Good morning everyone. I will call the committee of the whole work session um to order where we are supporting community through quality public service at 10:30 a.m. on this Tuesday, June 17th. On our agenda, we have minutes
from our May meeting. Also, we have the standing committee minutes from the airport advisory commission, budget and facility advisory committee, highway advisory committee, and personnel committee. And so, we'll open up with our first presentation. I'll turn that
over to Reena. Um, I'm actually going to turn that right over to Linda and Mallerie. I don't know anything about Okay, you'll know what I tell you. Um that's thank you for having us here today. We are
here actually by requirement when the 1% uh lodging tax was approved at the county level. Um just history for that. Um it's special 3% lodging tax state statute collected at the state level by
many many many communities and townships. 1% special to Cook County. And I have to tell you, in my 12 years of being the executive director of Visuk County, it's a very enviable 1%
bucket of money from all of my partners in all of our partners in uh the community of destination marketing because it is really unique. We worked hard to approve that. It was in place for 15 years. If you recall, I was here talking with all of you about the
renewal of that 1% a few years ago, which we successfully got through the legislature testifying um down at the capital on behalf of Cook County. Um always something I really enjoy doing doing and it's and for those of you that have done it, they also enjoy seeing us
face to face down there. So, that went swimmingly well. Um I'll tell you a little bit about um the lodging tax. I should probably stick with your plan. you you're yeah so I'm sticking with it so far. All right, cool. Okay, so 1% renewal
renewal. So we have an application process for the use of the 1% funding. Um, as you all know, there are three tourism communities, associations still very active within Cook County, and that would be the Grand Marray Area Tourism
Association, Loots & Toa Tourism Association, the Gunflint Trail Tourism Association. We always include in our decision-making and our application processes Grand Portage, which also is very much available to receive the allocation of funding.
with that uh that application process. Our fiscal year at Physical County um kicks off every May one. It's a little wonky. And we have an application process. Mallerie Brazelle to my right, our event and marketing manager, oversees what you have in front of you
as far as this massive budget and the application process for funds. Each tourism association sees all the requests. Some donate to all things. you know, you're going to see every tourism association contributing to some of the events and programming within Cook
County and others are very siloed to community. So, um I'll step back one more time. The amount of funding by the tourism associations is based on a percentage of their lodging tax that is collected
within that geographical area. So there's that that percentage and that's why you see the difference in the amount of funding available for the um 1%. Some of this you've heard this many times that you've been um a commissioner. Others are hearing it for
the first time. Let me see. Am I still on board? Yeah, we're just Okay, any questions so far? Okay. So, the 1% lodging tax collection and its impact, I would have to say um in working with Mallerie now for just a couple years,
two years, two and a half, almost three. Oh my goodness gracious. Um Mallerie's put a lot of time and effort into the actual application process and trying to really make it clean for everybody as well as
for us, but also the people that are applying. and we continue to uh work on that application process creating clarity and transparency. So the next slide that you see up um you can see that we have contributed for many many years to the live music program across
the county and that's supported by every tourism association and for instance we just supported the um July 4th event at Grand Portage late allocation but totally totally valuable programming for the uh live music event for the 4th of
July. Many various community um events are specific to community that they're going to really support and enhance. Arts and culture is always at the top. Outdoor recreation and of course our dark sky caravan and festivals. You'll see that there. The one thing from the
Visit Cook County side of thing and and when you look at our 81% dependent tourism economy, I'm always trying to really work hard with our board of directors of Visit Cook County to what can we do to build those shoulder seasons, which I like to call growth
opportunity months. not shoulder seasons because we have to change that mindset that there's still still always something to do here. It's going to be a slower time, but come at that slower time and relax. So, that's one of our um specific strategies and goals for this
year and last year and the year before is to build November, early December, April, early May. So we don't have this like, okay, we're at the starting line, rocket ship taking off, you know, every Memorial Day weekend, and then we run this feverish pace trying to balance
that out. Do you have anything to add? That was wonderful. That was wonderful. My slides. Does anybody have any questions? You can see um Mallerie's included uh just a capture in uh photography of some of the
events that we've done. Yeah. some. So, any questions? We are both here to answer any questions you might have on the budget. Um, thank you very quick and dirty down to the point and
and I appreciate that and this wonderful um spreadsheet here too just line by line lays it all out there. Um, one of the conversations we've had in the past and I presume you guys do normally at at board meetings too is just about um, you
know, participation or or um, emphasis on on kind of locals at events too. Um because you know this money is generated from visitors which you know we're dependent on but there's there's um you
know some burnout and and um sometimes feelings of resentment to so many visitors really never heard that before. Yeah. Right. So, so you know, I just would wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about some of those conversations or um ideas that that have
been kicked around for um for really, you know, like the live music of for locals or or the the local musicians or just any all that, you know, specific question on how we support
locals with the 1%. Um Mallerie did bring with her today. Graham Marray has had for many years an uh a mini grant program. So small amounts that go directly to our local nonprofits. Yeah. The Readers and Writers Festival, the Pin Cushion Winter Festival, which
is the ski and run club. uh book talks at Dory Lane, County Market, Curling Club, Bonsfield, um Lettery Desk, which is the children that just got their um ribbon cutting yesterday, the Bill Bali blacksmith demos, and Cook County Pride were the many grant recipients this
year, but they're also blended into the main 1% depending on we have our WTI WTIP event sponsorship and the North House sponsorship for the and Naturals program, which we normally would have this year. postpone that till next summer. But those are really good programs that are
free to anyone, locals or visitors across Cook County really at various spots too. Um lots of um of the 1% events that we get for applications are also your local trail entities that are
having events to get trail sponsorships too. So we have a lot of you know ski, snowmobile, all the different events during the winter. the Norpine and Nonwinder too. But yeah, so I and I it becomes a an it certainly becomes a
community conversation in that I I feel like we need to do more and educating folks that I would say for the number of times that I listen to music locally, there's a very very significant local population, especially during our growth
opportunity seasons. Um, so I I don't know that people understand that twothirds of that musician's um payment is coming from this 1% program and it's a lot of money. It's upwards of the whole program for music reimbursement I
believe is over 80. It depends on which area. Um Ludson's budget annually this year will be um 90 total thousand $90,000 and that's back to our local musicians. a lot. I'd say 90% of that where Jamaata is a cap per
establishment that they can claim and then Gump Trail has a smaller music as they don't have as much vending up there. And when you think of the growth of that program even um that was it became a marketing initiative really spearheaded by our past partner Jim Vic
and one of our marketing uh campaigns that we promoted was you can find music seven nights a week in Cook County. that kind of really hit a hard stop with co and if you remember we had the uh campaign with WTIP for musicians that we
really truly participated in as well making sure that we were giving back to those musicians that were feeling like completely impoverished during co um and then getting that back making sure that we're bringing back that programming to really being able to promote music seven nights a week. So, back to community,
you could go hear music in on a November evening and there won't be a tourist in the room. It really is a cultural piece of what we offer here in Cook County. And it really is something that gives back to our community members. It's a feel. And
I would appreciate it if all those folks out there know that as much as you might not like a busy June, July, August, without it, we don't exist. So, did I answer your question? Yeah. I just wanted to give an opportunity again to
kind of show where some of the visitors dollars go to enhance our lives, too. Everyone's lives. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner White. And I would also like to say I see this this is for the community. This morning we were just
talking about the value of um WTIP in getting information out during COVID and for our uh emergency plans and money goes to WTIP. Definitely. We also have a program that
is a collaborative um financial program with the Cook County Chamber of Commerce and Visit Cook County where we do a business spotlight. The the acceptance into being a nominated person to be that in that business spotlight is that you are both a listing marketing partner
with Visit Cook County as well as a chamber member. So you'll see that once a month and we work with Cali on that and it's been very wellreceived and we did that because of community sentiment that can really start
a dialogue that can really start overrunning a business and with inaccuracies some accuracies but it really was unhealthy dialogue. So really telling a more full story of some of our businesses I think is really important and we focus on that a lot at Vizico
County as well as the chamber. Any other questions or comments? Commissioner Sullivan. Thank you. Um one question I had is are you tracking data on our Canadian visitors? Oh heck yeah.
I figured. So, are you looking at border crossings or um just um what's coming in the tills in Cook County? How are you analyzing that data? So, for two months um after the federal tariff announcements,
I received countless calls from media for interviews. And at that point in time, um I'm a I'm a person who will relay facts. I don't like to do anecdotal news. it doesn't do any good for any of us. And
at that time I tried to explain that visit as as a border three in the state an artery from Canada to here there's all kinds of variables the strength of the Canadian dollar uh the time of year it was March and April you know by then
travel's becoming more minimal so I hesitated to say it it really was and attending u many conversations on the tourism sentiment because one loud voice can really squash out 20 quiet ones. that really love us and will come here.
So again, very very anecdotal discussions um picket, NPR, Star Tribune, all kinds of conversations. I was not willing to say that anecdotally we were feeling less Canadian traffic. We at Visica County report uh border
crossings at our meetings. Um thanks to um Chair Desa, he's gone, but we we got their information because they track it. We include that. And we did just get a report that shows uh Canadian traffic for border crossing was down 40% in
April. That's the first time. And then we just got that last week. I mean, we just got it last week. They were a little late in updating the They're always late updating that crossing data. So that was 4% 14 40
big significant difference, right? That said, that's April and the Canadian dollar was not strong and so, you know, there's still sure we're going to there is a certain amount of population in
Canada um that is um you know, they're not crossing in New York State and they're not crossing in Minnesota. It's that it's that that travel sentiment. I had a thought and I lost it. Well, I just appreciate that you're basing your
remarks on data. That's what I like to look at. I think that's what all of us appreciate and so I want to thank you for focusing on that and not just the story that's in the wind. Right. Um we also as Visical County did a um it's we
we brushed off the campaign that we had. It's May a and we had a campaign that ran in May in May a um in Canada and Thunder Bay. We also have on the 3% side of our budget um we have some pretty
significant um marketing spends in Thunder Bay right now which are um social media, billboards and print. So we're trying to hit all the markets to get people backed up. Thank you.
Anyone else? Commissioner, thank you. Uh Linda the so the data uh collecting data is is an important element of evidence-based you know programming whatever uh understanding that data and what it's telling us. So
when you have a 40% decline, I mean, we can look at things when we talk about shoulder season and we see why the shoulder season is the shoulder season and it and it's it's based upon what the weather is doing and and where people are in families are especially
with kids and stuff and what's going on. So uh that informs what why we see this. So whenever we see trends it's why is that trend existing? We can understand when there's a pandemic or something that it's just completely changed the
model that we've based everything on. So um understanding um number one, if we have a a Canadian population coming across the border, what are they coming across the border for? and and that tells us something
about whether we are their primary target or whether they're going, you know, basically to the Grand Portage and to the casino or if they're going to go to Costco or whatever and then they just head home. So, understanding what those numbers tell us about whether or not
that is our target audience or whether they're coming for something else. So how that relates is in the data that you collect u how comfortable are you relative to understanding what that data
tells us to the extent that we can again because it's very anecdotal because a lot of the Canadian traffic travels through here our friends they have their favorite stops they're going to stop at Java they're going to stop at Ben Franklin um but you're right many of
them travel They're heading to the metro. They're heading to Duth to do their big box shopping. Um and then they're going home again. And that data is really hard to collect. We have software um that we collect um
cellular data. For a long time, we didn't it wasn't available to tr to track out of country cellular data. And um that is just a percentage 18 to 20%. Am I close on that one? Cuz I'm not on the
Sarto side. I'm on the Bandwango side though. We have a platform that we use for events that we're starting to make. Um you'll see for a lot of the events that the county hosts, it'll be incorporated into the event where it's kind of like geocaching in a way. Um gamification. Gamification. Yes. So they
use it and they check in at like the public art sides or the blueberry festival. They check in when they're doing the the blueberry contest and it picks up where they're from. So that's that'll be interesting. It is creepy, but it'll be interesting. We
know when you pick your blueberry. Even at the waterfall, which was like a soft lunch, we already see people from Illinois and different areas that are ones signing up to come here and then it shows when they're actually checking into the location so you know who's coming from where. So, you know, it becomes really that's the fun of what we
do, you know, knowing that this 1% happens. But then also knowing that we have growth market campaigns happening on our 3% side of things. So we have targeted areas and then being able to knit that whole story together. Has that campaign worked in Chicago, Milwaukee,
Oaklair, De Moines to see if we can grab those people to come here? And then the second layer is wow. Let's find out what they like. You know, are they coming here in the winter for snowmmoiling? Then you throw in another level. There's no snow in the cities. Wow. you know,
that's going to light a fire under us to get people up here. We have that snow. So, that's the everchanging world of destination marketing that really, you know, fuels us as marketers. Um, then you layer in our 1% and the events and
the things that really people love to do. We really try hard to um each association, not we, Mallerie and I, but the associations, the tourism associations have really thought about allocations in July and August when we
are stuffed up here and really trying to find events that work to build the growth opportunity seasons. So, we've worked hard at that. And that's why you'll see for a Grand Marray art colony, we spread our gift over the year. Our expectation is that they will
they will recognize us as a DMO in other events that they host. Same thing with North House Folk School. You're going to see Visit Cook County as a sponsor across the plane of events um for many of those that get a more substantial amount.
