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There's a tree being taken down across the street. I watch. >> Good morning everyone. I'll be calling the committee of the work uh session uh to order today on Tuesday, April 21st at about 10:38. On our agenda, we have the minutes for

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the previous meeting of our committee of the whole work session which we had on March 17th. And then the agenda for today is a presentation by the extension and uh county partnership and updates and impact. And then uh community center

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facility usage and use survey. And then for information, we do have uh a look at Kovville and Hovind Town Halls, the 2025 usage and financial update there. And also in our packet we have the minutes

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of the standing committees information only from the airport advisory commission the budget and facility advisory committee which did not meet um and then we have the highway advisory um committee also from March 19th. So I

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will open our discussion with um our extension update and uh impact. Good morning Carrie. >> Excellent. Thank you very much Commissioner Stoley. Um we are here today to share a little bit about our partnership and we think some of the

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successes of our work together um as well as to answer any questions you have. Um and I I wanted to make sure my name is Carrie Cavitt. I'm the regional director with extension and u maybe we can just do quick introductions and I can start us off. >> Yeah, sure. Hi everybody. My name is

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Sarah Wadd and I work as the local extension educator and community center director. and I'm Sharon Robin Bash and I thank you to the commissioners for appointing me to the Cook County um extension

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committee. It's a delight to be a part of it. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Well, thank you for uh allowing us to come and share some updates with you. Um uh we've also u been sharing some updates with our new administrator and I

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believe she's been sharing regular updates with you as well as kind of a new effort to try to uh figure out a best way to keep you informed throughout the year because there is a lot of work that happens throughout the year though I think we've uh we would like to traditionally in the future be here at

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least once a year to just share some updates with you. So our inaugural kickoff of that is today. Um, so I I know most of you are aware of extension, but we'll do a short introduction of extension. We'll talk today about our impact of extension here in Cook County

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in 2025. And then we also want to dive a little deeper on some of the more um more projects that have been multi-year and share with you some of the ripple effects and the deep impact work that's happened here. Our goal today is really

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just to build a shared understanding about this partnership that we have with you. So, um there's uh extension's mission uh really trying to and all of us are very mission focused trying to make a

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difference by connecting community needs um with resources the university um science-based uh needs that address critical issues here in Cook County. Um and then our partnership with the University of Minnesota is uh and Cook

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County is governed by a state statute. Um and uh we do have a local commu community committee that Sharon sits on as well as five other community members here throughout your county. Um and two commissioners, Commissioner Sorley and

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Commissioner Gamble, as well as um Brady, our auditor um or appointee. And so I think many times we've had um Adriana Adriana um come to those minis as the appointee of the auditor.

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Um so just real quick our approach um so I always like to talk about well how do we do our work and these are really important pillars of our work. We're really um what we're doing here is designing and delivering relevant programs. We always say we can have the best program and the best written

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curriculum, but if it makes no sense in the community or for a group that we're working with, it really doesn't uh it doesn't work well. So, we have um different ways of making sure that we are um doing work that's relevant and um

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important and impactful within the communities of service. And one of the best ways we do that and get feedback on that is through our county extension committee. That's why it's so important to have those voices of local community members, commissioners, and the auditor

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sitting on that. Um, we also offer unbiased researchbased resources to community members throughout your county and throughout the state. And then we also provide technical assistance. And what that means to us is that kind of one-on-one contact with community

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members, whether going out to their orchard or their maple syrup um forest or um meeting them with their questions in the extension office about the bugs on their plants and what to do about them. Um how we build or sorry how we

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work together is building relationships um communicating and connecting with people really understanding what the challenges and obstacles are to really make a good resource connection with some of the uh contacts and resources

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that we have. Um, one of the really important pillars of our philosophy of service is working with people, not doing upon or for people. Um, again, that goes back to our um, importance of those relationships,

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understanding what needs are and working well with community members. Um, and then also we really believe that there's a two-way learning process um, here. Yes, we have resources that are science-based and um and researchbased.

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However, um it's it's really important for us to always acknowledge that there are skills and resource and learned lived experiences that are critical for us to best understand of the assets that are within your community. And so that

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is definitely a both way of resource sharing and learning. And then also our um pillars of philosophy of service is collaborating with local partners. Every year in extension we have a survey of partnerships which we ask our local

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educators as well as regional state educators that have worked with your community to share with us who they have worked in partnership with whether they be other nonprofit organizations within your community, government entities, etc. It's really important for us to um

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be working again with um and not um fighting for the same limited resources. Um so within extension there are four um main departments and here with your local educator and your investments um

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with your levy dollars supported in Sarah's role. She actually is um working within two different departments. the agriculture natural resources systems team as well as our family health and well-being team. And um you also have

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access and have had um regional and state educators supporting work here in Cook County um from the other two um departments as well as people uh colleagues of Sarah's um that are state and regional educators that have come up

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and helped support her work in those two departments. but additionally community development and then youth development. There are resources that are available for community members um via um via online supports.

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>> Great. Thanks for the context and starting us out. This diagram that's showing now is a uh one that I put together to help illustrate uh how extension does its work. So, kind of building off of some of what Krie was just explaining, those arrows that are

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pointing both directions are meant to show that um information and input is flowing uh both ways from the community back to the university and from the university to the community. Those uh green circles showing different titles of regional and statewide educators are

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just some examples of the specialized roles that there are people in throughout extension who can support our local programming. and I get information from our community about um topics that they are interested in getting education

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on and then I can work with those regional and statewide educators to bring university researchbased um information to our local community with of course the ultimate goal being community impact and bringing useful and

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practical change to people's lives. I developed this model, this diagram specifically showing those educators in the um agriculture and natural resources department, but I'll note that there's similar um you know depth of expertise

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and knowledge in the family health and well-being department that that are supporting us as well. So now I'm going to share some of the uh things that we did in 2025 and their impacts on the local community. The first thing that I want to highlight are the educational

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programs and workshops that we held in 2025. Uh some of them are listed up on the screen and we had over 400 people participate locally in our programs in 2025. Um I highlight this to share that uh we

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have you know individuals who participate in person or online and then they learn information that they go off and use in their daily lives. Um, and people who attend these programs make changes to things like promoting, you know, wildlife habitat on their land or

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managing impacts of spruce budworm or maybe they start growing their own food for the first time. Um, and the impacts of those actions have public benefits beyond just the people who are are doing them. So if we have land owners who attend our workshops who then make their

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land more resilient to forest health impacts like spruce budworm that benefits the whole community by making the whole landscape more resilient to potential future wildfire outbreaks as one small example. We also besides educational programs.

