--------- all right good morning everybody it's 8:30 we'll call this morning's meeting of the cay County Board of Commissioners to order for Tuesday March 11th our first item is the approval of the agenda and we will note that item number 11 on the agenda will be
cancelled for today I will make a motion to approve the agenda with uh item 11 being canceled second thank you Motion in a second any further discussion any further
discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I oppose the same motion carried citizens to be heard do we have any citizens to be heard in the audience today any citizens to be heard on items
not on the agenda seeing none do any on online we do not Mr chair thank you we will move then to the approval the bills and vouchers I'll make a motion to approve the bills and vouchers second have a
motion in the second any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I OPP the same motion carried approval of minutes from February 25th move for approval of the minutes from February 25th I will second
that we have a motion in the second any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I oppose the same sign motion carried and just to note that uh this morning commissioner krabbenhoft is uh
working with at in Washington DC on behalf of cap LP which is one of his portfolios that he serves on so and uh commissioner Mojo is actually uh taking some well-deserved time with family uh
so we're we're thankful that she does that and we encourage everybody to do that when you get a chance okay so item number two then will be the uh request approval of the 25 Township maintenance agreements and we have Justin with us this morning good
morning Justin good morning yes so the first item I have is for the annual Township maintenance contract rate so this is using 2024 actual costs so they've been calculated and the contract rate was discussed at Highway tracking
and then also Shar with Township officers at the highway department last Thursday so the new proposed rate from July 1st 2025 to June 30th 2026 would be 1,52 per mile now this uses a 5year rolling average on based on
actual costs so this is a $12 increase from last year about 1.1% when we did share it with the township officers there really was no concerns that they had noted um we went through just kind of the averages and one of the big things from 2024 is there
was 2,000 Less hours of snow removal so the actual cost from 24 was less than 23 but the number that came off was $58 less so that therefore that it did go up then I did in your packet kind of
share an overall summary sheet and I do want to thank thank our accountant an she does a really good job this I was gonna stay that that she's she was kind of engaged in conversations with some of the township officers too and I think that was really
good she does a really nice job in that regard all right and so this is the asking Board of approval to set those then you'll send the contracts out and that the townships will be discussing that at their annual meetings tonight right that's correct all right I one
question okay yes for for that price I see later on the agenda you're coming back for motor graders does this price put in replacement of that equipment too so there is so we figure actual motor grader costs which a bunch of different
things go into that both fuel depreciation um so this will affect next year but one major thing that happened in 20124 is we lost a transmission and a blade so also repair costs going actual rate so the actual rate for a motor
grader jumped almost $10 an hour okay and that'll be ref that's reflective in this correct I can give you the actual motor grader sheet if you want it um at a different time yeah is is it is it the amount that goes
into the internal service fund that's calculated in as part of the I would have to I don't know that answer top of my head it's either a depreciation number or it's the internal service number that's calculated in in determining the rate
okay yeah so on 2024 motor greater cost labor Fringe outside labor Towing Parts fuel Insurance depreciation are all figured in yeah so the depreciation would be similar to our yeah yep yeah service yeah yeah internal
service and then the only thing that you know as those things go up I don't know what an calculates in terms of a period of a length of time for depreciation if it's seven years or that's what we have been using yes
because it's last time now we extended we went out eight years and it ended up costing us a lot of money yep yes want a few of like the depreciation on the ones that I'm going to be asking replacement later today for quite a bit less than the other ones
just I'm assuming because of that pushing it out an extra year okay all right well so that's um have a motion I'll make a motion to approve the 2025 2026 Township maintenance contract at $1 1,52 M dollar
a mile for full-time maintenance second have a motion in a second any further discussion any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I oppose the same sign motion carried all right request approval to purchase three
John Deere motor graders yes so this one we've been working on for probably a year and a half this one definitely been a tough one um so I am seeking approval to purchase three motor graders from Rdio equipment and Morehead so this was
discussed at Highway tracking I have attached a summary of the pricing including trades and internal service funds available one thing that you'll notice is we work $34,000 short on our internal service fund so in working with Lori and our
maintenance staff we did kind of identify three pieces of equipment that are not utilized to their full potential or utilized at all and that did have quite a bit of internal service funding in them so unit 153 which is a little motor grader unit 176 which is a little
tractor and unit 2011 which is a roller um the motor grader and the roller have not been used in my time here so it's something that we're not planning to replace so I am going to propose using the internal service fund for those
items which would make it if we did use the internal service fund for those three items we would have an excess of just over 14,000 in internal service and one thing to note I would come back at a later time looking to sell two of those pieces of equipment and then with the
intent on whatever whatever we make on those pieces of equipment go into the next round of motor graders just because we know we're going to be short in I think 2027 is the next round okay so in our Highway tracking
committee we talked about um with the internal service fund being short to 304,000 that we would sell those three pieces of equipment right correct not not at
today's motion but I would come back at a later time looking to sell those okay so how because I don't so if we don't make it as part of today's motion how are we going to have enough funds to pay the I mean we're going to be 304,000 short so we're utilizing the internal
service fund from those three items I see so that so so that's just the internal service fund balance correct and then you'll come back and want to sell those and then you would put that yep towards the next round of I see okay okay I follow yeah so I want to do some
research and actually figure out what a minimum minimum bid is minimum you know asking price would be I don't feel comfortable with that quite yet were those three items still having internal service fund deposits made to those
um I don't believe so but I'd have to double check CU one of well I know the soil compactor for example was purchased in 2009 so I would assume not yeah but the balances we see are just
the internal service fund just the internal service fund balance that that doesn't include anything that we would make on a purchase so the motion would be to purchase those three and then and then also use the internal service fund
internal service fund on the three that were trading plus those other three yep okay and then one also thing if you look at the kind of the spreadsheet that I provided in the packet um on two of the pieces of equipment cat was actually
slightly cheaper than John Deere and working with both our road foreman and our maintenance supervisor we ultimately decided to go with the John Deere or that that's my recommendation one major thing between a John Deere and a cat is a John Deere has a steering wheel um a
lot of our maintenance staff especially the guys that have been there for a long time when you're plowing snow prefer that steering wheel especially when you're hitting drifts because you have something to hold on to and it's as a whole John Deere was cheaper if you look at all three of them
combined but the two were 2,300 and just over five grand cheaper for the cat but I would opposed to go with RDO for all three okay any we question and we would get a seven-year warranty on all those yep so we have a 7ye 8,000 hour warranty
on all three and how close do we get to that 8,000 Mark depends on the operator yeah operator and weather yep do we get close on average the last these ones that were trading off now they went to year eight so one of them's
at like 8,500 hours one's just over seven and one's at just over six so do that does that depend on on their zones that they so one thing we've noticed um kind of the more seasoned guys that have been there for a long time tend to put a
little bit less hours on it they're more efficient in their District um whereas the guys that are newer obviously they're trying to teach themselves we're training them as well the newer employees definitely put more hours on the machines and then obviously if you get a winter
like two Winters ago everybody's putting tons of hours on and I suppose once you get a driver that has machine he doesn't want any other machine but that one no you don't rotate machines between guys no it's kind of that'd be a mess just set up for him inside of
it just from a cost accounting perspective to and guys filling out time cards correctly because they have every hour yeah okay yeah so the the we did have a few cats that had the what the joystick or whatever we currently we have 11 John
deers and two cats the guys that have cats like them and I the current the employees that the current ones are going to I would feel much more comfortable with a steering wheel I would say in the next round we could if the numbers come in like that I
could definitely see us having another cat or two okay so yeah so these um so the three that we're replacing are they all John Deere right now MH yes we're replacing John Deere for John Deere all right let's see for's
wishes uh Mr chair I'll make a motion that uh we approve the purchase of three motor graders from RDL um $337,900 per unit 142 369,486
one1 Cent for unit 147 and 321,000 and $696 one for unit 149 I think I actually made a mistake on that last one so if I look at my spreadsheet I transposed a number so it should be 32
29691 321 9691 y That's What I show on my sorry about that well just on the front page is what you yeah just in the yeah in the back page is right yep yep and that reflected in my
motion I will second that okay we have a motion in the second Mr chair and then uh yeah I I just the motion then should also include transferring the the internal service fund on the three lower on the three bottom ones to um help
offset the cost of those yeah so we're not we're not talking about sale of those items no till later okay just transferring the ISF funds from uh the motor motor grader tractor and compactor as described in the report okay does
that meet with your second yes okay do we need to read those numbers for the record um or just go just total amount would be would be acceptable yeah so the total total internal service fund transfer would be 3188
4450 would go into offsetting the cost of those three Jers all right so any further discussion on that and that did come with the highway tracking committee recommendation to move
forward any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I oppose the same sign motion carried all right thank you concludes your issues all right next we have a
um request request approval to appoint Brad Eldred to a second three-year term on the Planning Commission and we have Matt with us this morning morning Matt good morning Mr chair and Commissioners so at the February
uh Planning Commission meeting the um Planning Commission made a unanimous uh recommendation to the board to appoint Brad Eldred to a second uh term three-year term uh Brad's uh currently brought a lot of
experience wealth of knowledge to the Planning Commission he's been a great asset to Clay County um especially with his experience serving on Holly city council and as vice mayor so uh with that unless there's any questions
um questions I I just think Brad has done a wonderful job on there when when I was sitting on Planning and Zoning I thought he was a great asset on that board so I and I did check with him and he's gungho about serving again soing another
three years so with that I'll make a make a motion to appoint Brad Al to the second year second threeyear term for the Clay County Planning Commission second we have a motion in the second any further discussion seeing none all in favor
signify by saying I iose the same motion carried all right Matt I guess you might as well just stay right there and we're going to go right in and do your annual update sounds good thank you Mr chair uh so yes annual update for uh the
planning and zoning department just going to start high level here um give you our mission statement uh the mission of the Clay County planning office is to promote the public health safety and general welfare of County Citizens through the development implementation and administration of appropriate
planning zoning subdivision regulations which follow the applicable state and federal laws and the Clay County comprehensive plan uh Bolding that public health safety and general welfare of County Citizens because that's kind of the lens through which all um permitting decisions are are
made we also have quite a vision statement this is from our um comprehensive plan and and the vision statement being that Clay County values its existing and Rural agricultural character while ensuring a thoughtful balanced approach to growth and development in the years to come Clay
County is committed to principles of equity inclusion and service by providing quality services and facilities for all citizens and future residents Clay County recognizes the importance of its agricultural natural resources while looking for new opportunities to support economic
Vitality Clay County will promote sound planning principles that Foster economic environmental and community resiliency to ensure that Clay County thrives into 2045 and Beyond so how do we put that into practice uh in in our department our the
main thing we do is planning so our comprehensive plan in our development code um just kind of administering those um making sure that those are up to date implemented followed uh permitting building permits uh land alteration
permits in Shoreland areas uh we also do some administrative permits as well for home occupations and things like that and then uh minor subdivisions we provide uh the staff for the board of adjustment the Board of Commissioners and the Planning Commission also do
investigations and enforcement for um any code violations uh and then our we do flood plan Administration and um implement the Shoreland program as well so in 2024
I'm going to kind of go through kind of our permitting and and looking at at permitting um in 2024 compared to some of the the recent past years so first one being building permits um we had
kind of had a coming down from a high of 210 in uh 2023 and dropped down to 150 so kind of going back to uh the levels that we maybe saw from
like 2015 to 2019 um I'd say a lot of those 150 there's probably a quarter that were after the fact permits so things that have already been built um they may have been built in 2024 or previous
years so uh pretty big drop there um slight drop in uh new housing starts as well um we had a high in 2021 of 43 uh now we're down to about 20 this
year and what that looks like in terms of of development valuation so um our average structure that was permitted the average value is about $100,000 this year um and we looks like we did about
$15 million worth of of new um new construction in in Clay County so that's that is also down down a bit this year from previous years again 2023 was kind of a a a high for the past um past 10
years when when it comes to building permits when do typically do you see a spike when people come into the office to get those is that spring time during the year during the year yeah Springtime I would say and then there's a little bit of a late summer fall Rush too so
depending on how the um the weather is looking if it we're going to have a a warm long fall we might see some some some spike then yep yep I was going to ask what what does it look like for this year but with being the two winter months done that's what I was wondering
when yeah we were probably of issued um close to 50 building permits already this year a lot of those though being the majority of them being after the fact permits yep so they might be
better captured in 20 24 or 2023 yeah yep in terms of other types of development um subdivisions so this would be single lot subdivisions people who are adjusting their boundary their lot lines uh and then plats uh this was kind of a high year for us in terms of
calot subdivisions we did like 66 um and then diff a little different from um previous years is we actually did have three major PL plats that you all heard um two of them being commercial uh and then one being a
residential um subdivision as well that residential subdivision south of Downer and I think of the seven Lots I think they've sold three so far uh in terms of land use Trends uh conditional interim uses uh up a
little bit this year compared to uh 2023 three issuing uh 15 interim use permits and eight conditional use permits uh this year still down from 2021 2022 those years we did see a lot of um in
2021 2022 we saw more um interim use permits for uh gravel pits uh and then also um conditionally used permits for Community solar Gardens in those years as well and those bu
by far have been kind of if you look at at by type um our industrial use permits are are um Far and Away the the most that have been issued um in the past three years we've issued 45 most of
those are are for gravel pits in the past 10 years it's actually the um the line goes right off the page it should be 97 and then essential Services is another big one and that's
um that would be our community solar Gardens mainly and then commercial a lot more commercial storage has been happening as well and we can get even more into the weeds here too so you can see um gravel mines new and expansion
past three years we've permitted 26 uh 59 in the past 10 um asphalt batch plants Community solar Gardens star to see a lot more of those come um online and then uh storage is another
um let me see here yeah warehousing and storage buildings is kind of another Trend that pops up as as the type of uh new development or increased development that we're we're seeing in Clay County in terms of variances and Varian
would be those requests to to vary from the the Clay County development code um up a little bit this year um 17 were approved uh 18 total were heard one was withdrawn actually and not and not denied um so that's that's up just a
just a little bit this year Matt when we when we're looking at the development code and the um when we're reviewing those things we take into consideration when there's a high frequency of variances too and then
we you know if we can we try to adjust those codes to or the U other one development code or the compreh plan don't we try to modify those to maybe adjust that
to I think I remember and commissioner bar can address but it seems to me that there would be variances that would be going to the Planning Commission and more of them would be accepted than denied and it would lot sometimes they're all the same reasoning behind yeah and yeah so didn't so do we do we
see the um maybe those variance requests might drop based on changes that we make yes it's it's very possible so uh I'll give you an example one example that we see a lot of variance request for is for mining operations to occur within a 100
foot setback of a property line um and those are almost always granted um one of the requirements of that specific variance is that you have a uh written agreement with the uh adjoining land owner that they're okay with that
encroachment and so the propos in the in the development code update the proposal is to drop the variance request and just require that that written agreement so we should see a lot of drops there also um for interim use permits and interim
use permits that we see quite a bit is um for a second dwelling on a parcel and our standards now are probably a little bit dated in terms of the requirements for that and so uh the The Proposal in the new development code is to allow for
an accessory dwelling unit that's just permitted by right so we should see a lot um we should see fewer of those types of requests as well I think that's good I you know I sometimes if they're if they're just things that are reoccurring
that are always approved and I think there's probably a lot of time being wasted that other things so y I think it's an efficiency that I think is good yeah I think that's a good indicator of if if you see a lot of variances and
they're all always approved that it's time to update that part of your code so in terms of uh zoning violations those have have continued to um you increase um we have a number of
we're kind of above we I'd say we've probably got close to 100 active um violations but we've also made some progress on resolving uh violations as well we've had a lot more um violations
being referred to our county attorney's office and they've done a fantastic job and picking up the ball um and and and continuing to to carry those towards a a resolution um we go through the Civil
process for those types of violations which can take some time um in in some cases uh but we have been seeing some progress on on some of those right now um that have been in been in um court
so Matt when it comes to those types of things like the violations do we ever compare that with like a similar siiz County are we do we see are we much better or or we average with other counties our size or do don't we ever
look at that we certainly could do that I'd U be happy to reach out to other um counties that are in our um mcpa um district and and see but I just know that anecdotally from going to
conferences and and and things like that that violations have increased um in the past 5 years years uh there's been more of them um there's less of a um maybe willingness to
address them sometimes um and they're just becoming more difficult to to deal with Mr chair if I could I think just a reminder too is several years ago one of the areas that uh they asked Matt to
this board asked Matt to focus on was the violations and so I think that uh you allowed an additional staff member to be hired and I think subsequently you can see uh the work being being done in that fashion and so and again I would just uh uh Echo the collaboration that
we've had as far as the violations there's been uh several of the areas were U quite eyes sours or blights for neighbors for the county uh and so uh appreciate the efforts of that committee yeah and I I I agree with that my you
know the reason why I asked the question is some sometimes if you can I mean we do comparatives with other counties and a lot of other things we do you know and if you can you know maybe in our 2024 chart you know the numbers we have there
are you know are they are they way high are they way low or can we Pat ourselves on the back or does it tell us we have more work to do maybe in um catching things up front you know iut it's just a it's a way to help gauge that's
something we can certainly do and I can follow up with the with the board on on that as well I just all too just want to mention that working with the county attorney's office also work with the county sheriff's department uh and
environmental health as well especially on the nuisance nuisance type violations because those kind of fall within the environmental health realm um and I think we've done a very good job of working more collaboratively to address some of
