##VIDEO ID:wHpKeknml6A## oh and it's way more than that they want to take you back to high school and here's what you've tell us about your family girlfriends you have yeah doctor visits yeah thanks I yeah I had perfect timing actually is that the one h00 who cares yeah exactly I'll even pay for it it's a 900 oh funny um see I'm just going to have the uh 9:00 we get the County Board going with the pledge I pled aliance 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 R GTH commissioner Benoy commissioner Heinen excused commissioner pop present commissioner John here commissioner kinsky old but here thank you can we H it up here yeah um approve or amend the agenda so Mr chair just one addition you have a resolution there regarding attendance of of of um Representatives at the legislature you could add that as the last item under administrator at 905 move for approval of the amended agenda Mr chair I'll second been moved in a second to approve the M agenda any other additions all in favor I oo opposed carried County board meetings are broadcast live and video recorded on YouTube please restain from speaking from the audience area and come to the podium so that the viewers can hear you the County Board observes Robert's Rules of Order for its meeting so please obtain the board's consent before addressing the County Board public comments are generally reserved for open form segment of the public hearing however public comments or on other agenda items may be allowed at the discretion of the board chair as we begin today please turn off your cell cell phones or turn them to vibrate thanks open form nobody's there consent agenda we have items one through 10 with the I'll move approval second go ahead go ahead motion's been made and seconded to approve the consent agenda all in favor iOS carried Monty our superintendent welcome hey didn't get a chance to talk to you this morning you were very busy I could tell well good morning everybody thank you for giving me the opportunity to come and share some information with you in regards to uh the uh referendum vote that will be coming before the voters in Sock Rapids race public schools on February 11th of 2025 we're not that far away from that from that timeline I know commissioner pop you've seen my presentation when you were at the rice uh uh city city of rice meeting I've got some additional information for very well put together yeah thank you so uh hopefully um you you'll find some some additional information here helpful my goal is to go through and talk about the uh the the process of how we got to this point to talk about the two projects got some videos that kind of help explain uh some of the work that we're doing and then uh before I leave I've got off hot off the press's uh one pager as I call it it's got some information uh front side and backside that I'll share with you uh so that you can have that uh as well in case anybody has any questions so as we start thinking about and talking about the facilities project uh that we the facility projects that we're looking at we really need to go back to 2018 to figure out to kind of determine and and and the process of how we got to where we're at right now in 2025 so in 2018 the Board of Education uh went to the community and did a series of meetings there's 18 to 20 meetings and really wanted to hear from the community in terms of what are your priorities when it comes to facilities in Sock Rapids rice public schools and out of those meetings came six key six key themes and you'll see them there uh address Pleasant View uh do something with the space that you have uh do something with the parking lots including a pickup and drop off and then safe and secure entrances and we've done a number of these as you're well aware we built the new elementary school at uh the Pleasant View site uh we call it Pleasant View version two and that opened up in 2022 and the check marks there indicate that we've accomplished those tasks so so the next the next two items were early childhood and an outdoor activity space and during this time that that we've been using this Ro map that the community gave to the board uh we began to think about you know it's been six years since we sought feedback from the community and so what we decided to do was find out is this really still their priorities so in July of 2024 uh we sent out a CommunityWide survey to all residents in Sock Rapids rice Public Schools District uh there was 11,164 surveys that went out we've had 2,900 and now three responses the survey is still open if somebody finds it it's buried underneath the Time magazine article on the in the in the front room somewhere they can fill it out and send it in and of those 293 responses I back up here for a second they really came up with uh a couple of pieces of really important information for us number one is that we asked them about the idea of An Early Childhood Center uh uh because the one we have uh has some issues with it and 55.2% of the people who filled out the survey which is about 26% uh you need 10% for the survey to be valid uh the company we worked with gets about 18% return uh during uh with their surveys in the summertime it's about 15% so the fact we got almost 26% is really there's a lot of feedback there for us and the community wanted to share uh their thoughts with us uh what they told us was 55.2% of those people said yes to An Early Childhood project uh 53.3% said yes what to an outdoor activity complex but when we put the two together uh that went to 45.5% and we did a series of meetings uh after the survey results were done uh board members were getting feedback anecdotally as was I and what we heard was two things is that there was a lot of support for each of those two projects but they didn't like the price and at that time for a median home it was going to be a price of $17 a year so we've done some things to change that and so uh as the board kept working their way through this uh the next step in the process was to do uh uh send something to the Department of Education it's called review and comment in essence you send their them their your plan and they give you a the thumbs up or if they have any questions or concerns so what it means is is that if the Department of Education gives a positive review and comment which that's what you're looking for what winds up happening then is is that if the community approves you can go ahead and begin the work on your projects and then on December 5th we got a positive review and comment from them and based upon the the road map that we've been following based upon the feedback we got during the survey based upon the positive and reviewing comment the board uh voted to move ahead with a special election to be held on February 11th 2025 for the purpose of voting on two specific projects so let's talk a little bit about the current challenges and you'll see I got a video here that'll talk a little bit about that so the original building where Child Care is is about 100 years old it was originally a high school then it transitioned into a junior high then it was an elementary building for for fourth and fifth graders then it has been now transformed into an Early Childhood Center so this building has had a good long life the hillside building has uh passed its prime every absolute inch of space is being utilized in this building that can be utilized with the exceptions of part of the building that t be used utilize because they don't meet code this building though it's historical has passed the point of repair in our whole building there's only six child siiz toilets we also have one of our classro is in our cafeteria and so that creates a whole bunch of challenges when I first started we had one classroom with an accordion divider and that's what how small our preschool was and now every room in this building is full of children I think there were maybe three preschool teachers to begin with and now we have eight plus a large special ed teaching staff and so we've kind of outgrown the walls there's demand for more programming all day programming potentially But ultimately can't move that direction until there's more space the proposed plan right now is a new Early Childhood Center on a different site but with much more space I mean we are planning to be able to expand to be able to add a full day preschool program and that's what our parents want our parents want a full day experience for their kids this is the most critical time in child's learning and whatever we can do here to get them ready for the ages and stages Beyond will help make a better school system a better community we want to raise strong responsible capable children and it starts here we want all of you to be very informed about what's happening and know all of the details get to know what this building is about and what we need and we like to say the storm starts [Music] here so a couple things with Hillside that I share when I'm doing my presentations one building was built in 1928 and it's been well taken care of but it's reached a point where there's need to be some significant improvements if we want to keep the building so one of the things the Board of Education asked uh for us to do is what would it cost to renovate Hillside so if we said you know what we're going to stay there let's renovate it versus building new so a couple things number one it's not enough space uh we do not we made some significant programming changes and we do uh child care there and we are turning people away because uh we just don't have the room and it's a child care piece that's really bringing that piece forward for us um if we were to rebuild this current space which is about 40,000 square feet we can use about 30,000 of it right now 30 to 32,000 it would be $2 million more to build a brand new facility versus to renovate and then you've got a building that's 100 years old and we've heard from the community that just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense and and I've had some people ask me well do you really need to do this so every morning like today that I wake up and I don't get a text message from our buildings and grounds director that the uh boiler has uh stopped working is a good day um it's an old steam boiler put in in the early 1980s if something happens the our our plan that we have is we have to have a company come out of the cities with a portable unit that would bring it up hook up could only heat part of the building and the cost is $3,000 a week so when we start taking a look at the costs and and what we would have it just seems to make sense to move forward with the new building and we need the space for the child care piece as well as the expected enrollment growth that we're looking at for early childhood and so that's why we're looking at going to a 60,000 foot facility when we take a look original when we take a look at our outdoor activities project got another video here to share with you real quickly so we're walking into our Stadium K our complex right now this is the area where where we do tickets it's also our Bus Loop and our traffic Loop for for us the middle school so we get wear and tear we get deterioration in comparison to the schools that are in our conference on main stadium areas is relatively small and to make it work we've added overtime e meal temporary bleachers we have opponents from other schools who come to our place and realize that they're playing on a grass field you can see it that they're surprised having to get all the way over to the middle school is fight the hassle after school with all the traffic and everything we only have one facility that it all has grasp so not a lot of teams can use it all at once when you look at our marching band they do marching band in a parking lot STP is our storm training program it runs in the summer right now our kids do that in the parking lot we have people on my softball team who parents can't come and watch because we don't have a path do it our students who need accessibility we don't have anything here like a track that would be something accessible for like date kids who has wheelchairs to get there so outside the kids are on the sidewalk and they're learning how to move their chairs themselves it's a little dangerous and scary for them to be right on the edge of a sidewalk and so to have a track that is safe and accessible that they can get to would be a dream when F wanted to go outside for our middle school kids they couldn't go outside because we had a soccer game that night and they couldn't ruin the field it just is tough for us because then not only are we not out on the field we all have to cram inside in the gym we have multiple sports that are playing all at the same time we have our softball our baseball our lacrosse um and then sometimes our golfing tennis that are all using these gym spaces right here at the high school so I have kidss here till 9:00 at night some nights I understand outside doesn't necessarily provide us with more indoor space but the turf wood the grass out there gets really swampy and wet if we could be on the CHF it would free up some of the time that we're asking kids to be here they could go home and eat dinner with their family they could do their homework at a reasonable hour and go to bed proposed plan is to add two t Fields here at the high school one that would have a track that would run around it with a ticketing concession and restroom facility for our Spectators and accessible space for all of our families I talked to a lot of community members and they say whenever I drive past the school I see kids on the football field I see kids on the softball field there's always someone playing something out there and I think that's amazing like our kids want to put in work they want to put in the extra time we have a beautiful building here that has been very helpful beneficial academically and I just think the rest of our facilities kind of need to catch up we want to make sure that community members are informed so feel free to go to our website to come to a community meeting to give us a phone call we want you to have the information so you can vote on February 11th so when we were looking at this project the board asked the same question how much would it cost to renovate versus building new if we were to renovate the space at the middle school get the uh Ada pieces taken care of parking lots fixed uh would' only have one turf field the cost would be $2.4 million if we build new over at the high school would include two turf fields uh a track uh Stadium area the cost is $17.7 million so it's actually cheaper for us to build new than it is to renovate now we would plan on if the community says yes we would plan on putting some District dollars in to take that space at the middle school and turn that into uh into a really nice middle school facility for the kids to be able to use uh so um as we as we continue to move forward with my presentation here uh I want to talk a little bit about the two proposed projects so question number one is an Early Childhood Center $ 37.2 million 60,000 Square ft uh improv site safety pickup parent pickup and really getting space that is available for our youngest Learners Hillside was built as a high school and uh we we don't have uh a lot of high school kids that are in preschool and so the facility itself is not designed to meet the needs of our youngest Learners question number two is an outdoor activity complex $17.7 million uh two uh art artificial turfs a stadium a track and I'll show you some pictures here in a little bit but I think a couple of things that people miss out on uh is we'll have a ticketing and Concession area that will be separate from traffic right now at the middle school which used to be the high school uh when we put up ticketing uh it's right in the lane where traffic can can possibly go right so we want to try and eliminate that the other piece is is that we do have some competitions over at the high school but we do not have accessible Pathways there and it breaks my heart when I watch watch people who have mobility issues that can't come and watch their their grandchildren or their nextdoor neighbor uh Play Because the pathway to get there is just too challenging for them and so that becomes something that we want to that we want to try and address with this new facility so the big question I get asked is where where are you going to build these facilities well what we did uh back in December is we did a land exchange with the city of Sock Rapids and uh we're going to to be we exchang some land just north of the high school in the mayoo Creek Park my my cursor kind of points to where it's at please understand this is not what the building is going to look like this is just a I asked the Architects give me 60,000 foot space what does that look like in this space so you'll see here there's Early Childhood building there will be a playground uh that will be for the community but it will be a Little's playground it's not going to be designed like the ones we have in rice or like the one we have at Pleasant View but it be be for our younger Learners uh there'll be a parking lot here these two Fields right here uh back in August we announced a joint venture with the city of Sock Rapids to build two practice fields grass fields that will drain Etc we have uh opportunities to compete uh in the grass fields to the west of the high school we get any rain especially in the spring of the year and we're done for two three four days sometimes before we can compete so this this space will free up more for us and it is not dependent upon the referendum all is separate I just point this out the question that I get asked is why there well there's actually four reasons why we want to do that uh right now where this draft area is at the city of Sock Rapids is building uh a little league baseball fields there'll be four of them there uh we want to turn our early childhood building not only to a great facility to be used to educate our three four and fivey olds but also to have it be a Community Asset there are things that go on in the summertime tournaments Etc people might need a place to to story equipment uh when their children are not playing this last uh over the winter break there was a a tournament uh High School hockey tournament in duth a team from Mano somebody stole all of their hockey sticks out of the bus okay the cost for those sticks was $15,000 so when we start talking about equipment Etc there's a lot of costs so we can put they can utilize that space we also would be thinking about the idea of having it be accessible with the restrooms so for those that are in the practice field here they could or the Little League Baseball Fields they could come here if they needed to or those that are practicing here could access those and we also think about severe weather in the summertime as well it would be a shelter a