##VIDEO ID:D8ezf8GC1rE## well welcome back everyone we're um back for our afternoon session of the Cook County Board of Commissioners and we're going to begin this afternoon with a pre presentation by DDA David drown and Associates and to introduce our presenter Allison plumber from Human Resources will share some information about Pat good afternoon good afternoon welcome welcome again um I'm just going to provide a brief introduction um everyone this is Patrick Melvin he goes by Pat so feel free to call him Pat or Mr Melvin whatever whatever works um but Pat is with uh DDA Human Resources Inc um and is here to provide a presentation and a proposal on the services they could provide for our search for potentially another new County Administrator um the information that he is going to go over is included in your packet today as well for your reference thank you so much and welcome p back if you have any questions thank you very much Alison um Madam chair and uh Commissioners uh good afternoon and thank you for inviting me up I was love the opportunity to get out of the office and especially to come up to a beautiful Cook County so uh thank you I I came up last night and had a nice relaxing uh morning and uh yeah beautiful country up here so uh thank you um I just want to briefly you know you you have in your packet a proposal proposal uh which kind of goes over some of the details what I was going to do is I was just going to review the PowerPoint and I'm going to keep it very short so if you have any questions uh please feel free to you know slow me down and uh I'm more than happy to take more time but I also realize that you have a busy day ahead of you and so I don't want to take up too much time so uh first I just want to tell you a little bit about our qualifications kind of our process and our approach and then kind of what you can participate you know receiving in the end so um I believe that you've worked with DDA before I know that DDA works with you on some other issues not necessarily recruitments uh we've been around for 25 years we're kind of a smaller organization of about 11 staff we do a variety of different things ranging from uh compensation classification uh Finance uh Economic Development uh as well as recruitment so we're doing a lot of different things the staff that work for DDA myself included come from a background of of working in county and city government for me I was a a County Administrator for uh a number of years in McLoud County I was also a special projects administrator you'd be amazed at what gets classified as a special project uh in re County and then I've worked with several cities as well so uh we have practical experience and and kind of understand the challenges that you may be dealing with in terms of you know public information uh different things like that um we and when I say we uh there's primarily four of us that conduct recruitments we've done over well over 150 recruitments and we specialize in Minnesota uh we've done a few in Wisconsin and some other states but our primary focus is Minnesota and for that reason we tend to be very involved engaged and and know some of the different internship programs some of the instructors and some of the people out there that we often you know make aware of job openings so um basically if we move ahead with this recruitment I will be kind of your primary contact person I certainly work with some of the other other staff at DDA We compare notes we share what's going on in different recruitments uh and then there also be Liz who will be working with me but I will be your primary point of contact so if there's any questions or anything like that uh you don't have to question who should I contact I will I'm I'm the person to to talk to you about that some of the recruitments that we currently have underway I just you know included a list there the ones that I'm working on right now I'm working on the city of Jackson Minnesota for a city administrator I am also I just wrapped up Nobles County they are looking for a CHS administrator and a public health supervisor uh I'm also working with Benton County which is in the St Cloud area uh working with them on an HR Director uh and a human services director so um obviously we deal with County administrators City administrators but we also deal with other oh thank you we also deal with other [Music] um we go so we also deal with other positions so um here's just a list of the recruitments that we' completed in 2023 and 2024 not all inclusive but uh the majority of them are listed there as you can see a number of them are City administrators we've got some Finance directors executive directors but typically it does tend to be kind of that higher level City and County government uh that we work for so and I would encourage you if any of those ring a bell you know please feel free to reach out to individuals and say Hey you worked with DDA how did that experience go for you um I kind of already hit upon the services that have evolved and and that we offer a nice thing is uh you know as we're working together one of the things that we'll be taking and look at is you know what is the salary range for uh this position and being that you're also working with DDA on comp and class uh we can pull some information and determine you know where is that situated are you in the right spot to attract somebody or is it something where you may want to consider you know adding a little bit more uh to that salary so this is now I'm going to go into the process that we have the process is quite thorough uh We've obviously done a number of recruitments so we have seen what has worked we've seen what hasn't worked we've tweaked it and this is what we've come up with so uh at any point here feel free to um ask me for further clarifi further clarification because it is uh quite detail oriented but uh first part that we do is we sit down and we would talk with you as uh board members and staff and anybody that you feel uh it's important that we talk to to gather input about we're looking for our County Administrator but specifically what are the needs of Cook County you know what has worked in the past what maybe hasn't worked uh just get an overall view of you know the individual that you're looking for are there any specific things um obviously you're going to be you want somebody who's a good manager you want somebody who has long range planning is able to set goals and help achieve goals but there may be some other things that you know are unique to Cook County so I would sit down oneon-one interviews with yourselves as well as staff and and gather that information we would then go and take a look at the job description I mentioned the salary range uh we'll address that we will then go and put together a beautiful 8 to 10 page profile that was included in your proposal it was a profile I believe for uh Library recruitment uh that we did but uh we're not here just to sell the job that's a big part of it but we also want to sell the community so we're going to talk about you know what are what are the attractions why would somebody love living in Grand marray or in Cook County uh we're going to talk about the educational opportunities we're going to talk about healthc care we're going to talk about you know attractions parks and everything so we're selling the area at the same time we're selling the job um so that'll be in a profile that you will have an opportunity to review you'll be able to look at the pictures look at the text anything that you want changed we can certainly change what goes out will be board approved so there won't be any surprises in terms of what we're advertising that will be the primary tool that I'll be using when I reach out to candidates we'll look at posting for a 4-week period uh during that time I'm reaching out to individuals I'm sending through Linkedin I'm sending the profile out I'm identifying people who have a background maybe in uh County Administration or maybe some sort of business uh depending upon what your parameters are reaching out to those individuals and making them aware of the position so at the close of that 4-week period then I will take a look at the candidates and I will advance to you the top candidates those individuals will be asked to do a video interview a video interview for some people is very uncomfortable but they can do it in the comfort of their own home they have an opportunity to work with the equipment you know find out you know how does my background look and then they answer several questions it's a great opportunity and we hear a lot of positive feedback from Commissioners saying you know that was great I saw how they present I saw how they responded to questions where they didn't have time to prepare a response because basically they get a minute before the camera goes live once they've you know worked with it and figured out how to operate it then they go live so um then uh we will provide that information we'll provide the the video interview uh we'll provide a work personality index which was included in your proposal it takes a look at individuals and how they prefer to function and and gives you kind of a scoring uh very helpful tool but it just gives you an idea does this person go to others and ask their opinions and consult with others or do they look to statutes you know how do they make decisions so it gives you insight into uh that individual um and then they will also have an information disclosure statement the information disclosure statement allows them if there's been previous jobs that have been shortterm or if there's been any negative press about them it allows them to be proactive with you and to share you know this happened and there's this article out there we don't recommend that Commissioners go out there and search the internet on on candidates uh but we know that you know human nature is to sometimes do that and so we want them to be forward and upfront with you uh about anything that might be out there uh so then you narrow the individuals uh down to and I would recommend probably three to four because a lot of these individuals have other applications out and so uh there's a period of time of about a month between when you will select people to interview and when they will actually come in for an interview and there's a strong possibility that you may have uh one you know an individual withdraw during that time period because they do have another application out there or something changes with their family or their lifestyle uh we would do all the backgrounds uh so we do a criminal uh we look into their driver's license um and I also contact references and so that information is being provided for you there's an intellect profile which looks at their logic and their mathematical reasoning to kind of give you an idea of how they do obviously budgeting and finances is a part of this job so uh you would want someone with strong skills in that area and then we basically put together everything that you need to conduct the interview so that on interview day uh all you have to do is come in uh we'll have folders we'll have information for you uh we will structure interviews however you would like if you'd like to have a uh meet and greet with the public if you'd like to have staff conducted interview staff and the public can certainly do that they don't make the decision however it's the board that makes the decision so they're providing input which we share with the board and it's ultimately the board's decision uh on who they choose um once that decision is made and typically that happens the same day as interviews uh then I will work with several individuals uh from the board and we work on negotiating a contract and put a tentative contract that will come before the the board at a later time so that's um kind of our process um are there any questions that you have commissioner Mills thank you sureair thank you Pat for for presenting um I I think last go around we had an opportunity to um be involved in the formation of the interview questions I presume that's part of the process as well or do you have kind of some canned questions that you try to stick to or or remind me that that detail we certainly that that's an option so uh what I can do is certainly provide some sample questions for that video interview and then if you have if you want to tweak that or make changes we can certainly incorporate that in typically we have I think six five to six questions for that initial video interview but oh I'm sorry I meant beyond that oh yes for the final interview oh yes definitely you'll have an opportunity to um thank you yeah to provide input and and to tweak and change you know wording yeah we can certainly do that other questions commissioner stle thank you madam chair thank you for presenting all this to us and time frame and all of that so over the last couple weeks I've been thinking about our form of government up until about 2013 we were uh under a coordinator and um that worked fine until the point that I think as a board at that time we realized that um we needed to look at an administrative form of government and so we we had that for we've had that for three different uh terms three different individuals as um administrator now I noticed on the list I don't see the word coordinator um what is your opinion uh where that's going in the state to hire a coordinator instead of administrator uh frequently you find things happening the other way in terms of people going from a coordinator to an administrator um and I wish I could remember but I know there's a County that went to a coordinator and then went back to an administrator after switching um you know I think it really depends on the organization um you know I think the challenges at times you've got multiple people uh it's nice to have one person kind of at the helm uh responsible instead of trying to figure out okay who should have done this or that but uh again it's really up to you as as an organization as to what is the best fit but there are there certainly are some that have uh kind County coordinators but not none that I'm aware of that are you know that are it seems more of them are moving from a coordinator to an administrator we have the association of Minnesota counties that gave a a real good comparison I think we all have looked that up a coordinator duties administrative duties and it seems like as I was looking at it the administrative part is where we are now in our counties so that was really helpful to look that up and and um realize that um there are um a lot of good points of U administrative part so thank you yes great question other questions for Pat commissioner Johnson so I wasn't involved in the last goar around of this and I'm curious is the that information that DDA prepared for us last time the whole background issue and is that public information I guess thinking about going forward I would like to see what happened the last two times what what got us to this point and do we need to reinvent the wheel or can we build off of that you know certainly we'll be that's what we'll be doing is is using that information updating it and building off of it to come up with a new profile yes okay so I'm assuming the last Commissioners that were here involved got that information and I did a search I couldn't find what I was looking for but I didn't spend a whole lot of time I'm just wondering and I did ask to see the back what DDA did before and is that public information that's I guess what I'm asking yes it certainly is and and I I would be happy to provide a copy if that's something that I'm not clear which information exactly because some is private and some is public well that's what I'm wondering what did you get how did you come up sorry with the um I talk with my hands how did you come up with what you were looking for when I when I'm wondering about which the best way for us to go forward and it was determined that we should have another administrator versus anything else and I'm hearing considering that maybe that didn't really fit our organization so I want to make sure we're going back to where we were what did we say were the most important points and make sure we all still agree yes that and we need to ask the community I mean we get two different opinions this morning during public comment I just want to make sure we're being we're not rushing this process that we're taking the time to really think about what is the best for way for County to move forward and I don't think we've had enough time yet to really make sure because we haven't even talked to our staff yet so I'm just want to make sure I understand what's what the process is yeah DDA was not involved in that discussion uh basically we had that AMC um information and and Ryan Erdman came and presented that and rather than us just having it and then the Commissioners um decided that administrative form of government was the way to go but when we hired Mr Yorkie that was through DDA yes but the decision was already