those all right uh gravel tax so this year um seeing a little bit of a a dip in in the gravel tax uh as well as revenue and then material reported so
2023 um we uh collected 400 a little over about $485,000 this year we're down to $346,000 um you can see a little bit of a a dip there
um and so again this is a a tax that um that is collected when a material leaves a hit and hits a public road
essentially and so we have 42 1.2% going to the county 42.5% going to the township of origin and then 15% uh is into a reserve fund for for Reclamation and so that you know we've looked at that this a little bit closer uh Justin
and and Eric and I and looking at in the auditor's office and figuring out kind of what what might be the accounting for the the um decrease and it just looks like a lot of some of our larger
companies in Clay County that are operating in Clay County are their reporting is not what it was last year um actually some of our smaller companies have seen increases in in their reporting um but it's a lot more of our our larger companies that have
seen seen less maybe it mirrors some of the development slowdown that's been occurring I mean if you look at like our building permits for an example as a comparative point being down there could be some some difference there um and then also just Trends with some of the
larger uh infrastructure projects like the the diversion and things like that um we may have seen some some spikes in in previous years um with with that as well so I don't think it was too long ago there was an awful lot of trucks
that were going to build the Amazon facility that as well yep yep that was a major is that 2018 that would been 20 21 I think or 2020 during or 28 yeah it might have
been 2018 years there was there was also uh a a big like I think in 2020 was the um I'm guessing the uh at the num the Castleton um ethanol plant ethanol plant
too yep there's a lot we had a lot of gravel that was um shipped there as well so so one one question for that on the gravel tax does this board set the gravel tax or is that a State issue on
it's a state state y there's a maximum and minimum that you can collect yep do you know what that is it's based on um I think it's 15 cents a ton and 21.5 cents for a cubic uh yard oh so you can build it cubic yards or a ton yep however it's
reported mhm and the state also dictates the formula for distribution yep actually Clay County was the first County to have a gravel tax oh yeah and now it's in state legisl y
yep all right so 2025 um you know we're coming up on the year two of our um Land Development subdivision ordinance update I hope hoping we're getting to the line here the goal to be to adopt in in April
or May of this year the Planning Commission is going to hear have their hearing on it um their March 18th meeting uh We've submitted the Shoreland and flood plane sections to the DNR um the the DNR does need to to basically
review and approve them to make sure that they're in alignment with our um State Shoreland State flood plane rules um also did have a a attorney review our Administration and procedures chapter as well as our
subdivision chapter because those can be some of the more complicated uh chapters and so I did get the administration and procedures chapter back with some some good feedback and still waiting on that subdivision one um hopefully get that this week
here uh one thing that we want to do as well is um move our permitting application process online and that's just taken a lot of coordination with with other departments um specifically GIS and
Communications auditor's office and the recorder's office uh and trying to get that um those applications online still offering that paper application uh for those who'd want to do that but but but moving that online just to make it easier for for folks and more
convenient and then also once our our development ordinance would be updated maybe looking at a fee schedule up date um uh for our our permitting fees um looking at keeping our base fees the
same but maybe modifying uh fees and penalties for any permit use violations after the fact requests things like that I think we have fairly um low permitting fees a lot of that just
is because we don't enforce the State Building Code um once you get into doing that you're fees can jump quite a bit just to pay for all the the inspections um when you say that the State Building cot is still required it's still
required yes absolutely yep yep yep so and so any licensed contractor knows yes yes yep and when one thing we've that um we've done and I think that Eric and our office has been really good
about is is just making sure that uh developers are aware of different um aspects of the State Building Code that they should really be aware of in terms of what their development with regards to fire um they need sprinklers
for their whatever their type of use might be um and and things like that and also we do if folks have questions um we've developed a pretty good relationship with the Department of Labor and Industry and so we're able to
connect uh developers with specific contacts in in the department of labor in Industry so they can get the information that they need uh with that I just want to thank you all for your support of our department and uh I want to thank Erica
uh and and Rita and uh all the Departments that we we work with on a regular basis um really appreciate um everything and appreciate all of your your support any questions for me at all I just I just have a comment okay so I
came through the planning zoning department through my way to here and I just want to say thank you so much you helped me along the way when I was chairman of planning zone you always came up with the with the most information and made our jobs in Planning and Zoning very simple so thank
you keep up the good work thank you yeah I know it's a tough it's it's a challenging but exciting um kind of role to be to serve on a planning commissioner or a board of adjustment you sometimes have to make tough decisions and I just view my job is is
as providing you all the best uh most accurate and comprehensive uh information possible to help you make your your decisions so I want to Echo commissioner bear with your work and that of yourself and your staff it's um
your team I refer to them as um do an excellent job and I don't get to a lot of Planning Commission meetings but when I am there uh you're well prepared and and that's a that's a credit to your department and that makes everybody else's jobs a lot
easier and I think the uh when the citizens come before you I years ago I would I would hear complaints about planning and zoning department I haven't had one in a long time and that you know I think that says a lot so uh
congratulations to you and your staff and again a very well done update thank you thank you yes Mr just one thing the the uh issues we're dealing with on on the planning for the marijuana
ordinances your preparation on that been great you and Steve presented to AMC and we had so much feedback from other counties about how lucky we were to have the ability to be prepared and one of the first counties in the state to
really come up with with a comprehensive plan before the state did so we're grateful for that too and we've got a little more work to do once we get in the retail end of it but you've always given us the information we need and uh
both of you are are always on the Forefront of what other counties do they're looking to us for leadership so you and your team are responsible for a lot of that and we're grateful well thank you commissioner and I just to piggyback off that also we're starting
to see um resolutions now come in from townships delegating their retail authority to um to the county so starting to see more of those and I'll be sure to to bring that up again at our um spring meeting here with uh KO and
um and also provide um any other information as well as the like a template resolution that they can take with them as well so appreciate that excellent thank you Matt thank you next we have our annual update on
the West Central Regional juvenile center morning Mr chair Commissioners War James all right I'm here today to present my annual update um first start out with the mission statement um West Central
Regional juvenile center is a learning environment where the values of each individual are recognized developed and matured for the betterment of our community um youth at the West Central Regional juvenile center um it's a question that I get asked quite a bit um
you know what what are the youth like um the youth um are it they're hard to categorize um they come from all all different walks of life all different backgrounds um it it's really it's a
mixed bag um but they they are youth um it's a small percentage of our population um they're at of Crossroads in their life um very dangerous Crossroads at times um and they're making critical decisions that need to lead them down a good path or a bad path
and kind of I could talk for days and days on this but um just kind of leave it at um you know every saint has a past and every sinner has a future so kind of moving along um two major programs at the West Central Regional juvenile center there's a secure program and
there's non-secure programs I'll talk about the skure programs in a little bit more depth um in the next slide or two um but the non-secure programs um that's a Clay County specific program um we will take nonclay County Youth um on a
PDM type of thing um but the non-secure program it was originally um developed um for short-term um emergency placements for social services or law enforcement um so the types of law enforcement holds for um the non-secure
would be usually either they got arrested or detained for like a lower level of fence um but they can't find the parents to release them to um so they will leave them with us um until a parent can come get them um Social Services um that would be Child
Protection types of holds um different types of issues um just kind of a catchall for um the the county and different places a safe secure place for people to stay and get whatever Services
they need um currently the adaptation in our non-secure program we've been having a lot of changes is recently and it's basically due to um lack of State resources um lots of issues going on in the state there's very few programs in
Minnesota um example for um Minnesota ranks 50th out of 50 states for ptfs um and availability for Psychiatric Services like that we'll talk about that a little bit Moving on but um our current
non-secure um has developed for Clay County Youth that need those types of services but there aren't any we've been morphing our our services to try to provide the best Services we can for those youth so we've been changing and um doing whatever Social Services needs
us to do and the county um Etc um oh and then I forgot the other part of the non-cure program is our transition programs so basically looking at the Juvenile Center you have secure and non-secure programs secure program has two different kind of program
components in it secure detention and secure residential and then the non-secure has our non-secure programs and our transition programs kind of moveing into the skure programs a little bit um the skure programs operate under a Cooperative service agreement um with the ultimate
Authority with this board um but if you see there along the right column there there is um the 10 other member counties um and it's part of a Cooperative service agreement agement through 2038 um so we got quite a while to go
with that um within the two programs the secure detention program average right around 20 youth a day in that program those are the pre-adjudicated youth um so those are be law enforcement pickups or they're waiting for their court case
to work its way through and and a judge has deemed them not able to be sent home while that Court proceed meetings are are going on um and then our ski residential program um that's um that's a pretty popular program it's very
successful um it's um we average about 20 youth in that program those are the court ordered youth um programming length can vary depending on the case um pretty intense programming it's all individual based and what they need um
and it's pretty popular and unique that's where a lot of our our non-member revenues come from is they're coming for our secure residential program yes yes going back to that how many
can um so the license is combined for our secure so we have availability licens for 55 youth right now um and we have the ability physical space for 65 but we only licensed 55 of those beds um and that goes back to the expansion that
happened um and that was with the member counties they wanted it to last for 20 years because right before 2018 we're starting to turn down our members and that causes huge problems when there isn't a place to place a youth that needs secure placement so part of it was
we're going to expand but we're going to build it for 20 years and this should provide a space for 20 years um and in the meantime we'll be able to um collect some non-member revenues with um with the extra space yep yep and that kind of the
reason for that is I mean we could take more because we do have a waiting list for our non-members but our program won't be that effective and then our staffing level can affect that our our main thing is taking care of our membership and providing solid programming and not just warehousing
youth members automatically always have a bed if I follow up on commissioner B's question so the on the secure residential when we say we average 20 what what is the what is the kind of ceiling that you have that your staff is
able to uh provide those services for is it is it 25 is it 30 I would say about 25 in our in our for a residential um because we can share Services it's kind of unique over there between our our secure residential and our secure
detention um so we talking but but there's more intense programming in this in in the secure residential right definitely and that's what I'm referring to is is that you know that treatment option that's there uh that's also got
to be pretty staff heavy to do or def professional professionals that come in yep and you know to to what level when you say we're licensed to 55 could we potentially have 35 in in Secure residential or would we
have trouble uh with the level of service to provide I believe we would start to have trouble with the level of level and quality of services okay that's that's kind of yeah so
yeah but I I do agree that that secure residential um and the program that we have available there that really you really took control of that and really promoted that yeah that you know I think you know when we look at when we
start looking at James the annual budget that goes through with that and we start seeing you know a million dollars revenues over expenditures it's that program that's doing it even though it's intense and it's costly it still brings in that non
non-member revenue and that is a that's helpful to all member counties yes very helpful to other member counties and the other states that pay you know decent prum to to place it um Dustin Berg runs that
program and he does an amazing job he's got great staff um and it's a blessing so um we're thankful for that kind of moving on um different partners that we have we have morid Area Public Schools is our our biggest partner
um and they can what's unique about that um is all all youth that that come into the juvenile center they're actually going to school at a morid public school um so it falls underneath M Public Schools however the community of Morhead
isn't paying for that that they're able to capture the funds from where that youth came from so if the youth came from um you know Alexandria they're collecting it from Alexandria even um our North Dakota youth they're colle in it from North C you so it's come from West Fargo School District well that
West Fargo School District's paying for that youth um they're able to track and get on all IEPs which is individual education plans which is different federal and state mandates they're excellent at that um those are very comprehensive and and unique and um time
consuming but they're able to track with all of them um the other one next kind of a partner would be Lutheran Social Services and they actually provide us um um with our different therapists um Stephanie froley has been with us for a
long time and she does an excellent job promoting um and advocating for our youth um and that's where a lot of our trauma therapy comes from um and the EMDR and the specialized individual types of uniqueness of Therapy Services
they can provide um Lakeland Mental Health is another huge partner they've been with us for over 20 years um they they provide us with um a slew of services mainly they do our 30-day evaluation in
our non-cure unit um they are very good to us um and very fair um they provide us with great Services Solutions is a relatively newer partner with us they picked up our chemical dependency
um portion of our program um a couple years ago we struggled finding um licens la DCS um which alcohol and drug counselors um but Solutions stepped in and filled that gap for us and that been
pretty nice for us um psychologic um be Dr keeland um she does our uh sex offender programming she oversees that um Oasis um would be Dr Lala and also
known Dr aers they come in that's huge they do our Med management and Adolescent Psychiatric Services um and that's that's very unique and it's it's a it's really a blessing that that um Dr lavala
comes in and do that she'll come into the facility um and that's kind of unheard of a lot of places um and she'll come in after hours um whatever it is and she's very responsive um because the
these types of services are months out so like if I want to get my child into see um um an adolescent psychiatrist um I'd be I'd be on a four-month waiting list um but um at the Juvenile Center um they we can get them seen within a week
or two um so that's it's pretty pretty very nice service um other things significant volunteers we we do accept volunteers um but we we want consistency and we we want there are certain things that have to do but Concordia has been a
great um volunteer base Force they do our mindfulness groups um they they're willing to go through the backgrounds and they're willing to show up weekly um consistently not give up on it um same with um the Youth for Christ has been a
significant partner for us for many years um Staffing um it's kind of in our secure program we have 26 full-time staff and right around 50 variable hour staff which would be like part-time staff
um non-secure we have 15 full-time staff right around 20 variable hour staff our variable hour staff fluctuates goes up and down and then four admin personnel which would be like myself Josh um and DaNell and Ryan um and then we have
three pending um openings for our female Clips program that we we've done the interviews on um we just haven't pulled the trigger on the actual um new hire with benefits yet until that program is going to open which should be open at
the end of the month and next month uh so we'll be able to fill those in um relatively easily um because they're already ready to go um talking about staff turnover again another decent year last year our
numbers continue to go down if you look at 2021 we had 25 turnover of fulltime staff um 20225 2310 and now we're down to N I wrote a little comment in there that two of those nine actually came back and are
working with us full-time right now and another two switched to variable hour so we're excited to see that our our staff are we're retaining our staff a little bit more um but also you know if you do look at it at a different token although
it's going down um we got nine out of our basically you know a little over 40 full-time staff it's about a 20% turnover um within a year and that's still very significant um so we continue to try to try to do what we can to do
that to retain quality staff and um we're working toward that um sometimes overtime is is necessary my overtime budget um it's it's always hard to pin it really depends on what kind of Youth we have and the needs of the youth at
the time um there's a lot of times that youth will need one-on-one care um and these are primar we're getting a lot of Youth due to lack of placement options in the state um that they're highly suicidal there's lots of issues going on and they should be in a hospital but
there's no hospital will take them and um we're doing what we can do with them to keep them safe so kind of count is using our secure program in 2024 um there we have our 11 member counties um in this one just kind of
dipped down I'll show you a graph in a little bit here um but our Our member counties actually made up about 45% of our total population in 2024 and our non-members made up almost 55% um you'll see that in a in a graph coming up here
um total counties using us between Minnesota and North Dakota um I believe 36 of those were Minnesota counties that used us and um then another six North Dakota counties used our secure detention Services um in
2024 um I'll just jump ahead to that graph real quick so we're talking since we're talking that that population I'll skip it going back as you can see um it dips between our Our member and our non-member so when we start talking about that that average of 40 that that we're effective at um that's what we
balance it off we we we go on what our our members needs are and when our members needs drop then we'll start taking non-members um and you can see that um a good thing is our members needs actually dropped a little bit in 2024 um and as you can see as a result
then we started taking more non-member youth um so that's what that kind of twoyear look back looks like all right so the types of services we offer and this is in both secure and non-secure um there's a lot of services
there's a lot of things going on over there um the biggest ones the K through 12 education more Public Schools does we Al also can do um GED programming um which is um very popular um a lot of our
youth just have too few credits are so credit deficient that you know they're 17 18 years old and have three or four credits um and if they come to our secure residential program we got a pretty good shot at getting them through the GED program and getting them a GED
um and that happens very very often um most of our program is based on a cognitive behavioral approach and we have different programs that we follow Fidelity in the different units so like
our decision points there we do that in our secure detention which is our shortterm but then we use thinking for a change in our residential unit um and we'll also use some aggression replacement stuff in there too um and now we got our training for our girls
moving on program is what it's called it's again it's cognitive behavioral based but it's relational based and um that's gender specific programming and that's going to be really going into our our female transition unit right now and dipping into some of our secure
residential youth for our females um we have individual and group counseling religious Services um any and all denominations um chemical dependency um trauma therapy um and the trauma
therapy if that's um the cognitive behavioral trauma therapy tfcbt if that's not working um our therapist can do EMDR um and that's just kind of just different types of things that they're able to deflex when
something isn't working um evaluation Services um sex offender programming um medication management Transitional services mindfulness just kind of a lot going on Bing back into our our non-secure um
traditionally about 50% of our um youth in our non-secure unit are nonclay County Youth um but in 2024 um only about 33% of them are and that was Clay County's youth's needs in our non-security unit grew um and that's
not um because there's more going on in Klay County it's just that there's there's no services in the state of Minnesota and um since it's a Clay County program we're programming Klay County Youth um when when the need is there
um you know we got um our it was designed for a certain purpose again and we've been adapting the last three years hopefully it's just temporary hopefully we can get some stuff Rolling In the state um but um that continues to to be