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Yes, Commissioner Gamble. >> Madam Chair, just want to ask a question on that 410. Yeah. Um number and participants. Are those individuals or how many participants do we see that are >> That's a good question. I didn't divide it out by if somebody attended two

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workshops, they probably show up as two people. Um but we do cover a wide variety of different topics. So I would say we're drawing um different subsets of the community who have different interests in different topics. But um in a future year I could try to analyze the data to see who came to.

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>> I would say that sometimes the relational >> need or element people enjoy people that that have similar interests >> and and when you're looking for social outlet >> they whether they're interested in spruce budworm or not they show up

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because they're interested in you. I would say there are some extension super fans who come to lots of things, but there are also >> super today. >> But I also um am often surprised I I think in my role I meet and know a lot of people in the community and I'm constantly surprised by new people

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showing up to uh events and workshops who I haven't met or who have recently moved here. So yeah, >> I think >> just from an evidence-based programming standpoint >> that the more that we can translate um

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the opportunities we provide as evidence to the benefit and the investment of resource. >> So let's just say some of this is is difficult to translate in that context. But if you want to look in our partnership with the university and and

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what we from a budget standpoint, look at in that vest investment. If you were to take honest numbers relative to bringing an outside resource in to provide anformational seminar or do something and translate that into real

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dollars, you can see the return on our investment and and that the the financial component is a component aside from >> what we see because we see more people gardening or knowing how to prune their apple tree. But anyway,

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>> for sure. Thank you for that feedback. In addition to educational programs, we also manage several volunteer programs uh year-over-year. So, I'm going to share some information from 2025. The first that I'll highlight is the master gardener volunteer program. Uh people

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can sign up to become a master gardener volunteer. They take an extensive horiculture training course which they participate in online and then once they become certified as a volunteer they provide uh researchbased horiculture education in the community in a variety

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of ways uh both through you know answering people's questions one-on-one they might haveformational booths at community events they offer programs and classes themselves and in the last year in 2025 we had 14 volunteers in that program here in Cook County they

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provided close to 600 00 hours of volunteer service. We utilize the independent sector, which is a national organization that estimates the value of each volunteer hour uh for communities. And for Minnesota, they say that each volunteer hour is worth $34.79.

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So, we can see that the value of those volunteer hours is over $20,000 for the master gardener volunteer program last year. We also helped manage the Cook County Community Orchard, which is located next to the law enforcement center. Over last year, we held weekly volunteer events on

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Fridays throughout the growing season where anyone was welcome to come and learn about uh orchard care. We have a wide variety of fruits growing in the orchard. The purpose of the orchard is to be an educational demonstration place and community resource for people to learn about growing fruit in our climate

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and soils and also to share the fruit that's produced with community organizations such as local schools, the senior center, and the food shelf. We had uh 12 volunteers participate over the growing season last year and hosted over 20 events at the community orchard,

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including what's shown here is a picture of a pruning workshop we held in the winter. And the third volunteer program I want to highlight is the master naturalist volunteer program where people take a training course a little different than the master gardener one. For this, they

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take a a local training course and last year I offered that in person here in Cook County. I taught it alongside uh the naturalist from Sugarloaf Cove Nature Center. We had 12 uh volunteers take that eight-week course where they committed a full day a week to the class

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as well as some outside work in between. Uh we had 43 volunteers report service hours in Cook County in the Master Naturalist program in 2025, giving uh over 1,300 hours of service, which translates to over $50,000 in value to

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our community. Master naturalists do slightly different volunteer service than master gardeners. They work on things like volunteer water quality monitoring, shoreline restorations, invasive species removal, trail maintenance and care. Anything that you can imagine that connects to

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environmental stewardship um and betterment of natural resources, uh which of course has value to our whole community. As Krie mentioned, we also provide technical assistance. Uh so people can walk into our office and ask a question about anything related to extensions

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areas of service and we help that person out by providing them with information. Sometimes as simple as you know here's the answer to your question and sometimes as complicated as coming out to their house and helping them out with whatever it is that they were curious about. Over the last year this graph

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shows the percent of of questions that came in around different topics. So you can see that our most popular area for questions is horiculture. Most of those are around gardening, backyard gardening, uh food production, that sort of thing. And then the second most popular type of question was around

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natural resources. It's a little interesting, I think, to see how people contacted us. I think we have a a somewhat even split between people coming in in person and just wanting to talk to somebody right there and also calling us on the phone or connecting with me via email.

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>> How do you track it? Every time somebody talks to me, I write down in a spreadsheet what question they asked me, what the topic area was, what the answer was, that sort of thing. >> Yeah. >> Very good. >> We also provide public communication that reaches a wide array of community

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members. And in 2025, we continued offering the Northern Gardening Radio Show on WTIP, which airs once a month. It's an hour-long radio show that I select a topic for, line up guests, and write a script and host the show. um they archive those episodes on their

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website so people can listen to them in perpetuity which is a really nice resource. Um we like to feature local guests on the show and it's a really fun way to have people learn from their neighbors and friends about um all kinds of gardening topics. Everything from

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practical things like we just did a show on growing tomatoes um all the way to sort of gu curiosities like we did a show last year on uh historic gardens and had the national monument um on as well as the Fort William historical park historical garden manager on the show

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too. Each month I also produce the Cook County Extension newsletter which goes out to over 600 subscribers. It has a 60 to 70% open rate which is a very high um open rate for it newsletters. We highlight um both upcoming events as

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well as timely educational topics via that newsletter. It recently actually won a national award through the Association of Natural Resource Extension Professionals. Um this newsletter got the gold award for a blog or educational newsletter around the

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country which is pretty cool. question. Do you have demographic information on who's receiving your newsletter? >> I don't ask them for their demographic information when they sign up for the newsletter. And there's a variety of ways they can sign up. So, yeah. >> Be interesting to see

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>> who's signing up, >> who has the time and who has the interest. >> Yeah, for sure. >> So, I want to tell a couple of stories at the conclusion of the presentation here about some of our multi-year work and the impact that it's having over time. The reason that I want to share

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these stories is to highlight um how having this extension presence locally over a longer time period can have greater impact and benefit on the community when we're allowed to work on deeper um more long-term work that bears out impacts over time. So, I'll share

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two two stories. The first is about our efforts around spruce budworm education. Um, if you haven't heard about the spruce budroom outbreak at this point, I'm here to tell you about it. It's been going on for years. So, just a couple things to get us all