Another really cool thing um that Mallerie's really lit the fire under this year is that you know we think of the one of the biggest uh contributions that we give is to 99er. I always want to remind everybody that there's a halo effect with a biking event. It puts us
on the map to close to 2,000 riders as well as two and a half participants or support people that are with them and then they learn about biking in our area and we can retarget them in our area. So that event gets a lot of money. The growth in June alone since that event
came from here in total lodging tax collection is over 150% more than it was 12 years ago when that event did not exist. So those are the those are the things and then you layer in bandwides great clinic that has grown from just
over 20 participants to close to 70 this year. It was a lot and Shi's involved in that as a board member and volunteering for the event. So, we try and spatter ourselves to make sure we understand the goodness and get the feedback in real
time. So, well, thank you. I really appreciate your updating and especially to look at the new events. Yeah, this is really exciting to see what you're sponsoring there. So, thank you for your yearly report. You bet. And we'll look forward to getting you on the schedule
next year, too. I think I forgot last year. Thank you all. Yes. Is there a way that the public could see this because it would be helpful when they'll say, "Oh, the tourists are helping to pay for
something." I think that would be a good PR thing. Now, this this is nice that it's all in color. Kind of small, but it's very nice. But I think this would be important for the greater community to be able to just come and see it.
Don't mail it to them. Oh, no, no, no. I would I would never do that. What we would do is just set a standard of having it available in the financial section on the viscount.com website. Sure. Website works. Yeah. Okay.
Thank you. Thank you. Do not hesitate to call at any point in time. We are available. Appreciate y'all. Appreciate you. You too. Next, we have a presentation from um the
AEOA group when we have a handout he's going to do first. Do we have a group or just right over here? Yeah. Up front or just come and join us by one of the microphones. Wherever you'd prefer. Thank you. Good morning and welcome. Good morning
and thank you for the invitation. Uh yeah, uh Commissioner, thank you. White had asked that I come up and do a brief little uh overview of what AUA does. So, and and what that means to Cook County
as long as we're, you know, this is a kind of a what does it mean to Cook County conversation here. So, um I'll start at uh 20,000 ft and work my way down. So, for those that might not know it, community action agencies are tasked
with uh making lives better for low to moderate income people. There's over a thousand community action agencies across the country. There's 24 in Minnesota and it's legislated uh which counties they serve. So, AUA by
legislation serves St. Louis, Lake and Cook counties. And uh from there, you know, we've been a pretty uh proactive community action agency for a long time, long before my time at AUA, but worked with a lot of programs. We have over a
100 programs that serve low to moderate income folks in a variety of ways. There's six divisions at AEOA. We run Arrowhead Transit and have buses down by the hub, you know, every morning and on the road in Cook County. Uh we've got Head Start. We've got employment and
training programs. We've got two housing divisions. One does uh weatherization and rehab and the other is geared more to homeless. And then we have senior and nutrition services. So out of those 24 agencies in Minnesota, AEOA is the
largest for a couple of reasons. Um, one, like I said, we've been proactive with uh pursuing programs and trying to do the best job we can to uh improve the lives for low to moderate income. So, we have a lot of programs that our
neighboring agencies don't have. We have Arrowhead Transit. For years, we used to be the largest uh rural transit provider in the country. Now, there's a couple of cheaters down in Kentucky that merged and they're bigger than we are. So, we're not number one. We're number two
now. But, but still, but some of these other counties, we serve uh a total of 12 counties. So, nine other counties besides the three I just mentioned. And what we do there is not disrupt any of service with the
three counties that we're tasked with, but some of those other counties have said, "Hey, we don't have these services in our area. So, would you provide those services?" And we've done that, you know, so we go from, you know, Bobette to Grand Portage all the way down to
Chesco City. Uh it's over 30,000 square miles. We serve a variety of programs across uh a third of the state, basically. So what I've got for handouts is a little bit about what that means to
Cook County. You know, I've got our mission in there, a little bit about our our directors. We have a 27 member board, triparte board, you know, one-third elected, one-third private, one-third from the consumer sector that
that help us target our objectives. Um, the agency has over 400 employees. We have four employees in Cook County, but we have a ton that are providing services on a regular basis that come,
you know, like our weatherization crews and things like that. They're based in Hibbing, but they drive up here and uh, you know, do the work up here, too, even though they don't live here. The hard part we have in Cook County is flatout
just economy of scale. and can we train a person to be a full-time person in this county, you know, and we've tried to blend a lot of the programs and things like that and it's difficult. So, that's why we telecommute, you know, a lot of those services, too. And we've
got uh Cook County reps on our board, you know, so that uh the needs of Cook County uh register with us on a reg regular basis, too. So, uh, David beforehand and, you know, and others that have been on our board, uh, the
home consortion boards and things like that. But then on that single first page, it talks a little bit. This is these are 2023 numbers is how we look at them. So, our financial year goes from July 1 through June 30th. So, we're just
getting 2024 numbers now. So, this is the newest that we've got with it, but it kind of gives you just a quick snapshot, you know, about adult basic education and what they did. Um, you know, dislocated workers, uh, housing,
you know, homeless folks, um, energy assistance, RSVP and volunteers up here. We have the bone builder programs up here and senior nutrition and work with the food shelves and the hub and everything there, too.
And uh then it talked a little bit about the food giveaways that we did a couple years ago with the farmers to families program. And I walked in on the tail end of your food conversation. And and uh we try we do a ton with food. We used to uh
we sponsor eight food shelves across northeast Minnesota. And when I say sponsor, we're their fiscal agent because they're not all 501c3s. And then we do a lot of grant applications for them and it runs through AEOA and then goes to the food
shelves to help support the work they do. We don't try and compete with people that are already out there doing the work, but we'll gladly help them if a little nudge or a few bucks or something like that can can make a difference. Kind of some of the uh the Cook County
efforts that they were, you know, that you were just talking about. Sometimes it's not about how much money it is, but what can you leverage with that money and what can that impact become then too. So we spend a lot of time on those
kinds of things and you know Arrowhead Transit uh what they do you know they provided almost 13,000 rides 70,000 miles and volunteer driver programs too. So there is a variety of things. They're
not all arrowhead transit buses. When you see a vehicle down the road, you don't see AEOA on some of the vehicles or know that that's the reason that they're there. But trust me, there's quite a bit happening. And then the second handout is more of a breakdown
about the programs and everything that are available in Cook County. It's the multi-page one that's stapled together. And in there, it's got uh phone numbers and contact information on the first page. And then following that, it talks
more specifically about the programs and what the programs are for. And I know this is uh you know, you didn't have this in your hands before I sat down here. So I know most of the time uh questions come later. So, uh, if you
have time to, uh, look things over or you have passions in a given area about something, uh, reach out. We'll get people here. We'll get you the information that you need. We talk about some of the, you know, dollars that come to Cook
County through it. And I just ran through a few of the quick uh, housing programs and things like that, but fuel assistance is is a big program to uh, folks up here, too. And uh just on that alone, fuel assistance with primary
heat, it's over 86,000 a year that goes to low-income families to help them. You know, the average grant is between 7 and $800, so it helps quite a few families. If they get in a pickle beyond that, there's crisis funds. Uh that was over
22,000 last year. We have uh they call it the energy related repair program for people that have uh they need a heating system repaired or replaced and things like that. So last year that was uh 34,000.
And then in here it's not all just about families. We work with Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board on the business energy retrofit program where businesses and it's anywhere in the Tachinite assistance area. We've done a lot of work in Grand Buret and
some of the other communities too, some of the resorts and everything where if they have an energy efficiency project, they can they can get up to $20,000 and it's 2/3 zoner one-third R money.
So, if they had a $60,000 project, they can get $20,000 of those improvements covered. No leans, no nothing on it. It's basically a gift when it's done. That program uh over the last four years was about
$144,000. It averages about uh $36,000 a year, four projects in Cook County a year. And we've been all the way to the end of the trail and everything too with some of the folks that are just getting on the grid and getting rid of their diesel
generators and things like that too. So, it uh it shows up in a lot of strange places, but I'll maybe pause there and see what kind of questions you might have. Otherwise, I've got one more piece, but
that's not presentation related. Questions, Commissioner Gamble? Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Scott. Um I had uh privilege to sit on the board in my first term as commissioner and so became acquainted
and familiar um with the services that AOA provides. Um the statistical information and the information that you're providing to us in this handout in this discussion specific to Cook County is is
beneficial. That's the way it should be done. uh meaning that we want we want to know what is the b benefit directly related to us and oftentimes things are encompassing and so it's a big number but still citizens want to know how does
that apply directly you know to us um the other benefit and I don't know having not have read through but I did glance through succeeding you know documents are handed out to us translating to numbers to dollars um I
think when We're taking a look at where we invest taxpayer dollars um and where we have the greatest return on that investment. There is a um there's an emotional component that we do because we relate from the human side, but
there's also a very tangible substantive uh component that comes back to show this is how our community benefits. if AOA were to step out, where would we have to pick up, you know, what we've lost because of the services you
provide? So, for me, uh, in in looking at at where dollars get allocated, I'd like to see what an organization has produced, um, on their own to be um, innovative,
uh, to apply themselves in providing services and opportunities. And when you look at that and you can measure all of these things, then we say this organization has earned a contribution uh from our citizens because we see the
real benefit. So it it translates although though the emotional component can be there that I'm helping somebody doesn't have food, it it is something that you can look at statistically so that it is evidencebased in nature. And
um so I I appreciate the information to augment it if if we translated that to uh reasonable dollars um so that we that it would be a story that we tell to our community. when we
look at the ask and we're looking at you know what our budget is um we want to evaluate on the basis of where do we receive the most benefit which is not a selfserving thing it is a stewardship
thing and that's why I I I appreciate the information and I I would encourage that maybe if we could see some of those tangible things translated to dollars often Often times you'll see volunteer hours and yet you know a reasonable
hourly rate this is what that translates to many organizations survive because of their volunteer or whatever. So I I just see that um where we have budgeted dollars
um the ask comes in and the substance that is provided in what you perform and what you do on behalf of our citizenry. I I think that that helps encourage that dollars get directed where we feel we have great benefit.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a big part of it too is, you know, I mean, you look at a laundry list of what AEOA does. Everybody sitting at the table, they'll pick something different about what their passion is and what's important to them and how that resonates and everything too. And uh so yeah,
totally get it. And it is always limited budgets. So paying attention to what you can support, what you choose to support and how it benefits you and to that what can that investment mean in the future and how does that change and springboard
it beyond that dollar amount is always important too. Yeah. And especially as smaller communities, we can't do everything. And it it means that we need to find partnership with organizations
that have demonstrated that they do their job and uh are a strong contributor to the things that we we just can't Yeah. do on our own. So, and we're we're always competitive. Our battle is with the metro area. Yeah.
