Um so as Courtney mentioned, we are looking to apply for Medicica's rural health grant. Uh the
purpose of the grant is to fund community-led solutions that address health equity in rural communities and dental health is one of their priority areas when considering who to give this grant to. So as Courtney mentioned, each grantee can be awarded up to $10,000. Um
we would look to ask for that full $10,000. If awarded the grant, we plan to use the grant to fund mobile dental clinics to get them in rural communities that lack access to dental care. Uh we would be funding their nonreimburseable
um services such as like mileage and drive time. Um the grant application is due August 29th. Medicica would make a decision in early December. Um, if awarded, we would return back for contract approvals and the grant cycle would start January 1st of 2026.
Mr. Chair, quick question. Do you have an idea about how long it would take the grant writer to do this to put this together? Um, rough. Is it a half a day project or take you a week or how does that work? Maybe a week just to like get everything
written. Some of the answers are like long answers of like 750 words. Okay. Yeah. Um, I think that's the longest like question. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? I'm just texting.
What would we like to do with this action? Yeah, we would like to um consider um have you guys consider approval for Benton County staff to explore funding and submit the application um and send that in by the due date and there was no county match. Correct.
Correct. Correct. Board, what would you like to do? I'll move approval. I'll second. Got a motion, a second. Any further discussion? If not, I'll call the question. All in favor say I. I. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you.
Um and then um next up, I would like to introduce Kevin. He is our community health specialist intern. He is currently um working on his community health bachelor's program at St. Cloud State University. Um he started with us
in early June and actually is done next week with Baton County. Um the project he is working on is timely that we have this meeting um before his last day. So we wanted to get him here and you guys to um highlight the work that he has done with us. Um we also um wanted to
just highlight that we were approached by Pam Visner um who is here in the audience with us. She is with the um Benton Economic Partnership. So, she had approached us and um asked kind of came to the uh to us with a need for AEDs in
the community and just asked if public health could help with any uh community education surrounding this. Um so, we're fortunate to have a highly skilled intern to work on this. Um so, I will pull um Kevin up here to give a little bit of background and what he's been
working on. And then also, I was a little bit bummed that Tim had to leave us. I was going to also highlight he did a really cool um article in the paper too on Kevin in this project. So we just really appreciate uh the partnership with Tim and Pam as well. So uh Kevin,
we should be able to hear. Okay. Uh members of the board, uh members of the public who are currently watching this, I thank you for allowing me to address you um today. My name is Kevin Piney. I am a public health
intern. Um, I am current, as Courtney was saying, I am a community health specialist intern. Uh, earning my bachelor's degree at SCSU. I am also a paramedic with Mayo Clinic Ambulance and a lieutenant on the Rice Fire
Department. I am qualified as a BLS, ACLS, PALS, and pairs instructor. I also teach stop the bleed through the Rice Fire Department. So, I've uh
I've been asked to um as part of my internship to um shadow many programs that were um utilized here by Benton County. Uh but most of my time has been dedicated to uh my f uh my capstone
project. It was a project to um empower the people of Benton County, especially in the rural areas to not only learn hands-only CPR, but to utilize publicly available AEDs.
Um the objectives of this project again were to get people more familiarized with hands-only CPR and AED use. Um parts of this county are very rural. Um, as a paramedic with Mayo Clinic
Ambulance, I understand that there are times that ALS uh equipped ambulances um have a extended um transport time to scenes. Um, that being said, we do have uh
outstanding first response agencies such as Foley Fire, the Benton County Sheriff's Department, Rice Fire, and the Sock Rapids Police Department, as well as the Sock Rapids Fire Department. Um, but those agencies are BLS only. Um,
and they also have their own calls that they have to respond to. Um part of this project um is to highlight the fact that uh the out of hospital cardiac arrest of survival depend on depends on the uh depends on the
bystandard. So, activation of the emergency response system or dialing 911, high quality CPR, which includes chest compressions and defibrillation or the use of publicly available AEDs.
During this course um um of my of um teaching members of the public um what are two main areas that we have focused on. It is uh hands only CPR and uh AED use. Hands only CPR means
that we are just performing chest compressions. We are not giving ventilations. Um ventilations are important but moving blood around the body is much more important. Um this is a two-step process. First, we're going to contact
the 911 system and then we're going to push down hard fast center of the chest. When I say hard fast, I mean we're going to push two inches at least into the center of the chest on adults at a rate between 100 and 120 beats per minute. Um, if you're familiar with the BG song,
Staying Alive, that is between 100 and 120 beats per minute. Um, along with doing hands only CPR, we're also um getting more people more comfortable with the use of automatic
external defiills or AEDs. Um, I have spoken to many of my students before they have taken this course and one of the things that they are nervous about is using AEDs because these are unfamiliar devices. Um, these are
devices that were meant for people who don't have advanced medical training. Um, they work by analyzing a heart rhythm in somebody who is suffering a cardiac arrest. Um, there are only two rhythms that this monitor will shock.