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on the same page or refresh your memory. Spruce breadworm, of course, is a native uh insect to our northern forests here. And it has population cycles of outbreaks, booms and busts over time. The current outbreak that we are in right now has been affecting St. Louis

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County, Lake County, and Cook County for the last several years. In 2024 alone, there were over 700,000 acres of spruce fur forests in our region that were defoliated or had mortality because of spruce budworm. And this defoliation can

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significantly increase near-term uh wildfire risks as well as can be compounded by other forest health stressors like droughts that we might be experiencing. So, this outbreak has significant impacts and is of great importance to our local community. on

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public lands. This is being addressed by, of course, our public agency partners, the National Forest Service and the DNR. Our focus in extension has been around private lands and educating private land owners about what they can do related to this. So, we started back

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in 2023 when this st first started um becoming um more of a thing here in Cook County as it moved up from Lake County. And we began by offering some public workshops. Sort of your classic hour, two hour, you know, here's what's going on. Here's what you can do about it. We had hundreds of people participate those

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first couple of years. Then we decided, you know, we've we've hit this sort of base level of education. Let's see what we can do to really provide a more in-depth and more impactful um impactful education in 2025. So last year we

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worked to produce a spruce budworm guide which is a printed publication that can live on and be accessed by people both online and in hard copy um for years to come. We worked for months creating this between myself and the regional forestry educator. It got reviewed by our DNR

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forest health partners and provides a really succinct way for land owners to access that important information about what's going on with this issue and what they can do about it. All the way from the scale of, you know, I've got a couple trees in my yard up to I have acres and acres of forest. This guide

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was downloaded or passed out over 700 times in 2025. Um, and we got a lot of positive feedback from people utilizing it. uh and they really like to have that go-to thing they can go back to and reference over time. The other thing we did in

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2025 that built upon those previous years was we offered a spruce budworm symposium, a full day conference in the fall last year that brought together a number of natural resource agency partners and researchers to synthesize, you know, all the research that we know

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about this issue and how we can address it locally. We sold out with uh 60 people attending that full day conference where we had breakout sessions in the morning. They could choose different topics they were interested in. And then we spent the afternoon on the ISD school bus going

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around to different uh sites where local land owners had been doing uh work to mitigate the impacts of spruce budworm on their land. And we got to have a great tour um to learn about some of those things. I wanted to share a couple

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of highlights from the feedback from the symposium. When asked what was most um what was the the best thing that that happened for people at the symposium, one person said, "Uh, knowing now that there is hope to restore my acorage to a healthy forest. I have extensive spruce

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budworm damage and now I feel more confident that I can do something about it." Another person said, "Meeting people who own land near me, meeting people that are knowledgeable about forest land management and learning about the resources that are available to me." In the evaluation survey after

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that event, 81% of the attendees reported that they felt significantly more confident about the next steps they could take in caring for their woodland than before attending the event. And I just want to highlight again that the the impact of educational efforts like

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this go beyond the the 60 people who showed up at that event. That if they go home, talk to their neighbors, put these practices into action, it has benefits um to our whole community uh in improving our forest health.

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>> Can you address the uh resources that inform this in putting together the brochure? I think you referenced it early on. Yeah, >> I would just say that your source for resource in informing and conducting these workshops and the best practices

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that have been tried and true through these resources bring. >> Yeah. So, of course, the university utilizes researchbased information and so uh both myself and the regional forest health educator Anastas read numerous publications and research

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studies. There's a lot more research on spruce budworm happening in Canada than the US because there's a lot more spruce fur forest just to the north of us. So we utilized a lot of that information as well as um input and feedback from other natural resource agencies in the state

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namely the department of natural resources. Their forest health researchers gave us uh input on these resources and reviewed our work as well. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Yeah. And here just highlights some of the partners who uh were present at the

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symposium or have worked with us on this programming over the last several years. And I just again want to highlight how much of a team effort this type of education is. Um and how by having this local position here, I'm able to be really embedded in all of these

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different groups and relationships to be able to bring an event like this to life. That's us looking at spruce budworm uh eggs on a branch at one of the local landowners sites when we were out in the field.

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The second longer, deeper work story I want to tell is about local food systems. Extension has been involved in promoting local food systems in Cook County since before I was in this role. And there's a lot of long-term work that has been bearing out in the last couple

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of years in really exciting ways. first to just give us a little grounding on why we have this focus on local food systems work in Cook County. Um, back in 2013, there was a a study that was released about the economic importance of local food systems in the takenite

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assistance area, which includes the Iron Range and the Northshore. In that study, they showed that at that time 0.5% of household and food service spending was being spent on locally produced food. So, very, very, very little. They also

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modeled out that if our region were to buy 20% of our food locally, it would generate $51 million in economic activity in our region. They modeled two different diet scenarios for our region. One they called the standard American

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diet or the SAD diet. The other they modeled was called the iron range healthy diet, which would be if we were to shift as a society our eating to include more fruits and vegetables and legumes and slightly less meat. In their model, they showed that they could produce we could we have the land and

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suitable land in our region to produce 100% of the range healthy diet to feed our local community and that if we were to do so, it would generate large um economic activity in our region as well as um jobs. So, that's a little bit of a

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background on where some of this local food system focus comes from. There's also a lot of benefits to local uh food systems including providing people with fresh and seasonal inseason food. You know, that has higher nutrient values because it spent less time, you know,

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sitting on a truck getting here from very very far away. And then of course those benefits to our local economy and the intangible things like community pride and connection between consumers and local growers. That's a photo of some kids at the farmers market who are

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utilizing the power of produce club to get fresh food. So, we've been doing a lot of work around local food systems in extension over the last four years. And this little diagram tries to group that work into sort of categories or buckets. And we could spend a long time telling

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stories about all of those little white squares of different things that we have going on with our local food systems work. But I'll just highlight the uh the buckets and then tell you one story so that we're not here till 8:00 PM tonight. The highlights of the buckets are that we're doing work around at the

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bottom there strengthening individual knowledge and skills. So this is things like individual education and classes. We're also working on promoting local food systems through managing physical spaces like the community garden and community orchard. I'm also working at a

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systemic level. So changing systems of how things work so that it's more possible for local food to be more part of our community through things like consulting with the food shelf on their super shelf project to transform how the food shelf works and be able to incorporate more fresh food there. Um we

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also work in in in network and partnership with other organizations in the community. So this highlights some of the different food related groups that I participate in or provide input to. And then we also do education on a communitywide scale through things like

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the radio show that I was talking about earlier. So the story that I'll tell about measuring some of that deeper impact has to do with way back in 2023 when uh 2022 2023 when the public health department was writing the community health impact

