--------- Good morning everyone. It is 8:30. I'll go ahead and call today's meeting of the Klay County Board of Commissioners to order. Our first item on the agenda today is an approval of the agenda. There is an uh consent agenda addition request.
>> Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to approve the agenda with that added addition. Second. >> Thank you. We have a motion offered from Commissioner Bear, a second from Commissioner Campbell. Are there any further discussion? Any further discussion? Any further discussion? All those in
favor of the motion signify by saying I. I >> oppose. Same sign. Carried. Employee recognitions. Okay. This is what you're all here for, right? So, our first individual that we'd like to recognize today is
Katherine Schulz. Katherine, this plaque is given to you in grateful recognition of the 15 years of service to Klay County and our citizens. Thank you so much for all that you do. Karen, >> I want to congratulate Katherine on her
15 years. Um, Katherine and I actually started together on the very same day 10 years ago in income maintenance. So, we did our trainings together, went down to the cities. I've had the privilege of watching Katherine grow and excel in her
field and she has been um very strong in her employment, one of the people that I can go to um when I need help. So, just want to congratulate you for an amazing 15 years and 10 years for helping me
become what I am and watching you grow. Thank you. >> Our next individual, Stacy Gullings Quinn's up here. Stacy, this plaque is given to you in grateful recognition of the 25 years of service to Klay County and our citizens. Thank you so much for
all that you do. >> Morning everyone. So Stacy's supervisor is out today. Uh but my pleasure to step in for her and recognize Stacy for 25 years of service to Klay County. Um so Stacy spent several years as an adult rule 79 case manager uh before transitioning to the civil commitment
world uh in our adult and behavioral health unit. uh working in adult mental health particularly civil commitments is not for the faint of heart. So your resilience, compassion, and patience has been uh really a blessing in all the years that you've been there with us. It's been a steady presence for us uh for decades. I remember you being kind
of a veteran on my first day as an intern at Klay County. Um but uh just Kirsten, myself, your whole team in Klay County, we're we're grateful for your commitment. So congratulations. >> Thank you very much. Our next item today would be citizens to be heard. Are there any individuals in
the audience wishing to speak on anything not on the agenda? Any citizens to be heard? I do know that we received two uh emails for feedback on the public hearing at 9:00. Can we have those testimonies added into the
comments for that hearing? Okay. Thank you. The next item today is the approval of the payment of bills and vouchers. >> Madam Chair, I move approval of the bills and vouchers. >> Second >> offered from Commissioner Ebinger, a second from Commissioner Kavanagh. Any
further discussion? Any further discussion? Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I >> oppose. Same sign. The motion prevails. The minutes presented from the February
17th, 2026 meeting. >> Move to approve them. Approve the minutes from February 17th. >> Second. >> A motion offered to approve the minutes as presented from Commissioner Kavanagh. A second from Commissioner Bear. Are there any further discussion?
Any further discussion? Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. The motion carries. Item two today is a recognition and
proclamation for social worker appreciation month. Social service director Quinn. Good morning. >> Morning, Madam Chair, commissioners. Thanks for having me this morning. Uh I am here requesting to proclaim March uh
as or March 2026 as social worker appreciation month. I just have a brief statement that I'd like to to read. So social workers play a critical role in supporting community well-being and addressing social, behavioral, and environmental factors that influence the health, safety, and stability of the community. In Klay County, social
workers serve across five divisions within social services, often working with residents during periods of crisis, transition, or heightened vulnerability. Peer-reviewed research consistently demonstrates the impact of social work on measurable community outcomes. Studies published in the Journal of Social Work show that social work
interventions are associated with improved access to services, reduce unmet needs, and better long-term outcomes for individuals and families, particularly when services address both immediate needs and underlying social determinants such as housing instability, income insecurity, and
access to health care. From a public sector perspective, social work is also linked to prevention and cost avoidance. Evidence published in the Social Service Review in the American Journal of Public Health shows that early intervention and community-based social work services can reduce downstream costs associated with
child maltreatment, emergency mental health interventions, homelessness, and justice system involvement. Recognizing March as social worker appreciation month provides an opportunity for the board to formally acknowledge the essential role that our social workers play in strengthening communities and for appreciating those who chose a
career dedicated to helping others navigate these complex systems overcome adversity and moves move towards stability, dignity, and hope. Uh with that, I have the uh proposed proclamation attached. >> Thank you, Quinn. We'll go ahead and read the proclamation.
>> All right. Whereas social workers are dedicated professionals who serve individuals, children, families, and communities by promoting social, emotional, and economic well-being. and where social workers in Klay County
provide essential services in areas including child and adult pro protection, mental health, disability services, public assistance programs, housing stability, and community support systems. And whereas social workers
frequently serve individuals and families during times of crisis, uncertainty, and transition while demonstrating compassion, professionalism, and a strong commitment to ethical practice. And whereas social workers collaborate with community partners, courts, schools, health care
providers, and law enforcement to ensure coordinated and elective services for Klay County residents. And whereas social service appreciation month is recognized nationally each March is a time to honor the dedication and impact
of social workers in strengthening communities and improving lives. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Klay County Board of Commissioners do hereby proclaim March 2026 as Social Worker Appreciation Month and expresses its
sincere appreciation and gratitude to all social workers for their service, commitment, and contributions to the well-being of our community. Adopted this the third day of March, 2026. >> Madam Chair, I move the proclamation. Mo >> motion offered from Commissioner
Campbell to move the proclamation. and a second from Commissioner Bear. Discussion. It goes without saying, the words encapsulate it quite well that our social workers provide an immense value in the work that they do to all folks in the community and we're really grateful
for that. Any further discussion? Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by say saying I >> I >> opposed. Same sign carried. Thank you
>> much. >> Thanks, W. >> Item three is a request approval to replace a solid waste advisory committee member. We have Corey here as well as Mayor Holty. Good morning. Good to see you. >> Morning, Madam Chair, commissioners.
Thank you. Um, our SWAT committee had a longtime member that has stepped down recently and we were looking for a replacement. So we started doing our search in the hitter uland area north of Holly area and Gail came up as one of the candidates and he has graciously
accepted to take the position assuming you guys will approve him. So I brought him here today for the grilling. So with that is there any questions? >> Thank you Corey. Well um some of us know you Gail. Would you like to give a synopsis of who you are and why you're
be a great fit? >> I'm Gail Holy. I live in the city of HiDol for 24 maybe 25 years now. I have been currently mayor I think 24 years now. It's like nobody wants that position. So you know how
this is going to be. Russell had this position for Mhm. Yep. Okay. Russell a very nice gentleman. Gets me roped into things. Um I'm happily married as I have expressed. I she's better than me some days. So,
let's put it that way. I have two kids and hopefully I'll do well on this. We'll see. >> Any questions? Well, Commissioner Campbell and I serve on SWAC and one of the great assets to the makeup of that SWAC advisory
committee is having voices from folks all over the county, particularly from our smaller cities. And certainly we've utilized uh partnerships in regards to recycling, but having uh the voice of your community, but also representing all county will be quite an asset.
Commissioner Campbell and I were at the SWAT committee where you uh were present last Thursday and the SWAT committee did provide a recommendation of appointment as well. >> Any other questions?
>> Wishes. Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to approve Gail Holty as a member of the solid waste advisory committee. >> Second. >> Have a motion offered from Commissioner Bear, a second from Commissioner Campbell. >> So, is this an open-ended appointment or do we have How did Russ just turn 90 93?
How did >> we uh you're on it till you're dead, but you have to give us a two-year notice that you're going to pass away. >> We kind of informed him that he he had to spend like 30 years on there like Russ did. So, Thank you for agreeing to this, Gail.
>> Yeah, I was around. >> Yeah. Any further discussion? All those in favor of the appointment signify by saying I >> oppose. Same sign. Carried. All joking aside, thank you. We appreciate it. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Item four is our annual department update from the recorders office. Good morning, Kimberly. Good morning, chair, commissioners. Um, I'm here today to give the annual department update for the recorders office. Um just to cover what our
mission is, it's to promptly record, file and preserve documents in efficient, responsible and professional manager manner for posterity and legal purposes. Some of the responsibilities that we have is real estate recording, issuing birth and death certificates, marriage
licenses and marriage certificates. We also file um marriage efficient registrations in my office as well as notary public registrations. And then we are the office for the filing of state and federal tax leans. Um underneath services um those are not mandated by statute but something my office provides
and that is performing marriage ceremonies and selling county platbooks. To give a little review here of what happened in 2025, we recorded just under 10,000 real estate documents. That's a 12% increase over 2024. Um we saw quite
the decrease after um the COVID years. The numbers were really down and now they're starting to come back up. We issued just under 600 marriage licenses and 177 marriage efficient filings. Um we one of the big things we worked on in 2025 was implementing procedures for new
privacy legislation. Um a lot of the land record departments worked with the county attorney's office to um implement this new legislation. It took many many hours but I feel like we have a very good procedure set in place for that. One of the other big accomplishments for
my office is we started online ordering for vital records and I'll go through that in just a minute. And then we started e-recording torrens with one of our vendors. So we're kind of getting almost everything done electronically. So that's nice. And one of the other things I just wanted to mention is I'm now serving on the Minnesota County
Recorders Association and the Minnesota Association of County Officers Board. So, the online vital record ordering um customers are able to upload their applications 247 and pay right online with a credit card. They're able to order birth, death, marriage
certificates as well as do their marriage efficient registration right online. Um it's been really successful. I think I think it's pretty easy for the customers to use. Every morning when we come in, we have a request that was put in overnight. So, it's um helping those
people who maybe can't get to our office during those normal business hours. I know I've covered this before, but I want to cover it again. Our office provides property fraud alert. This is something that citizens can sign up for to be notified when something gets recorded by their name in my office. It
does not track the property, just their name. Um, and then they get notified when something is recorded. It doesn't stop the recording from happening, but it gives them a timely notification. So, if they need to act upon something, they can do it much quicker than finding out
years down the road. Um, we just this year in 2026, we're going to be launching notary fraud alert. This is where the notary publiclix can sign up to receive kind of a similar notification. They would get a listing of where their name shows up in
our records. A lot of the fraud that's happening around property records has to do with the notoriization part of it. With the technology these days, it's very easy to snip somebody's notary seal and signature off of another document and paste it onto a new document. So,
this would allow notaries in the county to sign up and get a report of what their name showed up on. Um, we've been indexing notaries on all of our documents since 2025. um hoping that maybe if we were to find somebody's
notary that was used fraudulently, we could go back and search to see what else their document, what else their notary shows up on. Um deed solicit deed solicitation scams. Just kind of wanting to bring this up
too. After recording, often people get mailings that look like they're official, but they're not. They're asking them to pay for a copy of their deed um upwards to $90 to $100 at times. If a landowner ever needs a copy of their deed, my office should be the
source for them. There would be little to no charge for that. This is just a company trying to get their money for them. So, just wanting to bring that up to to people. Um on March 14th, I will be at the community health and safety fair in Dworth. So, if people are wanting more
information about property fraud alert, I'll be there to help people get signed up for that program. Just kind of an overview of some of our services. So, for birth certificates, we're able to issue certified birth certificates to anyone born within the borders of Minnesota. You have to be an
authorized requester and have valid ID, and there is a fee of $26 for that service. Same with death records. were able to issue certified copies for people who passed away statewide after 1997. And you have to be an authorized requester,
valid ID, and the fee is $13 for the marriage certificates. We can issue certified copies for couples that applied for their marriage license here in Klay County. Marriage records are very different from birth or death records and that you have to get the copy in the county that the license was
applied for in, not even the county you're married in. So the um counties in Minnesota have collaborated and we have a statewide index that's run by the counties and that's moms.mn.gov. So individuals can search at that website and see what the what county
holds their record. Marriage licenses, we issue those out of our office and they can be used anywhere in the state. Um applicants have to be 18 or older and there's $125 fee for that. They do that license application through that mom's website as well, but
then they have to come into our office to complete the process. Okay, kind of save the best for last here. This is my staff. I have my chief deputy recorder, Amanda, and my two deputy reporters, Lisa and Jacob. Um, I
feel like my office accomplishes a lot for being a small office of just four people. And I can't thank them enough. the work that they do allows me to be able to make some of these changes and progress for my office. So, I really appreciate everything they do.
Any questions for me or for the recorder's office? >> No question, just an observation. I I uh Kimberly's department's on my portfolio and I've worked with them since I was elected. A remarkable job for you and
your staff. everything from transitioning all the records into being scanned in and maintained all the way back to I don't know what year but it was before the ci before the civil war >> like the 1870s
>> 1870s right after the civil war um just excellent work on that you've been you've brought new technology into the department you brought new ideas uh and that you've taken leadership position in the state and we're really grateful to have you and grateful for
the job you do. >> Thank you for that. >> Madam Chair, I have one question. >> Commissioner Bear, >> how many marriages did did you guys perform out there in 2025? >> 82. >> 82. >> Thanks. >> Additional questions. Commissioner Kavanagh.
>> Yeah, maybe one. One fact that kind of struck me was why the increase since CO so much? What would make recorded documents um become such a larger thing? Well, during COVID, the interest rates were really low and so there was a lot
of refinancing that took place in 2020 and 2021. And so then because those all came in in those years, 2022 then was quite a bit lower because nobody really refinanced than in 2022, 2023 like we would have normally saw kind of some consistent refinancing. We didn't really
see that in 2022, 2023. >> Thank you, >> Commissioner Campbell. >> Thank you. Um, you're talking about the marriage license and somebody who might have been married for a long time and they may have misplaced or don't know
where that marriage license is because my understanding that that is what's used for women for the name change. >> Yes. >> Right. Is that correct? >> Yes. And so can you uh tell us how long that would take for somebody to request
from the time they request to receive a new marriage license. >> Every county will be different, but here in Klay County, if you put that request in, we process it. If we receive it during business hours before like 2:30, we can process it that same day and put it in the mail. Otherwise, it would go in the mail the next day. So, it is a
pretty quick turnaround. If somebody needs it right away, they can walk into our office and request it as well. Um, of course, other counties are going to be different and it but it's mostly going to be mailing time if you request it online for the wait time. >> And again, that's that's in the county that they applied for the marriage
license. >> Yes. And it gets >> they were married in. >> Yeah. And it gets very complicated, which is why um kind of the recorders came together. It was back in 2007208 to develop this statewide index because there was a period of time where not even both applicants had to come in and
apply for the marriage license. So back in that time frame typically just the groom came in. So the bride was never even present at the application process. So they didn't know which courthouse it even was. They just knew where they got married. So it became a very complicated
um customer request to fill when you couldn't find their marriage record in our records. And so that's why we have that statewide index to help to help with that. And it's been a very successful program. >> Very good. Thank you. >> Any questions?
>> I'm I'm shocked that during that time it was mainly grooms that came and got the document. >> Yeah, it's interesting. >> I might not be married if that was >> any questions. Kimberly, thank you. I know you serve on a variety of committees that have some
overlap with other uh department heads at the county and it's always been very important to have your department's representation on that. You certainly provide a great deal of knowledge and clarity and to have you actively advocating on a statewide level is
always in Klay County's best interest. So, thank you for meeting the needs of our uh citizens. We appreciate your work. >> Thank you. >> Any further discussion? All right, we're about eight minutes ahead
of the public hearing. Is Corey still here? >> No. Shoot. You want to do committee report, Commissioner Evinger? Thank you. >> Mine will be short and sweet.