place for people to go and the final piece why we look at looking at putting it here is we're trying to use the resources that we already have we will need to build some sort of a pickup drop off parking lot area but we also have access to this parking lot here at the high school right now to build a new parking lot is 4,000 800 per stall so if we can look to utilize uh resources that we already have that lowers the cost or allows us to uh put uh features in the building that our kids need the second area that we're uh that I'll talk about here this is where the outdoor activity complex would go there'd be the stadium feature here there would be the track here you'll notice there's a softball field here right here the track would take care of this softball field we couldn't utilize it so we build a new softball field up over here and the gray that's where you would have your field events the shot put discus Etc so this would now be built just to the west of the high school and we could access this parking lot here so we wouldn't have to worry about building parking lot space this is a potential picture or rendering of what an early childhood facility could look like it would be one floor not two three four and 5year olds going up and down steps is generally not a good idea and so this is a possibility what it could look like and then I've got a couple renderings here this will be new for you commissioner pop we didn't have these when I was back in December so this is what the facility could look like you're seeing a view from the high school looking to the West you will see the uh the stadium feature here uh there's bleachers here it's kind of hid into the green a little bit but there's also uh bleachers that are here you also will see there's Pathways that we have developed that access all of the facility not just the new uh the the the new feature should the community say yes and then if we look to the next picture here this is looking from the West to the east again you can see those bleachers in that Stadium feature there's also bleachers for the track turf field which would be could be used for lacrosse soccer football marching band or fied classes Etc so what about the cost I was telling you earlier on when we got the survey results back that people thought that $17 a year for a median home was too much so we were able to do some things uh in particular with how it could be financed we were able to lower the costs and what it means is a median home in in in in Benton County which is $260,000 the tax impact is $3 a year let's be clear what that means right now that same home is paying $220 a year on the high school debt the high school debt falls off we make the last payment in December of 25 so the new High School in Sock Rapids rice is that debt will be paid off and what this means is if both projects pass that median home will now pay $223 a year and it'll be for 25 years so right now they're paying 220 the debt gets paid off the last payments in December if both projects pass it would be $223 I was in uh um um in rice and I had uh meeting at the old crey and I was talking with some people about this and they saidwell yeah maybe for a lower valued home or median it's a little bit less but what about if it's a higher valued home it's going to be a lot more for them right well we have a tax calculator on our website and I encourage people to go there and take a look at it and so I plugged in a home that is valued at $520,000 right now they're paying $33 a year for the high school Deb if both projects pass they would be paying $310 of course it's a little bit more because the value of the home is more but there's no exponential increase that's way out of sight depending upon the value of a home it is based upon what they're currently paying right now and it would be an increase from there if people go to the website they can go there and they can go to the tax calculator they can plug in what their estimated market value is it will tell them what they're paying now on the high school debt it'll tell them what it'll cost if just the early childhood passes it'll tell you how much it'll cost if just the activity complex passes and it will also tell you how much it would cost if both projects pass as a part of our communication strategy we've been doing community meetings we've done four of them so far you can see I've been at Hillside Rice Elementary the government center in Sock Rapids in watab I've got four more meetings left to do these Community meetings and and when we're at Hillside we also do tours I will also share with you in the the yellow there's a thing called a virtual lunchtime FAQs I started uh at Sock Rapids rice public schools in July 1st of 2020 there was this little thing called a pandemic that was floating around and people had lots of questions so once a week I would do a Facebook live session where I would people could write in questions in the comment section and I would try to answer them I now do those once a month as a part of this we decided to do something during lunchtime so if you're looking to gather information uh we you can see the dates that are on there we do a lunchtime it's uh uh FAQ so people can ask me questions they are recorded we're getting 13 to 20 people that are are watching them live we do record them and put them out for people to view the last one that we did there was over 4,700 views so it's a great way for us to get information about what's going on last week spent a lot of time talking about the Early Childhood Center we're going to do one this week it's not on there it'll be tomorrow uh and we're going to spend some time talking about The Outdoor Activity complex there are three ways in which people can vote if they uh want to vote on this project uh you can do a vote early uh uh absentee and you can do that at the district office and we've had a number of people have been coming and doing that our office hours are generally 7:30 to 4: uh but on the website you'll we have some extended hours we encourage people to look there to see where those are at you can vote absentee by mail they got to come here to do that and then of course there's the election day on Tuesday February 11th we have five election spots they include the Government Center Riverside Terrace and Discovery Church in Sock Rapids and then watab and rice City Hall in rice uh and so again we have early absentee voting by in person or in mail or also can vote in person there is a uh a link on our website called pollfinder I encourage people to go type in their address so they know which location to vote uh because just because you live by one of those does not mean that that's where you're going to be voting so we encourage people to do that and then last but certainly not least I have one last video that kind of encapsulates everything I've talked about here so let's go ahead and share that with you I have just absolutely loved the storm Community it's a community in a school system that really cares about our kids and cares about the community and is proud to be the storm and I hope that we have more and more things to continue to be proud about so in looking at the road that we did not starting back in 2018 there was reaching out to the community trying to figure out what is it that the community was looking for and they gave us some really good direction and we have been following that one we built a new elementary school at Pleasant elementary we've also done some work at the school with the multi-purpose space and as we kept checking items off of that list we begin to realize it's been six years right since we started this is are those still the priorities of the district the Board of Education said let's go find out so we did two different work groups sent out over 11,000 surveys what we found is that people were telling us the same thing there is still an interest and a desire for us to do something with early childhood and with activities complex those recommendations help Drive the decision for the board to say okay let's move forward with these two projects what I really respect and really admire about what the school district that they've done they truly listen and the proof is in the pudding if you follow the priority list that they had they've been following that list and I think that is an excellent job they couldn't have done it better on February 11th 2025 the board of education is asking the district to weigh in on two projects our first project is an Early Childhood Center the second is an outdoor activities complex those questions are independent of each other you can do one or the other or both when we were starting to explore the idea of preschool I really noticed that there wasn't a lot of accessibility for working parents there's demand for more all day programming which CA me to reach out to superintendent for we met almost monthly for an entire year to really understand what it would cost and what it would mean to renovate the current building if that was attainable and ultimately it's not for Hillside if we were to redo that and bring it up to speed it would be about $2 million less than if we built a brand new facility and we got a building that's almost 100 years old that doesn't seem to make a lot sense and we're hearing that from the community so we're walking into our Stadium still our main athletic and activity complex that we have is at our Middle School across town in the early '90s when we were 150ish kids in a class and playing in The Rum River conference it made sense it did and since then we've added lacrosse we've added our soccer programs and now we're the 62nd largest school in the state of Minnesota by say High School league enrollment when this high school was built back in 2003 that was phase one the plan was bring the activities complex to the high school that has not happened it's 20 years later one of the questions that I get I've been asked as we're moving forward of this is is the why not the high school the debt that we have with that is falling off and will be paid so what it does is provide us with an opportunity to think about doing these facilities with having a minimal tax impact if both projects pass and the Medan home it's $3 a year the city's partnership uh with the school district is as strong as it's ever been a strong school system is going to promote a strong City a strong Community this decision that that we make is a community decision vote can help shape the future of our community so a couple things first of all thank you for your time this morning I greatly appreciate uh the opportunity to come and share where we're at uh with this last video uh it was done in the middle of November so that's why it says mayor elect and and and mayor and I also did ask the mayor for rice if he wanted to participate and he chose not to so uh with that I will stop talking and if you have any questions I'd be happy to try and answer them for you commissioner Mr chair uh thank you for presenting uh superintendent Bergstrom got a couple questions um you had mentioned early on that it would increase the amount of daycare yes uh how many would that go up roughly because that's a big issue within our County yeah it is so uh right now that that question is is is it's a little bit of a moving Target here's the reason why because uh we have an OP families have a choice whether to go all day with us and we have a number of kids who get dropped off I think it's 15 at this point that are three four or five years old they get dropped off at 6:30 in the morning and don't get picked up till 6 o'clock at night so if they're there all day we have fewer slots that are available if somebody is there for a half a day it doubles the amount of slots that we're going to have we're anticipating right now our enrollment is around 220 kids we're anticipating at least room for 300 uh students so that will increase those spaces a lot for child care how many will depend upon if they go full day or if they go half day uh but it should more than double what we have capacity for right now yeah I I I agree that early childhood is a is a problem I think everywhere not just in Zach Rapids so it's a Statewide problem y a clarification I just want to make sure that we point out is you had mentioned a median home in so in beton County not all bton County people would be yeah I just want to make sure for the district district yep for the district it's $260,000 I'd like if this guy right here would pay but that's a great clarifying question thank you yeah uh the track and the sports complex um if if this if that did pass would there be an option of going back and and trying to build like a like a one field with the the track kind of like it's over the at the middle school right now or what is the intention there well I I think you know it's a great question the answer to that question sure it could be if the community says no to one or both of the questions the first thing that we'll need to do is figure out what it what their concerns were what is the reason why they're saying no and then from there you start to to decide is this something that we need to do do we need to make some adjustments does it look like it goes to one complex part of the reason why we are looking at two uh two different spots is it increases the amount of turf field that you have for accessibility and in the spring of the year you can play softball on on a turf field where uh and and and sometimes it's the first part of May before we can get outside and play right and the other reason is is when you put a tractor your fans get a long ways away from from the action whether it be soccer football lacrosse Etc so it gets them closer and the cost was minimally uh different than if you to have two separate versus one if you include two turf fields that make sense yep uh number four was uh this is my last one it was I'm a little late to the game on this one but uh I know back when I was on the Council of soc rapid we talked about a Fieldhouse there and if for some reason that didn't pass the the the Outdoor Activity part I would like to see you bring bring something back with maybe one field and a Fieldhouse because I think you you meant there's a lot of things that that uh like the 62nd most students you know biggest school you know you look at that I'd like to see how many of those those schools above us have track or you know indoor field houses I'm going to say probably 80 90% of them a lot of them do and most of them are done by the city uh that they're that they're in interestingly enough with you make mention of that in our survey uh there was a number of comments from the community about uh doing something with the city uh with regards to some sort of a Fieldhouse or a facility for the community uh from a school district perspective we Lo we love to partner um I do have um some concerns that uh my job is to educate children and uh if our our facilities get utilized a lot lot by our community and we would continue to have that taking place but if there was an opportunity for us to partner uh and look at doing something that could be uh for the for the community we would certainly look at doing that absolutely okay Mr chair Brad thank you for your presentation excellent information a lot of it's new to me of course I don't live in the socer rapid District so I I appreciate that I with that I have a couple questions mostly for my own education because some of these people probably already know the answer um so 60,000 feet on that early childhood um is how long do you expect that to take you down the road and secondly can you add on to it yeah so to your first question uh we're the hope is is that uh the building will take last there for at least 50 years is what we're looking for and yes there is an opportunity for there to be some add-on with that if I go back to the drawing uh the main interest this uh or the building itself this gray here and this gray here whenever we look at a building we always ask is there an opportunity to add on should the need be there and there is definitely with this design there is okay okay so there is room for more than 60,000 Square F feet on the 10 acres that we that we got from the city in the land Swap all right great and how about the term of this referendum how long is this it's for 25 years 25 okay y yep and it's uh same as what the bond was for the high school and it's the same as what the bond is for Pleasant View under 25 years um and also could I ask you what it cost you to do your CommunityWide survey I think you mentioned you maybe had a partner with that did you contract that out we worked with school perceptions and the cost for that was around $20,000 okay and that included the mailing their fees their services uh the printing of the surveys the whole nine yards it was around $20,000 okay excellent thank you you bet anything Pam um I have one question that after you did your presentation in rice that was ask a little bit like um nothing was said about what's the impact of Agriculture so on our website uh there is uh that tax calculator there is a opportunity for those who in the area of egg can go and and calculate what that is and it's all dependent upon the the value of the land per acre so the one nice thing that Minnesota has is they have the egg tax credit right and that's like 70 or 75% comes back to the farmer in terms of an um of a tax credit and I don't remember the exact dollar amount but it's it's it's a few cents uh starting at the lowest dollar amount to I think 4 cents per acre uh at the highest dollar amount but we have we have a partner uh Ellers is who that is and uh there's an contact information for there for commercial as well that they can certainly reach out to them and gain more access if what we have on the website does not help them but there of course there is an impact there's going to be for the farm uh it's going to be for the house and and one acre right and then there's the egland because when you there's two different things that school districts can do right they can raise money through a levy you Levy to learn and you bond to build okay when you Levy for for egg it is only the house in one acre when you Bond it's the house one acre and the land itself okay and that's that's really the difference between the two of them and so there is an impact but I'm I'm trying to I I don't want to quote for sure because I I didn't look that I don't recall right off hand what the dollar amount is but it is it's a few cents per acre uh if both projects pass if only one passes I that dollar amount could be less okay okay I know it's been a concern which naturally it would be um I've been doing this for 36 years and for 36 years Whenever there is some sort of an ask from the taxpayer uh taxpayers get concerned about their own pocketbooks and it certainly uh for both uh commercial and for uh for egg people it is of concern to to them as well so fully understand