made for administration yeah administ and what we were looking for as that's I guess what I'm looking for are we looking for the exact same thing or have our needs changed is there something else we need to consider and having that information of what four years ago somebody some group decided what were the priorities of what we need I would like to review that to see it is that still true do we still all agree on that could be but since I don't know what that was I think it'd be helpful for our discussion to make sure what we wanted and what we got is still did it work did it not work are there any areas we may want to tweak yeah I don't know that that information will be available um but I would prefer that we do that again like we go through what we're looking for just like Pat was saying as far as um interviewing um us Commissioners and staff um about what we're looking for in that I I would rather not go back in time and review what we were looking for then I would rather focus on what we're looking for now I get that I'm the history person who likes to go this is what happened this is where we're at today using that to build off the future so that's why I ask for background stuff old stuff and so commissioner this is our discussion as to whether or not we should stick with the administrative form of government or we're going to thoroughly ex examine what a coordinator I mean I'm not thinking that the Board needs to do the work as it was long ago but uh why is the coordinator position not what we need and I'd like to have that thorough discussion my understanding that is I mean the the structure is the same in that this employee answers in communic unic Ates with the board and is that because ultimately the board answers to the voters and um with a coordinator there's more interaction correct me if I misunderstood what I've read with the coordinator and the County board for sharing information more interaction my understanding is that that isn't different that the primary difference is the supervision of all department heads that is the most significant difference and the coordinator does that too yes no the coordinator does not do any Personnel work oh it's just Commissioners that are in charge of the highway or phhs or Emergency Management so then the hiring and firing or the reprimanding or the accolades come from the from the board not the admin administrator that is great and the coordinator looks at the big picture and says do you need more rooms or something for your maintenance department I mean they just they go Department by department and that's all they do they don't they don't evaluate performance correct well then how would we know how anybody's performing I I I just like well well we wouldn't at all not as well right in my opinion yeah so currently there's 12 counties in Minnesota that are using that coordinator role um and the vast majority are using that County Administrator role where there is supervision over Department Madam chair commissioner stle if I may um and to commissioner Johnson's point I think when we looked over the job description because it was important to say this is the job description four years ago and then how can we improve how can we maybe delete something how can we add something that is the current way as to how we work with DDA with Pat in determining um the role of the administrator that we would want in uh Cook County seems to me that we need to look at what's happening today I know history is great me too I love history I like to go back but um I think we need to go forward and Define and outline and work with pad on where we want to see a goal commissioner Johnson yeah we have to keep moving forward in some way my Hope was to look at what my mys what did what did we need four years ago what was most valuable and did we succeed that's what I kind of want to know did it did it work did we match all the things that were identified last time and if we didn't that I want to know okay do we need to restructure this or not that's where I'm coming from cuz I don't know that we did I I don't I don't have the list I don't know if it's a structural difference as much as maybe a personality or qualifications difference and I think you know it's hard to get that quantitative uh data but I think we could qualitatively look at um our our past administrator and and and ask ourselves was were they delivering what we expect and if so great if not I think to Pat what um Pat's saying is are there other things that we want to um have included in that and so that's where those interviews come into place is asking us to that where's the list of what was expected I think that's what commissioner Johnson is like when it was what was the list that was expected from us so that would be the job description at that time did you not do like what is a person's profile what's important to most important least important like you get this list and you know label in in in uh order of uh values which is most important do you do something like that yes so we have in the profile we have one page that is based simply upon the discussions that were held with Commissioners and with staff and that's going to call out specific things that are maybe unique to Cook County now that there would be a page from four years ago that would have that information and that's certainly something that I can provide when you have applicants they don't necessarily match everything that you're looking for uh you know they may be strong in one area and you may accept you know kind of a inexperience in another area but they were the best candidate at the time um but I can certainly provide a copy of what four years ago what was listed as the key you know characteristics that you were seeking and that can if that benefits you in helping to build what you're looking for today certainly I can that would help me that would be part of the profile which is public information from for years ago commissioner Mills uh is the process any different on your end from administrator to coordinator um or is it just purely the job description and uh I mean when we advertise clearly it needs to be stated but aside from that is the process any different the the process is not different and um you know I I think that yeah you know even applicants I I you know we're still going to reach out to the same individuals uh you know in that process so so the the question today is just whether or not we'd like to hire DDA to to do our search I think um or at least at this point in the day um and as as other Commissioners had mentioned it might be helpful to talk with staff about um the form of government if there's other questions around that um personally I don't have questions about it um but um I want to respect any questions that are out there so absolutely in a in a coordinator form of government the board is charged with oversight of job performance of every department head whom I assume is then responsible for their and the people in their state the supervisors in and so I don't know how we would do that it's hard when you have turnover it makes it really hard with well we don't have much turnover well on the board we have quite a on the board we have turn turnover and lately we've had a lot of Department ads fleeing but um I need a moment to think about this continue on I can s the there other questions for Pat I think it might be appropriate right now to um Ruan and I got a communication from administrator Yari who has no skin in the game um with the future here but wanted to share some remarks with us and so I think I'll um if it's okay with the board read those dear Commissioners I want to start by thanking you for giving me the opportunity to serve as your County Administrator for the last four years it's truly been an honor to work with you and for you and with our great staff members who strive every day to provide excellent service to County residents we led the organization through the pandemic created and are now implementing a capital Improvement plan for County buildings developed a three-year strategic plan for the organization addressed deficits in employee compensation to improve Recruitment and Retention and work to build an organizational culture in which employees are valued and motivated to give their very best I'm proud of these achievements and you should be too when there's a change in the leadership of an organization it makes sense to step back and see what if any changes could be made to improve the way our organization works from that perspective I understand the desire to ask whether the administrative form of government is still the right fit for Cook County I'm leaving this position and will not be directly ly impacted by the outcome of this discussion but I do want to share some ideas that I think are important for the board to consider as it explores this topic the job of administrator is highly complex and time consuming in addition to the routine tasks that are a daily part of running the organization there are new and unanticipated responsibilities that crop up constantly these involve things like responding to concerns and complaints from residents and stakeholders dealing with personal matters and Personnel matters addressing emergencies large and small and relaying to you the information you need to be effective in your roles as elected officials much of the work that I do is invisible to you that is the way it should be if I reported to you every little thing I do I would never get anything done and would drive you mad you hired me as a professional to run the organization and that's what I've done I made sure that you've had the information you need to do your jobs without getting bogged down in Superfluous detail in recent meetings some have expressed a desire to be more actively involved in things like hiring under the administrative form of government it's not routinely the commissioner's role to be involved in these processes we have board approved policies and procedures that we follow in hiring staff two Commissioners sit on the Personnel committee and receive monthly updates on the status of our various recruitment efforts in my opinion there's good and appropriate flow of information between admin Administration human resources and the board two you should always have had the opportunity to reach out to me if you have had questions about hiring efforts purposely waiting till a board meeting to raise those questions is inappropriate if you really want to solve problems you should be working with the administrator before and between meetings to get the information that you need anything else is theatrics and the taxpayers of the county deserve better to the extent that the board wants to explore the possibility of elimin the administrator position these are the several things that should be under consideration the job of the commissioner while ostensibly part-time is in reality full-time the many committee assignments you all have require a significant commitment of time and adding the oversight of departments to your responsibilities not to mention the daily administrative work that is needed to keep the organization running smoothly would create an unreasonable and unmanageable burden for the five of you it would be Folly to think that you could take on my workload in addition of your own and have the organization function at a high level the daily expectations of the organization would become more disjointed and inefficient without a professional administrator open meeting law could prevent you from conferring as a group on time sensitive matters as a result the management of the organization would become more fractured and compartmentalized this would lead to inconsistency in how different departments operate and would make it much more difficult to to implement organizational wide changes initiatives such as those in the Strategic plan turning the management of the organization over to elected officials risk politicizing the work of departments and making it more like that departmental priorities would change after each election this would be bad for employee morale and would have a negative effect on the quality of services they provide large projects such as the development of a capital or strategic plan would become more cumbersome in time time consuming to develop and Implement in fact without a single point person to guide them they may not get done at all oversight by elected officials would increase the risk of having short-term priorities take precedence over what is best for the organization and County residents in the long term there are numerous examples of this in the cook County's history prior to the establishment of the administrator position the YMCA the 1998 Courthouse Edition and the law enforcement center are prime examples of this phenomenon at work and it has cost taxpayers dearly again I no longer have a dog in this fight but I do care deeply about coat County and its future I also care deeply about our staff and want them to have the support they need to provide top-notch services to our County residents from my perspective it's clear that maintaining the administrative form of government will continue to provide the best value and outcomes for all who call Cook County Home respect respectfully James yorie so any um comments or questions based on the content of the letter yes I would like to ask are there any department heads that would like to provide any input to the board on this hello um yeah I've had a chance to think about this now for a while uh I've only been here four years and so the only form of government that I am I guess more intimately familiar with is this uh but I am able to attend you know a variety of meetings conferences talk to my counterparts across the state on what their you know experiences are uh with either an administrator a coordinator or some of the other things that that AMC um program had listed and and speaking of the AMC program it is interesting you know when we when we sit on Highway committee or different things I like to look look at obviously a lot of data and see what people are doing um I do find it overwhelming that 3/4 of counties have that form of government I find that fascinating I think that tells the story um another thing I look at is small counties so you know we're in the bottom 10 I think we're fifth right in the middle if I remember right and so actually the bottom 10 counties I'm sure you all looked at this but it's it's 50/50 administrative and not and so that I feel like also tells an interesting story small counties still still do this um the things that I'm most concerned about uh really is continuity uh politics long-term planning city state federal relationships U and our own reviews as has already been talked about here um you know as was you guys had just mentioned um you know Commissioners are are elected um potentially every two years you have a churn of Commissioners um you know my plans don't stop at two years um they go much further than that and you know some of that planning could get interrupted um with that type of oversight um and I think another you know politics unfortunately seeps into a lot of what we do even talking about gravel on roads um or the environment for example those become incredibly politicized and so whether you have data and numbers and I can say hey this is this is what science says um what what I don't want to be put in a position with is then debating science with somebody's beliefs um and that to me would would not get us anywhere it would really get in the way of the work that we're doing um and just trying to come in here and do our jobs the best we can for this community um I think that long-term planning component is another huge thing whether we talk wage surveys um the CIP my own our own Highway Department Long Range plans um to to me having a single point person there that kind of has the pulse on everything five individual bosses but one person that can really for lack of a better term set the vibe for the county um I think is very important um I think you can have different people with different points of view and if you have too many people too many chefs in the kitchen if you will to lay in more anecdotes um that can complicate things a lot so that's my two cents on it um I appreciate it thanks thank you so much are there representatives from other departments that would like to address the board good afternoon mate good afternoon good afternoon Commissioners um I would U mimic just about everything uh engineer has said um uh to include the the difference for me is that I've been here for 5 years so the administrative form of government is the only one I I know however my previous 8 years in gr page I did work under the tribal council so you did kind of have five bosses and it was a little more I would call it a little more stressful for a department head you know because sometimes it's easy if I take this to commissioner Sullivan she might go for it but if I take it to commissioner Johnson she might not you know