Uh last week on Wednesday the 25th I attended the drug court graduation had two individuals who had been in the program and completed all the requirements and their stories were very compelling and it was good to good to see the uh the opportunities have been
presented to them. Thursday the 26th I attended uh the diversion uh board of authority. We have a uh we're we're sort of in in beginning that transition. I think Commissioner
Campbell had probably has a better perspective than me because he's been with it all the way through, but we're starting to get into the maintenance and operation mindset. Uh a lot of the projects are approaching completion. There's not been a lot done obviously in the last month on construction.
U but um things are poised to get completed. had the first WIA draw uh on 47.5 million and uh otherwise it's generally just cover
normal business uh issues. And that completes my report. >> Thank you, Commissioner Ebinger. Commissioner Kbnoff. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh Tuesday the 24th uh had the um historical and cultural society finance committee
meeting. We uh finalized and so we bring a recommendation for a new endowment fund that we're putting together for um purposes of long long-term funding for the uh organization.
Uh the 25th uh I had a um nonsecure strategy uh group meeting with Winrop Weinstein, our lobbyists. Um main things were uh about contacts that were occurring uh
with legislators to bring forth our our proposals and our priorities. Um later that day was the uh monthly meeting board of directors for the uh again the um historical cultural society.
uh there that endowment fund I talked about um earlier was approved and also um I think being we're short on time I won't uh bring too much of it but someday just to know we were given quite
a gift from the Kefir family and u that we uh now attain in in the museum the pistol of the big gunfight that occurred in 1872 that uh made Clay County Clay
County and we got a a a sheriff and we got a lawyer and or attorney and that that was the beginning. That was a on on what would be Front Street. Uh that was the big uh pistol shoot and they died
and and uh we now have that gun and it is a ivory h um ivory handled uh 30 caliber pistol and anyway in a in a case but thank you to the Kefir family for that and someday we'll show that off.
Um Thursday the 26th uh a really wonderful meeting with the family resource center, the stakeholders. Uh we had updates. Um this is a very very active group. Um bringing
in um uh hundreds of people, searching resources, getting them in in right directions and this program is uh really elevated um finding people in need of services and how to connect them and
they're doing just wonderful work. I think at some point Gwen may be back and we'll do a deeper dive into that. Um later that uh evening I had the CAPLP finance committee and board of directors meeting and and that went uh on a
monthly meeting events on that. We had a spotlight by our human resource director on human resources what they've done internally over the last year. We had our an annual budget uh brought forward by our finance department and that was
approved. And then uh a bigger one for us uh we had our 2025 um community service block grant um annual report of all the things that uh really encapsulate all that CAPP does
and of which I will be going to Washington DC in two weeks to um bring forward and make sure we're getting that funding that we need to support systems of community action part partners throughout the United ates. That's my uh
let's see, do I have one more? Oh, then on u excuse me, on Friday, I had our our small group uh PRTF nonsecure uh uh small group and mainly talking about on on that one more so on reimbursement
rates. So, that's my report. >> Thank you, Commissioner Kavanagh. We do have a couple minutes. Uh so, Matt, would you like to start setting up with that word? I do know uh we have a sign up. So, Please, if you've not signed in, we do need folks to sign in for the purpose of the record. So, make sure we
get you signed in. And if you're wanting to speak, we'll um you'll be able to do so by because of your sign being signed in. We have a minute and then we can So item five today is a public hearing
request for Scott Dom's petition to for a text amendment. We have Matt Jacobson, our planning and zoning director. And then what's being requested today is to act on the planning commission's recommendation uh to deny Scott DM's petition for text amendment to the Klay County Land
Development Subdivision ordinance to reduce the minimum commercial lot size from 1 acre to.5 acres and reduce the cannabis business adjacent residential setback from 500 acres to 250 acres in the agricultural
service center zoning district. It is 9:00 am. >> It would be feet and not if 500 feet then 200 feet. Yeah, Madam Chair. >> I was like that's a lot of acres. So, uh yeah, there is an issue with how it's advertised, but it's pertinent to the
discussion that was forwarded from >> Madam Chair. I move to open the hearing. >> We have a motion offered from Commissioner Campbell to open the public hearing, a second from Commissioner Bear. Any further discussion? Any further discussion? Any further
discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. >> Opposed. Same sign. Carried. We are in public hearing and the memo the second page does advertise that correctly. So my apologies. Matt. >> Thank you, Madam Chair and
commissioners. Yes, this is a petition for a text amendment to the Klay County Land Development and Subdivision ordinance. Uh it's a two-parter. One is to reduce the cannabis business residential setback and then to reduce the minimum commercial lot size in the agricultural um service center zoning
district. More specifically, the request is to reduce that cannabis business setback from 500 ft to 250 ft in the agricultural service center zoning district and then to reduce the minimum commercial lot size in the agricultural
service center zoning district from 1 acre to.5 acres. This would impact kind of our smaller town sites uh throughout Klay County. So your roll logs, Downers, Bakers, Rustads, Kraknesses, Averils, etc. So,
so the petition um cites the following as the basis for the request. Um the first being to improve the the feasibility of locating cannabis businesses in this zoning district. um to support the reuse of existing or historically developed parcels in this
zoning district and then to align dimensional standards with the historic um development patterns of this district. Some background um that's pertinent to the agricultural service center zoning district is the
planning commission did previously late last or last year review a text amendment allowing cannabis businesses as a conditional use. Previously, they were only permitted in the highway commercial and limited highway commercial. Um, they recommended denial and they cited the following findings.
Just compatibility of cannabis businesses in the agricultural service center areas where residential uses are in often in close proximity, potential for nuisance impact such as traffic, odor, lighting, and security. um just limited operational experience with cannabis uses at that time just being
that the the ordinance is is new and just wanting to see how it goes without um making changes to it before any businesses are actually established in the county. Uh just a high proportion of these uh properties within this zoning
district would not be eligible due to the setback requirements. Um and then consistency with the comprehensive plan and the intended role of this zoning district as a rural service center district with significant residential um presence. So ultimately the board of
commissioners uh did adopt the amendment to permit as a conditional use and your findings did include the potential to revitalize and diversify the egg service center economies could be considered similar um to other conditional uses permitted in this district such as a bar
or restaurant. commercial entertainment and then allowing for just adaptive reuse of structures, just having the potential to stimulate economic activity, promote tourism, preserve structures that contribute to the rural character of Klay County. So, some background on the egg service center
zoning district. Um, it's comprised of those small unincorporated communities. It's to support rural, residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural industry to supplement the egg economy of the county. uh the commercial and industrial uses in because these are primary residential
um it must be located in design so they did not create a nuisance or trespass concerns for nearby residential uses for cannabis use standards. So looking at that specifically that 500 foot setback um they're subject to these use
standards and they're the intent of them is to mitigate land use conflicts and off-site impacts. The current standards require a 500 foot setback. Um you adopted a 500 foot residential setback to limit impacts to nearby residential uses. Uh this would be consistent with
separation dist uh distance for similar sensitive uses such as schools and daycarees um which is in Minnesota statute as well as similar uh setbacks for other um uses in the uh Klay County land development ordinance.
also reflects that statutory requirements that cannabis businesses be located at least 500 feet from daycarees. Um we just have a it's relevant because we have a number of at home daycarees uh throughout Klay County. Um and and this this setback um
would reflect that as well. also have a minimum lot size for commercial uses. And really the purpose of that is to regulate development intensity and then the overall scale of commercial uses to ensure compatibility with surrounding land uses to support
safe functional long-term site design provide adequate area for building separation, buffering and mitigation of noise, lighting, traffic implant impacts. Um they really the minimum is really to help ensure essential on-site functions such as access, parking,
emergency vehicle access, drainage and storm water management, utility placement, snow storage, and also to reduce spillover impacts um to other properties and public rights away. Um this lot size would be the smallest minimum standard in Klay County. Um
although it would probably be a large I'm going to say it to be a larger lot size for if you were in in a in a city. Um but the difference there is that um properties in unincorporated areas need space for wells for sewage treatment. Um
they don't have those um utilities provided to them by the by the city. Uh cities also offer more dedicated areas for off- streetet parking as as well. Um, of particular note is just um, thinking of future lots. If if the lot
size were to be reduced, um, you do have to have uh, adequate space for two so soil treatment dispersal areas for any lot that's been created after January 23rd, 1996. And that's to support the system placement. Uh, and then if you
ever need a backup if one uh, drain field fails for lot size. Again, um you might get more competition with building footprint, uh sewage placement, parking and loading, and impacts to other properties. Uh these were some concerns
that were previously cited by the planning commission as well, particularly in these areas where you might have some commercial uses uh near residential properties. Other considerations is that uh recently, I think it was January, the board of adjustment did deny a variance
to reduce the cannabis business setback from an adjacent residence from 500 ft to 250 ft. This was last year, sorry. And that district that decision is under appeal in district court. Um the petitioner's lot is also under that um
halfacre minimum lot size request. >> We have had a number of comments received um from Alliance Township. Can I quickly ask uh go back one please? >> In regards to the un the decision that's under appeal for district court, do we
have any idea of the timeline of >> I think we have a hearing for that on March 12th, I want to say. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> But but a decision after that could be up to six months.
So, we have received comments from Alliance Township opposing uh Goose Prairie Cragnus as well. Um, we've al also received uh letters of opposition from several uh Klay County residents. So, believe you received a couple as
well and you should have have those. How this relates to our um comprehensive and transportation plan goals and objectives. We have a a goal to encourage commercial and industrial development that is in harmony with the egg and rural character of Klay County
and an objective to avoid or mitigate against commercial industrial development that increases potential for land use conflicts with rural residential and egg uses. Um because we're red this this petition would uh request is to reduce that setback from
500 ft to 250 ft and change the minimum lot size reduce that to.5 acres. Um they would increase the number of parcels that would be in this zoning district that would be eligible for uh commercial cannabis development as well as any other commercial type commercial uses as
well because the minimum lot size is not just for cannabis it would be for other commercial uses as well. Um they may improve development feasibility. Um but also could increase um potential for for land use conflicts
just with uh the number of of of these town sites that are predominantly residential uh in in character. And our comprehensive plan does specifically call for avoiding or mitigating these development patterns that increase land use conflicts with
rural residential or agricultural uses. Um, and that reducing those setbacks may shift that balance away from avoidance and more reliance on sight specific mitigation measures. Um, and you might want to consider whether these tools are
sufficient to prevent these uh um potential land use conflicts. We also have a goal to ensure affordable, efficient, safe, and environmentally sound individual and community wastewater management for the benefit of Klay County property owners.
Um, and that's one of the main reasons why minimum lot sizes in um, unincorporated Klay County exist. Um, reducing that minimum commercial lot size could limit system design flexibility for for um, sewage treatment
systems. Um, larger minimum lot sizes really function as a preventative measure to support long-term um, environmentally sound wastewater management. As for a recommendation, uh the planning commission did make a unanimous recommendation to deny the petition
based on the findings of fact and order, which you all have in your packet as well. Any questions? >> Sorry, I it we got a notification that our internet is down, so I wanted to ensure that it's still being broadcast,
so that's why he ran out quick, but it looks like we're still on. Any questions for Matt? I I might have some I just want to hear from >> there's some others to have time for that. >> I should note Madam Chair that the U petitioner is with us today. So
>> I see Mr. Doms I also see the chair of our planning commission. We have another uh Commissioner Stiken is here as well. So uh would the applicant like to speak? Come up introduce yourself.
Good morning, Mr. Dom. >> Good morning. >> Morning, commissioners. My name is Scott Doms. I'm an architect, a business owner, and the owner of the Baker Elevator property. I did not inherit land or capital. Everything I
have built has come through professional training, calculated risk, and sustained work. The Baker Elevator represents years of structural stabilization, design effort, and long-term investment. Baker was once a functioning agricultural service hub. The elevator
and rail infrastructure were central to why the town developed where it did. Over time, that commercial base declined. Today, meaningful reinvestment is limited. New construction is rare. Most activity consists of extending the life of aging structures a few more
years. Without viable commercial pathways, legacy infrastructure like the elevators simply deteriorates. The site itself is constrained between the railroad tracks and the roadway, exactly where grain facilities were historically located for efficiency of
rail and truck access. It sits on the north northwest edge of town. To be precise about proximity, the closest residence is approximately 260 ft away. Two others are approximately
426 feet away. Beyond those, the next residents are roughly 600 and 800 ft away. There are no residences to the north or west beyond that other than agricultural land. All residences are to the southeast.
Of the three closest residences, only one has expressed opposition. My closest neighbor and the next closest are not opposed and were not included in the petition effort. So while opposition exists, it is not uniform among those most immediately adjacent.
I understand that public concern is part of the process. It has been difficult at times to hear criticism from individuals who never approached me directly beforehand. I have invited neighbors into the elevator over the years to see improvements and progress. I have attempted to be transparent and
accessible. I have offered to help people when they needed it. I have been a good neighbor. But this decision should ultimately rest on ordinance structure and planning consistency, not personalities. This amendment addresses two structural
issues. First, minimum lot size in the agricultural service center district. ASC districts were historically platted as compact service hubs built on small lots clustered around rail infrastructure. The current dimensional requirements do not reflect that
historical pattern. They apply a scale more consistent with large rural tracks than compact commercial nodes. Second, the adjacent residential setback as applied to cannabis businesses. When Minnesota drafted cannabis legislation,
it was not rushed. The state worked on statutory language, regulatory frameworks, and licensing structure for years before legal legalization took effect. Although cannabis is a relatively new industal industry, the
regulatory environment governing it has been deliberately and meticulously developed. This is not a wait andsee industry. License in Minnesota comes with detailed timelines and compliance obligations from day one. controlled access, 24-hour
surveillance, seedtosale inventory tracking, reporting requirements, and inspection authority. In many respects, these facilities operate under more structured oversight than pharmacies and any other retail business. The framework may be new in
implementation, but is not experimental in design. Applying broad rural setbacks to compact ASC districts effectively prevents reasonable commercial reuse in areas historically designed for commerce. This amendment does not eliminate setbacks.
It recalibrates it, excuse me, it re-calibrates them to match the district's built reality. When regulatory standards remove viable commercial opportunity from a district originally created for commerce, that opportunity does not simply pause. It
disappears. Once commercial viability is effectively designed out of a district, it is rarely restored. The practical message becomes that historical that historic commercial sites may no longer function commercially, which permanently alters the district's economic
potential. Regionally, Klay County standards are not uniform. Adjacent counties vary in their setback requirements. Some impose shorter distances. Some have no cannabis specific residential set setback beyond standard commercial controls. Adjusting
Klay County's ordinance would not place it outside accepted regulatory practice. Under Minnesota land use law, zoning decisions must be reasonable, supported by findings, and consistent with the purpose of the district. Courts review local land use actions under an
arbitrary and comprecious standard, meaning decisions must be grounded in articulated planning principles rather rather than generalized opposition. ASC districts were originally built to support commerce. If dimensional
standards functionally eliminate commerce from historically commercial rail served parals, the parcels, the ordinance undermines its own purpose. When properties cannot generate reasonable income, deterioration follows. Eventually, owners walk away.
At that point, the burden shifts to the community to manage blight, safety risks, and fire hazards. Adaptive reuse is how communities preserve character while maintaining economic viability. The elevator helped define Baker's identity. Structured,
lawful investment is how that identity is retained, not lost. I appreciate the board's prior support and the seriousness of which you approach these decisions. I respectfully ask you to reconsider the planning commission's recommendation and approve
the proposed text amendment so that the ordinance reflects the historical form and functional purpose of agricultural service center districts. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, Mr. Dom. Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Dom? >> Questions?