and you came from an egg Community prior to coming to sock rabbits I believe yeah I did well it was more of a um where I grew up at the egg was was uh was logging okay and so you're not doing wheat or corn but the the the the timber industry is very much in the same way and that is it's it's about making sure that that the land is being taken care of and providing a living for people Mr chair one further question Brad um so you mentioned the uh new high school referendum will be paid off in at the end of 25 is there is that your only debt and or do you have an operating Levy in place also so to the first question no it's not our only debt uh the other debt we have is Pleasant view uh Elementary okay and we do not have an operating lby we are one of I think 92 districts in the state of Minnesota that does not have uh a voter approved uh operating uh operating Levy school districts are allowed to to this was a number of years ago we're allowed to Levy without voter approval and it's like $724 per ADM and ADM is is a student that it's called average daily m membership if a student attends all year or they're enrolled with us all year that counts as 1 ADM if they're here for part of the year then that's a partial so for each ADM that we get there's $724 uh but we have no voter approved uh like many of the school schools in the surrounding area do thank you good question at least at least there's a cap on that one yeah there's one out there that's not anything else I got one one more question uh you had talked about the the current uh uh football field in stadium area what what do you what are they figuring that would cost cost to um kind of do a few upgrades to to make it usable or continue to be usable because if you just leave it be as is my guess is it's going to go to the Wayside and and it's an asset that diminishes really quickly yeah so uh if we're looking at uh turning it into a middle school facility to be used we're looking at about $2 million to do that now that's not on this right correct no that would come from District funds I'm going to ask uh commissioner Johnson he's really good at this where would that money come from instead of asking Monty I'll ask you yeah we have we have uh um uh Capital budgets okay and it would come from our from our operating Capital uh and we could also do some things with we get uh what's called long-term facility maintenance which is funding that we get for maintenance based upon the average age of your buildings and um so we get some funding through dollars that way as well but it would more than likely come from our operating Capital what we don't want to do is if the community says yes just let that facility go to waste right the other thing I didn't share with you is why we're looking at moving this over to the high school spring of the year we have tracks so all the high school kids go over there and if the weather is inclement they go practice in the gyms okay get guess what happens to our middle school kids we're supposed to be utilizing that space okay they get bounced out now we built a a multi-purpose space it opened up about a year ago and that has helped a little bit with that but we still have kids that will miss two three days a week of practice time because the high school kids are in there utilizing that space so we'd like to be able to give the middle school back to the middle school kids excuse me this time of the year there seems to be a few bugs floating around I've got one of them uh so it would it would really allow us to to let the middle school kids have the facility that they that they deserve as well Mr chair one last comment just to PO a little salt and commissioner kinsky wounded and of course I'm a little biased but one of the best things the fley school district did back in 988 99 was build our Fieldhouse and fortunately for us we did that whole project for 750 bucks a foot finish and so of course that facility has been utilized like crazy our biggest challenge was at the public at that time thought we were using that as a varsity event facility and that was never the plan you know high school basketball was going to be in the high school gym yeah but as you well aware it's been a extremely successful project and I can't believe we're 30 years in already right and and and that's and that's the the the piece you know our outdoor activity complex uh the high school moved there in 2000 that was phase one phase two was to move the activity complex over we're 21 years later and it hasn't happened yet right and that facility at the at the now Middle School it's over 30 years old and when the our activities director Mr kapac he talked about when it was built in the early 90s in 1991 it was great we we know we had 150 kids in a Grade we now have 325 to 350 in a grade at the secondary level and uh it just it doesn't work we spend $6,000 a year just moving bleachers around between the two facilities so that we can have some bleachers for our fans to be able to watch I need to correct my comment was 750 yards of concrete it was 42 a square foot to build the facility I would love to be able to build a facility of course that's not going to happen now but absolutely no so that's my salt there okay uh one one more or one more comment uh we definitely understand the cost of renovating as we are talking about that here and and it's astronomical it's insane it's insane on what it costs to renovate and you lose space because of new codes and everything correct um with that um I had the opportunity to use the so or the the fully field house and our sixth grade Sock Rapids team beat fullyy the championship so BR I promise we'll quit Bing that's all we have I I enjoy this kind of communication uh so again thank you for the opportunity to be here if you have any other questions you have you go where I'm at give me a call if people have questions send them my way I'd be more than happy to try and answer any questions and I really really want to encourage people to look at our website it is it's got a plethora of information we're constantly adding things to it it I've talked about the tax calculator it's got the pull finder on there it's got both of the questions it's got the renderings on there it's got the videos on there uh it's just there's a ton of information for people great before you go Brad Tim's got a question then I got one last comment for you okay I got some followup for you Brad okay let's go back to the rice example that you mentioned on the 520,000 now they're paying 303 with the high school debt correct okay that comes off and if both pass it's 310 310 that's correct 310 for 25 years $310 per year for the entire for the entire 25 years okay thank other followup um your February with referendum if both questions go down by Statute what other months can you come back to the public I know there's set months in a year could you give us give yeah so uh when you the state of Minnesota uh in the legislature has said when to bond you can only go five times a year it is February April May August and November okay are the are the only times that you can have a bond if you choose to Levy you can only do that in November thank you one comment I had is I was at an activities not in not in the sock rabbit school district and we were talking about this because there was people there that had land within sock rabbits and one of the people said well if sock rabbits don't get a new football field other schools are not going to come to play them pretty quick well F first of all want to I've had people say that to me okay okay and number one we're not building a football field okay we're building an act activity complex that yes the football team will be utilizing but so will soccer so will lacrosse so will marching band so will fall dance so will our fied classes if if we're building a football stadium then we might as well go to Texas okay because that and that's not what we're going to do and will teams stop playing us uh no no that that won't happen uh but I do know this I do know that our complex and what we have to offer our students uh for a facility compared to what uh we're in the Central Lakes Conference and what other schools have uh ours is is pretty dismal right and something needs to be done with it okay and it just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to invest more money than it would cost for us to build a new facility to get that up to code and you'd have less space that's available and we still have kids that would have to drive over to the middle school and we we'll we still have some activities baseball's got to go uh to Bob cross and the hockey has to go out to hockey arena East uh but if if if the legislature gave us the dollars to build some of those features in our facilities would I be willing to do that yeah they give me the money uh so our kids don't have to travel if you've if you've ever been at Sock Rapids Rice High School when school lets out and they're going out into Osaka and eventually out on mayew Lake Road it is a it is a superintendent nightmare because it there's all kinds of traffic there right and we've we've had this conversation before as well so I I what I'll share is that that no they won't stop playing us uh but I know they don't enjoy coming there and here's the deal right is that the current facility we have to be very careful with who utilizes it right because if it gets if it's too rainy and we have too many events on it the field gets wrecked and I know this much I know when the football team uses it and then the soccer team goes to use it and the soccer ball is bouncing across the field when they try to roll it uh I know they don't appreciate that very much right so yeah no nobody's going to stop playing us it it is that was it was a they were former sock rabbits graduates and they go well we've been there and if they don't do something the other thing you might want to uh consider is that I bet if commissioner kinsky donated the money for that you'd put his name on the field uh Mr chair I said the baning was over for now all right thanks thank you very much thank you great information y excellent culture team update M sh I believe Christy whing is here as a representative of the culture team for an update good morning morning my name is Christy Whiting and I'm representing the relationships and connections subcommittee of the beton county culture team I'm just going to give you a brief overview of what we've been working on uh we've been working with it to create a page on the internet that explains what the culture team is what each subcommittee does and what we're working on this is where employees will also be able to reach out to the relationships committee with any concerns questions or feedback we're also working on obtaining more communication between each department and have created a department of the month activity for each department to sign up and have an openhouse type activity the goal with this is for Benton County employ employ es to learn more about what each department does on a day-to-day basis we're also working on ideas for a summer picnic and Christmas get together for more informal relationship building that's all I have great great awesome thank you thank you any questions for okay thank you for the thank you very much yep right consider region 7w Transportation board Municipal representation Mr here you have a letter in your packet from minda asking for a replacement for uh former foly mayor Jack Brash and it appears that um we need someone who's either a mayor or a council person from outside the APO area to represent you at the AP uh Transportation policy board so uh if if you I wasn't necessarily expecting you to uh nominate someone or appoint someone today maybe just get some discussion going and if you all want to contact a mayor or council person or I certainly can do that for you just want to get your thoughts on on where to go on this one and Chris is here too if you have any questions Mr chair yeah I think uh both with me being on the APL I'm out and I think you're already on there I'm on the 7w yep okay how how far does the 7w go four should be four counties is aletan County included yes well well 7 East starts at the line know right yeah true we have the Western ends in APO okay so um I guess my thought Mr chair would be we've had representation from the city of Foley we have some of our other cities represented on APO yep so would make some sense maybe to reach out to our current mayor fley and ask if he's willing to serve I can would you like me to do that for you you feel about that but yeah yeah I would say that so I heard if I heard you correctly the our the new mayor for the city Foley yes Brandon I'll start with Sarah and then go from there Brandon V yeah okay I will do that see if they're willing to serve then we'll have that uh consider as a consent item in the future it it's it's in this area really yeah absolutely got it thank you okay all right moving on I'm glad Chris is here to help me with this discussion new career Lads for Highway engineer technician so Mr chair as you know we've we've had some struggles attracting retaining engineering technicians uh we know we have two positions that are currently vacant potentially three uh would be vacant by the end of the month that possibly could change but we could have all three positions vacant by the end of the month so um what we did is uh Chris and Mark lydel and I uh spoke with Tessa Melvin our DDA consultant trying and brainstorm some ideas that to address this issue so we I think we identified so what were the problems that we were seeing we we felt in some instances um maybe our requirements at the entry level were too high so there were applicants that they didn't really have much experience they didn't have a degree uh we couldn't offer them a position we also heard from some of the folks that have left that the the ability to get promoted took a long time they were kind of stalled out at the entry level position for a long time and one of the reasons is so we had we have two positions currently there's an inan and then there's a senior the senior requires a person to be a bridge inspector and that takes a few years to get that certification so the the bar was pretty high to move from entry to senior so people felt they were stalled out for a long time also too we felt our topend salary wasn't competitive enough as we know these folks can be attracted by uh private engineering firms who can compensate pretty well so we felt we need to be more competitive on the top end so Mr shair I I would direct you if we could to it's the it's the second page in the packet what I try to do is very quickly summarize where do we have now versus this new proposed career ladder you can see at the top you've got engineering Tech and Senior grade seven and nine uh both require an associates degree and then uh the entry level position requires the person to obtain some basic menot certifications within a year the big issue again with the second with a senior is including Bridge safety within two years of hire so uh that again people kind of stall out on on that when it takes a while to move to senior so then you jump jump down to the bottom you can see now we're proposing engineering Tech 1 2 3 4 five and then Senior and one of the keys if I can point out Mr cheer on the the engineering tech one you can see it goes from associ gets to a high school degree so basically you know no no no degree uh and no experience so that's really a very entry level training position very entry level training and then as you go through the grades The Notches just tend to move up in terms of the degree the experience the certifications they just move up in small increments As you move through Tech two three four and then Senior finally again the senior is is the one that you'd expect to have what's called Bridge Inspection Team lead and uh I I was looking on the men men. website and in terms of what's required there um I believe it's is it four or five years of bridge inspection experience Chris can you come on up four years right so that's that's a pretty high standard uh to have to get the bridge Inspection Team lead so that's kind of the big picture Mr chair was trying to lower the bar for folks to join us with with really not much in terms of a degree experience but then also once they're here give them opportunity to progress quicker and hopefully again that's the issue of retention if someone can progress quicker hopefully they'll stay longer and also to the the the ceiling has been raised to be more competitive with private engineering and other organizations so that's really the big big big picture Mr chair and uh we're hoping we can try something different to change our outcomes Chris you want to throw in go ahead please I think a couple of you commerci heard the presentation at the EMC conference back in December this is something that a lot of Highway departments across the state are looking at they're just the The Experience quality applicants are not out there they're they're all retiring just like every other sector and Industry so I think we've come to the realization we need to lower our our beginning standards and just be prepared to hire somebody based on attitude not necessarily skills and train them inhouse so that is going to be increased burden on us supervisors and managers but I think that's the reality of the industry that that we're in right now M Mr chair uh Chris the certifications that are talked about from mot through here is that something the county provides to the employee or is the employee paying for that or how does that work no it's we budget every year for for training and all these different certification levels so that's something that we would pay um a lot of them are at the the men facility in Arden Hills uh some of them are uh uh Superior Technical College up in duth but yeah it's in our budget to to pay for the class and if an overnight stay is required we would we would pay for that as well and if I understood Monty correctly we two positions are open possibly a third one of the three correct we just recently received a resignation notice from our our final is there any way of turning that back around or not um this so if this goes through to today that current individual we could move them up to a higher grade based on their current qualifications they're not at the top but now that we have some intermediate steps between the the entry level and the top we could move that individual to uh a higher level um as early as tomorrow if if it's approved I think to commissioner kinsky point is we've had those discussions at our cows about this whole process of ladders and you know re going through the process roughly a third of the the employees every year to update things so it just kind of falls into what we've been talking about I mean it makes sense yeah we got to do something we got yeah we got to