a work in progress um and then our Clips program has been very successful um and we're starting our female one um so um you know our Clips mail program started
right around well it was part of the vision for the for the expansion um and it's always um it's always basically been full um we average between seven and eight youth um our female program will be starting pretty soon there um we got
some grant funding um when that kicked off too so we've been able to capture right around um you know 3/4 of a million dollar um through 2025 so um we'll see if that Grant renews or not um
and it may or may not um it's it's um a j Grant so um if it does go for Renewal I think we got a pretty decent shot at it um good feeling about that
um so um make some secure data um again data is data um statistics can be very manipulated but I mean you look at about 40% of our youth are out are out when they see a judge the next day usually we
say it within 48 hours it's a 36 hour thing but sometimes weekends and stuff kicking in there that's just the way our our Excel thing kind of works it out for for me but um that's kind of that twoyear look back we looked at that some
more data I have a hard time kind of um categorizing stuff um and the way you want to categorize it but I just kind of want to highlight some things that that's different with our secure data and why youth are insecure is usually there's there's a violent or aggressive
type of of an offense um I broke it down kind of weirdly here but if you look about two-thirds of our youth are are placed with us specifically for harming another person um and that's that's kind
of why I I want I like to highlight that and it's not so much drugs and stuff or other because there are other programs out there that are are more appropriate for um for youth um but um when violence starts getting used that's um when when
our program becomes utilized more uh again age um license all the way down to 10 um again that's very very rare um it should never happen but um unfortunately there are issues that that
do arise um again when they're that young um you know all of them have gone through the courts and stuff like that there's just no other placement for them to go but if you look it is it is a very tiny percent of our population um is
under 12 um starting in August of 2026 um Minnesota has we won't be able to house youth in our security under 13 anymore um and that when you really break that down it's technically closer
to about 5% of our youth that we currently house that we will not be able to house anymore um and we're starting to make our adjustments in with our facility that we can respond to that um there there's nobody's making any moves in other
facilities or in the state um so you know that that's going to be an issue come August of 2026 if um the state doesn't do something about about that provide some funding some way or another due to the law they passed but we'll see
what happens there but if you look at it the Maj majority of our youth are between 15 and 17 years old big line share of them um our female population kind of is still high from historical standpoint
double from historical standpoint but last year we were about 35% um female um and now in 2024 we're about 30 so the population is is remaining high for females and I don't
see that changing um and that's why our our female transition program is is going to be heavily utilized um so that's kind of that and i' would be remiss if I didn't always talk about OD home placement um
and exod home placement got a bad rep um it maybe it was over utilized at one point in time and then it became very underutilized and there's huge issues going back and forth um but there's a whole slew of reasons some some are good
or some are bad but um at at the grand scheme of things sometimes youth need to be placed at a home for their benefit their safety benefit um it's it's just there's a reason places
exist and when they go to one extreme to The Other Extreme um the only one that's really getting hurt is the kids in the community um kind of current and future outlook um current issues mental health placements
um only accept non-aggressive youth um so that can be Troublesome so you know you have your programs that have all your doctors and stuff like that that are on staff um they're just not accepting um aggressive youth so that
leaves youth to end up in Corrections um that could be served somewhere else um there's the stigma that's always going to be there with Juvenile Detention um misunderstanding and I think one of the biggest issues that we've had in the in
the past in the recent past has been experts um call them Juvenile Justice experts and they got the ears of people and I think that's what really pushed Minnesota become like 50th out of 50 um in being able to provide quality
services for for youth basically because they shut down a lot of programs a lot of things closed um and that really in Minnesota that started way back in 2016 you look at what happened in massabi um when all those accusations came out and
none of them flushed out to actually being relevant um but at that point in time Wasabi had had a youth that engaged in um Minnesota State High School league sports um had a very nice program there in the Iron Range and and that got shut
down um issues that continue um ma um was not available for facilities labeled as Correctional institutions so that that puts all the cost right on the county um and fore in Minnesota anyways
changed their definitions and stuff so anybody any facility that's got a detention certification um can't recoup for funds um and we're working on that with our female transition program we're not going that's going to be at a different address so we'll be able to
get that license not as a detention certification so that one we will be able to be qrtp certified and social services will be able to recoup some 40 funds um once we get all that certification done so and if the new U
non-secure building is done the same would apply to everything yes sir that is correct um the good news um the sentiment toward um placements um is becoming more rational um so that's good
um and you know people people at least in Minnesota now realize that they need placements and they're in favor of it but um there's no money for that so that's where we're at with that um other
than that female transition program we're hopefully shooting for an April 1 our our tile people are in there right now but and we're getting the beds and stuff set up but um if you ever have some time swing over and look at it it we REM model it it's it's looking pretty
nice and um we're very excited about it that that's in the family service center correct yep yep it's on the second floor it's the old detox space um so if you're if you ever went through there one old detox spaces in there it looks it's
night and day now it's yeah gave us a little update that it was looks a little different yeah so we're we're excited about that and um very happy and we're on budget with it so all right any questions I have one question going to
the clips program is that just for Clay County Youth um it it it's for all youth um but Clay County Youth have the preference so um so we we heavily screen um so we turn down a lot but Clay County
um if social services or the courts really probation something really need this to happen we'll make it happen for Clay County so that's how you put youth into that program you heavily screen for them and make sure they're they can they can go onto a program like that yes correct
and I and I think that also has a judicial review right most definitely yep every single youth in our program is there under a court order okay in the clips program yep even though even though that's considered part of the non-secure okay Clips is so so that is
you know technically speaking everything in non-secure is just Clay County yeah uh but if as James mentioned in his report or in his update if if he has the availability you know we can bring in
you know his youth from other counties that's at at his discretion yes yes commissioner aringer I just want to do a embarrass shames a little bit here uh we've been up to the capital
talking this uh trying to generate funds for the the uh female uh program that we're about to start I'm the I'm the alternate on this but I've learned so much about what this County does for
kids I didn't realize that all the years I worked as police chief how effective a juvenile system we had it's kind of a well-kept secret except among the correctional people and the the people in the state and you've built yourself a
great reputation for having a a topnotch facility and what we do here in Clay County is an example hopefully we can get it continue and move forward with with getting psychological treatment for kids
here through affiliation with with our our Juvenile Facility but uh I can't say enough about how impressive it is and when we go again to AMC meetings and we have the Public Safety Committee
discussions your facility invariably comes up you've done a great job on this I think people in the state see it I hope we can take that reputation and get more services for kids in here and give this County an opportunity to be the
example on getting psychiatric treatment long-term facilities uh for our kids which we have in some in some categories none we have to go out of state form but uh as an
old spent most my adult life in Arkansas and the pitch they've got when they talk about what services are available for youth they say Arkansas has more than than uh Minnesota and that always kind of hurts my feelings but
it's true and I think Klay County setting a tone and giving an example on what can be done and uh I see nothing but us moving forward under your leadership and you've done a good job James thank
you this happens to be one of my portfolios that I've had for a long time and I've uh I think back when I first started Barry was the um administer director of that department then it was Mr Larson here who was and no offense Steve but uh
James has taken it to another level and you know I think that's that's what we look forward to in all of our departments when we have new directors going in it's it's it's nothing against the previous directors that we always look for that and you've you've done
that and and as commissioner eringer said you know I I talked to about Mark Sloan when Mark was here about how Statewide uh we get these feedbacks on people and almost every one of our directors we hear that about in in all
of our different departments and you're no excep we hear about it a lot and I especially hear about it from our 11 member counties who are very thankful for for what goes on here and and we do I think
we do um set the bar for the entire state in what we do with our youth here in Clay County and credit goes to you and Josh and all of your staff or team um we did kind of luck out with the
expansion stuff happened before I got here and I kind of stepped well yeah as as the the road was already laid right so you know and just going back here just for these board members you know uh and this even goes
back to when when Steve was director there were times and we were wondering how we going to able to keep the fil facility open there were so many things going on and we did not have the programming abilities
um there was times when we'd have a total of what 10 12 kids and that's not a bad thing I I certainly want to say that the most successful program we could have would be an empty building that's correct right but that just doesn't
happen and so the the more we've uh been able to you know when you think boy you're going to add on all these program and these programming you right away you think okay here goes the here goes the cost skyrocketing but
what we have to understand is the revenues that follow it and the investment that others are also willing to make to provide those Services uh we've been able to hold steady on our our daily bed prices for our member counties for what four years
in a row now I think that yeah easily y just been steady with you know so that's it's significant and it's really good and you know and and this idea of moving you know the
hopefully we can be successful in non-secure and I think that'll just take things to another level yet and I and I do want to put a shout out to more at public schools because they do they are a major partner in uh
dealing with our youth in those facilities and they do it without hesitation and they're glad to be there to to help so um another example of how we partner uh as a county and so thank
you and make sure you uh let everybody know over there that we appreciate all the work that's going on we do and thank you guys for your support thank you for everything right thank you uh we were scheduled for break at 9:40 should we just take a quick one and
then okay are you okay with that Corey or all right we'll take a five minute break all right we are back in session here our next item is a request to purchase of a QED gem 5000 gas monitor at the
landfill good morning Corey thank you for having me um our QED gas monitored landfill is approximately 15 years old um it's the second one we've owned in 30 years and we tried to get one more year out of it and when we sent or tried to send it back for uh calibration and
upgrade in the company told us that it was no longer possible so um we had to push up the timeline a little bit we did get two bids um one from Elin and one from QED uh the bids were a little about $1,500 different the Elkin came in a
little cheaper however the QED model is the one that stantech uses who is our consultant and it's the kind we've had so the data will transfer over a little bit better the other issue with the Elin model is it runs off an iPad so when we're out there in 20 blow weather
testing well as the eye paddle frees up so it would instead of taking half a day out there it would take two days to do it because you'd have to keep jumping in other vehicle so my recommendation would be to go with a QED model at a cost of $1 19,34 and I took this to swack last week
and got their approval as well that all yield for questions Mr AER y it uh this sounds like forgone conclusion swack said that it was a good uh good decision so I'll make a motion to approve the purchase of a QED uh gy 5000 gas monitor for solid
waste in amount of 9,345 I'll second that we have a motion in a second any further discussion one question yes the Elkin uses an iPad what does the other one use it's actually right in the machine itself it's a it's self-contained machine and then we take
it to a laptop after the fact and plug it in inside so all the data is stored internally we take it to a laptop and then we transfer it to a laptop all right and coincidentally the laptop we have to use for the old model has to have old software on it as well it has to have Windows 10 so we're running a special laptop just to keep that going
at this point so and we won't have to replace that laptop with this new unit it man back yeah I was going to say noding the it man is time to upgrade a 15-year-old computer all right so we have a motion and a second any further
discussion any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I oppose the same sign motion carried all right Cory we're going to go into your Solid Waste update thank you the solid waste department has a very productive year at both locations
this year uh in 2024 the household hazards waste department processed 9,314 LBS or 49.7 tons of material and we served 1,745 households um the department was able to
distribute 2,656 lbs of usable product out of that hazardous waste to 393 individuals and that does not include the large volume of reuse items that go through our our facility daily um anything we can reuse doesn't go in landfill doesn't cost us
to be disposed of so at the RC we saw an average of 46 private customers per day this totals approximately 12,450 customers over the course of the year which compares to 23 with an average of 50 customers per day um what we're
seeing is people are bringing all their stuff in one trip rather than coming and say oh I could have brought that I'll be back next week so it's a One-Stop shop at this point U we continue to staff the RC according to the trends we see on the usage and are always looking in ways to organize our drop off area to ensure
safety and as well as efficiency um we will be looking this spring at reorganizing the dumpsters and the ReUse area so we can keep the people that are using in the r area out of our way when we're dumping dumpsters and that kind of stuff the recycling at the RSC continues to be a growing area for the department
at the RSC in the Landfield in 2024 we recycled 995 Freon appliances 859 non-free on appliances 70 mattresses and we only started that program in July
3,516 tires 356 rims and 182 tons of metal we also recycled 73.4 four tons of electronics and fluorescent bulbs and 1,195 PBS of batteries and cell phones our Trucking is going very well we currently have five full-time staff
that are CDL licensed and a newer operator will be licensed this spring these drivers can haul either leade or solid waste as long as one as well as one variable hour driver who can all either this ensures that not that we're not storing any Trash any longer than we is necessary and we're reducing the
likelihood of fires as well as keeping our Lee levels in compliance with the mpca the depart the trucking Department in our shortage to perum has been a topic of discussion since I was named director I am proud to say that the issu has been resolved and we are now running a plus or minus value very close to zero
I believe last week we're actually 200 tons over what they'd asked for um in the last year we have delivered every load that they have requested and a couple extras as the need Rose at the Landfield we compacted 47,800 64 tons of material this is
broken down by 35,41 63 tons of Municipal Solid Waste 1,600 1 15651 tons of mixed demo 77689 tons of fines and
bypass 28304 7 tons of Ash and 226.50 3 tons of sawdust we also separate out 6385 yards of demo material which is currently being hauled to the demo landfill on a side note we did swap
6,000 tons of fines with perum so that keeps our our volumes and and stuff in check there I would like to thank the board for the approval approving of the purchase of our new compactor in 2024 the new machine was delivered in September and could not have been come
in a better time our own machine needed several thousand dollars of repair and maintenance which would not be fiscally responsible based on the age of machine the new compactor has a seven-year lifespan with the option to rebuild two times potentially having giving us 21 years of use um I hope this is the last
compactor I have to buy me [Laughter] too uh we have continued to utilize some of the programs the board has approved some of these are as follows Lee delivery to Pelican Rapids we delivered
1, 549,000 gallons in 2024 which is yielded the County Savings of $ 32,5 4580 we have renewed our contract with Pelican for the second year as the program has been beneficial to both
parties we continue to deliver some of our Lee to Fargo as well this allows us to haul larger volumes daily without overwhelming the treatment system and gives us options if issues arrive Arise at either location in total last year we held 1,7
32,500 gallons or 275 loads uh Becker County load sharing has continued to be a good benefit for both counties involved we met with Becker County in July and discussed a couple issues that had come up we were quickly able to work through these matters with the help of Becker County staff as well as commissioner Campbell and
administrator Larsson ensuring the program remains in place and benefits both entities at the end of 202 2024 we had H 95 loads for Becker County and they have held 100 in return We Tred to keep these numbers as balanced as possible to ensure there fair for
everybody Cory I want to stop again that's partnership cooperation and it's something that our directors do well and I I can't say that enough and this is another perfect example of that there was there was a
you know frustration amongst Corey and the monks Becker County on how things were being done sat them down together we didn't work it out they worked it out and now it's working great
for both counties so I just wanted to point that out on-site free on removal started late last year and has continued to be a positive impact on our budget we no longer need to have these items hauled away to be processed and this allows us to retain the reimburse from the reimbursement from the scrap metal it
creates we have two staff on site that can remove the freeon making the units recyclable we are also in the process of certifying our new landfill operator this will give us three people qualified to remove the freon and will limit the number of units we are storing the freon is given to a local company in return
for empty tanks which reduces the cost of disposal we have also been able to help the city of more had removed seven dumpster loads of free on Appliance appliances collected during cleanup last year the program has has created $34,320 positive swing to the solid R budget
this number does not include the reimbursement from the metal we recycle with this program working so well the department will be looking into insulating as well as heating the garage on the west side of the RC building this will allow us to remove free on year round and eliminate the storage of these
appliances all winter the estimated cost to ACC comp this would be $25,000 and will appear on a future budget item the department has seen some turnover in staff in 2024 we lost our landfill manager our Recycling and education coordinator as
well as one of our heavy equipment operators losing three of our most senior staff did create some struggles as well as some very sleepless nights for myself with the support of the board we were able to look at each of these positions as they opened and re-evaluate what was needed I pleased to say that
after reorganization the department was able to replace the three staff that left with four new qualified employees with a very minimal effect on the budget this reorganization eliminated the landfill manager and created a landfill technician position as well as an office clerk by doing this we have we now have
a landfill Tech that can fill in at every position at landfill as well as the RC a dedicated office person at the landfill to ensure consistency in Daily tickets a recycling education coordinator that also covers as needed at the RSC or landfill office and the
young operator who is willing to learn and easy to work with I have received several compliments on each of these hires as a result I feel we are ready for any changes or disruptions in the future uh if you look at this slide that I'm showing now that's how we've reorganized so it has me at the top and
then Ashley um she takes care of everything at the RC she oversees all those people on a daily basis I'm still officed out there but she pretty much handles that and then Julie does the hHw um some of these staff on the bottom line there they they will jump in and
help Julie as needed so we share that staff that way rather than have entire some knew and then at the landfill um I stop out there two three times a week and chat with them those guys and try to uh ensure that everything's going good out there as well as communicating on the phon
so looking forward will be faced with new challenges brought on by new and more strict C and D rules being proposed by the npca these rules will force the department to look at different ways and locations to handle the CN D material Clay County along with several other neighboring entities are researching and
developing a possible Regional plan this plan would be designed to help all involved handle their cndd material as well as following the new guidelines while trying to maintain a lower cost to our taxpayers I feel with the new regulations Clay County will be forced to look at every option for handling
this material including possible depositing in our current landfill the purchase of a grinder a a better way to sort the material for recycling and the regional approach there are no perfect answers to these issues but we are setting ourselves up to at least have options to look at before we are forced