VIB and VTAC. These are the only two uh rhythms that require a uh non I'm sorry a non synchronized uh defibrillation or
it just gives a really large amount of electricity to the heart. Um, what this device does is, um, essentially shuts off the heart and then hopefully it starts beating normally
again. Um, to use this device, all you have to do is one, dial 911, two, open the device, turn it on, and then follow the instructions as the device starts talking to you. Um, there are also
pictograms to tell you how to place the electrodes onto the patient's chest and then the rest is uh having the monitor talk to you. I do teach other interventions during this course of training. Um, these are
interventions to help prevent cardiac arrest. Um they are um the use of epinephrine to reverse anaphylactic shock, the use of nlloxxone to reverse opioid um overdoses
and compression techniques to stop life threatening lifethreatening bleeding. I am sorry. Um these items are merely gone over. They're not gone into depth. Um there are other courses that I do
teach that are available to the public that are either lowcost or free um that go further into this uh into these subjects. Impact of this course is we have reached dozens of um people of Benton County,
many of which are youngest members of the community. Um I have been approached after each one of these uh training events and have been told that um people feel more comfortable to step up and act in the
case of an emergency. Um I thank you for your time. Um and I am open for any questions that you may have for me. Any questions? board. Commissioner Gapinsky, you're well aware of all this.
Well aware of this. Just retired from the Sock Rapids fire. So well, thank you for your Yeah. Thank you. Great experience. Yep. Has been truly appreciated. Kind of a welcome and goodbye. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Truly appreciate it.
That is all I have today. So again, thank you for um letting us highlight some of these good things that we're doing and our partnerships with um the Betton Economic Partnership. um as well as having this intern as well. We've been able to do a lot of things in the community, a lot of positive impact um
with young young and old. So, I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Courtney. And sorry we kept you here so long. With that, I'll adjourn the uh community health board at 12:25 and turn it over to the board chair. Okay.
Back to you, Monty, or if you can get Jessica or Okay, Tessa online. Thank you. Tessa has arrived. You're all right. Our name tags don't mean anything. So Tessa, I have a question for you. Um, do you want me to go do you want me to
go through the presentation? You just tell me when to change pages or are you going to do it? How about if I How about Let me Sure. I can Otherwise, Monty, I was just gonna go through the jobs to review. If you want to, you know, I tell you what, it's just quicker if I if I put it up.
Yeah. And and uh let's see here. Stop sharing. Stop sharing. I have it here saved. So again, we're here to present year two of our class and comp maintenance
program. Okay. So, which page would you like me to go to, Tessa? You can just go to the slide eight where it has the jobs to review while Monty does that. I'm just the I'm there. I'm there. I'm there. Okay. PowerPoints available. You can go
in it. I know you guys have had a long meeting. This process is the same as last year. I just wanted to share those jobs that were reviewed um are on pages eight and nine. Um, again, our job is to look at the market of all jobs, the
wages every year, and we only look at a third of the job descriptions with the employee and the supervisor to look at those classifications. So, that process is the same as it has been uh in the years past. So, Monty, if you would go
to slide 11, it just shows the findings. I just want to make sure we have time to discuss there. I am there. It basically is your current grid is calibrated at about 3% under market average minimum and four under
market maximum. Your wage spread 37 from the mid to the max where the market's 39. Um few jobs are deviating from that market average meaning the system is doing what it was supposed to do. If you go to slide 13 would be my
recommendations for grade changes um for the 20 year 2020 2025 um based on changes to the job description um in discussing things with employees
andor supervisors through the forms. So, there aren't a lot of changes, but there are some um changes that go through this. Um, if you want to about any of these in particular, pause there for a moment. Any questions
or thoughts about these particular positions? So, and may if I may. I'm sorry. What's wrong? Christine said that the slides aren't being shared. I'm sorry. I had I didn't Okay. I didn't
um they're in the board packet. Okay. Uh Mr. Chair, in regards to the auditor treasurer, I did I see a reduction? Yeah, it is because that position no longer will be supervising. That was a decision made by the auditor
treasurer. That's the assistant auditor. Yes. Thank you. Assistant audit treasure. Okay. I'm sorry, Monty, what was your comment to that? I said that that decision was made by the auditor treasurer. The decision make that supervisory change. Yes.