Thank you. items in the or individuals in the audience. You now have the opportunity to provide testimony if you so wish. Make sure you're signed in. Comments will be limited to three minutes and please direct questions to the board as
a whole. >> Good morning, Mr. Hildebrand. Good morning. My name is Joel Hilderbrandt. I currently am a member of the planning commission and I just ask you to give careful consideration to the findings of
fact and the reason that we did vote unanimously against this text amendment. Um it's you know there is and as Mr. Adams had said the you know
you the qualifying reason for denying or approving something shouldn't be opposition or verbalization but the fact is there is other than the applicant there is little to no support for this and with today's standards
um there again unincorporated town um I have serious in envir personally environmental concerns If this text amendment allows, where do you put the septic system? Um, where do you do
the well? Um, there just isn't room environmentally. And another issue for the commission was there is no onsite parking. It would all be public. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. Uh, Mr. Hildebrandt, can you state your address too for the record? I neglected to say that. >> My address is 2895315th Avenue North, Holly, Minnesota. >> Thank you. >> Otherwise known as West Becker. >> I know
is a low blow. Any other individuals? Good morning. Please identify yourself for the record. My name is Kathy Song and I live at 3408 38th Street South in Morehead.
I grew up in Baker and I still farm in the Baker area and I have a question for your board members. Why should the rules be broken or changed for one person? I have I have been at meeting after meeting and have
heard the board members say how hard they've worked on each cannabis or ordinance and regulations. So I h I have a question. Why should the rules be broken or changed for one person?
Um or for a city that doesn't want this business. I just don't understand how many times this is going to have to we are going to have to come and fight for this. First, I want to say the Klay County law
enforcement is the best and is second to none. My next concern is law enforcement. I have heard that Mr. Dom say that if he
should come and get this permit permit, he we he would like to have his customers consume in this place of business. if this should happen or if his customers should take partake in his
parking lot. Does that make Mr. Dom's responsible if he had an accident happen or any kind of accident in the city of Baker or on the highway? Law enforcement has all of Klay County
to patrol. Before I moved to Morehead, I lived one and a half miles out of Baker. I had to call 911 on January 1st, 2025. It took law enforcement 20 minutes to
get to my house, if not more. As I listened and watched my husband gasp for air and fight for his life, every second it seemed like ours. What I'm trying to say is law law
enforcement and ambulance can take to get to Baker in seconds when it when we when it is needed. It just doesn't work that way. I want you the bo want you the board and Mr. Doms to know that this is
getting very old. But we as a community are willing to fight this until the end. We do not want this. It is not safe for our community. Thank you. Thank you for your time.
>> Thank you. Next individual wishing to speak, please identify yourself and your address for the board, please. >> Hi, my name is Richard Donovan. I reside at 12219 119th Street South in Baker. I've lived with Baker now for over 15
years. Um, people move to a small community or small town or out in the country to get away from stuff like this. We have personally talked to 95% of the people right in Baker and actually only run into one person that didn't have an opinion either way or
just didn't want to get involved. We've talked to others in the surrounding community and only ran into one person that didn't have an opinion either way. All the rest of the people that we have talked to are opposed to this. As you can see, there's a few of them
here today. Um, the first public meeting that we had, we packed this place. There was a lot of people in here. This is a strong, supportive community that helps people when they're in need. Doesn't matter whether you're stuck in the snow, need a pull, or if your
lawnmower's broken, you need a mow, if your plow's broke, just needs some snow moved or something in your garage moved. People pull together and help each other out. Scott told council members on his first meeting that he talked to most of the people in Baker and and everybody was
okay with it. I'd like to know exactly who he talked to cuz nobody we've talked to opposed or nobody wants us here. He boldly lied to you about something so small. What else is he lying about?
People in Baker didn't move here because there was a pot dispensary, a bar, a sea store. Most of the people moved to Baker because there was none of that here. We don't want it. Scott has this elevator listed for sale.
I believe he's looking to create chaos here. He's looking to make a quick buck on his elevator, basically sell it and bolt out of here, leaving everybody in town of Baker with his destruction to our community. Which leads me to the next question. Where do we go next after something like
this gets pushed into our community? I'd like to say thank you for your time and attention to this matter. >> Thank you for your testimony. >> Please. >> Hi there. My name is Nathan Edwards. I live at 12225
118th Street South in Baker. I wrote a few things down here. I live in Baker and I oppose this. Having a cannabis business in Baker would be harmful to the peace and safety of Baker. In addition to issues like
increased noise, traffic, and crime, and a general disruption to our way of life, we'll likely see drastic increases to homeowners insurance rates as well as lower property values. From what I have heard and read, I believe that the initial approval was
based off of his claim that the community supported this idea. In fact, the truth is quite the opposite. And had that been known at the time of the approval request, I believe the answer would have likely been denial, as it should be at this time. Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Good morning. Please identify yourself for the board. >> Good morning. Uh my name is David Mclofflin. Uh I live at uh 11704 123rd Avenue in Baker along with uh my
wife Debbie. Uh our property uh is one of the properties that uh falls within the 500 ft uh setback requirement. And um I have some real concerns about uh Scott's request for uh reduction in uh
lot size and setback requirements. Uh first and uh foremost uh uh would be that uh we don't have uh you know it's a gravel road. uh we don't uh it's uh you
know during the spring and fall we have a lot of agricultural uh traffic on that road uh which uh I mean the county does a fairly good job of maintaining it but you put a commercial business in there with traffic going up and down that every
day. Uh that's certainly going to be a concern. Uh Scott did mention that he's been in Baker since 2017 and that he felt he's been a good neighbor. I would tell you that uh I have had good relationships with Scott uh in in the
past, but uh I can't support this uh uh this plan that he has. Uh um as recent as uh within the last uh two weeks, there's been a news story where Scott was interviewed and when asked whether or not he was still planning a cannabis
business, he said, "Probably not. I've got something even crazier in mind." but he hasn't shared with the community what that is. Um, I can tell you that being a neighbor, we don't want cannabis and we don't want crazy. Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Additional feedback. >> There any members of the public? Good morning. >> Please identify yourself for the board. >> Yes. My name is Shane Steven Thompson. Uh address is actually Morehead, 2752
6 Circle Street South. Been there only 38 years now. So, but I grew up less than a mile away and it was you could see it plain as day from my yard ever since I grew up. And uh you know the business is or the the the
building is very historic since I started delivering grain there when I was 14 or 15, but that was too long ago for me to actually remember with a single axe truck. So it is um very historic. But once again, I just have to ditto
everything that was already said because we're all locals. We take care of each other the best that we can since police force isn't down there. And like was said earlier, it it does take up to a half an hour for anybody to even show up. And I just had one of them issues myself just this fall before I started
combining corn. There was a vehicle parked in my approach less than a mile away. And all of a sudden, uh, four sheriff's cars, three highway patrols, and a tow truck pulled in cuz they were looking for that person of interest that I caught. And we do police our own
neighborhoods and stuff out there. And so we do take care of the best is what we try to do in that neighborhood. And once again, the railroad tracks have never been brought up either either on this property. They're just way too close to the business that I don't even
know how it could exist with all the, you know, grain properties going through there heading west out to Castleton for the crush plant and the ethanol plant out there. So, a lot of it comes through Baker and some of his Airbnb customers have been seen in the middle of the night out
on Highway 52. But once again, the sheriff didn't get there in time. They got back in the building before he showed up. And he was very not well-dressed, the person that was out there and very stumbly. So, a lot of stuff going on. And uh yeah, once again,
I'm going to reiterate my great great grandpa from 1887 and great grandpa and grandpa and their wives, my grandmas are still coming to me saying no. And uh yeah, cuz when he started there, it was
just open fields and a few roads. So it turned out like that. So appreciate all the consideration and everything else that was said from the Baker community because we're definitely on board for negative on this, you know, approval. So I appreciate it. Thank you guys.
>> Thank you for your testimony, additional feedback. Morning. Please identify yourself for the board. >> Uh good morning uh board. Uh Randy Affield. I reside at uh 11779 Highway 52
uh south uh Baker, Minnesota. Um and like uh most of the community, I'm opposed to this. Um and I'm sure the the the countywide as well. I think you've already had some comments from Elton Township, Goose Prairie, and I think
there was another one. Um, but any rate, I think the the biggest concern is is the lack of little to no law enforcement. And that's not a dig on the sheriff's department. Mark and his team do a great job, but it's a huge county. They just don't have time. Uh, the community of Baker, uh, the
infrastructure is is not adequate to accept, uh, this extra traffic workload. Um, and I believe you guys have already pretty much nailed this down with the with a comprehensive plan from uh over
20 years ago. Um, and then the cannabis ordinance that you created that was less than two years ago. I I assume that our elected officials are doing their due diligence uh and giving this a lot of careful consideration when they're when
they're uh developing these uh plans and ordinances. Um, one of the things I'd like to uh really paraphrase um out of the comprehensive plan for the economic development goal, number one is to encourage value added to agricultural
industries and number two is to encourage the same that is ancillary to agricultural uses andor supports the egg community. Um, all other uses shall be prohibited. I think that's that's key. Um, you need
you need to you need to know what the what the use of this business is going to be and make sure it fits within the comprehensive plan and the cannabis ordinance. I respectfully request that you deny
this. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you for your feedback. Additional testimony. Good morning, Council Member Styen. Please introduce yourself for the record. My name is Dave Stiken. I live at 804
Crochious Drive in Dworth, Minnesota. I'm the vice chair on the planning commission. So, so Madame Chair and council members, thank you for taking my input here.
It's important to understand that the decisions we make are going to be with us forever, you know, unless it's changed. If we lessen the requirements and put a blanket change on the lot size, the setbacks,
it just seems like we're setting ourselves up for lots of difficult situations. If there's something that comes up, they should be handled individually. But to have a blanket statement to cover all these things and I'm going to mention a couple things later, I'm going to not
mention what's already been talked about. But I do appreciate people that have ideas for businesses that bring economic uh stimulation to an area, county, city or whatever. But they do need to fall within the guidelines and
regulations that are in place. Um for those who are familiar with the planning commission, just like all of you commissioners, you take your jobs, your role very seriously. I as a as a vice chair and the chair being
here, we also do that every decision that comes before us is discussed to the nth degree and I appreciate all the input on either direction it might be going. So, but
the um commission, our planning commission uh on this petition stood firmly unanimously against uh changing the uh ordinance. We've had multiple meetings in the past
with an SRF consulting group from Fargo. many many meetings and they worked with us on each individual went line by line on the ordinances in the county and this came up. There was public input opportunities and it was it was available and
we all felt very comfortable with the decisions that we chose and you and the board of commissioners adopted. I know there's valid reasons for making a change, but this blanket statement
really um I really have a problem with it. I know the elevator was there years ago, but it ceased to be a business operator for years and that cessation of business happened long before a lot of the
residents of Baker moved there. He didn't move there with the intent of of some big business operating there. But the uh setback requirements, it does fall within the Minnesota state uh
statute chapter 342 for schools and businesses. There are neighboring counties that have lesser requirements and there are neighboring counties that have exactly the same requirements that that has been adopted in Klay County
with the business being close proximity to residential area uh houses is always the input um like the presentation talked about traffic order lighting and security. Far as a lot size, one thing that really stands out for me
like Mr. Jacobson said in the rural they rely on wells and septic systems and there need to be a separation on those two things because you don't need to you can't contaminate each and it is designed to be set up to have two
um enough area to have two septic systems in case one fails you can go in with another one. So just that in itself, the um building footprint, the parking, the spillover of loading and impact adjacent properties is a real
problem. I'm just going to read the ordinance. It states that commercial and industrial uses of agricultural service centers must be located and designated designed so they do not create nuisance or trespass concerns for residential areas. I hope your decision today will reflect
protection of the health, safety, and welfare of everyone. And I my hope is that you you agree to not make a change. >> Thank you, Mr. Styen. >> Appreciate that. Further dialogue?
Any further dialogue? >> Did we have anyone on teams that wanted to speak? >> We do not, Madam Chair. Last call. Any further discussion from anyone in the audience board? >> Yeah, Madam Chair, I I do want to um
mention again, as you did at the start of our meeting this morning, that we did have some additional written comments that wanted to be put into the record. So, I want to just make sure that those are also uh put into the record this morning as part of the public hearing. >> That was from resident Christy Donovan
and residents Massiey's. Uh due to work restrictions, we're not able to attend today. So, we'll make sure that's part of the board questions, discussion. >> Madam Chair, I'll close to move to close the public hearing. >> Okay, we have a motion from Commissioner
Bear to close the public hearing. >> Second. >> A second from Commissioner Ebinger. >> Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Carried. All right. Board dialogue. Yes, Commissioner
Campbell. Madam Chair, thank you. Um I when this came before our county board, must have been a few months ago now, uh the idea was to amend our ordinance to allow um certain uses within the egg
service centers within Klay County. We did uh we did move to approve that request. Uh when we did so, we did not do it based on one particular location. We did it. I believe there was potentially 28
different sites that could qualify. Is that 28 or 38 or >> Yeah, Madam Chair and Commissioner Campbell's roughly like 8% of the lots. So, yes. >> Yeah. So that being said, one of the one of the things that we talked about there
is that um we we approved that uh subject to conditional use by the planning commission and we felt that that would be the appropriate channel for anybody who would be applying to do so.
I think there would have been really strong concern if it would have been requested upon this board at that time to change setback requirements. I don't think there would have been any interest on the part of this board in doing that. Um
so having having said that you know um this going through the planning and by the way the planning commission originally even uh recommended to us not to even approve what we did do but I think I don't think that was a unanimous vote at that time on the part of the planning commission. This one from the
planning commission was a unanimous vote after hearing um what they wanted as the conditions and I believe the planning commission made the right choice.
I think um you know even within that process of the planning commission if somebody wants to deal with changes to setbacks there already is a process in place
called a variance and there's a variance option that they can go through to do that. That's in some cases it might be as a result of a hardship. Um and it's my understanding that that process has even been followed here.
Um so when uh I think this would really open up to an awful lot of other conflicts as it re as it results in changing the setback requirements within the
um zoning document. I think that really creates a a multitude of potential issues. And so having said that, I I would oppose this
um motion to I I would support the motion to deny. >> Questions and comments from the board. >> Any questions? >> Commissioner Bear, >> I just have one comment. maybe a couple. But yeah, we the
setbacks are set. We've had these same setbacks set for 20 plus years and we just redid our whole ordinance with the same setbacks to go and change this and that is I believe a little out of hand especially when you can go through and
get a variance if and at least ask for a variance. And sometimes when you get a variance you have to get the neighbors on board to agree to it too. And with this, it doesn't sound like many of them don't want it or they're not willing to come out in favor of it.
So, with that, I I'm also opposed to this. So, >> questions or comments from the board? Um, yeah, Madam Chair, just for some um context specific to cannabis businesses as well and and with the the ordinance
that's in place, um, I should note that the planning commission has um, received two other requests for cannabis businesses. Um, these have met the setbacks and they were both approved unanimously um, in this past year.
