--------- all right good morning everybody it's 8:30 we call this morning's meeting of the Board of Commissioners to order for Tuesday March 18th our first item is the approval of the agenda Matt did you uh have a comment at
this time regarding the hearing yes good morning Mr chair and Commissioners I just found out like five minutes before this meeting that there was an issue with the noticing of this hearing so I'm going to request that we pull it from the agenda and rehear it at
a later date so we can properly notice all right regarding number two you're talking regarding number two uh regarding the public hearing with the Red River Valley Co-op power petition for resoning uh and with the um notification issues that that's not even debatable
that no I something that we're going to those of you who might be here for that reason and we apologize that but apparently there was a glitch in in the um advertising or something re mailing yep okay all right so item number two or
835 item will be postponed to future date and that will then be Ren notified to everybody correct all right very good with that I'll make a motion to approve the agenda a second we have a motion in a second to approve the agenda
as amended any any further discussion seeing none all in oh excuse me do we have Jenny uh is commissioner Mojo online not yet not yet okay so uh commissioner Mojo is in St Paul right now um and we're anticipating her to
join us if she does that then uh any votes that we do will need to be um roll call but seeing how she's not on right now we don't not need a roll call in this action so all in favor signify by saying I I ose the same sign motion carried and Jackie will you let me know
if she pops on okay all right all right um boy now we now we don't have bid opening still we can move up the highway department they're sitting in the back oh it's annual yeah yeah let's see if they can come out to UND do that and
Mr chair I I'm on for number 11 if you wanted to move that one up um I could sure oh okay that one all right the chair want to do that but we have we still have the rest of the roll call to finish through approve or the approval
part bills bills vouchers oh sure yeah okay yeah so um I'm going to wait till Jack yeah I'm going to wait till Jackie gets back now so all right so our next item is ciens to be heard there are no citizens in the audience to be heard I'm assuming
there's none online none online all right um and we do have our assistant County Administrator online with us this morning it looks like Karen if you can hear me hopefully yep we hear you thank you all right our next
item is the approval of payments and bills and vouches move for approval payment I will second we have a motion in the second any further discussion any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I
oppose the same sign motion carried item the next item is the approval of minutes from March 4th I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from March 4th 2025 we have a motion second and we have a second any further
discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I I oppose the same sign motion carried okay with the changing of our agenda schedule we are going to move up um
yeah we're g to we can do item five and six right so let's start with item five then Justin you want to come up good morning good morning yeah so the first item I have is requesting approval to advertise for sap
14 5002 so this is a local Road Improvement project so Holly was successful in getting local Road Improvement Grant to um basically basically grade and pave 15th Street that kind of goes by the
cemetery on the west side of Holly um so as we do have to sponsor the project so the proposed letting date would be April 22nd 2025 and I'd open them at the board like I normally
do all right yes commission be are you involved in the engineering of that road then at all or no on a very high level so we just review it to make sure it meets state aid standards I don't actually sign any of plan sheets other than the cover just saying that it
does meet state aid standards do you know if it is a heavy they building that is a heavy Road it's a 10ton road yep that was part of the um when they did apply for local Road Improvement funds that was part of their um Grant application that they were going to make
it a 10-ton road okay all right with that I'll make a motion to approve the advertisement for project on the 15th Avenue Holly sap 04- [Music]
5942 with a letting date of April 22nd 2020 25th isn't it didn't you see 22nd okay I'm sorry I heard you wrong okay all right we have a motion is there a second second 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 we'll move into the 920 item and that is the annual Department update all right so yeah here's my 2024
Highway Department update I always start out kind of my update with what the highway Department's mission statement is so the main objective of the Klay County highway department is the construction and maintenance of County highways and bridges County state aid highways and bridges and Township roads
and bridges the goal of the highway department is to ensure that the roadways and Bridge structures in Clay County are designed according to federal and state guidelines constructed according to contract specifications and properly maintained to ensure the safety
of the traveling public this is the highway Department's organizational chart so first on the top is the County engineer then we have an assistant County engineer and then it's kind of broken into Maintenance Shop engineering and then the office side so
the maintenance Foreman is in charge of 11 motor grader operators the road Foreman is in charge of 11 maintenance workers shop foran has a diesel mechanic that works underneath them we do have five engineering technicians who
are um supervised by the assistant County engineer and then in the summertime depending on construction we have anywhere from two to four um interns we usually try to get either construction management students or civil engineering students out of the local schools we've had really really
good luck with that in our sign Department we do have a sign foreman and then one of the 11 maintenance workers basically from the entire year helps out the sign foran when he's not plowing
roads we do have an office manager and an administrative assistant and then and our Highway accountant works out of the government center any questions on the organizational chart first thing maintenance so kind of
what we do I did keep this picture from last year just to remind everybody that sometimes this was from a few years ago so our maintenance side we have 24 full-time employees we do provide maintenance on All County Gravel and
then 27 town ship gravel roads like last week when I brought the township maintenance contract that incorporates 27 different townships each district averages a little over 130 miles and then kind of some other things that are maintenance
side does is snow plowing obviously this year hasn't been bad at all we do have four ditch mowers we do a top cut right around the 4th of July and then in the fall time we do a full cut and mow everything that we can we do as many Culver replacements in house as we can
do a lot of patching a lot of crack filling and then we do spot gravel when we can as well on the shop side we do have two employees one kind of big thing that happened in 2024 as our longtime shop foreman did retire we were able to
replace that position internally and then we were able to hire a diesel mechanic just a couple months ago um there's two employees shop foreman and D mechanic so we provide Fleet Maintenance for 12 motor graders 13 tandem trucks five tractors two
payloaders 25 pickups and SUVs and multiple other pieces of equipment we do end up doing a lot of Fabrication in house obviously with plowing and snow there's a lot of things that break we try to fix everything that we can um shop also helps out with equipment
purchasing this past year we were able to purchase a new software to help diagnose some troubleshoot breakdowns so on a lot of the older trucks we've had a lot of wiring harness issues and we found that we do have a laptop that we plug in that helps diagnose and show
schematics in 2024 as shown in the slide we were able to purchase two new plow trucks um we do have three Kenworth Trucks now and we' found that since we switched we've had a lot less issues with those and we are really happy with
the purchases on the engineering side we do have five technicians and two to four summertime interns so this group is in charge of everything when it relates to construction inspection so when a Paving job goes on
you will see a guy taking tickets on the side of the road that's normally one of our summertime help there is a binous stet inspector who's usually following the P then we also have somebody in the asphalt plant as well providing testing
um and then Bridge construction they're out there every day so in the summertime the engineering techs definitely get a lot of hours and they're in charge of a lot of different things and Alex and I also go out to the site as much as we can obviously not out there full-time
but during a Paving job Alex is usually out there every day and I try to make it out a few times a week and they're basically in charge of ensuring that everything is done according to plan and spec and and then along with construction inspection the
engineering techs also handle all of the access permits that come in utility permits and then they're also the ones who are working on plan design under the inspection of Alex and I and then our Bridge inspection unit is
comprised of two team leaders and two assistant inspectors in the past we've only had one inspector and a program administrator so in the last 3 years I've taken the course one technician has taken the course and Alex just finished
the course two weeks ago it's a two-e course in the cities that state a actually pays for so this um County's only in charge of R and board so it is a really good deal so kind of what I'm looking in the future to do is to have all of my
technicians certified to inspect Bridges so we'll never have a laps in coverage and never have to go outside for that type of work cuz yeah the course itself is about 2 ,000 bucks if we going to have to register ourselves any questions on the
engineering side of things what one question we you say 335 bridges in the county can you exp I know what I know what a bridge is can you explain for if anybody's watching online to explain what a bridge is y people wouldn't think we actually have 33 so a
box if it's over 10 ft is actually considered a bridge so that 335 bridges that also includes a Township system by State Statute we are required to inspect all Township Bridges so anything greater than a 10- foot span is considered a
bridge diameter width yeah a four a 4 foot Culvert or with I mean the width of it diameter is there
is there so like a 48 in Culvert would not be considered a bridge yeah yep so what where's that line at I'd have to look I don't know the top of my head yeah any other questions on the engineering
side and just kind of as a footnote too we are required by Statute to do that and we don't charge the townships anything um when we do a Township bridge design they are required to pay the first 10,000 in engineering and the first 10,000 in construction the rest the town Bridge fund covers so usually
when we start a Township bridge design Township and make sure they're on board so I don't just slap them with a $20,000 bill the administration side we have one registered engineer one assistant engineer
or and then two front office staff on the front office staff is in charge of moving permits they do a lot of stuff with dust control obviously they take every phone call that comes in and then citizens concerns to our office
manager usually her and I are copied on the citizen concern and then we're usually taking care of that form the same day and then they're also in charge of a lot of different annual permits County graveling and then one thing that we've really been stressing the last few
years is putting out news flashes when different road closures are happening load restrictions all sorts of stuff like that um sign department so we do have one full-time sign foreman and then as I had mentioned one full-time maintenance worker that helps
in this basically all year if he's not plowing and snow we are in charge of the maintenance of 8,329 signs that's just on the county system we do help when we're available if a Township calls and asks us to replace one of their signs if we can fit
it in we definitely do it one thing that we're going to be working on or we have been working on in 2024 and then implementing in 25 is a sign management software to ensure MN mutcd compliance so we are implementing
a new gisb based software program to manage our sign inventory so that's something that we've been working on with Mark and Mandy um we had a program called Simple signs that's pretty outdated and I believe it's $1,500 to
$2,000 a year this GIS program is a one-time fee and then it'll be covered under our the County's ezry license sign Department also provides traffic control for pavement testing and then the use of portable message boards for construction bike
marathon and miscellaneous projects and then they also handle mailbox repair and road closures any questions on the sign Department and one thing of note too we were able to few years ago we came with a sign purchase where we were going to replace
all the blue fire numbers in the county we are done with that that was a four-year process and we're excited to be done with that I don't know off the top of my head a lot though it was a lot um our roadway Network so it's made
up of both Casa which is a county state aid highway so we have 44 miles of Casa 272 being paved and 132 being gravel one kind of thing to note about a casa is there's definitely a different
set of rules in a county road so in order for a CA it's e got to start at a casa or a trunk Highway and end at a casa or a trunk highway so I know in the past we've had townships try to get us to take over different roads and it's
always it has been brought up in the past well can we add it to the C saw system the answer is no mainly because we don't have any miles in the bank and then County Road system so there is 337 miles of County Road 16 of
them being paved and 321 being gravel any question no so a county road we are not eligible to use gas tax dollars on um so County Road can be anywhere from like if you
look up by Georgetown County Road 100 that's a county road so if we do any sort of repair on it that has to come out out of my budget in a separate line item than what we get from the state okay we're we're only allowed to have so many county stated Highway roads which
that's correct Casa is okay there's only so many of yeah there's only um I think the state through menot um is the one who determines how many county stated road miles each County can have and once you reach that limit you don't get any
more unless you do some trading or maybe in a case of maybe a where where a county is really grown yeah real significantly you might be able to get miles added but it's very difficult to do through the needs system
there is each year a few requests for mileage but it's usually swapping for other things in their County like turning back a cassad of the city and then turning something else into a CA what percentage of our of our County
system what percentage are Casa roads do you have that I don't have that but just look you know it's a little over half because 404 miles a casa and 337 of County yeah and and in order to in in order to qualify as a county stated
highway road it needs to it needs to tie in two other yep CAD Road or trk or state or state y or federal yep so yeah and a lot of our County Roads don't
do that yeah so yeah and then for example on the county roads the maintenance and construction usually funded through local dollars and at times wheelage Tax Commission do we have many CA roads that are within a any of the city limits yeah so we have one
right out in front of the courthouse um we have one that ties into Georgetown we have one through Felton one through Ulan one through hdll one in Barnesville one in Dilworth one in Glendon so basically one through every small City and one for
Morehead as well we used to have more in Morehead but we did a turn back on some of them it wasn't 40 they have any one of them yeah yep and we made the final payment this year payable in 24 for that turn back all right thanks J you can continue um
so 2024 so this is kind of number of all so in 2024 we only had 522 hours that was 2,96 less hours than 2023 so I did include that picture again too just to show what it was like a few
years ago we did have 5,014 hours of blading gravel roads between 12 motor graders we had $293,400 so it is working I think working very well um and then we did lose three motor
grader operators to between the three of them we lost 49 years of experience so in 2025 it's going to be a big trading year some construction highlights from 24 so we did complete 11 1 half miles of Paving completed three Township Bridge
designs we did a lot of different preliminary surveys for construction we had 133 bridge inspections and now we're working on design for 25 and 26 construction projects hus is there a requirement
rotation for inspections yes so depending on what shape that bridge is in so when a bridge is first built that's on a 48-month cycle and as different elements start to deteriorate a lot of times it'll go to a 24 and then when they get really when they need to
be looked at a lot more than they're on a 12 month cycle so at a minimum they're inspected every four years okay um one project highlight from 2024 was sap1 14601 008 so this was a Paving
project on casassa 1 from casassa 20 to casassa 26 this was regraded in 22 with a box Culvert replacement as well this was a really really good project that turned out really well we're happy with the end result
that uh just in that county road one that the main project that we did the road project we did there have we come to any with the Sentry Link stuff no nothing we haven't made much progress on that at all is there back and forth
communication or is it just sitting out in um so I in the worldwide web somewhere the last I that I had worked on it was with mindd they were in some of the documentation I had and I worked on it with the attorney's office too I I
would have to follow up to see if there's anything else we can do and just to and for Ezra that project was one that it it basically ended up being delayed y as a result of of of um West
link nut so there was a fairly large claim on that project over $100,000 directly because centry link didn't move their line in time yeah so they didn't move their line so our whole project ended up being delayed and and
we basically lost a year of before we're able to hard surface it yep well I hope that that continues to move forwarding on it that was an additional expense to our taxpayers that probably didn't need to
happen definitely um another project highlight from 20 4 was cassa 26 so this was a millon overlay from ail to trunk Highway 75 a little over 9 1 half miles so that we did utilize level five asphalt due to
the heavy truck traffic and ruding this was year two of three of the casa 26 M in overlay project with the next the final year coming next year in 2024 we were able to purchase the old Holly mot shop on the east side of Holly for $276,000
we are fully moved in now we do have two motor graders currently operating out of the new shop um historical state aid construction allotment I just kind of used this as an FYI in 2025 we were up to four just under 4.8 million it is
nice to see that number continually rise yes okay so Paul first then I can give you a handout that details so it's all from the gas tax um yeah but we have handouts that show the exact distribution it's and then it's all
based on a need system too whatever set aside for Casa you fill out your needs every year it's a pretty big formula but it I have a handout that I could give you that details it really well a little bit of a past history on that that goes back to several years ago
um that I was back when I was the chair of the mrcc which is now the MRC and there was a real there was always this ask from the state legislature to increase the gas tax M but it would never get done because there was
always um the metro area wanted a complete change in the formula of all gas tax dollars which would have obviously Ben the Metro benefited the metro area and we said no to that and there was a
17 Commissioners assigned to that I happened to be one of them and and in that process then we ultimately agreed that there would be a change in the formula on any new money you know because they made the case for that that there obviously there's a lot more going
on in the metro area and so I and I can't remember how that correlates but it seems to me I remember when I first was on the highway committee I think our our annual allotment was closer to 2 million and it
was the 2.8 that you see in 2015 and you know so that obviously that really helped once that that because then they did they ended up approvingly increase and now I a index index where it automatically
increases I don't know how often that is but every year okay yeah so yeah so that number is nice now and it's good it's good to see um and it's certainly something that that's one thing our
citizens do expect to have and that's good roads to drive on and good safe roads so yeah yes so is that money can only be used for Casa roads correct County cassa Roads okay yep that's cannot be used on a County Road
yep um some addition funding that we were awarded in 2024 so we did receive an local Road improve 535,000 and an hsip award for 750,000 for the roundabout at Cassat 12 and
52 um through the District 4 ATP we did receive a little over a million dollars for 2029 for Casa 10 millon overlay project with another expected 1.7 million in 2030 the project would be constructed in 29 just kind of the way the Federal
fiscal year Works ends in July so we'd receive that 2030 money in 2029 and then through the TMA which is metrocog we were awarded 1.1 million for a CA 3 millon overlay project that will
go from the beat plan up to Wall Street in 2027 and then kind of a 20125 look ahead some things that'll be coming to the board here in the next this would be a 5year Plan update as I did mention we will be
implementing that new sign software we do have quite a bit of payment testing for future projects and then as well as future equipment purchases as well yes I will I do have to go open bids so I will save the questions for
after the bid opening if that's all right all right you can do that because yeah because I do have a couple so all right well we will have to you do that back here yep okay all right Brian do you want to should we touch on yours that we can
sure do mine uh Mr sh I did uh email because I saw we had I thought we might have a little bit of time I emailed Joe he's here he could do his uh um update early if yeah let's um you want to wait we might have time to do Joe's after
after we open those bids but do you want to just quickly do your number 11 absolutely can morning Mr chair Commissioners did have a resignation uh come up uh somewhat unexpectedly one of my uh younger attorneys and uh didn't really see it
coming uh but uh uh did resign for a new position he's he's an attorney uh that uh actually came out of Canada came and worked and and did schooling here to to do and practice American but he is going to go back up to Canada now so kind of a
unique situation we've really enjoyed having him he's a good young uh smart attorney so we're sorry to see him go um but we do need to back or to fill his position it is a budgeted position so we're asking to have authorization fil
how long was he with us he was only here about I think we were right about nine months 10 months he was just little shy of a year okay any other questions I move we uh go ahead and approve the uh motion uh to fill the assistant county
attorney's position thank you we have a motion in 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 thank you
yeah let's just do a real quick break I want to give you a little bit more time than we have these bit open we'll just take a two-minute break here all right we are now back in session and we will go back to our 9005 bid opening and this is the bid opening
for sap 04- 634 031 Dustin yes so this is the mill and overlay project from the East city limits of Ulan to the county line so if you remember this was the project that due to low bid or bids
coming in quite a bit underestimate on the other 34 project this is one that we move from 2026 to 2025 MH so the engineers estimate for this one is $963,000 [Music] 38180 we did receive four comp complete
bids so a complete bid meaning they do have a bid bond in the amount of 5% and they did sign all the applicable documents so the first bid we received was from Mark San and Gravel Company their bid was 946
9299 $946,000 their bid was $891,000 4836 the third bid we received was from RJ zaval and Sons Incorporated their bid was $854,000 189 $854,000