fix we got to fix the problem we can see that um do we get a I mean we don't get a lot of grade seven applications right now do it um well I say on paper to us as as interviewers and managers um they are probably that grade seven but they they think that they're they're higher just because of the the industry um demands and what we've learned to Highway Department County Highway departments acoss State a senior level technician has a different uh qualifications different explanation we received some that was a senior in their County but then they didn't meet our our senior mostly because of that bridge inspection that's that's something like Monty alluded to takes four years of actually in inspecting our bridges out in the field and then you have to take it proficient exam with with a a mup person to make sure that you know how to inspect Bridges do we get my second question do we get a lot of people that apply that have two years or you know six years or with no degree um currently we we we would not get any applications I guess we wouldn't see any applications with no degree because I think that was a minimum qualification before that we want the two-year uh degree two-year associates degree okay Mr chair and Chris you felt it was important to have that that bridge inspection opportunity there certification versus going out Contracting that part out I mean I'm hearing it a little that it's a little bit of a hurdle yeah so that's still a important part to get to that senior level I I think um long term if we have some people in house because there's things that we have to do on short notice there's certain rain events we've got bridges that um During certain rain events if the flow is high enough we we're supposed to out and inspect that bridge within 24 hours so something in that case we would not be able to get a consultant on board that quickly unless we had them on retainer yeah um I think long term if we had more people trained in house that would be beneficial thank you so then we can go back to the age-old questions if we help them get all this certification can they find a job at a higher pay for private potentially industry potentially sure yeah that's always a reality but we would have them for up to X number of years by the time they got that I mean you know we know we're a training ground can be yeah yeah to that point just the beginning of this month um we're fortunate St Cloud technical college has a great program that two-year program um the reality of it is there they're graduating 20 to 25 students every year and they're coming out with multiple job offers we were informed at the beginning of this month Dakota County Technical College which has a very good program as well very similar to St Cloud Tech they didn't have a professor and was at risk of canceling their classes this semester because they didn't have any instructors so it's just another thing of the industry the instructors that are doing that now now are starting to get picked off by Consultants because they're qualified they're um and it's it's kind of like a death spiral we're not able to train enough new young people into the industry because the the programs are disappearing due to lack of instructors so Mr chair yes this is just with with the amount of work we got coming up in the next couple years is a very scary situation CU we had this conversation when we talked about adding that third one back in how much of that work by adding a third back in we could take on as a county to help pay for that and and what and vice versa what you end up paying out to a contractor for that same amount of work is a you get a lot less work done yeah and it's it's scary it is it's Mr chair and and I again going back to our discussions we you know we obviously don't have just an open checkbook to pay whatever you got to pay but we've always had the discussion of wanting to pay our employees the best that we can afford to you know and we've got to address some of that we got to address some of that you know the only problem is that we got to address it where the needs are absolutely and we don't want the domino effect and I understand that acoss size we don't just have an open checkbook and just pay whatever but at some point we have to address some of these issues Mr chair can I yes so I did some math figures from 7 to 9 and we're talking on the low range of a seven uh grade seven and on the low range of a grade 11 there's a $642 an hour difference between the top and the bottom and I too Chris and I have had conversations about this when I was over at the highway department um and and I think that and you have it in there cuz I read it but mentoring at the top level to the bottom level is going to help secure some of those because coming from the private sector if you got somebody in that higher level that's going to take the time and the effort to actually Mentor some of these lower ones I'm sorry but that gets out to the public and they say oh hey Bon county is willing to work with us and we're starting at this lower level position but we have the opportunity to move up and the senior level position helping us to do that M um and I think that just gives a a better picture of of how we work within the county that's an excellent point that's kind of how I see it too is like somebody may come to us and we say we don't think that you're at the top level but but here's how we're going to get you there um there's always a risk that we become a training ground but I think we see the benefit if if we're training them for four or five years hopefully we have that good employee for four or five years as as well so um and then maybe maybe at the end of that they see some some benefit of having that mentoring and training and maybe we build some loyalty with employees as well um thanks Pam for the numbers so do you think that $6 an hour more between grade seven and grade 11 is enough to maintain or to keep or to attract well M we rely heavily upon our consultant Tessa uh as she as she understands the market to recommend these pay grades so uh I guess the answer question I'll say yes because we're we're trusting that she's got good judgment on this issue it doesn't to me personally it don't seem like a lot of money if you go through them process for 12 Grand plus or minus right yeah well and on the top end it's $92 so if you're going all the way through the steps to the very end of the steps then it becomes $92 from okay five different steps I'm going to tell you whatever we agree to pay right now if we have to sub this out we're going to be paying triple triple yeah you'll see an agenda item that I have coming up next to kind of with with real numbers so okay well Mr CH obviously our common goal here is that if we get these people we retain these people we have to do a lot less outside Consulting correct and we should be able to do this inh housee yeah that's our goal that's the that's the point you're back to your gut feeling can we can we Salvage on um potentially um I would I would be hopeful um uh that we could we're already talking internally um uh fortunately for our department we have an operator engineer and maintenance person that has the two-year degree that has helped us out in construction projects in the past so we've already initiated conversations with that individual if he'd be willing to help out on the construction inspection again um uh we've got a short window to talk to that person at first he wasn't open to it but maybe is as this becomes more of a reality um opinions and Minds will change okay I I'm I'll tell you this I'm supportive of it yeah are you looking for a motion or yes sir just a motion to approve this new proposed career ladder system for higher engineering technicians I'll move I'll move for that I'll SEC okay we got three seconds got it Beth yeah pick pick your second Beth any other discussion I'll call the question all in favor opposed carried thank you for you guys doing this too it's very important yeah okay um now we have the resolution the added agenda item M CH I think we were the next item was the B funding oh okay yeah I'll turn that over you Mr chair uh for that discussion so Bon County we we request a possible allocation to beton economic partnership for 2025 um basically I think everybody here knows about all the work that has been done through be from the housing and everything else that we've done and I think it's under the understanding that we allocate uh a little more money for them for 2025 Mr chair I I completely agree I think I think be everything they do for the county um they take on everything we ask and and I I couldn't be more supportive of them I don't think they've turned down one thing that we've asked no so with that I'll entertain a motion to um allocate the additional funding to Benton County Benton economic partnership for 2025 I'll second what would be that dollar amount sir I think we discussed 20 ,000 20 okay uh from board contingency board contingency fund correct I'll I'll amend mine to include that amount who made the second there hasn't been one yet I made it you made the motion I don't think he moved he just looked for a motion oh okay I'll make that uh motion for 20,000 and I'll second it okay motion's been made for second to um allocate 20,000 in additional funds to BB partnership for 20 25 Mr chair maybe we make this a note that it's not ongoing this is just Mr chair yes with your comment of not ongoing I I personally look at what be's been doing since I got on the board uh I think we need to look at ways that we can grow that organization because they're paying for themselves absolutely and the more if we put in $125,000 a year my guess is is the Count's probably getting back a lot more you know over the course of the year on on businesses coming in uh housing you name it they they've taken on everything we ask and we got to figure out one of the biggest things that came up and I still remember this a couple years ago when I was at one of the presentations is coming up with a recruiter yeah a recruiting department out of B I think that could help the county it could help all the businesses in the area try and attract and recruit people right y so the more we keep feeding this program we're getting the money back the other part that I I know when we see the membership in that um they're going to make a little more effort in this coming year to for more membership they have they have all the leads it's just that we haven't had the ability until we hired Pam to go after some of this membership and it looks like it's going to be pretty successful we've you know it seems like every month we're adding one or two new members grant that we're dropping one off now and then that either the business has failed or they moved out of the area and Mr chair too and and you'll hear later under commissioner comments but you know the the startup and the process of business retention and expansion I mean I was at two of them last week myself just here yeah so that process is continued also so anyways any other comments I'm good all in favor of the motion I I opposed carried well then and this next is your amended item it was the the resolution regarding the legislator attendance at the uh legislature okay I think Monte for discussion yeah we'll open for discussion um if you seen it and and read it um guess we'd like comments Mr chair yes I'd like to start okay and I might be a little bit here but uh I am appalled by what is going on on with the legislature right now I think uh I we're we don't support color in our in in our positions because we have to work with both sides in order to get our County program funding and everything like that and when one side I don't care if it's if it if it's red blue white whatever it is we I would be going this way no matter which side was doing it because it's that important we can't get our work done at the legislature in the time frame they're given let alone when people choose to grandstand and and not show up for work because of one seat um at the end of the day they need to be there um it's not just one person a local person it's the whole party that has chosen not to be there um furthermore that party that is in this um situation supported a person that didn't live in the district not only did that create this issue it created a bear of of of burden on the local taxpayers for a special election and we all know what that special election costs it's a lot of money to me if a party like that does that again they should bear that cost for a special election or it should go to the next leading vote getter uh so we don't have these issues um if you don't know where you live you shouldn't be you shouldn't be running it it it is so sickening to see this happening and and this could be a very long time of this going on we've been had two years without bonding MH there's a lot of lot of counties are looking at getting things done and we're sitting here at a stalemate right now yep and this is a there was some language in there that um Monty and myself had withdrawn because we didn't want to mention names or anything like that in here um the other part that uh when I had conversation with commissioner Schultz or representative Schultz was that uh I kind of expressed to him that I thought both parties could have work this out a little better than you know um trying to put the blame on one party or the other because they had an agreement they know where this is going well and to your point commissioner pop the Senate figured out a way to do it yes so so um I think in all actuality what what you just said there commissioner pop Mr chair is weird that everybody just assumes that that seat is going to go Democratic y it just isn't that why they play the game right you never know who's going to win you never know who's going to win there's always that big upset exactly and and that assumption is just insane well and to your point commissioner kinsky is at the end of the day we are the long arm of the state right so however this all ends up upside down I the governor's already proposed budget is to uh slide over 200 million to the counties in the next I mean that's just his budget proposal I understand they're not there yet but they're already talking about shifting that responsibility 200 million to the counties that that's an automatic property tax increase if that happens and while we were just in this meeting there was another email that just came over so I wonder what that what that reads so um is there anything in here that any of you have issues with you know the the local representation is one thing um we've we've got to work with like I said earlier we've got to work with all these people and and I don't want to call out one person for their whole party but I think what the local I'll say taxpayers need to need to understand is there is representation from that party in our area you know and I would be calling out the other side if they were doing this 100% because we need to work with both sides we need to we need to get our projects through the through the Finish Line on with both sides of them and this is not helping anybody out right now can I I I 100% agree with what you're saying um and I agree I don't care what side it is ultimately it's taxpayer dollars that are paying their wages and if they're not going to show up to work that's a disgrace it's it it's just wrong Mr chair I I realize that this resolution obviously becomes part of the record of our minutes here but does it make some sense to have somebody read it it's a one-pager I mean Oh you mean like now like now okay um one more comment that I got Monty I don't know our or commissioner kinsky you might hear this on Friday um because there's more than more than our County that's done this um um AMC may take a stand on this you know at their meeting on Friday and they should well and and I think the Supreme Court already uh come down a little bit on uh governor for for jumping jumping jumping the gun on it you know I think that I think this is a reaction to the initial action by the governor and two wrongs don't make a right here okay this needs to be this needs to be they need to get back to work whether at the end of the day if everybody's so confident that that seat is going to be Democratic it's going to be tied anyway and they're going to have to come back together and work at that point how much can get done in a matter of a month a month and a half of win this yeah but they're losing all of the the preparation time the last date I saw was potentially March 5th yep is that what the next wow so what's your wishes with this you want it readed I'm happy to read it I I just I think it's important enough and it should be read it's in our record but obviously we can hear what the resolution is yeah all right it's the B County Board commissioner's resolution we'll assign a number to it whereas Representatives Dan wont Tim odris and Isaac Schultz are the duly elected members of the Minnesota House of Representatives representing Benton County and whereas it is the duty of duly elected members of the House of Representatives to represent their constituents on the floor of the house and engage in legislative work as required by their office and whereas Minnesota statutes 3.0 05 states that at noon of the day appointed for convening of the legislature the members shall meet in their respective Chambers as each is called the persons claiming to be members from each shall present their certificates to be filed all whose certificates are so presented shall then stand and be sworn and whereas article 4 section 8 of the Minesota Constitution states that each member and officer of the legislature before entering upon his duties shall take an oath or affirmation to support the Constitution of the United States the con stitution of this state and to discharge Faithfully the duties of his office to the best of his judgment and ability and whereas the first week of a legislative session is critical for setting the agenda introducing legislation and ensuring the priorities of V County residents are represented in state government and whereas the absence of any elected representative during the first week of session is a d elction of their duties and deprives vent can residents of their voice in critical early legislative deliberations and whereas the lack of participation in legislative proceedings undermines the Democratic process and erods public trust in the ability of these representatives to fill their obligations be it resolved that the Benton County Board calls upon these representatives to uphold their responsibilities by ensuring they are present and actively engaged in future legislative sessions and be finally resolved that the Benton County Board affirms its commitment to holding all elected officials accountable to the constituents they serve okay you heard the the resolution I'll move for approval Mr chair all