and much like like Robbie said you know when you start a project with a person and then they move on two years later and now that gets lost and again it slows everything down it's certainly been nice for me to have that point person if I have something weird going on if I have something if I have personal stuff whatever it is it's to me it's super good to have that one person to go to and of course that leaz on to you all so I would I would very much support the administrative uh type of government if it ain't broke don't fix it maybe thank you thank you Mike are there representatives of other departments that wish to speak good afternoon Allison good afternoon Commissioners thank you for allowing us to be a part of this really important conversation for our organization and our community I want to Echo the concerns and the benefits raised by my peers this afternoon I want to thank former administrator yorki for his frankness in his communication raising concerns from his perspective of being in this role for several years I've been with this organization for 12 years now so that includes uh each of our three County administrators and the form of government that we had previously granted my perspective is limited I wasn't in a leadership position at that point in time um but I did have some perspective on uh the challenges that that presented for individual departments when it comes to long range planning consistency across or the organization and Equity across departments uh one additional concern and opportunity that I want to raise is that the challenges facing our community our departments are immense and a concern I have in moving forward with a different governmental structure is that that limits the opportunity that each of you have to engage at a state and federal level to uh advocate for changes that can really make a difference in our community an example of that being our child care wage enhancement program we've done a lot of work work we're a leader within the state and Nationwide for some of the Innovative programs that we have put into place to help bolster our fragile child care system without having uh local leaders that can advocate for our needs regionally at a state level and federally uh we will continue to repeat the challenges and not have as much opportunity for more broad change thank you thank you so much are there any other members of of the Departments who would like to bring forward information commissioner hick or commissioner attorney hickin thank you commissioner long day sorry so I hope we have time to hear from Brady to Brady and I are the two um non-c Commissioners at the table here who do have the history of being with the organization uh since before there was an administrative form of government uh and if if I had a vote on this I would vote for retaining the system that we have currently um if it ain't broke don't fix it also I think about um you know there's just been let's say that County government in the past 17 years when I as I've been involved in it has not gotten simpler it's gotten more complex the um obligations that the state of Minnesota puts on us are service related responsibilities um have only gotten broader um have only gotten more onerous um complex um and so you have department heads who's uh who have enough to do themselves in uh making sure that their departments are uh meeting the expectations set out in the law and by the state uh to provide services is to the level we're required to without also trying to um handle what I see might happen is the big projects that we need to have done um periodically that for example a courthouse renovation or um a law enforcement center renovation or um creating a new HRA those kind of um big projects would be likely assigned to a department head for continuity purposes with some help from Commissioners um because there would not be an administrator a single point person to represent the county and um that's just not I don't see that working well um if Commissioners were to take on all of the obligations that the County Administrator has been handling for the last many years um you better expect to be here at the courthouse or in a meeting um even more than you are now um I've heard and and I respect that there are different opinions out in the public but I've heard coming out of the same person's mouth at the same time what you do is a service and you shouldn't get paid for it and also uh you should take on the job of the County Administrator um because they're doing your job it it you can't have it both ways um what the work that you do is a full-time job and you have responsibil I would say there are a lot of things um that should be with under your under your role that would fall to the Wayside and be and not be able to be assigned to anybody else for example who will advocate for us at the legislature who will work on Statewide policies that might impact uh Cook County if you're here like in the trenches trying to operate this government on a day-to-day basis that's what one thing the County Administrator does for um the Board of Commissioners is frees you up to do that legislative work that is really Your Role um and that you can have a great positive impact for the people of Cook County doing that way you you can be out seeking funding you can be out seeking innovative solutions for our problems um because you have somebody here in a County Administrator who is well compensated to do a professional job and part of their job is to be loyal to this government right they're expected they they don't they're trained to be an administrator they're educated to be an administrator that come in here with a lot of experience and um the folks who are candidates who are good candidates for these positions are driven and successful and will bring success to the county um I've watched this County go from um you know we have we have not enough resources and scrambling to try to make things happen to a professional organization and that um I'm not trying to say that we are the Elite or that um that being a Professional Organization has meaning um in that we are able to efficiently do for our community members what we are supposed to do um and that shift would be at least would take at least twice as time as much time without a County Administrator um I'll cite what others have said that the lack and of continu continuity in elected leadership which can happen and some counties have boards that you know they'll have the same four board members for decades um but in this County we see a lot of change on our board I think that's a good thing it's hard to have both that and um and have your Workforce feel like they are under a stable leadership if you don't also have somebody at the helm um who's expected to be there for um more than a twoyear term um we need a a it's good to have a single face for the county a single voice for the county and that person comes to this board every two weeks or every week and you know gets feedback on what message they should be sending to the community what the communication is and what their priorities are but they can uh they can be here every day to respond to things as they come up instead of having to wait for a publicly noticed and open meeting um as we're required to do uh if the Commissioners are doing the work um I would say in the past I I think I heard um somebody with some history in this organization say this because I have it in quotes but things got done the old way but they did not necessarily get done well or in a timely way your County Administrator is the information gatherer they are the Strategic planner they're the one carrying your ideas for the county forward and your directives forward um to put that on department heads or to try to handle it by assigning each commissioner their own department or their own project I don't see that as um having a great result so um that's that's what I have to say thank you Rowan um from Mis any perspective you'd like to share yeah I would Echo everything that Robbie Allison Mike and and all shared um I won't won't say it all again um the ones that really stand out to me I think are the board's ability to be effective managers of directors and that additional responsibility and how that takes away from your ability to advocate for us at the state and federal level like Allison and Molly touched on um an example of this that is kind of ringing in my ears is assessor Thompson shared uh classification reform in the financial lications of something like that to the county and what that would mean and just for some context he he shared at the luncheon that you know had that reform taken place the referendum that the school went out for would have had a financial impact on taxpayers more than half of what it was because it hasn't happened and so that type of change that can free our commissioner up to seek and make I think is really valuable when you combine that with the fact that we're looking at a map here from AMC that shows 65 other counties are doing that and so they're at the table they have an administrator to run the day-to-day to free them up to go ask for the things that they need and I think it's important and valuable that we do the same you auditor Powers well I'll just share the some of the history that I've been here James mentioned it the uh the building projects um I saw them with could have had better results and it it was obvious to me the board uh had other distractions and they needed someone to take that lead whether it was the the the uh rebuild of this in addition to this building and the law enforcement center and uh and the YMCA and other all of the 1% sales tax projects and how that might affect the ones that we've got right now going forward without that Focus um yeah you can have uh uh you can have buildings that do not meet those standards and as they say building cost is less than the long-term operational and maintenance costs and we've seen that we have examples of that right here um we have a maintenance department that's been overburdened with just building the law enforcement center and the YMCA for example and that that's that's expensive and uh so I won't go into the other aspects that others have talked about but but I would say I mean that and that doesn't that aspect doesn't necessarily require administrator I mean you could have a strong coordinator position that could have potentially uh gotten better results on big projects like that but um and whether the things you're talking about um I'm not sure if coordinators could do that or not I'm not sure if they do that in other counties but I really can't speak to that we haven't we didn't try coordinator so um I'm I'm sure you can have strong or weak in in whatever position you choose it's probably easier in the administrative position since it's defined or strongly but I'd say too it really depends a lot I think on on the board's goals and what you know what are the goals that you're giving them and and I think the you know the public is talking about things like that um and that's really in your purview as to what you want them to accomplish so that could that can change too a dramatically they can change how that position operates whether it's administrator coordinator um and I think board members have a you know a lot of power in that how that operates thank you ran from the perspective of an interim administrator is there anything that you'd like to add I guess I kind of added it so I'll I'll I'll flip it around um what I said was kind of the view from an interm County Administrator specifically from Mis though it's very similar I mean we see things coming down from the BCA that frankly are unfunded or underfunded mandates and if I was to go and say you know we can't do this um or it's just going to cost us more that's not as effective as a county commissioner going to the state and and federal representative saying you know this is this is hurting our taxpayers um so having someone that's in a dedicated role to meet with County department heads and understand the issues that they see and be able to communicate that information back to County administrators or sorry County Commissioners who are able to then go and advocate for us I think is very valuable thank you well I know personally I I think about my last four years and I think about the amount of time allocated to policy procedure um but looking at Regional work work at the legislature and and also at the federal level and it's it's amazing the power that we have as Commissioners and what we're able to do when we have that time um it would be hard for me to imagine as a commissioner being in a role where I'm a commissioner and I'm overseeing staff department heads in particular um in a supervisory situation and then trying to do the other work for our region and our state so I personally um really advocate for the administrative form of government and having that point person that face of our organization um and I can say when when the tragedy in James life happened I got calls from Tina Smith's office it wasn't just local people and that's about the connections that not only we as Commissioners have with federal and state officials but that our administrator develops working on projects and that that was just incredible for me that that was one of the first calls I received um so I guess I would like us to to um strongly consider moving forward with an administrative government and I feel so confident with DDA and their process it is so thorough and we have input our department heads have input and our community has input into that process and I think that is critical for us at this point in time thoughts from other Commissioners yeah I agree commissioner Johnson first of all I want to thank all the department heads that spoke today that is valuable information for our community and thank you chair that we're having the discussion because it has felt like maybe um this was a foregone conclusion that we would just move ahead and I appreciate the opportunity that we all get to speak I have some reserv ations but I'm going to we're going work through this this is I don't want to rush this process oh we've lost our administrator and we can't function without one let hry and get one I just want to make sure we take the time to make sure we talk about what are our board goals moving forward I don't disagree with anything that was said today um my father was a commissioner under the way old system and I know that doesn't work so I advocate for something I don't know coordinator administrator there's I don't know yet but once we just we sit down and figure out what our goals are how we want to move what are we looking for what are the important things I do think we need somebody so um thank you for the opportunity to have the discussion thank you to those that were willing to come forward and speak to the issue because that is how a commissioner learns when people are willing to come and speak their mind and talk to you so thank you for that the [Music] comments all ready D someone make the motion Madam chair so I'm wondering though he's representing DDA today he would like an answer mhm what I'm hearing is that you still want to discuss more which way we should go is that your thought right now that we would not make a decision today I'm willing to start the process if we I I don't know I guess we start the process and we go through with them because they're going to help us figure out what do we want what do we need in terms of qualifications and skills and criteria does that fall on the line is it an administrator or a coordinator I don't know I think what we need to decide is if we go with a coordinator we are all going to be responsible for personnel for the supervision of our department heads I personally do not feel comfortable I don't think that that is the area of expertise and where yeah I plan to spend my time I agree and I don't feel qualified either so what I'll do is I'll make a motion to move forward with an administrative government and authorize DDA to begin the process for our search is there a second support thank you commissioner Starley further discussion all in favor I opposed motion carries we will look forward to working with you Pat thank you very much yes I look forward to it as well so thank you have a wonderful afternoon thanks all right thank you all right move forward at this point in time with our 2025 budget discussion give everybody a minute to kind of regroup and gather their materials are we sent bud are we what still working off the old [Music] one so as we get started with our budget discussion and um we have more meetings coming up but we have a lot of information and input and questions I know that commissioner white you had um submitted some questions to Rowan and let's just kind of start with your questions and um take it from there do you want me to pull he answered my questions for sure if You' just like though for the public to oh for the I don't remember what the questions were I was sending along