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assessment and plan for the next five years. In participating in those discussions, it became clear that access to fresh and healthy food is a community priority and an area that we could make significant changes in community health if we were to focus on. So that was

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included as a goal in the community health plan. because it was a goal in that plan. The Northwoods Food Project, which is a local nonprofit that I sit on the board of as part of my work, was able to um access some funds through the public health fund to support to grow

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their capacity to be able to have more programming at the local farmers market that would encourage a broader array of people to shop at the market. Over the last few years, they've really grown those access programs uh that involve matches or additional funds for people

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who have SNAP benefits or are participating in WICK or um you know incomestrapped seniors to be able to shop at the market. And I don't think it's exaggeration to say it's transformed who comes to the the farmers market and what that experience is like

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for shopping there. If you come on a Thursday, you'll see everyone from little bitty babies up to seniors coming together in this really vibrant community space and supporting our local farmers and food producers. It has had a major impact both on people

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being able to access that food and eat it, but also on um you know people seeing farming or food production as a viable enterprise in our community and providing stable income to them to um to grow that possibility for more people.

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Because of that success over the last few years, the food project was then able to dream even bigger and think about where could we where else in our community could we bring more food access and fresh and healthy food to people who need it. So last year towards the end of the year um with some support

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and cons consult from extension we were able to write a grant through the food project to the Northland Foundation to start a program that we'll pilot this year called food as medicine. It's a partnership with the clinic, the Northwoods Food Project Extension, and the Grand Portage A program where

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patients at the clinic who are facing diet related health conditions such as diabetes and who also face food insecurity can be referred to participate in this program. It will be a pilot in this year 2026, but the 10 to 12 participants will receive a weekly

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box of fresh produce that um for free that they'll get to incorporate in into their diet along with health and nutrition related education. The produce will come from local farmers providing yet another income stream and stable source of demand that they'll know about

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through ahead of time that they can use throughout the whole season. And I tell that as that long story to show you that we would never have gotten to this pilot and this larger grant and this way of opening up this food system if we hadn't started by thinking about food way back

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in the community health assessment and that deeper long-term impact that comes from having engaged players working together over years in the community. And we don't know where this will go or where it will lead, but it's exciting to think about where this work could go

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into the future. >> Is this program program operated elsewhere? >> Yes. So, part of extension's role in this partnership is bringing best practices about programs like this from around the state to Cook County. Extension has been engaged in uh this

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type of programming in numerous other communities around Minnesota. And there's also programs like this springing up around the country. We utilized a uh best practices report for rural communities who are launching programs like this as we were designing the program. And the reason the question

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is is asked is that when we do studies if let's just say if there's a new medication >> um a new diet >> that we propose based upon our assumptions or our experience and then we monitor to see in fact the results of

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what we make by way of assumption. And so in in this case when we say food is medicine >> that what informs that so that we say you know like leafy greens or you know these kinds of things that that uh these

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people that are applying for this and are given the monies to be able to participate in this program that the question that follows is how do we measure this in order to show the results so that a pilot program then becomes our practice. Absolutely. Yeah.

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Yeah. There's a lot of examples we can look to for how other programs have done pre and post um surveys both of people's perception of their health and also quantitative measurements of health. >> It's likely that in this pilot year we won't um see like statistically

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significant quantitative measures of health changing with this small of a group. Um but we can certainly measure qualitative things and we can also uh expand upon that into the future as well. >> You mentioned that it'll be about a dozen boxes

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>> participants. Yep. It'll it'll take place together. >> Yeah. So the Northwoods Food Project will be managing the program. They have a staff person who will be in communication with the farmers and ordering and then once a week the boxes will get put together and get

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distributed to the participants similar to a CSA model if you're familiar with that where people sign up and get a box of vegetables each week from a farm but this will be conglomerated from multiple local farms. Yeah. So, it's a really exciting pilot initiative and um has

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really built upon these years of work that have have led up to this point. >> One one of the things I shared with the Northwoods Food Project was at uh our annual AMC conference there was a workshop on uh this food as medicine or or prescriptive diets

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>> and it's being covered by insurance >> in some places. >> Yeah. Surprising. that's well they see the benefit the preventative I would agree but but that's I mean when it comes to health wellness that for some people

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their approach food is medicine where it's not necessarily covered and so you're forced into a remedy that is really outside of what you believe is the best for you so to have that element in partnership then we would definitely see behavior

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because we also said when we were talking about the age of delinquency. Is it driven by financial concern and much of our behavior is driven by the financial and not necessarily what's in our best interest? >> Absolutely. >> It's it's a both end and um it was just

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really interesting because I think the organization was out of Idaho >> and they ship nationally >> um which >> I would argue isn't sustainable. So, it's great that we could have something local like that and maybe someday we could get it covered by insurance. Yeah,

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>> but just that recognition of the value that that'll bring to health. >> Yeah, >> we'd have to eliminate lobbying. The the other thing I wanted to share is just from some of my own personal education what's believed oftent times uh I guess

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I believe it to a large extent is you don't I mean sure we can see our own individual benefits from our diets um but uh ultimately I guess uh your health is largely based on your grandmother's diet

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>> and so when you're making these changes it's going to be a little bit right until you see the real impacts and so >> um yeah it's >> interesting >> hard to follow that but >> yeah yeah yeah

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so um this shows just uh the number of different groups locally that we partner with to bring this programming to life I just want to close by sharing again that our our whole focus is on bringing benefit to the community and that we do

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that through a wide variety of methods enefit um and people who directly engage with our programs receive those benefits as well as the larger community because of the actions of the people who are learning through extension programming. Um and so I'll again just open if

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there's any questions people have or input they'd like to share about extension as we move into the next year um before we move on to talking about the community center. So, one thing I'd like to share is the impact beyond all those people that read

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the newsletter that go to the spruce budworm symposium. Um, it it is a huge ripple effect and I see it um as I go to lake and road and property owners associations. Hundreds and hundreds of

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people that don't specifically attend benefit from the information shared through Firewise um through the handout that um Sarah and other educators put together on spruce budworm but you're impacting thousands of people in Cook County. So I just want

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to thank you for the networking you've done and for the broad impact that you've created for is really >> Thanks. And I'd like to have a copy of this so I can share at the township meetings. >> Absolutely. >> And I do have a

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>> and I'll send that out to all of you. >> She'll do the work. >> Well, if you'd like some paper copies, we have them up at the office of the spruce budworm um booklet if that's maybe for the gardens club I could take some or at least tell people that they could download it.