second motions been made and second it to approve and have the County Board chair sign it yes um Mr chair one more comment isn't the senate in the same situation and they're all at work yes yeah that was my point is they figured out a way to make they this is ridiculous so okay any other comments all in favor I I oppose carried unanimous unanimous okay uh Sandy schelberg Human Services director um on the agenda today is a contract with Lutheran Social Services for Guardianship Services uh we currently have contracts with a couple of other agencies for this this the same contract we have other with other organizations um just giving us more vendors to work with we also worked with just a note we worked with Sterns County on these contracts so we have a unified rate um between the two counties for all of our vendors at this point in time Mr chair under uh sandana your source of funds you talked about client funding adult protection Grant County funding uh can you talk to me a little bit about the client funding I mean how does that work and maybe what the percent or dollars might be of that I have a feel minimal but and I'm not asking for an exact no and it it kind of depends on the situation so and depends on their income so many of the people we come Guardians don't have funding um and they come in through the vulnerable adult act but there are occasions when an individual does have money and they have no family willing to set step forward and become a guardian and then they may end up paying a fee towards a guardian to okay take care of their needs and of that particular funding do you have an approximate number what percentage might be Levy most of it loow okay all right right any other questions your wishes I'll move for approval I'll second motion made to and seconded to approve the contract for contract for the purchase of Guardian conservative ship services with Lutheran service Serv Lutheran Social Services of Central Minnesota any other discussion all in favor I opposed carried thank you thank you thank you rber all right this goes right along with what we were talking about earlier uh what I have before you is a consultant contract to provide construction inspection services for the replacement of two Bridges and I was going to bring up this map just to recall everybody so we received Federal money to replace uh the bridge on CA 22 over the West Branch of The Rum River and we received Federal money to replace this bridge over um the St Francis River on 51 here so we reached out to a couple Consultants received two responses back um we believe ericon engineering is going to provide the best value overall to provide this construction inspection and so I'm asking the board to consider entering into an agreement with Ericson engineering to provide construction inspection services now the dollars and cents to inspect one Bridge uh the bridge on cassad 22 the total estimated fee is $1 126,559 to inspect uh the other Bridge casassa 22 is about $13,300 so when we're talking about uh having in-house inspection versus outside inspection this is this is really what it is um to do inspection on a bridge you need to have these certifications there's a bridge construction certification that's required we don't have anybody in house both of these will be constructed this year so when you look at these we're spending $260,000 just in one summer to construct two Bridges and this is going to be a challenge in the upcoming year when you think about Benton County we have2 structures in our state that's considered a bridge even if they were designed to last a 100 years we really should be replacing a bridge structure uh every year forever so um that's one every year for 100 Years by the time we replace all of them we'll go right back to the first one we replace and replace that if it's 100 years later so um kind of the dichotomy of the board today we get to see a proposal to do some changes with their engineering and technician position but in the meantime we we have these services that are needed and this is the real cost of doing that Mr chair Chris so to your point on dollars here this for example the one that's in front of us now you're showing 724 hours of construction observation so one person at 40 hours a week there's going to be somebody there for 18 weeks observing the construction I think that's on the high end but uh yeah when you talk about because these two structures they're not box covers these are actual Bridge structures so they'll be removal of the existing structure they'll be grading they'll be uh steel piling being constructed there'll be concrete work they'll be setting of beams they'll be Paving so but even if that's a high number they're proposing that they're going to have somebody on site for 18 weeks 40 hours a week yeah and really it's probably more like 12 weeks 60 to 70 hours a week okay is probably more realistic and back to our discussion earlier about a senior position would that senior position and the requirements that we're asking be able to do this work eventually we would like to have somebody yeah that has these qualifications that could do this inh house we' do that a little cheaper than 256 Grand yeah I'm not a mathematician here but I'm looking at going we could offer somebody a heck of a job mhm and have them come in here and do these two Bridges plus all the bridges we got coming up for years to come and be money ahead yeah cuz in in 2026 we have two more structures um uh that will need to be replaced as well so but in government we're not allowed to do this right right save money for taxpayers well so the system doesn't allow us to pay somebody I mean if if personally if I could pay somebody 200,000 and put 56,000 in my pocket would do it right yeah but the system doesn't allow us to do that Chris how does the the bridge funding operate because you're dealing with ca22 and you're dealing with County 51 yes and and your funds of in the estimated cost your sorts of funds are Levy so casad 22 no different is there Casa funding towards it yeah so um yeah currently we we could there is an allowance to use some of our CA construction dollars towards engineering uh of those projects that would be design work and construction inspection currently we we don't do that because um the more you use for engineering the less you have for available doing the roads sure um County Road 51 so as we know it's not a cassa road the only sources of funding would be local sources sales tax or or wheelage tax or Levy these both of these Bridges combined we received about $1.2 million of federal Bridge replacement money to replace these um combined that that's about 50% about 51% of the project costs for both of them is covered by the federal money so a little over $2 million yeah we're spending about 10% of that uh just on inspection costs so we would like to think that we could inspect that maybe six and 7% of the construction costs so um Mr chair yes my mind is going right now in a business um mentality and about starting a business because I look at it this way you could go hire somebody for $150,000 a year pay the taxes pay the insurance pay everything you're still coming away with 50 Grand right and the the individuals happier than heck right M when are we going into business system and Mr chair this is one project this is one project one project together actually two project one thing to your point we got two more next year right okay but but more importantly this is 12 weeks there's 52 weeks in a year yeah correct right I'm in the wrong business being a commissioner I can tell you that it's this is it's insane on what we're that's that's the demand of of these individuals and where we're losing out the only thing I'll Erikson was the one that did the uh design work on the bridge so that's why we feel like they provide the best value overall um they'll have all the the design information help with inspection but you're right that's the reality of the industry right now um obviously their their employee that's out there uh there he's not doesn't see 105 or $160 on his paycheck but that's you're right that's going to the company's overhead and things like that so and what were some of the other quotes you remember off top of your head yeah we had one other consultant uh WSB uh they were about 180,000 per Bridge so they were this one's almost almost 100 grand less yeah so how much was the design on these um these two Bridges uh inspection well I think we're I think the market we're about three years after we uh did the design contract it was about $50,000 a bridge just to uh design the the bridge so so you're right uh Bridge replacement we're probably if we had to do it at ah 100% out of house uh we're probably $200 to $250,000 for design and construction inspection and What's the total cost of that bridge um one Bridge alone is about $1.1 million we're paying 20% % just an inspections and design 25 holy moly and in WR business oh yeah that's that's typical I think for whether it's a road reconstruction or Bridge Project I think 20 25% maybe on the high end uh you know 15% would be on the low end if you had to consult it out so just just think though how the system is I mean the feds are dump 50% of it in here taxpayer dollars you mean we are yes yeah basically we are we are yes Chris uh question on the bridge on that one in 51 is that one that is that the one that goes across the road diagonally no no no this one is just west of County Road 6 Southeast of Foley here um me and 3/4 mile East okay and 22 is just west of the rum the rolled rum sha yep exactly right so um wow yeah the one on seven um is built the same time frame so it's not next year but I think within next 5 years as we continue to inspect it and it continue to deteriorate it may become eligible for bridge funding one seven just soua rum Shack you talking about they were both built about one year apart from that's where the river kind of goes through at an angle there well there's one on 51 too where doesn't it go this way you know what 51 and it's a quite a waste out there though uh we got ditch nine or something goes through there oh corner of 51 and seven yeah that that was Culver's put oh yeah that's in there ditch goes at an angle through there yeah that's part of the7 project well we don't have a lot of choices here no I I I think we need to start a bridge engineering and go along with sir stripe a lot yeah and uh we got a heck of a business sir strip I'll move approval second did you have okay most men made second comments yeah I I I mean taking a look at these numbers and I didn't do the full math but looking in my head we could probably hire three employees train them and everything for that amount of money yeah you're proba only thing I'll add this was budgeted for this year um actually it is a a little bit less I was estimating about 145,000 per Bridge so it did come in a little bit under what I was budgeting so good that's a good thing it's it was already accounted for in the levy inrease and and everything so okay been motion then second it all in favor I opposed carried very good thank you Chris that's all I have okay I think before we go to commissioner meeting updates we're going to turn it over to we'll do the Community Health Board and I'll turn it over to commissioner benite all right I'd like to call the community um Health board meeting uh to order um Beth do you want to do roll call commissioner Benoit yep commissioner Heinen commissioner pop here commissioner Johnson president commissioner ginsky here thank you and can I get approval or any amendments to the agenda no amendments today I move to approval amend here second um any discussion all in favor say I I are you all laughing at me no we're laughing at him I'm glad he said that cuz I'd have probably said Mr Chair by accident hey hey I learned that a long time ago to correct myself uh jacn go we're confusing right now yes you are sorry madam chair we have a consent agenda item take care of in front ja consent agenda item number number one move for approval Madam chair second um any discussion we have a first and a second all in favor say I I I okay now Jacqueline sure um so the first item we have on the agenda today is for us to review um our cannabis and substance use prevention agreement between the Department of Health and our community health board so today i' would just be looking for a approval of that contract so that we can start charging the grant for the work um and substance use prevention and cannabis I'll move approval I'll second it um any more discussion so you hear a lot of talk about the Cannabis stuff going on you think it's ever going to it's going to become reality sometime this year I think you know you mean as far as like the the operations and that side of things yeah I think that piece of it you know is one thing I think the reality of the use um is another thing um we we're seeing the impacts in public health already especially with the lower potency hemp Edibles which is not something we've addressed yet in our ordinances I was just talking with Wright County um a couple of meetings ago a couple not last week but the week before and they had done some store Audits and I don't want to misquote but it it was I mean majority of their stores were already selling illegal um products and it was a mass amount um so I think we're seeing it in public health we're seeing some of those issues already start to arise um and then you know some of the things we talked about you know the the feeling that because it's now legal that it's it's all 100% safe you know those kinds of assumptions um from community so yeah I think we're we're seeing the impacts and then as far as like the fun you know the the operations and all those sorts of things yeah I mean that's coming up here pretty quickly sounds like they're going to go back to the drawing board on it again yeah yeah I think Yad Madam chair um Jacqueline are you in the loop on where they're at with another executive director I mean I think we're on third one at least I'm not in the loop yeah I mean I can I can look into to see you yeah but I haven't heard anything yet lately yeah all right weird weird is yeah any more discussion we have a first and a second all in favor say hi hi hi and go ahead yes all right so second item today um we have a unique opportunity this year we have our response sustainability Grant and within that response sustainability Grant um we had a meeting with the Minnesota Department of Health a couple of weeks ago and um they were talking with us about the upcoming National Association of County and City Health officials in that meeting they had let us know that we would have approval to potentially send Commissioners to attend the trainings as well um so I'm here just asking if there would be any commissioner interest in attending um we can support up to two Commissioners we probably could do three if there was um interest but this would be a great opportunity um Na um the National Association for City and or County and City Health officials um Nao is really where we get a lot of our um our capabilities set if you recall last year our public health emergency preparedness coordinator attended and worked with the rural group that was helping to Define what the capabilities would be for each of the counties across the uh the nation and so this year we have opportunity um we're going to send our new Public Health supervisor myself and our fep cordinator but wondering if Commissioners would like to attend um commissioner Heinen um is a natur member as he's our Community Health Board chair so that was one person I was thinking potentially but then I don't know commissioner kinsky with like Public Safety work this might be a really fitting environment I mean it's all about incident command um response Readiness um new protocols Provisions um across the board or you know anybody else who would want to attend as as far as being new so throwing it out there to see if there would be interest and then if so we can work on getting connected with whoever that is and try to figure out details after that Madam chair yeah um uh commissioner hey did bring this up to me and I was actually going to be bringing this up at AMC on Friday to find out if they're sending anybody down for this maybe this would be a from what I understand it's all paid for right I we have 100% grant funding to send yeah to send two Commissioners or even three I just proposed to but mdh was saying you know this is something that they were encouraging us to do and then I'm like I'll bring it forward but we do have funding yep 100% I assume Monty excuse me Madam chair I assume if we send three that's we've got an issue there I know we've always been really cautious about what we put on the Cy but I I think if you're going simply to get training and that's it and there's no necessary discussion of County Business and and decision making occurring I think you're fine okay um so just going to training I think you're good it doesn't there's not a quorum issue so be an opportunity to give you some context it's really um there a lot of the different sessions similar to kind of how AMC Works um a lot of update sessions there'll be a lot of different exercise sessions um good opportunity to get more information connect with a lot of those individuals um throughout the states and the nation um we did also just so you know offer to our emergency manager because usually we do try to fun trainings for Kristen when we can um it doesn't work for her schedule for this one but I want to let you know that as well because oftentimes it's a time that we collaborate on plans and things like that as well um I mean I've been trying to learn more about public health I'm not you know wasn't jacine knows I'm not a big Public Health fan um but unless Jacqueline's going to come and help me plant corn I cannot go so I get done by the 29th of April yeah would that be nice Madam chair Jacqueline when does this decision need to be made and who's attending um I think if we can get an idea of how many potentially I think the idea is we want to try to get um books book hotels and flights and those things as we can um because it does fill up pretty quickly and so that way you can at least be at the same place at the summit's held at um we probably don't need names right away but at least a ballp perk and then we could always cancel if needed but at least we'd have approval to move forward and start coordinating um Madam chair I have some interest too I can't commit today though and that's why I'm asking that question so if the board wants to say how many we want to commit up to then we can always wiggle with that okay you said you had money for we have enough funding it would be yeah we've got 4,200 we'd have plenty of funding to be able to sustain we received our response emergency Grant um that goes through June of this year and we have funds that we can use