questions from other I'll have to pull this up to find okay to find them so you should I'm not you should probably move on to somebody else all right so are there any um questions I guess we'll start commissioner stoy with with uh department heads who are here or also we can um access Elena Hansel by phone and we can access our assessor Bob Thompson by phone not at this moment I have um done some research with other folks so I'm good for right now okay thank you commissioner Mills uh I don't think I have any questions um in my mind it's just a matter of um do we want to move forward with these new funding requests um which were largely based off of our strategic planning and to what extent do we want to um we can kind of pick and choose um and then how would we pay for that and um uh you know the levy in my mind is the last resort um so if there's ways we can you know accomplish the same thing using uh fund balance that we we have uh ample of um that would be great but of course that's not sustainable uh in the long term and so we have to talk about what the plan is there and um kind of that off- ramping from that and and what we're comfortable even spending out of the fund balance if anything um so I guess yeah that's that's the long and short of it there okay so we um we have that discussion about fund balance which was a question that I had as well um to what level are we going to use some of those um funds um to talk about the federal pilt money that we have or that I should say auditor treasure Powers has been able to uh keep for us given the fact that um we might have had to pay that money back and so he has been very fiscally cautious about that and then we also have our um state and local fiscal recovery funds which we talked about this morning 553,000 498 which we need to expend by the end of the year um so my recommendation is that we start with those state and local fiscal recovery funds because we want to use them we have them we don't want them to just disappear go away so are there any kind of thoughts on those funds from commissioners commissioner Johnson well yeah I'm I've got to reorganize my thoughts here so some of those onetime funds I am very uncomfortable using for ongoing living expenses I agree um the 200,000 for the norshire waste onetime expense yes I'm can support that um BK the group a onetime expense yes I can support that we all know housing can use anything using it to offset our Levy I don't think that's the appropriate use for those funds um so at our last budget and Facilities advisory committee a question came up about Personnel costs and later on our agenda are the contracts for two of the unions and I'm wondering has the budget been resubmitted since October 10th is the last time we got information on numbers and I'm wondering if those Personnel numbers got updated as far as benefit costs and all of that where are we at on what we need the number we need to cut if we really want to get to 5% what's that what's the amount yes I don't I don't know I haven't seen the contracts but we all budgeted uh the 3% cost of living um so that that's the main one that's already in there I have added in to um to the numbers when I did an analysis on one of the questions you asked the uh the Viba which I understand is approved the addition there so um but that's again is not huge it's the cost of living because that affects all of the the taxes Etc down the line that's the largest single thing so it's not I don't think it's going to be substantially although I don't have all those numbers right now um because I haven't seen the contracts there might sometimes are surprises to me but I don't I doubt it I doubt it um so I think you've got the substantial numbers that we we brought it down to 9.6 just with process things that we knew that we had changed without making with you guys not making any decisions any um so I think that's those are I think pretty good numbers to work on at this moment and uh and those I mean our dollar increase at 9.62 is uh a milion 463 818 is the increase in the levy our fund balance this is the 2023 fund balance um with our audited numbers we are at uh 94% of our current expenses we set by by policy not to go below 75 and this this is for the the major funds the general fund rad and Bridge Human Services the building fund and the airport and right now we're at 4, 273,000 this is at the end of 23 over the 75% and that includes that uh the additional payment and L of tax tax which is essentially sitting in our fund balance and that was 2157 million can you repeat those two did you say 2.47 3 million uh over over the excess I'm sorry 4273 4273 okay thank you that makes more sense yeah and the two and the two because it included the pilt and I was like yeah includ includes that pilt the 2.57 that we've been holding back because we thought we might have to return it we do not so all of that is there and I know there's been you know discussion of how we used fund balance in the past and maybe overused it to keep the levy low but a lot of this was in you know was that was intended to be used for Levy we couldn't at the time so I mean it's it's there to it's it's how you want to use it and over what period of time and to what extent but it's certainly there 2024 again looks good because of uh interest rates uh because of conservative budgeting number one on most of our departments you've seen our first three quarterly reports uh at 3/4 of the Year we're below the 75% and the revenue is way above because of the interest rates um I could answer your question now regarding interest rates uh so Stacy had asked a question regarding how do we determine what we put in our budget for interest rates I can give a a standard answer for other years but for these last two years with these extraordinarily High rates I didn't use uh that standard practice what are the rates how do I think they might be adjusted a little bit going forward um how is our fund balance that our interest rates are based on how much money we have and are investing and yeah we do that analysis every year but I use more of a what's what do I really my gut is telling me what's coming and what do I trust to put into the budget and it wasn't anywhere near uh what we've been collecting the last two years number one because um the FED has made it very clear that they were going to cut rates you know months ago and they've been doing it now uh they've made significant cuts and they're going to continue to do that and frankly um I've been listening to the political campaigns and I knew that one campaign in particular had very strong feelings about having very low interest rates and and maybe pushing the FED to do more than they were inclined to do and so I'm well that could happen now it seems more likely that that could happen um so I don't want to I chose to keep it in uh let's say our more uh normal range over the last several years rather than to even factor in any of this higher interest rate and keep it down at that you know 2% which has been more normal over these years rather than even saying wow we were up at the five and a half for a year and now it's dropped a little you know maybe a percentage point I could make a case for an argument for making it three 3 and a half% but I don't really have confidence that it's going to stay there next next year so and maybe it shouldn't so I'd rather that you that you see what we built up over 2023 and 2024 and use some of that rather than budget something in the budget that uh you know that's the last thing I want to budget in a overly confident way in our budget I don't want to set that precedent either in case I leave someday way in the future other questions oh H um it would be really helpful and this is maybe too hard and on the too on the spot and boy shame on me for not thinking of this question ahead of time but just having Bob Thompson give some perspective and maybe you can Brady just about the impact on taxpayers in relation to our Levy because of the um oh shoot what's the term Fiscal disparity nope basically the value added um oh yeah the increase in our I tax capacity I wish I wish Bob were here because I don't know the percentage that's say new tax capacity I just know the gross number mhm uh typically the you know construction has been a very small part of that but I'm not sure what's happening you know in that market now so yeah we're we have we've had significant increases 12% 12 a half% and it was even higher in his first um take for this year was closer to 16% but if all of us are going up on an average of 16% we're all paying the same we're paying a a little different share of it but if we're the same people it really doesn't make any difference to what you're going to pay yeah it's the increase that matters really um so and I don't have that number yeah but that's something we can bring to the next meeting and he he presented it on that at the board of appeals I just it's not at front of mine and it was encouraging but not a saving Grace but I just it could be helpful so would you want my apologies call him or have him bring it to our next meeting um I think it can we can wait till the next meeting I'm comfortable with that I I just think it's really important to to consider our our fund balance and consider the new requests and consider what our Target is as far as bringing the preliminary down to you know 5% and and how that all fits together um because it seems fairly easy um I want to respect and I agree with not wanting to operationalize our fund balance but I also want to make progress on our strategic plan um and um I feel that all of these requests are appropriate um I was having a hard time balancing the benefit of those requests with the impact on our property tax levy and on on property tax payers um and and you know I think we can cushion that with fund balance um just so we can try to um get a better handle on on these These are unusual many of them are unusual requests that I don't think we should expect to have year after year um and we have them pretty well defined here so if we can you know assume that they will have those and the next year um we can try to do a soft Landing or you know off- ramping from our fund balance and and put this into our operational Levy um but uh and that's certainly my thought is to to create an off-ramp or Glide path using some those dollars um and it's really encouraging to look at what we've been able to set aside and that we have very healthy fund balance and that we have our our pilt money that's part of that yeah in particular the pilt money I find particularly um disposable for us to do this to commissioner Johnson's point about past conservative budget in I I think it could be helpful to look at past fund balances and how to what degree has our fund balance grown over these last few years and use that number to somehow balance the the dollars that we could use from the fund balance to help um offset the levy so um don't suppose you have those numbers Sandy abady well it depends on how you want to hear I'm looking at the gross numbers year to year yeah so this this is just through our audit that's our uh yeah that's when we know our fund balance so for these major funds um in 2023 total is 20 21,1 120,000 the year prior 17,7 35,000 and that's um that's it takes some explanation some of this this is why it's it's hard to get too deep into these numbers because they can vary tremendously over uh our types of Investments and how they appear at the year end of a year and so we've had years where they have to adjust our interest Revenue as they did in 2022 down to basically zero because the type of investment we had um at December 31st if you had to sell them all off uh at midnight on the on December 31st you know you'd sell them for a loss um some things and then you have to show that on your um in your audit and this and and that goes back and forth and so that happened for 22 23 at reverse just as just as it does periodically it's not every other year it's not that no it's not every year but uh since you hold on to your Investments and you don't sell them on December 31st so um so you have a little of this yin and yang but uh but through these last one two 3 four [Music] since 2020 it's been 17 18 17 and 21 million has been our fund balance and our percentages um of our current expenditures during that period have been 98 9788 that little drop last year or in 2022 and then up to 94% again and I expect it to go higher again in 2024 um because of the interest rates so it's it's been solid it's been we've had that a significant amount of money in excess of our current expenditures um for a number of years the the caveat to that as always is the recession that's that's uh always on the horizon for the last um let's see 11 yeah about 16 years they've been talking about it but uh it hasn't happened yet but the minute you think it won't then it will so so if we just keep saying it's going to happen yeah won't so far it's worked yeah that's really helpful thank you I have a question um Brady and you may not be able to answer it but I keep thinking about um bonding for the law enforcement center and we're not doing that today but it would help me as we're examining our budget and what we need to do with the levy thinking about you know what's going to be the cost of bonding kind of where is that at right now have you had discussions with Ellers um well the interest rates are going down what's happening with the bond market particularly no I haven't had any we haven't had any talks with him for on that for a couple of months so it would be interesting to hear that um given the changes they don't totally mirror each other but in general if rates are going down you know you would expect it which is to the good for yeah and it's it's in our financial management plan which um Stacy just pulled out we're going to need a million I this is where it gets confusing because I'm wondering this is the question I asked about did we budget for it or not this the 25 well when you look at the financial management plan that we were presented the numbers don't quite make sense and um so I raised that issue and um as far as I know I haven't received an answer yet they're still looking at it so and now we've don't have our administrator I'm wondering where that process is because these all may be really great things these some of these are ongoing some are onetime expenses I get it yeah some which will increase every cola you have every step in Step scale those and that's why I think it is so imperative that we have a financial management plan that somebody here at the courthouse knows how to plug the numbers in because it is so hard to make a decision today cuz we do that I'm not going to be sitting at this table next year but your hands are going to be tied in some ways because of oh wait a minute we only have this amount of money to increase if we really want to keep it 5% and we're digging in there mhm taking away the opportunities to move forward so I just want to make sure you're aware one thing yeah so we've asked for changes in this plan and then to take it over eventually but um right now we're in good position for the the next bonding coming up and it's a little obscure in here but largely because of the 1% sales tax and the way they wrote the law right for Cook County which allows us to pay off those bonds but continue to collect M that Revenue through um like May of first quarter of 2030 and that's built into this and that covers those Bond costs the the question in that I would say say is the additional bonding that's being looked at this one I think is pretty solid but the additional and then when those funds those additional funds run out and that is something that could be uh the amount of that could be affected by a recession for example we had a little downturn this year in that 1% sales tax so instead of the typical 5% we've been uh looking at on average increase in that it actually is dropping a little bit this year which that's one thing that I asked them to change in here that uh forecast just a little bit and it does if you look back there's periodically there's a year or two that it falls back and then it comes roaring back typically um so we use 5% because that's kind of the average have those come and go but when you're starting a plan I'd rather start with the well here's what we got this year or what we're getting and then build the five on that and not um assume we got the five this year and next year next year let's start at what we got so that's why I wanted them to adjust that um so any anyway we're uh as long as but you guys haven't really made a decision because you haven't had had to but at some point you'll have to decide what to do with those additional revenues and of course this is an obvious use of it but there there are other potential uses too so did that help at all and we're not looking at that right now but it's this is your uh I'm concerned learn that we are budgeting Levy revenues are right here we are budgeting general fund expenses