because it's so easy for the legislature and everybody they they have the numbers. Yeah. You know, so I mean it's always are some of these things that are available in the Twin Cities available here in Cook County, are they available in Grand Portage, you know, and trying
to get that coverage and because we fight a different battle with windshield time alone, you know, providing services and things like that, too. But, uh, yeah, I like to think we're pretty competitive. I think like to think we're
pretty good at being competitive. And we don't do it on our own. We do it with We've got hundreds of partnerships where we don't have to do it on our own because there's somebody out there that can help us and make whatever we're doing better, too. All we have to do is
get to know them, keep our eyes open, and take advantage of that opportunity then, too. And it's better for everybody. Any other questions? Commissioner White, one thing you really failed to mention is the food assistance program for for the hub. I mean, that's
we have the hub board here who will um report on the value of their association with AEOA and and it's uh and they can speak better to it than me, but but their food's really good. Yeah. Yes, it
is. Well, I I don't want to take away from their presentation though. That is something that that the public like the public needs to understand like we take a lot of things for granted like with the adult um basic education like years
ago. I I was that was through Cook County Community Education and then um would proctor the GED exams for after they went through the um education. there was someone hired by AEOA to help
students get ready to take the test. And that was a long time ago. And so I don't think that the public really knows where all of these benefits are coming from. They're almost taken for granted. It's just this is how it is. There's so many
and there's so many. And don't we all get to have buses? And and the answer is no, we don't. And yeah. Well, I always think we're and you know, in my opinion, doing this for quite a while, it's we've got our heads down pedalling way too
hard that we don't tell our own story very well with some of this. But that's part of it and that's a great partnership. And food food is uh something that I'm almost a little embarrassed about with because at times
when we started with food, didn't realize what the need was, didn't realize what it meant to people. We got into that farmers to families program here a couple of years ago. Gave out over a 100,000 boxes of food, 2.25 million pounds. I missed one event and
was there handing food out the entire time. And every time I did it, there was somebody in tears that said, "You don't understand what this means to our family." And it's like, "Holy cow, stay there for a minute. You're getting a few more boxes." And things like that, too.
you know what we do. The farther I've gone up in administration, the less and less and less I started out fixing furnaces for people on fuel assistance. I saw the benefit firsthand of what we did for people every single day I went to work. Now I get higher higher up and
you're almost more insulated from it. But when it hits you, when it's that passion, when it tugs on your heartstrings or rips your heart out, throw it on the floor, step on it a couple of times. You know, some of the things we do, we have to slow it down long enough to at least listen to what's
going on. We have to listen to the people we're serving. It's pretty easy to find out what we should do. All we have to do is ask the people that we're serving. They'll tell us what they need. Then it's on us to go and make a dent in that and do something to, you know, to
hit that. then too. So, yeah. Yeah. I've done this for 36 years and uh I don't know what else I would have done. I've thought about that a few times. I I was almost a little down on myself when I took that job because I looked at my first paycheck and thought, "Oh my god,
how's my family going to survive? I qualified for the programs that I was working for." But I love what I do and I don't know that I don't know that I would have fit anywhere else. Well, why don't you go ahead, Scott? And you had a something else you wanted to
share. Oh, I just had and Gary kind of alluded to it a little bit, the letter that I'd sent out. Uh we've sent these to the seven counties that are affected by this building that we're doing in Hibbing. What we're trying to do, we rent uh from one of the local landlords
in Hibbing uh space for our housing office, our senior services offices that uh prepare those meals. We rent five little kitchens all over the place. They're tiny. They're outdated. They're not what we need to massroduce food for
seniors. We want to put the housing programs and a kitchen in a building in Hibbing and looking at a used building and renovating that building because we pay over $150,000 a year for to rent the spot we're in now plus utilities. And
it's way too small. And we're now starting on a project with tax forfeited homes which may be of interest to Cook County too because what we're doing is it's we've got a pilot this year. We're doing four homes in St. Louis County on the core iron range. So there's one in
Aurora, uh two in Eveith, one in Chisum. We just got the house first house in Chisum and we're just starting on it. But the county is conveying tax forfeited homes to us that they can't sell that are probably going to be slated for the bulldozer. We've got money from the Greater Minnesota Housing
Fund and the ITRB. We're going to take those homes, do a complete gut remodel, and turn around and sell them as workforce housing. We're going to have probably a $250,000 investment in the home. We're going to sell a totally renovated home for $200,000.
So, it's affordable. We can bring every town up here struggles with bringing young professionals, people at the clinics, people in the dentist office, fire, you know, police, everything, teachers, you name it. And they come and they look at the state of our housing
and they say for that kind of money, no. And they go back to wherever they are. We're hoping to offer an alternative to it, you know, and that we can pro provide decent affordable housing. maybe we get some of our kids to stick around because there's a decent house they can
buy at a decent pri, you know, price and everything too. And uh so when we talked about this at our board meeting, uh Casey Venma from Itasa County, I did like two or three minutes on it, just a quick overview from 10,000 ft. He raises
his hand and he says it county's next. Uh, now Lake County is talking about a house, but it's something you may want to consider or we may want to have another conversation about too. We need housing everywhere. We need all kinds of housing. There's 10 different kinds of
housing between market rate rental, affordable rental, homeownership, you know, you name it. And people have a lot of housing conversations now and they start talking about housing and say, "Do you need it?" And my answer is just yes.
We need more of any kind of housing. We don't have great opportunities out there now. We don't have folks coming to town saying they'd like to build a new apartment complex. It doesn't happen very often. So, uh, that's just something, too. But
now to take that on, we've got to hire some people and we've got to get moving because my hope is, uh, we had a bill in front of the legislature this year. We asked for 2 million. We only have 500,000, but we'll be back next year then, too. But I'd like to see us doing
like 15 of these a year, and then I think we can start to make an impact. Yeah. Okay. Thank you on that. We always have a good representative at ADOA because she gives us a report. Well, I'm looking at three of them that that I know from
being seated around our board. Oh, yes. Yeah. Commissioner Gamble, thank you, Madam Chair. Scott, a couple things. Um, on the housing thing, it's tax forfeited. Does that mean that the the way it's set up is that the um the
county, whatever it might be, is deeding that to AOA and then the revenues that are whatever you build it and then you sell it. What's the model like in that? So, the county conveys it to the city
that they're in. the city conveys it to AEOA just process, you know, but then once we acquire the house, we've got the funding from the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund and that we do the rehab, we sell the house on a conventional mortgage, we run home ownership classes,
so we work with the local banks, we know where to get a good deal with the bank or the best mortgage that people can get. um 50,000 of that investment will be value gap that stays in the house, but the difference between the total total development cost and the appraisal and
then the rest of that money goes back into the pool. So that's just going to get recirculated. Then the money that we need to continue to pursue is that value gap. So for a reasonably small investment, you know, and there's agencies out there that'll do that kind
of thing. That's a I mean that's that's thinking in a way we've got to find new ways of doing things and still make it affordable. And so the issue and it's been on and on and on this housing issue, but we've got to find creative ways of doing it and keep it affordable.
The other question is uh when you're looking at the the building and what you're doing right now and what your expenses are for food processing and housing whatever that uh you're paying this 150,000 in utilities. Um
you're advertising out what your costs would be if you were to build it and own the facility and pay costs. Is that correct? So yes. Yeah, we started with that and uh like the cost of everything else, it's extreme. And then we found a
good property in Hibbing that I think we could uh come in at close to half the price. Yeah. Just by looking at something that's existing. But then AOA would own the property. So we eliminate that ongoing correct cost and not owning it.
And it's smaller than makes it efficient for us given what our program is. So Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate the thought process. Well, thank you, Scott. We have some great information. If we have any other questions or whatever, we can we have the phone numbers. Yeah. And
I can leave a few business cards if you want. You can uh reach me directly any time with any question. I may not have the answer for you that when you call me, but uh I know who to talk to to find out. Okay. For at least for at least four and a half more months. Okay. Thank
you. Thank you everybody. Our next presentation is going to be from the folks uh from the hub. However many of you we have five chairs. Thank you. Okay. Well, good morning and welcome. We've
been trying to get you on the list for quite a long time and working with administrator Rogers. We uh said today's going to be the day. So, we're kind of pocketing everybody in for the long haul to learn about a lot of new things. So, who would
like to start? I will start. Um, thank you for for uh inviting us. This is this is a great opportunity for us to tell you more about us for those that may not be completely familiar with what we know. I know Ann is, I know Deb is as our, you know, past and current
representatives uh from the board. Um, and there's uh the reason why we're here today is we're talk we want to talk about future funding for the for the hub. and segueing into what what how the hub used to be the hub formerly known as
the senior center. Um the hub used to be funded by as a line item for the the county. I think up until 2018 is when that changed and uh and now we get part of our funding through uh the public health and human services grant process.