currently so could those funds be used for anything else or is it pretty much yep yep it's all for emergency preparedness and response yep our response Readiness is a huge chunk of that for my for myself I I have interest going if my schedule allows it but I was going to see if AMC with my chair position has funding for that so we don't have to take it out of our yeah um and we can use our money for something else so I'll I'll find out that on Friday okay I guess Madam chair my opinion two Max of three Commissioners that's just my thought right well and I and I would be interested if Steve's not or one of the others cannot go that I I mean being new on this board I think what I can the more I can learn the better I am sure and maybe it makes some sense maybe by the February a fourth meeting we could make a final decision on who's going that appropriate sure you'd have your information by then and we could check our calendars no and well this is February 20th right end of April April 29th April April 29th to May 2nd is what I have yeah yep so I think the early bird deadline is at the end of either this month or next month but I think it's only about $100 difference I think it probably makes sense for us to can you find out with that and maybe let Monty know yeah I can because if got the motion for up to three I'll find out mine on on Friday we can you know Monty Monty can get some questions my assumption would be commissioner Heinen will go yeah I think so so okay the other part that I little I know it's funded but um I don't know is there opportunities while you're there to aggressively seek more money for Benton County or is it just um it's a good question I mean there are Grant notices out there um and there's certainly um private party and you know sectors that come to the Summits and and attend sessions or or do the tabling um so I mean potentially but it's more of a learning session it's more directed towards you know what are the updates and emergency preparedness Readiness response the response capabilities um coordinating with those other health officials um local and city um so it's a good question commissioner pop but I don't know how much of that happens in that space well my point being taken is like I like if it was coming out of commissioner contingency funds then I probably would not be in favor because I like to see that money being spent for large chunks of money that can come to Bon count um you know transportation and stuff like that um so that that's why I ask all right okay so sounds like we'll um we're saying up to potentially three we just need consensus on this jacqulyn or Monty or we you need a motion or well um I know you have an outstate travel policy which does require board consent for folks to travel out of state so I would say a motion probably would be a good idea with this one three okay Madam chair I'll make a motion to for up to three Commissioners to attend this conference I'll second that um all in favor or any more um discussion on this with the first and second all in favor say I I I all right so next agenda item um I was just going to offer up a department update if we wanted to do that today I know we're behind in schedule so I'm open either way we can do it the next one or we can do it today it I how long do you got it it's cold up maybe I didn't practice so I don't know um it shouldn't be too too terribly long M do I need to do anything to share the screen those that it may be on YouTube or online or is it already set you want to yes you that yeah if you want to teach me that' be great well the folks anyone who's watching YouTube can see it oh then we should be right yeah right so they I didn't know if I had to do something for that uh no that that's only for goto if you got share screen okay perfect all right so um let's get started here so because it is January beginning of the year I'm just going to do a quick little overview for our Public Health Department um mission and vision I know we've talked about this before but really our Our Miss for Benton County Public Health is to um empower the community and support a good culture of health and well-being our vision is optimal quality of life for all so um some of the things that we talk about in public health a lot of the time is that really where we live should not determine the level of Health protections that we have um our Betton County Public Health Department Works in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Health um the unique thing about the Minnesota Department of Health is that um really they have um developed a system where the local public health departments can work together with the state to protect the health and safety across all of the state of Minnesota but at the same time the unique part of the Minnesota Department of Health is they allow local governments a lot of flexibility to determine how they meet those Health needs um all of this is kind of outlined in our statute Minnesota 145a where all of our local and State Health responsibilities are so this is a framework I I've shown you this probably multiple times last year just bringing it back up again because this is where we've now received foundational Public Health funding so this year um we received that funding called the foundational Public Health um funds and it outlines different capabilities and areas that we have to work in within Public Health departments um they use the analogy of a house when looking at this so the bottom level they talk about being the foundation um of the public health departments that middle level being rooms within a house just like we have areas of Public Health and then the top level being those Community specific things that we're working on so using that analogy I'm just going to talk through this a little bit um to help us kind of understand what that means for our Public Health Department when we're doing the foundational Public Health work um so just like every strong every house needs a very strong Foundation our health department needs a really strong Foundation as well um when we're talking about that Foundation this is including things like we have to assure we have Staffing of our Public Health Department um making sure that our staff are trained and so that they can meet the demand of anything that we to arise um talks about communication so all of the different health education me mechanisms we're doing um as you guys know a lot of our staff are out in community majority of the time working with our school Partners Community groups organizations nonprofits working to help make Health um the Easy Choice so that's kind of the foundation piece and so just like we have um our data surveillance um we're constantly monitoring the data for our community to determine what those Health needs might be and doing our health surveys as well then we have the house um and rooms within a house so just like you have rooms like kitchen bathroom living room in your home we have different buckets within Public Health that our staff work in so we've got communicable disease control um chronic disease and injury prevention environmental health Maternal Child Health Family Health um and then access and link to care to clinical care which would be like the doctor's office um getting individuals in for their hearing and vision screenings those sorts of things and then um the cool thing about the Minnesota Department of Health is it also provides us some flexibility and some of our funding to be able to meet those local community needs that we have so you think about um Bon County and what's unique to beton County um you know we have a large rural farming population we have that East Side St Cloud the western side of Benton County where it's that more urban city environment um so it allows us just like you have in your own home the ability to match your Decor to what the needs are of your family it allows us to match the needs of our Public Health Department to what our community is so a lot of the things that we work on you know when we talk about different policies or when we're working with um I don't know you know Chris on on um Grant applications or you know we're attending different committee meetings we're always thinking about what those unique things are tobon County that we want to make sure it's in those policies so that we can do everything we can to make an environment that people can thrive in which is what we all want um and that's what mdh calls Community specific Services um so this is really just kind of breaking down that big framework that you know sometimes can be be hard to understand in an easier way in addition to those responsibilities we also have six areas of Public Health responsibility that's outlined in our statute um and these are also again the things that we need to do but we don't do them alone um so this is just a big group of all the people that public health is out working with um just an idea and just a snapshot so we work across different levels whether it's you know the federal um local state Partners Regional Partners um we also work with individuals and communities we work with specific zip codes um different nonprofits organizations Community organizations and so forth so we're not always the doers sometimes we're just the coordinator and the arranger and the collaborator um to help get resources to those different Community groups so that they can help work on the things that are going to help our community um or for example I'll talk about some when I do um some more of our update here so again you know we have to assure our um local Health infrastructure Our Community Health Board um is required to promote healthy communities and healthy Behavior it's really kind of the the foundation of what we are um a uring that people can be healthy in wherever they live within our County we prevent the spread of communicable disease whether it's tuberculosis hepatitis covid was a big one um disease data surveillance constantly we're always we have a dpnc nurse who is up to- date monitoring different cases and outbreaks among our County then we have health alerts and advisories that we work with our all of our Clinic Partners on so we usually will get an alert um from the Minnesota Department of Health of something that's that's bubbling up and then it's our responsibility within we have time frames either we have an hour to respond or 24 hours depending on if it's an alert or an advisory and we have to get out to our doctors and our clinics and our pharmacies and our vets um veterinarians and all different Health sectors um to coordinate what that messaging is sometimes as school Partners you know be on the alert for this and then you'll see um different notices come out through your healthcare system or whoever that might be um protection against environmental hazards so we have a community health specialist with our foundational Public Health money who will be doing somewhat of our um environmental health so that's we're talking about clean drinking water if there are cities that have wells that are contaminated are public health departments coordinating with them um light followup we have kiddos who have high lead levels which impacts their their development as a child so we have nurses that reach out with them um public health nuisances so if you think about a home that has um a lot of different um you know feces in the home for example um from different animals and pets it's following up with those homes and enforcing through a public health nuisance type of environment and then you think about things like policy when it comes to environmental health um and air quality so cannabis has been a big one lately tobacco other substances of abuse um but really thinking about that clean drinking water that you have every day um thinking about your air quality and thinking about those other Provisions that's Public Health um at work and then um we have prepared and respond to emergencies which is another part of Statute which we were kind of just talking about so I won't go too much in depth on that one but again making sure that we have a staff and a Workforce that could respond um at the moment that we need and I'll talk about some of the different trainings we've done recently for that as well and then the last one is just assuring health services so we have a team of Public Health Community Health Specialists and nurses who work with um children and families that do family home visiting services that we've talked about in the past but also we have individual Community Health Specialists who work with connecting kids to getting making sure they're getting their Wellness screening so um you know our child and team checkups program for example getting kids linked to dental vision here um and their Wellness checks for example so all of these are different areas that we carry out in order to meet the statute and these are the six different um areas outlined in statute um so I'll just jump into a couple of um some Public Health updates just to provide some additional context and then also catch you up to what we've been working on over the past couple of months um so just a staffing and recruitment update um so we are still recruiting for our public health nurse position that public health nurse position will do our family home visiting program our child and te checkups program coordination and then our Wick program they'll spend about um 40% of their time doing women's infants and children Clinic appointments and visits um so that um position we've done two rounds of recruitment for um we do um hope to anticipate we'll get that filled soon but um we'll see how time progresses here we also will have an upcoming retirement and we're um we're it's bittersweet um we had an individual who's been with us for over 24 years and so well of course we're very very happy for her but we're also sad that we won't have her on our team anymore um we will be posting um that position as soon as we can in order to start recruitment because training for our women infant and children Clinic appointments is quite um thorough and robust and so we want to be able to allow them to have some time to cross over and get that training with the current worker and then the new worker we'll also be recruiting for a temporary Wick position because of all the transition and the time it's taking for us to um get that public health nurse position position filled um in order to cover the transition between the retirement and then bringing on two new people um that person to train um so we're going to look to see if we can also identify somebody that could do some temporary Wick coverage of our Wick clinic so that we don't have any service Interruption for our Wick clinics um and I heard you know just like the other Staffing conversations it's been um a challenge in Rec recruitment all right so just a couple of things that we've been working on um some of our public health staff U Mariah Julie Kayla are members of the Sterns Benton toward zero death Collis um this works to reduce traffic crashes injuries and deaths in Minnesota on roads and streets um just to give you a little bit of an idea so when you think about a traffic accident do you often think about public health does anybody think about public health okay so this is a good example a good analogy that I sometimes use um oftentimes and you guys have this in your road plans and I think um it maybe it'll make an aha moment here for you um when you think about traffic accidents that occur and often times let's say a traffic accident occurs on the the corner out here and maybe we have five or six of them right all those people are going to go into the hospital they're going to get evaluated and they're going to see what's wrong and the doctor the healthc care provider is going to treat that individual where public health is different is if we hear there's five or six accidents in one location then we're intering to figure out why why are there five or six accidents in this location what can we do from an environmental change a systems change to create a different way so that people are not getting injured from repetitive traffic accidents so I know I've heard you talk about those things and some of your other plans so a little plugged to think about public health in those situations um so our staff were over at Pleasant View Elementary School um working with the kiddos um with the Coalition the tcd Coalition again which their goal of the tcd Coalition is to reduce traffic crashes injuries and deaths um and they partnered with the St Cloud area planning organization the city of sck Rapid St Cloud and Pleasant View this is back in October to hold Safety Town at the school this is an activity for students to learn how to be responsible pedestrians as well as to help understand how to navigate a roundabout and so this is an example so basically what they do is they set up like a traffic course within the school um this collaborative Partners um provided safety education to approximately 120 different third graders um it works in relationship with our Statewide Health Improvement partnership so our ship Grant allows us to do this with our communities this activity um also related to the demonstration project that was implemented back in May 2024 that Mariah was at the Community Health Board Pres presenting on um that had the temporary curb extensions as well um so in addition to that we also had um our staff our tzd staff and Community Health Specialists attend the towards um the towards zero death back on October 22nd in 23rd and this is where we get our updates for engineering so when we think about like the Roadway Engineering um Enforcement Education emergency medical health services um and different approaches for how we can address traffic fatalities and injuries that are occurring from traffic safety um so just an update on that and then there's there's are a couple of other things like the safe route to schools projects and things like that that you're more familiar with as well um but really the goal of Public Health in these environments is to really figure out how do we make the environment a healthy place for everyone um and traffic injuries includes that these pictures are from um Pleasant few elementary school so you can kind of see the demonstration project set up and then um they had a little roundabout in there as well which is pretty cool all right um another thing that we worked on over the last couple of weeks or month since the last Community Health board meeting update um our staff Prov attended our incident command system training um and this is is another one of those trainings that is for us to be prepared for emergency responses in this um scenario we had to exercise a hepatitis A outbreak so hepatitis A is one of those serious liver diseases that can be caused um through lack of washing hands through syringes eating and drinking you might hear it on the