increasing 4% every year if you look at this we're not even what we're doing this year so I question the rationale of showing it we can do even consider a $30 million project if we still do all this that's what I'm saying if we really need a new building and you think about what it costs to pay for that building is this the right time to add new ongoing expenses I'm just raising the question like Tucker Carlson just asking question I never watched him so I couldn't tell you that's a tagline I didn't know that uh it um that's that's an excellent point and and also I share that concern um it's just kind of ignoring our strategic plan then or how do we balance that right exactly that's what I what I lean on is this is new this is exceptional we have not implemented a strategic plan and in in our professional development like attorney hickin was talking about it hasn't happened until now and so this is kind of like a boom uh cost right um I don't expect it yes it will be ongoing but it's not going to continue to have these requests new requests you know what do you know what I'm saying it will be incorporated into the budget but we won't then have another 683 th000 in new requests next year right this is to get us through that strategic yeah yeah no I we'll still incorporate that yeah out of the 6837 191 that we Institute for 2025 I'm curious for those of the ongoing portion what's that dollar amount what how much does this add up to in 2026 and Beyond that's why I say this is really important and if we had this it would help me see that better that's why I am such a proponent of multi-year budgeting because you can say yeah that's great that sounds great and all of a sudden you get to next year and you're like ooh we're we're up to a double digit if you do the math we're up to a double digigit figure again what are we going to cut well I like to be responsible now and at least be aware that maybe that's why we say good things some of these things are appropriate this year some things should maybe wait and that's where I thought this discussion was going to happen today instead of us I I guess I didn't know how we were going to approach this today um but that's where I'm coming from so I thought mam I thought um Brady said that our 1% is going to cover those payments what is it going to cover Brady well you can see here the estimates of additional funds coming in uh and they're in the general fund on this plan and this is this is using a 5% estimate and yeah they'll they will more than cover the the bond payments for the uh whatever 8 million whatever that turns out to be that's not a that's the next one that's the concern where I'm going and and that's where that's a future and yeah discussion honestly like and initially it's just the bond payments gone for 20 years or longer and are you going to yeah you could absorb it in some sense um so for the current bonding and everything that we know right now we know where we want to go yeah but for everything we know we're doing right now and I would Advocate this as well we can cover that it's just and then what and that's kind of always the question and then what and every year we face it it's um you can't you can't truly know what's coming okay uh throwing this out there certainly can use fund balance we can get this lovey out do everything on the list we can get it to 5% we can take out of our fund balance we know it's healthy you guys got to deal with it next year and we will that's what I'm saying then you're going to have to deal with a double digit Levy increase well no and when you say if you if you decide to go forward with a $30 million budget that's the first thing to answer well that's the first question to answer not I mean that's that's the question for next year right for right now we're trying to address things that are in front of us that we know and we know where we might want to go but we might have to have those conversations when they come to us that's it's we can do a certain amount of planning but I believe that these new requests are going to better our organization and strengthen it so that we're going to be better able to address those tough questions again um but it's um it's just kind of that's all part of the process um well can't we kind of share the pain I mean can't we say of this 683 million half of it will be okay and the other half we can't that's the pain part sure yeah we we could say none of it or all of it or some of it or whatever it's just that we what I'm advocating for is that we can afford it because of pilt and fund balance and the 1% and our current known bonding needs and what commissioner Johnson is saying is and then what because there are future bonding needs through the capital Improvement plan and that's absolutely accurate it's absolutely true it's just that one step at a time [Music] time and I'm more of a long range look at the history to project the future um so well we just talked about the lack of an administrator with those projects and all of that Capital Improvements and I think it's a different it's a different calculus when we have that professional leadership to be able to chart our path so that when a commissioner leaves it's not just up in the air it's that we still have the track we still have the path and then we can just kind of help guide um and tweak as as we need to and as the pressures demand um but when we can do something and it was brought to us um through our strategic planning then I think we should act um and we don't have we don't have to do it all but I'm really struggling to say I mean okay we we haven't had staff training before and so maybe we could do without that but I think it's important and I think we should start doing that for the for the the professionalism of our of our organization it's it's just going to make everything um stronger commissioner Johnson so one of the questions I think I submitted I have to go look was about training and I get it we have it in a couple different places each department there were some large amounts for training and supplies that were in individual apartment departments and yet then we had a large amount in the administration part of it NH HR department for staff training and I guess I'd like to better understand what are the skills that we are missing that we need to train employees for and has that been ident well obviously some Department ments have identified it cuz they put it into their budgets and I certainly believe in continuing education and I know from the working in the auditor's office you have to go to trainings every so often to keep up on your skills so totally understand that but some of some departments had large increases and then and then on top of that we're still doing more training and I guess I I want to see a better what what do we need what are we going to use that who gets to use that money who gets to and yeah I understand now we don't have our administrator that's was kind of that Focus so who knows what it'll go forward but I don't know I'm just wondering why what what what the reasoning was and where how we came up with that number and and I don't know but my um shot in the dark here is that the department that have those trainings it's mandated um by and large for the different systems that are that required to use this training is more about um organizational uh leadership cohesion team development that kind of training that really helps uh um Pro you know our our our broad um U protocols with the employee handbook or um just that type of thing the broader ones versus the department ones are like you got to go learn how to ventor payroll or whatever the state requires it but I don't know that because I'm not intimately familiar with with all those no I think you got I think that's right um we have election training we're required to take we have to be recertified for uh passports and and various things and if you're going to get any uh training um oh you you're going to go to a user group meeting periodically um in our office for tax or uh or payroll mostly it's online but once in a while you go to a you go to a meeting where they they want to have it in person occasionally so I think that's kind of un yeah that's kind of universal I think Department to Department there's some things you you're required by the state to get that training some it's the only place you're going to get your questions answered in a general way and a is in some of these like a year-end training for ifs for example um and I'm sure ran has the same and a lot of departments so the other things in the administration department and HRA have to be a general um I'm not sure what that what those training items are myself but um yeah I think you're I think you're on to it M and I'm just looking at staff training per strategic plan 250 per employee I'm thinking how are our snow cloud drivers what what is that $250 for at the highway department as far as strategic plan if there's been talk about that in other Departments of how you would use this money thank you for being here excellent question yeah we uh if you've seen notifications or heard of it there's such things called virtual plow truck training uh they do it across the state and so that's something we have been actively exploring and trying to get our drivers into is that as you're aware we've had a lot of retirements um I believe close to a century of experience has left our department in the last few years just due to retirements well earned I might say I'm not angry just bitter um but uh you know we we we talk about the hard you know the hardships of hiring and it's starting over um and so what we're really trying to implement is these these types of program training programs training opportunities that have never existed we haven't needed it before um we maybe never even implemented it before but it's something that we believe we need to do because we need to get our inexperienced drivers up to speed as fast as possible um I'm sure you don't want to turn into a two to 4 day snowplow event uh when it should take one to two days or you know having to clean up roads more and more and more potentially even ruin our gravel roads in the winter as we've talked about in Highway committee where we want to leave a pack of snow on there um and so really for us at a very high level and that's just the plow truck drivers we can get inte graters and other stuff if you would like but um it's stuff like that um my own continuing education my engineering technicians continuing education certifications from mot um what am I missing accountants I mean name a person there's there's some type of either continuing ad that's required by the state to stay licensed so like me I can keep my job and keep talking to you all um or you know just to do the day-to-day activities attend you know uh accounting conferences and learn from peers um yeah it's off the top of my head so I don't have the highway one pulled up in front of me right this minute do not have a training budget in the highway department budget we have I think it might be I know our technician one I believe is baked into one of our I think it's baked into our administrative line item if I remember off the top of my head that the big spreadsheet yeah yeah I think it's like the third or fourth line in those top few but that would be just the technicians and myself like admin and then the technicians um but as far as the truck drivers and all like don't budget for that I don't believe we have in the past no okay so that would would be new so I guess I'm for that kind of budgeting that I I'm a proponent of keeping that clear so now that I see 250 per employee here it makes me wonder okay well now that should be Highway well it should be on the highway budget then I don't instead of HR budget I don't know just sure to keep things clear in my head of how the money is getting spent that's I know there's requirements just off the top of my head sometimes with our own budget in the state and how certain things need to be presented or even what we could keep track of versus what someone else keeps track of um I'm not sure if that's part of this or or what but I understand yeah thank you so much you're welcome and I know with phhs um they have just a tremendous amount of training that has to um be done through the state I don't know if plum I see you back there or Allison if one of you would want to talk briefly about the training thank you you're welcome uh yes so the state mandates uh the bulk of our training for staff I know there was a request at our last Public Health and Human Services board meeting for more information on the the types of training that are required of our staff I'm still intending to follow up on that um as I recall from being a part of the strategic planning committee uh the discussion of the uh by employee stien would open up more opportunities to do General organization-wide training maybe it's on communication topics maybe it's on technology tools that would be of general interest to all staff and not just program specific the mandated training that are required for our staff to perform the the duties and meet the statutory requirements for those did that answer your question commission y absolutely Commission in my memory of um what administrator Yori was trying to do is you know is almost just putting a number in there it's not that every employee is going to get 250 bucks to get trained it's that we'll have this amount of money to hopefully train a bunch of people maybe all at once or maybe in different sections um but we just needed to get some kind of number in there and figure it out somehow so this is new right um we'll we'll find out thank you so much Alison so my thought is that perhaps we're learning a lot right now this year that next year we uh have more of a line item what that goes for if it is 250 per employee during the year um just a little brief summary because as in the health Public Health and Human Services are mandating so much mhm of the training so we have a choice Choice how much we want to be trained but they don't and I would say also for Land Services there's a lot of training um related to statute and land use and that's really critical um for not only their staff but members of the Planning Commission um so that training is important but what I'm hearing from commissioner Johnson is that may be making sure that um and and we can have the this discussion it would need to be early in the year um making sure that each department has a line item where that is identified to make it easier to keep track I think that's good other questions commissioner St thank you I don't have a thought on that I have a thought on just looking at what commissioner Mills proposed of that 683 we use it all we promote It All We yes go head with the funds that he suggested that Brady talked about I mean I I'm having a hard I'm having a hard time thinking ah we don't really need that every single one of these things is like I can really see the need there oh yep we've talked about this oh that's in our strategic plan and then I pair that with what Brady's talking about I'm like with the pilt you know um and I'm like okay yeah maybe we can do this because I was not thinking we could um it was yeah it uh I just thought um as we often do we Whittle away at things um but with this strategic plan and this list of new requests I'm like okay well this is a this is a a new thing and kind of a a big uh a big push um so I think it's important so where would that leave our Levy then using p so using the well I mean we could two point oh go ahead I was going to say we could kind of arbitrarily put it where we want to you know and just compensate if we if we truly value these things we can use the the pilt to bring it down to 5% if if we think that it's just a you know that the next year there's going to be that Reckoning right it's not going to have this big increase but we're not going to have the pilt again um and but maybe we don't need all of the pilt maybe we just need part of it to get us there or maybe we don't have to go all the way to five maybe we do five and a half or I don't know there's lots of ways to do it commissioner way for the listening public David would you please read what some of those requests are not the amounts but just some of the line items and then also from the Strategic plan when we were in that discussions I recollect that we might not there were many placeholders it was a guess that but there was also we might not be able to implement everything all at once we might have to take this step by step it depends on what we can afford and and going forward so it's not saying that any of these are not important it's like renovating your house or something all these things need to be done but we can't we cannot do them all in the same year yeah and I don't think the fy2 requests are all of the Strategic plan I think James selected aspects of the Strategic plan and put this in and then there's also requests from department heads that want to add this so but to to go