then the final bid we received was from Central Specialties Incorporated their bid was 728 $374 61 $728,000 the last 34 project were significantly
lower than we've seen in a long time so I didn't I did lower this project quite a bit but still tried to be I didn't want to be low bid by any means so you lowered the estimate based on the previous bids that we just received yep okay not all the way to the mixed price
that we did see but a little bit okay so so if I can add so the the engineers estimate that you had here of 963 38180 mhm was that different than the amount that we had originally put in our 5year plan and that number was what 1.1
million okay so so what we currently had in our in our 5year planet a 1.1 so that's the savings of close to yeah almost $400,000 almost $400,000 versus what our fiveyear plan
in addition to the million dollars that the other One sav yep that's good news Central Specialties was the contractor who won the first bid great so assume that definitely helped them in this one sure y I guess I don't see any concerns with this so I would my recommendation
would be to approve low bid and there is no with the online bidding as I've mentioned in the past like we've we used to have to approve contingent upon no erors in the bids the online form doesn't allow for that okay you you can approve it low bid
contingent on no errors in the bids just for yeah yeah turn your makeup I apologize I'll make a motion then to approve the low bid conention upon no errors in the bids
four uh saap 014 634 031 that's in the amount of 728 3746 all right that's a motion I a second you have 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 we'll move on to sp sp 04611 or 055 yes so this is a project on Casa 11
the concrete portion from Casa 18 to Casa 26 so we did receive federal funds to help with this project so it is a concrete pavement rehab we'll go through and seal all the joints Diamond grind it do some panel Replacements overall just
general maintenance of a concrete road more or less so our initial Engineers estimate was 1, 28892 so we did receive two bids for this project the first bid was from
Interstate Improvement Incorporated their bid was 1,93 , 24045 1,932 4045 and then the second bid was from Diamond surface Incorporated their bid was 1 million
63,0 77298 1,63 77298 so this one's a little bit obviously I haven't worked with either of these contractors a lot but Diamond surface is really well known around the state um
this being a federal project I I don't have any issues with that bid it's really close to Engineers estimate our 5year plan actually shows 1.1 million so it came in slightly under that um what I would be looking for is a motion to approve low bid contingent upon no erors
and then being this is a federal project that it does get the approval from state aid I will make a motion to approve Diamond surface Inc for 1,637 7298 contingent about no errors in the
bids and approval from state aid second we have a motion and a second any further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I oos was the same sign motion carried and I just going
back to your presentation I think that concludes all of your stuff right Justin yep going back to your presentation um the in your when you're first talking about everything that your staff does who who
handles uh going out and and acquiring easements uh the engineering side so a lot of times depending on the land owner a lot of times I'm in that conversation Alex is in that conversation as well okay and then um typically we have one
engineering Tech who's also a notary too that comes with because that can be timec consuming that's correct then lastly my question for you has um you know we had that conversation about the Comstock project um and I know
you had originally had plans for bid liting on that did did Jason Benson reach out to you yep so I have a meeting next Monday with Jason Benson um Chris Boyard Peggy Harter and um Buffalo Red River wersh District okay and I you know
and I relayed to them the importance of the communications with comto and that's better coming from them as opposed to you that's correct hopefully that all works out and maybe you can keep us informed as to um yeah so I my plan after next Monday's
meeting was to send out an email update to the highway tracking committee just kind of what what the meeting comprised of and what came out of it veryy good all right thank you any other questions on the department update thank you Justin thank you thank
you thanks all right we have 15 minutes before next public hearing um yeah who wants to go before the public hearing all right Joel you want to
go good morning Joel all right morning Mr chair board members so yes I'll give my uh facilities up update today so uh our uh mission statement is our mission is to operate maintain and
preserve the physical assets of Clay County facilities we provide quality service in an efficient and professional manner in order to create and maintain a clean safe and comfortable environment for all staff clients citizens here at Clay
County uh in terms of staff I have an operation supervisor uh one Administrative Assistant maintenance texts we have seven full-tim and one variable hour uh seven full-time custodians two permanent parttime uh 14
variable hours and uh we have one custodian custodial lead and one facilities director so as far as our our staff uh we're fully we're fully staffed and um good to go there so uh just wanted to touch on my team a couple
structured I just wanted to to the people I work with directly um uh we have an operation supervisor who is Brian there and he he's uh directly oversees the custodians and the maintenance uh he he also does the
day-to-day ticketing system when people put in a request for something um he he's got a big job in managing the power plant over there and he does a lot of the project coordination that um um you know when in terms of when we've saved the county some money he's been a big
part of uh how that happened so so I appreciate Brian and his his hard work over there and then we have a facility Administrative Assistant um Betty uh she assists me in in a lot of day-to-day stuff she basically keeps the place organized and um she manages the central
mail room and and also um is kind of the the the communications of the family service center so people know to go to her she usually um is is the person that puts out all the announcements and um can't say enough about her she's she's
somebody that keeps me going every day so and then we have Jenine who are who is our custodian lead she directly supports Brian um she's the one that does uh supervision at night with the custodians and provides a lot of Direction and she's the one that fills in when we're short and kind of just that
allaround um goto at nighttime so I appreciate this team and just wanted to highlight them today so okay so currently we have 23 County buildings facilities uh law enforcement landfill Correctional Facility joint
Highway uh facility c el Barnes Barnesville Highway shop the family service center we have Highway shop in Glendon of course the juvenile center Highway shop in Felton power plant Ulen Highway shop resource recovery center Comstock Government Center
Georgetown Highway shop uh we have a couple vacant houses up with the Northwest lot storage facility DMV withdrawal management/ detox facility and the highway shop so we're quite a quite a little quite a list going on there so and it kind of spreads
throughout the county so okay uh quick update on the family service center uh as you know it's an Enterprise fund uh we have a projected revenue of one just over 1.2 million uh coming in this year uh we we get this by charging 1375 square foot on the first
floor and then 127 5 sare foot from second through 5ifth and so just a note um you'll be seeing a decrease this year in uh we have that proposed plan to move Social Services down to Fourth and um Public Health down to Second wings and
those are non-count entities that are uh uh leaving and so you won't see the decrease in the Enterprise budget itself but from non-count dollars coming in you know you would you would see that decrease so so I just wanted to make you aware aware of that anytime we take over
a suite that is occupied by non County we obviously lose that outside Revenue but so um and then as far as the percentage we're 60% building occupied by county and 40 by nonprofit I think that's starting to change a little bit
here now so and then we're 100% occupied and we do have a second and fourth floor fit up project still need to bring that to building committee got a lot of coming back here and I should have something to you guys here shortly on that so and then we are looking uh
building committee is definitely diving into a 10-year long-term planning on what to do with the family service center it's got a lot of up need a lot of lot of lot of capital needs from now in 2035 so we're starting to take a good look at that just strategize what's the
best way to do it and look at all the options there so questions on the family service center yes one question there yep the revenue rent is 1.2 million is do the county offices being rented there pay
into that too correct yes yep so they so like I said in terms of like me running the Enterprise fund there won't be a decrease but yeah they everybody pays within their budget okay yep yep so do you have something Mr chair NOP
okay okay you Joel all right all right uh just a little Fleet update here a couple years ago we entered into a lease program uh right now we have five traverses and seven Trailblazers and I when I say those fleets those are the ones that everybody checks out on a daily basis we do have
some other leases uh underneath uh some various departments but um it is currently on a 5-year lease plan and we're into year two and what I what I do know now is um we found out that we're averaging about 11,000 miles per year
per vehicle which is from what my understanding is Enterprise says that's a a really nice number because uh each year we pay Equity into those cars we get keep that equity and and we're on that nice balance of not putting tons of
miles on every year but yet uh we can build equity so uh our first plan was to see what it was in year three and try to resell and capture the high value of that uh but now knowing we might be better off to take it into year four because our miles aren't so high and
we'll build more equity so um process there though is uh I would say during the budgeting process I'll be working I plan on wanting a meet with the finance committee again I think that's where we originally uh came out of this we had Enterprise uh they presented numbers to
us and I think it's important to to to know and see if that uh that savings that they promis us is happening or not so I think we're getting some data now to start to prove that so um so that would be our plan there and of course the budet in just so you know the the
fleet budget is out of the internal service fund 50 budget and each department if they have their own it's it's budgeted out of their internal services so there that's a separate deal too there so Joe on those on on those vehicles and you say the LA average like
11,000 a year y do do do we monitor when vehicles are being checked out are all vehicles checked out every day yes yeah yeah usually they're they're checked out every day and in fact now that you asked that we after Co we had a real surge
like we felt like do we add another car or not that really came that really settled down and I think we have a good balance there so it's a nice balance of being able to check one out but yet it's up The Fleets are moving you know so I think we've got a a nice balance there and they are getting checked out every
day we as a part of enterprise we do have a A system that tracks all the miles and tracks the oil changes the mean we got a lot of data on this so so that's why I thought would be nice we'll be able to come to the finance committee and really just be able to nail this
down and um start going out and get some pricing from State bid see what that is and we can really nail down you know I think the big question is lease versus buy right and is this program working and I think we're getting uh I believe I believe it is just by looking at it but
certainly want to look at the data and and and work with the committee on that so yep great all right uh risk management so uh about a year ago we the County Board passed a risk
management policy and that's kind of what part of my position is to help oversee that as a risk manager and um what we've done is we've been meeting as a group our our mcit administrator group meets quarterly it's proven to be a big benefit we all have the same needs I think and we're all kind of the same
same boat there so that's worked really well and and under that uh we usually s out a quarterly assessment about every four months to remind department heads did you buy something you know did you just make sure everything's on insurance it's it's a reminder and uh usually
seems to remind somebody to add something here or there so it it is working and um under that same program we have our Safety Committee that we meet quarterly and um also we have a facility safety audit program that's that's that's done quarterly as well so
we've established a central recordkeeping file that I think has been a benefit to all us uh certainly all us management um and um I guess we just wanted this this to be a ongoing policy that uh helps minimize risk so questions
on the risk management all right Capital approvement update um of course working directly with the building committee on all this I rolled out a 2025 uh preliminary Capital plan still got some tweaking to do obviously there but going to be
meeting with them again shortly here in fact um as a note I'll probably seeing if we can meet in April I have some some stuff to talk about there but um usually uh uh we fund These funds out of fund 19
and 13 fund 19 is the is is a fund that we put 150,000 away every year and fund 13 roughly we average 50,000 that comes in through through taxes so uh those are the two that we're using we did take a bond out a few years back uh 3.3 million
just over and that is expiring in 2029 our tactic between now and then is to use 19 fund 19 and 13 to kind of take care of the critical needs in the capital plan as we move along so uh tracking all that with the with the building committee as well so um Family
Service Center major Capital needs we know that's a huge it's own huge deal and uh we're talking about that in the committee and then hoping to work with the committee and establish more of a capital presentation that I do to the board every year somewhere around the
budgeting time so it kind of kind of Blends in with that and we have an idea of our needs there and then we have two projects in 2025 second and fourth floor fit-ups for the family service center this is that allow Social Services to move down to Fourth and um um Public
Health would move down to Second so um definitely got some numbers together and I'm going to be presenting that to the the building committee shortly and then joint Highway facility roof project in 2026 I'm working on getting numbers there that's a shared cost between US
city of Morehead and mindat so that's capital Improvement uh any questions uh Joe just the uh going to the bond that 3.38 yep million so all of those projects that were originally planned for those those have all been expended
correct yes those are done the the new prelim plan I rolled out in 2025 was essentially a start over because we finished we finished our Capital Plan before that so and of course we did have the 1.2 million of arpa that you know that you could add to this that the
county um used to to update that so yeah that was a nice nice uh bond that was taken out and we took care of some good things there so all right and basically that's about
it sorry I kind I uh questions for me on anything any questions only thanks for the good work yes yes exactly so appreciate it and looks like you got some somebody waiting here next so thank you all right thank
you Joel we are three minutes away from our public hearing so we'll just allow folks to come in and we will get started all right good morning everybody it's now 9:33 we will call the or we
were our next item is now to have a public hearing regarding our Klay County tobacco ordinance and I am looking for a motion to open the hearing so moved you have a motion second a second any further
discussion is commissioner Mojo online okay all right seeing no other discussion all in favor signify by saying I I I oppose the same sign motion carried and just a couple things uh
commissioner Mojo um is in St Paul this morning uh testifying as we speak on behalf of a couple of important projects for Clay County so she was hoping that she could be online but she's not
um obviously those that timing did not work out certainly what we plan on doing here today is to you know to discuss the tobacco ordinance and to take your your testimony and feedback regarding that uh
ultimately I think after today's meeting there's uh there will not be any decision being made today I think we're going to want to wait and digest what we hear today from you folks um and with that being said also
we we do have some time restrictions here so those of you who want to speak this morning if you can keep your comments brief uh I don't I don't like to have to cut people off but if we can keep in mind the the schedules of
everyone and also if you have submitted documents there are several letters that we have received uh in that will be part of the record those of you who um did do that uh know that we already have your comments in
place and also um those of you who might be shy in terms of wanting to speak um we certainly will allow you time to uh submit comments into the public hearing record if you have not done so already if you would prefer that method over
speaking you know it's often times it's not not easy to get up and speak in front of a large group so so with that being said um Jason do you want to come up and start this off Mr chair did you make a motion to open the public hearing yes we did do
that okay I missed sorry thank you Mr chair for allowing us the time to come back um I'm going to be really brief as you said we have a lot of people behind me um the one uh main thing that we asked in in or put together for you in um light of uh just
reconsidering the the ordinance um we created this document that should be in your packet um that shows kind of a a menu of of options um we wanted to make sure that we fully addressed exactly what the products were that we were talking about um and kind of break them
up between what flavored products we were uh indeed asking for a restriction on and it seemed uh really well to put them um in levels of uh nicotine um you can see very easily um that uh device
for example vaping devices have anywhere from 40 to 400 milligrams of nicotine um so to put that in perspective that's that's anywhere from two packs to two cartons or 20 packs of cigarettes that might be in a flavored vaping uh device
and right now in Minnesota schools 18% use rate so that seemed to be the other really important thing to make sure that we addressed um and then when we talk about Zen we threw that name around a lot um and I just wanted to make sure that we highlighted that we're talking about the
the flavored versions of these products because there are unflavored nicotine pouches um I know that these are growing very quickly they're roughly a 10% use rate in Minnesota schools at this point and they range from 3 to 8 milligrams so
3 to eight cigarettes um at this point in time so that's something uh that I really wanted to to highlight outside of that things that um that could be included um haven't been included chewing tobacco flavored cigars menthol cigarettes and I I just tried to break
down by percentages like how much is being used in the school um as far as we see in rates and then also how much that nicotine is just so you had something to kind of weigh between as you were thinking about options um because I wanted you to know all of these are options that can be included or not
included in the ordinance as you choose uh to vote otherwise I just I I want to stop and allow you guys to hear from everybody else um because you've heard from me enough so thank you for letting us come and um and for giving us your
audience all right um any questions from board members at this time all right so we'll move into our uh public comment period and again if we ask if you would like to speak to go to the podium and make sure that you state your name and
uh as I mentioned if we can keep that somewhat brief it would be very helpful so whoever would like to go first we have our superintendent dgf good morning uh Shannon hunstead
superintendent of Dorth glinton Felton public school um thank you chair for listening us today or hearing us out uh I want to say a special thank you to Jason and all his work he's done in our school system uh over the last few years years so thank you Jason for that really appreciate it uh spent a lot of time
with my principles recently asking about this very topic uh they have already had this year over 40 some um instances they said you know are we getting 50% of them are we getting 70% of them they know
they're missing a lot uh they figure it's about 20% of our high school population and Middle School the shocking thing for them is the number of middle school kids that have done or started this habit um I think Jason's
pointed out and I'll be real brief here too just so we have more important people than me the students I think is the people we need to hear from but it's the flavored Vapes it's where they all start and if you ask any middle school
kid you ask a nth grader 10th grader that's where they start and then they go on from there obviously Minnesota is struggling with the next level and that's marijuana and so that's what they're starting to see in the Vapes now but all these kids when you talk to them they tell
youed vape and so if 20% of our kids are doing it that we know about you got to figure there's at least 10 to who knows what percent that we're missing so anyway that's what I have it's uh it's significant for us and it's sad because
I have our school leaders chasing kids around for Vapes instead of doing their job and that's frustrating for me it's is frustrating for our community so thank you for your time thank you Shannon good morning good morning hello my name is Michaela ban and I'm a senior
at djf high school I have come today to ask the County Commissioners to please uphold the current tobacco ordinance ending flavored tobacco sales as a student at dgf high school I have seen kids vaping in the bathrooms and hiding their Vapes up their sleeves in class
now recently I've seen more students take up Zin because it's easier to hide I can't even walk down certain hallways because those areas of the school are known for the vapor hangout spots the most alarming part though is how easy it is for my high school friends to access
these products the rise in teen vaping has reached epidemic levels with many students starting as young as the middle school age what starts as a curiosity or peer pressure can quickly turn into an addiction and by the time students realize they have a problem it is way
too late this isn't just about making sure teens don't fall into harmful habits it's about protecting our future everyone deserves a future free of addiction free of health problems caused by tobacco and free of being targeted by companies that profit from selling harmful products advertised for
vulnerable teens like myself because as a teen we're at a critical age where the choices we make now can shape our future that's why I believe it's important to take a stand now and call for this ban that's because we want to keep our healthy choices made by us teens thank
you thank you Michaela good morning Larry I'm Larry seldal I'm a resident of morid and I was on the city council when Morad passed a ban on flavored tobacco I know there's a retail component to this
and a concern and if you think about how things have evolved when we were growing up many of you a gas station was where you got gas and they had a couple garage Bays where you could then get your oil changed and they could fix a motor now
you don't buy gas at a gas station you buy gas at a convenience store and convenience stores are evolving you know now Casey says they're famous for pizza M&H says they're you know how was always
had a chicken and you can see loves and you you go down to Southern in uh Southern United States and see these bies so it's evolving we don't know what retail is going to be like so this is not about necessarily retail about somebody saving a few bucks at their
store or earning some money because retail's always evolving when I was visiting my daughter in Portland they're going through the same thing and wonderful quote by uh Health administrator who deals with a lot of St schoolage