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>> Okay. So, you'll do that. >> Yeah. And I do if anybody um I did print out copies of all the agenda items in today's meeting. >> Oh, okay. Thanks. >> I do have a general question because I read the Tribune every day

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>> and they had an article about the updating of the 4 building in the fairgrounds. >> It's going to be over a two-year project remodeling it and everything. But they made an interesting statement. They said that um all 87 counties have contributed to the 4 project.

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Did you get notification of that? >> Do you mean like they think they think people have donated from all 87? Well, maybe somebody who lives here donated to it, but we don't have like a organized effort around that. And our >> your funding did not go to that. So, >> you got you got credit for it.

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>> Well, great. They're really into saying that they're in all 87 count. Like, in general, extension likes to, you know, promote that they're in every corner of the state. >> Every corner of the state. When I go to the extension meetings in August, it's like, oh, okay, this is great going on. Hundreds of thousands of dollars that

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have been donated to this building. I don't know if you've been down there, but the building is overundred years old. And I used to go as a 4er to the third floor and bring my sleeping bag. >> Oh my gosh. >> Not that I'm 100 years old. >> I am. Yay.

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>> Back when it was built. >> My grandmother. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, it is it's a great project and at time that it is updated. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's great. >> That's great. >> If there's it's fun to be able to go in

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when you're at the fair, the 4 building just to see the creativity and >> and >> Yeah. Um, and I mean we used to do like with our local county fair and different things that we used to, you know, do and

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>> it it takes as we heard like with the food uh access program this morning, volunteers >> and our culture has changed in that regard >> with people that are stepping up and >> and uh committing. But uh uh early on in

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the presentation I think Harry referenced it really understanding and uh when in my question about the the link to show the substance for the investment of dollars >> and while it sounds medicinal in nature it is for those that look at the fiscal

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responsibility and those that look at the results of what you do with those dollars that the data based portion of it is is huge in bringing credibility to everything that people invest their time in. >> So in the presentation the the

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partnership with the University of Minnesota brings >> credibility >> to something that that is consistency when we change over time. That relationship is a constant. >> The other thing I would say is that the

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understanding is that we aren't taking a program and superimplanting it on a county. we are listening >> and hearing and understanding how this resource applies to who we really are. So those two things I think come through

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very well in in the presentation. So >> thank you. >> Appreciate the work. >> Yeah. >> Other question or a question I had though is how do you all see the closure of the federal research stations, forestry stations affecting extension?

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Is that is that a super >> direct >> connection or is that more just the >> Yeah, not not super direct immediately, but I think over time the closure of and the lack of investment in research will

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bear out on our ability to provide the the latest and most um accurate information to communities. Yeah. Yeah. thought that could change in time >> in November.

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>> That wasn't going to be political. Things change and they could go back swing back. >> They could Yeah, they could. Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Okay. I guess there aren't any more questions, so you >> All right, let's move on. >> Yeah. So, I don't have a PowerPoint for

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this. Um, but do you want to share the printouts that you had, Jana? Yeah. Wonderful. as she's doing that. I was remissed in saying my comments. One of the things I was going to mention is here in Cook County is uh unique in that we have half of Sarah's role is to do

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the community center director role and half as uh local educator. Um 100% though fully uh supported as a university employed through that um MOA that we have with Cook County, but

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>> I won't be offended. It's an important Wonderful. >> The report. Yeah, >> that's right. >> Wonderful. >> Well, oh, she left. Okay. I was like, did we we lost somebody? >> She's just invisible for >> Yeah, it's okay. Should we dive right in

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community center? Okay, wonderful. So, um let's see. When we were preparing to share about extension's impact, I think it's also important to share about the community center and the work that we have been doing there. The report that I'll share today is focused around our

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facility usage. This isn't a complete picture of everything that we do at the community center. We also have programming that we run uh through the community center staff, including the youth volunteer program, the kitchen incubator program. I could share more in depth at another time about those if

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there was interest, but today we will focus on uh the utilization of the community center campus um and what we know about that. So each year we produce this facility usage report and share it with the community center board. I think this is the first time that I've shared

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this at a committee of the whole and I'll be curious if you find value in this. I'd be happy to bring it back in future years as well. So, uh, if you flip on to the second page, it starts out by sharing about our space rental income from the community

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center, uh, reservations in 2025. The story that this data shares, uh, in my mind at least, is that the Curling Club lease is the most significant portion of income that the community center brings in, which I think is uh, warranted. It's a significant and heavy

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usage of the facility over a long period of time each year. they uh over the years that are compared there have brought between 62 and 68% of the total income that we bring in at the community center. Um also you'll see the revenue that's been coming in from the

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kitchen incubator program which is that program where food businesses can start up their business out of the commercial kitchen that's at the community center has decreased a bit over the last couple of years and that program es and flows just as uh people's business interests eb and flow. We didn't have much

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participation in it last year. We do have a new business that is just starting up this year. So I anticipate likely some more coming in from that. Um I would say my my observation of that program over time is that there are a lot of people with a lot of ideas and then follow through is really up and

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down depending on on the person and and how serious they they really are about it. If I were looking at this, I mean, which we are at this number, I would I would, you know, question what the decline is in that revenue in incubator programs you mentioned because of the

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slowdown >> because there's less people using it. Yeah. >> Well, yeah, but let's just say that understanding these figures that because I know having used that kitchen for multiple years for EMC conferences >> that the how the kitchen is equipped

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>> Oh. If you ask people, why aren't you using it? Well, because >> so if if >> that might be part of it, we are like the only rentable commercial kitchen though or one of very very very few. So I think we are kind of the go-to.