>> Yeah, >> Commissioner Campbell. And that was one of the other things I was going to address. The whole cannabis deal in Minnesota is is relatively new compared to how long we've had ordinances in the past. And and I think Klay County is probably one of the first ones under Matt's direction to really establish a
cannibis um zoning ordinance. Um you know that's a new deal. you know there and when we talked about before in some of these egg service centers there might be another
application in another area that might the planning commission might deem is appropriate as you know it can be an egg related business. So again I I think I think we've done
the right thing. Um yeah anymore I'll just be repeating myself. Thank you, Commissioner Campbell. Commissioner Kavanagh. >> Yeah, thank you for your added uh comments, Matt. Um
uh I'll just say for me, I I I view the cannabis um work that's done uh as agriculture and that's why I fully supported the egg service center and even promoted it so
that we did have more opportunities. Uh Mr. Dobs in his very first time coming here talked about fairness and that was one of the things that led to me uh voting for um the egg service
areas and in broadening the scope of how we're it's just not limited commercial zoning space. Uh however uh when we set up this camp uh cannabis ordinance, we
spent plenty of time about uh distances from residential areas, distances from schools, daycarees, all that was addressed. And for myself, I I have um I have no time, I guess, uh in wanting to
reduce those limits. Um uh so I have nothing against the businesses at all. In fact, as I think it's opportunity for many uh it's uh it's a law uh that we have in the state that allows this this
uh production of these these products or the manufacturing of so with that I will also be in support of denying. >> Commissioner Abinger. >> Thank you Madam Chair. Um this was not a
a decision that the planning commission did without being being go to the effort of substantiating what the reasoning was and there are so many a there are standards that uh there are purposes for having standards
and I think it they there's been substantial effort to show that the circumstances of this intended business are is going to create an environment in which this the reasoning for the standards
that are in place it is is is supported. That was a little obtuse but the rules have a purpose and the purpose is to avoid the things that are going to happen if this business is allowed to develop. Uh this is not about cannabis. I think
it's about the use of property and the input from the public and we there's been a huge input from the public on this and people have a right to voice their concerns especially when it's substantiated when you read the the finding of facts on this. Uh it's
substantiated by the by the evidence and the environment that's there. Having said all that, I'd like to make a motion uh to deny the proposed amendment based on planning commission recommendations for denial and the findings of facts.
>> Okay, we have an a motion offered to deny the request from Commissioner Einger, a second from Commissioner Bayer. >> I would like quickly uh Matt if you could highlight the findings of facts pieces. our planning commission chair
did talk a little bit about that, but I think for the public's understanding and given the fact that the applicant wanted um decisions to be articulated in planning principles, I think those are important pieces to make sure in the record for this.
>> Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um so the the planning commission made the following findings at their January 27th meeting. Uh we do have review standards for uh any amendments to the code that are in our code. Uh one is looking at
the the burden on public utilities and in that the planning commission found that reducing the minimum commercial lot size from 1 acre to.5 acres and unseured rural district will increase the likelihood that some parcels will have insufficient area to accommodate compliant on-site sewage treatment systems including required replacement
areas as well as adequate parking, loading, storm water management and snow storage. staff found many existing substandard lots in these districts are not able to meet these standards um could not be addressed through conditional use permit conditions. Um smaller lot sizes would also constrain
emergency vehicle access and on-site circulation. Um for consistency with the ordinance um they did find that not consistent with the general purposes of the ordinance would seek to regulate development intensity and minimize land use conflicts particularly in districts
where residential and commercial uses coexist. um requires the ASC district's requirements that commercial and industrial uses be located designed so they do not create nuisance or trespass concerns for nearby resol residential uses reducing cannabis business setbacks
from 500 ft to 250 ft and reducing the minimum commercial lot size from 1 acre to.5 acre diminishes established dimensional standards that function to provide separation buffering and impact mitigation thereby weakening weakening the ordinance's intent and the planning commission um put and board of
commissioners put careful consideration into the development of setbacks and minimum lot sizes. Uh board of adjustment can address dev deviations on their own individual merit. And then finally the conflict with the comprehensive plan looking at a text amendment making sure that it's
consistent with the goals and objectives of the comprehensive and transportation plan uh which was also recently updated um in in 2023. So that's also very recent. And the planning commission in that case found that the amendments are not consistent with the Klay County
comprehensive and transportation plan which emphasizes avoiding or mitigating commercial and industrial development that increases the potential for land use conflicts with rural residential areas where children may frequent or agricultural uses and ensuring environmentally sound wastewater management. And then the reduction in
the residential setback distances increases proximity of cannabis business to rural dwellings and the reduction in minimum lot size introduces greater uncertainty regarding longterm on-site wastewater functionality in unseured areas. And then taking together these amendments will increase conflict
potential and undermine plan objectives related to rural compatibility and environmental health protection. So that those were the findings of the planning commission. >> Thank you Mr. Jacobson. Any further discussion? Any further discussion? Sarah, can we have a roll call vote, please?
>> Commissioner Abinger, >> I. >> Commissioner Krabanhaft, >> I. >> Commissioner Mojo, >> I. >> Commissioner Campbell, >> hi. >> Commissioner Bear, >> hi. >> Thank you. The motion to deny and passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank
you, Mr. Chair. Matt Jacobson. Thank you. >> We will take a fivem minute break and then we'll have your presentation. Thank you. >> Okay, item seven this morning is the annual department update from our planning and
zoning department. We have Matt Jacobson again. Good morning. >> Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. Thank you for having me for my department update. Going to start off um just by walking
through the the mission statement of of the Klay County Planning and Zoning Department. Uh the mission of the Klay County Planning Office is to promote the public health, gen safety, and general welfare of county citizens uh through the development, implementation, and administration of appropriate planning,
zoning, and subdivision regulations, which which follow applicable state and federal laws and the Klay County comprehensive plan. I did bold the public health, safety, and general welfare of county citizens because that is essentially what kind of underpins um all of the work that um this office
does. Um it is the basis for um all decisions by by the planning commission and board of adjustment is to to take that into consideration. Uh from our county uh comprehensive plan, we also have this following um vision statement. Klay County values its existing rural
and agricultural character while ensuring a thoughtful and balanced approach to growth and development in the years to come. Klay County is committed to the principles of equity, inclusion, and service by providing quality services and facilities for all citizens and future residents. Klay County recognizes the importance of its
agricultural natural resources while looking for new opportunities to support economic vitality. Klay County will promote sound planning principles that foster economic, environmental, and community resiliency to ensure that Klay County thrives into 2045 and beyond.
So, with that, I get into our highlights from from last year. Uh, just going through different permitting um statistics and kind of how that's compared to previous years. Uh, and then looking ahead to to 2026 as well. So,
starting with building permits, um we had been on a a somewhat um steady climb from 2019 through 2022 um to 2023. There was a a large jump in um in building permit applications that
went down in in 2024 and uh 2025 was another um big jump kind of back up to um 2023 numbers. I think a lot of that had to do um to with there's a number of after the-act permitting that h that has
happened in both 2023 and and 2024 as well. And so you can kind of take a look around um the county um where um this is happening. I think I want to back up here one one thing I do want to note um is just with new construction for uh
residential um that's something that I think um has been really strong in in rural Klay County and unincorporated Klay County uh again we had another great year last year uh with 35 new applications for um new homes. Uh I
think folks recognize that um Klay County is a really great place to live um just due to um services, infrastructure, um the uh just the the scenic beauty of of the county, especially, you know, um
and also with um our regulations being different than um across the river in Cass County, um we do allow for a little more um flex flexibility with um residential density. Um that was um um
initiated by this board long ago to ensure that folks who um as Commissioner Campbell likes to mention um making sure that um families can can live close together after they've they've gone away and they can come back and and and live
live close to where they grow up. >> Madam Chair, I have one question on that. >> Yes, Commissioner Bear. the 35 that we is that additions onto houses or is that completely all brand new? >> Brand new. >> Brand new. >> Yep. >> Can I just follow up to that? So, of
those 35, >> how many of those are like standalone new construction versus maybe being within an approved development? Do do we know what that that is? >> I could get that number for you from like a um a new subdivision. >> Yeah. Yeah.
>> It just might be interesting to know that. >> Yep. I could certainly find that information out for you. >> Thank you. >> Maybe you can just follow up with an email or something. >> Yep. >> So, this is kind of where um development
or applications have have occurred kind of throughout the county. Um the trend has has been a lot of development on the um east side of the county. Uh south specifically the the southeast is where
where a lot of the um development has has occurred um um within within Klay County um especially within the past you know 10 15 years and uh 2012 2025 was was no different
as for just valuations. So looking at just construction costs um on building permit applications uh looking at the average value uh was aundred just north of $160,000
um would be the average uh building permit construction cost. Uh and then looking at kind of the the total value um for 2025 um definitely a a big jump from 2024 to 2025. um just almost
basically doubling that up to just north of $30 million in in applications for for new construction. I will say that most of that will likely get built too. It's um if someone submits an application, it's definitely I would say
that probably north of 90% of what's applied for does get actually constructed. Uh for subdivisions, um a little down this year from last year. Um some of that has to do with we did see a lot
like in 2021, for example. Um uh Miss Savage alluded to that in her um department update about the the refinancing after COVID. That was kind of a big year for um for for subdivisions. Um did see some uh plats
saw three plats uh this year I think two commercial and then a resident a residential plat as well. Um so that should drive some more residential and commercial development here uh in future years with those lots platted out
as far as use trends. So, um, interim use permits and conditional use permits, uh, pretty similar to, uh, the previous two years, maybe up just a little bit. Um, not not like we've seen in 2021
2022. In those years, we did see a lot of um, new permit applications and then also uh, renewals uh, for gravel pits. I think a lot of that was um driven by uh the diversion construction Amazon um as
well. Um and so that's those those permitting has been has been down a little bit but still higher than or on par with um uh the earlier or 2015 to to 2020.
And then in in terms of of the the industry, uh most of our use permits are for industrial uses uh and then followed by by commercial uses as well. Those are kind of the top two um um industries and
and breaking that down even further. Um so for industrial looking at gravel mines, newing new and expansion uh asphalt badge plants, concrete plants, uh and then on the commercial side uh community solar gardens, uh and then uh
commercial storage as well. Those have kind of been the the bigger um um industry or or use specific permits that that have been issued. You can kind of see in that where where
those have occurred pretty uniform um through throughout the county for variance requests. uh those have been down uh compared to previous years and um we only saw I think 10 variance requests
this year the board of adjustment and I think I'd give a lot of credit to um just the staff in in the planning department and helping um applicants who come in for development find maybe an option where they don't need to do go
through the variance process. Um I think that has has really reduced um the amount of variances. And then secondly just with a a the code change as well. Um a lot of our variance requests in the past or significant number came from um
gravel mine mining operators looking to um mine within a a 100 foot property line setback. uh that used to require a variance and now it just requires essentially an agreement between um the the the property owners that's that's
recorded. >> Matt, I I also wanted to highlight that I think uh you are quite correct your office is very flexible and willing to work with land owners and applicants on what is an appropriate utilization and
how can we um make things work. You know, I I said part of the asset in looking at the ordinances and the updates was if we were starting to see trends where folks were asking for variances for things that were um quite
similar that really spoke to maybe um why the rules needed to change um because we were seeing such similarity in those requests. So, you know, I I lean into maybe that's why we're seeing the the decrease as well with the understanding that we want to be as
flexible as possible while understanding all all of the components that we have to maintain. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> And so, just to look at kind of where these variances uh requests occurred um throughout the county,
pretty stark north and south divide there. Um for violations, uh 2025, um violations have been down from 2024 in terms of um violations that have been resolved. Uh I would give a lot of all
the credit to uh Erica uh in her office who's done a fantastic job of tracking violations, um working with um property owners and land owners to find solutions. uh and then uh when necessary
to um if if those options don't work um working with the the attorney's office as well. So I have to give a lot of thanks to um Mr. Melton and and his office um for all the the support and and collaboration that we've done on on
zoning violations. I know that it's not like that in in every county and so really appreciate that um uh partnership that that we have um with that and working working to make sure that that these violations are resolved. A lot of
them are very very minor. Um some are just a little bit more sticky than others. So, >> uh, gravel tax. Um, so in 2025, our, um, gravel tax, uh, revenues were were up a bit from from 2024,
uh, a little over $10,000. Um and I think um you know this past year the uh haulers have been submitting their their hall their daily hall sheets um to with their with their gravel tax um uh payments and their gravel tax
reports. Uh, and then I also do want to give credit to Rita as well because um, Rita has is the one who receives these um, reports and and we've changed the way that it's reported a little bit. So um, we can specifically know what what
pit is being reported out of as opposed to just kind of a general uh, town township section range. We actually have a parcel and so that was not done in the past. Um, and so it makes um tracking uh
tracking gravel tax uh a lot easier. And then if there are some issues or discrepancies, it makes it a a lot easier for us to go out and and and do some spot checks and and take a look as well um when we know exactly um what
pits are are reporting their materials. >> It will be fascinating to see the 2026 number as well. understanding that a large amount of material is coming out of those pits for the uh big North Dakota project. Um, >> yep.
>> You know, I I also think it's important that the public understands that surrounding counties in Minnesota also have gravel resources. And while it may seem like the revenue and cubic yards
coming out of Klay County is much less than it has been in the past, which is so I believe that gravel trucks on the road have increased because additional pits are being utilized. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, I think that's a really good point
to make. when you have um right on the county line, for example, with with Becker County, there is a a number of of gravel pits just that are just right on that line and and go into the Fargo Morehead Market. All right, some big highlights for 2025
was of course our Klay County Land Development Subdivision ordinance update, which was enacted by uh this board in in June. And so I really want to thank you all for all your hard work and your your uh support um financial
support uh moral support and just uh uh guidance and and and insight as well um in in kind of overseeing that project. So really appreciate that. Uh also the um Buffalo River uh now they're call it was been called the better data uh
letter of map revision that was completed as well in October. So that kind of brings to close a 10y year roughly. Yeah. Um um update to that and
very fortunate that um a number of land owners um were able to get relief from uh flood insurance premiums from that. Uh and then actually I've heard from a couple who were able to now actually sell their their homes um be because of
that. So, um, very, very meaningful relief there and I think well worth the the wait to get a a good product. Looking ahead to, um, 2026, um, we are we've explored a couple of different
online permitting platforms and now um working on one that that integrates with our our website and what we've been in our online payments um, through through Civic Plus. um looking at that is very close to to being ready to be launched.
Um a big thanks to Erica um for all of her her work with that. Um um she's basically kind of spun this up from the from the ground up and put a lot a lot of time into that. Uh we're also working with GIS and communications on just
updating our permit complaint and violation kind of tracking system. So, a better way for us to um more efficiently um um track uh a some of the the issues that may come in into our office and and permitting things like that. Um like to
look at potentially doing a a fee schedule update. It's been a long time since our um fee schedules has has been updated and we we wanted the goal with this would be to cover essentially the the costs of having a meeting um or to
also update our um um fees for uh violations or after the fact permits as well. Um, so not really looking to um we really would like to keep our our fees low. Um, but we would
like to be able to cover cover the the meeting notice and mailing costs because we've seen increased um costs, especially with with mailings out and and keeping the the public informed. And we've heard from the public, too, that they really appreciate being in informed
of that. And so we would like to to do our best to um continue to provide that service um at or beyond our statutory requirements. >> Matt, I I do want to comment on that particularly. We've talked over the years about having appropriate nominal
fees for some of these things. But um when you have larger intricate requests that we are noticing a substantial amount of people in the county all of a sudden and you're having multiple hearings and and appeals, it gets to the
point then where you're having a subsidizing of those specific applications coming from the general public. And so I, you know, it's it's tricky and difficult and I want to make sure certainly that they're not astronomical,
but um there are those outliers that cost a lot of money to run those things. And um that then takes away from additional services than that the capacity of a department can utilize. >> Any other questions?