news sometimes um it's it can be a serious liver disease and and so working through the incident command system each of our staff were provided roles so we had um incident commanders we had um Deputy planning Chiefs we had Logistics Chiefs and and so forth and we had to do um press conference release we had to do update um we had to determine what our plan of response was going to be and so our staff partake in these ex exercises quite routinely and this training and exercise and education is all a part of us knowing what to do when we do get an outbreak and we do get a notice so um this is just an example of that um but really this helps to make sure that we are scalable and flexible that we can respond to emergencies when they arise that we can work with our emergency manager as needed to coordinate um that we can have good communication and that we can make sure that we've got multi- agency coordination and so thinking about who those Partners would be that would' be pulling into the response with us uh let's see we also um through our Statewide Health Improvement partnership Grant so jumping from a different funding source now um we've been working with fully cross Center so in September 23 um in a collaboration with the University of Minnesota extension the foundational for essential needs and the fly cross Center our ship staff our ship ship staff um helped the food shelf work towards becoming a Super shelf um and work through that transformation with them a large walk-in cooler was replaced with several new individual mobile cool coolers with glass doors which allows for available foods to be viewed by Shoppers they also installed some new LED lighting um to help with energy costs the Food Shelf interior walls were painted um in addition they were able to get some more fresh produce in there as well um for the super shelf initiative um the fully cross Center will be working um further in order to um officially be certified this next winter and spring and there was an article put out about this as well on the the ffen site um as well um so this would be with our ship staff so how this will impact community of course when we think about public health again if we hear that there's a lack of access to healthy foods um or allowing the space for people to have access to healthy foods um this is one of those components and then as well as um in the past for the cross Center if any of you are familiar with the cross Center individuals would come in um in order to get food and they would kind of just wait and then the staff would go and and select what foods they were going to get and then put them in a box and pass them out now with this change to a superfood or super shelf um the individuals will actually be able to walk in and it'll be more like a grocery store environment so they can walk around and they can select the foods they'll actually need which also helps eliminate food waste because if you're given food that um you can't eat or don't eat right it goes to waste and so this allows a more of that piece of it as well um then just a smaller update so our our beton County public health nurse um has been out in schools again um she previously was at um at Foley School District where she had about 70 staff present did presentations on human trafficking and the concern that we're seeing in community recently she presented to three different eighth grade classrooms for two weeks in Foley um and then in December for Foley High School um last week I believe or a couple weeks ago I believe it was couple more updates of things in the last couple weeks um so right before the holiday our staff um attended their basic life support training their AED training and their stop the bleed training and so here's some just some pictures um this is part of again our Readiness to respond we have to complete our training renew it every 3 years so we were up up and due for that as well as catching up new staff um as well so that training is there and this is in the place of if we did have to respond and pop up a vaccine clinic for example our staff have to have that training in order to respond if there's any contraindications or any issues with vaccine for example um if somebody faints you know those sorts of things um so I've got some pictures here so this is just showing some of our staff doing the child and pediatric basic life support um this is again with the aeds um as well and then we have the stop the bleed which is about um utilizing tourniquets um as well and just a big shout out to the city of rice as they provided the training for us and in coordination to assure that we got what we needed for our staff as well then just a few other quick Department updates um so we I had mentioned last board meeting when I did updates that um we'll be doing our strategic planning for 2024 through 20129 for our community health board our Public Health Department um Minnesota Department of Health will be on site this next month in February for us to complete our first um strategic planning session with our staff and so at some point we'll bring to the board a completed strategic plan for approval the TA Grant with the city of rice for the bend in the River Park that was submitted so that's exciting um we also had a review from the Minnesota Department of Health of our fep our Public Health Emergency prep preparedness duties um that was completed and we got response back from the Minnesota Department of Health that we're in really good standing so that was really cool as well um and just to close out close us out here um just again just uh uh to hone back in you know public health is really about everything that impacts our health whether it's um access to the internet or safe roads or healthy foods or the actual illnesses that make us sick um our goal is to intervene down here in this primary prevention stage um and then we we want to do things by work looking at policies we work with environment changes we work in system changes to assure that people have it easier to make the healthy choice right and then um we also do risk factors in early intervention as well but then you think about all those crisis interventions and our goal in public health is that we don't have those crisis interventions you know if we can reduce the car crashes we can reduce the amount of fire and EMS response we can reduce the overload and burden on the Health Care System you know if we can intervene um and do really good mental health prevention and try to address social isolation we're going to reduce the amount of cases than crisis that they're seeing in human services you know if we can provide people with healthy foods and um access to jobs and internet and Roads and cars um and we can change those systems so people can have those things then we can reduce the need of those Services um when we're looking at you know child protection and vulnerable adult abuse and um waivered services for example so on the Spectrum here you really could put almost all of our different County departments because we all intersect along this this Channel and Public House way over here um which is where we like to intervene but sometimes we're over here too so we cross over and coordinate as well um it's also that notion of just like a car right we think about doing the preventative maintenance on our vehicles we do those oil changes um we do the preventative maintenance of our community and if we don't do that preventative maintenance of our community we have everybody in crisis at the same time and that's what we're always trying to prevent we don't want to see a lot of people breaking down at the same time all right so that's a wrap um any questions for me that was a lot I went fast Madam chair I've got a few things I wrote down if I can take a minute and ask Jacqueline uh couple different things yeah public nurse what's the hold up on that is that it what do we what's the main reason why we can't fill that I think we have candidates but we have some different I'm trying to think of what I what I can and can't say um we did find a really good candidate but I think we've got to examine um our needs as an agency and what we what we can negotiate on okay um we have had a couple of different rounds I think the other piece of it is mix of work duties we have had requests for part-time positions which we're recruiting for full-time so I think there's just some different components there that we've got to navigate okay yeah fair enough thank you yeah and I don't want to put you on a spot on specific dollars but a lot of times we throw around you know what's the public health budget and then Grant versus Levy dollars for that and again I don't need a a specific number now this would be last when I looked at the 2025 budget so numbers have changed I think it's about 1.4 million in Grants and then Levy dollars I think our budget's like around 450,000 total for the year perfect if I'm thinking right I don't know Monty if you know off the top of your head okay yeah all right thank you um I hear you're involved with tzd yes so you know we maybe should have some future discussion about how you might fit in with our Highway 23 Coalition yep um especially bet and maax kabic pine because right now we're working on a uh hopefully to get a study done between Foley and I35 for four lanes so and a lot of that has to do with some serious CRA crashes and trafficking y absolutely especially right in Bon County especially yes absolutely um couple other things I'd like to have some future conversation with you about a potential rep for the care fully care yes let me I'll write that down yep and I did um I do have somebody in mind with that and have talked to somebody about that as well that will be doing our agent PR so perfect and then uh one last thing uh in one of the quadrants of I believe you said the six things that comes out of the Department of Health that kind of directs Public Health uh protect against environment health hazards do you hear much about mold issues I don't have a lot of direct with mold a lot of the mold so the way that it works for Benton County prior to our foundational Public Health money is a lot of our Environmental Health Services get directed to the state of Minnesota mdh office in St Cloud okay we have a contact there who takes um all of the food pools and lodging matters and then we get pretty much everything else so often times like with mold it is probably more of like a rental situation or a housing situation so then mdh takes it so we're sometimes just the coordinator like if they had a bigger issue if it was like in an apartment complex or something they might reach out to us and ask for our community health specialist to help with the messaging and the education and that stuff but yeah for now um we're not in mitigation and inspection and all that we're not doing any of those yeah good question though um just let me look here really quick I think that was that'll do it thank you yeah no problem any other questions I just had one comment on there you had disasters and flooding wouldn't that fall more under the EMS direct it does follow on em so it's an in so there's two components to it right um Public Health has a role and Emergency Management has a role um but a lot of times our so our Public Health and emergency manager are actually meeting often times at minimum monthly if not more frequently because a lot of our plans intersect and so um the really cool thing about the two individuals that we have working together is that collaboration and coordination piece there are definitely um roles for public health versus em but if you think about a mass flooding situation if individuals have to be evacuated um if they have to be sheltered you know Human Services would be part of that Sheltering Public Health would be there addressing those um Health needs so whether it's Mass dispensing of supplies if it's um assessing health I you know those sorts of pieces so we all kind of have our little component of that yep but it's a lot of coordination a lot of working together and a lot of assuring that our roles and duties have been practiced so then when a situation does occur like that we can respond quickly so but basically or the Emergency Management would have the lead on that we would take it okay thanks anybody else thank you jacine appreciate the information yep thank you um I'll call for adjournment okay I'll move to adjourn Madam chair second uh any more discussion all in favor say I I I all right we'll go back to commissioner meeting updates I can start if you'd like Mr chair sure anybody can start um back in January 8th and I actually had this on first our our Highway 23 Coalition some of us members uh did have a virtual meeting with representative Schultz okay uh and representative Nelson who represents the kabic Pine City area of course representative Schultz goes over to I believe ol and and getting uh them involved in their input on you know potential bonding dollars to help with this project study um we're looking at about three and a half million dollars that's going to project study from mot to do the fley to I35 area so we've had some preliminary discussions with that and we wanted to make sure they were on board and informed before they got into session so that's why we really kind of tried to get that out in front of them did you have a question yeah on the on the 23 study um I do you think mot's going to be willing to do from fley to Mala being the I mean they just spent the I I think we and we recognize that uh we're trying to look at that big picture of the long-term forlane we know that the we're for example maybe the first priority will be malaka tomora okay you know we understand that and then maybe bville as this project goes we're talk this is 20 30 years out but we've got to get the study done before we can move on anything yeah and so that's kind of the spot we're in uh on the 9th uh January Planning Commission meeting uh actually was just a training uh session uh there were two new members who attended so that was good to have them on board uh on the 13th of course we had our call with GLT and our commissioner meeting and goals uh I did mention earlier that same day I did have two BR visits with uh be uh one was with the agency 511 here in town which is a marketing firm they're in residing in the old uh Foley Clinic where doc styles invol Balman used to be so they have an office there and we also met with zilmer insurance downtown Foley um and that evening I think all of us were there maybe not commissioner kinsky but the public hearing or meeting at the Sock Rapids government center in regards to the next era project and the Public Utility Commission uh public hearing process that'll be coming up on that um and last Friday um and I'm just I bring this up mostly to prepare the rest of the board that I think you can plan on probably a large public hearing coming up in the ditch Authority meeting on February 4th as you know cd9 and cd14 land owners did receive their assessments for the repairs on those ditches been a lot of questions I met with a couple land owners and Chris last Friday at his office for about an hour and a half going over those it was interesting because one of the land owners and and he's absolutely right he admitted he said you know it's my own fault I didn't attend the public hearing it's my own fault I didn't open up the packet from the county you know and all of a sudden I have a $25,000 assessment that I've got to deal with and I don't and I don't bring that up to blame him I just I bring that up that we need to recognize that a lot of our land owners just weren't aware for whatever reason and I told them we're more than happy to take some ideas on how we're going to get people to these hearings because we can't hog tie them and drag them in so we've got to do what we can do you know one thought was we make up a notice a letter that maybe goes out with our property tax statements you know the majority of our County residents are going to see those and open them and so maybe that's one way that we can actually get something in front of these land owners so just preparing you for that I mean I'm I'm not trying to preach Doom and Gloom but we may have a significant public hearing on February 4th with the ditch Authority uh that's all I had thank you I can go next sure uh commissioner heinan and I had a career Solutions meeting on January 9th I'm very new to that board so he has most of the updates I'll leave that to him um and on 13th I went to the St Cloud City council meeting very very interesting Lincoln Center came up in there they were going through their ordinance agreement for that facility because Harry was obviously there asking for more space more to open up some more space for bedding and stuff um I believe most of the Commissioners were there when we went through that so when you come into the building and they're they're meal areas to the right he wanted to open up some more of that area for sleeping area and and other things but currently the ordinance read that a temporary shelter May extend the maximum length of stay from 45 days to 90 days um they requested two different options from 120 to 180 from 180 to 120 um the board did agree um to up it from 1 from 40 5 to 120 and from 90 to 180 um they were asking for a 50% increase on the occupancy to be able to um let 50% of that occupancy stay during those terms and the current ordinance read 10% so they stayed with 10% they did not increase that um and uh um that's kind of the update um with that um what other meeting oh and Public Utilities ones um meeting um I had a m in Township meeting um nothing major came up in that um I did try to attend the triap action program meeting and the information and the stuff cannot be accurate cuz I drove there in the boonies and it was I know but it was I mean there was no lights or anything back there so it was pretty dark but I there was no one there so kinsky all right uh we had our APO meeting um I did get the chair position uh this year so uh we got a lot of things going on we're going to work on getting um all the counties all the cities all everybody every body together and let people know what the APO does be a good good one for you Tim too just so you kind of see how it operates cuz I'm not sure if you know exactly it took me a while to figure out because it it only there's only a couple million dollars you deal with but yet there's a lot more that comes in through the APO that gets funnel so I never understood funding 500,000 of of of of cost to gting $2 million worth of funding but there's a lot more that happens along that line uh I start the um uh AMC uh po or the uh Public Safety chair on Friday so asked commissioner pop last night a few things so I'll get blessed on that one cuz obviously the way that these run is usually your Vice chair first and that didn't happen so um kind of going in blind I was at the