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>> Um but yeah, we are on on slate to replace some of the equipment in there this year. >> And that's what I'm saying. This is a revenue thing. Understanding why the decline if it's just a reflection of the business. if it's a reflection of when you ask people, you know, why, well,

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because you haven't updated this or this or the other. >> There's also not very much storage space in there. So, depending on the type of food business you're trying to start, it can be really challenging. Um, and it's not I would say it's a great thing that we can offer and a service that we can provide. It's not our main mission to

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help people start their food businesses. So, it's great when it works, but we can't meet everybody's need and we can't make every possible idea work. Another significant barrier is that depending on what you're doing in there, uh if it's loud in any way, we can't rent the other room next to it. So, we have to balance,

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you know, sound and all kinds of things. So, yeah. Also, uh, and not too many years ago, um, there were people who were like regular renters and to the point where it was like, okay, move on, you know, and so you kind of

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had like the lock down on it and then to fill that hole that had been locked down is a little bit of a thing. >> Yeah. We're kind of digressing, but I'll go there for just one more minute, which is that another issue with that program is to to address that issue of people starting in the program then kind of

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never leaving. We sort of redesigned it. So, it's this incubator where you can only be in it for two years at a time. So, it's meant to launch your business and then you have to go off and find your own space. The problem with that is though now there are a lot of um smaller let's say cottage food businesses where

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they are never going to have the type of revenue that would allow them to like build a brickandmortar space. So if we're only allowing people to use it for 2 years then like where do they go after that? There isn't another place in the community. However, if we don't kick people out then it's monopolizing a

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public thing and that's not fair either. So, it's there's not a perfect solution and we could we could have a whole meeting about that, but that's kind of where we're at for now. So, if we flip on to the next page and look at some of our space usage by the different um spaces that we have available at the

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community center, this chart, this pie chart shows the percent of um how much each space was used by the number of events that took place in it. So, if an event took eight hours or it took one hour, it's counted the same on this

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chart. This is the number of bookings that each space had. And you can see down at the bottom some of the totals. So last year we had 1,300 bookings of events at the community center. Some of those of course are something that happens, you know, twice a month throughout the year. So it's not like

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we're taking a new reservation for each one of those, but this is the physical number of times each space was used. Uh you can see that the log cabin was the most booked uh space at the community center. It's a very well-loved uh building and has a really wide variety

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of uses. So, it gets used a lot in a in one single day. There could be multiple bookings in in each of these rooms. Going on to the next page where it shows some of that same information but by type of event. This is illustrating how

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what percent of the events were uh private events where they were paying a fee to use our space versus public or community events that were free to use our space. So if you go and look at the fee schedule for the community center, if you're planning an event that's open to everyone to attend and is free, we

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view that as aligning with our mission of promoting community connectedness and belonging and those events are free to have at the community center. So we had a significant portion 60% of the events that happened at the community center are free and open to the public and then

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36% were ones that people paid for. Those other uh the incubator program is a really small percent and then forprofit would be like if you were having like a a sale of your items or offering like a ser a business service type of thing >> to the free and open to the public.

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Yeah, >> that that last sentence uh rent no rental fee um or for the YMCA programs due to their recreation agreement with the county. What percentage of the free and open >> or the YMCA? That would be something we

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would have to calculate. It's not shown on this graph, but uh they do utilize uh primarily the log cabin for their dance programs is the main thing that the YMCA is doing at the community center because the log cabin is the only other space besides their dance studio that has the

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wood floor for their dance classes. Um so we could we could find that number if it's an important one for us to know. >> Why why it's important is that when we look at again total investment Yeah. and then the return on that investment that >> because there's that connection between

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the YMC and other community events. >> Yeah. >> The other thing is when you're looking at this and and we see this um oh in in technology software where you used to be able to buy the software

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>> and then you'd use the software >> now. Now it's a subscription. >> And so what happens it seems like everything I went to buy tickets for a grandson's concert and if I bought the tickets online I pay a convenience fee. >> If I pick them up at the door

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>> I don't pay the convenience fee. >> And so when it's an economical decision it's like I'm going to be there. I'll just pick the tickets up. Why am I going to pay an additional charge for that? Mhm. >> So from the standpoint of an organization that is looking at generating revenue,

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if we changed from that free policy by >> ratcheting down the number of people that are affected by that, >> you would say >> and this is the risk involved with change is how how many of these people would go elsewhere

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>> and they couldn't afford it >> and how many could we generate the revenue from it's just a discussion >> and it's a philosophical question too of what our approach is to what the purpose of this facility is and how it's used. Yep.

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>> So the YMCA charges I'm assuming for the dance classes. >> I don't know. >> I I'm assuming they >> they do. >> Yep. >> And so we're providing >> Yeah. >> more subsidy for >> Yeah. That's what I'm saying. understanding is it's written into the contract with the YMCA that the county

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provides recreational facilities that they are also allowed to use for their program. I will say it is a conversation like they don't get they don't get to like boot somebody else out if somebody else already has a reservation. The way we handle reservations is that you can book up to a year in advance and it's

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first come first serve. So if they have you know they've had to work around other things as well. >> I would like to know the breakout of that big blue. Yeah. >> portion of the pie. But >> yeah. Yeah. >> Um on the next page, it show Let's see.

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So we're we just talked about type of event and what percent were free and open the public versus private. Okay. So then I asked Anna to crunch the numbers differently based on the total hours that each room was used instead of the number of times it was used. So this chart just shows you and it's it's

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pretty similar actually the breakdown of of all the hours that were rented, how many of them were for public events versus private events. So it's like 65% public versus 35% private. And then the last chart on the back page shows you

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the percent of time each room was used based on the number of hours that it was booked throughout the whole year. Um, so if you look at it by the number of hours, the community room was used more than the log cabin building. >> Both are very sought after spaces. Yeah.

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>> Any idea about the number of people that use the outside spaces? >> Yeah. So, we don't have good numbers on like how many people use the skate park each year or the playgrounds. We would have to invest staff time if we wanted those kinds of numbers in like somebody standing there and counting for a

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certain number of hours or whatever and extrapolating. We just haven't done that. Um, anecdotally, they're extremely popular. Yeah, we do have some numbers on the ice rinks because we have staff in the warming house and we do ask them to tally how many skaters come during

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their shifts. Um, so we do have some data on that that we could share if you were interested. >> The only park >> that's was created for locals. >> Yeah. This I mean the west but I mean in Grand Marray I mean I come from Wisconsin where there are parks in every

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tiny little town. You have a park, you have a bar, you have a church, and that might >> maybe a post office >> and the post office. >> Yeah. >> But yeah, we have no we have no created park spaces for locals. >> Yeah.

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>> Oh, yeah. And you know that giant snow pile where they push all the snow at the skate park for the winter from the parking lot as it like slowly lowered and lowered and then it got to like eye height and all of a sudden there were like 50 kids on the skate park cuz they could see over it. So it's very popular.