Um which is problematic at times. there's a lot of people, you know, vying for those funds, which which, you know, it puts us uh into that pool of of lots of different um nonprofits that are looking for funding. Uh so, um in that
it going forward from there, I just want to give a a few statistics as to what's what's happened in our county, and you're probably aware of a lot of these statistics already, and I'm just going to read some things that we have in front of me here. According to the US Census figures for 2024, 32.7%
of the 5571 Cook County residents are age 65 and above. Uh Cook County has the highest percentage of persons 65 years and over. We just I think this year we just became the oldest county in in Minnesota. So, uh having said that, our usership, our
patronage of the of the hub has has changed. It's gone up. Um, I've been on the board for about two and a half years. Um, and the rest of us similar periods of time. I think Gwen's been there longer. Um, you know, longer. Chris has been the programs uh,
administrator programs coordinator for us for several years now, and she's seen most of the change. The uh, current board we have, most of us are, like I said, less than three years or or so being on the board. things have changed drastically at the at the hub in the
last three years, we'll say. Um, it was operated completely differently. Um, now we have a working we have a sevenperson working board. Every one of us is a volunteer. We're all working. We all do things at the at the hub. We all I do building maintenance. I'll do other
things as well, but every one of us puts in and does things. We have our We have our uh our fundraisers that we that we have, our pancake breakfast. We have chili feed. We have a bunch of different things we do to try and try and make money to make up the difference between those things that we have. We're uh I
wouldn't say we're at a budget crisis right now, but we're close. Every year because of some changes in funding in the past, we are we find ourselves fighting for and looking for more grant money. We just hired Jim Boyd to because he's got some some experience in grant
writing. He's out there looking for different grants for us. uh and and he'll hopefully be able to find some things that way. Um having having said that, we're our request of you, the board, I'll get to it, is is because of the way that the the county used to help
fund the hub in the past. There was a line item I believe uh I think it was up till 2018 and that all changed after that. I don't know why it changed. I wasn't on the board then. wasn't really um a part of the of the operation at that time. Um because of and AEOA was is
is a huge supporter of us as you just heard. Our food program is funded. That's not not a problem, not a thing that we need to worry about because when we sell a meal, then we get reimbured uh you know to cover those things. Uh so that's that's never a problem. AUA is a
great partner on that and we have and yet we have the independence uh that we have being here in Grand Marray. Uh we are at the end of the world, the end of the road so to speak uh which most people have said. Um, and in in with
that, basically what what I'm asking is that we we would like $125,000 a year to fund the op rest of the operation uh for the hub, which covers our building costs. We which covers our our salaries,
things like that. Because as you know or may not know, most grant processes out there don't they will not cover salaries. Well, we don't need any funding for the food program because that's already covered. What we do need is funding for the grant for the for the salaries and the building and things
like that. So, it's it's uh that's where we're at right now. We're fighting for money from through the public health grant process, which I think in the last few years we've gotten between 60 and $70,000. So we find ourselves kind of fighting in
for the rest of the 60s some 70ome thousands to make our budget operate. And we don't have a huge budget. I think we're about $225,000 a year total. And that's including our reimbursements from from uh AEOA including the the food program. But everything else we have we
have three we have four employees actually. We have a full-time uh pro program coordinator. We have a full-time cook. We have a part-time accounting person. We have a part-time cleaning person. Uh so we don't have a lot of
staff a lot to take care of, but of course we have to cover the expenses of that of those that staff and the $125,000 would do that. And on top of that, just talking about the changes that have taken place, and I think you've got some information in front of
you. These are the last these are the statistics from the last couple two and a half years that shows how much things have changed. And then we have a growing aged population. You can see the number of visitors in 2025 or 2023 and 2024
that we've had. These are people that actually sign in and we we do that accounting from the signin sheet. We know that that number is not correct because not everybody signs in when they come. But we but the number on the right the meals total that we give you can see that that number is growing every year as well. Now things vary year month to
month year to year because there people come and go. We have people that pass away and then we have new people coming in that uh that that sign up to the program. Chris has people coming in weekly, new people coming in weekly. Sometimes they're part-time residents of Cook County. Sometimes they're new
long-term residents of Cook County. they find that we have a great senior center here in town and and they come and they participate and they make a lot of new friends. So I think it's so important. The point I'm trying to make is the importance of the senior center and the hub has done nothing but grow in the
last few years. We have become one of the most prominent and important facilities in this entire county simply because of our aged population and the usefulness of what we have. you you have the our our newsletter there. You have
our our uh outlook outline on all the different programs we have and we get requests for different programs all the time and we're trying to accommodate as many as we can. Nearly all of our programs that we provide provide and our space that we provide are free. We
charge the uh the clinic comes and does their foot care on Tuesdays uh once once a month and they charge $10 per person for that for that foot care. We don't charge for that. It goes to the clinic. It goes to the clinic, right? We don't charge the clinic to hold to have that down there. We appro we provide the
space along with most of our other programs. And they did have to add another staff nurse now because the numbers are so large. Yeah. There's two. There was two last two people doing it last time because and it's that's just a small example of what's happening. I mean, we have, you know, we have the Tai
Chi, we have the yoga, we have the bone builders, which has really grown exponentially. And uh you know it's it's I guess what I'm saying is that we we see just in this in the short time that I've been there, two and a half years, I've seen so much change in the
patronage that's come into the into the the hub. It's just there's so many more people that are hearing good things. And of course, that's always our object is to try and get the word out there to get more people because we have, you know, 32% of the 5,500 people in this county are are actually eligible to come in and
pay for uh, you know, $4.50 for a meal every day. So, it's it's uh, you know, you can't find another meal in this county for less than for $4.50. So, um it's it's just we we we have such we have such great volunteers and such
great donations that have come in. We have people that that give as little as $100 here and there, as much as $25,000 at different times. We have uh we have 70 new chairs sitting down there in the hub right now that were paid for by donations from the people that come
there, from other people around town. Um, you know, we have we're getting requests all the time and and I I have a lot of points, but I don't think I I need to beat it to death about those things. And Roger, you can chime in whenever you want if you want to say something and anybody else on on the on
the hub here. I just would like to say that because of how much growth we've seen at the hub and we're trying to keep our staff to a minimum, we have a working a sevenperson working board along with many volunteers that operate
the hub. We work very efficiently. We work within our budget always. We we do have we do have a rainy day fund built up um which is I think to me a sign of a healthy organization. However, we're always faced every year we're faced with
those grants that we have to apply for and it's becoming more and more difficult because the last I heard there was something like 140 different nonprofits in this county. Everybody's vying for the dollars that are available out there and and that changes every year. You know, some years we can't
apply for certain grants because we got it last year. Um, so, uh, having said that, it's it's we we number one, we're we're asking for that line item, uh, again to be to be part of your county budget, and we understand that's not not
an easy ask. It's a it's a difficult task. Uh, number two, me personally, I'm wondering why it ever went away. I don't know why it did. I don't know why. Um, you know, I think at one time the this the senior center used to be part of the
county operation. Uh, the previous one of the previous directors was actually employee of the county and was paid that way. As it is right now, we handle all that within the hub. We have other than the grantings grant process that we go through, we get no other funding from
any other government agencies. Times being what they are, you know, we don't know what where the funding is coming from. Gwen, go ahead. Okay. I want to just mention the reason we have our building um and we have certain uh programs is because it's more
comfortable for a client to come in and talk with a therapist. You've had you've had health uh situations down there where they come and they're able to talk and just relax and it's just a much more
welcoming situation. And that's what a hub is. It's just uh there and the socialization of coming for a congregate eating uh time at lunchtime. You know,
not everybody eats the the food that you know the meal that day, but they'll have popcorn or they'll have pop or there's maybe some cookies that someone brought or something like that. It's just a very welcoming kind of situation. You
couldn't have that in a restaurant. So, I mean that that's a good point that she brings up because yeah, the we see the socialization aspect of how we operate important as being a huge part of that's why people come obviously, you know, they come down and there's days where
we're full. We have a 99 person capacity in there and there are days where we have 70 new chairs and everything's full, you know. So, it's like and it wasn't like that four years ago. I mean, it's changed a lot. And what that basically says is that we've become more
visible. We've become more more adaptive to what's happening. We we've tried to create new programs and things that are necessary. And we're trying to do it for free. We're trying to do it for people for free. However, we do need to pay our staff and and that's always the the
hardest part about us finding the money to operate. Um, if it weren't for AEOA, we wouldn't exist obviously because, you know, the the we can't we can't afford to sell a meal for 450 un unless we get reimbursed for that because I think we're our total cost we figured was like
8 or 850. So, if we weren't being reimbursed, then we we'd be in trouble. So, but but that's basically it. Unless anybody else on the board wants to say something. Just going to say about the meals, we are moving towards more homestyle type meals rather than institutional food
with more fresh produce. You know, better burgers, better hamburger, all these kinds of things to enhance the meals at the hub. And again, that a lot of that most or that's covered by AEOA. I was just looking through these notes. You know, maybe we could ask Janna to
copy these after we could give these out to you. I assume they had a copy. No, not those. Along with the meals are available. We have frozen meals too and we stock those for weekends or anyone can walk in and
buy. Anybody that signs up for the meals on wheels programs automatically gets two meals for the weekend. One of the things that we address, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that no other agency really does so many of the people come and they're
lonely. And what happens to people who are elderly alone? I wrote myself a little spiral. Loneliness, it leads to depression, self- neglect, increased dependence on media, TV streaming, etc. Increased in sedentary activities, lack
of interest in things you used to like, feelings of uselessness. They can become an inability to indirect um socially. And I am relatively new, although I've gone to the hub just to be there and volunteer and help. And so many people
tell us that I am so grateful to be able to be here. I'd be home. I can't garden anymore, but I can be with you guys. I can do this. Reconnecting people to a craft that they used to do. You know
what I'm talking about? Showing everybody. Look what I made at the hub. Look, I believe that her cognition, everything is higher because she has that. And I'm just using her as an example. I'd love to give you statistics on that. I'm working on that
because they're there. I mean, I can go through each of those people and say, "Why are you here?" And if you need that, I'll do it. Mhm. And and that's another good point because we uh we we've tried to make the hub uh a much
more inviting atmosphere just in the last three years. It's changed so much more. There's there were some things happening at the hub before that were just they're not worth talking about. We've just changed the whole atmosphere and and uh we tried to move forward on that. And and having a working board
makes pretty much all the difference in the world. we're all willing to step in when somebody needs some time off or something needs fixing at the hub, me and my son, we can go fix it or whatever the case may be, you know, and and uh if it weren't for the AUA couldn't connection with with the bus and and
Chris can tell you she's the one that gets all the calls for the bus, even though she's not the one that does any of the booking or controls anymore, but but she she gets calls every day on that. Uh and but it's still it's all part of the same operation. you know, we rent we rent space to the uh to the AOA
for their little office and for their their their garage so they can park a bus there. We have parking spaces out front and uh you know we we're open to just about anybody that wants to to rent some space and for special events, things like that. Uh and we don't charge
a lot for those special events. The farmers market is there every morning, every Saturday morning, you know, uh and we I don't think we do we charge much for that. I don't even know what we charge. Um well I mean there's a fee but there's a fee and it it's needed. I mean
we need to yes proactive course and I'm on the Lions Club as well and of course we need that parking lot for the kitty rides and and the Lions Club does does donate money to the hub because of that. U it just the overall change that's happened
there and the increased patronage and the number of people that we have has led us to where we are right now. where we are right now is that our budget is tight. It's been tight the last two years and and we don't see I I don't know because of the granting process. I
don't really hold, you know, 100% probability that we're going to get the granting that we need, you know, so we never know. So, this is this is where we're at. The ask as as Gary put it is that is that we would like to be uh put back on as a line item
funding for it because we're just as necessary and the point you had made earlier to AEOA about being showing how that money is spent and how it's it's being reflected in the operation and what happens in Cook County was a very important point because you ask anybody
that that uses the hub, they're going to tell you exactly what it would mean if the hub wasn't there anymore. Mhm. And $125,000 is to me it's a small investment to make sure that our operation sustains. Well, you know, we're five years from CO now. Yes. And
that made a big dent in all of our socialization and all that. But I think after that, a couple three years ago, as you stated, there was a freshness and a newness, especially the name change. Yep. You know, y a lot of people said, "I'm not a senior. Why would I go there?" Exactly. We still get that. But
we also have a lot of okay we held a youth writing thing last summer you know and I mean so we have younger people we also have great exchange students who come and earn points to have ski
do things like that. So the tech support guy is a young guy isn't he? Yes. Well, we have, you know, I don't the DMV is there twice a month, which last Tuesday they were there and the place was packed. I mean, there must have been 20 kids in and out of there getting their licenses, taking their tests, things like that, you know. And we have we have
the the legal kiosk. Anybody needs to get on uh the kiosk there and do that. We have we have Donna Lunkkey who is a is a a notary. She'll come in and she'll look at things and notoriize for for free. We have we have a lot of different things that most people aren't aware of.
We tried spending some money on advertising last year, and that's the hardest thing to think about. We spent about $1,000 on advertising, and we're trying to figure, okay, how do you how do you I mean, we should probably talk to Linda because she's much better at marketing than what we are, but but how
do you, you know, use that money efficiently to to you and we thought about putting a flyer in a journal because it's a free paper. And then we found out what it costs to do that. Well, we didn't have the budget for that because we would really like to get the word out to everybody. You know, we do have space. We have we could feed 75
people a day in house and then have meals on wheels and takeouts as well. Of course, we don't have the staff for that. We'd have to talk about but right now we're Yeah, right now we're doing, you know, up to 50 meals a day, which is is in-house dining, takeouts, and meals
on wheels. So maybe you should contact Steve Fernland and he put it in the Steve has been kind to us as well and so is Brian. So I'll tell you a little bit about our process. Okay. So we have a budget committee and that meets separate from our board and uh we started that in
April and so um as each group comes and talks to us and we look over the department heads and what they're going to propose we take everything into consideration. We can't get back to you right away, but uh we'll have lots of good discussion about the budgeting
process and what and and we look at each individual ask and um later on we'll hopefully have you know some good conversation about the needs for the um elderly I would say down to child care.