to your first um request to read it this is from uh September 10th memo which is in a board packet um it's the last page of that memo memo and and it was last updated September 5th 2024 and so we have an HR generalist 1 FTE maintenance 1 FTE phhs Children and Family Services case manager Community Center assistant which is 2 FTE probation Administrative Assistant 2 FTE extension contract price increase general fund insurance premium increase payroll software for the auditor commissioner training department head training staff training for the Strategic plan security syst replacement fund required BCA software upgrade Highway Department increase in equipment costs Highway Department seasonal environmental work worker Highway Department future maintenance worker 2 in tandem bwca appraisal um Land Services contractual comp County comp plan plan uh Sawtooth Bluffs planning for regional designation Soil and Water County contribution increase and maintenance contractual plowing and cost increases and so I mean I think the context of all those is important such as the insurance premium increase is 3,000 almost $4,000 versus um you know increase in equipment cost for the highway department $60,000 so by and large uh a lot of these are 20,000 $30,000 the highest ones are the first three which is Staff new staff um and and so those fdes and then when you factor in uh the cola like um commissioner Johnson is saying is that's where we're going to see those ongoing uh larger costs so um and and for reference those are almost $300,000 right there commissioner Johnson yeah so I want to go back to something we did first thing this morning of increasing our fees and I get that was hey this is what we did this year this is what we've increased our fees this is what it would have been if those fees so doesn't mean we're going to get that right next year so I understand that but that was a substantial increase has our budget been updated to reflect any percentage of those additional fees no there would be a way to um offset I don't know that you want to take the number that we were presented this morning if you want to be conservative who knows what going to are we going to have the same number of building permits I don't know but and I have appreciated the way Brady has budgeted in the past being conservative sometimes I think he's a little too conservative and is why I pressed him about the interest rate I understand why I think it's a good thing we can appreciate why we are so financially healthy today is because of Brady so thank you but I would say there is a potential Revenue source that we could be using for 2025 yeah I I think we should absolutely and for refence that's going to be roughly 1.4% um yeah maybe less actually we should go down 1.2 roughly um or less yet or I no I've just I'm just saying I made a note I had made a note to ask Tim how he intends to put that into his budget so that helps a lot I think so half of which is vacation rental fees which yeah which I think is appropriate yes I'm not oppos it's just interesting where the um where the meats at and so that's my other thing about some of the other departments also um one of my questions to Brady and Rowan was some departments and I'm not going to name names you can go back and find it yourself or they can step forward and explain it to us today if that's what they want to do but I'd asked we got our third quarter budget report we got the ifs statement and you can see that next year they have are anticipating in reduced fees and um revenues even that are even less than the 2024 estimated budget numbers less than the actual 2024 year-to date numbers and I have said since I sat in this chair we under budget our revenues too much not across the board not but there are certain places that it's consistently happening so I would ask our leaders to go through and just double check those numbers with those department heads to say are we sure can you adjust that a little bit other questions comments it would be helpful if we could specifically ask the Departments um about about the fees because it's uh certainly possibility there's good reasoning for you know yes I I totally agree and that's why I asked the question in my email saying can you explain what the rationale was for being under 2020 4 2024 year to date could be a very good reason I don't know it and we're talking significant fee um well couple thousand here maybe and maybe a thousand here which over 12 departments I don't know I'm just want to make sure we are it depends I don't know I can't tell you cuz I don't know the background I just can look at the numbers so maybe like a half percent or something I hate to speak for each department and then lump them all together because it depends what what gets included what does not ran when is your next mat meeting be the first Monday in December it's really late well we could ask data processing right now because that's one of them and he's sitting right here ask away well you're revenues 2025 work budget is budget is 2500 which is not an increase from 2024 work budget but 2023 actual was 3400 2024 actual year to date is 3400 we still got a few months to go out of that one I'm wondering where do those fees come and why do you expect reduction is this the are you looking at at the 060 account or the 221 that's uh Mis and radio communication respectively okay so 060 is it and the revenue that we get really comes from where in that account different from 221 with radio but in it specifically it's where we build back to phhs for the work that we do and so this year we've had caseworks and I'm trying to think of another large project that they had that consumed a lot of Staff time and expense and so they're as far as I know outliers as to what we should expect in terms of revenue from them and and Brady you can probably explain the process there a little bit about why that shows up as revenue for our department but we we bill phhs they then turn around and submit to the state for funds based on the work that the IT department does for them is that like the a87 line in your department okay so that makes sense to me thank you that's the explanation and I get it it's a oneoff but these are the questions when somebody's looking at this it's in the and maybe they don't know everything I think this is why I ask these questions and I would like to know why these are consistently off and why one offs I get that thank you other questions Ju Just so we have a better understanding too um the payroll soft so in the uh 2025 new requests additional resources uh the the payroll software for the auditor is $20,000 is that um a subscription or is this um that we can should expect there's two there's there's a cost uh for installing it uhuh which is that's that's the estimate I've heard from uh other counties and then we'll also once it's up and running then we'll be paying you know regular fees and I don't know if we'll you know right now Rowan you're paying that for M for msus part of it y but I don't know that uh you know it's debatable where it it should be in the future since it won't be anus again so when we move on that'll probably stay over my department so there will be something ongoing but not to this extent no yeah um and right now we've got it we've got both in there because we'll keep we'll stay with msis during the year as we make the transition and uh and actually I've got more than 20 in there um but that's the addition to my departmental uh increase because I've I've also heard from a couple of counties that it was higher than they they were told when they estimated it that was a couple years ago so and then similarly with the BCA software upgrade is that install and Molly's not here but maybe you'd know but is that install and and then ongoing or just install or are you looking at Capital request are you looking at the professional contracts and services this is from the requests for additional resources um I just keep referencing this CU it's our new our new requests probably reoccurring then and so the the way that that works we we ask for two different things um this year in advance we requested the hardware to do that recording that the BCA is now requiring and then after the first of the year we'll start paying for a subscrip destion that's ongoing for the software that actually does it so Hardware that facilitates it and then the software that actually does it and the software is the reoccurring that's in the 2025 budget oh okay thank you similar situation kind of to Auditors payroll yeah it's just it's it's not an exchange it's just an ad it's something that the BCA says if you're going to run criminal history you shall do this now and we do that so it's mandated we do that anything else with our budget there's just to my to my understanding there's just two items that are one-offs in here and that would be the comp plan and the planning for regional designation for satus Bluffs and that would total around uh $55,000 um just for a reference those are the only ones that are just one time it won't be happening next it won't be happening again next year so the rest of it it seems to be um kind of the ongoing ongoing costs and some of that is for equipment replacement um and so it's just budgeting for the future costs but um you know there's a lot of value in doing that I think it really helps to create a more predictable budget for us absolutely other questions um I'm very much a proponent of um planning for the future for I am just concerned sometimes things get added into a budget and because because this board can change every 2 years and you have new people who forget what happened four years ago cuz they weren't paying attention things get lost and budgets things get included in a budget and then all of a sudden somebody comes to sit before us say it's included in my budget um and you've been collecting on that for 5 years and nobody caught it and that's part another part of the reason why our fund balance has increased because expenses were under budgeted or I mean we budgeted for something and we didn't spend it but it was in there every year so I am all for about planning ahead setting money aside I had a conversation with our Sheriff about it the first years I was here we need plan ahead for replacement of important stuff like that just like our our um mhm CIP plan plan ahead budget for it as long as we're making sure somebody's keeping track of what that's used for and it doesn't get used for something else because well it's in my I have it in my budget that's my concern and I won't be here next year so you'll all remember other questions or comments all right all right well if not we will move on to our next item 14 which is our administrator budget and I would like to thank all of our department heads for being here providing input and um really appreciate your time and all the work you've done prior to today to get ready Nea do you want to address the regional plan and the comp plan items because I think I could make it a little easier for you that would be great great okay cool I'll come on up sorry on a mission I didn't want to interrupt you okay so thank you for standing in and doing this you're very welcome I'll try to get 6' three with a deeper voice and well then we have to take a break oh yes you would need to take a break first so just stay yourself and we'll stay tuned all right well just Nea Max will Planning and Zoning administrator I sat down with Tim Nelson our lane Services director to go through our budget and be partially available to answer some of your questions regarding those two line items keep in mind that our department put together this proposal before so much has changed in our County uh in very recent with some turnovers so um I think the comp plan would be a nice item to set aside for a different year I think our County desperately needs it I think it's a very high priority I've sat down with Jason hail a few different times to think through our zoning and how do we find some real solutions to our housing crisis and I'm really invigor created at the idea of doing some very strategic rezones in our County and try to look at overlay districts different things that we can use zoning as a tool and a mechanism to help our community but we can't just haphazardly go out and do it it needs to be done comprehensively thinking about our roads and our services so that's where a comp plan with real Community engagement bringing somebody in that can really facilitate um that process is really important so I can't just as a Planning and Zoning administrator just say let's just rezone this to one Zone and we'll be it'll be fine I'm sure um it needs to be th thought through with real Community engagement so that's what the comp plan is there for we don't have a community comp plan as a county we have a lot of sub plans um and sub area plans that also desperately need updating uh which we're working on so the comp plan though with our administrator turnover coming up uh it just doesn't feel like 2025 is going to be the right time you know when we had this discussion back in June it felt like the right year to really get serious about this actually I would say a long time ago would have been a good time to get serious about it but um the next best time is maybe 2026 so um that's what we would like to look forward to in the next year's budget um with that said our community really needs help with maybe some zoning improvements and I'm hesitant to do that without a comp plan um but I'm very open to those conversations otherwise so that's the comp plan item so you could strike it and that will save you some heartache maybe that would be one I would advocate for the the struggles of our HRA and finding housing places to build homes yeah and it is zoning that is causing our issue MH so I as a far of all of this on the list I no I don't understand why it takes our administrator to make that happen I was just trying flexible there's a lot going on I want it I want that to happen I I want it to happen next year I want it to happen yesterday yeah we get the funds we'll do it we'll work we'll make it happen so I'm willing to cut share anything else have no payroll for the regional plan I guess with that aside you know all of our work we'll we'll do what we can do with what we have so then the regional plan um that's a part of the satus bluff so the current satus Bluff plan isn't sufficient for the state to give it a regional park designation so that funding was to um allow our Mitch Travis our parks and trails coordinator to go out and secure additional funding and get that plan revised to be able to get that regional parks and trails designation to improve that plan uh and once it has that designation it opens the doors to a lot of grant funding sources so that is what that I think is 30,000 in that line item for for that one and then you're right commissioner hack we did uh you approved the fee structure Improvement so I think that was about 125 projected um Improvement on our Department's budget for next year so obviously that's not reflected in these either nether am I correct that um there are potentially um funds available through ITR for our comprehensive plan yes all right yeah theoretically I haven't dug further into that because I wanted to see where this year's budget talking and start ding is that the 75 grand from Grants um that is under it should be under the 394 so the comp plan is shown under professional Contract Services Under 6280 and then the um income for yeah grants the 107,000 is the grants that we would apply for okay thank you I need a ruler yeah the right line but all right any questions for NE all right thank you so much thank you appreciate it all right Rowan on to item 14 all right m 14a is to approve the 2025 2026 labor contract with the cup County employee Association my understanding is administrator yorki was in the process of uh finalizing the Tas the tenative agreements with these documents just the redline versions doing the paperwork to make sure there was a clean version um when everything with him happened and since then he's been able to complete that and then add it to our agenda um there's a review you'll also see uh the ls is on today's agenda the local 49ers is not and that has to do with just a a review process that they need to do um aside from that all I really know is that you know that there was a a tenative agreement between the representatives from the Commissioners and and administrator yorki as well as the uh bargain units and so my understanding is it was just the the time that it took to get the redline versions cleaned up and sent for review and that's happened with both of the contracts we have here today um i' leave any details or questions that might need to be asked about the specifics of the contracts to the Commissioners who represented the board in those meetings so both commissioner white and commissioner Mills um sat on those negotiations anything you'd like to share nothing for me I'm glad to have come to an agreement with all three