to make a final decision in closing my staff and I would like to thank the board for their support on all of the changes we have implemented and the equipment we need to make these changes happen we try try hard to be as efficient as possible and without your support we canot continue
to adjust as needed to keep the cost as low as possible for our residents and with that I'll answer any questions commissioner abinger we'd be remiss not to include you on the list of directors who have really come through um you know
you've you came in uh during a time of change you've uh been part of of getting the resource recovery uh facility open and running and uh you've been there you've
restructured the staff when it was necessary and uh is commissioner Campbell pointed out you've got Partnerships and you do an admirable job of of just being quietly uh competent at at addressing
the needs so we're grateful for that we're grateful for your team and this is another exam it our job's pretty easy around here I'd like to deflect on that a little bit it's it's not me it's my staff they are phenomenal if I ask a
question they have the answer right now so um um everything we've done that's positive is on them and if it's negative I guess I'll take the blame for that so well we know how you feel one one thing when when we go to swack meetings everybody there loves talking
trash I actually have a cup that says that so what's that I have a mug that says [Laughter] that yeah it's the only department where when you uh get an award from them you receive a a plaque with a trash can on
it Corey job well done and thank you for your update and continue your good work all right next we have a request approval to purchase electronic storage Appliance we have Rory here with us this
morning good morning Rory morning Mr chair morning Commissioners thank you for having me here this morning um so what I'm requesting this morning is a storage Appliance Appliance for our uh backup solution so all of our data that we back
up here at the county currently goes to multiple storage appliances um this one would replace some aging uh appliances and faster more robust um we we still back up to this Appliance a couple
different off-site locations in a cloud location but this would be our primary fastest dump to to get things you know over a weekends currently we're running out of time on the weekends we have so much data that you know it stretches from say Friday
night into Sunday night you know Monday morning so this would help Eliminator reduce that backup window so the we received three quotes on this uh we'd prefer to go with the lowest quote which was uh peer storage
through Marco in Fargo uh came in at $118,600 uh the next closest one was roughly $2,800 more and then the third one was uh $48,000 more and this uh this cost would be covered under our internal
Services Corey these um obviously over the years the amount of storage that we've been doing is just escalated at a rapid Pace right yes correct are so on this one are are we is this taking us into future needs too for a while y they
should give us uh we anticipated the next five years and that would that would be the replacement time frame would be five six year kind of period so try to try to get that much and then we purchase the same amount of warranty and support and maintenance um so the appliance will
come with five years of that too so typically then at that end of that life we'd start you know I'd come back again ask for a replacement product so everything that we do store electronically is that is it mirrored
someplace else too we uh it depends on what it is we we classify all of our data or servers into different tiers you know tier one tier two tier three um tier one being the highest um so that that will replicate um within every couple hours we replicate those servers
to a different location um you know not to get too detailed on it but um yeah then then we have another offsite uh to one of our other facilities and then up to the cloud as well the reason I asked that I
mean any piece of Hardware is subject to yeah something going wrong right yep and our and and our cloud is our last resort archival if you know something did happen where maybe there's a fire in the
building or say a natural disaster that affected our different sites right all at once you know we would still have that last resort I mean the data is older you know two to two to 4 weeks old but you know in a situation like that we that would be
better than nothing yeah okay Mr AB here just out of curiosity is some of the growth result of the additional body Waring cameras were putting out uh they they are on a different storage okay yep so the the new ones they're all cloud-based uh all the gtac storage that
the Sheriff's Office uses the juvenile center uses and the correctional facility they they all have the same brand and that stores it in in a secure Cloud okay good thank you y so that that's not applied same with our um you know our security cameras I think we have roughly 300 security cameras
throughout our our buildings and that data does not get backed up you know per our video retention policy at the county it's seven days worth of video and we keep that seven days but we do not back it up any longer but over over the years we've transitioned for example in our
social services to a lot of stuff that's I think every document now I think is now switched and scanned to electronic and yeah as far as I know yes and that all that would be part of what's on these systems right correct y some of them yep yeah okay one question why not
go to the cloud for everything uh certain regulations say uh criminal justice for example uh they have very strict guidelines like with the Minnesota BCA on what can and can't be on the cloud so that that's why we have different tiers and different classifications of data and where it
goes so it it's kind of a mess with all the different departments and their compliances and the different requirements it's it you know we have some stuff goes here some stuff goes here just based on on those requirements so but ideally the Cloud's great for you know kind of that archive storage or
archive tier storage but in a disaster when you need to recover everything it's going to be slow to to recover whereas Appliance on premise here would be you know with minutes okay minutes versus days so that that's that's a big benefit of having you know kind of that
different approach of different layers of protection okay and you mentioned this coming out of the internal service fund and this is this some I know you may be saying it's a year earlier or something than you anticipated or no no this um that was everything on the
internal Services is um passage life already so we we'd have the full amount in there for that yeah that's right that was C all right what's the board's wishes I'll make a motion to approve the purch of a replacement electronic storage
Appliance from Marco in the amount of 8,617 second we have a motion and a second any further discussion any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I I oppose the same sign motion carried all right you're good to go appreciate
it y thanks Rory all right item number 11 has been delayed to a future meeting so we'll move into our committee reports commissioner bear would you like to start this on March 5th uh the Clay County
collaborative government committee we discussed the lcts funding where we're going to go check to make sure the juvenile correctional workers are listed for the phone calls that's how we collect money for the collaborative we
also discussed the carryover which was h that has been happening with the funds we have about 48 months to spend down the carryover or give it back to the state so we came up with a plan to spend that down over the next four years because you can only every every you can
only be out 48 months before you can have to give it back so we're going to break that down every four years to spend it down and then um we're going to yeah we came up with a plan for that and then uh yeah applications are going out for this
this coming Year's grant money they're going to open March 18th and close April 15th for both the additional fans and for the grants for 2026 and then yesterday we had a
meeting with M with the West Central Regional water district we had a phone call meeting with mdh to give them an update on the water district and that was all my meetings right commissioner
aier right um let's see Tuesday the fourth I had a meeting with Rory Beal and quiner uh they gave me an update on the homeless issues that were uh there's
currently a a regional group getting together to deal with them U on a regional basis and I'm I'm kind of behind the curve on what's what's been happening here in the last six seven months they gave me a great
briefing very in uh Quinn gave me a a real breakdown on what services we've got and what funding is available and what funding we're going to continue to try and maintain so that was a that was a good meeting uh Thursday the
6th uh virtually attended the emergency communication Network legislative committee meeting um a whole lot of the discussion was with the uh federal budget uh issues and the uh forecast on
the uh state of Minnesota's budget we are looking at uh really having a very conservative approach on legislation um a lot of what we're looking at right now is going to be put off to 2026 as
far as requests go they reviewed a few of the uh bills that may impact on us uh one of them is the Brett's law house file 265 basically it requires
that dispatchers identify mental health uh needs and have a protocol to advise the mental Mental Health crisis line if this is a mental health issue and uh they have to have resources available to
send other than law enforcement for people who are having Mental Health crisis it provides civil penalties that are pretty extensive and a lot of the uh training right now is not
available so they're trying to bring the intent of this legislation into the real world and not leave counties exposed to liability and issue the it's with where the resources are either either not available or it's not a
realistic expectation um and then we did uh discuss uh uh some legislation Senate file 1688 and I believe uh representative Killers got uh
a matching U file that has not been put in yet but basically be a search AR for wireless phones that would provide funding for Rural Emergency Medical Services which is grossly underfunded
right now and that would Pro provide a consistent funding source for it uh looking at then yesterday I met with administrator Larson and commissioner Campbell and we just had a
discussion on flood mitigation a and later that day we went out and met with the U Buffalo Red River water district folks to give them an update on some of the projects associated with the uh
diversion Authority the Minnesota projects and our our efforts to get some funding for that also yesterday I attended remotely the uh executive committee for the
EDC I can find my notes on that uh basically it was a discussion on on the U innovate 28 Pro program um discussion about
uh basically division of funds between the chamber and EDC and then we had a couple of budget addendums uh for training for some other activities and that completes my report
all right thank you on um March 4th we had our Highway tracking committee meeting and again we uh we had gone over uh an's work on on the township maintenance agreement and prior to the
meeting with the township officers um later that day um you know we we just wanted to confirm that that everything um followed what had in same as we had in previous
years uh we did have Jason Benson uh come and join us uh we had some diversion Authority project schedule regarding project schedules um as we're aware the diversion Authority was uh hoping that some of the
proposed projects that we have on the Minnesota side uh could be delayed in terms of bid letting uh until the legislative session is over to make sure that all those projects could stay qualified for
funding and you know and I so Jason Benson was here and and Justin are engineer uh talked we talked about a lot of different components of this and and you know I think primarily what came out of
Justin's concern was uh two specific projects so that they wouldn't end up happening within the same time period and that is the Wolverton project and The Comstock project if both of them were to be done at the same time it would
require uh additional detour Touring that could end up having additional 5 miles of detours which um would not go well among some of our residents in that area so um and I'll up I'll get a little
bit more into that when I talk about um the meeting we had last night that commissioner eringer touched on uh then we you know we we had the motor grader issues and then he's he talked about the casa 11 concrete rehab project is bit
the letting schedule is March 18th and same with the casa 34 m in overlay project and the three box culs on March 25th and that was the end of that meeting
then like then at later that day we did attend the meeting with the township officers where Justin did um provide the townships with the new contract amounts and went over it in in detail and did a very nice job and the township officers
really had no questions on that so they were satisfied with where that was on March 6th we had a Mor Clay County Joint poers Authority board meeting MCC jpa which is diversion
related we did receive a prop as always a proper acquisition status report we received a Minnesota litigation action update those are things that are um being handled through the
courts and then then we did have a an exe executive session regarding um purchase of property and settlement negotiations and then we came out of
those um out of that executive session an action was taken that that approved um property negotiations on 11 different Parcels that were agreed
to and based on a negotiated agreements um the MCC jpa did approve that and that is a real Milestone um in that area and there was a lot of work done by uh
diversion team members and also a lot of cooperation from the land owners involved in and we extended our appreciation to all of them for those efforts
um and we also did approve an additional Farmland lease and that was that for that particular meeting on March 6th we also had a solid waste advisory Comm committee
meeting um as we as Corey brought up the land gem gas detector we had discussion about that Corey gave an update on the solid waste landfill a lot of different projects that are going on both at the
transfer station and at the Landfield he gave a very good update on that and uh that was it for that and then um yesterday afternoon um
I met with Steve and commissioner [Music] ebinger basically in discussions about preparing for uh going before the Buffalo red board last night uh to have discussions about um basically what has
[Music] been the the diversion authorities request again for a delay in bid letting on projects on the Minnesota side to allow for uh the funding to have
a chance to be successful once something goes to bid then you know there's the funding is no longer able to be used so um so we did so we did go to the Buffalo red board last night and I want to
commend Steve for um he kind of set the stage gave a lot of background uh we were there to answer any additional questions and you know the again the the significant projects on the
Minnesota side that that you know we talked about was the Georgetown Pro Georgetown uh Levy project um that that one we there was really no concern even from the standpoint of our engineer and to Da
delay with that as a matter of fact there is still I think there's still some design work that's being done with that and there still needs to be the approval through mot so all the you know so that for us to go to bid on that right now is not crucial
um and then then of course then we have the Comstock Lagoon and then we have the um the Comstock Road agreement that we have that goes through from Highway 75 to the
east uh to the outer edges of Comstock city limits that is also um it's within our Five-Year Plan uh but the funding is fully required by the diversion or the state of
Minnesota and then the other uh the other large one and then there's also the Comstock Lagoon and then the other large one that's there uh probably the most costly of all of them is the Wolverton project I believe that one is
at like $16 million 11 was yeah yeah $16 million and and so so in talking with the engineer so last night we had a really good update to them and then
there was some questions and and the Buffalo red Engineers really didn't seem to have a problem with um delaying the bid letting on any of these they weren't quite ready yet with the Wolverton project they had hoped that they could have it done this spring but they are
running into their own problems uh one of them being with the railroad which should be no surprise to anybody that that's that can be complicated and and takes longer than one would think so uh so as we left I think they
you know I mean there was no formal action taken on the part of the Buffalo red but they basically um the board president basically did comment to their Engineers to work with um the diversion
engineers and our County Engineers on on timelines that could work with everybody's needs so so what we got out of that was that they were okay with um the diversions request to delay bid letting on projects that are are um
significant or or basically Under the Umbrella over the Buffalo red Watershed District having said that they also made it clear that you know um that there is a settlement agreement and all of these
projects still will need to be done according to the settlement agreement and and then there's some other M us out there so in short uh that's kind of where that's at so last night I did forward a message uh
to Jason Benson and the diversion Authority board chair Tony grinberg that um and I also included Bernie Dardis who's the finance chair uh as they look at this that um it seems
that there's willingness on the part of the Buffalo red uh in in terms of you know accepting their request to delay bits I did I did put one note in
there that there the one issue remaining that we were uncertain of was the concerns that our engineer had regarding the comto project and as you heard this morning Justin mentioned that he did uh did get
the final two easement signed for that project and one of the landowners one of the questions they said you know they said that that project is going to be done this year and and um Justin did tell him that that was kind of out of his control
but so so we'll have to you know make sure that there's no more hiccups there and that one can CU right now Justin had planned on that going to bid maybe in April so so we'll see
but um I don't know if Steve or Dave if you have anything more to comment on on that but overall I think the buffalo was willing to work with with the diversion Authority on those timelines yeah I think they were um happy that we came in and had
the discussion early in the game and not uh not leave them out of the loop and I obviously there's a real intent on the part of members of this commission to keep them in the loop so we'll continue to do
so Steve do you have anything you want than that nothing else you did a great job explaining how went all right that concludes my report Steve uh last Tuesday participated in Highway tracking which has been well covered I had meeting uh
with Brian Milton that afternoon in series of County issues on the fifth I met with Darren and talked about several of the Departments that he oversees uh on the 6th I participated in the igr uh meeting
dgf School schs is hosting this year and so we met out in uh in Glendon uh we reviewed the intergovernmental Retreat conference uh which was well received uh we talked about some of the legislative impacts that uh would potentially be there for both uh City County
governments and and and school districts uh we talked about the farm to school and also uh truancy challenges at the schools are facing and and have reached out to Quinn uh uh to ask him to come to upcoming meeting to talk about some of
the programming uh things that are happening here at the county um on the sixth we had an mcit administrative group uh we talked through our risk management our compliance uh compliance committee our quarterly assessments uh Safety Committee uh and uh again just
really pleased with the work uh that uh Joe has started with but we also have uh Sarah uh and uh in each department has leaders uh that uh kind of brings all our different risk things together uh areas that we've uh that we've did that
maybe were a little disjointed are now under one uh one group and I think that that's going to be that's been a great thing for the county um they're going to be coming to the board here in in the next few weeks just to kind of provide uh some uh oversight of all the different things that they've been doing
on the sixth I met with commissioner Campbell and commissioner Mojo uh in regards to some flood uh topics on the six participated in the MCC c jpa meeting which has been well covered um also participated in the township uh maintenance contract review
again appreciate Justin and an's uh work uh the uh the seventh participated in a flood mitigation check-in uh with the chamber FM chamber city of moead uh on on the legislative funding
uh requests and then also met with representative Keeler uh in regards to our non non-secure detention on prtf funding we are going to be having some additional counties who are going to be joining uh our our resolution of support here in coming weeks uh and so
we're hoping to have a uh be able to present before the legislature here in the coming weeks about and share the good things that that we have going here um see we uh the seventh also had a flood mitigation meeting uh with MMB do dou
umentation uh and the DNR that was sent in uh as as requested for the funding possibilities on the 10th met with representatives from mdh uh that has been covered in regards to the water district uh and then also the meetings
yesterday in regards to the Buffalo red I would just also want to point out we have a meeting next week our our Township officials meeting will be held at the law enforcement center starting at 8:30 uh and so we'll have several presenters from our from our departments uh providing updates and then just
lastly I think that uh just wanted to to point out from from appreciate uh the recognition that this board has provided not just today uh but at the the updates so uh this year uh and throughout the years uh I think that one of the things that's important is this board holds our
departments and and administration to a high level of accountability having said that uh you also provide them opportunities to do well in what they do uh and so whether uh whether that's training uh commissioner Campbell you and you talked about uh when you when
department heads come before us they're involved whether it's regional uh State associations uh we're we're fortunate to have those leaders and they're able to do that because of your support uh and and so I think the great things that with that support and that uh that
feeling becomes as you have people like Corey who is who's who are working hard to find different ways not that all of our our St aren't doing that but there's that extra incentive because they appreciate appreciate all the support that you give and so I just wanted to make sure I also pointed that out that
concludes my report thank you Darren do you have anything for us today uh very briefly uh on the fifth I met with Corey to discuss some numbers on the concerning the Morehead contract out of this um rrc uh that later that day I met with
Mark uh Sloan and Brian Melton uh referenced the county code we're kind of looking at that trying to update that on the sixth I went to the swack meeting as well which has already been covered um on the 7th I had a meeting with ukg in our transition to prot Talent
implementation so I worked on that also on Friday afternoon and yesterday I worked on some of of the forms of transferring our forms from jop form and seamless stcs over to Civic plus forms and uh looked at uh creating some
testimony for the the paid family medical leave uh which could be given on Thursday I believe so that's concludes my report Jackie do you have anything for us this morning no all right all right