Y so we have the vast in between people and projects and and wants and uh asks for all of that. Yeah, we look at each one very fairly and I understand that very well. I I having worked on and seen many many budgets myself and having been
part of this organization, it's uh I understand those things and it's it's we uh we're at a point where where we need to help, you know, I mean, we are an independent operation. We own the facility and we're
trying to do this as much as we can on our own. But there comes a time that we need we need some help because we are serving the entire community. That's where the the impetus has to lie is that we are serving everybody in this county. We are available to anybody. We don't we
don't turn anybody away at the hub if they're not 65 years old. I mean, anybody can walk in there and Chris is our program's coordinator, but she's much more than that. She's she is the face of the hub. is the heart of the hub and anybody walks into that facility and
they're welcomed. They can get a free meal if they need to. We've have people in distress that come in there quite often that, you know, they they want they walk in, they just don't know, you know, if they're in the right place or not. They might they might have a look on their face or they might need to talk to somebody. There's something going on
in their lives. You know, last week we had a young person come in and and they were homeless basically and I think they were just about to be living in their car and she they came to Chris and Chris directed them where they could get some help. You know, we can help to certain degrees on things but not everything.
So, I mean it's I did want to mention we do have some intergenerational like she mentioned the right incredible exchange but we also have taken on the operation family Christmas program and um the school supply drive that has been very successful and very helpful. So I just
wanted to add those things. Well, you've given us a good um overview. Does anybody have any questions? Commissioner, not a question, but did you mention that you do the uh the the first alert or the the life alert? Yeah.
And the medical equipment is very important. That's one of our expenses outside Grand Portage County. How many people do we have on that program? I would say 32. We just lost someone. Yeah. We provide and and
uh take care of those those monitors for people. And I'm thinking that one of the positives that we can give to you is that we can provide these services for much less than you could through the county. And I think that's that's a
valuable thing because plus it keeps it in the community rather than it being a government. So if people can get mad about the government, they get mad at us if we don't give them exactly what they want. But it's it's a way that that the community is backing itself and taking care of itself. Yeah. And you you might
be funding it, yes, but we're the program that brings it to the county and to the people. Okay. And we can do it at a probably at a much less cost. Mr. Gamble, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation. I I sat on the
the board in my first term and uh I hearing your presentation knowing the difference uh we would invest monies in having people go and try to learn and how do we brand rebrand ourselves so people don't have the stigma of being a senior
whatever they can't get over that whatever but uh however and and it's also just positioning from the standpoint of what kind of programming we're offering so we don't want to be stigmatized so to speak, right? Um but creating a welcoming uh culture too and
you alluded to you know just some of the things that change those changes are positive moving in a right directive uh direction and more inclusive and more expanded in in offerings uh those are positive things. Uh one thing I would ask just in knowing our discussions in
the past is um if you've looked at other senior centers whatever they brand themselves at to understand how their funding is. In other words, if you look at senior centers across the state as we as commissioners we travel to different communities and sometimes we meet in
senior centers and our committee meetings. So we know they exist a lot of place. What can we learn from them on their funding strategies? And uh I believe uh when I was commissioner previously $50,000 was the line item
that was contributed by the county as far as funding if that went with a a commitment to sort of say well we'll pay the wage or contribution to wage. I don't know what transpired in the evaluation and how that worked but just
saying that was where the amount was. um to the the point of uh the need u um for um relationship. Um we used I used to be executive director of fertilization and we would
have different different profile uh groups come in. One was quilting retreats. I always admired the creativity, but um I learned in our experience with hundreds of quilters coming in that it wasn't just what they created, it was stitching their lives
together. Yes. Huge. Huge. And to the extent that we understand the human deed, u that's a big part of it. It is. So, uh, the other thing I would say, we would
have presentations that would be from the thrift store and those monies are volunteer monies that get distributed. I don't know what the relationship
continues to be in that regard, but uh, it isn't. It isn't. No, there's they're separate entities. Okay. All right. Yeah. We used to be they used to be combined entities between the hub and first and second. We we used to have co-mingled I don't know if the funds were but they were separated and
presentations status. Yeah. Well, in the interest of time, but that would be something I'd be interested in understanding, you know, what happened in that regard. It just I think it was just because of the new building and the and the separation and how things and I can't speak to whatever
happened three years ago when the big changes started taking place. I think that had something to do with why first and second wanted to separate from the hub. Yeah. Yeah. Just sort of understand looking at things. The other thing we had the farmers market and then and then the farmers market there was some
discussion in the city to push that out so it' go over to different lot and because of fire code or whatever and I researched that in the fire code that was all talk but not reality. Well, they haven't they haven't said they're moving to us. No, no, this this is, you know, a while back. But I'm just saying you're
looking at at financing mechanisms to the extent organizations are creative in trying to create these opportunities that generate revenue, that's good. The fact that you've got a working board that is volunteering and doing that, that's substance as well. the more that
we demonstrate that we're doing this because we have organizations over the years in my experience of the asks that are just looking to keep them their doors open and have somebody else do the work by giving us the money and I and what we need to see is we need to see
the substance of your contribution. So that's that's a great that's a great question and segue on that to me is I need I would love for every one of you to come to and visit us at the hub have a meal on us. Come down and see what we do. Come down and see the culture. Come down on a on a Wednesday when Bruce is
cooking and making everybody. He's a former chef and everybody loves his meals. Come on down and see what every Come down on a on a is it Monday when the crafters are there? All the all the craft corners going on and see what's going There's there's several days during the week that that we have peaks and valleys and certain thing that
happen. But but I'm and I'm serious about this. I would love any any one of you or all of you to come on down and have a meal on us and and just just to see and ask questions. I'll make sure that I'm there and Chris will be there and anybody else on the board that you want to ask questions. You'll have to be there just a little bit before 12 so you
can have a chair. Yeah. I'm going to piggyback on what you were saying about creativity, Gary. One of the creative things that I've really noticed at the hub is that group of crafters um in what is now called the Lois Ike Craft Corner name for her. But
what's what I find interesting is that these women come in, I think it's all women now, every couple times every week and they're creating things and if you need a gift card for anybody or if you need a greeting card, they've got it and they're handmade and they they are
incredible and what they're doing is creating and selling so that they have the money to continue to buy what they need and contribute to the hub and contribute to the hub. They do that too. So that you know that one of the ways I think we're doing that. Well, thank you
for the presentation. Um we really enjoyed your updating and um our consideration will be a few months down the line. Thank you. Thank you for Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you again. Please come on down and visit us. I'd
love to have you come down. We can't on Tuesday. I may be cooking. Okay. Yes, you do. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. Yep. Yep. And J will get you those. Yep. That's great. Thank you so much.
Okay. So we have next um Jim Nelson is going to um go over a memorandum agreement with Grand Portage. Yes. Thank you uh Madam Chair and commissioners. Um this I'm just throwing this out there or bringing this to you today as kind of a
prep uh an initial kind of volley so that you can have any questions. I intend to bring it to the board uh this next uh next week uh at the 24th for for action. and just wanted to have this initial opportunity for you to have any qu answer any questions or that you
might have um in this and it's it's fairly straightforward. We do have chairman Shaw here and April McCormack with regards to uh this particular issue and this particular issue has been uh decades old uh frankly and um if you
know that uh Grand Portage is is open predominantly it's travel trust lands and such there is a smattering uh a small smattering of um individually privatelyowned parcels uh within their boundaries and frankly what that has
done is just over the course of again decades has provided a level of uh confusion for property owners and and such for land use activities, permitting, who does what. We get questions, you guys have to get questions in regards to that. And
basically what we've done and we have issued uh and do issue land use permits, variances, we've processed those things all along and then we direct them uh to the band as well to be able to to do that. And that just has provided a
certain level of confusion. There's been this uh memorandum of agreement. I found one dated back to 1995. Um that so this is this is something that's been uh an issue for for many many years. And what I did is this kind of resurfaced again. We have the
Northshore Management Board. Um, and what we've recently were going through is another uh plan update and that that extends through, you know, the entire Northshore. Uh, we have Lake Superior North Whed um planning as well that goes
on and so it's kind of brought in a lot of uh questions and and activities with regards to, you know, who's administering what and and what the standards should be and such like that. uh Grandport has just been uh very involved in the Northshore Management
Board uh as well and such. And so um this this solution has has come up and and um I basically have have taken this proposed memorandum of agreement and have sent it to our our county attorney
and uh the MCIT attorney uh to be able to review. And essentially what it does is it basically seeds our level of administration for land use controls and seeds it over to uh uh Grand Portage. U
it does have a little um uh clause in there that provides for termination of the of the agreement uh within 60 days. Uh either side can do that. Um but we are in the land services offices who has to answer the questions or take take the
the questions uh from property owners. It makes it a little easier for us to say okay you just talked to Grant Portage on that. The only uh tweak that we had when I had sent it to the different attorneys was that instead of initially it said uh zoning ordinance, but we basically said, well, let's have
all of our land use uh ordinances and regulations seated over so that there there is no confusion uh over that. And so basically, I intend to bring this to you uh next Tuesday for approval. Um,
and uh, I guess I just leave it open for any questions or if you guys wanted to say anything. Well, just thank you for um, providing an opportunity to talk about this. We're really excited. Um, we've had a land use
ordinance since 1992. It was amended in '96. And so I recognize that property owners have had to have both permitting from the county and the band. And really we're excited that um the county is
interested in deferring um that uh portion of their zoning and recognizing our zoning in our land use ordinance. So um this is really a great opportunity to showcase that good county and Grand Portage as two governments working
together are recognizing each other's authority. Um, and it's something that I think we had a lot of discussions back when I was in land use about permitting for individuals. Um, and so it really
does, as Tim mentioned, clarify the authority that the ban has for permitting. Um, and it makes it clear for private land owners. And if you look at that map, there's only a a couple of parcels that this really has any impact
to. Um, and I think ultimately that authority that we have to issue permits still remains the same. So the only change would be the county um deferring um your authority there.
Commissioner, do you have anything to add? Not really. Um, okay. April worked in land for many years, so she Okay. Now, is this draft um ready to go? The lawyers have all seen it. So, we're ready to go with that. Seems like what?
Didn't we do something a couple years, maybe four years ago with a couple parcels? Well, that was the the patch pit outside that was okay. Just east of town. So, now these parcels, will that pretty much take care of everything or will you find some other parcels in the future?
This this agreement would take care of all of the privately owned land, all the privately owned parcels in the boundaries of Grand Portage. Okay. Yes, this is quite a few since 1992. Okay. Questions or comments?
Commissioner Gamble? Yeah. Thank you. You April since they've seen you. Um, so basically what we're saying is our our experience has taught us that there's some redundancy and it and it gets complicated and confusing and uh as as
long as is any state statute and any legal thing which we've had the reviews on it. What we're saying is we just defer our jurisdiction which makes sense and uh it won't complicate it for people. So I don't see any problem. The
thing is when things make sense, common sense to us, then it can be the legal ease that makes it complicated. But if the legal ease is not one of things that encumber it, then it seems to be a no-brainer. In other words, how do we
work together to make it easier for the people that we serve and recognize our jurisdiction? I think it's a good thing. So, yeah. Any other comments, Commissioner? I I have no concerns and just really excited. It makes so much sense and I
know talked about for a while. Um, and I really appreciate the map, too. It just gives some perspective on what's um very I mean, I know we've talked about this at at different trainings, but Vancouage is in a pretty unique situation with the land, the trust land ownership. You know, it's not as fragmented as as other
areas of the state and other tribe. So, um, yeah, thanks for working on this and, um, step by step here. It looks like, thanks for sitting around so long to get get to be to the table. I'm just so excited. This is going to be
on our agenda finally next Tuesday. And I would just like um we still have the issue and I know it's the process. We have tribalowned property off outside
of their boundaries that they have to pay property tax on. They've been paying property tax on. It's it's wrong. So I would like for us to change that somehow and it's got to be changed at the state level probably.
I think it was this year. So So it has been changed. So then the next thing is for all these years it's taken for that oversight or I think it's unfairness to happen. Can the county somehow
uh reimburse or do something to for the taxes that have been paid on their you know I don't know it just it just seems ridiculous that the sovereign nation of Grand Portage
has to pay property taxes you off when they don't stay inside their boundaries Scott you know so it just seems wrong and I would like to somehow uh address that and make it better. So,
Commissioner, yeah. Um I would It's about time that this happens. You know, there are people that try to find loopholes. You know, they play one side, play the other side, and then pretty soon we're in the mid middle and it's a battle.