Iron Street uh Distillery for uh Commissioner of deed was there on Friday uh I told my wife I'd be home a half an hour and it was three hours later so they had a whole presentation the commissioner deed was there for had to be two hours of it he lives in beton County yeah he lives in beton County yeah uh Matt um yeah the inititive all right very very good presentation and very good guy yeah but there there was a lot of people there um uh uh the mayor stcloud Jake Anderson was there um bunch of different people they had a whole presentation and then uh we got tour of the whole facility it is amazing in there so if you ever get a chance go in there other than that our cows and and uh go from there that's it um had a couple of things we had Mike a meeting uh we officially brought in an NOA and uh um trying to think of that Wright counties so that increased our funding a little bit um officially signed the contract with our new executive director um and then as you know we got the Micah annual meeting on the 30th at the Wild Golf Legends in since in Prior Lake and that'll be coming out um and then I had a BP uh loan committee meeting that we approved a loan for a business that's going to start and fold and I also had the the sock rabbit City one and I was unable to attend the cow so we missed you yeah thanks I'm um anything else any other commissioner comments we gave you lots of stuff okay um commissioner concerns anybody have any commissioner concerns all right right there's a list of Committee of the holes before you on your death on your Das and I have disal L as well so oh my Lord maybe we can start with this Mr chair the the AMC legislative conference is coming up February 26th and 27th could we get a sense today of who is is inclined to attend so Beth can begin registrations commissioner kinsky yes tentatively Mr Johnson yep M pop we know if they're going to be in session in touch with commissioner hin and so um obviously there's hotel reservations required and so on so again that's February 26 27th and you'll make the reservations for the 25th correct 25th and 26th all right we're good there all right next uh B economic partnership invites you to attend a training session on tax increment financing and tax abatement financing that event is March 13th from 1: to 5: St Cloud University Atwood Center so again that's being sponsored by bent I'm sorry Bap economic partnership and the Greater St Cloud Development Corporation that's March 13 1 to5 St Cloud State University Atwood Center is that do they need registration they are asking for RSVPs okay does they have a buy date by March 1st by March 1st okay I will I'm planning on you're planning on I'm planning on going because that might sit well with the Comm pop is is go anyone else at for today commissioner kinsky go I plan on depending on my schedule but so we'll go ahead and register you then I know it's a it's a very important is it go it's a very important meeting when it comes to Tiff districts stuff cuz people have gotten away from that and and that's how sartel built their Community yeah you don't get a lot of the taxes right now Mr you said that's on 13 it is on March 13th 1 to 5 I need to yeah let us know we're supposed to have a career Solutions board meeting that day could you please let Beth know if you've interested in attending thank you all righty um we put these as standing don't we so we need okay those are standing all right so back to the list it's probably good to get your next Government Center project meeting on the calendar you when we met with GLT and and Pete from kentucker we did not do that so probably good to get that unn nextmen on your calendars um did they have some options I I didn't have options from um from um Evan and Pete uh I thought we had to wait for them to get back with something well what's what's happening next is is contegrity cenes is working on a refined project estimate for you and I recall in dis in discuss with Pete that's something they would potentially have done in about two weeks uh after our last meeting so um I don't necessarily think this has to be pushed out too far next Monday the 27th Monday the 27th that work if we are right in the morning yeah 8:30 so 127 and 8:30 okay does it work we'll let you know Mr next it on my on my uh list was potentially scheduling uh public meetings public informational meetings in open houses on the government center project are you prepared to get those on the calendar and presumably these to be evening meetings uh Sock Rapids rice Foley um I should have come better prepared with we don't obviously don't want to have it on any nights that there's a city council meeting those typically on Mondays aren't they fly is on Tuesdays fle is Tuesday though okay H coincides with ours yeah our dates same dates as I guess I'd be a little bit hesitant without commissioner Heinen here with his schedule I mean I I think we need to get on it but without his calendar here I think that might be a little tough okay and maybe what we could do just a suggestion Beth Or Monty could send out an email to the full board saying come prepared on the February 4th meeting to set some dates okay and I'll make sure I I'm fully aware of any um conflicts well it's not just that it's this just for example it's um you know even though it may not be a council meeting they may have their their Chambers booked for something sure right so we've actually got to get we've got to get those calendars for rice fley and U sock rabbits presume would we in sock rabbits would we use the government the the city council chamber or the the community room uh I would assume probably a community room okay so we got to make sure those rooms are open okay and I think we need to make sure that we got Mr henar involved and and we get this advertised so we get a lot of people there hopefully yes word chair Pop um this is a follow-up question I've listened to both your both uh Committee of the holes from the 13th you expressed sort of a consensus to try today to figure out the scheduling of these public me meetings but what I'm hearing is you want better scheduling commissioner Heinen's not here you need to check other people's calendars it's facility calendars right that's the issue yeah okay so that's sort of pushing it from today to February 4th you might that'd be the soonest then unless we can yeah somehow do it earlier right could I I got a ex uh what happens if you were to check with the facilities Monty throw out some potential dates knowing that Mondays and Tuesdays are probably the best for a lot of people and with that do we know commissioner Heinen back next Monday for the 27th or is he gone next week also do we know I think he's back I I kind of wonder if he's G wonder if he's gonna be back oh is he skiing my thought was that maybe we could have some discussion at the cow on the 27th right y yeah I don't I don't know for sure either because I know he said he had back-to-back trips by the 27th we can have the facility calendars known right but we still may not have commissioner Heinen's calendar you know I think Monday's may may work all SEC except the first Mondays and third Mondays I know rice city council meets okay well to Mr chair to Tim point it sounds like it's probably going to be the fourth before we can make a decision yeah we got to start these we yeah and we realizing we need to do it but fair enough because I'm going to Tee It Up yeah yeah I'm going Tee It Up This Week based on what you guys did at your C and I talked to Mon and I've interviewed him so we can do something very preliminary about where you guys are at but they need to be ready for February if you're going to lay meetings on y I mean they need to have the warning because what happens to February disappears sure y quickly and and may I also say just because we haven't had the calendar discussion it may not be limited to February right it could go go past that it could go yeah at right now you're preparing to get meetings scheduled y yes correct yep okay um well hopefully we can discuss this on the 27th and then uh we'll have you all have dates and we'll have the facil dates and we can come up with and I I and I we need to of course have dates from Pete and and Evan too because I presumably you'll want your cm and your architect there to help answer questions and they could be part of the presentation so a lot of people to coordinate yes and things dates on yeah okay next thing I had was I had a note that the next joint meeting of cities townships and counties would be this winter so I I recall it was going to be there was going to be two a year and the the next would be a winter a winter meeting um I believe that the bcats in February February because I'm going to be gone for it that's why I'm remembering that but um I think it's February 20th is the bcat meeting at Minden this year correct 7:30 um what's your thoughts about asking their bcat board if we could just have a spot on their agenda and kind of do at the same time doesn't include the cities I understand the cities could get invited potentially I'm I don't know thinking out loud I think you're going to have to move it into March or April yeah I think I think moving it would be better because I would move it to April because March is too close the townships are going to like Wile again we were just um you know I think if we run a couple months after after the townships I mean grant that they can come but yeah you know a lot of them said at our last meeting they said these are actually better than their bcat meetings yeah so I don't think taking up a short a short section on their meeting would be good no let's do April but maybe we should look get a little further down the road and then set that but maybe we can let let people know tentative April time frame gu what we usually do is about I don't know a month before we send letters to each town clerk City yeah city clerk M let him know about this meeting we give them we try and give them pretty good advanced notice is it always a Thursday that we do it too you I know we want to avoid obviously we don't want to have the same night of City Council meetings so stay away from Tuesdays and maybe Mondays so yeah they asked and race when we were going to have another one so they're evident looking forward to it all right well we'll bring that one back for you um looking at April okay next is the quarterly Human Services Public Health the first is question do you wish to continue having those the quarterly Human Services and public health Committees of the whole as you know we may we meet up on the third floor conference room and it's devoted exclusively to those two departments you want to continue those yeah I think the attendance is really good from employees have human services or public health indicated if they want it quarterly if they need it quarterly yes I yeah I talking with Sandy yes okay yes yeah I think from my standpoint is we don't need a meeting just to have a meeting right if there's good content let's do it because I think Jacqueline gave a very good update today on what they've been working on I don't think we need to do a 2-hour meeting for another update you know let's if there's if there's things that they're working on that we need to have a call then then let's do it and I would say also that we' try to tie it to another cow day y I mean maybe not a GLT one but so um I I'm wonder if we could at least start with the first one and everything will just kind of flow from there sure so uh when might your first one be I think in the past season have tended to be Mondays they've been on Monday Monday morning like about either 9 or 10: um so 9 N9 Mondays have been the task practice so when might the first one be to kick things for instance I could do February 3rd but I'd have to be at 8:00 because I have an MRC meeting at 10: I don't know if that's an option for the rest of you or not um commissioner pop and I have meetings the following Monday oh yeah I could do February 3rd I think or the 17th 17th presid 17th I can't President Day President's Day yeah okay I'm Gone the 24th so you're gone the 24th is is a couple weeks going to give them enough time time to figure out if they need one well I'm sorry I didn't follow February 3rd the February 3rd one cuz that's only two weeks away two weeks away I I'm sorry I don't know I don't I don't have a good sense of what their topics that they have for you are I'm sure yeah I'm sure knowing it's easy to come up with lots of topics so tely said thir the third the first one would be February 3rd okay at at 8 at least that I don't if you guys want to do that early I have to leave like at 9:45 well always say 8:30 then or 88 8 is fine with me I don't know how that works for employees some of them just barely get to work do 8:30 8:30 okay I'll just leave when I need to okay well that gets us our first one uh can we go ahead and schedule the remaining three sure so um that pushes into April or May May April or [Music] May let's go or what about uh oh my God I got April's a big conference month for me okay do do May then do May yeah May 5th going to go Main in do you want to do it after our board meeting on the 6th uh no okay May 5th would work for me yeah if we do it early in the morning again wait wait a minute when is that that's 29th to the second the week before okay so potentially May 5th May 5th at 8:30 yeah okay and these can still move around just gives them a little bit of a yeah all right so previously we had February 3rd now we're at May 5th okay that's two out of four so maybe August or so okay fourth isn't that the fair think not I think it's um I don't know I haven't seen well let's just Google it and see I don't know you happen to know Beth I'm looking okay Bank County Fair y that would it's the first full week in August isn't it mhm no they'll start in July yeah they might start the 30th did that's what happened last year last time yeah because we crossed up with Sterns yeah they're not worried about Sterns oh usually like right in their in their heading they have the dates right in the in the local County 29th through 3rd 29th third so we could do the four we could do the fourth then okay that's okay with you August 4th one to go 8:30 again 8:30 one to go so that' be like you know November or December November 3dv November 3rd is that hunting or is that for hunters or is that not no I'm going to say that uh beginning of November is never good 17 November 17th I could do okay again at 8:30 all right so am I hearing you say that you you you want to have these if there's meaningful content there's not then we'll cancel it we don't just meet to meet got it all right next is employee forms I heard the board in in the goal setting say you'd like to continue have the employee forms typically those was have been at 8:15 on the day of a board meeting and last year you had three okay yes so when would you like to have your first your first one again on the they have a board meeting at 8:15 why don't we do the February February yeah that's said I was just going to say February 18th okay February 18th so again about 8:15 all right now when's your second one June 17 June 17th June 17th okay and then October 7th okay February 18th June 17th October 7th 8:15 here in the boardroom all right uh moving on uh I understand there was a desire to have some discussion about the Human Services deputy director position could that happen on the 27th yes at the calendar 27th of this month yes sir yep yep after our GLT one yes if commissioner hinden back that's true mon so this is subject this isn't a subject to change I texted him to find me what his schedule is and I haven't heard back from him so want a back up date let's do that yep and this is could be back up dat for GT too right so February 3rd or the 10th not the 17th 17th we could 17 February 17th no that's President's Day President's Day oh yeah I can't do it any I'm G the 24th February is going to be we might have to move into a different day which um we are we do have a call on the 11th how about after the airport Cy yeah uh to do GLT and then Human Services sure here sure and I know if I hadn't told you already that date works for the airport folks it does it does it does right I confirm it with Bill towel what time are they going to be here 8:30 8:30 yes so uh it on there yep so let me say I understand quickly so is the 11th the backup date for GLT and human director otherwise it we confirm it'll be on the 27th the DAT got it need to have commissioner H full board for that I think right so backup date is Feb 11th got it all right um and and let's if we could so I'm sorry not done yet so let's we should put just forgetting to be conservative this this national uh Public Health conference on your committ the whole listing it's April 29th through May 2nd San Antonio we'll get the more specific address it's April 29th through what April 29th through May 2nd Tu the National Public Health Association conference in San Antonio Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday yep yeah Lastly lastly Mr chair is Beth tells me it's time to schedule the the uh years of service recognition we do that twice a year uh before a board meeting um at 7 am. Beth proposes toing here February 18th or March excuse me employee Forums on the 18th February 18th or March 4th February 18th or March 4th so this be recognized folks who have a years of service milestone in the second half of4 I think it has to be March 4th because we've got employee Forums on the 18th y oh we just set those right yeah March 4th forums okay yeah so it's going to be March 4th so 7: a.m. we'll start in the Sheriff's Office and then go from there so March 4th 700 a.m. SE yes sir Sheriff's office. then Highway then here I just grabbed the updated C for oh that was brutal Monty before we approve the cows may I also suggest do what we can do to keep the County board agenda light on February 4th in case we have a lengthy ditch Authority public hearing sure whatever I mean I I guess my request is not to load it up if we don't have to do we do we have any board member potential absences for future board meetings yes maybe the fourth maybe the fourth just kidding Oh no you're not well and the reason why the reason why I ask is because we need to schedule the department head performance evaluation spread over two meetings but I want to make sure all board members are here will all board members be here on the fourth I'm potentially not going to be here on the fourth the fourth potentially and in light of that that then we won't we won't schedule those until then we'll have them February 18th and then March 4th okay we scatter them over those two meetings got it and that Mr chair is it Mr chair I'll move for approval of the presented Committee of the holes can you read those off for me I'm just kidding I'll second all in favor of the motion I I opposed motion to adjourn yep we're adjourned at 11 for e e