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Yeah. >> On the uh graph that shows >> Yeah. >> the public again back to the using the facility. >> Yeah. >> Um and we you made the comment about the fact it depends upon what your mission

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is and what we choose to assign value to. >> So do you have an indication of this use from a seasonal standpoint? Hm. Like are we more heavily used in a certain season? >> Yeah. In other words, when we look at

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this annually, how does that break down? Like if you want to talk tourism, you will find that the shoulder season, you're not going to have you can't take the numbers and project them out equally because it shifts. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And here's here's how that practically

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when you're looking at your values without assessing cost to achieve value >> that if if this was largely summer occupancy and not winter occupancy that you would find that the cost to

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heat and to light and your contribution to depreciation when that is extrapolated out per that now you'll see what that cost translates to. Yeah. Well, given that curling is one of the major uses, that's a large part of the

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winter. Uh but otherwise, I would say it is spread throughout the year. We don't see a boom and a bust in summer versus winter. Um people have birthdays all year round. People have, you know, there >> all kinds of activities are happening all year round. I I don't maybe like

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early December there's a little bit of a lull, but otherwise it's it's pretty busy all year round. And the reason is is that so that your numbers are re represented accurately. >> So when we looked at volunteer hours, >> you track your volunteer hours and then

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you ask a credible source what is that valued at? Mhm. >> So what I'm saying if we find that there really is no shift in usage then you can take a a pdeium per the number of individuals that are using the facilities times your overall cost of

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utility and assign a cost >> as to what that real cost is. That's all achievable. And so that's why I'm saying you look at and then some people will say, >> "Well, in the summer this is what our charge, in the winter it's this." Because that's our real cost. And if we

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aren't measuring that, we don't really know, especially when we're looking at the YMCA's usage overall. If we can't equate these things to a cost and we just look at it with an assumption of fulfilling mission,

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>> the fiscal responsibility says it'd be good if we could weigh cost again. >> So just so I'm understanding right, you'd like us to come up with the cost that it takes to run the community center per each person per hour that

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attends an event. Well, it doesn't I mean, however, whatever increment you want it to be, but let's let's just say that that um somebody might come in and say, "Well, I want to rent this space for a wedding." >> And and you say, "Well, this is how much it's going to be." That's an awful lot.

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How come that's so much? And then somebody says, >> "What a deal." >> That's because that's what our cost is. >> Sure. >> And you have to have a contribution to depreciation. You have to have it your janitorial staff, your facility staff, your all these things. And when you have

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your cost, then now you know what your real cost is and you make an informed decision that say we our value placed on this supersedes our cost. But if you never measure cost, >> yeah, >> we could we could do that type of

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analysis if we wanted to. Mhm. If that was important for all of you to know the answer to, I think um it has never been >> asked that the community center bring in revenue to cover all of the expenses of

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the community center. So if that was a goal, we we could do a lot more analysis of that. >> We have organizations that come in that are >> non-mandated. And part of the questions that we started asking was how much revenue are you generating that shows your

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resourcefulness >> in providing what you do? >> If everything is 100% dependent on on levy taxpayer dollars >> then that becomes >> an issue. So all I'm saying that the

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more that we can demonstrate the value and coupled with the fiscal responsibility, the more credibility it it communicates to the community. >> For sure. So >> yeah. Yeah. The second document that I shared with you all is a summary of a

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user survey that we conducted for the first time this year. So we have a strategic plan for the community center and one of the goals in the plan uh was to understand more about what people think of the space and uh how it works for them. So this is just a highlevel

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highlight. Uh we conducted the survey at the end of 2025 and surveyed everybody who booked a reservation over the year. Um we had a 25% response rate. So about 32 people responded out of 130 surveys

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that went out, which is decent for a survey. Uh, one thing that we're going to do moving forward is now that we did this and learned that it was really helpful, we're going to send out the survey like a week or every month after each reservation instead of somebody who booked in January getting a survey in

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December about how was your event. So that's something we'll be starting to do moving forward. But some of the things that came out from the survey was that people were really happy in general with the community center and what it provides. A 100% of people who responded were extremely or very likely to

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recommend the facility to others. They rated the value as excellent or very good. Um they felt very welcomed in the facility. So there was a lot a lot of positive um comments about how important the community center is to um people's

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lives here. >> Is the survey numerical or is it narrative? >> There were both qualitative and quantitative questions on it. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So of the people who responded to the survey um 34% of them used the

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community room and 28% used log cabin. So, that's a lot of what we're hearing the comments about. And about half of the people who rented it were using it for a public event. Um, and close to 40% were for a private event. And the majority of them were using it one time,

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so like a birthday party versus about 30% of the people who replied to the survey were using it for a series of events, meeting monthly or that type of thing. And this was interesting. Um, the largest subset of rentals were for groups of 11 to 25 people. So 43% of the

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people who replied to the survey had an event of that size. We were kind of curious, you know, are most of the events really small or really big or what's because we don't collect that data necessarily when they book their reservation. >> Um, some of the things they wrote in the qualitative questions was there was a

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lot of praise specifically for Anna at the front desk. People find her very welcoming and accommodating and helpful. So big shout out to Anna. Um, and then people really view this as an affordable resource, something that's critical to have in the community that they wouldn't

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be able to do their events elsewise. Um, they appreciate, you know, its central location in the county and that it's an accessible space. Anybody can, you know, get in and out easily and that there's a lot of resources available with the tables and chairs that we have,

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high quality internet, all of that that stuff. Um they gave a few comments about things that could be improved in the future. They were interested in there being an online calendar so they could see when it's available before they want to book. Um there's issue sometimes

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people have challenges using the um the AV and tech equipment in the main room. So helping make that more clear in some way. And then occasionally people had complaints about, well, a group came in while we were still finishing up or we could hear a different group in a

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different room. So that's stuff to keep working on over time. Um, we do our very best to make sure we're capturing all the information when somebody books, but sometimes people make assumptions about, oh, I booked this time, but I can come four hours earlier and set up or, you know, whatever.

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Um, and then just they wanted some clear instructions about cleanup and how to get rid of trash at the end, stuff that's easy for us to work on fixing. So, we found that to be really useful to get that uh feedback back from users and I look forward to continuing to collect

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that data over time. Yeah. So, thoughts or comments, other things about the community center? >> Thank you. It's well loved. >> It is very well loved. Yeah. decades. >> I think one of our um most used and

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wonderful county buildings in the whole area of the >> community gardens, the ice rink >> playground work is it's a gem. >> It is. It is. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> It's great information. >> Yeah. Well, thanks for the opportunity to share

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>> together the survey so that you're getting feedback and can, you know, figure out ways to continually improve. It also makes me think given our next agenda item, how can we use your tool for other county facilities that are rented to improve there as well as

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things? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Okay, any other questions or >> Thank you all for coming. Yeah, I would just say we are so lucky to have you um both as an extension educator as well as

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the community center coordinator and um yeah, you're doing great work and really appreciate >> um like Commissioner Svin said, just looking for ways to improve too. That means a lot and >> yeah, >> we want to support you. >> Thanks.