But um one of the things I was talking to Commissioner White about earlier was the waters within the reservation boundary which are listed on the counties as county and we would like to get those off of there. Yeah. Those are
waters of Grand Portage not of county you know and that's one of the things we would like to start working on. And then I guess I'll just one add one more thing if John Morren was here. We don't own the land. We're just here to take care
of it. So right. Yeah, good point on that. Maybe that's something in the future, the water. Commissioner Gamble. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um um being community and the relationship. I mean, we we talk we give lip service,
but we want to give substance to what those words are when we say we want to cultivate that relationship and there's opportunities for to do that to demonstrate what we say that our intent is is is evident in what our practice
is. um the way and you you know come to the uh corrections uh board meeting and we really appreciated that and everybody's uh happy to see that that we're cultivating a nurturing relationship but
we we don't want presence and words we want to see where what we hope for is realized in the substance of our lived experience becomes I would say that it would It would be a healthy thing when when you open the door for conversation
that you identify those things where we see we can address issues and then look at it in the context of what history has told us relative to precedent and what's allowable and what we can do. The commitment is to try to nurture
relationship by listening actively and then responding in the context of what is allowable and what we can learn from others in similar situations. That would just be a comment relative to the broader issues that we have in
relationship. Yeah. Any other um what's the process for we as a board to discuss? Um I think it be like this only just put it on the agenda. I mean or you know with the waters on Yeah. any of the
issues. I'm just saying this is a is a move in that direction to bring substance to you know what's hoped for. Now we're just saying if there's other things that we can look at. Let's look at in the context of what the provisions. We had attorneys look at this document. We look at state statute.
We look at provisions under what it is with sovereign nations. And then in that context we have our conversation see what we can do. Well that's the beauty of committee the whole so they can come and we'll you know talk about the other topic and then get information so that
when we go to the board we'll have the background and we can do that we can do that in this context or we can do that in context you know uh you know at your place as well. So it just let's have the conversation where you want to have it. Let's just have the conversation and
then what we are informed of what we understand and we can move that to action based upon that understanding. Tim, did you have a comment? Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, yeah, I would say that this particular action is kind of like that lowhanging fruit. It's it's something very easy. I I I've not seen
any resistance towards it. So I think we can get this action done and it's accomplishing something and then it's kind of opening that door a little further for that further discussion uh to be brought into the this cow meeting and further action down the road. Okay.
Well, thank you for all of this and your time and um we'll be talking about this next Tuesday. If I if I may, Madam Chair, just to clarify, this is only this action is only regarding the land use authorities, but we've talked about three different things in the course of this meeting.
So, I just want to clarify the secretary for granted. So, I'd like to clarify there's like three other topics that we talked about that are separate. So, we understand it's the land. Oh, great. Good. Good. Okay. I know. I know. I know how council
meetings and and uh board meetings can go in once you get into the final public stage. So, I want to just clarify this is what we have. Thank you. They aren't going any further right now. Great. Thank you for coming. Thank you very much.
We have highway engineer Robbie Hos coming up about changing a role. Hello everyone. Good morning or no afternoon. Yeah. How we doing? All right. Maybe this is easier. A lot on our agenda today. Yes. This is hopefully
a little easier to digest than some of the things I've been watching. Uh you got it. So there's hopefully if everyone has a copy I think the easiest place to start is just looking at what our current org chart is, organizational chart at the
highway department and what the proposed one is. Okay. Um what we're talking about here is is just it's kind of shuffling the puzzle pieces basically. You know in the past we've had an assistant engineer, we've had an engineering supervisor. We've gone away
from that now and now I'm saying, "Hey, I think we need to bring it back." So why why is this why the constant shuffle? Um I I think really it's just in response to staffing changes to be honest. We went away from it when we had our old engineering supervisor leave and
we still had projects to deliver. So we didn't kind of have time to go through this and I felt that with the experience that we had on staff, we could pivot without it. So now I have one of my most experienced technicians leaving. And so is that model still going to work? Um I
don't I don't think it is just based on what we've seen in hiring, you know, getting talent up here. And so what I think I'm concerned about is if we bring in somebody new, not having that experience there to kind of leverage and help teach and not just teach, but you
know, I need someone to teach, you know, and to ask my staff, ask a coworker to really have them be a teacher isn't fair. Um, I think the other thing too is really setting it up like every other department at the high or every other division at the highway department is.
We have a resident expert in plowing. I don't know how to plow. That's why I have a maintenance supervisor. Uh, you know, I don't know how to do the bills, but that's why I have an accountant. So, similarly, you know, here you might say, well, engineering, what do you mean? That's my job. Um, it used to be, now
it's different. Now, it's emails and meetings and me coming here. Uh but no but really it's no different than you know my technician's daytoday is you know uh putting plans together in CAD. I don't know how to do that anymore. I can't I can't help them do that at a high level. Sure we can deliver the
project. Um but as far as that and so I think that's what is going to be missing. And so um that's what we're proposing here then is kind of going back to that supervisor role. uh the the biggest change from how it was before
uh is before the projects would funnel through the supervisor. So the supervisor would be the lead and then technicians would kind of pick up help here and there. Um I think that's where it failed before. I think it should be the other way around where you have technicians leading their individual
projects, still being responsible for their own projects like we do now, but then that supervisor is there to help you know. Oh, I need help. uh how do we format, you know, the drawings? Um you know, what line weights do we use? Um what are standard templates? Where do I go get them? That type of stuff. And so
I think before it created a bottleneck where everything was kind of stuck on one person versus now you still have work being done by multiple people and then somebody there who lives and breathes it. No different than our plow truck drivers in the maintenance side, but somebody who lives and breathes it
can provide that immediate technical expertise. So, um, yeah. Does anybody have any questions about that? Thank you. Um, oh, one last thing. This isn't adding a person.
Make that crystal clear. We're not Okay. Um, well, I was just, you know, clearly this has gone through HR and it's been graded through Yep. DDA. DDA. Yep. Okay. um uh had had the idea of like engineering
technician two. So we do that. Okay. So we did that already. Yeah. So we already have we have a one and then we have a two. So right now I have a technician one and I have a technician two. Um so yeah we already do that. Okay. So we already have that tier. But what you're saying is we still need right we don't
need three twos. We need or we don't need four twos. We need a supervisor. It's the And it And again, it's no different looking at it like how we have maintenance set up or anything like that where you have that kind of two. Exactly.
I like the idea of consistency throughout all aspects of the department. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you're going to know best how the department needs to be structured. And so, I'm really leaning on what you're seeing and and and
hearing in the department. Um, I I don't have a problem in shifting structures as long as it's it's how you see things working best. Um, and um, and frankly, if we do this and you come back and say,
you know what, I'd be okay with that, too. I just think it's important to respond to what you're seeing in your department and, you know, trying to use our judgment. We don't want to go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, but I appreciate you coming back and forth uh to to go through this
because uh it's I think that's to our advantage. Sure. So, I have a question. So, back in the day, like you were pushing before, we had an assistant county engineer, right? Right. Was that this role? No. So, an assistant would be more involved. I in my opinion, we don't
need an I don't need an assistant. Um that person would help with planning. They would be involved with consultants. So they'd just be a backup to me. Yeah. Which I don't in my opin I don't need that. I think what I you know and if you look at you stop that with the superintendent but we kind of got rid of
that and then merged or kind of I I where I'm going with that is is I don't need I don't need a number two. You know what I mean? I don't need that. I need somebody that is like well yeah kind of like the superintendent. You live and breathe maintenance. All I need you to
do is that you know uh you know Lisa lives and breathes accounting. You know Tia lives and breathes the egg side of things. So here same thing is it's just solely focused on our department's ability to deliver in-house designs that type of thing. So I don't need help with
consultants. I don't need help putting together like our plan or grant writing or anything. You know that part I'm good on. Um it's mainly the technician side of things being an expert for them as we deliver in-house projects. Um, and then also somebody too that can during the
construction season be able to hop around to all the projects and help you know if the technicians need help there too. So that's kind of the other piece too. And when I was looking at it of you know project delivery you remember a while ago we were talking and I kind of made a bar graph and it showed projects
delivered throughout history whatever since like 08 or something and it was always 1111 you know and now recently we've been doing three or four which is great. Um, and so I don't even even going to this where you're technically losing a technician. I don't think we're going to
be a I don't think that'll change. I think we'll still sit on three or four projects cuz now like we had talked about with like a tech two, you know, they're still in charge of their projects and so they'll have one or two projects that they're responsible for. So I still think delivering three or
four projects is is feasible. Um, very feasible. Um, and so I don't think that'll be affected at all. So it's different than an assistant. Yes, in that regard. And will this person also be assigned projects or Nope. They're there. They're there like
I said to lend that expertise as things are being drafted. Um similarly, you know, if there's like some some plan sheets that need help on on project, you know, they'll be there for that. They're not going to be the main uh the main driver on that project. They're there to help and lend that expertise. and then
similarly flit around to the projects and make sure we have you know all the documents in place. I think also create a standard uh we don't have one. Everybody kind of has an opinion which is fine and it's so far it's worked uh on on how best to organize and you know
get all our documents in place and where they should be. Even as something we were talking this morning as simple as here's a template for how we put plans together. It doesn't exist. Um you know it's up here. And so that's where I think developing that stuff, especially as we talk about now having to hire a
technician uh this fall, the Scott's retirement, um you know, getting them off uh onto a really good foot. So stuff like that. Yeah. Okay. Commissioner Gamble. Yeah. So um have you have you found in discussion
with your peers how they tackle Yes. this and um I would say when you when you do an analysis department analysis and you're looking at how can we do things better how can we structurally set ourselves up for uniformity and
efficient use of personnel and and when you have change in personnel especially when it's long-standing personnel a lot of times you'll step back and you'll do an evaluation you have an opportunity to do an evaluation to determine how can we be more efficient How can we create, you know, what we
want to create to be more effective in what we need to do? Sometimes leaders, managers, uh, don't like to enter that conversation because they're just sort of comfortable where things are. I think it's always healthy to do when you have
change, you can step back and take a look at it. Doesn't mean you're going to change because you want to change. It just means that that the analysis tells you this is the direction you should go, right? Um, I think coming in if you if you looked at you talk with your peers,
you know what your lived experience has told you and you look at your personnel and you look at some of the vulnerabilities that come with change, then you say, "This might be a better model for us." Um, all of that can make sense on paper until it comes down to
the dollar amount. Right. I'm happy you asked that. And and then the dollar amount is is is the catch. It says it sounds like it's well reasoned. it sounds right, you know, whatever else, but but that that dollar amount is is still a catch and we need to see that
the well reasoning of the presentation uh justifies that. Right. So to the first point you had mentioned about uh talking to my peers is yeah so basically everybody I talk to has some form of what you're seeing in the proposed chart
where it's county engineer and then whether it's an assistant a supervisor a lead tech something but there's somebody there and then you have the technicians and so that's that that's the big yeah and I'll just throw this in too in your response here the thought I had is that
uh while back we had a lot of middle managers Right? And then when dollars got tight, we had to cut out the middle managers. We had to find more efficient ways of doing things because we found that they weren't necessary. When money was flush, it was hey, great. But so
when we're looking at and especially in a small community, you know, Tina's question of will they do any projects, right? Can we afford to have somebody that doesn't, you know, get their fingers dirty, just simply coordinates people that do. So, right, those are just thoughts and that Yeah. And maybe
that's a a gross oversimplification to say they don't have projects. I mean, they would have four projects or three projects, but they're just not the one that's out there. So, the setup that we have is still the same. Tech one, tech two. Technicians are still responsible
for their projects, but there's that person there now that is cuz, you know, we and we've talked about this. My dayto-day is very, very different than our truck driver's dayto-day is very different than our technicians dayto-day. And so there's a big gap there between, you know what I mean? And
so you can look at maintenance for example and we have kind of space in between there. You have people there. I communicate with the superintendent. He, you know, updates me, I update him, communication happens. So I think having that gap with the technicians right now, and I'm already seeing it a little bit,
there's some projects we're we're falling behind on that we're doing in house because of kind of this lack of experience. Um, and so we'll be fine, but it But, you know, so already that cuz that that'll get into well something I'll talk about in a minute. But now as far
as dollars and cents, good question. Um, so we proposed it in our 26 budget already. I think you all have it memorized, right? So to go to step up to a supervisor, uh, it'd be an additional I think it was like $10,000, something like that. So if you look at our entire
budget of 2.9 million at least in 2025 that is very I can't do the math in my head at the moment but the percentage on that is very very low. Um you know I know you know even if we and something I'll I'll phase into right now too is
talking about um out of class work for one of my current technicians to try and I'm a little behind the eightball on this one. things are happening faster than we can do government which is fine. Um but is but is an out of class appointment which was very
common actually when we were between engineers years ago and so there was and then I think when our maintenance supervisor was sick and so Lisa has gotten out of class work old um supervisors or technicians have gotten out of class work that type of thing where they just take on more
responsibilities for a short term and then there's an ability not to rewrite a whole job description but to just look at it and say well let's bump you up a little bit because you're doing more right now. And so that's something next week assuming this conversation seems to be going well. Um but we'll bring not
just this job description but then also something um I would like to propose out of class work for one of my technicians right now who's already kind of doing this teaching learning exercise um with with another one of our techs and it it's beyond asking hey I need help uh
can you just quick show me a line work thing you know this is more um this is this is more of the role of somebody who's supervising who's spending a lot of time you know it's not your coworker asking you a question. Um it's beyond that. I think it would be interesting
and it's kind of an exercise I did when I was in IT, but when you looked at um standardization documentation having some of those things, there's a it's hard to quantify what the cost savings can be, but those certainly can
contribute to cost savings, right? and can um make make it uh so with the same staff through standardization or you know clear stuff like that that you can actually do even more work with the same amount of staff right and ultimately
you're cutting your cost that way. So it would be interesting to see I you mentioned it as something like yeah we don't have the stuff written down or we have these templates or whatever it is right that if that's actually a focused amount of work that this person would
take on that certainly can be part of your business case right right as you know this is looking to the future so that we can become more efficient more effective do more work with the same amount of staff is a way to also look at that Right. No, that's a good point. I
think another lens too would be just project delivery. So, as I mentioned, you know, right now there's a couple going on that, you know, are kind of at risk. Um, and so that kind of that affects my end of things when I secure grant funding and that needs to happen. So, 2026 construction needs to happen.