Right. Yeah. It's well within her discretion. Of course. Tess, if I can ask you a question. So, and you may have answered this before. These recommended changes, are they reclassification changes
or market changes or both? So, we look at the market. If a job deviates, we do look at the job description to see if something's wrong with it, if it needs to be reviewed or in certain thing. But these are based on classification changes, meaning that they change their job description and or
um something has changed within it that would warrant a classification change. We basically use the market to make sure things are flowing. If there's something that deviates, we'll pull it in and say we should look at it sooner. But this was more just based on the job
description. So classification change. Thank you. Thank you Tessa. Shall we move on then to the career ladder recommendations. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you. And this is a discussion that is I hear a lot about at the county. So um
employee survey illustrated there's an interest in career ladders. Um there's a benefit to career ladders, but I only received two requests in this grouping. So we can discuss how we better communicate that or involve it. But in these jobs, one was the GIS and there is
only one person in that position. It's not a multiple incumbent position. So in that case, we just look at the job description and make those changes um because you're not creating a career letter for one person. Um the other one was the appraiser and you can see um the
positions that um are impacted by that. So appraiser one through three and then the deputy um assessor would be a grade 12. could share, Tessa, could you share with the board the underlying certifications that led you to recommend the the career
ladder for appraisers? What was what's going on behind the scenes in terms of those certifications? Yeah, that's a great question. So, um again, when I say career letters, I always say is it market warranted, meaning that it's a really hard to recruit or retain um position? Is it
something that we can measure? Um and in this case, the lensure is a big thing. there's a big lensure change on from CMA, AMA, SAMA. This allows them to move through as they get those lensures. Um, it also allows the hiring pool to be
bigger. So, when you hire, you can actually post for all three and just get one candidate that would fit in their grade by their um ability to do work and their competency. Thank you, Tess. I I think this is a great comparison for example with engineering technician where you've got
as those individuals obtain additional state certifications they can move up and this is exactly the case with with this where I don't remember if if grade appraiser 2 is CNA or AMA I think it may be AMA and I think appraiser 3 is CNA
and then if you get to grade 12 that's when you have to be a quote SAMA and that's the highest certification that you can attain uh as an appraiser is SAMA So, and I believe appraiser one is kind of like a a recruit training where you don't have any certifications, but
then you can set yourself on the path to get those certifications. So, Mr. Chair, I think again it's a great example of where career ladders make a lot of sense. Quick question, Tessa or Monty, how I see you say DDA received two requests. Can you briefly take me through the process of how people are requesting a
career ladder? In this case that when they were when we were reviewing the job they said we'd like this one to be considered for a career ladder. Um in in the GIS there's only one person so don't really create a career letter. You change a job description to match the duties that they're doing and
responsibilities. And in the appraiser it was one that we they requested and then we met with them and I said this is how other counties do it. This is how I would see it and we created the jobs and they um agreed with it. Okay. other departments could ask for it either through this process or if it's
something they want to do sooner, I think they could talk to HR and we can start that process sooner if we needed to. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know uh this you may recall like last year um several classifications were chosen for review which had many
employees in it for example eligibility specialist social worker. This year the the group is is much more single incumbent positions or maybe just a a few folks. So it's kind of a different group of positions as compared
to last year. So that makes some of the you don't see as many career ladders coming out of it. Yeah. So u Tessa, are there any other comments you'd like to make for us? Nope. That's all I had. I know it's
really short and condensed. There is a full PowerPoint in the it's in the package. Can't sleep tonight for sure. Yeah. So, you may be wondering, Mr. Chair, you know, what would be the costs of implementing this year's recommendations? I do have a number for you. Okay. 42,511.
I should mention though is is last year's class comp cost was $155,510. So again, this year's cost 42,511 if you would implement the the grade changes and the career ladder.
Well, we're on the process of but I'm doing them all. I mean, I think we got to be fair to fair. Mhm. Yeah. All right. So, the final third would get reviewed then next year, right? Correct. Commissioner or uh Mr. Sure, Tessa. One of the things that we've been
hearing quite a bit is uh a lot of times that when they send in for a um review of a position, if they don't put down the correct um like in other counties, it's it's listed differently what their
job duties are. It could be a different title. How are you researching that when it comes down comes down to let's just say a technical analyst might be a case analysts over at another county and I'm just throwing those out there as as a
Yeah. So that's a good question. So there's a couple of things that are going on there. One is when I'm doing the job description, I'm only looking at the jobs within Benton County. So I'm looking at internal equity within the county. I try to get the job description right first and then I base it on
internal equity of where it fits in with the division, the department, and the overall county. Then I look at the market and try to find good matches with that position regardless of the title now that I have a position. So I would
say that I do um look at the position first because I want to make sure it is right to Benton County. Not everyone values their positions the same. They have different service levels. There are many career letters. There are many
assistants and that. So, not every county looks the same. So, you can't just pull titles. Um, so that's kind of how I address it. I always say your pay for a position is based on three things. Updated job description, looking at the internal equity, does it make sense
within the county? And then the third one is market competitiveness and pay philosophy set by the board. Thanks, Tessa. Would you be able to send something like just a statement of how this goes uh kind of how you just explained it? Because I think it might
be good to put in our uh our uh um Benton County. What's it handbook? No, the the committee. Oh, culture team. Culture team. Yeah, there you go. Sure. I mean, and the other thing is we have an appeals process. So, if I don't get it right, that's when we have that
conversation. Hey, I don't think you considered this or you did. So, it's not just trying. Some people will say, "Well, I can't get my classification because I don't know how to write the job description." That's not your job. That's my job. But if I don't understand it, that's your problem. Then you need to help me understand what I'm missing
or what warrants it. And with that said, we may still have a disagreement, but that's why we have the appeals process so that I'm understanding the employee, the supervisor, and then the whole organization. Okay. Thank you.
Well, uh, unless there are no other questions, we're we're looking for your thoughts and possible motion on motion to adopt the 2025 year 2 class and comp maintenance, uh, program recommendations. Second, second is to adopt the DDA's
class and comp 2025 study. Any questions? All in favor? I I post carried. Thanks, Tessa. Thank you, Tessa. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.