we are adjourned Part: 2
e e e e e e e e e e
e e all right good morning everybody it's 8:30 we'll call this morning's meeting of the click count Board of Commissioners to order for Tuesday March 11th our first item is the approval of the agenda and we will note that item
number 11 on the agenda will be cancelled for today I will make a motion to approve the agenda with uh item 11 being canceled second thank you motion and a second any further
discussion any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I oppose the same motion carried citizens to be heard do we have any citizens to be heard in the audience
today any citizens to be heard on items not on the agenda seeing none do any on online we do not Mr chair thank you we will move then to the approval of bills and vouchers I'll make a motion to approve the bills and vouchers second have a
motion in the second any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I oose the same motion carried approval of minutes from February 25th move for approval of the minutes from February 25th I will second
that we have a motion in the second any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I oppose the same sign motion carried and just a note that uh this morning commissioner krabbenhoft
is uh working with at in Washington DC on behalf of cap LP which is one of his portfolios that he serves on so and uh commissioner Mojo is actually uh taking some well-deserved time with family uh
so we're we're thankful that she does that and we encourage everybody to do that when you get a chance okay so item number two then will be the uh request approval of the 25 Township maintenance agreements and we have Justin with us this morning good
morning Justin good morning yes so the first item I have is for the annual Township maintenance contract rate so so this is using 2024 actual costs so they've been calculated and the contract rate was discussed at Highway tracking
and then also shared with Township officers at the highway department last Thursday so the new proposed rate from July 1st 2025 to June 30th 2026 would be 1,52 per mile now this uses a 5year rolling average on based on
actual costs so this is a $112 increase from last year about 1.1% EV when we did share it with the township officers there really was no concerns that they had noted um we went through just kind of the averages and one of the big
things from 2024 is there was 2,000 Less hours of snow removal so the actual cost from 24 was less than 23 but the number that came off was $58 less so that therefore that it did
go up then I did in your packet kind of share an overall summary sheet and I do want to thank thank our accountant an she does a really good job with this I was going to say that that she's and she was kind of engaged in
conversations with some of the township officers too and I think that was really good she does a really nice job in that regard all right and so this is the asking Board of approval to set those then you'll send the contracts out and that the townships will be discussing
that at their annual meetings tonight right that's correct all right I one question okay yes for for that price I see later on the agenda you're coming back for motor graders MH does this price put in replacement of that
equipment too so there is so we figure actual motor grader costs which a bunch of different things go into that both fuel depreciation um so this will affect next year but one major thing that happened in 2024 is we lost a transmission and a
blade so also repair costs going actual rate so the actual rate for a motor grader jumped almost $10 an hour okay and that'll be ref that's reflective in this correct I can give you the actual motor grader sheet if you want it um at
a different time yeah is is it is it the amount that goes into the internal service fund that's calculated it's part of the I would have to I don't know that answer my head it's either a depreciation number or it's the
internal service number that's calculated in in determining the rate okay yeah so on 2024 motor greater cost labor Fringe outside labor Towing Parts fuel Insurance depreciation are all figured in yeah so
depreciation would be similar to our yeah y yeah service yeah internal service and then the only thing that you know as those things go up I don't know what an calculates in terms of a period of a length of time
for depreciation if it's seven years or that's what we have been using yes because it's last time now we extended we went out eight years and it ended up costing us a lot of money yep yes want a few of like the depreciation on the ones that I'm going to be asking
for replacement later today for quite a bit less than the other ones just I'm assuming because of that pushing it out an extra year okay all right well so that's um you have a motion I'll make a motion
to approve the 2025 2026 town maintenance contract at $1,052 m a mile for full-time maintenance second have a motion in a second any further discussion further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I
oppose the same sign motion carried all right request approval to purchase three John Deere motor graders yes so this one we've been working on for probably a year and a half this one definitely been a tough one um so I am seeking approval to
purchase three motor graders from Rdio equipment and Morehead so this was discussed at Highway tracking I have attached a summary of the pricing including trades and internal service funds available one thing that you'll notice is we work
$34,000 short on our internal service fund so in working with Lori and our maintenance staff we did kind of identify three pieces of equipment that are not UTI to their full potential or utilized at all and that did have quite a bit of internal service funding in
them so unit 153 which is a little motor grader unit 176 which is a little tractor and unit 2011 which is a roller um the motor grader and the roller have not been used in my time here so it's something that we're not planning to
replace so I am going to propose using the internal service fund for those items which would make it if we did use the internal service fund for those three items we would have an excess of just over 14,000 in internal service and then one thing to note I
would come back at a later time looking to sell two of those pieces of equipment and then with the intent on whatever whatever we make on those pieces of equipment go into the next round of motor graders just because we know we're going to be short and I think 2027 is the next
round okay so in our Highway tracking committee we talked about um with the internal service fund being short to 304,000 MH that we would sell those three pieces of equipment right
correct not not at today's motion but I would come back at a later time looking to sell those okay so how because I don't so if we don't make it as part of today's motion how are we going to have enough funds to pay the I mean we're
going to be 304,000 short so we're utilizing the internal service fund from those three items I see so that so so that's just the internal service fund balance correct and then you'll come back and want to sell those and then You' put that yep towards the next round of I see
okay okay I follow know yeah so I want to do some research and actual figure out what a minimum minimum bid is minimum you know asking price would be I don't feel comfortable with that quite yet were those three items still having internal service fund
deposits made to those um I don't believe so but I'd have to double check cuz one of well I know the soil compactor for example was purchased in 2009 so I would assume not
yeah but the balances we see are just the internal service fund just the internal service fund Bal that that doesn't include anything that we would make on a purchase so the motion would be to purchase those three and then and then
also use the internal service fund internal service fund on the three that were trading plus those other three yep okay and then one also thing if you look at the kind of the spreadsheet that I provided in the packet um on two of the
pieces of equipment cat was actually slightly cheaper than John Deere and working with both our road foreman and our maintenance supervisor we ultimately decided to go with the John Deer that's my recommendation one major thing between a John Deere and a cat is a John
Deere has a steering wheel um a lot of our maintenance staff especially the guys that have been there for a long time when you're plowing snow prefer that steering wheel especially when you're hitting drifts because you have something to hold on to and it's as a whole John Deere was cheaper
if you look at all three three of them combined but the two were 2300 and just over five grand cheaper for the cat but I would proposed to go with RDO for all three okay any we question and we would
get a seven-year warranty on all those yep so we have a 7ye 8,000 hour warranty on all three and how close do we get to that 8,000 Mark depends on the operator yeah operator and weather yep we get close on average the last
these ones that were trading off now they went to year 8 so one of them's at like 8,500 hours one's just over seven and one's at just over six so do that does that depend on on their zones that they so one thing we've noticed um kind
of the more seasoned guys that have been there for a long time tend to put a little bit less hours on it they're more efficient in their District um um whereas the guys that are newer obviously they're trying to teach themselves we're training them as well the newer employees definitely put more hours on the
machines and then obviously if you get a winter like two Winters ago everybody's putting tons of hours and I suppose once you get a driver that has machine he doesn't want any other machine but that one no you don't rotate machines between guys no it's kind of that'd be a mess
just set up for him inside of it just from a cost accounting perspective too and guys filling out time cards correctly because they have to hour yeah okay yeah so the the we did have a few cats that had the what the joystick or
whatever we currently we have 11 John deers and two cats the guys that have cats like them and I the current the employees that the current ones are going to I would feel much more comfortable with a steering
wheel I would say in the next round we could if the numbers come in like that I could definitely see us having another cat or two okay so yeah so these um so the three that we're replacing are they all John Deere right now mhm yes
we're replacing John Deere for John Deer all right let's see board's wishes I Mr chair I'll make a motion that uh we approve the purchase of three motor graders from RDL
um $337,900 16911 Cent for unit 147 and $321,900 and $696 And1 for unit 149 I think I
actually made a mistake on that last one so if I look at my spreadsheet I transposed a number so it should be 321 9691 321 9691 yep that's what I show on my sorry about that oh it's just on the
front page is what you yeah just in the yeah in the back page is right yep yep and that reflected in my motion I will second that okay we have a motion in a second Mr chair and then U yeah I I just
the motion then should also include transferring the internal service fund on the three lower on the three bottom ones to um help offset the cost of those yes so we're not we're not talking about sale of those items no till later okay
just transferring the ISF funds from uh the motor motor grader tractor and compactor as described in the report okay does that meet with your second yes okay do we need to read those numbers for the
record um or just go just the total amount would be would be acceptable yeah so the total total internal service fund transfer would be 38844 would go into offsetting the cost of
those three Jers all right so any further discussion on that and that did come with the highway tracking committee recommendation to move forward any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I
oppose the same sign motion carried all right thank you concludes your issues all right next we have a um request request approval to appoint Brad Eldred to a second three-year term
on the planning Comm commission and we have Matt with us this morning morning Matt good morning Mr chair and Commissioners so at the February uh Planning Commission meeting the um Planning Commission made a unanimous uh recommendation to the board
to appoint Brad Eldred to a second uh term three-year term uh Brad's uh currently brought a lot of experience wealth of knowledge to the Planning Commission he's been a great asset to County um especially with his
experience serving on Holly city council and as vice mayor so uh with that unless there's any questions um questions I I just think Brad has done a wonderful job on there when when I was sitting on Planning and Zoning I thought
he was a great asset on that board I and I did check with him and he's gungho about serving again soing another three years so with that I'll make a uh make a motion to appoint Brad Eldridge to the second year second three-year
term for the Clay County Planning Commission second we have a motion in the second any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I oppose the same motion carried all right Matt I guess you might
as well just stay right there and we're going to go right in and do your annual update sounds good thank you Mr chair uh so yes annual update for uh the planning and zoning department just going to start high level here um give you our mission statement uh the mission
of the Clay County planning office is to promote the public health safety and general welfare of County Citizens through the development implementation and administration of appropriate planning zoning subdivision regulations which follow the applicable state and federal laws and the Clay County comprehensive plan uh Bolding that
public health safety and general welfare of County Citizens because that's kind of the lens through which all um permitting decision Visions are are made we also have quite a vision statement this is from our um comprehensive plan and the vision
statement being that Clay County values its existing in rural agricultural character while ensuring a thoughtful balanced approach to growth and development in the years to come Clay County is committed to principles of equity inclusion and service by providing quality services and facilities for all citizens and future
residents Clay County recognizes the importance of its agricultural natural resources while looking for new opportunities to support economic Vitality Clay County will promote sound planning principles that Foster economic environmental and Community resiliency to ensure that Clay County thrives into
2045 and Beyond so how do we put that into practice uh in in our department our the main thing we do is planning so our comprehensive plan and our development code um just kind of administering those
um making sure that those are up up to date implemented followed uh permitting building permits uh land alteration permits in Shoreland areas uh we also do some administrative permits as well for home occupations and things like that
and then uh minor subdivisions we provide uh the staff for the board of adjustment the Board of Commissioners and the Planning Commission also do investigations and enforcement for um any code violations uh and then our we
do flood Administration and um implement the Shoreland program as well so in 2024 I'm going to kind of go through kind of our permitting and and looking at at permitting um in 2024 compared to
some of the the recent past years so first one being building permits um we had kind of had coming down from a high of 210 in uh 2023 and dropped down to 150 so kind of going
back to uh the levels that we maybe saw from like 2015 to 2019 um I'd say a lot of those 150 there's probably a quarter that were after the fact permits so things that
have already been built um they may have been built in 2024 or previous years so uh pretty big drop there um um slight drop in uh new housing starts as
well um we had a high in 2021 of 43 uh now we're down to about 20 this year and what that looks like in terms of of development valuation so um our
average structure that was permitted the average value is about $100,000 this year um and we looks like we did about $15 million worth of of new um new construction in in Clay County so that's
that is also down a bit this year from previous years again 2023 was kind of a a a high for the past um past 10 years when when it comes to building permits when do typically do you see a
spike and when people come into the office to get those is that spring during the year right in the year yeah Springtime I would say and then there's a little bit of a late summer fall Rush too so depending on how the um the weather is looking if it we're going to
have a a warm long fall we might see some some some spike then yep yep I was going to ask what what does it look like for this year but with being the two winter months done that's what I was wondering when yeah we were probably have issued um close to 50 building
permits already this year a lot of those though being being the majority of them being after the fact permits yep so they might be better captured in 2024 or 2023 yeah yep in terms of other types of
development um subdivisions so this would be single lot subdivisions people who are adjusting their boundary their lot lines uh and then plats uh this was kind of a high year for us in terms of Calon subdivisions we did like 66
um and then diff a little different from um previous years is we actually did have three major plats that you all heard um two of them being commercial uh and then one being a residential um subdivision as well that residential
subdivision sou of Downer and I think of the seven Lots I think they've sold three so far uh in terms of land use trends uh conditional interim uses uh up a little bit this year compared to uh
2023 issuing uh 15 interim use permits and eight conditional use permits uh this year still down from 2021 2022 those years we did see a lot of um in 2021 2022 we saw more um interim use
permits for uh gravel pits uh and then also um conditionally use permits for Community solar Gardens in those years as well and those by by far have been kind of if you look at at by type um our
industrial use permits are are um Far and Away the the most that have been issued um in the past three years we've issued 45 most of those are are for gravel pits in the past 10 years it's actually the uh um the line goes right
off the page it should be 97 and then essential Services is another big one and that's um that would be our community solar Gardens mainly and then commercial a lot more commercial storage has been happening as
well and we can get even more into the weeds here too so you can see um gravel mines new and expansion past three years we've permitted 26 uh 59 in the past 10 um asphalt batch
plants Community solar Gardens starting to see a lot more of those come um online and then uh storage is another um let me see here yeah warehousing and storage buildings is kind of another Trend that
pops up as as the type of uh new development or increased development that we're we're seeing in Clay County in terms of variances and variances would be those requests to to vary from the the Clay County development code um up a little bit this
year um 17 were approved uh 18 total were heard one was withdrawn actually and not and not denied um so that's that's up just a just a little bit this year Matt when we when we looking at at the development code and the
um when we're reviewing those things we take into consideration when there's a high frequency of variances too and then we you know if we can we try to adjust those codes to or the U the other one development code or the
comprehensive plan don't we try to modify those to maybe adjust that to I think I remember and commissioner bar can address but it seems to me that there would be variances that would be going to the Planning Commission and more of them would be accepted than
denied and it would lot sometimes they're all the same reasoning behind yeah and yeah so didn't so do we do we see the um maybe those variance requests might drop based on changes that we make
yes it's it's very possible so uh I'll give you an examp example one example that we see a lot of variance requests for is for mining operations to occur within a 100 foot setback of a property line um and those are almost always
granted um one of the requirements of that specific variance is that you have a uh written agreement with the uh adjoining land owner that they're okay with that encroachment and so the propos in the in the development code update the proposal is to drop the variance
request and just require that that written agreement so we should see a lot of drops there also um for interim use permits and interim use permit that we see quite a bit is um for a second dwelling on a parcel and
our standards now are probably a little bit dated in terms of the requirements for that and so uh the The Proposal in the new development code is to allow for an accessory dwelling unit that's just permitted by right so we should see a
lot um we should see fewer of those types of requests as well I think that's good I you know I sometimes if they're if they're just things that are reoccurring that are always approved then I think there's probably a lot of time being wasted that prod on other things so
y I think it's an efficiency that I think is good yeah I think that's a good indicator of if if you see a lot of variances and they're all always approved that it's time to update that part of your code so in terms of uh zoning violations those
have have continued to um increase um we have a number of we're kind of ab above we I'd say we've probably got close to 100 active um violations but we've also made some
progress on resolving uh a violations as well we've had a lot more um violations being referred to to our county attorney's office and they've done a fantastic job in picking up the ball um and and and continuing to to
carry those towards a a resolution um we go through the Civil process for those types of violations which can take some time um in in some cases uh but we have been
seeing some progress on on some of those right now um that have been in been in um Court so Matt when it comes to those types of things like the violations do we ever compare that with like a similar siiz County are we do we see are we much
better or or we average with other counties our size or do don't we ever look at that we certainly could do that I'd U be happy to reach out to other um counties that are in our um mcpa um district and and see but I just
know that anec totally from going to conferences and and and things like that that violations have increased um in the past five years uh there's been more of them um there's less of a um maybe willingness to
address them sometimes um and they're just becoming more difficult to to deal with Mr chair if if I could I think just a reminder too is several years ago one of the areas that uh they asked Matt to
this board asked Matt to focus on was the violations and so I think that you allowed an additional staff member to be hired and I think subsequently you can see uh The Works being being done in that fashion and so and again I would just uh uh Echo the collaboration that
we've had as far as the violations there's been uh several of the areas were uh quite eyes soures or blights for neighbors for the county uh and so uh I appreciate the efforts of that committee yeah and I I I agree with that my you
know the reason why I asked the question is some sometimes if you can I mean we do comparatives with other counties on a lot of other things we do you know and if you can you know maybe in our 2024 chart you know the numbers we have there
are you know are they are they way high are they way low or can we Pat ourselves on the back or does it tell us we have more work to do maybe and um catching things up front abely it's just a it's a way to
help gauge that's something we can certainly do and I can follow up with the with the board on on that as well I just all too just want to mention that working with the county attorney's office also work with the county
sheriff's department uh and environmental health as well especially on the new nuisance nuisance type violations cuz those kind of fall within the environmental health realm um and I think we've done a very good job of working more collaboratively to address