And now, if we don't get that, do we lose $1.5 million? You know, which is huge. And so, you know, so there's kind of that end of it too that I stare at where I'm like, "Yeah, thanks, Commissioner G." Thank you, Madam Chair.
Um I I would say that um the evidencebased um when we're coming in and we've, you know, we have so many presentations that that come to people that are looking for dollars, right? and you're looking for everything you can to to the extent that
the substance exists in the asks. You know, to your point, you can you can talk to somebody. I'll I'll use the example of of the uh human resource. So, we want somebody else in human resource and I'm saying we're we're hiring. We
just seem to be hiring hiring and creating positions. And so when I survey and I talk to other counties say how how many staff and I can go through and I can see how many staff they have and then I talk to the human resource director and ask them what's it like and they said well I can't imagine it doing
you know it on my own given everything that there is right we've got some problems because we have turnover if we didn't have as much turnover as we have that would alleviate and create time to create culture so when we talk about it we talk about we need to realize where
does culture get reinforced forced and so those things that are intangibles that are assumptions but in people's reality when you talk to what their experience was making the change or having the additional then that has to
reinforce the the common sense you know reasonleness of moving that direction. So from my standpoint, I I just I like to see the the well-informed that brings substance for us as decision
makers to help us make an informed decision. Right. So So we aren't reacting because we like you, right? Because we Because we do. That's right. Yeah. It you know I don't always. Yeah. You know you call me on the weekend. You
like me fine. I'm just kidding. Yes. But anyway, so you know, I I just, you know, if if you've done your homework and and you've been informed both by what your experience is, what you look the possibilities can be and you whatever
because a lot of things that have been told, we said it's going to be beneficial and da da da and it hasn't worked out and the accountability isn't there. So I say we make informed decisions, we measure it and we show that it's evidence-based and we
celebrate when we're doing it right and we don't we make the adjustments, right? It's a matter of stewardship. So no, that makes sense. And when I've talked to not just my counterparts, obviously you can imagine like St. Louis County's public works department is completely different than ours, right? They have an
entire bridge division like that different animals. So when I talk to and we've talked about this a lot, comparables with smaller counties, um you know, we're fifth fifth, sixth smallest in the state population wise, 13th largest geographically. Yeah. Changed since the last time. That's right. Um but that's one that I like to
compare to is all right, I'm going to talk to my counterparts in that bottom 10. Yeah. How do you do it? And so that's what I've heard. Whether it's they have three technicians on staff or five, there is always some type of intermediary in between there. And so that's where I felt more confident about
it, too. like I mean you have the history here obviously we've had an assistant we've done a variation of this in the past um but just I think that that comparable to the other you know Lake of the Woods or smaller counties and knowing that that's how they're set
up as well that helps a lot too and I think to Commissioner Mill's point that if this is the best informed decision at this point but we find out through the experience they say maybe we need to go back we leave room for that we just we're just we just want to be current in
our evaluation and obviously see it in a long-term context, right? But evaluate where we're at. I'd like to see that departmentally overall. I'd like to see and and present it as a challenge. How can we be better at what we do? Absolutely. No, that makes sense. Last
last fun bit. Sorry. Last bit of of everyone likes numbers and statistics. There you go. Um so I know so if everything went forward hunky dory and that was great. Um, and we did uh an out ofclass appointment and then you know even the supervisor thing you know how
does this impact our 2025 budget current numbers um and so I figured it was about it be about $5,000 impact for a 25 budget. So that is 0.17% of my budget which is nothing. Uh but we typically
operate at about 98% uh of what you know when we do a levy you know uh budget every year we operate at about 98% of that. So that's what we get reimbursed. So generally speaking we would be even with this change um very well within I
guess the realm of of of what we had budgeted. So just as a a heads up there. So good. Thank you. So we have the info. Yes. We'll see you next week. Next week. Absolutely. You have any more questions or comments be ready. Absolutely. All right. Thank you all. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Bob Thompson, are you in the wings? I am. Okay. An update on the chief bluff master. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't really have an update. I'm actually here to ask the board if there's any information that they'd like me to
bring. And uh I am also bringing a little bit of information about a a tax forfeit parcel that we currently own. a couple of tax forfeit parcels actually that we currently own um in conversations with Reena and uh Commissioner Gamble. I had mentioned that you know I know that there's this
fundraising effort out there but other than that the county uh doesn't have any other plan. Um so I had looked through some of the tax forfeoot parcels and I'm going to make a suggestion or a recommend or not a recommendation but just kind of provide a couple of examples of of tax foroot parcels that
potentially chief would be interested in. So, you know, first of all, I'm I'm wondering, you know, I know the last committee, the whole meeting, um there was some slides that went were gone through of the maps that I had created of the bluff, the private property that, you know, falls within that bluff area,
uh as I defined it and just had some additional information on those slides. I don't know if there was any questions that I can try and answer. I do have a longer version and, you know, created a couple of other maps that I've provided to the commissioners or a couple of the commissioners now. um regarding that
that privately owned undeveloped land that would fall in what we consider the Bluff Hillside and actually you know there was what 200 acres 220 acres of private land and only 40 of those acres are developed that's five different parcels with homes on them. So you know
when we talk about we want to preserve the bluff and the aesthetic and and all those other good things um it's not just the sheath parcel that we should be considering. So, you know what I have here today and I printed one for each of you. We have two tax forfeit parcels up
on West Bear Skin. I bet suppose I could just hand the whole stack. Um, yep. There should be extras. So, it's two different parcels on West Bearskin. They're both tax forfeited. Um, one is 100T of shoreline, about a
half acre in size. Another is 192 ft of shoreline, 2 acres in size. Um, I've got our assessed values listed on there. The two of these combined assessed values is near what uh Mr. Chief had proposed for a sale price. Um, the very first one,
the one on top, uh, is close to what Chief's Parcel has assessed for 2025. So, you know, do with it what you want, but I think that, you know, I don't know how the fundraising efforts are going, and that's also something I was kind of curious about if there's, you know, a dollar amount that's been achieved or
not. But um if if that fundraising effort doesn't come to fruition, the county should maybe consider having some kind of a backup plan. And I'm I'm really asking the commissioners how they want to proceed. I I'm not driving this
conversation. I want to make that clear. Commissioner Gamble. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Appreciate your your you know work work on this. uh when the motion was made, the motion was it it it seemed pretty evident.
Commissioner Stley wasn't present at that meeting that uh the board wanted to go this direction. I think uh the one hesitation commissioner bills was just you know an evaluation to find out if that price is right but uh given the
timeline that we've been looking at this number of years and uh not really moving forward felt that if that's a consensus of the board then let's at least make that commitment understanding that it's not going to be tax dollars that are going to fund this purchase but if
people that want this want to put their money where their mouth is then we do that. So the day after the motion then brought to the together this group uh and um we've had discussions our our intent as an umbrella statement is that
however we could do this however we could do this with the intent of you know getting that property. We've looked at at grants. We've looked at partnerships with conservation organizations and much of our discussion
has been identifying who we contact, what's the timeline, what's the criteria are we have, do we have shared values that would ensure that maybe those dollars would be available given the nature of what we're trying to do here. Um so it's been an evaluation process
encumbered by a short timeline and um when uh there was a discussion in in the uh the housing authority at the board which commissioner you know Sullivan and I sit on about these tax forfeited acres
then I thought well maybe if it's tax forfeited maybe it's something that might be attractive this is just exploring another another mechanism that may or may not. There's been no discussion with Mr. Sheie relative to
this. This has simply been, you know, exploring and and trying to come alongside individuals as a county to help how we can. Um, and so I I appreciate it. I guess what it
would be, we have a meeting Thursday and um there'll be further discussion and there'll be reports back on timelines, things relative to grant opportunities that we have. And as far as the marketing thing, we've been
looking at um organizations we might partnership because we're not a 501c3. So, like I say, just a lot of identifying the issues, having the discussion, taking the pieces of the puzzle and see how they fit. That's sort of where we're at. And I don't and could
contribute, you know, beyond that. But yeah, I can just say that the the biggest issue is um there was discussion about becoming a 501c3, preserve the bluff group, but it's taking a year to be able to get that
status. And so there's a huge time crunches as Commissioner Gamble referred to in finding a group that is a 501c3 that might be able to apply for grants or be a pass through on behalf of this
group. Um but so there are zero dollars raised. Um there has been no campaign. Um we've created some documents to get ready to do that if that's the the desire of the group. But what I see these parcels um
that you've shared with us as being is um a backup, another option because we're not just looking at 80 acres by December 1st. We're looking at over 200 acres over time. And so there may be a
way that we as a county can make an agreement with Mr. Chief and then look at additional parcels by this other group. um you know and and we'll see if um I was just checking my email to actually see if we are meeting because
the community center is closed on Thursday because Junth sometimes we go to the Y but so anyway we're we're trying to find out if that meeting will be held or not but um anyway we will be meeting soon and this
information is is just one more thing to kind of throw in the mix. Madam Chair, if I could just add to that that at this point when you something is it starts out and it seems to be rather focused, but then it it gets bigger and
and and this is so that there's been active uh participation and efforts made to gather the information and to look at all the things that that affect this. I think uh from my perspective going into
this is that what we claim and what we say we want to accomplish um we need to step back and take a look at it in a bigger perspective than just that 80 acres. And I think that's the other thing that's added another element of evaluation.