kids and one student told her he said you know I wouldn't do these products if it wasn't if they weren't flavored because regular tobacco tastes like yuck and so you are what you're doing is you're saving a generation from picking
up a bad habit and it's not about saving a business because business is always revolving you don't know what gas is gas may be delivered to your house in a in a truck pretty soon we don't know that but anyway it's about health of a generation
coming up thank you uh my name is Keith I'm one of the school counselors at morid high school um I want to talk a little bit about the impact on developing brains and just what we know from research a little bit so we know that the impact on nicotine on on a developing brain without you
know the prefrontal cortex that's responsible for um future planning decision- making emotional regulation um focus things like that is the last thing to develop in a brain and it's the part that nicotine affects uh
long term so it has a different impact on adolescence than it does on the adult brain um and it at this point does not seem to be reversible that we know about uh that comes from the National Institute of Health we also know that from from research across the us we've
learned a lot over the Decades of tobacco sales in the United States and uh we've learned some lessons we know that counties that restrict uh flavored tobacco sales have lower use rates among adolescents and and children we know
that these companies aggressively Target and Market towards the youth which cannot legally buy their product but they do it anyways um so in terms of you know locally here those of us that work with kids we are seeing uh we're starting to see that increase of use of
the pouches and you know they're getting better at um hiding it and we do see that it leads to uh use of THC in the Vapes um we're our students today are actually taking the uh Minnesota student survey so we'll get some more updated
information locally here hopefully um as well as across the state of Minnesota on where those rates are headed but certainly the decision that you guys make here will have a a lasting impact on that thank you um I'm Jill uh I'm a school nurse at
Morhead high school and Career Academy um I had a lot of the same things to say as Keith so I'll kind of cut to the the extra stuff um but just that I've seen firsthand the on our students with ability uh mood
fluctuations um it really impacts their ability to be successful Learners in the classroom um they're missing valuable class time because they're finding places to hide out and vape at school and and my biggest worry is the
long-term effects that we don't even know about yet so that's where I get really concerned because our youth isn't capable of making great decisions at this age we know that um so if we can prevent this in any way uh we're just going to save ourselves a whole lot of
time and effort on the other end um trying to figure out how to get these kids to quit after they're addicted so um just please continue to uphold the uh current ordinance for the safety of our students and our youth thank you thank you Jill thank you uh Brandon lunik with
Morehead schools as well and I'm going just going to follow up uh to what Jill and Keith had uh stated and we have a lot of uh similarities to what uh Shannon has talked about but just a little bit uh of information from the 2019 Minnesota student survey that some
folks have already talked about uh 11th grade students reported in that survey their uh top way of getting these vaping devices is uh from friends at the shop and uh interestingly enough they also can purchase them on the
Internet um what's going on at Morehead High um we believe that uh number one it's it's very difficult to detect very difficult to
enforce because of uh the way these devices can be concealed uh so at the high school for instance uh this year we've had 32 violations I think that's pretty similar uh to what Shannon has uh discussed already but we also believe
that these violations probably aren't a good indicator of of how large the problem uh really is when it comes to vaping um just yesterday Alone um Josh reported to me and Josh is the high school principal that at the Career Academy we have vaping detectors uh in
our restrooms and just yesterday alone uh those uh detectors went off 15 times and like uh Shannon stated uh earlier uh our our administrative team is uh chasing uh these kids around and
it's taking time away from them uh leading uh their building and uh like Shannon stated uh that's disheartening because we could be doing multitude of other things but I in closing here because I know that we want to keep our our um
comments brief uh we talk about we do some educating uh at Morhead High when uh talking about vaping and that's covered in our uh 10th grade health class but that alone uh isn't uh generally enough uh uh when it comes to
doing things and um curbing these things uh we need to work together on those so I encourage you to continue uh working with us and we'll continue to work with you and uh I appreciate uh having the
time today to speak to all of you and um I I don't envy the position you're in but I just again want to thank all of you for your time thank you Brandon good morning my name is Grace hson I'm currently a senior at Concordia College
where I serve as student body president I'm a lifelong resident of Morehead and a proud Morhead Spud I'm here today to voice not only my personal support for the ordinance but also to voice the support of the Concordia College Student Government which represents the nearly 2,000 cers together we urge the County
Commission the current tobacco ordinance ending flavor tobacco sales when Student Government learned of the discussion to repeal the ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products we are immediately concerned many of our friends and classmates along with some members of sgaa have struggled with vaping and
nicotine addictions we've seen firsthand the harmful impacts that vaping in particular can have on people's lives especially as others have said today young people I've seen classmates who were engaged Dynamic and even organized start vaping and then start skipping classes spending hundreds of dollars on
vaping products and losing losing interest in things that they were previously passionate about so last week Student Government unanimously I repeat unanimously passed a resolution supporting the ban and encouraging the County Commissioners to uphold it I'll share some data that we considered during the discussion of the resolution
though I'll admit that debate was minimal because support for this ordinance as one student put it should be obvious the National Institute Institute on drug abuse reported that rates of vaping among college students have steadily increased with some studies reporting that up to a third of
college students students have Vaped within the past 30 days that's from the University of Michigan and the National Institute of Health this is intentional on the part of retailers the 15,000 flavors of tobacco products on the market currently are specifically designed to attract Youth and Young
adults the only rationale against this ban is economic I am unwilling Concordia student government is unwilling and the elected leaders of our community should be even more unwilling to sacrifice the health and well-being of our youth young adults and Community as a whole in the interest of tax dollars that is
completely unacceptable the ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products is a critical Public Health protection for our community especially For Youth and Young adults it will save lives from the devastating Health consequences of smoking and vaping so Concordia Student Government out of profound concern for
our friends classmates and younger generations and deeply conscious of the harmful health effects of flavored tobacco products especially vaping products of which the full extent of consequences are still unknown urges the Clay County Board of Commissioners to uphold the current ordinance on flavored
tobacco products thank you thank you Greece hello my name is Daniel Davies I'm the vice president of student government at Concordia College and again we did vote for that ordinance unanimously in student government but I'm here to talk about more of the personal experience I've had growing up in Morhead going to Morhead high school
and then in my class e Concordia College uh vaping was something that got picked up a lot in my sophomore year of high school by a lot of my classmates including a lot of my close friends there was a group of about 10 of us all with plans to go to college um slowly um more and more specifically Jewels at the
time um and they would rave on and on about the flavors of the jewel pods specifically mango pods that were banned and when the mango pod band was placed on Jewels nationally all of them switched and I think that's really important to note how important the flavors are to the
kids these days like as soon as their favorite flavor was banned they stopped doing that thing but instead because of the Alternatives they moved on to different vaping Alternatives and once those didn't have the same kick like a lot of the superintendent have talked about they move on to Stronger things my friend started smoking THC cartridges or
dab pens as they're Otherwise Known they would do this in school outside of school began to consume their lives they would wake up and although the 10 of us all plan to go to college about five of us went and two of them graduated um it had a really really profound impact on me personally
watching my friends kind of succumbed to that um and it's been hard to see and the fact that we're having a debate on whether or not these should be banned or not um with severe Public Health implications is saddening to me in college I've seen a lot more zins nowadays um essentially if you don't know what they are they're like snooze
pouches um but kids now will in class will just crack them open because they're so easy to hide and pack one in any of their lips and they'll do this repeatedly thinking that no one's noticing um it's distracting to students in class teachers notice it and get sad um but again it's a nicotine addiction
and they're using flavored products to continue to further this um I know there is the economic discussion that's being held but I think if we're going to look at some inconsequential tax dollars that are generated from the sale of exploited children I think we should instead lean into other economic opportunities that
we have as a county looking at PL like the DG fuels plant that's coming in the Dorth rail District that's being built up and the downtown Morehead Redevelopment these are all projects that not only help our community but bring in substantially more tax dollars um to repeal this ban at the effect of
increasing a small amount of tax dollars that's rather inconsequential looking at the larger picture at the expense of Children's Health um seems irresponsible and lack of civic duty would be demonstrated there I really urge you to uphold this ban and protect the Youth of Morhead high and not to let our students
and schools end up like my friends did thank you thank you d i I just I just want to point out i' I've heard the word repeal a couple of times here today and I don't know that it's in in this board's interest in repealing an
ordinance I think what we wanted what we're doing here today is this is the second hearing we're having on this to determine if it should be modified that's far different than repealing so just understand I think that's that's what we're considering
here today is do we want to do we want to amend or modify the ordinance so I I use caution when I hear the word repeal because I don't think it's the intention of this board to totally repeal it I'm speaking on behalf of I think enough of our board members who would who wouldn't
do that to that end I would urge you to not modify the ordinance I kind of I kind of assume that would [Laughter] be hi there my name is Crystal Jansen and I am one of the juvenile probation
agents here in Clay County um I cover all of the schools in the county um and I would say that the number one violation that we're seeing is actually kids vaping and missing class because they're sitting in the bathroom and
vaping all day or um would rather not be at school so that is a huge issue that I am seeing with the kids kids on probation in this County um and I would like to urge too that I've seen a few
kids that I supervis who report that they started vaping as young as 10 years old um and many of these kids get the products however they can if it's from the local gas stations their parents however they're getting it so I think
whatever ways we can reduce the amount of Vapes that kids can get their hands on I think it would be the most beneficial for everyone in this community um but thank you for letting me speak and taking the time to hear me
out thank you Crystal my name is Alexander Hagen and I'm a junior at Morhead High School I've come here today to ask the County Commissioners to please uphold the current toac ordinance ending flavored flavored tobacco sales as a student I have witnessed varying bodies of
students get physically violent situations because of disagreements and the allowance of others to borrow their Vape products I've personally seen these situations within all four grades at the high school and with it being the underclassmen that are getting into these situations more often than the upper classmen as I've noticed within my
usual school day this is only getting worse and it's not much better since it's getting videoed and further escalating online another major issue that I've witnessed online is that the fact that students are selling flavored Vape products to each other on online Market through social media trying to make a
profit off others addiction other students have asked me if I had a vape that I could let them borrow this most often happens in the bathroom areas as Keith and the other employees of the Morhead school district have previous talked
about and this is also happening through social media of people directly asking for their addiction again I'm asking the County Commissioners to please uphold the current tobacco ordinance and the INF flavored tobacco sales thank you
Alexander good morning Commissioners I'm Sarah Dixon hacky and I'm The Quay County Public Health community outreach lezen um and I'm also a college instructor in my other life so today I just wanted to share a couple of experiences um in my roles in
the community I've had the privilege of working with a number of families and individuals in our County through I would say many of these meaningful interactions I've had numerous stories of parents who are concerned about their children's exposure to tobacco and
others who are Desperately Seeking to help their children quit in one particular memorable encounter I had a mother who shared a conversation she had had with her teenage son asking him Point Blank how many Vape pods he consumed per day during the conversation
he confessed sheepishly and admittedly that he consumed no less than three which equivalent to cigarettes would be approximately 123 cigarettes per day while he her son knew that he was harming his health he also admitted that
it was extremely difficult for him to even and in the classroom I can recall sitting while grading my papers while listening to students talk and overhearing one of them share his personal method for studying as he
worked 40 plus hours a week and went to school full-time because he was so exhausted from his schedule this is what he would do before studying he would slam one after another two red bulls then because he was so amped up he
would wait for at least an hour or two to bring him down because his ADHD was kicking so hard although his classmates were marveled and a little bit concerned about his process they also enthusiastically discussed the different flavors they hop to try including things
like I love donuts or mother's milk and cookies the truth is there's a lot more stories that I've heard about these kinds of circumstances that are paralleled with both kids and young adults who started vaping for fun but eventually found themselves easily and quickly Tethered to a product that
gradually degraded both their health and their overall all Vitality while I do believe strongly in each citizen's right to choose their paths to have the independence and the freedoms that we are all fortunate to be provided I also value the character and
heart of our community which is that we take care of our own we look out for one another and we protect each other from external entities that don't have our best interests at heart so today Commissioners I hope that you will see in upholding the end of selling flavored
tobacco is not only an action to remove access to a harmful substance but also a means to Sheltering individuals and families from yet another attempt by the tobacco industry to harm the health and the future of our
community thank you chairman Campbell members of the board good morning I'm Becky Anderson I'm a retired registered respiratory therapist working at Sanford Health where I served the people of Clay County and was the organizational expert on
Tobacco prevention and control policy I'm here to ask ask that you uphold your current ordinance ending flavored tobacco sales although I've visited with you before I'm going to share new information today one of the arguments that I hear
the most against tobacco policy is messaging that was developed by and promulgated by big tobacco and that is that the decision to use tobacco is about freedom of choice and personal
responsibility however those fall flat when we realize that 90 up to nearly 90% of tobacco users began become addicted by the age of
18 this is not a conversation about adults and I know of no other addiction where we talk about the freedom of choice voice and personal responsibility of our children to become
addicted to a product we don't have those conversations you see big tobacco's main focus is addicting our children to their products they use pervasive and deceptive marketing they spend
approximately $1 million per hour in youth focused media releases our children are targeted why don't they target adults because if the brain isn't addicted to nicotine by the time somebody's brain has quit
developing they most likely will not become addicted to nicotine and will not use tobacco products this is about addiction of our children pure and simple big tobacco also offers price
discounts using as QR codes for direct contact you better know that our children understand big Tech and what how they can use technology to get to these products the industry the tobacco industry is constantly developing new products that Target our youth such as
the Zin pouches that have been talked about today and all of this works again 90% of of tobacco users Addicted by the age of 18 but why is that well it's not by chance it's science and some of that science
has been explained to you because the brain is still developing even small doses of nicotine exposure in adolescence causes changes in brain circuit development harming parts of the brain these changes also make it easier
for kids to become addicted not only to nicotine but to other addictive substances and to suffer stronger Cravings making it harder to quit tobacco AC cross their lifetime without flavors tobacco
products are no longer a strong enticement to our youth again I ask you to please uphold your current ordinance thank you thank you Becky good morning my name is uh KY Adan
and I am a community leader and a father I have contributed the population of our community by raising seven childrens here in Mad uh today I am here to ask Commissioners please uphold the current
tobacco ending flavored tobacco sales as a community leader I have a responsibility to respond the impact of tobacco and Ving product young people particularly here in our community is critical the challenge such as the
challenge such as school drop UPS family issues and the toll on the black students are very highlighted incredibly serious it's evidence that flavored bbing product is especially attractive to the youth increasing difficulty in
Ving nicotine addiction and other related health risk so dear Commissioners it's today that we need your help so please we are build to use to act in protecting the future of our children thank you thank
you I'm mat alier I work here for the community connect Center and I used to work in Morad public school for five years it's where I got to know Jason we had coordinate some educational effort to try to keep the flavor tobacco out
the hand of our children I have seen as young as 5-year-old with bathing stuff and more at schools so I'm here to ask you to uphold the current ordinance if you can
and I don't see a benefit of it than harming our own next taxpayers in our community so if you want to find another way to kind of make revenues I think you should also
increase taxes for more at I don't live here but I live across the state so do that thank you well that's a new [Laughter] one good morning Commissioners uh my
name is Michelle draxton and I am here this morning wearing Three Hats uh one is a public health professional with nearly 15 years of experience two as the health promotion coordinator at Concordia College and three as a resident of Clay County who is also the
mother of three young children I'm here this morning to ask the Commissioners to please uphold the current tobacco ordinance ending flavored tobacco sales the pillars of Public Health are prevent promote and protect the current
flavor band upholds these pillars by preventing the sale and accessibility of these harmful products by promoting countywide Health initiatives and by by protecting our children from lifelong damage and addiction not maintaining the ordinance will clearly go against and
crumble the pillars of Public Health as a health promotion coordinator at Concordia College I have the privilege to enable students to improve their health and well-being and Empower them to take control of their health this includes being tobacc free Concordia College campus is a tobacc
free campus we provide a supportive oncampus environment that promotes this healthy lifestyle and fortunately the city of Morhead with their flavored tobacco band helps to extend the supportive environment upholding the current ordinance extends the environmental support beyond our campus
and beyond our city you've listened to concordia's SGA students this morning so I can preach from a staff perspective but you also heard it straight from students and to address the rebuttal that these products can just be bought
in Cass County I encourage you to be a maintain the ordinance reach out to C County Commissioners Fargo City commissioners encourage them to do the same we're a community there are zero health benefits to using tobacco products and in fact as
we've heard many times over they are incredibly detrimental especially to our young kids these products are strategically marketed to youth as again you are aware so this is not new news yet here we are asking you to keep an ordinance that protects
kids I wonder if Revenue tax dollars and money were not part of the equation if we'd be asking the same question you'll have to ask yourself if revenue and dollars are more important upholding the ordinance is a clear message to your constituents that
you prioritize people over profit children over money please consider maintaining this ordinance which I believe is in the best interest of Clay County and our community thank you thank you Michelle my name is Steve lway head
football coach at msum um not to be redundant on anything to try and cut to to new information here um my brother-in-law is a a school administrator in North Dakota um he had a case recently where he's got an in school suspension of a girl in high
school for Vaping while she's an in school suspension she goes to the bathroom in the staff bathroom and is caught vaping in there afterwards as the smell comes out um this is not a 14-year-old girl that's a rebel that's
acting out this is a 14year old girl that's in school suspension and she's addicted she's trying to find a way to get to the next hit parenting is tough I've got eight kids anybody that's a parent know it's
difficult I urge you guys to help the kids in the community that 14-year-old is a good kid our kids are good kids the kids of this County are good kids help us as parents protect them our job is tough help make
it easier um urge you to not make any amendments but to help our youth and I think that ultimately is why all of you guys are sitting here in public surface for the greater good um I ask that's you remember why you're here and and that's
what it's about thank you thank you Steve good morning my name is Garrick Larson I'm the head track and field coach at Concordia College I'm asking the County Commission to vote to continue the current tobacco um ordinances ending flavored tobacco
sales uh for a minute I'd like us all to think back to when you were a teenager how many first you experienced in those years the first time driving uh first time you maybe got the start in a game or the first time you asked somebody out a date you might also have