some of those all right uh gravel tax so this year um seeing a little bit of a a dip in in the gravel tax uh as well as revenue and then material reported so
2023 um we uh collected 400 a little over about 418 a half ,000 this year we're down to $346,000 um you can see a little bit of a a dip there
um and so again this is a a tax that um that is collected when a material leaves a hit and hits a public road
essentially and so we have 42 and a half% going to the county 42 and a half% going to the township of origin and then 15% uh is into a reserve fund for for Reclamation and so that you know we've looked at that this a little bit closer
uh Justin and and Eric and I and looking at in the auditor's office and figuring out kind of what what might be the accounting for the the um decrease and it just looks like a lot of some of our
larger companies in Clay County that are operating in Clay County are their reporting is not what it was last year um actually some of our smaller companies have seen increases in in their reporting um but it's a lot more of our our larger companies that have
seen seen less maybe it mirrors some of the development slowdown that's been occurring I mean if you look at like our building permits for an example as a comparative point being down there could be some some difference there um and then also just Trends with some of the
larger uh infrastructure projects like the the diversion and things like that um we may have seen some some spikes in in previous years um with with that as well so I don't think it was too long ago there was an awful lot of trucks
that were going to build the Amazon facility that as well yep yep that was a major is that 2018 that would been 20 21 I think or 2020 during or 2018 yeah it might have
been 2018 years there was there was also uh a a big like I think in 2020 was the um guessing the uh looking at the numbers the Castleton um ethanol plan ethanol plant
too yep there's a lot we had a lot of gravel that was um shipped there as well so so one one question for that on the gravel tax does this board set the gravel tax or is that a State issue on
it's a state state there's a maximum and minimum that you can collect yep do you know what that is it's based on um think it's 15 cents a ton and 21.5 cents for a cubic uh yard oh so you can cubic yards or a ton yep however it's reported mhm
and the state also dictates the formula for distribution yep actually Clay County was the first County to have a gravel tax no yeah and now it's in state legisl
y all right so 2025 um you know we're coming up on the year two of our um Land Development subdivision ordinance update I hope hoping we're getting to the finish line here the goal to be to adopt
in in April or May of this year the Planning Commission is going to hear have their hearing on it um their March 18th meeting uh We've submitted the Shoreland and flood plane sections to the DNR um the the DNR does need to to
basically review and approve them to make sure that they're in alignment with our um State Shoreland and state flood plane rules um also did have a attorney review our Administration and procedures chapter as well as our
subdivision chapter because those can be some of the more complicated uh chapters and so I did get the administration and procedures chapter back with some some good feedback and still waiting on that subdivision one um hopefully get that this week here uh
one thing that we want to do as well is um move our permitting application process online and that's just taken a lot of coordination with with other departments um specifically GIS and Communications auditor office and the
recorder's office uh and trying to get that uh those applications online still offering that paper application uh for those who'd want to do that but but but moving that online just to make it easier for for folks and more
convenient and then also once our our development ordinance would be updated maybe looking at a fee schedule update um uh for our our permitting fees um looking at keeping our base fees the
same but maybe modifying our fees and penalties for any permit use violations after the fact requests things like that I think we have fairly um low permitting fees a lot of that just is
because we don't enforce the State Building Code um once you get into doing that your fees can jump quite a bit just to pay for all the the inspections um when you say that the State Building Cod is still required it's still required
yes absolutely yep yep okay yep so and so any licensed contractor knows yes yes yep and well one thing we've that um we've done and I think that Eric and our
office has been really good about is is just making sure that uh developers are aware of different um aspects of the State Building Code that they should really be aware of in terms of what their development with regards to fire um they need sprinklers
for their whatever their type of use might be um and and things like that and also we do if folks have questions um we've developed a pretty good relationship with the Department of Labor and Industry and so we're able to
connect uh developers with specific contacts in in the department of labor in Industry so they can get the information that they need uh with that I just want to thank you all for your support of our department and uh I want to thank Erica
uh and and Rita and uh all the Departments that we we work with on a regular basis um really appreciate um everything and appreciate all of your your support any questions for me at all I just I just have a comment okay so I
came through the planning zoning department through my way to here and I just want to say thank you so much you helped me along the way when I was chairman of planning and zon you always came up with the with the most information and made our jobs in Planning and Zoning very simple so thank
you keep up the good work thank you yeah I know it's a tough it's it's a challenging but exciting um kind of role to be to serve on a planning commissioner or a board of adjustment you sometimes have to make tough decisions and I just view my job as is
as providing you all the best uh most accurate and comprehensive uh information possible to help you make your your decisions so I want to Echo commissioner bear with your work and that of yourself and your staff it's um
your team I refer to him is um do an excellent job and I don't get to a lot of Planning Commission meetings but when I am there you're well prepared and and that's a that's a credit to your department and that makes everybody else's jobs a lot
easier and I think the uh when the citizens come before you I years ago I would I would hear complaints about planning and zoning department I haven't had had one in a long time and that you know I think that says a lot so uh
congratulations to you and your staff and again a very well done update thank you thank you yes Mr here just one thing the the uh issues we're dealing with on on the planning for the marijuana
ordinances your preparation on that has been great you and Steve presented to AMC and we had so much feedback from other counties about how lucky we were to have the ability to be prepared and one of the first counties in the state
to really come up with with a comprehensive Plan before the state did so we're grateful for that too and we've got a little more work to do once we get in the retail end of it but you've always given us the information we need
and uh both of you are are always on the Forefront of what other counties do they're looking to us for leadership so you and your team are responsible for a lot of that and we're grateful well thank you commissioner and I just to piggyback off that also we're starting
to see um resolutions now come in from townships delegating their retail authority to um to the county so starting to see more of those and I'll be sure to to bring that up again at our um spring meeting here with uh KO and
um and also provide um any other information as well as the like a template resolution that they can take with them as well so appreciate that excellent thank you Matt thank you next we have our annual update on
the West Central Regional juvenile center morning Mr chair Commissioners War James all right I'm here today to present my annual update um first start out with the mission statement um West Central
Regional juvenal Center is a learning environment where the values of each individual are recognized developed and matured for the betterment of our community um youth at the West Central Regional juvenile center um it's a question that I get asked quite a bit um
you know what what are the youth like um the youth um are they're hard to categorize um they come from all all different walks of life all different backgrounds um it it's really it's a
mixed bag um but they they are youth um it's a small percentage of our population um they're at of Crossroads in their life um very dangerous Crossroads that time um and they're making critical decisions that need to lead them down a good path
or a bad path and kind of I could talk for days and days on this but um just kind of leave it at um you know every saint has a past and every CER has a future so kind of moving along um two major programs at the West Central Regional juvenile center there's a
secure program and there's non skar programs I'll talk about the skar programs in a little bit more depth um and then next slide or two um but the non-secure programs um that's a Clay County specific program um we will take
non-clay County Youth um on a perdm type of thing um but the non-secure program it was originally um developed um for short-term um emergency placements for social services or law enforcement um so
the types of law enforcement holds for um the non-secure would be usually either they got arrested or detained for like a lower level offense um but they can't find the parents to release them to um so they will leave them with us um until a parent can come get them um
Social Services um that would be Child Protection types of holds um different types of issues um just kind of a catchall for um the the county and different places that safe secure place for people to stay and get whatever
Services they need um currently the adaptation in our non-secure program we've been having a lot of changes recently and it's basically due to um lack of State resources um lots of issues going on in the state there's
very few programs in Minnesota um example for um Minnesota ranks 50th out of 50 states for ptfs um and availability for Psychiatric Services is like that I'll talk about
that a little bit Moving on but um our current non-secure um has developed for Clay County Youth that need those types of services but there aren't any we've been morphing our our services to try to provide the best Services we can for
those youth so we've been changing and um doing whatever Social Services needs us to do and the county um Etc um oh and then I forgot the other part of the non n secure program is are transition programs so basically looking
at the Juvenile Center you have secure and non-secure programs secure program has two different kind of program components in it secure detention and secure residential and then the non-secure has our non-secure programs and our transition programs kind of moveing into the skure
programs a little bit um the skure programs operate under a Cooperative service agreement um with the ultimate Authority with this board um but if you see there along the right column there there is um the 10 other member counties
um and that's part of a Cooperative service agreement through 2038 um so we got quite a while to go with that um within the two programs the secure detention program average right around 20 youth a day in that program
those are the pre-adjudicated youth um so those are be law enforcement pickups or they're waiting for their court case to work its way through and and a judge has deemed them not able to be sent home while that
Court proceedings are are going on um and then our ski residential program um that's um that's a pretty popular program it's very successful um it's um we average about 20 youth in that program those are at the court ordered
youth um programming length can vary depending on the case um pretty intense programming it's all individual based on what they need um and it's pretty popular and unique that's where a lot of our our non-member revenues come from is
they're coming for our secure residential program question yes yes going back to that how many can um so the license is combined for are secure so we have availability
licens for 55 youth right now uh and we have the ability physical space for 65 but we only licensed 55 of those beds um and that goes back to the expansion that happened um and that was with the member counties they wanted it to last for 20
years because right before 2018 we were starting to turn down our members and that causes huge problems when there isn't a place to place a youth that needs secure placement so part of it was we're going to expand but we're going to build it for 20 years and this should
provide a space for 20 years um and in the meantime we'll be able to um collect some non-member revenues with um with the extra space yep yep and that kind of the reason for that is I mean we could take
more because we do have a waiting list for our non-members but our program won't be that effective and then our staffing level can affect that our our main thing is taking care of our membership and providing solid programming and not just warehousing
youth members automatically always have a bed if I can follow up on commissioner B's question so the on the secure residential when we say we average 20 what what is the what is the kind of ceiling that you have that your staff is
able to uh provide those services for is it is it 25 is it 30 I would say about 25 in our in our for our residential um because we can share Services it's kind of unique over there between our our secure residential and our secure
detention um so we talking but but there's more intense programming in this in in the secure residential right definitely and that's what I'm referring to is is that you know that treatment option that's there uh that's also got
to be pretty staff heavy to do or def professional professional that come in yep and you know to to what level when you say we're licensed to 55 could we potentially have 35 in in Secure
residential or would we have trouble uh with the level of service to provide I believe we would start to have trouble with the level of level and quality of services okay that's that's kind of yeah
so yeah but I I do agree that that secure residential um and the program that we have available there that really you really took control of that and really
promoted that yeah that you know I think you know when we look at when we start looking at James the annual budget that goes through with that and we start seeing you know a million dollars revenues over expenditures it's that program that's
doing it even though it's intense and it's costly it still brings in that non non-member revenue and that is a that's helpful to all member counties yes very helpful to other member counties and the other states
that pay you know decent pum to to place it um Dustin Berg runs that program and he does an amazing job he's got great staff um and it's a blessing so um we're thankful for that
um kind of moving on um different partners that we have we have Mor Area Public Schools is are our biggest partner um and they can what's unique about that um is all all youth that that come into the juvenile center they're
actually going to school at a morid public school um so it falls underneath morid Public Schools however the community of Morhead isn't paying for that that they're able to capture the funds from where that youth came from from so if the youth came from um you know Alexandria they're
collecting it from Alexandria even um our North Dakota youth they're collecting it from North C youth so it's coming from West Fargo School District well that West Fargo school district is paying for that youth um they're able to track and get on all IEPs which is individual education plans which is
different federal and state mandates they're excellent at that um those are very comprehensive and and unique and um time consuming but they're able to track with all of them um the other one our next kind of a partner would be Lutheran
Social Services and they actually provide us um with our different therapists um Stephanie froley has been with us for a long time and she does an excellent job promoting um and advocating for our youth um and that's where a lot of our trauma therapy comes
from um and the EMDR and the specialized individual types of uniqueness of Therapy Services they can provide um Lakeland Mental Health is another huge partner they've been with us for over 20 years um they they
provide us with um a slew of services mainly they do our 30-day evaluation in our non-care unit um they are very good to us um and very fair and they provide us with great Services Solutions is a
relatively newer partner with us they picked up our chemical dependency um portion of our program um a couple years ago we struggled finding um licens LC's um which alcohol and drug counselors um but Solutions stepped in
and filled that gap for us and that was been pretty nice for us um psychologic um be Dr keeland um she does our uh sex offender programming she oversees that um Oasis um would be Dr Lala and also
know Dr aers they come in that's huge they do our Med management and Adolescent Psychiatric Services um and that's that's very unique and it's it's a it's really a blessing that that um Dr lavala
comes in and do that she'll come into the facility um and that's kind of unheard of a lot of places um and she'll come in after hours um whatever it is and she's very responsive um because the
these types of services are months out so like if I want to get my child in to see um um an adolescent psychiatrist um I'd be I'd be on a four-month waiting list um but um at the Juvenile Center um
they we can get them seen within a week or two um so that's it's pretty pretty very nice service um other things significant volunteers we we do accept volunteers um but we we want consistency and we we want there are certain things
that have to do but Concordia has been a great um volunteer base Force they do our mindfulness groups um they they're willing to go through the backgrounds and they're willing to show up weekly um consistently not give up on it um same with um the Youth for Christ has been a
significant partner for us for many years um Staffing um it's kind of in our secure program we have 26 full-time staff and right around 50 variable hour staff which would be like part-time staff um non-secure we have 15 full-time
staff right around 20 variable hour staff our variable hour staff fluctuates goes up and down and then four admin personnel which would be like myself Josh um and DaNell and Ryan um and then we have three pending um openings for
our female Clips program that we we've done the interviews on um we just haven't pulled the trigger on the actual um new hire with Benefits yet until that program is going to open which should be open at the end of the month and next month uh so we'll be able
to fill those in um relatively easily um because they're already ready to go um talking about staff turnover again another decent year last year our numbers continue to go down if you look at 2020 21 we had 25 turnover of
full-time staff um 2022 15 23 10 and now we're down to nine I wrote a little comment in there that two of those nine actually came back and are working with us full-time right now and another two switch to variable hour so we're excited to see that our our staff are we're
retaining our staff a little bit more um but also you know if you do look at it at a different token although it's going down um um we got nine out of our basically you know a little over 40 full-time staff it's about a 20%
turnover um within a year and that's still very significant um so we continue to try to try to do what we can to do that to retain quality staff and um we're working toward that um sometimes
overtime is is necessary my overtime budget um it's it's always hard to pin it really depends on what kind of Youth we have and the needs of the youth at the time um there's a lot of times that youth will need one-on-one care um and these are primarily we're getting a lot
of Youth due to lack of placement options in the state um that they're highly suicidal there's lots of issues going on and they should be in a hospital but there's no hospital will take them and um we're doing what we can do with them to keep them
safe so kind of counties using our secure program in 2024 um there we have our 11 member counties um in this one just kind of dip down I'll show you a graph in a little bit here um but our Our member counties
actually made up about 45% of our total population in 2024 and our non-members made up almost 55% um you'll see that in a in a graph coming up here um total counties using us between Minnesota and North Dakota um I believe 36 of those
were Minnesota counties that used us and um then another six North Dakota counties used our security detention Services um in 2024 um I'll just jump ahead to that graph real quick so we're talking since we're talking that that population I'll
skip it going back as you can see um it dips between our Our member and our non-member so when we start talking about that that average of 40 that that we're effective at um that's what we Balan it off we we we go on what our our members needs are and when our members needs drop then we'll start taking
non-members um and you can see that um a good thing is our members needs actually dropped a little bit in 2024 um and as you can see as a result then we started taking more non-member youth um so that's what that kind of
two-year look back looks like all right so the types of services we offer and this is in both secure and non-secure um there's a lot of services there's a lot of things going on over there um the biggest ones the K through 12 education more Public Schools does we
Al also can do um GED programming um which is um very popular um a lot of our youth just have too few credits are so credit deficient that you know they're 17 18 years old and have three or four credits um and if they come to our
secure residential program we got a pretty good shot at getting them through the GED program and getting them a GED um and that happens very very often um most of our program is based on a cognitive behavioral approach and we
have different programs that we follow with Fidelity in the different units so like our decision points there we do that in our secure detention which is our shortterm but then we use thinking for a change in our residential unit um and we'll also use some aggression
replacement stuff in there too um and now we got our training for our girls moving on program is what it's called it's again it's cognitive behavioral based but it's relational based and um that's gender specific programming and that's going to be really going into our
our female transition unit right now and dipping into some of our secure residential youth for our females um we have individual group counseling religious Services um any and
all denominations um chemical dependency um trauma therapy um and the trauma therapy if that's um the cognitive behavioral trauma therapy tfcbt if that's not working um our
therapist can do EMDR um and that's just kind of just different types of things that they're able to deflex when something isn't working um value ation Services um sex offender programming um medication management Transitional services mindfulness there's kind of a
lot going on Bome back into our our non-secure um traditionally about 50% of our um youth in our non-secure unit are nonclay County Youth um but in
20124 um only about 33% of them are and that was Clay County's Youth needs in our non-security unit grew um and that's not um because there's more going on in Clay County it's just that there's there's no services in the state of Minnesota and um since it's a Klay
County program we're programming Klay County Youth um when when the need is there um you know we got um our was designed for a certain purpose again and we've been adapting the last 3 years hopefully