All right. It's going to spend the next hour on the monthly financial report. Oh my god. No, we're not. Um I This is here because it was requested that at midyear uh I put the monthly financial report on as a regular agenda item. So I'm be response of
course to the board's desire to have this. So it June's a good time to to take a snapshot of where things are at. U you see this format and I I I will tell you um it's been real challenge to get this in your packet
every month with so much going on. It's been really tough. I do my best but sometimes there just isn't time. So uh the goal is monthly. Uh so this is through the end of June and I try and footnote Mr. chair you can see a number of footnotes which explain
what may look like an unusual pattern. Um most instances if you see something that appears to be way under budget or way over budget it's often a timing issue. For example in January we have to pay our entire annual MCIT premiums for
workers comp and property casualty. That's $500 $600,000 in January. There's, you know, a few here actually though which aren't can't be explained by timing. For example, in corrections,
we're going to probably way overspend the juvenile boarding budget. That is just really taken off and uh in a negative way. Yes, negative. That's going to be over. And I imagine in criminal justice, you probably are talking about that. That's going to be
way over. um backing up to uh interest earnings. We're going to collect way more interest earnings than we budgeted. Um and that's great news for our fund balance at the end of this year. Let me go back up. So, for example, we budgeted 800,000 and already we posted 1.5 million
through end of June. Um so there was an oddity with January where actually it was 2024 interest earnings were posted in January. So, it's a bit overstated, but nevertheless though, uh we're going to collect substantially more than was budget,
which again adds to fund balance. So, those are a couple I wanted to point out is again they're not explained by timing issues primarily. Um, moving on. Uh, I I always include
this this um summary of what we call our restricted revenue funds. These are not budgeted. So when you we talk budget here, you know, in a couple weeks, this is offbudget, so to speak. Um, basically departments should only spend what's
available to them in this fund. And these are all basically either legally restricted or board restricted to specific functions. And a lot of history behind all these that appear here. You can see the board contingency accounts. There's 114,000 left in the board
contingency. Um the largest part that makes up this fund 10 is the solid waste contingency. There's 3.4 million sitting in the solid waste contingency. Of the $5.6 million balance, 3.4 million is the solid waste
conting. That's at $10 specialist taxes. And a couple of other really large ones. Score grant. We have almost $400,000 sitting in the score fund. There's $863,000 sitting in 911. Again, that's a special search charge on your cell phone bill.
So again, a lot of history behind all these, but but bottom line is they're restrictive or specific purposes either legally or through board action to make them restricted. We also follow very closely our self- insurance trust fund,
our self- insurance fund. Uh what really you can see for example, we we see the premiums up above that the county pays, the employees pays. We see get some reinsurance reimbursement and then medical claims, pharmacy claims, dental, and so on. And we track the balance in
this fund. Uh one thing that's uh a really a good development that we're seeing is improving reserves. So, for example, end of um June, uh we had 1.6 million in cash
sitting in the self- insurance fund. Uh that's only about 58,000 short of our of our fund balance goal in the self- insurance fund. So, that's good news. We've gradually built that reserve. Our goal there is to have a reserve equal to
six months of fund expenses. So, we're getting really close. That's good news because that had been diminished substantially a couple of years ago, right? Do you think that that should be raised considering from where we started, Monty? Yeah, that's a good question I think for
for M MMA is going to be visiting you soon with the recommendation. I would suggest you we asked that that question of I would too because you know you know how they feel about reserve levels if they feel we should be a little more aggressive and have a higher one. No, I she'd be the best judge.
All indication would indicate we should. I agree. Should especially with winter and everything well and just where we've went since we established this. It's a balance. You of course you have you have two forms of reinsurance. You've got one that capture overall
total liability and then you have reinsurance that's called specific for individual cases. So with us once someone hits $75,000 of bills that specific kicks in and starts paying for it. So I know over the years
we've actually increased that specific threshold from I think we started at 50 and now we're at 75. That's you know that's your coverage your protection you know so why you don't necessarily need an enormous balance cash balance because you've got reinsurance to
insulate you from those huge losses. And Mr. Chair that is it happy to continue asking lots answering more questions about the method. Mr. chair. Yes. Where are we sitting with the overtime
versus comp time? Haven't looked recently. Haven't looked recently. Don't have an answer for you. I will uh put that and make a note and we'll report to you soon on that. Yeah. Yeah. Haven't looked at that recently. Any other questions about the monthly
financial report? All righty. I think it's time for Mr. Chris Bird. Yep. All right, let's talk about everybody's favorite road construction. Right. Well, the the first item I have uh on
the agenda is kind of comes as a uh some bad news. So, we recently was informed uh that our most recent uh raise grant, well, the new administration calls them build grants uh was denied. So, this is the third
time applying for federal money for the Mayhew Lake Road project and maybe most notably roundabouts at the the crash intersections or those intersections that we have crash history at. So, uh, that's part of this this agenda item
just to inform you of that that and I did get the email and that's attached to your agenda packet, uh, you know, the dear John or good goodbye, sorry you didn't get, uh, the grant letter. They are advertising that, uh, they'll reach out to to me in August sometime this
month to set up those debrief meetings and some of you have participated in the past. uh they don't send out meeting notes from those meetings. So, it just relies on us to jot down notes as they're talking on why the the criteria uh was good or was not good. And I
anticipate we'll do that again, try to set up one of those debrief meetings to see if we can didn't touch anything learn anything more. But to couple that, we we keep pursuing um federal money for that project. I wanted to bring up the question about uh
the transportation alliance Washington DC flyin that comes up in September every year. Uh a few of you commissioners have gone in the past. This year it is September 16th through 18th. Um they've got uh an agenda here