recall the first time you tried alcohol or in many cases a tobacco product one thing we can all relate to is that how much easier it is to do these first the second time and the third time and on and
on I'm out in the community quite a bit uh recruiting and just out socially um I witness teen vaping basically everywhere teens uh congregate most recently I was at uh the movie Wicked in Fargo and stepped out to use the bathroom mid
movie and coming back in notice two teens in the top row um vaping um I see it at Vikings game I won't uh buy a ticket in the upper rows anymore because that's vaping Central for teams at the games and I've also
noted teenss vaping when I'm out recruiting um most recently at mored at Dilworth and at purum it's not uncommon to see a teenager in a coat put their sleeve to their mouth and then lift
their jacket up and blow um a vape into their jacket trying to conceal what's going on I'm asking that you first times easier by allowing flavored tobacco products I asking uh what risk of
addiction is our community um enabling if we make a change thank you thank you anyone else care to speak anyone else care to speak do we have anyone online that would I noticed we did have somebody
join us yeah I think Sarah had added someone but she said that they did not want to testify but just listen listen in okay all right very good all right any comments commissioner every
here yeah I just and this is this is going to sound cliche but you know we all have our little worlds we live in uh here as Commissioners and we have our viewpoints and we have a tendency sometimes to dig
in what you've done today is valuable uh we need to hear from the people we serve we need to understand where the problems are and we need to address them as best we can uh when Frank Rose was here before
he said this isn't going to solve it but we need to do what we can uh I've been in this community for a number of years and part of it was uh as police chief when we were selling things in Minnesota that would make our young
people felons when they walk across the bridge with it synthetic marijuana drug paraphernalia I had a father of a young man who had U some psychological issues
and was on probation over in the Fargo system and he found number of these products in his son's bedroom and he called me up and said what are you going to do about it and I'd say well it's legal to sell those here he said I didn't ask you that I ask you what you
going do about it and we did what we could do and we enforced the state laws when they passed them and we passed ordinance on drug paraphernalia did it end the problem obviously not but we did what we can do
and to know that the people that we serve expect this of us I am grateful for you coming here and taking your time to come in and tell us and many of you very articulate and to the young people here from the college in high schools
thank you it Resto restores a lot of the faith we need to have in the Next Generation coming up behind us thanks any other comments commissioner
grabov thank you David I appreciate your comments uh I too want to thank you very much uh for coming in today and giving your feedback for us um and take it to heart I'm very proud of you and uh
hopefully we'll be making a good decision for you as we move ahead right I just like to thank everybody for coming in very informational thank you yeah I again I also want to thank
you all for coming here today um um as we as we get ready to close this hearing as I mentioned before the start of this hearing it's going to be um my hope is the che that we schedule our conversation on this I I'm going to be
uh gone next week so I certainly don't want it to happen then and um right now the current ordinance that we have we have Direction in it that that basically has a June deadline right isn't that correct Jason and so we certainly have
time in this uh in this process and looking at the calendar I'm and I believe that our first meeting in April also has a lot on it already so I'm I'm probably going to be looking for further discussion on this by the board and it's going to be my recommendation that we
would have that on April 8th which would be a another Tuesday Morning uh so but we'll that's up to this board to decide when we when we conclude this morning this morning but that's going to be my intent is to have that as an agenda item
uh for for further discussion uh I can't promise that any action will be done either way uh after that meeting but it that's when we would probably have more discussion on this and it allows all of us time and I think is
very important as Commissioners to take all of not only the testimony that you've presented today but other testimony uh as well into into this matter so I don't have anything else uh does any other just okay yes yes one one
question this should be to Brian would we close the public hearing if we're going to take in more testimony or would we keep it open until uh a further date Mr you know if I can so my my thought on it is is testimony will end today uh and
we will close the public hearing today uh we did we did mention that you know we can still accept written comments uh moving forward um but but in terms of the I I don't know that there's any more
unless there's unless there's more information that you as Commissioners need to have that we would want to submit during the public process then we could we could just recess this public hearing to a later date uh but I I don't know that we're going to get any
additional information that we don't already have commissioner ebinger yeah if we're going to have subsequent meetings before we we take this on as an issue and there's always citizens to be heard at start of those meetings where it's not on the agenda but you know and again
I one one thing when when you go when we go to a dialogue here after this is done um we take into consideration all of the information that's provided within the record that's that's kind of that's kind
of how the government process works and as I mentioned today uh there's you know we can still have time to receive written documents they can be outside and like like commissioner eringer just said on the on April 8 somebody could come and talk under
citizens comments or because it's an agenda item we could open it up to further conversation but but at that point in time it's going to be uh probably more discussion amongst board members uh in terms of this is really in depth this ordinance and what Jason has
done in in preparing the language for this is it's a lot to digest and so so with that I you know I I I think the intent would be that uh we should be able to close this hearing today and I and I think to uh
commissioner Bears I mean you obviously have the ability to leave it open and and suspend it if you chose to but I would recommend to you I mean this is your public hearing to gain that access hear from the public close it and then allow for your discussion so I mean I think that would be the regular course
of business and probably then with that I'll make a recommendation a motion to close the public hearing second all right we have a motion and a second to close the public hearing and any further discussion on that motion seeing none all in favor signify
by saying I I oppose the same sign the public hearing is now closed once again thank you all for coming this morning and um I I can't guarantee it but I'm assuming I'm going to try to have our discussion on this uh to start with the
board um on this ordinance discussion on April 8th thank you thank you Jason okay we'll take that into consider but I I don't want it any earlier than then April ath so all right okay okay
yep thanks all right we are our next item will be our assessor update are you ready to go good morning Jill good morning
thank you Mr chair and Commissioners um I thought I'd start today with just a a description of who we are as a staff at the assessor Department um what outside noise can you bring it just little closer yeah
okay um every county in the state of Minnesota must have a county assessor and so thank you to this board for reappointing me to another fouryear term that took effect January 1 so you're I'm here for four at least four years so and we're glad you're here thank you um hope
to be here longer than four years um as uh I am Jill Murray and my license is a senior Minnesota just one second Joe commissioner Mojo is on okay all right just uh for the record commissioner Mojo is now on line all
right okay go ahead Jill all right um our office has three three Deputy appraisers uh Greg kosi is an accredited Minnesota assessor license holder he's had 15 years in June with the Clay County Assessor department and he also
is contracted as a local assessor with Holly Township um we also have another appraiser Lisa konzi she is also an AMA license holder 22 years as a Clay County employee nine years with the assessor
Department um and new newest employee is Amanda Nelson she is still under a trainee license 5 years as a Clay County employee nine months with the assessor Department she just has one uh one more week-long class to take and in June
she'll have her year of experience and can get her certified Minnesota assessor license um also on staff is assessor associate Tracy Bedford she has a certified assessor technician certification and she has been with our department for
22 years um the three appraisers and I are members of the Minnesota Association of assessing officers also known as Mao um one of the primary purposes of the association is working with the state bo of assessors and the Department of Revenue to offer licensing and
continuing education courses um Greg Lisa and I as AMA and Sama holders we need 60 hours of continuing education in a 4year cycle um Amanda at the CMA level will
need 50 hours in a four-year cycle and um her four-week long classes that she's taken she will automatically reach that threshold for this cycle um Tracy is a member of the Minnesota Association of assessment Personnel also known as map
um that supports continuing education for technicians and program administrators and she will need 40 hours of continuing education so what I'm getting at is um that's a large part of our budget um is the continuing
education it's important we continue to grow in knowledge keep up with property tax law changes equalize how we administer the programs both in Clay County and as assessors around the state um another actual division of our
department is the local assessor at the city of Morehead it's a staff of five licensed assessors led by Nathan arre who's the City Assessor and holds a license um one example of how well that
Nathan and I work together um our C software vendor right now is holding a two-day commercial valuation class and we talk them into holding it up here in Morhead at the Yom Center and that's going to save us both um at least $2,000
a piece on travel by holding it up here in northern Minnesota make everybody come come to us um as of our last Department of Revenue review in 2024 the total parcel count for Clay County is
3071 parcels and of that the City Assessor offices manages 15,25 assessor duties um I talk a lot about valuation classification our Quintel work and our racial study that we do um but a few other duties we do
have a lot of programs that we administer um primary for Clay County is Homestead exclusion a homestead special a homestead and Homestead exclusion for veterans with disability um we do a lot of work with
the sales there's input that we have to um Implement um classifications valuation data we have to do a lot of sales ver verification with phone calls with research um and weeding out those that are not arms Ling transactions and
then each of those documents gets submitted to the Department of Revenue yes yes commissioner be I have a question when it comes to the homestead exclusion for veterans and with disabilities do they fill out a piece of paperwork to notify you that they're
looking for that just like a credit they have well first they have to have um Regular owner occupied homest at exclusion and then um they have to apply for this program and bring in copies of their eligibility forms from the VA and
we work closely with Kurt as the vsso officer he annually if they're working with him then he has permission to access the records can verify annually that they meet that threshold one program is for 70 to 100% disability and
one is for permanent 100% disability we have almost 00 people on the program in just in clay countywide y about 200 in Clay County outer Clay County and I think it's almost 300 in the city of Morehead so do you do you so you also
oversee the city of Morehead correct um yes they their own assessors Yep they're City staff um but their work I oversee it they're like their exempt applications I have to sign off on them so we work well to together it's very
little that I have to look over their shoulder But ultimately their their ratios come on so you have the you you have the only credentials I more so Mor Ed has to have you sign up for that reason right right right um they are not um a city large
enough to be a city of first class um so in property tax law they are a local assessor under us whereas City of Minneapolis is considered a city of first class and they are their own standal loan jurisdiction so another question with
the four staff so they're just doing the greater Clay County then correct right and then Morhead takes care of Morehead right okay but we do everything outside of city limits of Morehead so we do Morehead Township all the small cities yeah okay
yeah let's see oh and then um my department is also part of land records and so we work closely with the auditor treasure the recorder planning and zoning and the gis Department um with building permits parcel splits and combinations and new subdivisions
and plats um we review all of that and there's quite a bit of time and and effort that goes into editing and maintaining that parcel data sales ratio study you've heard me talk about this a lot so I won't spend a lot of time on it the current 2025 um
study uses sales from October of 23 through September of 24 um notice evaluation statements are being mailed out on the 28th I'm just hopefully getting signing off on proofs today and then uh Boards of appeal for
local boards are the 17th through the 23rd um open book appeals can come directly to my office and then um I'll see you all here Tuesday June 17th for County Board of appeal and for those those to come on
for the County they they would have had to have gone through the other processes um most of our jurisdictions are open book so they can come directly to County Board of appeal but there's five jurisdictions that must go to the local board first
okay uh the 2025 quintile area that we just finished work on is Alliance Barnesville Humbolt Riverton scree and tansom townships and then Greg worked uh in the enti city of Dilworth so they viewed approximately
3,325 Parcels from M appraisal work plus um I believe it was over 500 uh building permits and we also follow from year to year we track any other new construction that we happen to observe even without a permit or if someone starts a project
last year and is continuing it to this year we check it from year to year until completion um the as shown on the screen the preliminary median ratios were quite clo quite close to the range of 90 to
105 um the end ratios on here are taken from our C system and they may yet change I just on Friday submitted our abstract to the Department of Revenue and I do not have um the final reports back yet so I will be working on a more
detailed assessment summary and forwarding that to you all um and if needed I can certainly schedule time to come here and present that in in better detail too when that's available projects in 2025 this summer here and into fall we continue to work
on the soil module um I think we will wrap that up soon the drawing out of each land category in the gis and it's a layer that's placed over the GIS mapping and then uh we need our Vanguard
cama uh vendor to reprogram that for us so that'll take a bit of time and then um for the 26 assessment use crop productivity index for uh valuation of Agland rather than crop equivalency
ratings um another item that we're working on this was um this was in progress before I came on board the AUM tax system software using by both the auditor treasure and my office um it's a conversion to platform so it's just a
same software but a newer version of it um it's now really progressing Washington county is in beta testing and Lori and I have attended 20 BPA meetings business process analysis so what they're doing is holding meetings um
going through all of the different components of the software looking at pain points and procedures and looking at or listening to our requests for improvements and then they will Implement all of that into one platform that all 10 counties that are on the
amum software will use um I am serving on the the steering committee hoping to move Clay County to implementation later this year rather than next year as Lori will have elections taking up a lot of her time and um so what we've seen so
far hopefully that's moving smoothly um and then uh immediately starting in May staff will get to work on the 2026 uh assessment we will be working in kragnes moland Morehead oakport Barnes
uh oakport townships and then Barnesville City Glendon City and Comstock city is on the schedule for this summer how are those how is that determined that was determined I believe Nancy um set up the current rotation we
have some counties do choose to do like say seven sections of every Township and seven uh or a fifth of each City and just found that it's easier and easier better to equalize a jurisdiction
if we just do the entire jurisdiction all at once so it's a a five-year rotating schedule of a full Township or a full City So within a fiveyear rotation period everybody's y being done yep we are on schedule and
in compliance and the Department of Revenue audits that every year we have to run a report we have to put our inspection dates into the system and then in May or June they ask for a list of those that are not within a time period that are older than that that we
haven't done within five years and uh and they put it on a report and then they ask us how we're going to make it up if we have fallen behind which can happen I you could have a family member with an emergency or or a family member with emergency or some other reason that
a staff person can't get out and do their appraisal work so then we have to have a plan for how we would make that up the following year and again get into compliance and with that I just thank the board for your willingness to hear uh from our assessor Department the
reasons why we sometimes have to make unpopular decisions and you've been open to my requests for change such as pictometry imagery and updates to our property information website so thank you thank you Jill I think I think your
department is or what you do is probably one of the most misunderstood uh processes throughout all County and state government and and it's a difficult job to try to be able
to um educate that process to everybody it I've been at this for 22 years and I'm still sometimes confused in that process and so it's um thank you thank you for your work thank you the legislature keeps making it more complex
they do it harder to explain in order for us to understand and administer that's yes commissioner kbov uh would you tell me I didn't retain it and I don't quite understand it so could you um go back just real
quick uh the criteria for value of farmland and you talked about a uh um two type two ways of of considering value and you were talking toward the change in
27 for 26 assessment yeah yeah is that correct yeah and that was from what to what from CER so they soil rtings yeah um this I can email you information on okay that' be great yeah I just want to get behind it a little better because I
have people talking to me about it yeah then it'd be nice to know what I'm talking about no soil rings can change by section right right yeah right and the CER was developed by the U ofm in the 70s and it's no longer supported even though you know having a a rating
of some type to distinguish between differences of of land is good but crop productivity index is just more modern and used by USDA and FSA and then is that a process you you just go to the
new rule it's not a process um well we're going to go right now we do a factor multiplier against the crop equivalency rating and we're going to go um to a straight line like the soil rating is this and that's
always going to be valued at this oh cost per acre you uh put a value on the rating right okay yeah right we found I've been checking with our vendor as to what most counties are doing and that's that's kind of the simp sometimes simple is better yeah rather than making it
more complex fact certainly it has to be found more Equitable I would guess yeah okay thank you all right anything else for Jill just want to thank you for your patience you had a long morning here that's it was interesting to hear
all right thank you Jill all right with that I um do we still have commissioner mojo on okay um hey good morning commissioner Mojo um hi thank you for your work that you've been doing on our behalf in St Paul I know
you were you did get on late and and we've completed all of our agenda with the exception of the Clos session and our committee reports we had quite the uh quite the turnout for for our second P the first public hearing we had this
morning was at the last minute cancelled because of a um it was a notification error so that one will be redone um but we're about to go into close session and I believe I don't know who
that who's is that Sarah yeah that's Sarah we have a separate Clos session link does commissioner Mojo have that link for the Clos session y all right so so with that um I would um entertain a motion to go
into close session regarding the pending litigation for Minnesota statute do we want to take a short break by chance yeah we'll close s we'll take the break if that's we'll just get that process done and then we'll go into close session I'll offer that motion Mr chair all right we have a motion uh per um
statute as described in our a agenda we have and a second by commissioner bear and with commissioner Mojo no online uh actions we take it's a roll call vote so roll call vote please commissioner
Mojo yes commissioner kinof hi commissioner Campbell yes commissioner bear commissioner ebinger all right motion carries we are now in close session and uh we'll get some time for commissioner moo to change and we'll take a quick break and then
we'll get started all right all right we are back in session uh our next item is our committee reports and we're going to start this morning with commissioner Mojo thank you Mr chair I do have um
just given the nature of the legislative session I do have um kind of an extended report so I'll try to keep it brief on February 25th I attended the swack subcommittee meeting to discuss the resource recovery center ongoing discuss with the city of Morehead really hopeful
that we can come to a solution that will benefit all of our residents in the most financially of conservative way February 26th through the 28th I attended with all of you the AMC legislative conference in St Paul grateful for the
opportunity to have great discussions with all of our elected leaders and more at the capital uh here from agency uh and department heads and also um extend the continued Network in advancing our
bills at the legislature I attended the extension committee meeting in which after five years I um am no longer chair grateful for that opportunity as well uh and then our natural resources committee uh talking about the um bills of
interest that uh affect that piece on the 28th I also attended the AMC board of directors meeting that um was a really great recap of the conference on the 29th I attended the flood mitigation check-in meeting that
we're having with the city of Morehead and diversion representatives in regards to advancing that bill at the legislature um talking about coordination not only with them but also the chamber and then after that had the um weekly prtf coordinating legislative coordinating meeting that we've been
having ongoing on March 3rd I attended the Metro Cog executive committee meeting um really just kind of buttoning up some of those additional change orders that nor Dakota do and mot have for that on March
4th uh traveled to the uh Twin Cities for the fmwf chamber Morehead area day at the capital that morning I uh virtually participated in the highway tracking committee meeting that uh last
week uh this your our board uh took action on those items and recommendations from Justin over the fourth and fifth really felt we had vibrant conversations with all um um sorts of elected leaders uh in regards to items of mutual interest we had a
meeting with the governor and uh Senator Bobby Joe Champion Senator Johnson leaders in both caucuses there we also had leaders in both the house um um conversations with both the leaders in the house side and also presentations from deed and Minnesota Department of