it's just temporary hopefully they can get some stuff Rolling In the state um but um that continues to to be a work in progress um and then our Clips program has been very successful um and we're
starting our female one um so um you know our Clips mail program started right around well it was part of the vision for the for the expansion um and it's always um it's always basically been
full um we averaged between seven and eight youth um our female program will be starting pretty soon there um we got some grant funding um when that kicked off too so we've been able to capture right around um you know 34s of a
million dollars um through 2025 so um we'll see if that Grant renews or not um and it may or may not um it's it's um a j Grant so um if it does go for Renewal
I think we got a pretty decent shot at it um good feeling about that um so um make some secure data um again
data is data um statistics can be very manipulated but I mean you look at about 40% of our youth are out are out when they see a judge the next day usually say it within 48 hours it's a 36- hour thing but sometimes weekends and stuff kicking in there that's just the way our
our Excel thing kind of works it out for me but um that's kind of that two-year look back we looked at that some more data I have a hard time kind of um categorizing stuff um and the way you want to categorize it but I just kind of
want to highlight some things that that's different with our secure data and why ether in secure is usually there's there's a violent or aggressive type of of an offense um I broke it down kind of weirdly here but if you look about 2third of our youth are are placed
with us specifically for harming another person um and that's that's kind of why I want I like to highlight that and it's not so much drugs and stuff or other because there are other programs out there that are are more appropriate for
um for youth um but um when violence starts getting used that's um when when our program becomes utilized more um again age um license all the way down to 10 um again that's very very
rare um it should never happen but um unfortunately there are issues that that do arise um again when they're that young um you know all of them have gone through the courts and stuff like that there's just no other placement for them
to go but if you look it is it is a very tiny percent of our population um is under 12 um starting in August of 2026 um Minnesota has we won't be able
to house youth in our security under 13 anymore um and that when you really break that down it's technically closer to about 5% of our youth that we currently house that we will not be able to house anymore um um and we're
starting to make our adjustments in with our facility that we can respond to that um there there's nobody's making any moves in other facilities or in the state um so you know that that's going to be an issue
come August of 2026 if um the state doesn't do something about about that provide some funding some way or another due to the law they passed but we'll see what happens there but if you look at it the ma majority of our youth are between
15 and 17 years old big line share of them um our female population kind of is still high from historical standpoint double from a historical standpoint but last year we were about
35% um female um and now in 2024 we're about 30 so the population is is remaining high for females and I don't see that changing um and that's why our our female transition program is is going to be heavily
utilized um so that's kind of that and it would be remiss if I didn't always talk about odd home placement um and exod home placement got a bad rep um
it maybe it was over utilized at one point in time and then it's became very underutilized and there's huge issues going back and forth um but there's a whole slew of reasons some some are good or some are bad but um at at the grand scheme of things sometimes
youth need to be placed at a home for their benefit their safety benefit um it's it's just there's a reason places exist and when they go to one extreme to The Other Extreme um the only one that's
really getting hurt is the kids in the community um kind of current and future outlook um current issues mental health placements um only accept non-aggressive youth um so that can be Troublesome so you know
you have your programs that have all your doctors and stuff like that that are on staff um they're just not accepting um aggressive youth so that leaves youth to end up in Corrections um that could be served somewhere else um
there's the stigma that's always going to be there with Juvenile Detention um misunderstanding and I think one of the biggest issues that we've had in the in the past in the recent past has been experts um they call them themselves Juvenile Justice experts and they got
the ears of people and I think that's what really pushed Minnesota become like 50th out of 50 um in being able to provide quality services for for youth basically because they shut down a lot of programs a lot of things closed um
and that really in Minnesota that started way back in 2016 you look at what happened in mbii um when all those accusations came out and none of them flushed out to actually being relevant um but at that point in time Wasabi had
had a youth that engaged in um Minnesota State High School league sports um had a very nice program there in the iron R and and that got shut down um issues that continue um ma um is not available
for facilities labeled as Correctional institutions so that that puts all the cost right on the county um and fore in Minnesota anyways changed their definitions and stuff so anybody any facility that's got a detention
certification um can't recoup for funds um and we're working on that with our female transition program we're not that's going to be at a different address so we'll be able to get that licens not as a detention certification
so that one we will be able to be qrtp certified and social services will be able to recoup some 40 funds um once we get all that certification done so and if the new U non-secure building is done the same would apply to everything yes
sir that is correct um the good news um the sentiment toward um placements um is becoming more rational um so that's good um and you know people at least in Minnesota now realize that they need
placements and they're in favor of it but um there's no money for that so that's where we're at with that um other than that female transition program we're hopefully shooting for an April 1st our tile people are in there right
now but and we're getting the beds and stuff set up but um if you ever have some time swing over and look at it it we remodeled it it's it's looking pretty nice and um we're very excited about it that that's in the family service center correct
yep yep it's on the second floor it's the old detox space um so if you're if you ever went through there one old deto spaces in there it looks it's night and day now it's yeah gave us a little update that it was looks a little different yeah so we're we're excited
about that and um very happy and we're on budget with it so all right any questions I have one question going to the clips program is that just for Klay County Youth um it it it's for all youth um but Clay County Youth have the
preference so um so we we heavily screen um so we turn down a lot but Clay County um if social services or the courts really probation something really need this to happen we'll make it happen for Klay County so that's how you put youth into
that program you heavily screen for them and make sure they're they can they can go onto a program like that yes correct and I and I think that also has a judicial review right most definitely yep every single youth in our program is there under a court order okay in the
clips program yep even though even though that's considered part of the non-secure okay so so that is you know technically speaking everything in non-secure is just Clay County yeah but if as James
mentioned in his report or in his update if if he has the availability you know we can bring in you know his youth from other counties that's at at his discretion
yes yes commissioner ainger I just want to do a embarrass shames a little bit here uh we've been up to the capital talking this uh trying to generate funds for the the uh
female program that we're about to start I'm the I'm the alternate on this but I've learned so much about what this County does for kids I didn't realize that all the years I worked as police chief how effective a juvenile system we
had it's kind of a well-kept secret except among the correctional people and the the people in the state and you've built yourself a great reputation for having a topnotch facility and what we do here in Clay County is an example
hopefully we can get it continue and move forward with with getting psychological treatment for kids here through affiliation with with our our Juvenile Facility but uh I can't say
enough about how impressive it is and when we go again to AMC meetings and we have the Public Safety Committee discussions your facility invariably comes up you've done a great job on this I think people in the state see it I
hope we can take that reputation and get more services for kids in here and give this County an opportunity to be the example on getting psychiatric treatment long-term facilities uh for our kids which we have in some in some categories
none we have to go out of state for them but uh as an old spent most my adult life in Arkansas and the pitch they've got when they talk about what services are available for youth they say Arkansas
has more than than uh Minnesota and that always kind of hurts my feelings but it's true and and I think Klay County setting a tone and giving an example on what can be done and uh I see nothing but us
moving forward under your leadership and you've done a good job James thank you this happens to be one of my portfolios that I've had for a long time and I've uh I think back when I first started Barry was the
um administer director of that department then it was Mr Larson here who was and no offend Steve but uh James has taken it to another level and you know I think that's that's what we look forward to in all of our departments
when we have new directors going in it's it's it's nothing against the previous directors it's that we always look for that and you've you've done that and and as commissioner eringer said you know I I talked to about Mark loan when Mark was here about how
Statewide uh we get these feedbacks on people and almost every one of our directors we hear that about in in all of our different departments and you're no exception we hear about it a lot and I especially hear about it from our 11
member counties who are very thankful for for what goes on here and and we do I think we do um set the bar for the entire state in what we do with our youth here in Clay County and credit
goes to you you and Josh and all of your staff or team um I did kind of luck out with the expansion stuff happened before I got here and I kind of stepped well yeah as as the the road was already laid right
so you know and just going back here just for these board members you know uh and this even goes back to when when Steve was director there were times and we were wondering how we going to able to keep the fils facility open
there were so many things going on and we did not have the programming abilities um there was times when we'd have a total of what 10 12 kids and that's not a bad thing I I certainly want to say that the most successful
program we could have would be an empty building that's correct right but that just doesn't happen and so the the more we've uh been able to you know when you think boy you're going to add on all these program and these programming you right away you
think okay here goes the here goes the cost skyrocketing but what we have to understand is the revenues that follow it and the investment that others are also willing to make to provide those
Services uh we've been able to hold steady on our our daily bed prices for our member counties for what four years in a row now I think that yeah easily just been steady with you know so that's it's significant and it's really good and you know and
and this idea of moving you know the hopefully we can be successful in non-secure and I think that'll just take things to another level yet and I and I do want to put a shout out to more at public schools because
they do they are a major partner in uh dealing with our youth and those facilities and they do it without hesitation and they're glad to be there to to help so um another example of how we partner uh
as a county and so thank you and make sure you uh let everybody know over there that we appreciate all the work that's going on well do and thank you guys for your support thank you for everything right thank you uh we were scheduled for a break at
9:40 should we just take a quick one and then okay are you okay with that Cory your all right we'll take a five minute break e e e e
e e e all right we are back in session here our next item is a request to purchase of a QED gem 5000 gas monitor at the
landfill good morning Corey thank you for having me um our QED gas monitor landfill is approximately 15 years old um it's the second one we've owned in 30 years and we tried to get one more year out of it and when we sent or tried to send it back for uh calibration and
upgrading the company told us that it was no longer possible so um we had to push up the timeline a little bit we did get two bids um one from Elin and one from QED uh the bids were a little about $1,500 different the Elin came in a
little cheaper however the QED model is the one that stantech uses who is our consultant and it's the kind we've had so the data will transfer over a little bit better the other issue with the Elkin model is it runs off an iPad so when we're out there in 20 blow weather testing well as the eye paddle frees up
so it would instead of taking half a day out there would take two days to do it because you'd have to keep jumping in other vehicle so my recommendation would be to go with the QED model at a cost of $1,345 and I took this to swack last week and got their approval as well so
that all yield for questions Mr AER y it uh this sounds like forone conclusion swack said that it was a good uh good decision so I'll make a motion to approve the purchase of QED uh gy 5000 gas monitor for solid waste
amount of $1 19,34 I'll second that we have a motion in a second any further discussion one question yes the Elkin uses an iPad what does the other one use it's actually right in the machine itself it's a it's self-contained machine and then we take
it to a laptop after the fact and plug it in inside so all the data is stored internally we take it to a laptop and then we transfer it to a laptop all right and coincidentally the laptop we have to use for the old model has to have old software on it as well it has to have Windows 10 so we're running a special laptop just to keep that going
at this point and we won't have to replace that laptop with this new unit it man back yeah I was going to say nodding the it man is upgrade a 15-year-old computer all right so we have a motion in a second any further
discussion any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I oppose the same sign motion carried all right Cory we're going to go into your Solid Waste update thank you the solid waste department has a very productive year at both locations
this year uh in 2024 the household hazard waste department processed 9,314 PB or 49.7 tons of material and we served 1,745 households um the department was able to
distribute 2,656 pounds of usable product out of that hazardous waste to 393 individuals and that does not include the large volume of reuse items that go through our our facility daily um anything we can reuse doesn't go in landfill doesn't
cost us to be disposed of so at the RSC we saw an average of 46 private customers per day this totals approximately 12,450 customers over the course of the year which compares to 23 with an average of 50 customers per day
um what we're seeing is people are bringing all their stuff in one trip rather than coming and say oh I could have brought that I'll be back next week so it's a One-Stop shop at this point uh we continue to staff the RSC according to the trends we see on the usage and are always looking at ways to
organize our drop off area to ensure safety and as well as efficiency um we will be looking this spring at reorganizing the dumpsters and the ReUse area so we can keep the people that are using the reu area out of our way when we're dumping dumpsters and that kind of stuff
the recycling at the RSC continues to be a growing area for the department at the RSC in the landfill in 2024 we recycled 995 Freon appliances 859 non-f Freon appliances 70 mattresses and we only started that program in
July 3516 tires 356 rims and 182 tons of metal we also recycled 73.4 4 tons of electronics and fluorescent bulbs and
1,195 PBS of batteries and cell phones our Trucking is going very well we currently have five full-time staff that are CDL licensed and our new operator will be licensed this spring these drivers can haul either Le shade or solid waste as long as one as well as one variable hour driver who can haul
either this ensures that not that we're not storing any Trash any longer than we is necessary and we're reducing the likelihood of fires as well as keeping our Lee levels in compliance with the mpca the depart the trucking department and our shortage dep perum has been a topic of discussion since I was named
director I am proud to say that the issue has been resolved and we are now running a plus or minus value very close to zero I believe last week we're actually 200 tons over what they'd asked for um in the last year we have delivered every load that they have requested and a couple extras as the
need arose at the Landfield we compacted 47,800 64 tons of material this is broken down by 35,41 63 tons of Municipal Solid Waste
1,600 1 56511 tons of mixed demo 77689 tons of fines and bypass 28347 tons of Ash and 226.50 3 tons of
sawdust we also separate out 6385 yards of demo material which is currently being hauled to the demo landfill on a side note we did swap 6,000 tons of fines with perum so that keeps our our volumes and and stuff in
check there I would like to thank the board for the approval approving of the purchase of our new compactor in 2024 the new machine was delivered in September and could not have been comeing a better time our old machine needed several thousand dollar of repair and maintenance which would not be
fiscally responsible based on the age of machine the new compactor has a seven-year lifespan with the option to rebuild two times potentially having giving us 21 years of use um I hope this is the last compactor I have to buy me too uh we have continued to utilize some
of the programs the board has approved some of these are as follows Lee delivery to Pelican Rapids we delivered 1,549 00 gallons in 2024 which has yielded the County Savings of $ 32,5
4580 we have renewed our contract with Pelican for the second year as the program has been beneficial to both parties we continue to deliver some of our leech to Fargo as well this allows us to haul larger volumes daily without overwhelming the treatment system and gives us options if issues arrive Arise
at either location in total last year we held 1,7 32,500 gall are 275 loads uh Becker County load sharing is continued to be a good benefit for both counties involved we met with Becker County in July and discussed a couple
issues that had come up we were quickly able to work through these matters with the help of Becker County staff as well as commissioner Campbell and administrator Larsson ensuring the program remains in place and benefits both entities at the end of 202 2024 we had helded 95 loads for Becker County
and they have held 100 return we try to keep these numbers as balanced as possible to ensure there're fair for everybody Cory I want to stop again that's partnership cooperation and it's something that our directors do well and I I can't say that
enough and this is another perfect example of that there was there was a you know frustration amongst Corey and amongst Becker County on how things were being done
sat them down together we didn't work it out they worked it out and now it's working great for both counties so I just wanted to point that out on site freon removal started late last year and has continued to be a positive impact on our budget we no
longer need to have these items hauled away to be processed and this allows us us to retain the reimburse from the reimbursement from the scrap metal it creates we have two staff on site that can remove the freom making the units recyclable we are also in the process of certifying our new landfill operator
this will give us three people qualified to remove the freon and will limit the number of units we are storing the freon is given to a local company in return for empty tanks which reduces the cost of disposal we have also been able to help the city of Morhead remove seven dumpster loads of freon Appliance
appliances collected during cleanup last year the program has created $348 25 positive swing to the solid race budget this number does not include the reimbursement from the metal we recycle with this program working so well the department will be looking to insulating
as well as heating the garage on the west side of the RC building this will allow us to remove free on year round and eliminate the storage of these appliances all winter the estimated cost to a comp this will be $25,000 and will appear on a future budget item the department has seen some
turnover in staff in 2024 we lost our landfill manager our recycl and education coordinator as well as one of our heavy equipment operators losing three of our most senior staff did create some struggles as well as some very sleepless nights for myself with the support of the board we were
able to look at each of these positions as they opened and re-evaluate what was needed I pleased to say that after reorganization the department was able to replace the three staff that left with four new qualified employees with a very minimal effect on the budget this reorganization eliminated the landfill
manager and created a landfill technician position as well as an office clerk by doing this we have we now have a landfill Tech that can fill in in every position's landfill as well as the RC a dedicated office person at the landfill to ensure consistency in Daily
tickets a recycling education coordinator that also covers as needed at the RSC or landfill office and the young operator who is willing to learn and easy to work with I have received several compliments on each of these hires as a result I feel we are ready for any changes or disruptions in the
future uh if you look at this slide that I'm showing now it's how we've reorganized so it has me at the top and then Ashley um she takes care of everything at the RC she oversees all those people on a daily basis I'm still officed out there but she pretty much handles that and then Julie does the
hHw um some of these staff on the bottom line there they they will jump in and help Julie as needed so we share that staff that way rather than having to hire somebody new and then at the landfill um I stop out there two three times a week and chat with them those guys and try to uh ensure that
everything's going good out there as well as communicating on the phon so looking forward will be faced with new challenges brought on by new and more strict C andd rules being proposed by the npca these rules will force the department to look at different ways and locations to handle the CN D material
Clay County along with several other neighboring entities are researching and developing a possible Regional plan this plan would be designed trying to help all involved handle their cndd material as well as following the new guidelines while trying to maintain a lower cost to our taxpayers I feel with the new
regulations Clay County will be forced to look at every option for handling this material including possible depositing in our current landfill the purchase of a grinder a way a better way to sort the material for recycling and the regional approach there are no