for uh Tuesday and Wednesday. Uh in the past the transportation alliance has tried to schedule meetings uh for us with our delegation. More often than not though, those meetings are kind of group meetings. We don't get one-on-one meetings with delegation or even with
their legislative aids. It's usually with other counties and we end up forced to talk about general transportation funding and not really specifics to to our county. So, in in light of that, I think that's something that we should discuss this
morning if we want to send uh some folks out there to DC. It is definitely still good to be out there. We hear it at the state level. If you're uh not at the table, you're on the menu. And I think that's very much true in the federal. You think the state's got a lot of
things that they get hammered about, you know, fund this, fund that. You multiply that by 100 at least for the federal. So, um, our our state lobbyist, um, Lin Hoffman also has a federal person, too. We're
not contracted right now with them, but I have reached out and had a conversation with them about considering an hourly contract to have them specifically work on setting up some meetings with us uh that day that we're out there. Um if we do choose to go out
there, um there and that's that proposal is included in this packet as well. Um it's kind of a a steep rate. It's $400 an hour uh for her her services. Megan Knight is her name. Um I do know our our state lobby is
Grady is planning on being out there the same week. Um Chicago County is one of their clients. So they're going out there with Chicago County. But on a phone call I had last week with Grady and this Megan out in DC, she has time and capacity to work on stuff for Benton
County if we we so choose. I would say the nice thing about this is not only could they get their one-on- ons through um Lark and Hoffman and their their associate out there, but then you take
place in the uh uh the group setting as well. They see you a couple times. Then I know Commissioner Pop, you're going out there for something in Union in August or September and then I'll be going out with APO in
October, November. So we keep hitting on things. They they they see us and it it's get it gets noticed. We we found that out firsthand just from the first year of going out there, you know, and every year after that, it is making a big difference. And I
think one of the things that we've got to really hammer our next ones out there is we've applied three times for this grant. Yeah. And nothing has changed. It it the criteria comes back every time because somebody else judges it. Mhm.
And we've went up up and up each time. That seems to be if you talked to a few other counties that done it, three times is not a lot to be rejected. I mean, you're talking seven, eight, nine times these have applied. But we we check most of the boxes when it comes to safety and
you know a a regional thoroughfare. I mean to me I don't understand their criteria at all. But as you look at the dollar amount commissioner pop you know these other counties they're in the hund00 million. Okay.
I keep saying we're only asking for 30. I know. I don't know if that makes a difference or not. I don't some of those projects their contingency would cover our project. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I I know I cannot make it this year because I was I I got lucky again this
year. So, but in the years past it was very very enjoyable. I think Commissioner Johnson was going to this time last year support it. Yep. So, I think there's two things. If there's a consensus to send Commissioner
Johnson, that's one. And yourself. Yeah. Yeah. It's got to be both. Um, I I'm happy to do that. I I do I'll let you know. I prefer to go out there with with one of, you know, I think that's much more effective. Um, they respond well to to you and the pressures of
facing the public and standing in front of the public. I think that goes a long way. They they know that you get it. So, that's one thing. Is there any consideration to using the services of Megan Knight out in DC to set up some stuff? How many hours would it be? Is it like a
eight hour day? So, good question. I did ask that question. She said, "Well, you know, that day that we're out there, she would be with us and, you know, showing us where to go and going, you know, getting us into those meetings and those buildings and where to go." That's 8 hours there. But she said
to prepare for 15 to 20 hours of prep time. Oh, wow. So, that's that's the caveat. So, it's 15 to 20 hours of prep time. Yeah. So, that's what she said. It could be wow, you know,
big number that she can come in under. So, $11,000. Yeah. So, I had a similar similar reaction on the phone and she picked up on that. She said, "Well, if you're more comfortable, maybe discuss with the board as a maximum number, you know, not to exceed if if that's more comfortable.
I could throw that back at them and then if she's approaching that number, trying to coordinate schedules and make phone calls and stuff, we can have additional discussions." But um I don't I don't know. You know, you've been out there a couple of times with APO.
I'm wondering if we couldn't utilize David Turch to get us some one-on- ones out there. We're we're part of the APO area. Yeah. Correct. Now, once you're in there, we can't stop you from talking about other things. Well, right. And the other part is that
that's generally what happened. It seems like, you know, there was a lot of Well, we they were they were do they were on call for some floor hearing. Yeah, that's right. So, a lot of them weren't there. I mean, if they're in the call for, you know, for a floor hearing, you're not going to see them anyway,
you know. Well, it seems from what I've read, I mean, you guys tell me if I'm wrong, if you take a chance with uh um Minnesota group, you're just that you're taking a chance. Yeah, but you get counties like So, we we had a chance to be one-on-one with
Senator Smith's aid, right? And we agreed to let Cano Candyohigh County come in with us. Anna, right? Yeah. Yeah. And we agreed to let Candy because we were the only ones. We could have had a one-on-one and we were nice and left them because they were waiting and it was getting late in the day
and it worked out fine to some degree. Yeah. You know, but we've also had one-on ones since when I was out there, Jared, with you, you know, with Tina and with Cloverar. Then we had the auditorium that we
Yeah. Oh, yeah. with Tina Smith. Correct. Senator Smith. Yeah. Yeah. I know. That seems It seems pretty steep. Yeah. Pretty high price to me. So, are you saying you just go with the
transportation alliance? And I would try to figure out how we could get hooked up one-on-one somehow, Chris, some way without an additional $11,000 expense or $9,000, whatever it is. 23 hours times 400 is $9,200.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think um that's a steep price. That's pretty steep. And I think we can utilize church to get us a few of those. We There's a couple other people we could re utilize, too, probably. Right.