egg uh really good conversations uh grateful for this board for allowing me to go to that I really feel like we have um increased the presence of the capital tenfold with that group I believe we had over 38 uh folks from farore had attend that
we are expanding the reach uh in those meetings and conversations that we're having here with them so I appreciate uh all of our uh local folks um for meeting with US Representative Keeler representative Joy Senator Koop Senator
Johnson representative Gander among others and uh really the feedback that we had with our uh local priorities was really great um everyone who's hearing about the prtf issue and the non-secure issue uh it's being met with great
support on March 6th I attended the SWAT committee meeting that commissioner Campbell reported on that afternoon I attended the MCC jpa meeting commissioner Campbell also reported on that and then that evening I attended the uh Clay County Township
annual maintenance review great attendance on that we had so many folks from all of the different townships on that I really appreciate their perspective and feedback um you know I I think the way we've approached that with uh averages for costs is really um
really helpful with that it's allowed um them to kind of see what the trends are and pay for it through those Trends so I appreciate that March 7th I also attended the ongoing flood mitigation check-in meeting that prtf coordinating piece
um March 13th uh last week was um I had a meeting with Ben Griffin of Metro Cog to discuss the uh an issue that will be coming before the executive committee in regards to HR performance reviews and uh
was able to check in with uh Steve on his testimony at the Senate here on the um prum rate bill that Senator cc is carrying yesterday I attended with all ofie the Clay County Township officers meeting again such a great opportunity
to hear uh from local folks on some of the issues that they've got going on and then see how we can work to collaborate particularly on roads and land use issues and then last night I drove down to St Paul at the capital this morning I testified at the uh Health and Human
Services finance committee in regards to Bill number 1380 which is our bill to address the prdm rate for the creation of a nonse or the prtf then I was also asked to testify on behalf of house file 1911
which earmarks some funds to um update the ssis reporting and Social Services we've talked about those the green screen of death the it that needs to be upgraded so bad badly so AMC did ask since I was already down here to testify
on that bill and as you all know um we're really lucky to have both House and Senate support and a all of our bills right now I'll be coming back down on Thursday there is a hearing with our flood mitigation bill at the capital
investment committee and um waiting to hear on a senate file or when the Senate hearing would be on that but both uh House and Senate have heard our prdm rate bill in committee working on a hearing for a
non-secure component and then I do know that there are some hearings that are happening in regards to the water district so overall I don't mean to belabor you with all of this I just know that we have had great support down here for the work grateful to um my
colleagues for allowing me to come down here I apologize for being uh gone from so many meetings but really am excited about the work that Klay county has done to advance issues for our residents at the capital and Mr chair that concludes my report thank you and before we move
on I just want to comment again um commissioner Mojo is doing some um really um significant work on behalf of all of us being in St Paul and uh I know she she likes to be here as often as she can for the dialogue that we have here
but we're we're under the State schedule and it's when the state needs us there to have those dis discussions and we're grateful that uh commissioner moo was able to be there this morning for to testify in those and I I know her uh
cohort in in uh those legislative activities is commissioner krainov and between those two I think uh we have a a very good representation of our board that is at a moment's notice ready to go to St Paul so uh thank you again um
commissioner Mojo and commissioner krabbenhoft on that I and I don't know commissioner moso how long you're going to be able to stay on but I we we had our uh public hearing this morning on the tobacco and I had um I had made the suggestion that we would have discussion
on that at our April 88th meeting just as uh uh we were leaving Jason McCoy had came up to me and said that he's going to be gone on that date and so I think maybe uh maybe what we could be looking at is April 15th I uh as a date where we
can have and that I think that'll give uh commissioner moso time to review uh today's uh testimony and activities that took place as well we did have a large crowd here this morning um that works for me thank you okay very good so uh
with that then we'll move on to commissioner karabanov would you like to go next please thank you Mr chair I too have been gone a couple of weeks uh different uh Services uh involving legislature um so
I will start back on the 25th also with the AMC conference I know there's been lots of discussion one thing that commissioner Mojo um uh brought up is the ongoing issues of the ssis uh
legislation uh again Health and Human Services that's a huge deal and being part of that policy committee that was talked about quite a bit um or it is and then along with the uh uh the other
priority would be along with the high Acy which goes hand inand with uh hopefully uh the U ability to have a prtf here in Morehead on March 3rd I had the Morhead planning committee uh we
continue each meeting to keep going through their uh their zoning ordinance uses regulations uh with a Contin uh looking at um updating the uh those areas uh one
that was really I talked about at that meeting was about um the uh the uh opening up on Lots uh in in lots that are over half an acre and these are
mostly in oldport in American states and it's just giving um the ability for accessory buildings to be larger depending on the acreage it's very practical and I'm probably overdue but I'm glad they're doing it
these are recommendations so they do go on to the council and I would expect they'll be approved on um uh March 4th and 5th I too was along with u commissioner Mojo for the morid area day
at the capital uh um she reported on that very well but I was so impressed VI ability and the engagement of that that whole group and with that the you know the viability and the and the um the
encouragement from the legislators that we we talked to and a few of them uh did uh varied on their positions a little bit uh especially uh when it came to the push back on the paid medical or made
paid family and medical leave uh yet uh we heard from the governor and some of the legislators you know they're ultimately open to at least U looking at some changes in in that legislation and
then certainly uh uh the shifts on on some of the um Social Services uh um uh regard to the what was in the uh Governor's budget on March 6 I had the
uh Clay County intermental uh uh meeting or committee and at that meeting um I was unable to be at that Retreat on January 1st but we did a recap of everything Steve had a
PowerPoint that we uh reviewed uh if it hadn't been talked about before I'll just uh add one thing on that uh and that was um me uh that in
that meeting or that Retreat uh 13 organizations were represented and uh we had along with guest speakers and legislators uh our total was 67 so that was good group uh we talked about uh
future topics and one of the ones they came up and and there were uh two uh superintendents at the meeting but it was about treny and and how that affects uh Workforce and and all the above so our next meetings in May and we'll
continue that discussion um on March 11th through the 13th at the invite of uh two of the um nonprofits in the Human Service world that I'm part of uh that being Community astion Partners L and Prairie and then
also acting as a lison with our Clay County h uh I was invited to go with cap LP to Washington DC uh I was part of their National
Convention um the speakers were Uh topnotch u a lot of um information came from the national lobbyist for uh Comm action Partners his name is David Bradley talked about so many of things
uh with lot years of background of uh certain people you how we need to talk to them uh certainly um the parties have differences on some of these ideas but the main concern at this point with uh
Doge and and in these departments about half the staff has been cut cut na uh nationally and uh that's one issue but then the the bigger isue I think um the concern about that is delivery of the
money and when it comes but uh again at this point that um nothing has changed uh but the bigger picture was what are the grants going to be uh looking like in the coming year and with the continuing resolution that pass uh
actually before I left there um uh the funding for both the HRA and the and caplp for this year uh is in um you're going to be in an okay shape so I I don't see any big dis disruptions U
subject to change of course and then the other thing they were trying to make sure that uh our legisl our Congressional people knew was that our community service PL grants are high really important and hopefully they don't see any cuts and and having the U
Congressional people understand that's the money that comes to us uh that gives the locals some Flex ability to um uh leverage uh local priorities so they're important to us um yeah so met U
senators clar and Smith twice and then sen representative fishbach along with other key um leaders in U in their areas of Human Services on March 17th um I was at the Clay County Township
officers um meeting uh yesterday at at the Lac thank you Jackie for pulling things together and leading leading the charge and I also want to thank all those that um spoke for staff uh to give
updated information to Township officers including the highway department GIS assessors and planning zoning may have been others but Sheriff oh yeah can't can't forget the sheriff uh so anyway
that uh is what I had and thaten cludes my report thank you commissioner beer on March 12th Yeah March 12 we had a Northwest
emergency communications board meeting up in Thief River Falls I'm going to let commissioner ebiner speak on that matter that was the first one I've been at a lot of that went over my head so I picked up some of it but a lot of it went overhead I'll let commissioner eer
speak on that and then on March 13th we had a meeting with the S swcd where they are fully staffed right now they have yeah they just hired a new employee and we had a lot of discussion
about like these all do if where the funds are going to be coming from in the future with the feds in the state and the predicaments they are in we also approved they also approved for four field wind breaks and one Farmstead wind
break and we talked about R Rion A8 do where we spent a little bit of that for the Rural Water that's all we discussed there and then on March 17th we had a the clay
County's ass Association of townships meeting we're at the government center and I just want to say thanks to the staff that was all there and Jackie very good job that I'll put that on that is all my reports right commissioner
evinger hey thank you uh on the 11th I had a meeting with Jason McCoy and Rory Beal just referenced the public meeting we had today and discussed what uh what we how we going going to approach that
and what they had done uh Wednesday the 12th I uh commissioner bear and I were at the Northwest emergency communication uh board meeting in Thief River Falls uh just a couple of items here to jump on I know it's a little
overwhelming because this is a joint meeting between the board members who are elected officials and the uh uh rack members who are technicians there's a lot of a lot of radio speak there that's kind of hard to
keep up with we addressed a uh an issue that affected Clay County and Morehead Police Department's radio systems it's uh an issue where the this channel itself is overwhelmed it's called a busy and we've had a number of those over the
last couple of months uh the bottom line is both the sheriff's department and Morehead police are going to encryption and for a couple of days there when somebody keyed the mic it
took twice the the uh power or the the ability we have to to transmit until they got the encryption process done so that uh worked out and it's back to normal again uh were some
complaints about Grant turn or turn back funds on grant funding um just a uh cautionary tail to spend the grant funding because if it's turned back there's a very slow turnaround if you're going to try and refile and get the
money back I think the big issue of the day there is a $7 million Grant opportunity that's going to RFP by the end of April I believe um for any County that wants
to uh engage in or any District that wants to engage in getting a school mapping project that's up the state wants to map using GPS positioning every K through 12
school in the state it seems like 7 million is going to be a little low uh but they seem to think that they can get somebody to take the bid Statewide but they need to know every school district that's going to be
interested in engaging in this so um before I even got a chance to make a phone call to uh try and get the ball rolling um Chad stranglin with the Morehead fire
who's their their emergency director uh Gabe tweeten and Derek Swanson with the police department have all gotten together and the balls rolling on this to get with the school districts in the county and make sure all of them will commit and getting the information back
um to the uh Northwest emergency communication people so that we can put together for our entire District what schools are in and what schools aren't interested I would be very surprised if there were schools who weren't interested in this this gives you the
ability to use GPS positioning on your phone to identify exactly where a crisis is if you've got a school and they say we're in classroom 12 all that information is available to the dispatcher they can tell responding
emergency Personnel what door to go in and what steps to take to get to the place where the problems are just a great system if we can get it to work I do want a cautionary tail on this there will probably be a secondary local cost
for us to get this loaded onto the um computer systems of the Dispatch Center but it'll build be well worth anything that uh uh we need to come up on that so we'll keep you prize to that as it as it
develops um we're going to have a joint meeting on April 9th to try and com uh coordinate all the responses we've had from the various counties and get a report into the state so that we can get line for
the for the grant funding uh Thursday the 13th I attended beyond the yellow ribbon um not a whole lot of new business uh veterans uh resource
Outreach at msum is is now fully staffed they're doing a lot of good things out there it's it's uh the director there um Joshua Clark is really on top of things and it's surprising the number of veterans we have in college number of
National Guard people we have in college it's a great resource for them um in my report I mentioned uh Jason Benson who's a brigadier general in the uh Minnesota National Guard is now the executive
director of of the diversion Authority and those that know him there um were very complimentary on his skills and we're lucky to have them on uh the 14th I attended a beam
signing at the uh for the lake Agy Regional Library I'm I'm the this year's president so we went down we had a photo op we signed the beam for the new uh community center and library and it's going to be exciting to get that that
project done looking forward to having the the new facility on um Monday the 17th I attended the township officer meeting which has already been reported on I want to join right in Jackie MC it
for us and did a wonderful job I had to duck out a little early but I saw most of our staff's uh presentations there and uh I saw Sheriff empting Justin from Highway Matt from uh planning and Jill Murray they all did a
great job I I don't know who else reported afterwards but as always they they let our uh Township people know what a good credible staff we have here uh later that day I went to Detroit Lakes for the quarterly meeting with the
dancing Sky Board of board uh of directors a whole lot of this was just a an orientation for new board members we did have some uh Dave Meyers from Becker
County is now the second vice president uh and Teresa Gilly from uh kitson county is now our president for this this next upcoming year uh had a little discussion about some real unknown areas right now
in funding and in Grants we're not sure what federal funding is going to be coming in a whole lot of what they do with the area agencies on uh aging uh revolves around federal funds that are channeled through
the state so as as it is with all of us we're kind of looking at some unknowns in the future and that completes my report thank you on uh March 11th I attended the insurance
committee uh and the items of discussion that day uh we we concentrated on the medical loss ratio which ultimately is really involved with um what we end up having to have for potential changes in
our premiums then next year uh right now there's um it's too early within our process to determine if uh sell funding versus staying uh in a group right now is the appropriate
thing um our our Consultants seem to think that we're in line to potentially have a very competitive uh bid process which then might be more attractive than uh moving to Self insurance at this
time uh so that was a a significant portion of the conversation uh more to come in that later uh then there there was a question brought up um re regarding the action that was taken uh for the elected
official insurance so we had a little conversation and dialogue about that and I think when we explain that whole process to them they were um they seemed to be satisfied there were a little bit they were some of them didn't realize that we did have a subcommittee group
that's consists of of uh our two Commissioners as well as our personal issue or our um Human Resources as well as our um County Administrator and assistant
County Administrator and those things are primarily where we deal with things that are probably more administrative uh in nature than anything else um but I think you know afterwards I had some of those people come up saying thanks for
for that process that that we went through and and they understood the reasoning behind uh that option for elected people uh then on uh because we are obviously we do have quite a bit
differences between elected people versus full-time individuals then on the uh April 12th we did have the diversion Authority planning committee meeting uh we did receive a um an update from Jason Benson
regarding the FEMA update or actually I think that was that was done by Chris bigard I think but anyway um what we've learned is that there's two types of um processes that FEMA can go through one
is referred to as the lar which is a letter of map revision and the other one is a physical map revision and we have been told that FEMA intends to do a physical map prevision uh for this project as opposed to the
lar uh option that's out there and I my question on that was um okay so if you're going to do a physical map revision what are what are the boundaries that are part of that and the best response I got at that time is that
that is still to be determined in the whole process so certainly everything within the uh protected area will be part of that but my concern was that to make sure that it might go all it should go all the way to Georgetown you know that that should all
be part of that um then we did um um we got some update from Jason Benson regarding uh what he believes the future direction should be in the next land
director position and I think he's right on the money and I think it's going to kind of lead to more of a land land and compliance director um currently the lands position that we have now has been solely focused on uh land acquisition
now that we're going to hopefully be transitioning from that it would be more important to incorporate the compliance component of that uh so that we meet the obligations that we have uh to all the land owners and and so that I think
that's a really good thing on the part of uh Jason to be moving in that direction on April on March 13th I attended the Lakes Country service Co-op meeting and that one there's uh several items on there there was aot lot of
recap regarding legislation that's going on that impacts um school districts there's some some neat components that they're working on that at this point in time I I don't have enough information to share with you
uh but there could be some potential uh outof country people coming here to learn some of our education processes and I won't get any any more than that at this point in time until and I think the plan is to work with U
msum on that process and so more will come on that but it certainly sounds to be uh an interesting opportunity on um excuse me on March 14 I attended the Prairie Lakes
meeting and at that meeting we had several things on the agenda the plant management report uh the monthly performance uh Clay County is uh on the right side of our deliveries now for the first first time in a long time close to
200 tons uh more than what uh our contract shows um we continue to have conversations regarding Ash um there is a um there's a Grant
application that Ottertail County is doing that could help with the um Ash landfill process and needs and but part of that part of that um Grant application it's a it's a grant
that would be uh 70% funded through mpca and the other 30% would need to be local and what Ottertail County was asking from uh the uh uh C Lakes group was that we
would agree to uh cover that 30% over a number of years I think the that 30% number that they talking about now is probably I think they talked maybe around $300,000 and and within our within the
pr Prairie lak's budget there's a line item that deals with the administration of the ash landfill and So currently in our budget that number is $325,000 a year it was just raised from
300 to 325 and so it's anticipated that that that that line item within the budget would would shift up but what a because the Grant application was due they
wanted a consensus of the board that that we would do that and so so we have we gave that cons you know that um that information to Ottertail County that we would support that 30% payable
over a number of years and so obviously that'll that will impact future budgets but we don't know maybe there are other things that might be minimized that could help offset that so [Music] um and then
um their new commissioner uh commissioner Hansen Phil Hansen had a lot of lot of good questions he's in that learning process and he he did want to remind all member counties that Breer County does have a mattress
recycling uh facility um and I I think through our swack we can just in inform Corey which I'm sure he already knows and you know to what degree that might be an option for us
and there is a there's a bid opening on the casa Road in in otter till County that is going to be partially using that Ash uh as a as that pilot program and I believe that
bid opening is coming up um very shortly um that concludes that and I just want to comment I I would have uh liked to have been at the annual Township officers meeting yesterday but I did have higher commitments that I had
to be at so I could not attend that meeting but I understand that Jackie was the hit of the day and that she she made sure that everything was fantastic which it reminds me of the time when her mother came and was a presenter at our
Retreat and maybe you're taking right after your mother in that regard so with that we'll go right to you do you have any updates you want to give us just that what was mentioned already um attending the Spring Township officers meeting yesterday and had the
pleasure to highlight some great things happening in Clay County uh since our County Administrator Steve Lon and assistant County Administrator Darren Brook were out so I appreciate that opportunity um to highlight that and help MC the county portion and um yeah
it was a great meeting very good uh Darren you're online still I I am online thank you well thank thank you for being part of this I oh I wouldn't miss this oh yeah
right um I I know it's been a very long week uh morning and so I'm going to go through mine very quickly so on the 11th I also was in the insurance committee and uh commissioner Campbell uh covered that very well I'm interested to see
what our rates are going to be but it sounding um like it could be pretty good since we're going out for RFP next next year for next year um also on the 11th I had discussions with Anna uh referenced some Personnel issues on the 12th we had