U bargaining units and appreciate the work on on their end too absolutely commissioner sterle you have a question um I guess I'm disappointed to see that it's only for a year when we previous two years two years two years we did it you tried to do it for 3 years is there any thought that you would just let an arbitrator work with the different unions the reason I asked that is that I've been asking when I go to other meetings and um several counties are attorning just to the arbitrator with the unions and no Commissioners no administrator what are your thoughts on that yeah I think you mean a negotiator maybe arbitrator would be after you go through mediation without any um without any resolution and then you'd go to arbitration then that's just a judge who decides based on the evidence put forth and neither party can can go against that so um I agree most counties use a negotiator um with Administration um very I haven't met I I think Carlton County has one commissioner just sitting in the back yeah keeping an eye on things but they are not involved in the negotiations and I can see why not speaking with um our unions I think they greatly appreciate Commissioners being at the table um to really um to really have that connection because the buck stops here and um but I see a lot talking about professionalism I can see I mean it's what do I I'm not a negotiator like uh I can see where a professional would be um really valuable there um that being said one of our unions CCA does not have a business agent and so that um I think makes it less of an equal playing field in that situation in particular so I don't I don't know I don't have strong feelings on it I'm um I I appreciate I appreciate it though I I I think about that every year I ref like back when we were working and working and working it was just such a foreign thing to begin with you know so I'm just thinking is there another way not to make it easier but just to make another way that would be more negotiable yeah and better yeah well I think having the administrator with the numbers and all of that knowledge was essential oh yeah and I believe we had very sane good good dialogue with the in each of the different um groups U didn't agree to start with we had good discussions about it um they went back to their people they came back uh the LEC did it once did they come back and we or not at all I don't remember that oh yeah and then um the 49ers all went back and forth a couple of times and the ccea the first two had their own representatives from the main unions and that was very they they knew the big picture and so they could explain to to the members here this is a good thing a bad thing however it is but I thought that they were very good conversations with everybody at the table one W to come to a solution to come to something that they felt would be fair for the employees that they were representing so had it be had it been a different situation where it was very contentious and we were unable to communicate what seemed logical or many more numbers um being required perhaps then we would have been out of our league but as it was it it went very smoothly this time around and I can see that I think the the way that it's being done builds a lot of trust and I think that is uh a really important thing with our employees and so I would say yes there are other ways of doing it we can certainly explore that but I think that building trust is really important in an organization I think it's just so important thank you for all your work doing these contracts ready when you do it in house in house in that with the Commissioners it's less of a I mean it's Administration versus the workers and so but we're all here so it's not quite the them and us as it is when you get to the next stages where you have uh arbitration where you have mediation arbitration it stays um calmer and more personal which is of course could be a liability it's a risk but I I I agree with you that it's it gives the people the workers an opportunity to hear that we as the Commissioners sitting there had more than just um the budget in mind that we were trying very hard to address their concerns and it gave an opportunity for us to share with them you're not the only ones so was good well is there a motion to approve let's take the first contract the 2025 2026 labor contract with CC EA so move manager thank you commissioner Mills is there support support thank you commissioner sterley we have a motion and support any other questions oh um sorry com yeah sorry and commissioner sterley I was push just knowing the process I was pushing for a three-year contract um but there's just been so much uncertainty that and one year is just too short right so every so and I think the unions were also longer you know but it was just that's kind of we we dialed it back a little bit so I appreciate you saying that because that would be my intention too but um yeah just kind of situational so all right we have a motion and a second other questions or discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries unanimously and then our next item is to approve the 2025 26 labor contract with law enforcement labor Services lels is there a motion so move that chairman thank you commissioner Mills is there a support I'll support any further discussion or questions all in favor I I opposed motion carries unanimously updates I'll keep it brief I know it's been a long long meeting bkv uh has worked with us to identify a design team which includes uh members from the Sheriff's Office Emergency Management facilities uh commissioner white bkb representation as well uh their Architecture Firm uh Shane who's with us I forget the name of the firm um but the architect will be there as well as a construction manager to bring the master plan to architectural drawings that could be implemented as well as provide real cost from that construction manager to get us a a guaranteed maximum price on that project um we have a a timeline laid out for those meetings and that process to take place um over the next several weeks we'll be we'll be working on that and keeping the board updated as we go um other noteworthy items uh nor waste will be coming to the committee of the whole their next Committee of the whole meeting um and well they will present their information and and the contracts that were executed today or supported by the board for them to have the big picture of what that project's going to cost um as well as explain the funding that they have in their timelines and we've also asked that Ellers be present to follow them after that um after their presentation during the committee of the whole to explain um the impacts on the financial management plan should we move forward with supporting to funding the the difference that Northshore waste needs to build that facility or that we need to build that facility and that's those are the big ones uh I just say thanks to all our staff for being here uh today to talk about administrative form of government our options there as well as uh answer budget questions and thank you to the highway department and Arrowhead electric for all their work on Monday being up early and staying out late and up early again that's all I got thank you so much all right commissioner updates um commissioner Johnson I don't have anything to report commissioner white um I attended the U North uh Lake Superior one onew shed one plan and there was discussion about the East Bay like what we're going to do with that and then there was discussion with the oh God they what's the other one the um the management board Northshore management Northshore management board see the um talking about um and and this is this is a discussion that needs to be continued about when there are variances um uh accepted or granted in the different counties should should the NorthShore management board be made aware of all of them if or or the ones that um ardc think that there might be an issue with it it has changed over time and I'm learning it used to be and so they're trying to figure out I mean we're going to have more discussion about this but uh my conclusion is that from what I know is I have great confidence in our in our um people that make those decisions our planning and zoning and I believe if I had a question about something I would come back to them and get the answer I I don't have the answer so uh I was at the um the Hub again yesterday and they have now a full Board of seven they've hired two new people or not hired there's no money there um they've got two new people to be on the board and and do they start in January yes yes they will start in well no actually they started at the meeting yesterday they were allowed to vote and it was remember their names no I don't remember their names I can see them I know their names but they're not coming to my head right now but two very active Community people who have over time had experiences either through their moms their grandmas they're um with the Hub and they want to be able to help this organization continue to grow it was brought up that the Hub offers the ease and they should be considered as an essential service almost for the number of of offerings that are there for our community from um they had 30 people come to get their toenails clipped you know that's it it's that and our public health and human services offer a lot of opportunities for the community in that building so they're and they point out that we have we have the room we really have the room so um they're going to be having back to food pasties aacy fundraiser and we all get to help make them if we want to and next time around they're going to bring samples so we can decide which ones we like the best bring food I follows so anyway those are those are the biggest things all right well thank you commissioner Mills I wasn't going to update I wasn't going to share any updates but there is a big one is the Eda has uh extended an offer and it was accepted to Heidi krampitz and so she will be at her uh November 19th meeting and that's very very exciting and who is it Heidi krampitz krampitz y um she has Eda experience as an executive director and um comes from kabic County and and um yeah very very happy with that and the board is too very excited I'll probably think of something else to update after I pass the the mic here we can always come back to you commissioner story like so you mean I'm going to trigger something that you might want to talk about um well I had no a long no meeting but I'll be next week and most of my meetings are the next two weeks so I have nothing else all right so um looking back after our last um board meeting we had budget facilities advisory committee and there's a request so Rowan um Henry was they they asked I'm sure Henry has the square footage by Department that we currently have just so that they can look at that and part of their analysis um you are at the meeting so you're aware of that um I also thought it was interesting uh Randy canuteson asked at a meeting about adding a um tax to Vacation Rentals and he cited the state of Hawaii is having a special tax so I did some research I've also sent some questions to assessor Thompson uh this would be more in the legislative work that we might do but in Hawaii they charge 10.25% extra on vacation rentals um so that was quite interesting and then there's a couple of other taxes um in addition to that but um anyway um something to look at for um future State discussions AMC discussions I love getting people to turn their heads you know um then we on the 24th as Rowan um alluded to earlier had our legislative luncheon which was the first legislative luncheon held by by the Cook County Chamber of Commerce but they did invite us to attend and so commissioner Mills and I um assessor Thompson Rowan and Jason hail with our HRA were all there to present we spoke to Child Care Mental Health needs fiscal disparities tax classification the transfer station and housing and then on Route up to Grand Portage for the Gaya afterwards um stopped at Gunflint View and talked a little bit about that project and um currently there are only 38 units that are unspoken for um out of the 51 so things are filling up which is is good news and again we than back to all our partners um ITR working with the Eda the HRA working with our legislature to make that possible and we need to continue all the hard work um into the future so that we can continue to grow our housing stock we had a um County Safety Committee meeting and one of the things we're researching are a little addition to our aeds and we're talking about adding overdose prevention supplies Andrea orist is leading that charge and that would be a separate little box that could be included with that AED throughout the county at all the AED locations we had firewise meeting and Aaron malen cing has resigned effective the end of the year and so we will be looking for a new U firewise coordinator as you're aware he does both Cook County and Lake County it was just way too much and um so anyway we're actively um seeking someone for that position is it just for Cook County just for Cook County that is the way it was posted he um took both positions cook and Lake but again it was just too much and given the distance from his home to his three hours from his house to Cook County so that added on I think a significant amount of stress to you think about all the spruce budworm and just the additional needs um requests for new fire wise communities that wanted to be developed he couldn't even get to all of those um is he staying on at Lake County he is staying on at Lake County good so um then we had our Gunflint Trail Scenic byway meeting and met with the US Forest Service um and people from the DNR down at Swamper Lake to talk about what went wrong with burn piles last year and the need to really try to use local contractors that local knowledge keep the burn piles down let them age a little bit more um but it was a very very valuable conversation station and then at um the meeting last Tuesday uh Robbie just reminded everybody on the trail about the mill to the hill project and that um traffic next summer going up and down the Gunflint Trail will be one lane at certain points and to expect delays and um was really just alerting all the resorts as well as the the seasonal and um year round residence of of what will be happening and then he also brought up which ties in with the Rainy River of a million Headwaters one Watershed one plan that I sit on that the year following mil to the hill there will be the last 10 miles of the Gunflint Trail which is going to be worked on think about the end of the Gunflint it's one big swamp and we decided to put a road right through the middle of it so they will be working on culverts making sure there's good drainage and Flowage back and forth between each side of the swamp and um so anyway highway department will be working with the Watershed to make sure that uh we are collaborating all the way and um then the last meeting was Soil and Water Conservation District and um graciously Stephen was able to get here this morning to explain that last minute letter of support that was needed to try to help with funding for our Coastal erosion issues in East Bay and that would be what I have did you come up with anything else commissioner Ms um no thank you m chair all right just check them back all right with that we have a number of upcoming meetings in the next couple of weeks um and we have our lodging tax comparison through August and then some really exciting anniversaries to celebrate with our staff we have Ally iers Iverson at the Sheriff's Office two years Nancy Deming with phhs 2 years Angelique Holman in our Sheriff's Office 3 years that's gone by so quickly Steve Olsen with the highway department four years Grace grenager phhs six years and Jesse Backstrom with the highway department 11 years Norris Kad also with the highway department for an 11year anniversary and then our Milestones Ben Hadley with Highway Department 5 years and 10 years for Jimmy walner in [Music] maintenance and uh so anyway with that we are adjourned is there a motion to adjourn it's a moe thank you commissioner is there support support thank you we are ajour tomor yeah soent it out yeah we have to meet with come --------- ##VIDEO ID:hyB2BwYEDC8## and welcome to everyone I'd like to welcome you to the Cook County Board of Commissioners regular meeting this is our morning session today we have a lot of agenda items and we'll begin with a pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to the play of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under indivisible with liberty and justice for all so this morning do we have any adjustments or changes to our agenda any adjustments or changes I do have one that has come from Soil and Water um and this would be item g under consent it is to authorize the board chair to write a letter of support for their application to the Minnesota Lake Superior Coastal program for a