And from a marketing campaign standpoint, whatever you're going to say, you need to back that up with an integrity so that it's not claiming something you can't deliver because it's only 80 acres. But if you can show what that land exists right now, what's the
feasibility of actually accomplishing what your objective is? And um you have to look at that in the context of other things that are on the on the table that are being considered for that area, too. Because if what you say my objective is and somebody buys in and gives you money
and then they find out this happened, they say, "Well, wait a minute." So, I'm just saying we're weighing a lot of different issues. But I appreciate the mindfulness and and the other things that we can add to the conversation.
my understanding the the day after, you know, the motion was made and and suggesting to Amy that we look at this, she said, "I have 2,000 and potentially 4,000, you know, right now." So, it's just that we haven't made the ask
because we want to position before we make the ask. So, we're not backtracking. Thank you. Um, and Madam Chair, I do want to just a point of clarification. We we there was discussion of a swap of a land swap when um Mr. Chief came in
with Tyson Smith. Uh he said that it's kind of off the table just because of the the the amount of time it takes to do that. He said he's been through a few of those. Um you know, I guess I don't know if if Mr. Chief would reconsider that or, you know, if a proposal would be necessary or I mean obviously they're
going to become aware of the conversation we've had. Yeah. Um, but I, you know, in talking with some of the other land commissioners because of the Tyler settlement and the tax forfeite, changing the way that they're, they're, you know, it's now more of a foreclosure, a tax foreclosure where
only the debt is being recovered by the county and the rest goes back to interested parties in the property. That's, you know, the new bucket. But there is the the the older bucket of forefeiters that occurred prior to the forefeiter period. Uh, the the class action period was a six-year window. and
the forefeertures, I'm told that happened prior to that that are being requested for sale because everything goes through the DNR. Uh the DNR, the state of Minnesota retains all mineral interests um before they convey those titles. But from what I've been told,
those are those are happening quicker. Um, so anything where the county is requesting the state um issue a deed to somebody, whether we sell it or swap it, uh, the state has to go through a checklist of of all these things. You know, is it adjacent to a state park? Is
it in a county with a state park? There's a lot of things. Um, Lakeshore always has to be reviewed by the DNR and approved and it goes into a lands bill. So that's why these things take a lot of time. um if if there was approval by the DNR, it wouldn't happen until next
legislative session that they would that they would do that. It it those kinds of things are pieces that people that have good intent uh don't realize, oh my goodness, this is this is a lot of things we got to look at. But again, uh
to build integrity, especially with people that give significant dollars or whatever or organizations that form partnerships and conservation things, you want to demonstrate that that you've crossed your tees and dotted your eyes.
And so any of that is kind of thing we're researching now to understand what's timeline. If it if it's if we apply as a charitable organization, we can do that. If we get an, you know, employee identification number, we can
do that just like this. If we want to go tax exempt 501c3, we have to go through that process. I just did it with our daughter's foundation. And so I know the timeline. There's monies involved and whatever. If anything relative just to the paperwork, the approval, the
assessments, all of those kind of things, those are things that have to be identified, timeline set to, processes set to them to inform a decision as to where we go. Well, maybe next month after you have your meeting this week or whenever by
July, then that's a six-month window. It's it's getting narrow. It's crazy. That's why he said you got to jump on it because it's unbelievable how much time it takes to do stuff. Yeah. And I' I'd like nothing more than to have this issue resolved. I mean, it's been like you say 10 over 10 years. The other the
other element of it is if if we with confidence through the research and the time invested in this feel that the likelihood of something happening in partnership, then I think at least we come with substance in the discussion
with Mr. chief and his representation as opposed to just throwing something out there that we we really don't all we're saying is something but we don't know anything about it. But if we say we've got in good faith commitments, it just we need this timeline. I think I think
the reasonleness would be there, but we need to do our homework to understand that position of strength. Commissioner Mill. Yeah, I was I was just going to ask that we directly ask Mr. Sheath if he is interested because these two parcels in particular seem uh
exceptionally um valuable I would say. Um and and there might be appetite there despite the timeline and that could be a dare I say easier but it maybe it's a
faster easier approach. I don't I don't know, but the state will be involved certainly, but um but it's just a process and checking the boxes versus raising that money seems like a pretty pretty pretty difficult ask. um at
setting up the yeah setting up the the organization or having a fiscal agent and just all of that and then um how decisions are made and yeah I I would think and I understand his hesitency with just the processes he's he's been in but I would I would think that these
would be appealing to him in in our discussion we said boy this would be this would be great but it but to the committee in the discussion and the intent with all of the things that involved the area that we're talking about the
thousand some acres it that that bigger picture is is there's still a bigger picture to work but this might be the one element that gets that done but like I say it's it's sort of like hurting cats
it's it just you got to Well, I want to pick one cat and go for it. No, no, I I understand. I I would agree with that. We're only skinning one cult. So, do you have anything else, Bob? The the only thing I will close out in saying, and you know, we don't want to
go down this rabbit hole today with the valuation. I you know, when it when it comes to the fundraising and outside sources, you know, I I can step back and say, well, you know what, it's not taxpayer dollars. I I don't have an interest in that. Uh I don't have a say in that. When when it talks about
swapping taxpayer, I mean, this is owned by the public. Yeah. um we really have to pay attention to value and conveniently the one parcel is similar to what the assessed value so you know in assessment they're apples to apples on one but in what Mr. chief is asking.
It takes both parcels to get there. And we have a a couple of 80 acre parcels coming up at our board of appeal and equalization meeting tonight. One of them is valued at 400,000. So, uh the information that's brought forward tonight might shed some light on the 40 or the 80 acres that's for that's
available by Mr. Chief. So, but yes, I think you know that's that's the reason why these two were kind of selected is based off of their assessed value and what Mr. Chief said he would accept for the property. Okay. Okay, thank you. Thank you guys. We'll see you in a few hours. We're not done
yet. It's not on the agenda, but Commissioner Sullivan uh would like to briefly um explain what happened at the U airport um request as the meeting last night. So, at last night's airport advisory
commission, um Gary Latz, who is the program director for the Heights apartment building, came forward with um a representative of Ideal Homes, and made a request to the airport commission
to stage the modules, the 36 units on the upper airport property. We have no authority to make that decision. That is an FAA decision. The FAA from the time letters are submitted has 45 days to respond, which
is just about the exact date that these need to be put on that property. Um, originally the airport was um approached last March with this, but then it was taken off the table because it was believed that Tachite Harbor
would be the staging area for all of this. the road into Tachinite Harbor will not support the weight of these units. They would have to rebuild that road. So they came to the airport commission and last night and the
airport advisory commission unanimously approved supporting their request to the FAA. It is very unusual for the FAA to say yes to something like this. And so what they would like is for us to put on our
agenda at tomorrow's special meeting at the end and for the HR to put on their agenda for tomorrow adding a letter of support from the county board and from the HA to stage these units on the uh
lower airport property. So, I just um wanted to give you that little bit of background. So, when you see tomorrow's special meeting and there's an item added, you will understand that. What's it Did they say timeline as far as how
long that would um it I'm saying how long the the staging would be there before it's removed. Um it might be as short as six days. That's how tight a timeline we're looking at. They are could they just idle and not um
circle. But the reason for the staging of all the units together is because of security. Um to spread them out all over is just a nightmare. These units I've checked with engineer H who just left.
Um these units will not be brought over the temporary bridge over the Devil Track River. They're too wide. They will be coming up, believe it or not, county road 7 to county road six and up six and they may not be moved on that road on a
rainy day. Um it's really tricky but we've looked at the weight restrictions, the width, the length with the truck, the trailer, the units parts of six that are so steep. Yes. And so I mean so we talked to Robbie about
that. we talked about where there's spotted napweed control on the airport property because we can't destroy that. So, it's why there's this little spot in the upper air or lower airport property, the northeast corner, where they could
actually go and fit and easily be moved and craned out of there as well. So, if the FAA doesn't approve this, we have no request. There's no there's no other options. All we're doing is providing an opportunity for the FAA to say yes. And
the feeling is if there are more letters of support, it is more likely that they will say yes. And you're saying the staging, in other words, when it's brought in and set, they they will be there for how many days? Maybe only six days. That's craziness. And because of
the weight, it's not like you can talk, but they bring them up like one unit at a time. Yeah. Yeah. And then they keep adding to them and they're put in a particular order so the cranes can come in and offload them and then take them
to the site. Can't they stage it so that they come in that particular order when they're delivered? I mean, I'm sure they must have thought this. Let's just say from when they get transported, bring them in on a timetable so that they're coming in. One would think they would have thought some of this.
I think they're good at this. They're very good at this. And this is not their first rodeo. No, I meant they are willing to um pay the airport advisory commission $5,000 to stage there. Um and that is actually a really good amount of
money. Um I happened to drive by Miller Hill Mall last year and saw Ideal Homes staging for a modular project they were doing there. And I called Miller Hill Mall. They only got $7,000 for a period of three months. So this is
a really good deal. Maybe they should look at the hub. That would be a funding mechanism, you know. So anyway, um it also is funding that for the airport helps to provide that match that they need for the master plan for any projects that are coming up. You know,
there not lots of ways for the airport to earn income. No. So um anyway, I just wanted to give you that background information prior to tomorrow. So are you drafting a letter with the letter that's coming from HR will that be
drafted by H and then we draft a separate one the lang so there there is a letter I'll bring to you tomorrow that already is from ideal homes and one from the um airport advisory commission. I offered Commissioner Stoley in an email
last night um to say I'm happy to write something for the board if you would like me to do that. And then uh Jeff Brand I emailed him and asked if he would write a letter for the board because it's their project. Yeah. Okay. We'll look forward to that
tomorrow. Commissioner Mills. Yeah. I just was wondering if you've also looked at the water tower area. Um I know there's restrictions there because it's a runaway truck. uh ramp. Um run them down the ramp and then uh but but there
is a a good amount of space back in there. Um and then also um local farmers. Um the only thing about that I was thinking was fields because if you come in on seven there it just the weight of it. That's what I was thinking. But they they have looked at everything in county and the two
identified sites that were large enough were Takenite Harbor and the airport. A floating barge. We could uh Portage parking lot. Yeah. So we'll hopefully the that will be approved. So we'll look. So they deliver them to
the airport and then one by one they they come back up and get them and haul them to the back down six. Yeah. Those heavy things going down that steep road that doesn't that they are might want to stay off six. It was it was described last night when when that same question
came up um from one of the airport commissioners and they said uh they are very well wrapped. They are very well tied and chained down and nothing is going to cause them to go, you know, off the truck. So, I'm I'm wondering maybe
this is not even appropriate, but I'm just wondering if there were any locations in Lake County that maybe they could have used. That'd be a far piece to come. Well, no, because they're coming toward Lake County. They they do them there. I can't
answer that question. No, but do you know what I'm saying? like they could have like state should have a backup if thea just says no but anyway we have to turn this in they it has to be there Friday morning
for there to be a 45day timeline for the response we can do that do that sure can do that we'll discuss tomorrow briefly okay there be that doesn't work and you wait until the end of the 45 years but
they should have a backup plan 10 my risk management said like radar is going off in a big way right now for them. I mean, I don't get off my nose, but if if the 45 days is up and that's why they brought it forward last, but let's say
it's not approved, right? And then the stuff arrives and there's no place else to put it. I mean, they should have back up to the backup, right? We have the toy airport potential land. It's just a matter of getting there, but it's
very flat. Interesting. Well, one thing at a time. One thing at a time. Okay. Okay. Being no further business, we are journey. No, at this point it is. It's not that light goes. Oh, I guess we're done, huh?
Reena stood