a manager meeting we talked a lot about the bills that are going through legislation right now and some of the costs that may be coming down um also prepped for my testimony that day um which was the first for me on uh on that
Wednesday the 13th I uh I think that might have been the Thursday uh gave my first testimony uh on the paid Leave Act uh law so that was exciting um also we had a meeting with I had a meeting with
Kimberly about some ideas for her reorganizational change and some things to look at there to make it a little bit more uh easier for citizens to submit things um also on 13th I had a meeting with Mark and Brian and we're uh part of
our process for going through the uh county code um on the 14th I had a meeting with Steve and Anna to talk about some Personnel changes and also that day I had a uh Maca weekly update which kind of goes over all the
legislative items that are going on right now uh very always very informative at that um and then on the 17th I started my vacation and right after this I'm going to continue my vacation so and that's all I have okay so you
don't want to partake in the pick meeting after this no I'm gonna let Anna handle all right okay well thank you for uh taking time out of your vacation to be part of this and and it's appreciated
and as we all know that vacation time is uh is a good thing so all right with that Brian do you have anything more to add all right that concludes everybody's uh with that we will be adjourned Part: 2
e e e e e e e e e e
e e excuse me Mr chair do you mind all turning your mics on I think they might be off yeah thank you sorry no no worries um uh roll call
has been made a quorum has been reached um hopefully everybody had a chance to review the agenda and um it's gotten better uh last month I got my papers on Saturday this month I got my
papers on Monday it's a lot better than getting at Tuesday when you mail it on Thursday so hopefully everyone has had a chance to prove to look at at the agenda I look for motion to approve the agenda as printed moved second motions are made
and seconded to approve the agenda all those in favor say I I opposed motion is carried um now part of our packet was the minutes from January 28th
make motion to approve the minutes from 28th second motions that made and seconded to approve the minutes from January 28th all those in favor say I I opposed motion is carried so do I need to ask if there
anybody in the audience that wishes to speak okay I do not okay so uh looking for a motion to approve uh the opening of the public hearing moved second motions a made in seconded to open the public hearing all those in
favor say I I opposed motion is carried take it away Matt thank you Mr chair so this is a variance request uh to the uh for a structure or two structures actually from the ordinary high water level of a
public water so uh the property is in all the immediately adjacent property are zoned agricultural agricultural General and special protection Rivers streams the use of the property is agricultural
agricultural there's a bin site office shop storage buildings on site the applicant uh is proposing to replace uh nine grain bins with a total capacity of 52,000 bushels with two grain bins with a capacity of 130,000
bushels um the Practical difficulty given was that he would not be able to build on about 90% of his farmyard if any kind of fire disaster were to occur he'd not be able to to rebuild so essentially this unnamed Creek here it's really a ditch
glor I don't even know if it's a glorified ditch drainage ditch it's a ditch um essentially these these structures are all within that 200t setback a lot of them are quite old um most of them
predating our our Shoreland rules um um and so what the applicant is referring to here is essentially these are would be non-conforming structures if they were damaged to more than 50% they would have to be moved back um on the property
behind this 200 foot uh setback so you know theoretically this 200 foot setb back could be met just by moving these back here um but there are other structures that do exist within the setback um the replacement of all of these grain
bins with um two other grain bins would definitely reduce the footprint and the impervious surface um on the site um the proposed bin placement might also be better for farming operations just considering how this um operation is set
up right now it should also note that in 2018 this tributary or this Creek was removed from uh the dnr's buffer M map so that was the buffer law that that required that uh set buffers be put into
penal vegetation on public waterways uh this one is no longer uh well it hasn't been on for uh seven years now I know that also the state is looking at updating the What's called the public
Waters inventory it hasn't been done in a long time and that processes in the beginning phases right now it could take a long time for it to happen this um tributary of this unnamed
Creek not being on the buffer map might potentially make it a candidate for removal from the public Waters inventory as well in the future uh policy considerations uh so from our comprehensive plan the goals and objectives that relate to this uh
request we have a goal to protect and enhance the health and vitality of Clay County surface waters including lakes rivers and streams um to maintain enhance ring areas of public Waters especially within Shore impact zones um this does have a
lot uh long history of um just agricultural activity um within that Shoreland zoning area and the shore Impact Zone which is approximately 100 feet from the ordinary high water level
of this public water um as I mentioned it was removed from the buffer map uh the proposed development could also reduce runoff impact as well and then we have a objective to continue to enforce Shoreland regulations on County lakes rivers and
streams granting a variance would um make this request I guess compatible with the shorel regulations any questions for me at all I and on my notes that I had made
reviewing things um I was part of the group that worked with Richard in getting this piece removed from the DNR buffer and I'm just wondering if the tributary how
applicable this setback even is but that may need to be that may be something being addressed when with you saying the DNR is looking at updaing the public Waters yeah so Mr chair even though it was
removed from that buffer map um its status as a public water is still in place and so that's where the setbacks come from they're not tied to what's on the buffer map but they are tied to the the fact that it is a public water or
listed as a public water okay well hopefully that gets okay it's it's interesting because I don't know if you look at the um see if I can pull it up here going to wing it a little bit
so this is our County public Waters inventory map see if it loads I might have to zoom in so this is the public water in question here um it
really only runs through a three sections so a lot some of these were determined though by their drainage area as well so and I don't know what the drainage area is on this but
um that's how that determination is made in some cases I think when you needed two miles to be considered one but okay yeah so it's definitely one of our short public Waters in the
county okay thank you okay does anyone else have any questions for mat would the applicant care to come to the podium U state your name uh Brandon menhol
anything you'd care to add or um Matt did a really good job of uh kind of saying everything that I would probably say myself uh I guess I really don't have nothing more to
add so question for you so according to what we have in front of us here you're looking at you know eliminating a bunch of the old bins and then putting up two two single bins with a little bit more
capacity to replace the nine yes sir y makes perfect sense to me okay anybody else have any questions for Brandon no no thank you and as there is nobody in the
audience um Matt do you have anything else to add uh not at this time Mr chair just um just just the findings of fact I okay look for a motion to close the public
hearing moved second motions are made a second and to close the public hearing all those in favor say I I opposed motion is carried now to find the findings of fact
as organized as they should be very okay right here does it right there menold is granting the variance in harmony with the general purposes in intent of the Clay County Land
Development code yes I agree the purpose and intent of the Clay County Land Development code applied to this request is to promote and protect agricultural as well as Water Resources placing grain bins within the
setback may not appear to be in harmony with the general purpose and intent of the Cod to protect water surfaces resources however the placement of these bins and removal of the nine grve bins would present present would reduce the
footprint of the bin site and consequently the impervious surface this would reduce the amount of runoff entering public water is this variance consistent with the Clay County comprehensive land use
yes okay um does the applicant establish a there practical difficulties and complying within the strict letter of the Clay County Land Development code code yes I
agree do exceptional or extraordinary circumstances exist that apply to the property in question and that do not generally apply to other properties in the same zone or vinity resulting from lot size shape topography or other circumstances over
which the owners of the property have no control or influence would the literal interpretation of the provisions of the Clay County Land Development code deprive the applicant of Rights commonly enjoyed by other properties in the same district under
the terms of this ordinance yes is the variance being granted the minimum variance that would alleviate the practical difficulty does the variance request meet all below criteria no variance shall be granted where any of the
following are not met adequate sewage treatment systems or water supply capabilities can be provided the plate of the landowner or hardship is not due to created to circumstances created by the land owner
yes the variance would not allow a use that is not already allowed in the planning district the essential character of the locality would not be altered or there would not be a significant adverse effect on the surrounding
communities there would not be a significant add adverse effect on public health or safety the variance does not confer the applicant any special privileges that are denied by the owners dis ordinance to owners of other land structures or
buildings within the same district conditions may be imposed in the granting of a variance a condition must be directly related Rel ated to and must bear rough proportionality to the impact created by the variance oh Mr chair yeah I don't have
any on there but um condition you might consider would be what you what the setback would be from what would it be reduced to proposed I think setback that are
looking for it be 130 ft are we uh interested or looking at a uh putting a number on how many feet they need to be have that on there I think it would be good for them to for it to at least
not be in the shore Impact Zone which is approximately 100 feet just because there are existing structures but that are in but yep I think the proposal is to place them approximately 130 feet
from the from the ditch shaking is okay um okay uh we would like to uh put in there that they must be 130 ft
from the current ditch okay anybody have anything else to well I look for a motion to e um it be chapter 7 um administ Administration and procedures uh that's
the chapter that covers kind of the board of adjustments role duties um and then also um variances as well and we did have an attorney review uh that chapter she provided some great comments
uh on that on that chapter and so we're looking at at proposing some changes and the ones that I just want to touch on briefly relate to the um review review criteria for variances uh that's kind of
the main one that I want to focus on so the review criteria for variances that's essentially the criteria that you use when you're determining whether or not to um Grant or deny a variance
and for variances and the board of adjustments role it is spelled out pretty specifically in State Statute um what those criteria should be um right now if you look at your
findings and the findings or the that's what makes up the findings what we went through we have quite a few um some of them overlap a little bit some of them might not really be
necessary and so what I guess I am proposing based off of the feedback that we got from um this attorney is just kind of reducing um those excuse me to um eight and so that would be some of
these are the same so the first two you have to have they're in statute uh the third number three you also is required that is in statute to um really there isn't a definition for practical
difficulty just there's three three I guess components of what a practical difficulty is considered that the property is going to be used in a reasonable manner um the land owner is not resp responsible um it's due to circumstances
related to the property uh and then granting the variants would not alter the essential character of the property's locality and locality is not defined in statute either so it could be the neighborhood it could be the township um it's kind of up to you in the to
decide um again looking at four the variant would not allow a use that is not allowed in the zoning District in which the subject property is located that is in statute as well and then economic considerations alone are not the basis for the variance you can't just want it you can't just deviate or
vary from the code because it's going to be cheaper that can't be the only reason it can be a factor but it can't be the only reason uh and then the variance being the minimum minimum variance necessary to alleviate the Practical difficulty um so those six would kind of
be the main um review criteria for you as a board to consider as opposed to the we have eight right now but then there's one that's got a through there's a lot um so I've kind kind of starting to streamline this a
little bit uh if if it's in um uh a flood Hazard zone or if it's in Shoreland you'd have to consider some of these other two if there's septic associated with that um but otherwise it would mainly be
those those six any thoughts at all I know that there are some in our current review criteria that might be kind of tricky um the one that I'm thinking of
specifically and I've always thought this is um this item F here or it's not on there here let me pull it up the variance not conferring any special
privilege that is denied to owners of other lands a variance is essentially a special privilege so that's that's one that's problematic
um so we'd be looking at at streamlining these a little little bit more and just covering essentially what the statute statutory requirements are that makes sound good to yeah I can
see eliminating that question okay I think theoretically you could deny every variance based off of that okay um we Haven not had one of these um as part of a hearing since I have
been um in this position but also I've as I've alluded to before you're you have another role and that's to um basically if there is appeal of an administrative decision so if I deny a building permit or if someone commits a
violation and they have to remedy it in some way they can they they can de that within I think 10 days um and to the to you as the board um and so that hasn't come up yet there really isn't going to be any changes to that at all but
um maybe it'll maybe it'll come up in the future and I won't take it personally if you overturn an administrative decision not yet no they come cross that bridge when it come
right yep okay so where we're at basically um I should also just mention one other thing that's not going to change because this is also in um statute is that your decisions are final
so if someone wants to appeal in a variance and any AG grieved party can can appeal so it could be a neighbor it could be anyone who the court determines as standing well anyone can appeal essentially um
that would go to uh District Court are they subject to the same 10 days that I think for district court it's 30 30 days Y and I think court of appeals is 60
okay yeah 60 yeah yeah so really I think the goal with just uh the revisions to the to the review criteria that are in your findings is just to make it a lot I think there's a lot of gray area
and a lot of room for interpretation which can be good but then also sometimes it can be not so good um to just give a little clearer path on what you really need to look at um for different variance requests because a
lot of them are pretty open and shut pretty easy but there's some that are pretty Tri can be pretty tricky too so um so hopefully whittling those down will help with that any other questions for me at
all all right there's also I will just mention one more thing in our current code there's a language that the board of adjustment um has a responsibility to uh make decisions on conveyance rights so if someone wanted to convey
development rights from one property to another uh that's in our current code I think we're just GNA get rid of that because that I don't think ever comes up and um I think that's just been carrying over for years
and years and years I don't even know what that hearing would look like yeah yeah yep so all righty
okay um anybody have anything else second motions and made and seconded to adjourn the meeting all those in favor say I I motion is carried meeting is adjourned that was e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e would like to call the meeting to order a motion to call the meeting order motions was made by brand Brad and seconded by Kurt shervan all those in
favor say I I opposed motion is carried um would uh look for a hopefully everybody had a chance to look through their packets would look for a motion to for approval of the agenda with some flexibility
tonight I'll make a motion to approve the agenda motions made by Ezra seconded by Dave to approve the agenda with flexibility all those in favor say I I oppos motion is [Music] carried hopefully everyone has had a
chance to look at the minutes from last month's meeting anybody have any corre corrections or adjustments hearing none look for a motion to approve moved second motion by Sebastian seconded by Ashley
all those in favor say I I I opposed motion is carried is there anyone in the audience that wishes to speak on something that is not on the agenda is there anyone in the audience that wishes to speak on something that is not on the
agenda anybody online uh no Mr chair and final anyone in the audience that wishes to speak on the agenda hearing none we're going to move to the public hearings and we are going to skip over
the request for an iup and go to the Land Development ordinance update um and then there was substantial paperwork in everybody's packets
hopefully read a chance to look at the notes take it away Matt no we need the public hearing open look for a motion to uh open the public hearing I'll make a I'll make a motion to open public hearing motion by Ezra second second by
Ashley to open the public hearing all those in favor say I I oppos public hearing to discuss the Clay County Land Development and subdivision ordinance code all right thank you Mr chair so Clay County is in the process of updating the
Land Development subdivision ordinance the this ordinance regulates land use in the unincorporated areas of Klay County in accordance with the 2045 Klay County comprehensive and transportation plan the Planning Commission will consider recommending ordinance adoption of the Clay County Board of Commissioners draft
ordinance is AA available for review online uh comments and questions can also be submitted by calling the planning office or by email at planning at Clay County mn.gov so um with that I know that in in the
time period between when this notice went out um and now we did get our comments back from um uh attorney who reviewed the subdivision regulations chapter and then the administration and procedure procedures chapter of the
ordinance so what I want to do tonight essentially or what I'm proposing is that just to kind of give you an overall update on where things are and then um look for any um comments from you all just on the ordinance in general if
you've had a chance to kind of review some of the other chapters just an opportunity for that uh and then I just some discussion on those two chapters mainly focusing on the um Administration and procedures chapters because there
are some um pretty substantial comments in there that uh I would say differ from how um our current code looks and how how it how this this Planning Commission has has operated in in the
past so with that I'll just jump right into it uh so where we're at with the update um we're essentially complete with as I've said last month we have basically a full and been saying this since January a full draft uh ready to go just getting
some additional comments from other entities that are requirements uh the first being our shorel section uh the DNR has reviewed that uh because what we're doing is
essentially um realigning our current Shoreland ordinance to better match the state Shoreland rules uh they don't really have too many comments they just have some minor revisions I think the main
main comment that they had was just we missing some definitions that they would like to see in there so those should be pretty easy changes how that process works is before our April meeting the DNR will send us a a conditional letter
of approval uh with any suggested changes we make those changes and then they would essentially approve the Shoreland portion of the ordinance uh in State Statute there is something that requires the pollution control agency and the Department of Agriculture to
review our feed lot section there's some other requirements in there as well um npca I had reached out to them a couple times finally I think got to the right person and um they said no that's not required don't have to do that uh if you
want we can review it and just give us some comments so I said sure So that's that's what they're going to do uh subdivision regulations so the comments that uh we received from um the attorney
on subdivision regulations I think for the most part I unless any of you want to talk specifically about any comments um I feel pretty comfortable with the the comments that were made I don't think that they're very like require any
major changes to what we have um just some some tweak here and there so unless anyone has anything that they want to point out specifically um I know Mr stien you had had mentioned something um I don't know if that's something you want to bring up
to the group at all or sure yeah obviously the the attorney has done a very thorough job of reviewing it all because uh there's certain things that she found that you know to the average person probably wouldn't even
understand the difference but I guess on her page on the page two of her comments number one um the uh let's see am I reading it right
here page three number one that's what I meant the dis development agreement discussed in section 86 1B uh I have it up to I have it do I have
it right there mat it talks about a reference to something that's mentioned late quite a ways back and Matt you could probably explain what I was talking to you about better than I can but me it seems kind of important to have that in there because
obviously it's probably duplication but when you're dealing with that particular part of it um it does reference you know I just had it's Mr chair I think you're talking about the pre-application meeting requirement yeah
yeah and so we have that essentially duplicated in a couple spots so we have a whole section right at the beginning of on page three dedicated to that and then it's just mentioned again um so we have an administrative subdivision process
and then a um major subdivision process and it's just mentioned um as a step I think in in each of those as well um and it refers back to that that section and she just change the fact about any of the
verbiage just duplicates I mean if you're actually looking at that seems like it has a good reference if you yeah it's probably duplication and it doesn't really matter too much I just I like things when they are duplicated yeah
just to make sure that I think she she thought we could strike it just because it's duplicative of of this section um I'm kind of of the opinion with same as Mr syy to just keep it in there just because it's when you're going through these the subdivision process it's
almost you almost have to view it as like a checklist of things that you need to do and steps that you need to make and it be it's pretty easy to miss a step um so if we can keep it in there I think it would make sense depending on what um a
developer or an applicant is doing if they're doing an administrative subdivision where they're just splitting one parcel into two or if they're doing a whole major development other than that I mean it all obviously has been reviewed quite well