Okay. Um, very good. I I hear that we should go ahead and register uh for the event through the transportation alliance and arrange travel to get there. That is a board meeting day, too, right? Yes, it it is. That's right. Good point. Yeah, the 16th is a board meeting day. That's a Tuesday. So,
so that means be potentially two of us. I will be gone. That is correct. We'll still have a quorum, but maybe we have a very light agenda that day. Yeah, there was a a schedule of events here. We could look at the timeline for Tuesday and maybe we schedule flights to
happen after the board meeting or so. Yeah, but usually you don't have your agenda until Well, that would be the thing. I mean, do we just eliminate Tuesday as any possible meetings on Tuesday or do we give them the opportunity to say, "Well, if you can get some meetings for us on
Tuesday, take it." I think if you're going, you gotta go. You got to go for and you got to you got they're already hard to get in the three days, let alone two days. Correct. Yeah. We'll just deal with the three or whatever. And if we have to, we'll move the board
meeting to the next week. Yeah. Sure. Something big would come up, right? We'll just keep a light agenda. You got that? Sure. Preferably no public meetings or building stuff.
He peed out of here. We'll be good. And do you usually in the past have you sent one or two up there? The first time we sent two and then we went one one after and the reason we went one one is because Commissioner Gapinsky usually goes with the
APO. Before that he hasn't. So that's why the initial meeting was Jarrett and I and then after that it was one one. Yeah. And we kind of made a pack with the APO now because now Sherburn's sending one too. So we're sending we're
sending um three commissioners Sterns, Bettton, and Sherburn. And the St. Cloud mayor is coming from APO. From APO and we're targeting central Minnesota as a as a whole. Sure. On these. So you'll be out the same time, Scott? No.
No different. About a month and a half later. Okay. Which is good. We're hitting at different parts. And then Ed is going to be out there too for a different for a different different thing. So just about the point they start to forget about Benton County, Commissioner Capency's going to be there to remind them, right?
That's right. Yeah. Okay. It seems like we got a consensus. Uh Okay. We'll work on then we'll take earlier flights out if we can and Sure, Beth. We'll we'll talk later about Okay. All right. Well, let's still keep
talking about Mayhew Lake Road. uh in light of that we don't have funding for any kind of construction uh on Mayhew Lake Road in Sock Rapids and certainly nothing for identified for any roundabouts specifically at the intersections that is still a concern
with the school entrance. So just recently uh the school district sent u us a letter requesting a traffic control change at that water tower road. something we talked about uh briefly on our road tour recently. Um they seem to
think and I I tend to agree that a ride in and right out only uh condition at that water tower road would improve uh safety. Um they're really concerned about their construction traffic uh moving in and out and not being able to
control um contractors and subcontractors from using appropriate entrances at the same time. students are entering and exit. Uh so what can we do for intersection safety? This is that intersection and aerial view. Um a ride
in and right out would eliminate left turns and potential conflict points when you got somebody trying to make a left turn into the intersection the same time somebody wants to make a left turn out. So um the way this could be accomplished is we use uh channelizing devices known as
tubular markers. Um, here's an example in our county to the west that they had one on a, uh, St. Joe. This is in St. Joe. So, uh, they did something very similar because they had a lot of issues with left turns, uh, in and out of that intersection. So, the
secret is they are flexible, but it does seem to discourage people from trying to drive across those. They should flex out of your way. So, from a from a public safety standpoint, it's not a fixed object that's in the roadway that could damage or injure somebody, but it should
discourage um left turn movement. So, I think this is something that we could order the materials and install with like maintenance staff if uh the board agrees or directs me to do that. Okay. I would recommend we do it about 75 ft
on either side of the intersection. Um, those sticks, as I call them, they could be about $50 a piece. Mr. Chair, oh, sorry. I I have a very big concern on this, to be quite honest with you, with that roundabout we're going to be
constructing on 29. We're going to be funneling people right into that. And and arguably, that intersection is the most dangerous intersection out of all of them already. And we're going to be funneling all school traffic to that intersection
to the 29 intersection. Right in, right out. Well, what's interesting is Yeah. Once school gets out next year, we're going to close that intersection to the north. So, you should essentially see no traffic from the north coming on Mayhew Lake Road.
Just the few residences that live on there. Um, uh, you do have a point. the school seems to think that their construction will start before the end of school next spring and that's when their concern is
is you know we're talking about two months maybe April and May that traffic um once we have our roundabout constructed at the end of 26 making a right turn on Water Tower Road and going north to 29
be no problem. Yeah, agree. So, we really are talking or a two-month time frame. The school district when in our discussions about this, they seem to see some benefit to going ahead and installing those this fall though.
Mhm. To get the traffic used to this before they have the construction traffic. But then they then we end up shutting it down for a year or for for you know four or five. Yeah.
Yeah. Our intentions is the Monday after school is done, we close that intersection down and we have it open before Labor Day next summer. Okay, it's possible. Um but um is Excel on board with that? Well, Excel, they're starting work now.