All right. Anything else from your presentation? >> Just if you have any questions for me. >> Great questions. Commissioner Kavanagh, >> want to go back to the Buffalo River Lomar. >> So, is there a after that mapping was done? Is there something you u
coordinate with uh FEMA? >> What um not necessarily what we'll need to coordinate with FEMA, but what they'll they've done is they've updated their map. So, I'm now working with um the state of Minnesota and they're um
the state flood plan manager and what we will have to do is update our zoning map to to reflect that. You typically with like a letter of map revision um FEMA wouldn't necessarily update the map. They would just add a little um the letter essentially to the map saying,
"Hey, it's different here." But in this case, they actually did go and they updated the the map. So, um, >> the reason I asked is about flood insurance, which you mentioned, >> you know, having insurance companies agreeing with that revision or I didn't
know if they took a special certification or whatever. >> Yeah, it would be that letter essentially. >> Yeah. Um, just the Walmart >> and Yep. Just the law itself. And from what I've heard from property owners, the ones that I've heard from, it's been a very smooth process with their um,
insurance agencies. So, yep. >> Well, it was a long term long line time problem. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Okay. Commissioner Campbell, >> Matt, is that Thank you. Is that is that um letter then is that recorded on that property >> to show that it's been removed from the
flood plane? >> I don't believe that it would be recorded against the property, but if you were to go and look at the official um uh flood insurance map for that property, it would it would be reflected. lending institutions, do they look at that, Matt?
>> They typically will. Yes. Yep. >> Thank you. >> And they'll want that letter. >> Yeah. >> Additional questions? Questions? Thank you, Matt. I also want to say that it's been great to see the excuse me,
the expansion of the staff in your department and how we've been able to uh follow up on some of the concerns with folks. If you've not had a chance to attend a planning commission meeting, everything is so well prepared and I know that takes a substantial amount of time. I appreciate your work there.
>> Thank you very much. >> I appreciate all your support as well. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Okay. Item eight today is a request approval to apply for the MPCA wasted food and food rescue grant. We have our public health director, Jessica
Mickelson. Good morning. >> Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. I have two agenda items for you today and uh like Commissioner Mojo said, the first is requesting approval to apply for a grant from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Uh
the name of the grant is wasted food and food rescue grant. Uh the purpose of the grant um would be to provide funding to reduce the amount of food wasted across the state by supporting projects that would prevent surplus food from being
generated, keep food from going to waste and rescue edible food that would otherwise be discarded and redirected for human consumption. Uh so our intent with this would be to work with the Minnesota or I'm sorry the West Central Minnesota Food Council um and Klay
County Public Health uh would um plan a community input meeting which they have tentatively scheduled for April 7th to identify priority initiatives. Um the goal of the funding would be to expand capacity through the West Central
Minnesota Food Council um to support communities increase food recovery and further reduce food insecurity across our region. So, um, some of the example projects that could be, um, approved would be, um, programs to focus on preventing wasted food or increasing
food rescue, purchasing equipment or supplies, expanding transportation options, cold storage capacity, and uh, you know, things of that nature. Um the initial in assumption based on um some preliminary information is that we
intend to request anywhere from $75,000 to $150,000. Uh there is several million dollars available through the grant. So it would depend on what would be awarded if the board approves for us to apply for the grant. Um
let's see. I think that that about covers it. Any questions for me? Any questions? >> Board wishes there is an action requested. >> Okay. Well, I'll make a motion. I think this is
forward thinking and it's certainly uh something we're all recognized as a problem in our landfills and we we need to do something about it. So, if this is the beginning of helping us do that, uh I would move to uh approve the public
health staff uh to apply for the MPCA wasted food and food rescue grant. Second, >> a motion offered from Commissioner Kavanagh, a second offered from Commissioner Ebinger. Any further discussion, >> Madam Chair? >> Yes.
>> Yeah. in maybe follow up to um Commissioner Krabanov's comments. You know, we've we've also had some when it comes to um organic waste. That's we've had some discussions about organic at
our solid waste area and maybe with what you're doing. It might be it might be good to kind of follow up with that group as to uh what what this area is doing and and what what your goal is and what you
would like to accomplish to see how that coincides with what they are working on. >> Yes. Yes. Certainly. And um Jason Burkstrand will be the lead for this. So, I'll make sure that he's connecting and that um all the key players are invited to that community input meeting
and have, you know, a say in in what um initiatives are focused on. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> Yes, Commissioner C. >> And added that and I know uh Rory's part of the u the group here, but also through the food commission. I know
Erica and planning has been doing uh quite a bit bit of background work also. just so you're aware. >> Any other discussion? >> Yes, Commissioner Bear. >> When does >> when does the grant close on when would
you find out if you receive the money? >> Um the application deadline is April 28th. Um and I do not know um when we would be notified. I'd have to check with Jason on that. >> Will you let us know if you do receive it or >> I will certainly send an email if we are
approved. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. >> Thank you, Jessica. It passes. I am a little surprised that you are not wearing a Morhead hockey jersey.
>> If those of you that this week >> that don't know, uh Jessica's son was part of the honored as part of the Star Tribune's all varsity hockey team. Uh and he and his teammates will be competing at the uh state hockey tournament this week. So all the best to
uh your family, but more importantly Spud Nation and we're excited for them. >> So can I just ask so I also heard is your son up for Mr. Hockey and he's one of 10 finalists, right? >> Yes, he was nominated for that as well. >> Yeah, >> we find that out this weekend too. So
congratulations. >> So we would have welcomed you wearing awards, buddy. >> Okay. Well, now I'll know. >> All right. My um second request, and we're really just bringing this back to the board. Um, so this is to finalize the U. Minnesota Pollution Control
Agency enforcement action action funds and request to execute an MOU with the city of Morehead. Uh, so this was originally brought before the commissioners on January 27th um to finalize the projects that were
identified through the public input process um with the Budweiser settlement funds. So Klay County received a total of $129,540 in settlement funding from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Uh we have
narrowed down the final projects and we have received final costs. So uh when we came before you guys in January, we had estimates and now these are the actual costs. So um the river corridor amenities came in just slightly below
the estimate at $11,158.13. Uh the Arbor Day planting was right at the estimate of $14,574. The River Corridor native plantings came in quite a bit below the estimate at $13,447.30 uh which allowed us to allocate
additional funds towards the Crosswalks project. Um so the original estimate was around $51,000. Now, we're able to apply the savings from um the difference here um towards the crosswalk project and reduce the amount that Morhead Area
Public Schools is having to uh contribute. Uh blue stem lighting came in right on at 25,600. And then our administrative cost also was below what we had originally estimated, so about 3,000 less. So, $6,55410. So, uh, we just wanted to make you all
aware of what the final costs were. Um, so I have two requests. Um, one, final approval on, uh, on these projects and then in addition, um, I'm requesting approval to enter intoou with the city of Morehead. Um, as you guys are aware,
Klay County received the funding. We've been working with the city of Morehead. They will be the ones overseeing the projects and um, working with the vendors. Jessica, I noted here the component that Mor Area Public Schools is funding in
thatou. Do they have anou with the city or do they need to be in included in that contract? >> Um not in here. Um I'm not sure that was something that the city worked out. So that I would assume.
Um, >> yeah, madam chair, commissioners, I think just in talking with Brian, I think that because the funding is coming directly from the from the city for that portion of the projects, that wouldn't require anou. >> Okay. Questions from the board on the
presentation. A note before we vote, I know this uh required a substantial amount of uh public input and sorting through those components and I know Patrick worked on that as well. Um I know there were others, but uh thank you to the
department for helping weed through this. As you know, that was not a Klay County settlement, but uh you know, we had were tasked with the charge of finding the best way to utilize funds. Madam Chair, I move the final um project
costs for the grant. >> Okay, we have a motion to approve the final cost for the grant. >> Second. >> A second from Commissioner Ebinger. Any further discussion? >> Is that also to execute theou? >> I'd like that to be separate. Yes. >> Any further discussion?
Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Carried. The next item would be the approval to execute theou. >> Madame chair. >> Yes. >> I'd like to present a motion to execute
theou between Klay County Public Health Public Health and the city of Morehead on this item. >> A motion offered from Commissioner Heinger to approve. >> I'll second it. >> And a second from Commissioner Bearer. Any further discussion?
>> Yes. I I'd like this I'd like thisou to also state for longterm maintenance does not fall on the county. I do not see it in theou. >> I'd like that to state state that in theou. >> Brian, was that perspective highlighted
in that or is that something we could make a friendly amendment to? So it would be on the cities. So we don't we are not responsible for long-term maintenance on the crosswalks plantings all of it. >> Jessica, does the city sign this next week or did they sign it already?
>> They have not signed it yet. Uh, could a motion to approve have a friendly amendment to make sure that that perspective is highlighted? Give the attorney's office more than >> 20 seconds to >> Yeah. Yes.
>> Okay. That that that reflects the motion and second. Sarah, you have that. Right. Well, it does state um using the funds solely for approved projects identified in theou maintaining complete Well, I know it was discussed.
>> It was discussed. That's why I want to just make sure it's >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. >> All right. Well, there I think we're clear. The board's clear. Brian will have the opportunity to work that through and you won't need to bring it back. Okay. >> Any further discussion?
Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I >> I oppose. Same sign. Carried. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Item 10 today is the annual department update from West Central Regional
Juvenile Center. Good morning, James. >> Good morning, Madam Chair, commissioners. Yeah, I'm here today to do the annual update. I think it's this one right here. Here we go. >> All right, we'll just get right into it
then. All right. Well, the West Central Regional Juvenile Center. So, um you know, there's our mission statement. Um the West Central Regional Juvenile Center is a learning environment where the values of each individual are recognized, developed, and matured for the betterment of the community.
All right. So looking at it, um the West Central Regional Juvenile Center is a licensed um uh children's residential facility underneath 2960. So underneath that we have two different licenses. We have a secure license and a nonsecure license. So there's two distinct
programs basically. And inside that there's different programs of each that we do. Um so I'll just start out with the secure program. um that's been pretty stable for last four or five years. Hasn't been a whole lot of
changes going on. Um but for some more background, the secure program is part of a cooperative service agreement that's made up of 11 member counties. Um there's the counties listed there. Um and how it's how the Secure program is funded is it's funded through um the
members pay a yearly percentage based on their two-year look back. So, um, Klay County, for example, used 30% of the placements. So, Klay County would be responsible for 30% of, um, the budget
for, um, that following year, you know, and it kind of goes down, you know, there's some counties that, you know, like Stevens County would use like 1% um, and they'd be responsible for 1% of the budget. So, that's that's where the funding comes from. And then also we get
um a decent size of funding from non-members. So we take um youth when we have space. We take youth from non-member counties in both Minnesota and North Dakota. Um but primarily Minnesota counties for our secure
residential program is what really drives those numbers. Um and with that we're able to offset some of the costs for our membership. Um and then some other miscellaneous funding comes from just basically reimbursements through the national school lunch programs and
reimbursements from counties or um whatever funds that we can capture. That's that's just a small portion of it. Um skier membership um you look at the property map there um kind of all west central Minnesota and then Cass
County um North Dakota. Um the benefits of being the member is um it's guaranteed immediate placement. Um and that's that's kind of big. Um you look at juvenile programming um in juvenile
corrections, excuse me, in in terms of adult corrections. Um the need is less thankfully. So um ideally um not all counties need one, but regionally we need one. um and then we provide that
service. Um so prior to the expansion in 2018 um we did have um capacity concerns um for our members which um we um got a new 20-year commitment. So the
the cooperative service agreement is good until 2038. Um and we have with our space we have physical space for 65. license for 55. I'll get into some of that in a little bit. Um, but the the membership benefit is basically we take
care of a lot of everything. If a youth's placed with us, um, the sheriff's office doesn't have to do much anymore. Um, upon arrest, so like we'll transport to court, we'll transport to medical appointments, um, everything from intake um, intake process for our
members is is relatively quick. Um, you know, it's not uncommon down in the metro area for an intake, a standard intake to take a couple hours. Um, versus with us, it's 10 minutes. Um, so we're pretty decent in that put. Um,
members get program input. Um, we'll we'll customize some programming to fit their specific needs for a specific youth. So, we'll work with the probation or the social services, whatever that individual youth needs. So that's kind of a big thing with the memberships
because we get a lot of youth right now across the whole state of Minnesota with youth that have high mental health needs but also their secure youth um but they need psychiatric care um critically psychiatric care um and for our members
we we will take that kid in the event that they can't get them into a hospital and then we will try to get them into a hospital placement and we'll we'll work that angle instead of the sheriff's office or social services um sitting on that kid trying to figure it out. Um so
we'll take that kid for um our members for our non-members. Um they're going to have to just look elsewhere. Um so kind of there's two major programs in our secure program. We have secured detention which is pre-adjudicated and then we have our secure residential
which is adjudicated so that they're court ordered into that program. Um, one another side benefit then to the counties, the member counties is um, if you have we have the youth place in secured detention, we can transfer some of those secure residential services,
the mental health services, the the med management pieces and stuff if needed in the secured detention services side of things. Um, but basically common things, you know, K through 12 education, more public schools again does excellent job.
Um the residential side of things um is mostly like case management stuff where we will whatever makes the most sense. So if they're not going to be able to graduate, we'll go with the GED track um work all those different things.
Um basically um that's just got a bunch of um secure data. Um so if you look at this, this is kind of looking at a two-year look back. So if you look at kind of the usage um if you
follow the the membership line and the the total the total is on the top that's the green line I believe it's green um you you'll see that the members usage drives that number and inversely you'll see non-members. So when our our
membership need goes up our non-membership drops um because we we're very we're very effective at about 42 youth. Um, so that's that's where we like to maintain. Um, we have physical space for um 65 youth. We're licensed
for 55. Um, operationally right now without needing to do any more hiring or anything, we're we're very effective at about 42 youth per day. Um, >> yes, Commissioner Kavanagh >> microphone. Sorry.
>> Was there a reason for the spike? I'm just curious. >> October. in October. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It was um there was a couple counties um that had significant member counties that had significant all of a sudden needs. Um and yeah, I'll show you
that to answer that would be kind of like in the next slide if you look at I just did Secur's average. So you look at you know sometimes you know you look at March of 24 um Klay County is averaging about 12 youth. Um and then you just slide down a couple months and they're
averaging four. Um, counties vary. So, like when Clay County is up, Ottertale's down. Becker County might go up, Ottertale might go down, Douglas might have one or two. Um, so like even within these months, it varies too. Um, so the
whole thing is about the cooperative service agreement and that membership is to kind of keep a streamline of about 42 youth in there where we're effective and we're we're not just sitting around or we're not overloaded where we can't do anything.