and a lot of work has gone into it by both Mr Jacobson and and the attorney so other than that I thought it was good and Mr chair I think one of the main things that I was maybe thinking
she would comment on was the section 8- 6-5 Township approval required um she didn't really have a whole lot to say about that um just because there is a state statute whenever you're platting and laying New Roads uh that are in a
Township and the township has a Planning Commission uh then Township approval is required um and in the interest of basically because sometimes townships have a Planning Commission some don't just making it a blanket requirement um
that's something that's required in our current code for uh roads um but that is because that's in in statute just making sure that that if a developer is coming with a a proposed subdivision that requires New Roads that they that they
first go to the township um before coming to the county and and get that approval um just because ultimately it would avoid uh the maybe premature investment of a lot of time and resources into doing the plat planning
process and the surveying and all that coming to the county and then find out oh no the Township's going to strike it down anyway so unless anyone has anything else about um the subdivision chapter I think we
can move on it's it's personally it's my least favorite chapter of the whole code if I had to pick a favorite and a least favorite all right um just want to give you an update as well just on chapter 4 uh just
had some some conversations I think uh Kurt and uh commissioner bear were involved um with this just adding a new use to our our use table into our use regulations for temporary agricultural worker housing uh it's something that
other counties in the state are seeing more of um a lot of a lot of counties in the state do have allow this and they do have regulations for it um so just kind of thinking ahead putting that putting that in there as a as a use and um
including those standards as well um I think the main in the southern part of of Minnesota um you see a lot of the h2a visas um and then up here I know there's been
some conversations with um sugar beat producers about finding truck drivers and things like that and um to Hall beats so uh the other thing that will likely change maybe a little bit is the the Cannabis section I don't expect this to
change a lot but I just want to make compare it to the model ordinance that the state put out and updates to that model ordinance um and and make sure that we're we're at least in line with that uh this the
Cannabis regulations are kind of a moving Target um just because it's legal they've had a licensing period for it which closed on Friday of last week and
there aren't any rules yet so kind of doing things a little backwards but um I just want to I'm always kind of keeping this kind of on the front front end just in case something changes especially with the rules just so we're as most current as possible and making sure that
we're um um in compliance with those the state rules did uh I see Becker County have your mic on by chance yeah okay sorry no no worries see I do see or did see Becker County approved uh cannabis
facility uh y be County here I don't know if that's something that we could could you know talk to them about or see what rules they've adop adopted anything other than just the you know it seems like a I mean it's a legit operation
going if uh and it's coming yeah it's going to be it's going to be here before you know it yep yep yeah and we've I think we've received some inquiries about um
cultivation and also um uh retail in outside of Incorporated cities so many unincorporated areas of the county not not many um but it what it sounds like is uh folks are waiting to see if they
are getting their their applications in for a licensing and see if they even have a chance of getting a license before going through that that process but not not the case I guess in in Becker County so that for that um business in Becker County they would
still need to get that licensing they just kind of took the zoning uh Per County permitting did that first I think so that if I remember correctly can that only be done on highway or limited Highway yes yep so the way our ordinance
is right now that we are considering cultivation manufacture wholesale uh retail all commercial or industrial uses and so they would be limited to our Highway commercial or a limited Highway commercial zoning
districts at this time all right uh unless anyone has any does anyone have any questions or comments about uh well chapters one through five at all the only potential other thing that
I did not include in in my PowerPoint here today tonight is that last week the Buffalo Red River Watershed District reached out there looking at potentially developing rules uh for setbacks from um public ditches from
from drainage ditches that are under their jurisdiction uh I think the the example they gave especially is with um Solar Development but then other types of developments as well um and I don't know what that would be other um
Watershed districts or judicial authorities ditch authorities uh will measure from like the center of the ditch and it ranges anywhere from 50 feet to 200 feet they're looking at doing it from the ditch right of way essentially but they just don't have a
number yet um so that's likely I would advise against coming up with their own setback that differs from whatever rule that they're going to make but so that whenever they come out with that that might be something that we might want to
consider coming back and um amending the ordinance so we're in line with with them if that makes sense they figure yep once they figure all I know is that they want it they it's going to be from the right away I don't know if it's going to
be 25 ft 50 ft 200 feet I don't know what they're yep so EX exactly it's the moment it's approved it becomes out of date basically yep exactly just like an
encyclopedia or a map or yep so it's a it's a living document all right if no one has any uh comments about chapters one through five I'm going to take that as a good thing and that you all are satisfied with
what's in there um that is kind of the bulk of of this and we can just Dive Right into into chapter 7 Administration procedures I'm going to keep things pretty high level and um for the most part there are some areas where we might
want to have a little bit more discussion uh but kind of four things that I want to just touch on our procedural consistency the review criteria for use permits amendments uh and variances uh the appeals process and
then violations penalties and enforcement and then anything else that you might might want to discuss as well so overall I think one of the the big themes in the comments that we received was just making sure that we're procedurally consistent between the County Board the board of adjustment and
the Planning Commission uh that the powers and duties of each of the boards are consistent in their description and roles uh there's some in in terms of um how they handle applications what they're describing the makeup of a board
how how Planning Commission is appointed and things like that and then our amendments use permits and various applic variance applications and procedures just making sure that those are all consistent as well and that are notice requirements that they align with
state law we largely left them um in our draft as they were in the the current code uh a lot of what we have is way more stringent than what is required by state law um and so in the interest of
aligning more with state law um that's kind of the the thought there is to for for noticing requirements um typically for any type of County or governmental
decision um you have essentially 60 days it's all the 60-day rule to make a decision and it's in some of our cases we have gone down to 30 or 10 or whatever for whatever reason um you can can extend that in additional 60 days uh
you can extend it even longer if the applicant or the person awaiting that government decision agrees to it in writing um so just kind of aligning everything more with the 60-day rule just to keep that consistent um we did spend some time
with the board of at the board of adjustment meeting this evening just talking about review criteria so these are the when you're looking at like a conditional use permit or an inter use permit when we go through a findings of fact um you're going through these review criteria for variances the board of adjustment does the same thing uh
because you not the board of adjustment I'll not I'll not spend a lot of time on it just want you to know that we're looking at um streamlining these a little bit more kind of cutting down uh the review criteria uh just to match with with
what's in State Statute because the review criteria for variances is actually in State Statute um for use permits that is not in State Statute so really we could have whatever use criteria we want and right now we have 13
criteria um I think uh Ezra and Joel have both lost their voices and past chairs lost their voices reading through those and maybe some of you have knotted off a little bit when we get down to like 10 or 11 on there uh of the review
criteria so what I'm proposing is that we trim that down to seven so these are the first four uh no but I can I can send this out y yeah so really just I think think the
issue with with the the current review criteria that we're using is like the first one basically covers everything in it uh and then there's some repetition that happens and so it's not very clear and
so trying to make each of these criteria distinct um uh I think is really important just because then we can always just focus on that one and not get all jumbled up with the first one is the our current is I think too long in
my opinion so then these would be the five six and seven that's for conditional use permits right conditional and interim use yep yeah the the review standards for
interim use permits would be the same you just substitute y gotta yep I like it yeah and I think one thing that this will do is just generate more focused
discussion as well I think it can be overwhelming to have 13 review criteria and maybe a little bit excessive and um if we can just hone in our our disc discussion on on whatever permit is is before the
commission at that time I think this will just help um hone in a little bit a little bit better any thoughts comments questions keep it in alphabetical order I think it's a great idea you you everything is still
covered but it's more concise yeah yeah Mr chair and Matt uh obviously these 13 ones that were on here was some of them pretty narrowly you know describing
certain parts of it if push come to COV and this had to be held up in court is these seven going to cover it equally well as a 13 in your opinion I would think so some counties
have um four oh five I mean yeah yeah in my opinion I think that would cover it but um that's almost like four or five different review criteria slammed into one the only one that I might cons would
might consider adding that is no longer on there is um uh first one just being strictly about the health safety and general welfare of
um County residents and I don't have that on here and I meant to and I think maybe that's that's one that I think we maybe should add and that should be the first one um the reason being is that with use
permits and basically any type of decision that you're making that's kind of the the lens that you should be looking at it through every decision is how does this impact the health safety and Welfare um
of of the county so that might be a number a one that I would add back in there and just stop it there and that's in our current one right now but then it continues to go on and on and on
okay yeah that's that's kind of what my thought was too um for text amendments review criteria um just keeping it to three I think we have four right now
again just trying to make things more succinct and um streamlined here because really when we're looking at a text Amendment to the ordinance I think really three is probably the big one is you're looking to make because the
ordinance is the main tool for implementing your comprehensive plan and so number three is kind of the biggest one is is it consistent with those with the goals and objectives of the of the comprehensive plan is a nuclear power
plant next to a residential subdivision consistent with the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan probably not that's probably above above our our level here a battery plant or a data a data center
that's one that counties are grappling with right now is the DAT is Data Centers um they're not in our ordinance right now so they're technically prohibited but that's a that's a big one Western North Dakota southern Minnesota
so and ai ai stuff yep so and just generally people more storing more things online
yeah no one has any really good standards developed yet for for that yeah which makes it tough um for zoning map amendments trying to keep so a zoning map Amendment
um one thing that's important to know about a zoning map amendment is it's essentially the same thing as a text Amendment because the zoning map is adopted by reference in the ordinance so they're essentially the same thing um but
they're a little different in that a zoning map Amendment often is focused on a specific property or area um and so looking to keep these the same um but adding a fourth review
standard in that the proposed user zoning district is compatible with the surrounding uses or zoning districts um that's kind of like a uh check against um spot zoning which is uh not legal in
Minnesota and most everywhere and I think we might loosen up some language here because I think in our current draft we have it focused on a specific property um but there can be instances and that in this Planning Commission has made recommendations to the Board of
Commissioners before to Zone um whole entire areas of the county not just specific to one property before same with like if a uh new zoning District were to be adopted in the future or anything like
that um the next thing I want to talk does anyone have any comments on this okay the next one I want to talk about is just appeals so kind of laying out for different applications or different decisions how appeals Maybe proposing to
be work to work I don't and we're still I'm still discussing this with um with uh attorney Melton on what we want to do here I don't know if we have a thought but their recommendations would be I think for administrative decisions if
someone were to appeal a building permit denial or something like that the process is that would go to the board of adjustment uh and then it could either go to district court or court of appeals uh recommendation is it to go to the court of appeals
variances um excuse me variances do go to district court because that's explicit in statute uh use permits right now how we have use permits set up is say someone is denied an interim use
permit they can appeal it to the county board and the County Board can make a decision um if the County Board board denies their appeal then it would go to either district court or court of appeals
that's how it's currently laid out I think the issue is is that anyone technically anyone can appeal a permit decision so like a neighbor or something like that so say
you grant a grant a use permit Grant a conditional use or an interim use permit for a gravel pit and and a bunch of neighbors appeal your decision it goes to the County Board
um interim use permit's a bad example I'm going to switch to a conditional use permit conditional use permit for storage um the neighbors appeal to the County Board the County
Board um decides to deny the conditional use per so the issue there is that a conditional use permit is a land right and the only way that it can really be taken away is if you the Planning Commission they
violate the conditions that's pretty explicit so the issue becomes is that if that were to be appealed to the county board and the board were to deny it then the board is taking away that land rate and that could be challenged in court
and it would not probably go very well so the thought with use permits is to just then a lot of other counties do this too is all appeals of your decision the Planning Commission like the board of adjustment for variances is the final
decision maker they would go anyone wants to appeal it including the applicant if you were to deny a permit that would go to court of appeals or or District Court so it would take the County Board out of that appeal
process um I don't know there would be e either one likely I mean probably I be probably a wash I mean to whatever degree I mean if you you you're probably better off I mean being in the district court to to go
through their rules if you're not going to use an attorney they' probably give you a little more leeway the court of appeals is a three panel judge three panel judges and pretty strict on their rules and their requirements and and everything else so
um it' be easier to go through District Court than as a probably that's how I would do it then Mr chair and Mr Melton for my benefit can you give us give me and maybe all of us a little lessons in
Civics what's court of appeals what's District Court what's the difference all right so District Court would be here local one judge u a local judge who's regularly appointed by the governor but sixy year uh sixy year term then they're
voted on by local folks um typically within the criminal realm or civil realm you know if you file a case and you have a case here in District Court local Court then you appeal to the court of
appeals which is a three judge panel and those judges are experienced judges in law probably been district court judges previously and so so the progression would go from District to court of appeals typically but in this case you could and I think that's some of the
stuff that Matt and I just discussed the idea of there's sort of that idea would you would you want it to go to the uh to the County Board as a first place just because they are constituents that's a discussion point you know the idea that
they want to be heard both by the Planning Commission and their own uh Commissioners that are elected but on the other hand they're already they have appointed you to make decisions and so that's the reason to say it's not just giving people two bites at the same
Apple it's you've you've made your pitch it's either granted or denied if it's denied it's now into a different more official realm or Different official not more official but just a different official realm where it's now a judge or a three panel judge court that that uh
that's looking at the matter so yeah typically so so the the progression is District Court local three court three judge panel court of appeals that's uh typically down in in St Paul and then the Minnesota Supreme Court which is a
nine judge panel thank you and I think and I I did send you that that case law I don't know if you had a chance to look at it but that was the um there's I think there's case law that goes both ways it seems like I I I
think we could do it either way it probably just makes sense to allow for it to go to the court of appeals it's a trained three judge panel it right I mean I think either one I mean District Court is local so that allows folks that are right here the three
judge panel typically either St Cloud or or the Twin Cities where you're usually going because so if you lose in District Court could could you go to the court of appeals and after that they would be they would have that that would be the next one and then after that would be
the Supreme Court of minesa each one has the ability to to potentially deny or so if you made it and in the statute you would say it's District Court they have a chance to appeal to the court appeals but the court appeals could deny yeah I
mean you could be denied all the way down but you could still right is there an advantage to use the court of appeals first you you said there are three judges trained is that you leave out one of your options I
guess I think that's kind of that just that debate of what's the best and easiest way to kind of make it happen and give them their opportunity to be heard give them a chance to appeal and and it would be
done I mean I think I think either way I I don't really have a strong opinion one way or the other I I I'm not sure which is the best way to be honest like Matt said it's kind of a you've seen it both ways so I'm not sure there's really a best way and I I know Kristen she your
Gard just mention just recommended the court of appeals cuz that's what she sees the majority of the time and her I think a reasoning for it was it's just more timely and efficient that's yeah and she said there's case
law that supports that these should go to the court of appeals but then there is another subset of case law that says District Court is acceptable too and I I support I agree with Ezra on the district court thing strictly because
it's still local yeah and if you wanted to have the step for um to go to board then I think the recommendation is is that the Planning Commission becomes just a recommending body to the board for use permits and
the board makes a decision on all of them and there would not have to be a public hearing at board it would just be making the decision to accept the Planning Commission recommendation or to not accept it based on the record
uh the record which was basically everything staff report um the application comments from citizens uh public hearing at the Planning Commission and things and and all of that that you said for use permits is
that both conditional and yes so personally I think that unless the the County Board feels otherwise I think that going right to either District Court to District Court would be
fine just keep it district court for variances because it has to be use permits and amendments reason I like District Court is so you're not saddling the person whoever is trying to challenge it with a big Bill going down to Paul hiring attorneys y it's more
affordable if you're going to challenge it to go through District and they in state law at all that you have to to go one way or the other only for variances all so here's a question for you do All Counties have a
planning board like this not all most do sometimes the County Board is is the yeah sometimes the it's the board of adjustment and planning commissioner the same um yeah and it is a mixed bag I found out in terms of um some counties
have the Planning Commission make the final decisions on use permits uh some counties re do recommendations Becker Becker County Becker County is one of those that makes skern county is an example they do that too so um I know
there's it would uh our County Board has very full agendas every week um and so this is would that would just be another thing um to add to their plate and I think that for the most part that they've been very um they Trust they
trust your uh judgment and decisions on on these use permits I would say I don't want to speak for them but that's just kind of the the the sense that I get that's that's where I sit for being there for two months but coming from this I trust everybody on here make the right decision I think since I've been
on here I think we've made 95% of the right decisions okay well just hearing this discussion then maybe what we'll and spend a lot of time on appeals but this is this is kind of a big thing that we want to make sure
we get right and um my thought would be to just have it go to District Court is that kind of what I'm hearing good so uh next steps uh for this would be to address the Shoreland comments
address the attorney comments uh do a final review just for formatting definitions and that could happen that'll probably just be an ongoing thing um and then to have the Planning Commission the final public hearing the one that we were supposed to
have tonight to recommend to the board on April 22nd unless you all feel like you need more time or if you're like me and just want to be feel pretty good about it and ready to make a recommendation are you going to do all eight chapters
yeah and that was the intention for for this meeting because I know we did spend in December time on the first four chapters and then January we did spend time on the um 5 through eight and yep so everyone feels good about
that one question yes is is the Planning Commission meeting in April the fourth month fourth Tuesday think it's the 3D do I have the date wrong or see here it's the 15th my apologies that
Tuesday slipped by me that's April Fool's Day so doesn't really count yeah that's the first yeah okay yes no we'll go to the
15th all right well that's all I have Mr chair unless anyone else has any additional thoughts none hearing none would look for a motion to close the public hearing on
the development code update so move Ezra second by Dave all those in favor say I I opposed motion is carried now regarding the the iup um
is online okay okay like to uh look for a motion to open the public hearing for uh iup so Mo second motion by Ashley second