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I would say the community center over the years in the facility and its leadership and I wrote a column on it. If you took two pennies and rubbed them together, they get more out of those two pennies than any other >> thing in the in the community. still

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>> continues to be an excellent resource and I I think the the the awareness and the minus and the the statistical that supports our continued mission is >> is uh shows great responsibility and what's been

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entrusted. So thank you >> appreciate the comments. All right. Thank you. Thanks for making the >> Our last item is to have a discussion and administrator Treble asked that we kind of look this over um only for

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information about financial update and community usage of the Kovville and Oakland >> town hall. Yeah, I was going to say my computer. >> So, they've come up with um just some

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good stat statistics on usage and um total days used, funds collected, and so forth. Um >> so, I really appreciate getting this information. We asked for it a couple years ago and um you know just want to

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thank Dan and Arvis for putting all the information together and I would love to see looking at Sarah's presentation that somehow we collect data so we can look at all our rental facilities kind of in the same fashion and the same light and look at ways that we can improve and

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make sure that we're doing the best for our community as possible. >> I was kind of surprised on the uh report from the Hovland town hall. I don't see where it includes their um art festival and that has really grown. I went to the first year and it was really small. The

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last two years they've had like four aisles of things which would include a lot of people indoors. >> That's a question that I had. Um I have gone to all the events there and it doesn't seem like >> it's um part of that data that was

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collected. So, that might be something we need to go back to Dan and get or that we get from >> um the art fair itself. Maybe they have that data and he doesn't. >> Right. That would help improve the community usage there. We were just

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talking about the art show. That's not included here. >> No, that's not the number the numbers of people that were there. the art show the uh I mean I haven't gone to all of them but it's a place like well we need to get together and we're going to talk about

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Dark Knights or Skype >> right >> but we just wondered in terms of users it would be really good to have that data so is that something we should ask Dan for or the organizers of the fair >> yeah the organizers of the fair would

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because Dan doesn't I don't think he even works in this county now since I mean, he's around. I mean, he lives there. He he takes care of this because he feels that it's what he can >> do. He can commit to the the community as being a community member.

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>> So, um yeah, it would be really beneficial because we've had >> I just feel like there's a lot more people that actually use it than is represented. And how do you I think asking the people that actually

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uh use it to just have a simple form that said we had like um 25 presenters and we're estimating that we had 500 people that showed up over two days or >> you know that that one would be hard to you know but somebody's in charge.

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>> I was wondering who does organize >> there's a little group. >> Yeah. And then and then over at the Lutheran church then they do the foods over there. So >> I mean there's more people that come because of the art fair there.

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>> Do we have a policy that says you can't have a bank balance that exceeds 2600? >> I know. I noticed that too. Like wow. >> And a question um also is does Brady get that money? How does it come to the

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county? He it's delivered by Dan to the county. I don't know who in his office gets it. >> Okay. >> Somebody >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> I mean this is this is helpful but as you say it would be good to understand

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it so we are better managers. going in depth on the data and maybe we can based on Sarah's presentation come up with a better set of questions to ask Dan and Arvis so that we get that really complete picture.

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>> Well, the the Kovville town hall, I mean they have it's small and they have like Girl Scouts, they have yoga, they have >> all those things and the population going east. >> I mean, if they're Girl Scouts, they're going to >> Coville. Yeah. You know, there's and so

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the the the >> the whole one is just made for bigger events. >> Yeah. >> I mean, it was actually built to to dance >> knowing the who is because the these are just numbers and they don't >> right >> tell us really. >> But again, I think Sarah's presentation

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gives us an idea of what we can better ask next year so we have more complete >> and Sarah's presentation allows us to move around the table and see it different ways. So, >> right. >> Yeah. Well, in Kovville did quite a bit of updating inside. Um, what about

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Homeland? Are they having any expenses coming up? No bros for something. >> Well, that's on the capital improvement plan. >> Okay. But otherwise, >> I don't know how many years ago they got. No, there's, >> you know, we've just had like a new roof

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put on at the Coville Town Hall. We had some of the electrical work done in Hovind. Yeah. Um, >> yeah. >> The one thing that Hovind would need would be a I mean, when you turn the heat the blower on, you can't hear. I mean, it's

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like this something along there needs to be taken care of. And then >> uh what do um >> the access ramps and steps, those should be replaced, you know, upgraded when they do the painting. And oh, and I requested

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the floors are in fine shape, but they really could use being cleaned >> by someone that knows how to really clean. >> I wonder when they clean wooden floors at the school or the Y >> if we might not be able to get the same

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people because they're here. >> Yeah. >> Um because it's very difficult to get >> Are you saying cleaning or are you saying resurfacing? cleaning and >> and probably a resurface >> because a resurface is sanding and >> refinishing. >> Sealing. Just sealing it. If we're not

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nothing where we're going to have to wax it all the time. Um Brooke was saying that you don't want to do that. >> You don't want to wax. >> No. No. >> But but something that would seal it in. >> Especially when your dancers are getting older. They'll just >> just like that. You throw it on the

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sawdust. Yeah. >> But um a number of years ago, and of course he was an old guy then. >> Um we had a job. This woman was renovating an old house with beautiful floors underneath. >> Mhm. Yeah.

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>> Whatever. And he he knew how to I mean had what is that? 1inch maple screw. And he knew how to do it right because you can really screw up a wooden floor if you try a sander to that. Yeah. Yeah. >> So, um I think they're out there, but

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yet that would be great if >> but just coordinating because they're here, they have the right equipment, they have the skill. We've seen their work in the past, >> right? If they would do a little job. I mean, a gymnasium floor required. >> Well, that's why in

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>> Yeah, that's why it would be in combination with >> Yeah. But certainly try to coordinate those efforts. >> Okay. They might know somebody is like when they come up and tar the roads do that the asphalt at the end of the season then people get their their

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driveways >> driveways done right >> the option is to throw a bag of sand in there and play floor hockey with just let the kids be loose and sweep it up afterwards then you can varnish it. >> Does that work?

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Yeah, it's a that's you get that sand it'll >> especially a bunch of kids. Well, this is a good beginning to the conversation and we'll get more details and >> yeah about >> but it is agreed that there's no one will ever be putting in a well or septic

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system at those town halls. You >> the water quality if you got it's too iffy it could be and you're too close to the lake. There's no reason. >> Okay. Anything else on this? >> No.

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>> Otherwise um nothing else on our agenda. So, we are adjourned. >> Okie do. >> Okay. >> As soon as I go up camera, I'll call them. So for the town halls like