So that's that's secures um kind of some secure um offense breakdown. Um I like to break things into three different categories. um you know personal property and societal. Personal would be like you hurt somebody. Um property is
you know property and then societal would be you know your your drug offenses, disorderly conducts um that type. about of our secure intakes um about 50% of them are that a youth has physically harmed somebody else and most
time it's significantly um and repetitively um you know about 20% is for property and takes um and another about 30% is is your societal mostly all of our youth though
in our secure program do have assaults in their in their past in their background around. Um, so that's kind of another piece there. So that's just a general overview of our secure program before I get into the nonsecure. Does anybody
>> any any questions on the secure part of the presentation? >> We do have two commissioners that sit on your advisory committee. So we are um fairly updated on how comments and questions at that point. >> All righty. So, I'll move into the
non-scare program. And this is the program that's had quite a bit of changes over the past couple years. Um, primarily in our our non-scure program, again, we have two programs that fall underneath that. We have our non-secure program and our and our clips, our transition program. Um, our non-secure
program, which I'll talk about first here, um, that's that has different components inside that. Um, primarily the emergency program is primarily what it's designed for. Um so it's short-term immediate placement for law enforcement or social
services. So these would be you know um law enforcement picks up a kid um can't find anybody to release them to. But as soon as parent gets there, guardian gets there, we can release them. Um in the event that nobody shows up, we can get social services involved. We get the
courts and we figure something out for that youth. um sometimes the emergency placements um they're not able to safely find a place to go and that kind of runs into our 29 plus program. So if the youth is with us for 29 days and we start case planning with them and we
start moving things and the whole purpose of ours is to get them to somewhere else um more appropriate placement um and that's that's where our case managers look at you know working with social services probation what do we need to do with this youth that that
will able to get them in somewhere else. The evaluation program we do that we've been doing that for um over 20 years. It's a great program. It's always needed. We run about 30 evaluations a year and those primarily are for social services and probation where they have a
youth that um they just can't quite figure out what to do. Something isn't working right at home or in the community. Um and um they are looking to get some professionals to to see how well they behave in the facility, what works, what doesn't. And you know
there's psychiatry attached to that. um med management, um a psychologist, they'll do different types of testing and and they'll submit a decent report to the court to make an informed decision on the stabilization program. I'll get to
that at the end here. Um but kind of moving on to our clips, our transition program. We started the female one. We got females started in there last year. Um and the male program has has been in operation since 2019. Um it's been very
successful. Um the picture cut off of the one young gentleman there, but um our youth when they graduate at this they they get a more public schools um diploma. So it's an actual same diploma as everybody else. So that's I got cut
off there, but it's it's a official M public schools and we graduate a lot of youth. Um and sometimes um we go to the uh GED route um in the event that they're so credit deficient that um we
we try to do something to get to provide them to so that they can go out. They do different job shadowing, job opportunities. Um these youth can have jobs in the community. Um so um it's it's a well-received program. Um
kind of um going through it. So, stabilization, this is where we've had the the most changes. Um, kind of and I kind of put it out here. Um, we're not a psychiatric facility. We remain licensed as a
children's residential facility. Um, however, we have responsibly adapted to ensure that youth in our custody remain safe, regulated, um, while appropriate long care to is identified. Um, and that's the whole purpose of our stabilization. So if you look at just kind of broadly speaking of different
levels I mean this is just broadly speaking of um levels of care for youth. So at the top you have your acute care needs your hospitals your ERS. Um below that's your your PRTFS and then below that would be something that we would fall under um in in some of our
programming or residential and then below that is community based services. So, if you look at what's happening across Minnesota right now, um there is a significant lack of the PRTFS, but what we have in this community is um a
residential program that that we've kind of we've adapted quite a bit to take on youth. So what's happening across Minnesota is because there's lack of the middle two essentially there's lack of PRTFs and there's lack of residential
placements youth are being pushed down or up. Um so either they're being placed in a hospital and then kicked right back out in the community and left to their own devices. Um and then that cycle just goes back and forth. Um, in this
community, we've adapted our non-secure program to to be kind of a bridge and to try to get them into the PRTF while providing a safe place so they're not left in the community to their own devices. Um, their parents or family members know they're safe.
Um, and yeah, the the map there is part of that the initiative there that you've all seen that kind of just shows that there is no PRTFS in this area. So then kind of just wrapping it all up, um especially for non-secure and I've
always I always include this um out of home placement's never ideal. Um but for the youth that that we serve at the juvenile center, it's it's pretty critical. um if they didn't have that option. Um you look at the one graph along the side, I always include this um
was a study that was done about 10 years ago now or maybe 15 about juvenile centers and ACEs and um adverse childhood experiences of of youth that are placed in juvenile centers. Um and if you look at what's going on in their home life before they're placed, um
there's a lot of trauma in their in their home life. Um again that's not all kids but it's it's a lion share of of the youth and without out of home placement options the these youth are left in in very traumatic environments
where um it gets crical and and problems happen and happen and happen. Um, so I think that, you know, it's it's critical to know that there's there's it's not so much anymore, but 5 years ago there's a huge push to um all right cut out of
home placements. Um, and that was very traumatic for some youth that got left in environments. Um, but um, that's really all I have. I do want to say thank you to this board um
and the community that we have the resources that we have over there um because that's not available across the state. Um I get reached out to quite a bit all across the state now. Not it used to be our secure residential program. Now they're wondering about how
we're doing with stabilization. Um and and that they're they're trying to figure something out. So, um that we have the infrastructure, we have, um board, the community that supports it. Um and you know, we're
we're not perfect and we're not in a perfect place. We got some ways to go in Minnesota, but um we're doing what we can do here. >> Thank you, James. Questions from James. >> James, your presentation was fantastic. It sounds like you want to testify more
in St. Paul. you've done such a great job polishing that up. All jokes aside though, uh our community is phenomenal and the support that we are hearing throughout um members all over the community about why it's vital to make
sure that services like what you provide are still available to young people. Your partnership with Mor Area Public Schools is fantastic to make sure that we're continuing education for kids to launch them into successful lives is the
utmost. >> Uh but uh when we do go to St. Paul, we hear quite frequently why it's not worked in other areas of the state. Why would it work? And uh your presentation just spoke to why facility a facility
that we have is working. Your staff constantly are triaging with other departments or service providers on how we can better serve the needs of each individual kid. Uh that's that's never changed. that goal is is always been and
so thank you for that. We're really hopeful that we can be successful at the legislature to um secure money to expand and I know that comes with challenges but um we are really proud of what you do across the street and it's phenomenal
and happy to help partner and lift that initiative. Any questions from the board? Anything else? Thank you. >> Thank you. 11 is our request approval to advertise yearly supply bids.
Good morning, Justin. >> So, yeah, the first item I have is approval to advertise for yearly supply bids. So, what this is is gravel for county roads. We also get prices if we want to buy batuminous from local suppliers, culverts, and then also
construction equipment rental. The bids will be opened April 2nd at the highway department and then brought forward at the April 7th board meeting for approval. >> Questions from Justin for Justin rather. You have a request to
advertise. >> To approve. >> Motion offered from Commissioner Campbell to approve as presented. >> Second. >> A second from Commissioner Bear. Any further discussion? >> Just one question. >> Yes, Commissioner Bear. including gravel. Do you have any townships lined up to >> So that's one thing we did discuss at
highway tracking. So in the past we have opened it up for townships. The last two years we've not received a single bid for townships. So we did reach out to the townships that have gone with us in the past and see if they were okay with us not including them and they were okay with that.
To circle back on that question, part of the reasoning is because no bids would come in for township specifically and then having to go back to the township their advertisingment period. Uh it really got behind the eightball on that. So wanting to work with them and see
what worked best, this seemed to be it. >> Absolutely. Like you said, it would delay our bid by about a month and then by the time township realized they didn't get a bid, they were I mean it was almost into June. >> That's good. questions. Any further discussion? All
those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Carried. Item 12, the request approval to advertise for SAP014-626-033. >> Yes. So, this is the project kind of the last of a three-year project on Cassad
26. It's a milling overlay from trunk highway 75 to the Red River. Um, we were going to wait and include kind of a road raise with the diversion authority, but being that it is a floodway and the project not being completed, the FEMA permitting process just didn't allow for
it and I didn't I did not want to wait another two years on this project as I felt like the road would not hold up to that amount of traffic. Um, one kind of different thing about this project is the proposed letting date is April 7th. That is the 5:30 board meeting. So, I am
proposing to do something a little bit different than we do in the past. Um, I'm proposing to open bids 9:00 a.m. via a team's meeting and in person at the highway department, which does satisfy state statutes. Then I would bring the abstract to board that evening with the
results and an action item. >> This did go to highway tracking. We discussed this really felt like that was the best option in regards to opening the bids. was the best option for contractors and given the fact that it's all online anyway, it was um the
transparency element certainly was there and Commissioner Campbell and I did talk with you about the FEMA component and wanting to make sure that we are certainly working with partners in the best way to get these projects done. But I I will say it's more than just I don't
think it's going to um the road will last. It will be a public safety issue. Uh we've had roads in the past that we push too long and all of a sudden have uh big chunks of asphalt in the drive lane and we're worried that could be similar. >> Any other comments on that? Yes,
Commissioner Campbell. >> We also talked about um including in that the start date not to be until July 1. Is that is that still going to work? >> Um we're working through that. We did reach out to a couple of the contractors that are working on that facility and
that'll be in our proposal. It's nothing um we don't start advertising until next Monday with if this does get approved. So, we'll work through that and most likely it'll be a midJune start date. >> Okay. I guess the reason that we talked about that is there's still an awful lot
of trucks going over to that big project on the North Dakota side of the river and there's no point in building a new road so that they can beat it up >> definitely >> all those trucks right away. So um I think our in our highway tracking we we
encourage that to try to have a as late a start date as possible to avoid that. >> Yep. Absolutely. Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to approve the advertising of SAP 014626033
with a leting date of April 7th, 2026. >> Second. >> We have a motion offered from Commissioner Barer, second from Commissioner Campbell. Any further discussion? Any further discussion? Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify
by saying I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Request carries. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> And then item 13 is a request approval to purchase a crack filler for the highway department. >> Yes. So, um I'm proposing to purchase a
new crack filler from Swanson Equipment and Fargo. Um we are looking to trade in our existing crack filler which was purchased in 2014, then utilizing the Minnesota State bid for this purchase. This is a piece of equipment that we use every spring. Um we do it all inhouse
which I think is a great deal. Um, the internal service fund is fully funded for this purchase and I did run it by Lori and she was comfortable with it. Guess any questions on the piece of equipment or how it's used? >> We did talk about this at highway
tracking as well. Um, there is as you see a balance that will be remain in the internal service fund which is also positive. Additional questions, >> wishes of the board. >> Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to approve the purchase of a crack filler
from Swanston Equipment for $65,529. >> Okay, we have a motion offered from Commissioner Bear, second from Commissioner Ebinger. Any further discussion? Any further discussion? Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I.
I >> oppose. Same sign carried. >> Thank you, >> you Justin. Item 14 today, request approval uh for out of state travel. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, Commissioner Mojo uh has been nominated by the
Association of Minnesota Counties to attend the 2026 uh County Leadership Institute in Washington DC, Washington DC uh May 31st through June 4th. Uh and so we would be requesting permission uh
for out of state travel. Uh for the cost of this uh this trip, it is being covered fully by the Association of Minnesota Counties. I'd yield for any questions. Okay. Well, I appreciate if I may. Yes, Commissioner. I appreciate your
continued motivation to educate yourself and also bring back um you know uh additional uh information to provide the best uh leadership we have and that working along with the association
Minnesota counties. So, I'd make a motion to approve Commissioner Mojo to travel to the 2026 County Leadership Institute in Washington DC, September May 31st to Thursday, June 4th. Is that
correct dates? >> Yep. Just Sunday, not September. >> You said September. >> You said September. >> Second. >> Oh, motion offered from Commissioner Kavanagh to second from Commissioner Ebinger. It's important to note one. Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity to
continue to do the work here. Um, all of the costs will be covered by AMC and this is typically what they do with their incoming executive committee uh folks. So, Barb Wman Brekie attended last year. They try to have sent one a year.
>> Any other discussion? Any other discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I >> oppose. Same sign carried. Thank you. Does the board want to take a brief break or go? >> Go. >> Okay. >> Right now we can leave or
>> a brief break or do you want to do >> finish committee reports? I'm fine with finishing committee reports. >> Go. You want to take a brief break? >> No. >> Okay. Commissioner Campbell. >> Well, I want to take a break, but I don't. We'll just move on. >> Committee reports. >> All right. Um, February 24th,
we had a highway tracking committee meeting. We talked about the Millan overlay project, which we're going to be doing or Um, we talked about the crack viller and um, we did approve a request for the
um, dust control. Highway recommended to go with just the cast calcium chloride bids and we did approve that uh, as well. I think he's probably going to be bringing that forward. Yep.
On the 25th of February, I attended the Prairie Lake solid waste meeting. Um the plant is doing well. We had some discussion about the um the DEA is
willing to pay for um all of the medical waste that we have that's collected like that we have collected at the law enforcement center. There's some in Barnesville and and um all of that all of that stuff ends up coming to Prairie
Lakes to be incinerated, but there's a process in place where the DEA will pay for that. That's referred to as household hazardous waste pharmaceutical. Um then we we had a lot of other
discussions and in regards to the uh ash management which uh I reported on before we have a project that's we're working on that will really help improve the ash land
the ash landfill. Um, Ottertale County is currently um putting a bill forward uh for bonding dollars uh for that project and um they have
they have asked that Prairie Lakes um support that bonding request. Um, keep in mind that that that is a if that if that were to happen, that would be a significant savings for Klay County because the
alternative is also very expensive, which means we'd have additional. So, there's a um there's a front and back page um flyer that uh I think all of you were
handed this morning and uh they have they have requested that uh when we're in St. Paul that we just give that to our legislators saying that we support it. It's obviously um it doesn't meet our priority list and I you know we're
told them that but it's still something that um I think all five county members on that Prairie Lakes board agreed that it would be important for us to support it. So, with that, I you know, I'm just going to ask that um our county
administrator bring can you bring these to uh so that we can h hand those out with if there's no objection from our board to do that. Um, and I did get a request from
the administrator, Southwest administrator from Fergus Falls or Outill County to come in and sit in on our meeting with Representative Joy. I confirmed with Commissioner Mojo that that would be okay. I did I did tell him
that there might not be enough time within our a loted time with the representative to be talking about this project but um he's going to come and sit in case we are able to talk about it in case there's questions he can answer. So >> the other thing with that we should
maybe communicate we have a legislator um meet and greet scheduled at the intercontinental and I know representative Joy has been at that in the past. So, um if for whatever reason there's not time allowed, we can connect him with
>> and I and I can let um Mr. McConn know that that there might be another opportunity later that day >> that works too >> at the meet and greet. So, >> all right. And then uh Thursday we had our Klay County Solid Waste Advisory Committee meeting. We did uh
we did have our new council me or new member was recommended and approved. And then I um Corey gave an update on landfill issues and I gave an update on the PURM that I just tal talked about
Thursday we had um that also on Thursday we had the Klay County Joint Powers Authority meeting. We had just a couple of action items. One was a commissioner reimbursement. That's for the people who go out and and look at the items. That's
up dealing with the courts and dealing with values, land values. And we did approve one additional farmland lease. And then at that afternoon, we had the diversion board of authority meeting
that Commissioner Ebinger responded to or reported on. Um we are rece we are did put in an application for $47.5 million request for the WIFIA loan that was previously
approved and that is part of the original finance package of the diversion authority. We have up to excuse me up to $569 million in WIFIA loans available to us. Those are very um
low interest loans that u we can uh get for us and then we don't uh we don't start paying those back till the project would be complete. And that has been part of our financial plan all along. And then we also um received word that
or there's been approval from the federal portion of the project which is the corors portion of the project. Over time there's been significant savings in those project estimates versus um versus
final cost to the tune of over hund00 million. and um working through uh our federal legislation with uh Senator Hovind uh and I believe Senator Cloverar has been
part of that as well um and others um that it's been approved that those those funds uh can still be put back for excess costs that the version has had to pay. So, it's really going to it's really
going to help out with with if there were to be shortfalls on the local side that that that that's going to be very helpful. So, thank you to uh the core and for for supporting that as well. And then for those that worked on
that uh I you we were informed that um there's going to be it looks like there's going to be a a date right now. We've been instructed to save the date of October 26th for a a big event that
will be held here and and that will be basically the finalization of the of the project. >> So um from my standpoint working on this from 2009 uh October 26th is going to be a good
day. So um and that uh concludes my report. Thank you, Commissioner Campbell. Commissioner Bear. >> Last Tuesday, I sat in on county lands where we discussed the Keen property that the county owns. This would be the
property up by the county gravel pit in Keen Township. We discussed putting that out on bid to rent that out. Matt Jacobson will be bringing that to the board here shortly to discuss it. We also talked about the state flood
hazardous mitigation grant that we discussed earlier in that day about paying uh the money received there. That's pretty much all that happened there. If anything else, Commissioner Mojo was also at that meeting. Then right after that, I also sat in on the
out ofome placement committee where took in a lot there, opened up my eyes quite a bit. The main thing I came out of that was how much more overbudget we go with out of home placement our with
our youth in Klay County. It's about a million dollars over budget year after year. And we were he uh we got an update on how that works. If there's anything else on that, Commissioner Mojo also sat in
on that one. And then on Saturday, I met with Senator Coupe and board men board member Richard Menhold from the SWCD and a few local land owners up in Yulan to discuss the PWI.