by Sebastian all those in favor say I I motion is carried public hearing is open so this is Ryan request for an interm Muse home occupation permit applicant is seeking after the fact inter imuse home occupation permit for a landscaping business at 3563 70th Street
North Lindon Minnesota 56547 parcel ID 20.30 1503 in the part of the Northeast quarter the Northeast quarter section 30 Township 140 North range 47 West Mullen
Township right so this is a request for a home occupation landscaping business so this property is zoned agricultural General and resource protection Wellhead protection the suring properties are zoned the same and iup is allowed uh in
this zoning District if it meets the requirements and is granted an interim use permit so it's located on the west side of Casa 11 it's about 3/4 of a mile north of Cai 18 and there are residents and two out buildings on the property uh the request is to continue operating a
landscaping business on the property they use the, 1400t shop for storage and operating the business uh they operate the Landscaping the applicant Oates the Landscaping division out of this location so and then it employs nine employees other than the owner for a
total of 10 uh the main kind of use here is parking for employees they Park here and take company vehicles to job sites no customers visit the property um hours of operation are Monday through Friday 7:00
p.m. to 6:00 p.m. April 15th to November 15th and then there is a snow division of this business but that is operated uh in Fargo so home occupation St standards uh limits employees to five non non-family um the Planning Commission
can allow for additional employees if tra traffic parking utility impact uh and surrounding properties can be addressed um looks like there is ample space for parking um approximately enough space for about 38 parking spaces
um so that's more than than what's currently utilized they also the applicants also using the furthest south location for the business which is creating a buffer between the neighbors to the North and then there's a pretty significant um tree buffer with the
neighbor to the to the South so in resource protection well head protection um outdoor storage accessory to commercial use is not per permitted so any storage um Associated
the business would have to occur inside a building or a structure that doesn't include parking you can do you can do parking so we have not received any public comment for this request uh also haven't received any comment from the township
from our comprehensive plan and how this request relates to our goals and objectives um we have a goal to maximize the potential of Clay County as a thriving Center for agriculture business and Recreation while maintaining and enhancing its livability uh home occupations that follow regulations of Clay County
provide unique opportunities for residents to live and work in the county they have the potential to enhance both the economy and livability of Klay County we have a land use goal to establish a comprehensive GL growth management strategy that promotes orderly and efficient growth of residential commercial Industrial
Development while preserving the County's rural character um home occupations do not necessarily fit into the strategy overall but they provide flexible living and working Arrangements they make for more efficient use of large tracks of Residential Properties and should not detract from the real
character of the county provided that structures the structures and use are in harmony with said rural character and the use does not create nuisance conditions then we have a goal to plan land uses and Implement standards to minimize land use conflicts and home occupations that
made our Clay County development code regulations for home occupations should not contribute to land use conflicts any questions for me at all yes Matt uh are there currently is there currently
equipment outside that needs to be inside there could be some equipment outside but if I mean if it's like a trailer or something like that like something that you can drive I don't think you can really store that inside I think the concern more with outdoor
storage um in the Wellhead protection um zoning District especially in an area where you have um and looking at this map this shows basically the sense pollution sensitivity of groundwater uh
it's very high here meaning that if you were to have like a spill of some kind of a hazardous chemical or material the travel time to get from the surface to the water table is very short um meaning that you have probably
a high water table so the aquifer is probably closer to the surface um and really so think of like treated wood storing like pallets things like that um any chemicals or anything like that storing
that outside would be discouraged or not allowed now if you're parking parking some things that you can you know you don't keep inside like uh trailers and things like that I think that that would be acceptable thank
you Mr chair I I I have a comment on that I've been driving by this property I don't know for the last 10 or 15 years almost weekly now it's always well kept I mean it's most of the time it's yeah it's Vehicles park there that was what you see it's not a bunch of stuff out
there like fuel barrels and stuff like that outside the area pretty well kept piece of property well and in the description of what they're doing they don't list you know springing and as one of their
things that they do it seating and okay anybody have anything else for mat okay would the applicant care to speak hello
Ryan good evening good evening good you hear you yep go ahead um would you like to speak regarding your permit application um yeah I will throw in a few things uh
yeah we do not do any sort of chemical weed spraying fertilizing anything of that nature um in the business um the whole purpose of this is basically vehicle storage or trailer storage um there's I don't know eight
trailers here and six vehicles I think um that's basically it I do keep anything that nothing gets sold out of here no customers visit here um everything that I can store inside does get stored either in the shop in the garage or in the storage
containers thank you anybody have any questions for Ryan I have one question this is Ezra bear how long have you been running this business outside your home
there um this I bought the property a couple years ago from my dad um and I kind of started the business out of the property so it's been 2016 when I started the business August of 2016 so
um on and off basically from there the last five years have been serious growth if you will so the last five days eight years basically thank you uh thank you
Ryan I'm hearing no further comments or questions look for a motion to oh sorry yes is there anybody the audience that wishes to speak for or against this is there anyone in the audience that wishes to speak for or against this
permit application is there anyone in the audience that wishes to speak for or against this hearing none now I look for a motion to close the public hearing motion by Brad second second by Ezra all those in favor say I I opposed
motion is carried thank you everyone okay and Mr chair I do um we have drafted findings um here that you can modify or change as you see fit um if
you no need to read them because they're little lengthy unless you feel feel the need to um they're they're just below they're italicized on the screen and I can close out my PowerPoint here so I can show you actually what they look like there you
go okay well um thank you and we will begin going through the 13 in granting an interm use the planning commissions shall consider the effect of the proposed use upon the health safety morals and general welfare of occupants of surrounding lands existing and
anticipated land uses traffic conditions including parking facilities on adjacent streets and land and the effect on agricultural usage and values of property Scenic views views in the surrounding areas and the effect of the proposed use on existing comprehensive
plans use and enjoyment of other property the interm use will not be injured to the use and enjoyment of other property in the immediate vicinity for the purpose already permitted and not substantially diminish or impair property values
within the immediate vicinity development of surrounding property the establishment of the interm use will not impede the normal and orderly development and Improvement of surrounding property for use is predominant in the area utilities access roads drainage off
street parking and loading spaces adequate measures have been or will be taken to provide utilities access roads drainage and off street parking and loading spaces nuis conditions adequate measures have been or will be taken to prevent or
control offensive over M fumes dust noise vibration water pollution and soil erosion so that none of these will constitute a nuisance and to control lighted signs or other lights in such a manner that no disturbance to the neighboring
properties will result burden on public services the use will not create an excessive burden on Parks schools streets water supply sanitary sewers and storm sewers and other public facilities or utilities
which serve or are proposed to serve the area compatibility the use will be sufficiently compatible or separated by distance or screening from adjacent agriculturally zoned or used land so that existing homes will not be
depreciated in value and there will be no deterrence to the agricultural use of said land appearance of structure in site structure in site shall have an appearance that will not have an adverse
effect upon adjacent Residential Properties relationship to overall needs the use in the opinion of the Planning Commission reasonably related to the overall needs of the district and to the existing land use in the case of the
flood plane areas the proof that the location is necessary for facility operation and that alternative sites are not susceptible to flooding are not available consistency with ordinance the use is consistent with the purposes of this
ordinance and the per purposes of the zoning District in which the applicant intends to locate the proposed use the use is not in conflict with the comprehensive plan if any of the township city or
county traffic hazards congestion and fud plane areas the use will not cause traffic hazards or congestion and in flood plane areas has access during flooding for ordinary and emergency
vehicles existing businesses nearby will not be adversely affected because of curtailment of customer trade a brought by the intrusion of noise glare or general unsightliness I have a is I'm assuming the applicant
is the person living is is occupying the residence on site that's correct okay I guess the only other concern I had he mentioned quite a few trailers and I get that but
uh we would have heard from the township if he was there was Road restriction damage or something going on in the springtime because he will be he right up here sooning he's right on a CA Road oh yep he's got access to a 10
it's a paved yep that's a 10 Road yep it's a Concrete one oh okay well that takes care of that Mr chair would you like me to to read the conditions I can I can do that and then um with this being an inter
imuse permit we would have to make sure that the applicant is agreeable to those conditions yes please okay so number one home occupation shall comply with the Clay County development ordinance home occupation standards number two the permit would cease upon ownership
change uh number three employees shall be limited to members of the house and 10 additional non-family employees unless a plan for additional employee parking and mitigation of potential impacts are provided to the planning office number four outdoor storage accessory to the commercial use is prohibited all commercial storage must
occur indoors go ahead Mr Sten got a question Matt Mr chair am I remembering this incorrectly but does an inter use have a specific amount of time that's allowed to be run
uh Mr chair Mr second it can be either a period of time or an event that would trigger that confus an event being like an ownership like if the if the the applicant or the permit holder were to
uh sell his property or convey his property to someone else I guess in the past it's always come up on mining that it's a specific time so that's yep what I had in my mind thank you I've got just a quick question here or two um is it nine additional
non-employee family members or they want to buffer in case they need to add that would be a good question for the applicant if you would like to go beyond the 10 yeah could we I mean we have um an additional shop in Fargo that would run
five employees out of two um so you know I guess if we could shoot high and say 15 I know I would probably never exceed that I think that's reasonable I guess to add it to 15 um and then I just wanted to ask do we want to have hours of
operation um it doesn't sound like he has much of a nu you know loud noises coming from the shop or anything but I know that we've added hours of operation I think on things too and Mr chair and Commissioners I don't know what your thoughts are on
that his stated hours of operation are um they were in the permit applications it should be 7 a.m. to 600 p.m. I believe my my two comments on Ashley's comments would be he could go up to
third I mean for people that work that aren't family members is goes to parking spaces correct correct and the mass shows 38 so I mean 15 is very doable to have on that number especially if they're just coming and going and then
when it comes to hours of operation I mean they are just coming and going from there they're not working from there they're not I mean they're coming there picking up a piece of equipment and leaving I don't know if we'd need to have an hours of operation because what if a rain storm's coming they got a job
they're doing in Fargo if they work till 8:00 because the storm's coming at 10: at night you know just to get it done so they're done tomorrow but they got to shut off by 7: to be back at the shop by so I don't with it being on a cassa road a heavy Road I I don't I don't know if
ours operation would be necessary especially if it's just vehicles coming and going I see your point Ezra because they're not doing business yeah it's not they're not actually operating doing business there that just a parking yeah
yeah that makes sense to me just wanted to throw it out there so yeah Mr chair the only ours time when an hours of operation might come into effect is if they're doing any maintenance on any equipment or anything like that
something to consider which should be inside yeah because you wouldn't be changing bearing bearings on your trailer at 10 o'clock at night in April outside
no all right I'll make a motion to approve conditions 1 through four with the correction from 10 employees to 15 I'll second that okay have a motion by Brad a second by Ashley to [Music] approve the permit with the four
conditions with changing the allowed employees to 15 and Mr chair I just confirmed to with the applicant that these conditions are acceptable that was my question make
sure Ryan yeah we might want to ask Ryan that for the minutes okay Ryan so we have you in the minutes um are these four conditions acceptable to you
absolutely thank you we have a motion in a second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor say I I oppos permit is granted thank you
everyone onto unfinished business no we need to close the hearing no we did that yeah we did that we're okay yeah unfinished business Matt I'm just a permit violation update um well maybe
what I'll do is I'll just pull up kind of where we're at with permit violations overall this is a re presentation that I gave to the County Board um let's see if I can find
it here bear with me I just thought oh maybe I should show this right I did not prepare thought I should just oh I'll show it right now um see
here it is yeah we need that I will bring it to the next meeting how's that sound no update on to new business yes so um so uh sad to say that
um um we're going to be losing uh Brent Berg here uh be be stepping down on the Planning Commission uh I just want to thank Brent for um all the expertise and and thoughtfulness that you brought to our meetings I know Brent's one of the
planning Commissioners who would always um send me an email or give me a call about things that he was seeing out and about in the county and just did so the other day and um just really appreciated that um that uh level of of
participation and and and dedication and and so I don't know BR if you have anything that you want to say at all or yeah I just wanted to say I've enjoyed being on the board and honestly the only reason I'm backing down is that got teenage two teenage kids and I just was
adding it up my daughter throughout the years in nine different sports uh different teams plus 4 and showing cattle and uh just too too busy too many interruptions so I figured I better back down and hopefully find somebody else
that could be a little bit more committed to making the meetings so that's it well thank you so hopefully um once things slow down for you we'll have a spot for you back on on the Planning Commission so open
invitation and and so with that um we have uh Josh schroer here from from Barnesville and um Josh you serve on the Planning Commission correct years he's been on the on the Barnesville City Planning Commission I don't know if you want to say a few things and introduce
yourself at all sure and might want to just use the mic there y do that thank you uh good evening Commissioners I'm Joshua Shader I've served on the Barnesville planning and zoning committee for three years with Brent uh
a couple months ago he mentioned he was on this commission and was potentially interested in stepping down from that uh at the time I was running for school board in Barnesville I'm now on the board in Barnesville so I've got the Running part of my uh days out of the way and uh when he brought it up again I
said said well go check it out and and see how it works so uh just a little about a bit about me um I graduated from NDSU in 2000 I'm a structural engineer uh my wife and I moved down to Kansas for a couple years uh we moved to Barnesville in 2007 with our daughters and we've been there ever since so
coming up on 18 years now uh like I said I've been a structural engineer I focus mainly on Bridges I've been doing that for 25 years um I work for klj currently as far as I know we don't have any a lot of business anyway with Klay count or anything like that where there'd be
conflicts um I do bridge design I do Bridge construction inspection and I do inservice bridge inspection so don't bring Brent's uh Insurance uh side of things to that but uh I am familiar with a lot of the issues that the board would be uh into um you know platting and and
the uh the other issues you've talked about tonight so I think I could be a good commissioner I'm I'm interested in doing it uh again unlike Brent I've got two daughters my youngest is going to graduate this year and move to duth so I
am going to be an empty nester and should have time to to participate in the board and I'll do lots of listening until I get things figured out but uh um I I appreciate the work that the boards do I know how important it is to people and um yeah hopefully you'll have me so
any questions you have of me chair I have one question for him you've been on Barnesville planning is only for three years correct how many meetings have you missed in three years not too many my my bridge inspection uh takes me down to South Dakota in the summer and stuff but
I'm able to prioritize that uh school board meetings are Monday nights commission meetings are Tuesday nights Planning and Zoning are also Monday nights they are the first Monday of the month last year we had four of them um I don't expect there to be any interference with my current work
obligations I have a pretty I I can uh address my own schedule and and work around if I know I've got a meeting coming up so should be able to make it that's all that's all I have to ask I'll just quickly say that I I wanted to endorse Josh I've been after him
for pushing a year probably to take my spot here so I'm glad he finally is agreeing to that so he'll be he'll be really good thanks Brent thanks Josh Josh good to have an engineer
the Planning Commission yeah chair do you want to go ahead and give the presentation okay certainly um in light of this being Brad's last Mee or Brent's last meeting as he stepping down You' like
to have a for youate thank you br okay anybody else have any questions for Joshua or format about him hearing none would look for a motion to approve his nomination to the the
County Commissioners so moved second motion made by Ashley seconded by Sebastian all those in favor say I I I opposed motion is carried um so so Brent when you come back on the Planning Commission
you do have to give that plaque back and then serve nine years and then we'll give it back to you yeah okay next on the agenda is land use training opportunity yes so there is a land use training opportunity this happens every spring there's one in the
spring uh this is put on by the Association of Minnesota counties uh and then the Minnesota Association of County Planning and Zoning administrators um mcpizza is the acronym for that uh there is also one in the
fall that's put on by the um Minnesota County's intergovernmental trust the insurer of most of the counties um this one would be in Staples on April 28th and it's basically the whole day um
there is lodging available if anyone want want to go down the night before um just so that that is an option too I plan on leaving probably right and early and get getting over there um I think uh Dave you've
expressed interest going our assistant County Administrator is planning on attending as well if any of you want to check your schedules and if you can make it work it's very um I think it's it's very much would be very much worth your
while uh one of the focuses of this particular session is going to be on writing um good findings of fact so that's something a little different but they talk about um there's
a lot of things with um noticing 60-day Rule and things like that but also talk about conditionally use permits and and and things like that so if you can make it work great um if not I'm going to bother you in the fall about the mcit
training I've gotone on those with Matt highly recommend them if you haven't got on one with him it's very informational and you get to ride down with Matt he drives I do drive and How's my driving not bad okay and maybe you can get him to go to mle to get some
fish too if you're that cool yes we finished on the uh okay this doesn't really pertain to the Planning Commission but it's one of our Planning Commission members um I had the opportunity to go down to St Paul
with uh mored Fargo Chamber of Commerce had a huge crosssection of business municipalities higher education and and is it about 38 of us um it was pretty neat that we got to
meet with influential lawmakers and commissioner Mojo and commissioner krainov from the uh County Commissioner were there and I can see that commissioner Mojo has done a lot of work behind the scenes prior to us going down there
because they were very familiar with what she's been working on you know specifically the biofuel by more the aviation fuel the psychiatric facility that they're working on and the flood protection from more I do just a few of the things and
it's not the best year to ask for money from the state because when we're down there we had two days on the hill and in one day with the league of Minnesota cities the economic forecast came in 180 160 million less than it was proposed
they knew it was going to be down so it's a tough year to be for asking but commissioner Mojo has spent a lot of time I can tell working on these um these issues and we had a chance to meet with the governor
wals and he is so behind so backing the biofuels and the psychiat psychiatric facility it's kind of neat to see that it's high in our radar and Senator an R rest was
she spoke to us and she said that this is the most important legislation in her 40 years the psychiatric facility uh that she's ever had to deal with so when you get her attention
that's a great starting point and um I talked to some tribal leaders and they're all for you know you know we're part of the county and the county is very proactive on what they've been proposing to do here with
with definite costs but the tribal leaders are so behind us as well and I think all the tribal communities have signed on as far as the other different municipalities so if it happens this year who knows uh but there I know I'm
going to talk to commissioner Mojo when I have a chance uh but I just wanted on record that they've done a fantastic job the and thanks for sending them down on there for the County Commissioners sending them down and she's a great
spokesman for the county in so many ways so um it's just great to see uh her excitement and her dedication to making the county better one one comment on that da she
was down there today that's why I'm here today okay well back down on Thursday another example of her putting in the time down there yes I make the motion hi e e e