They should be clear still in September, you know. So, so the question I have is that they want it as soon as possible and yet through the winter months. And who's got to plow that road? We do. So, are we going to always be replacing them
because we will be hitting them and they're just glued. They're just stickked on. Correct, Chris? Yeah, that's one of the options. You can use like a like crack filler, but still But still, when they get hit with the plow, they're coming out. They they most likely will. Um
I talked to Sterns County about that. You know, some of them would get knocked out. Some of them they would just do pre-treatment to melt the snow before it accumulated there. And that was something I talked about with this school is like, well, what if we decide to just remove them
for the winter months? How about we put them in right before the start? In April, you mean? In April. In April. Yeah. For that two-month period. School's telling him they'd like to train the people before they get to that point. Yeah. But who's going to who's going to
incur those costs? Okay. In the winter time, the school isn't. No, it's going to be on us again. Not only that, has somebody had a discussion on emergency because that came up. It's using that water tower. Yeah,
those are drive over pull. Yeah, you can drive over. They can drive over them. The fire trucks and that can drive over them. or plastic and they just that would that's why I'm recommending this kind of system as opposed to anything more more permanent like and um fire trucks should be able to push those
out of the way as they drive across the Come on. What's what what's Mark Evnick going to say? I mean, seriously, is the school district interested in putting melt down on that or I mean, I'm sorry. Just voicing my opinion. Just voicing my opinion, Chris.
75 bucks. And how many? The ones that the ones where you on the photo, they've been there for a couple of years, I believe. Yeah, that's the other big secret. Cerns County did something very similar temporarily. Just right now they're constructing a roundabout at this intersection with the McDonald's and the Coburns behind you.
But their temporary was like seven years. Yeah. They got funding lined up for this intersection. Well, they just shut it down this summer though this spring. How many poles you talking? So I mean uh 150 ft
spaced about no wider than probably 5 feet apart. You get wider than that, cars may see an opportunity to try to squeeze between a couple of them. So, so how 30 to 31 of these thinking ahead, how would this look under a raise grant if we went ahead and
did something makeshift like this to try and fix it? They'd be like, "Oh, they're trying to do something. We know that there's a problem rather than sitting sitting there waiting." Good point. Great point. You know, maybe it might help our raise grant and then say, "We know that
there's a problem. We got to do something. People are getting hurt." Yeah. So on that side of things, it might actually help us get some of that money because we know there's an issue. Yeah, that I I think that's a consideration. Yeah, we're trying temporary solutions
and knowing that they're just temporary, not permanent. Um uh yeah, it is an additional cost, but in in the scheme of things, it's not much. No, I put on the agenda item. I'm estimating, you know, maybe $5,000,
$1,500 for materials, maybe. Then you got traffic control and the time to put them out there, install them out there on the road. I'm sure they got that in the referendum, don't they? Or no, that's less than their contingency, right? Kidding. Well, that and we're not factoring in
the fact of pre-treating or the plowing on to what he's already got to to do. Yeah, I'm just I'm worried about when you take a right out of there, people are going to try and get sneaky and do U-turn somewhere along the way to cut get
That's what I'm I'm concerned about that hill. Y somebody's going to and they're or they're going to go into a driveway back out into traffic and there's going to be accidents. Mark my words. That's Well, and just to make a comment to that, and I'm sure Ed can contest to
this because he lives up in that area, but when you come out of where I used to work, which is performant, you used to be able to go straight across the highway right there. And now it in order to to you have to go right or you have
to cross over and go left. You can no longer go across. I I can't count on my hands, my toes, anything. How many times I've seen people go really? I mean, they drive straight across anyway. So, I get your point that they're going to go up far enough to
where they can make a U-turn and come back and then you're going to have somebody not watching. There's going to be another But that'll actually go better for us in the race. Grant, it it will. You know, I hope somebody doesn't get I do believe I do believe we have to do something. I'm I do believe we have to
do something and this is the less basically the less expense to do it temporarily. I I do believe that we should get our emergency management in that area on board and let and maybe I can help you with uh with uh Chief Fleming and either uh
Perry or or Bowski. Yeah. Okay. But once they're on board, I would I would have no problem because I do believe that if we show the government we're trying to do something because we know it, we're not sitting back in our
hands waiting for them to do something. We did it three times. Now we got to do something. And that's that's my concern. I mean, we I I presume this was discussed at a a public board meeting of the school district. You know, there's a request
from another agency to do something. um what does that look like on us if we just ignore these concerns brought up by other agencies a and this solution I mean this is easily expandable if we get to a point where 75 ft isn't far enough
we have issues will we buy a few more and stick a few more out there and see if that corrects it I I I think I like what I like about it is addresses that we we're acknowledging that a larger solution is needed here we don't have the funds to do that we're trying to do
lowcost, high value improvements in the interim um knowing that it's not the end all be all solutions. So Chris, will you go back like into the parking lot there where they come out parking lot after school and you will you'll say that there's, you know, no
left-hand turn ahead? Yeah, we'll have to put in some signing here. You I mean, you see them lined up there for Holy cow. You'd probably have to have two signages. Yeah. One section and one one, you know, another
mile down or half mile curve. Right there is where I see the U-turns. Yeah. Right. Right. Go. Go. Right. Right there. Yep. There are two driveways almost right. They're going to be doing U-turns there all the time. And that's why it's backing up is people waiting to make a left turn. You're not
finding a gap in both directions to be able to pull out there. So Chris, to your point about a public meeting, is the letter that you receive from the district something you can submit with a raise grant. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think any kind of grant application going forward, this is
good documentation. Yeah. Okay. To show that they're plus meeting minutes are nice. Yeah. Other elected bodies requesting here. I have one more question. Is it possible for the school district to share this cost?