We went around and looked at a few locations throughout the county that the DNR wants to add to the public waters inventory and we just gave a brief update to Senator Coopek on what how everybody's working through that and
he wanted to be brought up to speed and check out check actually look at these pieces of property. So we did that Saturday afternoon and that concludes all my reports. >> Thank you Commissioner Bearer. Last week, I also attended the highway tracking committee meeting that was
highlighted well from Commissioner Campbell. I attended the county-owned property meeting. Really good updates. Uh we do have some additional insights in regards to how we want to maybe deal with um how we lease out things moving
forward. Uh I think we had good feedback to staff on that. I also attended the out of home placement committee meeting with Commissioner Bear. Uh those are really really challenging um challenging meetings as a human to sit through.
>> Um I want our community to know that the children in which we are dealing with um is about half of maybe the the population numbers that we were dealing with in 2016 2017. Unfortunately, due to
the lack of placement of uh options throughout the state, we are seeing about uh the same amount if not more financially what the county continues to uh spend on that. uh that goes into uh
the work that this board has continued to uh pour time and energy into the transitional uh component of the West Central Regional Center, the the clips programs, the PRTF advocacy that we've worked on.
Uh there's not a a simple solution to that. uh our our talking point continues to remain that any uh increase in capacity through our state system is a benefit, but uh we're talking children >> and so it's it's really really hard. So
the staff that pulled those numbers uh thank you continue to thank you for all the the the the work that you do. But also important, it's it's important to note that uh our foster care families, our saints, they do really challenging
work. They um try to figure out how to support their own families while also opening the door for other families and uh our daycare system is really challenging with that too. So uh really great continue to have um important dialogue and educating all of us on that
work. That afternoon, I was invited to attend the farmers union legislative update uh that was held in Barnesville, hearing from residents on uh both federal and state egg related issues that came out
of last session and continuing to advocate on this session. Uh the next day I traveled to St. Paul to testify at the Children, Youth, and Families Committee on behalf of Klay County and
AMC to discuss what the additional SNAP requirements will um cost counties, particularly Klay County. We've not taken any uh position on additional work requirements. That's not what we're doing. What we're doing is highlighting the fact that we have antiquated systems
that cannot accurately or timely process through the additional workload. Our estimates uh through Quinn is that those additional work requirements for the county component will cost Klay County residents $400,000 next year. Uh it's
important that the legislature hears that this week, continues to hear that. It's not just a a simple solution, but um when I asked Quinn to provide us the accurate number of SNAP cases in Klay County, the state system gave a number
of 59 or 79,000 residents were being served by SNAP. If you recall, our population is not even that. So, uh when we pushed the state on finding an accurate number, they too provided us with an erroneous number. Uh so about
4,000 cases in Klay County of SNAP. So that just reiterates the point uh that their own sponsored system can't pull accurate numbers, but our staff locally are doing the due diligence to keep fraud in check and keep the numbers
accurate. So we'll continue to uh uh belabor that point. And I also had a fantastic conversation with commiss commissioner Tiki Brown of the Department of Children, Youth and Families. She maintains that uh the work that Klay County is doing for the
regional region and the state uh is really supported by her office. I appreciate that perspective. And I did have additional meetings with six other legislators that day. I attended the Klay County legislative update with Winthrop and Weinstein on strategy, working through the amended bill that
needs to go to the revisers's office. The next day, I attended the SWAT committee meeting. Commissioner Campbell updated on that. Well, uh we have a fantastic member of the SWAT committee who served a long time. and we appointed his replacement today. But uh Russ
McDougall uh has really served our county in a way that not many people do. It's a it's a a humble service and we really appreciate all of his work that he uh continued to provide uh not only the township but
then the city but also the SWAT committee. We're going to work on a a public recognition address's service at that later. I attended the uh chamber, the city and the county had
a flood mitigation working group. I attended that committee meeting. I attended virtually could not participate because of advertisement rules. The MCC JPA meeting. Thank you to Commissioner Campbell for the update on that. I attended CAP LP that uh Commissioner Kravangh updated the non-security
detention PRTF conversation on Friday and then I attended the Metrocog executive committee yesterday and general business on that with the amendments. But one item that I I think I've reported on is they they do have some issues in regards to um North
Dakota DOT and federal highway and and Minnesota DOT in regards to when certain things are build. There's overlap um in when dues come and sometimes they do run a little short. So, there will be a
conversation about um per Clay County's percentage an additional $1,000 requested for the budget to allow a bit of a a revenue for when those just to cover when um reimburseables come in. So, uh more to come on that.
That concludes my report. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh last Tuesday, I participated in highway tracking. I think has been well covered along with county old lands and also the auto home placement committee on the 25th participated in the legislative planning
discussion uh with Weinstein again uh they've lined up several legislators to to coincide with our meeting over the next two days in St. fall. Um on the 26th participated in the flood workg group and also MCCJPA meeting
participated virtually uh and on the 27th uh participated MKA now that the legislative session has started is planning to uh give updates every two weeks. Uh we heard updates on the impacts of HR1 uh and also the SNAP
error rates. One of the challenges I think that as we are in St. Paul, one of the issues that the legislature is looking at uh is targeted case management. Uh as this board's aware, uh our social service department contracts with several uh several agencies within
the community to help with our case management. Right now, there's legislation that's looking at uh looking at eliminating the ability to contract uh which would uh which would we have about 40 40 uh 40 case managers in the
community that are helping us with well with our case management. And so uh certainly if that were to go through that would also have a huge impact on on next year's budget. uh on the 27th also participated in the non-secured attention uh planning
meeting uh and uh yesterday participated in the MAC professional development uh talk about strategic plan uh for for future development of administrators and also upcoming trainings uh at our conferences and yesterday afternoon uh
met with Darren and our union uh and our labor attorney and updating union discussions and that completes my Thank you. Brian, do you have anything? >> Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. May just highlight a couple. I did have a meeting last Wednesday with Troy Almanson with
detox and just some ongoing kind of a bigger uh scale issue dealing with MCIT and coverage that we'll have a meeting in April. So, we were meeting to uh update and work on that and we'll also work with Steve on that. also also had a
meeting with Justin Sorum uh with the uh upcoming um Highway 52 uh roundabout and some movement of um utility lines that needs to happen and some legal issues or issues that will arise out of that. So,
we're working through that as well. And then I did uh attend last Tuesday also the auto placement uh meeting and I just want to thank uh the board and and uh uh Commissioner Mojo Commissioner Bayer for your words and your advocacy all the
board's advocacy. I think that meeting just as what's been said, you know, a lot of times a lot of the work that we're doing or the Quinn's doing in court uh to to move children into the right placement, you know, it comes with emotional costs, but obviously just knowing that uh that actual cost and and
the amount. I mean, there's some large uh numbers that come behind that and and it's knowing that there's a it's a must, but there's also the the piece that maybe there's a better way to do some things. And so the advocacy from this board to look at a PRTF, something more
regional, you know, that can reduce costs for travel, uh, costs for long-term out of placement that that can be, you know, done here, uh, is just is very important and and and very well done. So, it's much appreciated. Appreciated being able to be at that meeting.
>> Brian Darren, >> thank you, Madam Chair. On 24th, um I also attended the county owned lands committee meeting that's already been covered. On the 25th, worked on some budget data. Um and a data request from Winona County. That's a little bit
larger one that we've been dealing with. On the 26th, uh I also attended the SWAC meeting. Uh had a phone call with Josh Hegimar, labor attorney, on some ongoing negotiation issues. On the 27th, I sat in on a step two grievance uh with the
sheriff's office. And um on the 2nd, uh I had a discussion, long discussion with Quinn on some personnel issues and then a phone call with our labor attorney and Steve as well yesterday. Uh and then worked some more
on the AMC salary survey. That concludes my report. >> Thank you, Sarah. >> Okay, >> Madam Chair. Sorry, I forgot to if I if I could just mention one other thing. I while we've been sitting here, I did work with Justin Mickelson to fix that
uh MPCA funding and we have some wording of 5e that she has in there now and she'll present that to Morhead. >> Thank you. This board will travel to the AMC legislative conference today through Thursday. Uh and then we will rejoin
here Tuesday, March 10th at 8:30 for our next board meeting. We are adjourned. Part: 2
Good morning everyone. It is 8:30. I'll go ahead and call today's meeting of the Klay County Board of Commissioners to order. Our first item on the agenda today is an approval of the agenda. There is an uh consent agenda addition request.
>> Madam chair, I'll make a motion to approve the agenda with that added addition. Second. >> Thank you. We have a motion offered from Commissioner Bear, a second from Commissioner Campbell. Are there any further discussion? Any further discussion? Any further discussion? All those in
favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. >> Carried. Employee recognitions. Okay. This is what you're all here for, right? So, our first individual that we'd like to recognize today is
Katherine Schulz. Katherine, this plaque is given to you in grateful recognition of the 15 years of service to Klay County and our citizens. Thank you so much for all that you do. Karen, I want to congratulate Katherine on her
15 years. Um, Katherine and I actually started together on the very same day 10 years ago in income maintenance. So, we did our trainings together, went down to the cities. I've had the privilege of watching Katherine grow and excel in her
field and she has been um very strong in her employment. One of the people that I can go to um when I need help. So, just want to congratulate you for an amazing 15 years and 10 years for helping me
become what I am and watching you grow. Thank you. >> Congratulations. Our next individual, Stacy Gullings Quinn is up here. Stacy, this plaque is given to you in grateful recognition of the 25 years of service to Klay County
and our citizens. Thank you so much for all that you do. >> Morning everyone. So Stacy's supervisor is out today. Uh but my pleasure to step in for her and recognize Stacy for 25 years of service to Klay County. Um so Stacy spent several years as an adult rule 79 case manager uh before
transitioning to the civil commitment world uh in our adult and behavioral health unit. Uh working in adult mental health, particularly civil commitments is not for the faint of heart. So your resilience, compassion, and patience has been uh really a blessing in all the years that you've been there with us. It's been a steady presence for us uh
for decades. I remember you being kind of a veteran on my first day as an intern at Klay County. Um, but just Kirsten, myself, your whole team in Klay County, we're we're grateful for your commitment. So, congratulations. >> Thank you very much. Our next item today would be citizens to
be heard. Are there any individuals in the audience wishing to speak on anything not on the agenda? Any citizens to be heard? I do know that we received two uh emails for feedback on the public hearing at 9:00. Can we
have those testimonies added into the comments for that hearing? Okay. Thank you. The next item today is the approval of the payment of bills and vouchers. >> Madam Chair, I move approval of the bills and vouchers. >> Second.
>> Offered from Commissioner Ebinger, a second from Commissioner Kavanagh. Any further discussion? Any further discussion? Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. oppose. Same sign. The motion prevails. The
minutes presented from the February 17th, 2026 meeting. >> Move to approve them. Approve the minutes from February 17th. >> Second. >> A motion offered to approve the minutes as presented from Commissioner Kavanagh. A second from Commissioner Bear. Are there any further discussion?
Any further discussion? Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. item. >> Oppose. Same sign. The motion carries. Item two today is a recognition and
proclamation for social worker appreciation month. Social service director Quinn. Good morning. >> Morning, Madam Chair. Commissioners, thanks for having me this morning. Uh I am here requesting to proclaim March uh
as or March 2026 as social worker appreciation month. I just have a brief statement that I'd like to to read. So social workers play a critical role in supporting community well-being and addressing social, behavioral, and environmental factors that influence the health, safety, and stability of the community. In Klay County, social
workers serve across five divisions within social services, often working with residents during periods of crisis, transitioned, or heightened vulnerability. Peer-reviewed research consistently demonstrates the impact of social work on measurable community outcomes. Studies published in the Journal of Social Work show that social
work interventions are associated with improved access to services, reduced unmet needs, and better long-term outcomes for individuals and families, particularly when services address both immediate needs and underlying social determinants such as housing instability, income insecurity, and
access to health care. From a public sector perspective, social work is also linked to prevention and cost avoidance. Evidence published in the Social Service Review in the American Journal of Public Health shows that early intervention and community-based social work services can reduce downstream costs associated with
child maltreatment, emergency mental health interventions, homelessness, and justice system involvement. Recognizing March as social worker appreciation month provides an opportunity for the board to formally acknowledge the essential role that our social workers play in strengthening communities and for appreciating those who chose a
career dedicated to helping others navigate these complex systems overcome adversity and moves move towards stability, dignity, and hope. With that, I have the uh proposed proclamation attached. >> Thank you, Quinn. We'll go ahead and read the proclamation.
>> All right. Whereas social workers are dedicated professionals who serve individuals, children, families, and communities by promoting social, emotional, and economic well-being. and where social workers in Klay County
provide essential services in areas including child and adult pro protection, mental health, disability services, public assistance programs, housing stability, and community support systems. And whereas social workers
frequently serve individuals and families during times of crisis, uncertainty, and transition while demonstrating compassion, professionalism, and a strong commitment to ethical practice. And whereas social workers collaborate with community partners, courts, schools, health care
providers, and law enforcement to ensure coordinated and elective services for Klay County residents. And whereas social service appreciation month is recognized nationally each March is a time to honor the dedication and impact
of social workers in strengthening communities and improving lives. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Klay County Board of Commissioners do hereby proclaim March 2026 as Social Worker Appreciation Month and expresses its
sincere appreciation and gratitude to all social workers for their service, commitment, and contributions to the well-being of our community. Adopted this the 3rd day of March, 2026. >> Madam Chair, I move the proclamation. >> Motion offered from Commissioner
Campbell to move the proclamation. and a second from Commissioner Bear. Discussion. It goes without saying, the words encapsulate it quite well that our social workers provide an immense value in the work that they do to all folks in the community and we're really grateful
for that. Any further discussion? Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by say saying I >> I >> oppose. Same sign carried. Thank you
>> much. >> Thanks, W. >> Item three is a request approval to replace a solid waste advisory committee member. We have Corey here as well as Mayor Holty. Good morning. Good to see you. >> Morning, Madam Chair. Commissioners.