perfect answers to these issues but we are setting ourselves up to at least have options to look at before we are forced to make a final decision in closing my staff and I would like to thank the board for their support on all of the changes we have implemented and the equipment we need to
make these changes happen we try try hard to be as efficient as possible and without your support we cannot continue to adjust as needed to keep the cost as low as possible for our residents and with that I'll answer any questions commissioner abinger we'd be
remiss not to include you on the list of directors who have really come through U you know you've you came in uh during a time a change you've uh been part of of getting the resource
recovery uh facility open and running and uh you've been there you've restructured the staff when it was necessary and uh as commissioner Campbell pointed out you've got Partnerships and
you do an admirable job of of just being quietly uh competent at at addressing the needs so we're grateful for that we're grateful for your team and this is another exam it our job's pretty easy around here I'd like to deflect on that a
little bit it's it's not me it's my staff they are phenomenal if I ask a question they have the answer right now so um everything we've done that's positive is on them and if it's negative I guess I'll take the blame for that so well we know how you feel one one thing when we when we go to
swack meetings everybody there loves talking trash I actually have a cup that says that so what's that I have a mug that says that yeah that's the only department where when you uh get an award from them
you receive a a plaque with a trash can on it Cory job well done and thank you for your update and continue your good work all right next we have a request approval to purchase electronic storage
Appliance we have Rory here with us this morning good morning Rory morning Mr chair morning Commissioners thank you for having me here this morning um so what I'm requesting this morning is a storage Appliance Appliance for our uh backup
solution so all of our data that we back up here at the county currently goes to multiple storage appliances um this one would replace some aging uh appliances and faster more robust um we we still back up to this Appliance a couple
different off-site locations and a cloud location but this would be our primary fastest dump to get things over a weekends currently we're running out of time on the weekends we have so much data that you know it stretches from say Friday night into Sunday night you know
Monday morning so this would help Eliminator reduce that backup window so the we received three quotes on this uh we'd prefer to go with the lowest quote which was uh peer storage through Marco in Fargo uh came in at
$118,600 more and then the third one was uh $448,000 more and this uh this cost would be covered under our internal Services Corey these um obviously over the years the amount of storage that
we've been doing is just escalated at a rapid Pace right yes correct are so on this one are are we is this taking us into future needs too for a while or Y this should give us uh we anticipated the next five years okay and that would
that would be the replacement time frame would be five six year kind of period so try to try to get that much and then we purchase the same amount of warranty and support and maintenance um so the appliance will come with five years of that too so typically then at that end of that life
we'd start you know I'd come back again ask for a replacement product so everything that we do store electronically is that is it mirrored someplace else too we uh depends on what it is we we classify all of our data or servers into different
tiers you know tier one tier two tier three um tier one being the highest um so that that will replicate um within every couple hours we replicate those servers to a different location um you know not to get too detailed on it but
um yeah then then we have another offsite uh to one of our other facilities and then up to the cloud as well the reason I asked that I mean any piece of Hardware is subject to yeah something going wrong right yep and our
and and our cloud is our last resort archival if you know something did happen where maybe there's a fire in the building or say a natural disaster that affected our different sites right all at once you know we would still have that last resort I mean the data is
older you know two to two to four weeks old but you know in a situation like that we that would be better than nothing yeah okay Mr just out of curiosity is some of the growth
result of the additional body Waring cameras we're putting out uh they they are on a different storage okay yep so the the new ones they're all cloud-based uh all the GTX storage that the Sheriff's Office uses the jenal center uses and the correctional facility they they all have the same brand and that
stores it in a secure Cloud okay good thank you y so that that's not applied same with our uh you know our security cameras I think we have roughly 300 security cameras throughout our our buildings and that data does not get backed up you know per our video retention policy at the county
it's seven days worth of video and we keep that seven days but we do not back it up any longer but over over the years we've transitioned for example in our social services to a lot of stuff that's I think every document now I think is now switched and scanned to electronic
and yeah as far as I know yes that all that would be part of what's on these systems right correct some of them yep yeah okay one question why not go to the cloud for everything uh certain regulations say uh criminal justice for example uh they
have very strict guidelines like with the Minnesota BCA on what can and can't be on the cloud so that that's why we have different tiers and different classifications of data and where it goes so it it's kind of a mess with all the different departments and their compliances and the different requirements it it you know we have some
stuff goes here some stuff goes here just based on on those requirements so but ideally the Cloud's great for you know kind of that archive storage or archive tier storage but in a disaster when you need to recover everything it's going to be slow to to recover whereas
Appliance on premise here would be you know with minutes okay minutes versus days so that that's that's a big benefit of having you know kind of that different approach of different layers of protection okay and you mentioned this coming out of the
internal service fund and this is this some I know you may be saying it's a year earlier or something than you anticipated or no no this um everything on the internal Services is um passage life already so we we'd have the full amount in there for this yeah that's
right that was the guest me all right what's the board's wishes I'll make a motion to approve the purchase of a replacement electronic storage Appliance from Marco in the amount of 8,617 second we have a motion and a
second any further discussion any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I I oppose the same sign motion carried all right you're good to go appreciate it y thanks R all right item number 11 has been
delayed to a future meeting so we'll move into our committee reports commissioner bear would you like to start on March 5th uh the Clay County collaborative governments committee we discussed the lcts funding where we're going to go check to make sure the
juvenile correctional workers are listed for the phone calls that's how we collect money for the collaborative we also discussed the carryover which was H that has been happening with the funds we have about 48 months to spend down
the carryover or give it back to the state so we came up with a plan to spend that down over the next four years cuz you can only every every you can only be out 48 months before you can have to give it back so we're going to break that down every four years to spend it
down and then um we're going to yeah we came up with a plan for that and then uh yeah applications are going out for this coming Year's grant money they're going to open march8 18th and close April 15th for
both the additional fans and for the grants for 2026 and then yesterday we had a meeting with M with the West Central Regional water district we had a phone call meeting with mdh to give them an
update on the water district and that was all my meetings right commissioner aier right um let's see Tuesday the 4th I had a meeting with Rory Beal and
quiner uh they gave me an update on the homeless issues were there's currently a a regional group getting together to deal with them U on a regional basis and I'm I'm
kind of behind the curve on what's what's been happening here in the last six seven months they gave me a great briefing very in Quinn gave me a a real breakdown on what services we've got and what funding is available and what funding we're
going to continue to try and maintain so that was a that was a good meeting uh Thursday the 6th uh virtually attended the emergency communication networks legislative committee meeting
um a whole lot of the discussion was with the uh federal budget uh issues and the uh forecast on the uh state of Minnesota's budget we are looking at uh really having a very
conservative approach on legislation um a lot of what we're looking at right now is going to be put off to 2026 as far as requests go they reviewed a few of the uh bills
that may impact on us uh one of them is the Brett's law house file 265 basically it requires that dispatchers identify mental health uh needs and have a protocol to advise
the mental Mental Health crisis line if this is a mental health issue and uh they have to have resources available to send other than law enforcement for people who are having Mental Health crisis it provides civil
penalties that are pretty extensive and a lot of the uh training right now is not available so they're trying to bring the intent of this legislation into the real world and not leave counties exposed to
liability and issue that's with where the resources are either either not available or it's not realistic expectation um and then we did discuss uh uh some legislation Center
file 1688 and I believe uh representative Killer's got uh a matching U file that has not been put in yet but basically it'd be a search charge for wireless phones that would
provide funding for rural Emergency Medical Services which is grossly underfunded right now and that would Pro provide a consistent funding source for it uh looking at then yesterday I met
with administrator Larson and commissioner Campbell and we just had a discussion on flood mitigation and later that day we went out and met with the uh Buffalo Red River water district
folks to give them an update on some of the projects associated with the uh diversion Authority that Minnesota projects and our our efforts to get some funding for
that also yesterday I attended remotely the uh executive committee for the EDC I can find my notes on that uh basically it was a discussion on on the U innovate 28 Pro
program um discussion about uh basically division of funds between the chamber and EDC and then we had a couple of budget addendums uh for training for some other
activities and that completes my report all right thank you on um March 4th we had our Highway tracking committee meeting and again we uh we had gone over uh an's work on the township
maintenance agreement and prior to the meeting with the township officers um later that day um you know we just wanted to confirm that that everything um followed what had in same as we had
in previous years uh we did have Jason Benson uh come and join us and we had some a diversion Authority project schedule regarding project schedules
um as we're aware the diversion Authority was uh hoping that some of the proposed projects that we have on the Minnesota side uh could be delayed in terms of bid letting um until the legislative session
is over to make sure that all those projects could stay qualified for funding and you know and I so Jason Benson was here and and Justin are engineer uh talked we talked about a lot of different components of this and
and you know I think primarily what came out of Justin's concern was uh two specific projects so that they wouldn't end up happening within the same time period and that is the Wolverton project and the com stck project if both of them
were to be done at the same time it would require uh additional detouring that could end up having additional five miles of detours which um would not go well among some of our residents in that
area so um and I'll up I'll get a little bit more into that when I talk about um the meeting we had last night that commissioner eringer touched on uh then we you know we we had the motor grader issues and then he's he talked about the
casa 11 concrete rehab project is bit the letting schedule is March 18th and same with the casa 34 millon overlay project and the three box culverts on March 25th
and that was into that meeting then like then at later that day we did attend the meeting with the township officers where Justin did um provide the townships with the new contract amounts and went over it in in detail and did a very nice job
and the township officers really had no question questions on that so they were satisfied with where that was on March 6th we had a Mor Clay County Joint Powers Authority board meeting MCC jpa which is diversion
related we did receive a prop as always a property acquisition status report we received a Minnesota litigation action update those are things that are um being handled through the courts
and then then we did have a an exe executive session regarding um purchase of property and settlement negotiations and then we came out of those um out of that executive session
an action was taken that that approved um property negotiations on 11 different Parcels that uh were agreed to and based on a negotiated agreements um the MCC jpa did approve
that and that is a real Milestone um in in that area and there was a lot of work done by uh diversion team members and also a lot of cooperation
from the landowners involved in and we extended our appreciation to all of them for those efforts um and we also did approve an additional Farmland lease and that
was that for that particular meeting on March 6th we also had a solid waste advisory committee meeting um as we as Corey brought up the land gem gas detector we had
discussion about that Corey gave an update on the solid waste landfill a lot of different projects that are going on both at the transfer station and at the Landfield he gave a very good update on that and uh that was it for that and
then um yesterday afternoon um I met with Steve and commissioner ebinger uh basically in discussions about preparing for uh going before the Buffalo red board last night uh to have
discussions about um basically what has been the the diversion authorities request again for a delay in bid letting on projects on the Minnesota
side to allow for uh the funding to have a chance to be successful once something goes to bid then you know there's the funding is no longer able to be used so um so we did so we did go to the Buffalo
red board last night and I want to commend Steve for um he kind of set the stage gave a lot of background um we were there to answer any additional questions and you know the again
the the significant projects on the Minnesota side that that you know we talked about was the Georgetown Pro Georgetown uh Levy project um that that one we there was really no concern even from the
standpoint of our engineer and the daily delay with that as a matter of fact there is still I think there's still some design work that's being done with that and there still needs to be the approval through mot so all the you know so that for us to go a bit on that right
now is not crucial um and then then of course then we have the Comstock Lagoon and then we have the um the Comstock Road agreement that we have
that goes through from Highway 75 to the east uh to the outer edges of Comstock City Limits that is also um it's within our Five-Year Plan uh but the funding is fully required by
the diversion or the state of Minnesota and then the other uh the other large one and then there's also the Comstock Lagoon and then the other large one that's there uh probably the most costly of all of them is the
Wolverton project I believe that one is at like $16 million 11 yeah yeah $16 million and and so so in talking with the engineer so last night we had a
really good update to them and then there was some questions and and the Buffalo red Engineers really didn't seem to have a problem with um delaying the bid letting on any of these they weren't quite ready yet with the Wolverton project they had hoped that they could
have it done this spring but they are running into their own problems uh one of them being with the railroad which should be no surprise to anybody that that's that can be complicated and and takes longer than one would
think so uh so as we left I think there you know I mean there was no formal action taken on the part of the Buffalo red but they basically um the board president basically did comment to their Engineers
to work with um the diversion engineers and our County Engineers on on timelines that could work with everybody's needs so so what we got out of that was that they were okay with um the diversions
request to delay bid letting on projects that are are um significant or or basically Under the Umbrella over the Buffalo red Watershed District having said that they also made
it clear that you know um that there is a settlement agreement and all of these projects still will need to be done according to the settlement agreement and and then there's some other M us out there so in short uh that's kind of where
that's at so last night I did forward a message uh to Jason Benson and the diversion Authority board chair Tony grinberg that um and Al I also included Bernie Daris who's
the finance chair as they look at this that um it seems that there's willingness on the part of the Buffalo red u in in terms of you know accepting their request to
delay bids I did I did put one note in there that there the one issue remaining that we were uncertain of was the concerns that our engineer had regarding the comto
project and as you heard this morning Justin mentioned that he did uh did get the final two easement signed for that project and one of the landowners one of the questions they said you know they said that that project is going to be
done this year and and Justin did tell him that that was kind of out of his control but U so so we'll have to you know make sure that there's no more hiccups there and that one can because right now Justin had
planned on that going to bid maybe in April so so we'll see but um I don't know Steve or Dave if you have anything more to comment on on that but overall I think the Buffalo red was willing to work with with the diversion
Authority on those timelines yeah I think they were um happy that we came in and had the discussion early in the game and not uh not leave them out of the loop and I obviously there's a real
intent on the part of members of this commission to keep them in the loop so we'll continue to do so Steve do you have anything you want to add on that nothing else you did a great job explaining how it went all right that concludes my
report Steve uh last Tuesday participated in Highway tracking which has been well covered I had meeting uh with Brian Milton that afternoon in a series of County issues on the fifth I met with Darren and talked about several of the
Departments that he oversees uh on the sixth I participated in the igr uh meeting dgf schools is hosting this year and so we met out in uh in Glendon uh we reviewed the intergovernmental Retreat conference which was well received we
talked about some of the legislative impacts that would potentially be there for both uh City County governments and and and school districts uh we talked about the farm to school and also uh treny challenges that the schools are
facing and and have reached out to Quinn I uh to ask him to come to an upcoming meeting to talk about some of the programming uh things that are happening here at the county um on the sixth we had an mcit administrative group uh we talked through our risk management our
compliance uh compliance committee our quarterly assessments uh Safety Committee uh and uh again just really pleased with the work uh that uh Joe has started with but we also have Sarah and uh in each department has leaders uh
that uh kind of brings all of our different risk things together uh areas that we've uh that we've did maybe we're a little disjointed are now under one uh one group and I think that that's going to be that's been a great thing for the county um they are going to be coming to
the board here in in the next few weeks just to kind of provide uh some uh oversight of all the different things that they've been doing on the sixth I met with commissioner Campbell and commissioner Mojo uh in regards to some flood uh topics on the sixth participated the MCC jpa meeting which
has been well covered um also partic iated in the township uh maintenance contract review again appreciate Justin and an's uh work uh the uh the seventh par participated in a flood mitigation check-in uh with
the chamber FM chamber at city of Morhead uh on on the legislative funding uh requests and then also met with representative Keeler uh in regards to our non non-secure detention on prtf um
funding we are going to be having some additional counties who are going to be joining uh our our resolution of support here in coming weeks uh and so we're hoping to have a be able to present before the legislature here in the coming weeks about and share the good
things that that we have going here um see we uh the 7th also had a flood mitigation meeting uh with MMB documentation uh and the DNR that was sent in uh as as requested for the funding possibilities
on the 10th met with representatives from mdh uh that has been covered in regards to the water district uh and then uh also the meetings yesterday in regards to the Buffalo red I would just uh also want to point out we have a meeting next week our our Township
officials meeting will be held at the law enforcement center starting at 8:30 uh and so we'll have several presenters from our from our departments uh providing updates uh and then just lastly I think that uh just wanted to to point out from from appreciate the
recognition that this board has provided not just today but at the the updat so uh this year uh and throughout the years uh I think that one of the things that's important is this board holds our departments and and administration uh to a high level of accountability having
said that uh you also provide them opportunities to do well at what they do uh and so whether whether that's training uh commissioner Campbell you and you talked about uh when you when department heads come before us they're involved whether it's regional uh State associations uh we're
we're fortunate to have those leaders and they're able to do that because of your support uh and and so I think the great things that with that support and that uh that feeling becomes as you have people like Corey who is who's who are working hard to find different ways not
that all of ours our staff aren't doing that but there's that extra incentive because they appreciate appreciate all the support that you give and so so I just wanted to make sure I also pointed that out that concludes my report thank you Darren do you have anything for us today uh very briefly uh on the 5ifth I
met with Corey to discuss some numbers on the concerning the Morehead contract out of this um rrc uh that later that day I met with Mark uh Sloan and Brian Melton uh referenced the county code we're kind of looking at that and trying to update that on the 6th I went to the swack
meeting as well which has already been covered um on the 7th I had a meeting with ukg in our transition to prot Talent implementations worked on that also on Friday afternoon and yesterday worked on
some of of the forms of transferring our forms from J form and seamless docs over to Civic plus forms and uh looked at uh creating some testimony for the paid family medical leave uh
which could be given on Thursday I believe so that's concludes my report Jackie do you have anything for us this morning no all right all right we are Jed