That's funny. I'm just asking. Yeah, I can hear it already. It's your county road. Yeah, I'm going to say they won't even put in the signs that says no left turn. I would probably have to agree with
Commissioner Gapinsky. There's your answer. They're making the request. Yeah, I It's our road. It's one thing. I It seems logical. I get what you're saying. I'm not agree with it for a Christmas card from Mr. De. So,
so is there consensus to or direction to me to to pursue this? And um well, can we can we say the consensus at this point not to exceed the five grand? Mhm. And then I I do believe that we got to make sure that Chief Fleming, Chief
Bisey, and them guys, they know about it and they're on board. And the reason we're going with these knockover ones is so that they can still utilize it if they have to. Sure. In an emergency, just drive over them. If they get knocked out or something, we'll replace them. But yeah, haven't they been in on this discussion?
Yes. Yes. We've discussed this as a management team. Yeah. Good question. Yeah. Yep. I'm I'm good. We're good. I'm good. All right. Done. Very good. I understand. We adjourned. Somebody's sitting over there itching to set cows. I don't have time. No, I've got a stack of
We don't have to go through committees. I've got a stack of cows. Is that all you had, Chris? That is okay. I'm sticking around for a cow discussion. Motion to adjurnn. No, no, no, no, no. Don't look at me like that, Monty.
Committee meeting. Seriously, you don't want No, we don't. Send them to me. Yeah. Next meeting, you're going to have four pages. Set committee of the whole. All right. You're invited to the grand groundbreaking of the Avivo uh shelter.
September 26 at 10:30. And I'm sorry I don't have a specific address. We'll get that for you. Again, at September 26, 10:30, the Avivo groundbreaking for the shelter. That's on a Friday. Yeah. You're invited to the U foster care
appreciation picnic August 12th from 5 to 7 at uh New Life New Life Church. That's August 12, 5 to 7, New Line Church. New, excuse me, New
Life Church, excuse me, uh, foster care appreciation picnic. Okay. So, Mr. Chair, we also need two things. Uh, it we need to set the budget work session committee the whole, you know, you have that big committee the whole where you make some decisions or at least reach some consensus on the
budget. Um, it's good to get that on the calendar. Um, typically that happens late August, early September is is the time frame generally. Um, so
late August is better for me. Excuse me. Late August is better for me. One consideration, if I may, is is I intend to be in Kansas the the last week of August. Okay. Can we do that before our our conjunction with our county board
meeting on the 2nd of September? After? Yeah, after. Go do it after. I think by that time we kind of know September second. Sure. Yeah, that that would work. Yeah. Yep. So, upon conclusion of county board, um,
you know, this year you're not going to see a lot of policy issues. There's not, you know, you you got some requests from outside agencies. I think there's two or three policy issue requests. So not a lot to to go through. Okay. Um so upon conclusion of county board on
the September 2nd your budget work session. So secondly with then the current calendar has us adopting the proposed budget levy the second meeting in September which is September 16th. And I need to ask does that still work?
No because I will be gone. You'll be gone. might only. So, what we need to do then is is set a special meeting date to adopt the proposed budget levy by September 30th. Okay. May I ask you this? May do we just want to consider changing that board meeting to the 23rd now and being done
with it? So, just entirely move the 16th meeting to the 23rd. Sure. I'm just throwing it out as a Yeah. Just one mosque went on the 23rd. Sure. Booyah. Booyah. That day. That's Booya day.
Booya day. But then we could do both. I mean, I'm just throwing it out there. We just won't be able to help with the Booya. That's okay. So, what's the call? You want to have a special meeting on the 23rd or move the
entire board bean that would ordinarily be on the 16th to the 23rd? I'd move the whole entire board. Move the whole meeting and really try and keep it light. Yeah. Just one small consideration. It becomes a special meeting which means you can amend the agenda. So, we got to
make sure we we've got everything we we need on that agenda. You cannot amend it then. You need to you need to make sure, right? Yes, sir. Just as late. Yes, sir. Yeah. It'll be a motion to meeting and then a motion to adjourn. We don't have an issue with the 7:00.
So, so just to recap, special cow on budget September 2nd and then the the board beam from the 16th is now moved to the 23rd and that's going to be adoption proposed budget levy on 23rd. Okay. That's all we have, Mr. Chair.
Move for approval of the cow. Oh, I have one one question. Um, there was I have on my calendar I think for Monday the 11th. A cow. Do do we know what that's for? And
did we decide on a cow on the 11th of September? That's Well, that's you're talking about August 11th. Commissioner August 11th. Yes, we have a ditch. We have a ditch cow on 9:00 a.m. August 11th. Yes. Okay. Yes. I couldn't recall if that was actually got set at a public meeting. I know we
talked about it at our last It's 8:30. And it's 8:30. Yeah. I'm sorry. 8:30. Yes. 8:30. Is that Is that still needed, Chris? Yes. This is in preparation of our public meeting on the 19th. So, Right. Because you want to prep for
being at the school, right? Yeah. Got it. That is all we have. Was there a motion to second and approved? I move to accept the cowas. I'll second it. All in favor? I
I carried. PJ it.