Thank you. Um, our SWAT committee had a longtime member that has stepped down recently and we were looking for a replacement. So we started doing our search in the hitter uland area north of Holly area and Gail came up as one of the candidates and he has graciously
accepted to take the position assuming you guys will approve him. So I brought him here today for the grilling with that. Is there any questions? >> Thank you Corey. Well um some of us know you Gail. Would you like to give a synopsis of who you are and why you're
be a great fit? >> I'm Gail Holy. I live in the city of Hardol for 24 maybe 25 years now. I have been currently mayor I think 24 years now. It's like nobody wants that position so you know how this
is going to be. Russell had this position for Mhm. Yep. Okay. Russell a very nice gentleman. Gets me roped into things. Um I'm happily married as I have expressed. tonight. She's better than me some days. So,
let's put it that way. I have two kids and hopefully I'll do well on this. We'll see. >> Any questions? Well, Commissioner Campbell and I serve on SWAC and one of the great assets to the makeup of that SWAC advisory
committee is having voices from folks all over the county, particularly from our smaller cities. And certainly we've utilized uh partnerships in regards to recycling, but having uh the voice of your community, but also representing all Clay County will be quite an asset.
Commissioner Campbell and I were at the SWAT committee where you uh were present last Thursday and the SWAT committee did provide a recommendation of appointment as well. >> Any other questions?
>> Wishes. Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to approve Gail Holy as a member of the solid waste advisory committee. Okay. >> Second. >> Have a motion offered from Commissioner Bear, a second from Commissioner Campbell. >> So, is this an open-ended appointment or do we have How did Russ just turn 90 93?
How did >> we uh You're on it till you're dead, but you have to give us a two-year notice that you're going to pass away. >> We kind of informed him that he he had to spend like 30 years on there like Russ did. So, Thank you for agreeing to this, Gail.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. Any further discussion? >> All those in favor of the appointment signify by saying I >> oppose. Same sign. Carried. >> All joking aside. Thank you. We appreciate it. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Item four is our annual department update from the recorders office. Good morning, Kimberly. Good morning, chair, commissioners. Um, I'm here today to give the annual department update for the recorder's office. Um just to cover what our
mission is, it's to promptly record, file and preserve documents in efficient, responsible and professional manager manner for posterity and legal purposes. Some of the responsibilities that we have is real estate recording, issuing birth and death certificates, marriage
licenses and marriage certificates. We also file um marriage efficient registrations in my office as well as notary public registrations. And then we are the office for the filing of state and federal tax leans. Um underneath services um those are not mandated by statute but something my office provides
and that is performing marriage ceremonies and selling county platbooks. To give a little review here of what happened in 2025, we recorded just under 10,000 real estate documents. That's a 12% increase over 2024. Um we saw quite
the decrease after um the COVID years. The numbers were really down and now they're starting to come back up. We issued just under 600 marriage licenses and 177 a marriage efficient filings. Um we one of the big things we worked on in 2025 was implementing procedures for new
privacy legislation. Um a lot of the land record departments worked with the county attorney's office to um implement this new legislation. It took many many hours but I feel like we have a very good procedure set in place for that. One of the other big accomplishments for
my office is we started online ordering for vital records and I'll go through that in just a minute. And then we started e-recording torrens with one of our vendors. So we're kind of getting almost everything done electronically. So that's nice. And one of the other things I just wanted to mention is I'm
now serving on the Minnesota County Recorders Association and the Minnesota Association of County Officers Board. So, the online vital record ordering um customers are able to upload their applications 247 and pay right online with a credit card. They're able to
order birth, death, marriage certificates as well as do their marriage efficient registration right online. Um it's been really successful. I think I think it's pretty easy for the customers to use. Every morning when we come in, we have a request that was put in overnight. So, it's um helping those
people who maybe can't get to our office during those normal business hours. I know I've covered this before, but I want to cover it again. Our office provides property fraud alert. This is something that citizens can sign up for to be notified when something gets recorded by their name in my office. It
does not track the property, just their name. Um, and then they get notified when something is recorded. It doesn't stop the recording from happening, but it gives them a timely notification. So, if they need to act upon something, they can do it much quicker than finding out
years down the road. Um, we just this year in 2026, we're going to be launching notary fraud alert. This is where the notary publiclix can sign up to receive kind of a similar notification. They would get a listing of where their name shows up in
our records. A lot of the fraud that's happening around property records has to do with the notoriization part of it. With the technology these days, it's very easy to snip somebody's notary seal and signature off of another document and paste it onto a new document. So,
this would allow notaries in the county to sign up and get a report of what their name showed up on. Um, we've been indexing notaries on all of our documents since 2025. um hoping that maybe if we were to find somebody's
notary that was used fraudulently, we could go back and search to see what else their document what else their notary shows up on. Um deed solicit deed solicitation scams. Just kind of wanting to bring this up
too. After recording, often people get mailings that look like they're official, but they're not. They're asking them to pay for a copy of their deed um upwards to $90 to $100 at times. If a landowner ever needs a copy of their deed, my office should be the
source for them. There would be little to no charge for that. This is just a company trying to get their money for them. So, just wanting to bring that up to to people. Um on March 14th, I will be at the community health and safety fair in Dworth. So, if people are wanting more
information about property fraud alert, I'll be there to help people get signed up for that program. Just kind of an overview of some of our services. So, for birth certificates, we're able to issue certified birth certificates to anyone born within the borders of Minnesota. You have to be an
authorized requester and have valid ID, and there is a fee of $26 for that service. Same with death records. were able to issue certified copies for people who passed away statewide after 1997. And you have to be an authorized requester,
valid ID, and the fee is $13 for the marriage certificates. We can issue certified copies for couples that applied for their marriage license here in Klay County. Marriage records are very different from birth or death records and that you have to get the copy in the county that the license was
applied for in, not even the county you're married in. So the um counties in Minnesota have collaborated and we have a statewide index that's run by the counties and that's moms.mn.gov. So individuals can search at that website and see what the what county
holds their record. Marriage licenses, we issue those out of our office and they can be used anywhere in the state. Um applicants have to be 18 or older and there's $125 fee for that. They do that license application through that mom's website as well, but
then they have to come into our office to complete the process. Okay, kind of saved the best for last here. This is my staff. I have my chief deputy recorder, Amanda, and my two deputy reporters, Lisa and Jacob. Um, I
feel like my office accomplishes a lot for being a small office of just four people. And I can't thank them enough. the work that they do allows me to be able to make some of these changes and progress for my office. So, I really appreciate everything they do.
Any questions for me or for the recorder's office? >> No question, just an observation. I I uh Kimberly's department's on my portfolio and I've worked with them since I was elected. A remarkable job for you and
your staff. everything from transitioning all the records into being scanned in and maintained all the way back to I don't know what year but it was before the ci before the civil war >> like the 1870s
>> 1870s right after the civil war um just excellent work on that you've been you've brought new technology into the department you brought new ideas uh and that you've taken leadership position in the state and we're really grateful to have you and grateful for
the job you do. >> Thank you for that. >> Madam Chair, I have one question. >> Commissioner Bear, >> how many marriages did did you guys perform out there in 2025? >> 82. >> 82. >> Nice. >> Additional questions. Commissioner Kavanagh.
>> Yeah, maybe one. One fact that kind of struck me was why the increase since CO so much? What would make recorded documents um become such a larger thing? Well, during COVID, the interest rates were really low and so there was a lot
of refinancing that took place in 2020 and 2021. And so then because those all came in in those years, 2022 then was quite a bit lower because nobody really refinanced than in 2022, 2023 like we would have normally saw kind of some consistent refinancing. We didn't really
see that in 2022, 2023. >> Thank you, >> Commissioner Campbell. >> Thank you. Um, you're talking about the marriage license and somebody who might have been married for a long time and they may have misplaced or don't know
where that marriage license is because my understanding that that is what's used for women for the name change. >> Yes. >> Right. Is that correct? >> Yes. And so can you uh tell us how long that would take for somebody to request
from the time they request to receive a new marriage license. >> Every county will be different, but here in Klay County, if you put that request in, we process it. If we receive it during business hours before like 2:30, we can process it that same day and put it in the mail. Otherwise, it would go in the mail the next day. So, it is a
pretty quick turnaround. If somebody needs it right away, they can walk into our office and request it as well. Um, of course, other counties are going to be different and it but it's mostly going to be mailing time if you request it online for the wait time. >> And again, that's that's in the county that they applied for the marriage
license, right? >> Yes. And it gets >> they were married in. >> Yeah. And it gets very complicated, which is why um kind of the recorders came together. It was back in 2007208 to develop this statewide index because there was a period of time where not even both applicants had to come in and
apply for the marriage license. So back in that time frame typically just the groom came in. So the bride was never even present at the application process. So they didn't know which courthouse it even was. They just knew where they got married. So it became a very complicated
um customer request to fill when you couldn't find their marriage record in our records. And so that's why we have that statewide index to help to help with that. And it's been a very successful program. >> Very good. Thank you. >> Any questions?
>> I'm I'm shocked that during that time it was mainly grooms that came and got the document. >> Yeah, it's interesting. >> They might not be married if that was >> any questions. Kimberly, thank you. I know you serve on a variety of committees that have some
overlap with other uh department heads at the county and it's always been very important to have your department's representation on that. You certainly provide a great deal of knowledge and clarity and to have you actively advocating on a statewide level is
always in Klay County's best interest. So, thank you for meeting the needs of our uh citizens. We appreciate your work. >> Thank you. >> Any further discussion? >> All right. We're about eight minutes ahead of the
public hearing. C. Is Corey still here? >> No. Shoot. You want to do a committee report, Commissioner Evinger? Thank you. >> Mine will be short and sweet. Uh last week on Wednesday the 25th I
attended the drug court graduation had two individuals who had been in the program and completed all the requirements and their stories were very compelling and it was good to good to see the uh the opportunities have been
presented to them. Thursday the 26th I attended uh the diversion uh board of authority. We have a uh we're we're sort of in in beginning that transition. I think Commissioner
Campbell probably has a better perspective than me because he's been with it all the way through, but we're starting to get into the maintenance and operation mindset. Uh a lot of the projects are approaching completion. There's not been a lot done obviously in the last month on
construction. U but u things are poised to get completed. had the first WIFIA draw uh on $47.5 million and uh
otherwise it was generally just cover normal business uh issues and that completes my report. >> Thank you, Commissioner Ebinger. Commissioner Kbnoff. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh Tuesday the 24th uh had the um historical and
cultural society finance committee meeting. We uh finalized and so we bring a recommendation for a new endowment fund that we're putting together for um purposes of long long-term funding for
the uh organization. Uh the 25th uh I had a um nonsecure strategy uh group meeting with Winrop Weinstein, our lobbyists. Um main things were uh
about contacts that were occurring uh with legislators to bring forth our our proposals and our priorities. Um later that day was the uh monthly meeting board of directors for the uh again the
um historical cultural society. uh there that endowment fund I talked about um earlier was approved and also um I think being we're short on time I won't uh bring too much of it but someday just to know we were given quite
a gift from the Kefir family and u that we uh now attain in in the museum the pistol of the big gunfight that occurred in 1872 that uh made Clay Clay County,
Klay County, and we got a a a sheriff and we had a lawyer and or attorney. And that that was the beginning. That was a on on what would be Front Street. Uh that was the big uh pistol shoot. And
they died and and we now have that gun and it is a ivory h um ivory handled uh 30 caliber pistol. and anyway in a in a case. But thank you to the Kefir family for that and someday we'll show that
off. Um Thursday the 26th uh a really wonderful meeting with the family resource center, the stakeholders. Uh we had updates. Um this
is a very very active group. Um bringing in um uh hundreds of people, searching of resources, getting them in in right directions and this program is uh really elevated um finding people in need of
services and how to connect them and they're doing just wonderful work. I think at some point Gwen may be back and we'll do a deeper dive into that. Um later that uh evening I had the CAP LP finance committee and board of directors
meeting and and that went uh on a monthly meeting events on that. We had a spotlight by our human resource director on human resources what they've done internally over the last year. We had our an annual budget uh brought forward
by our finance department and that was approved. And then uh a bigger one for us uh we had our 2025 um community service block grant um annual report of all the things that uh
really encapsulate all that cap does and of which I will be going to Washington DC in two weeks to um bring forward and make sure we're getting that funding that we need to support systems of community action part partners
throughout the United That's my uh let's see, do I have one more? Oh, then on u excuse me, on Friday I had our our small group uh PRTF nonsecure uh uh small group and mainly
talking about on on that one more so on reimbursement rates. So that's my report. >> Thank you, Commissioner Kavanagh. We do have a couple minutes. Uh so Matt, would you like to start setting up with that word? I do know uh we have a sign up. So, please, if you've not signed in, we
do need folks to sign in for the purpose of the record. So, make sure we get you signed in. And if you're wanting to speak, we'll um you'll be able to do so by because of your sign being signed in.
Have a minute and then we can So item five today is a public hearing request for Scott DM'sition to for a text amendment. We have Matt Jacobson, our planning and zoning director. And then what's being requested today is to act on the
planning commission's recommendation uh to deny Scott DM's petition for text amendment to the Klay County Land Development Subdivision ordinance to reduce the minimum commercial lot size from 1 acre to.5 acres and reduce the cannabis business adjacent residential
setback from 500 acres to 250 acres in the agricultural service center zoning district. It is 9:00 am. >> It would be feet and not if 500 feet then 200 feet. Madam chair, >> I was like that's a lot of acres. So,
uh, yeah, there is an issue with how it's advertised, but it's pertinent to the discussion that was forwarded from >> Madam Chair, I moved to open hearing. >> We have a motion offered from Commissioner Campbell to open the public hearing, a second from Commissioner Bear.
>> Any further discussion? Any further discussion? Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I >> opposed. Same sign. Carried. We are in public hearing and the memo the second
page does advertise that correctly. So my apologies. Matt. >> Thank you, Madam Chair and commissioners. Yes, this is a petition for a text amendment to the Klay County Land Development and Subdivision ordinance. Uh it's a two-parter. One is to reduce the cannabis business
residential setback and then to reduce the minimum commercial lot size in the agricultural um service center zoning district. More specifically, the request is to reduce that cannabis business setback from 500 ft to 250 ft in the agricultural service center zoning
district and then to reduce the minimum commercial lot size in the agricultural service center zoning district from 1 acre to.5 acres. This would impact kind of our smaller town sites uh throughout Klay County. So your rollogs, Downers, Bakers, Rustads, Kragnnesses, Averils,
etc. So, so the petition um cites the following as the basis for the request. Um the first being to improve the the feasibility of locating cannabis businesses in this zoning district. um
to support the reuse of existing or historically developed parcels in this zoning district and then to align dimensional standards with the historic um development patterns of this district. Some background um
that's pertinent to the agricultural service center zoning district is the planning commission did previously late last or last year review a text amendment allowing cannabis businesses as a conditional use. Previously they were only permitted in the highway commercial and limited highway
commercial.