grant to assist with the cost of the Army Corps of Engineers work to study East Bay to look for solutions to our Coastal issues go ahead and and um so we'll add that to consent agenda and if there are questions or concerns we can pull that item and discuss further well yeah I am very comfortable putting something on the consent agenda that we have not seen not saying I don't support but it's I think it's more appropriate to add that to our regular agenda so there can be discussion yeah and explanation of this so we'll we'll okay we will do that we will pull that and put it elsewhere but it came in late and because of power issues and internet issues we are not able to get it at a at a late all right so add that and deal with that as it comes um any other additions or changes to our agenda this morning if not is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended so moved thank you commissioner white is there a support support thank you commissioner Starley we have a motion and support any further discussion I'll in favor I I opposed I all right we'll move on now to our public comment period And this is an opportunity for citizens to appear before the County Board are there any members of the public that wish to speak I would like to good morning good morning if those individuals who are speaking today would remember to sign in please and then when you are seated and get ready to speak into the microphone speak clearly so that everybody both here in the room and online can here and uh make sure to state your name and address for the public record do I have and if you'd please sit down have to sit yeah it makes it easier for the microphone to pick up thank you okay my name is Steve Watson I live at 1517 devil TR Road in District 4 anyway um I came and spoke last time at the meeting and 5 minutes isn't near enough so I don't know how many times I'll be here I wanted to start out with um that I had no idea what was what was happening in our County and all the things that have happened but that I addressed you that you five are the ones be responsible for the county so my encouragement to you is to um not hire an administrator and um because you guys were elected to the position and then I actually said to you that if you need an administrator the salary for that person should come out of your wages not the Public's um because it's your job and if you want to pass it to them you should finance that okay but but that that it wasn't a coincidence that I came and did that it wasn't just it didn't just happen out of the blue you'll have to figure you know why that actually happened you know that I would come on that day and and address that issue to to you people any the other thing I I want to say I also said that the finances of this community is run by greed and greed says never enough so I want to talk a little bit about that so um two years ago I think there was an a little bit extra Levy leveraged against us the people to um make sure there was enough money to pay back the the government if the inl a tax money um you had to pay that money back and now this year two years later you don't have to pay that money back I think it's 2.14 million that you have that you don't have to pay back and then I think they increased your um your the amount of money in Lou taxes that you actually got the next thing that has happened for two years you've increased the property value of everybody in the county so you're going to get extra money for that and for two years there's been a lot of building lots of raw land now have houses that didn't that weren't there before so you get all the increase of that and to to me then to set a preliminary Levy at 10 is um Despicable you should be able to get it to zero you already have all that increase and um so that that's the first thing I wanted to say now I want to talk about um hiring and I have some questions and I know you won't answer so I'll answer them for you how many of you Commissioners have a cook at home somebody that cooks on your payroll your home payroll how about a baker a maid a gardener um any other like a mechanic in your garage wouldn't your life be so much better and easier if you had all that at home and you didn't have to take care of any of that so why don't you have it why don't you why aren't those people all on your payroll because you can't afford it and the same principle is for the county you have a whole bunch of people on your payroll that probably are good people make everything go better but they shouldn't have been hired because you couldn't afford them and that's why you're struggling with your Levy now I want to talk about um what came out in the paper and you specifically talked about it on wtip when you were debating um Dean uh that you actually found counties that you compareed to so that you could raise the um um wages of the people in this County I'm sure everybody who works here is happy but but so this is what happens when you raise our Levy we don't just have to make the money to pay your Levy we have to make the money to pay the federal government on the money we made and the state government and the FICA that's all piled on that one bill and um it doesn't seem like you care about us at all the people who live here um wise decisions some of these people some of these things are just wants they're not needs so Mr Watson about one minute left okay um so anyway when you when you compare counties there aren't any counties in in Minnesota that have less than 10% private property and with less than 8,000 people in the county there aren't you couldn't have compared so you had to take other things to compare to it doesn't it it doesn't work out as soon as you cut the pie when you if You' conclude your comments please thank you for interfering me it doesn't cut the pie when you cut the pie we get a big chunk those other counties get a little chunk and you need to think about that and you should have compared to badet and then you would have reduced the amount of money that you were paying because that's about as close of a county you could have compared to thank you thank you are there other m members of the public that wish to speak this morning any other members good morning good morning how are you today good not the wind thank goodness if you could state your name and address for the record yeah my name is Joan farum 17 Third Avenue West in Grand marray I'm just um here to urge you to vote for continuing the County Administrator position I think it's really helped our County a lot over the last few years and it's efficient it means that you as the County Board can have the time and attention to take care of your constituents as well well as go to all those committee meetings and all those boards you you're on and the County Administrator takes care of the day by day and there's that the other thing that I think is really important is that Minnesota counties there are a majority of Minnesota counties use a County Administrator and I think the reason they do is because it works so well and um I think in our case it really has um I've certainly seen well it's so I guess the most exciting thing for me was this summer when I was working in my community garden I noticed they were putting a new roof on the community center and it was just oh they're fixing these buildings yay and I think part of that is because of the work that um James yor has been doing and um I want to say that let's see what else I want to say I think a County Administrator keeps politics out of the day-by-day administration I think that's really important for us and for the community at large um let's see and I think it it will help your work as well as help the county so I urge you when you have a chance to vote for the continuation of the County Administrator and I would like to say that we are really going to miss we are going to really really going to miss Jamie Yori and he has done such an incredible job here thank you thank you are there other members of the public that wish to speak this morning good morning good morning uh Gary gamble 11 East 3rd Street and I'm not here to accelerate the transition as I appreciate uh commissioner Johnson's work on behalf of her constituents but I did want to bring before the board uh information relative to decisions that are forthcoming and um you may or may not be aware of this information this information is taken from research Department Minnesota House of Representatives it's an information brief that that was published in 2014 and then there is the associ association of Minnesota Cy's County government structure publication which was updated 2021 and much of this information is drawn from Minnesota statutes which is current and I'll read this information beginning in 1918 under Minnesota statutes each County must have an elected County auditor treasur Sheriff recorder attorney and coroner since 1973 however Minnesota statute has allowed a county to appoint a county auditor County treasur sheriff or County Recorder if the offices have not been abolished by the adoption of other options the positions of County Sheriff County attorney and Watershed District directors as well as the governing body of Commissioners however continue to be elective positions a position that is filled by the people who are elected by the citizens it is not given by appointment or inheritance options to appoint may be adopted only after the voters in the county approve it in a referendum Minnesota statute the ref uh details that the referendum may be initiated by a resolution of the County Board a petition signed by voters equal in number to 5% of the electors voting at the last ele election for the office of Governor or a recommendation of a County government study commission and it goes on to Define what that means and how what the timeline is on that until the adoption of any one or more of the options stated each County shall operate under the plan of County government relating to the county offices enumerated in this section which was in effect for that County on July 1st 19 1973 so as I understand it there are two instances in which appointments are made one is in the instance of a vacancy and the other is an incident where as we did in Brady's position as auditor treasure and we went through a process so that that position would be a combined position and so an appointment that is made to make a permanent determination as we did in the case of our auditor treasure is different than an appointment that takes place when there is a vacancy so in the case of a temporary appointment to fill vacancies State Statute says when a vacancy occurs in the office and an elected County auditor County Treasure County Recorder Sheriff County attorney County supervisor or coroner the County Board must fill it by appointment at a regular or special meeting a person appointed to a vacancy pursuant to this paragraph must give the board or give the bond and take the oath required by law and serve the remainder of the term and until a successor qualifies when a vacancy occurs in an office that has a chief Deputy or first assistant the chief Deputy or first assistant May perform all the duties and functions of the office until it is filled by appointment by the County Board as an alternative to the appointment proced procedure provided in section of the state statute a vacancy in the office of of sheriff or County attorney may be filled at a special election as provided in this section and it goes on to Define that the County Board can also set the appoin his annual salary for the remainder of the year and an amount less than was set for that year so my understanding based upon State Statute which Molly may be aware of and you may be aware of as well is that in the case where we're filling a vacancy we can make that appointment and in talking to Brady about this issue that that appointment would fulfill the term of the individual that we are filling the position for and then after that there it would go back to the electorate to make that choice because that is the form of governance that we have set up if we choose to go to a permanent appointment in the future we need to go through a state statute directed process in order to make that position in the future appointed and not elected the other thing I'd like to touch on is the issue of the County Administrator I was part of the process in transitioning from our form of governance to the County Administrator form of governance we went through quite an extensive process in doing that and um we had interviews with counties that head County um administrators we had um research that we conducted considerable research and interviews and we've had 10 years now to observe that form of governance there are five other forms of governments that could be looked at we have unique opportunity to step back and pause evaluate the effectiveness the effectiveness of County government form of government to ascertain its efficiencies its Financial advantages its contributions to the culture of the County's Workforce in addition if we look at other options we can weigh pluses and minuses I had held a town hall relative to County Administrator so that people could come in and ask the question that were not familiar with this form of government as it was unique to Cook County at the time and at that point the number one concern was will it save us money will it contribute to efficiencies whenever you venture into something that you have not here to for experienced you usually stop and evaluate and find out if your expectations have been met so my encouragement is is that we have a unique opportunity to evaluate to assess honestly how this has worked for us as a community and there are tangible things that are black and white that we can measure that will answer that question for us and I encage that we do so thank you thank you so much are there other members of the public that wish to speak this morning any other members of the public that wish to speak have Commissioners received any items that should be read for the record Madam chair I have but it's about um our topic the bridge and so I'd like to wait until then all right thank you commissioner anything else all right we'll close our public comment session at this point and move into our consent um a few people arrived a bit late we did add an um item G which is to authorize the board chair to write a letter of support for the Soil and Water Conservation District's application to the Lake Superior Coastal program for a grant related to East Bay Madam chair wasn't that um taken off the consent agenda and added onto the regular agenda though not that I'm aware of oh okay we were attempting to do that but so is someone that would like to pull an item well my understanding is that we're going to be talking about that in this meeting now to have full discussion about about that so why I agree with you m like we so let's just pull it and make it a separate item um and let's put it in front of oath of office yeah all right thank you all right so our consent agenda as written letters a through f is there a motion to approve thank you commissioner white is there support support thank you commissioner sterley we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I all right opposed motion carries all right um to address the um additional item that we pulled off the consent agenda we have Steven Janice here from Soil and Water Conservation District and um we received information to add this to our agenda rather late on Friday after things had been published um so we appreciate you making time to be here Stephen so you can talk about this yes thank you and thank you for making time for me this morning I appreciate it um we're moving rather quickly on this and so I apologize getting it in front of you on such short notice but um by way of background um the City of Grand morray and uh our organization have both re received communication from land owners along the East Bay of grand morray over the last several years um about issues that they're facing primarily driven by wave action on the East Bay um the East Bay the way that it's it's oriented geographically um there's an issue there with what's called Fetch there's a long unbroken area going to the Northeast uh across the lake where there are no land forms that really block the interaction between wind and waves all the way from the East a grand marray up until the north side of the lake uh in Canada um which means that that particular area has a huge potential for large waves um particularly in winter storm events we get those waves um and in some instances that those waves are actually breaking up against some of the properties that are along the East Bay under under extreme circumstances it's an annual thing for land owners there um after the winter season over is over to have to remove uh gravel and aggregate from their buildings because of the fact that the the aves are interacting with the first stories of their buildings in this way um and so they approached the city and they approached us um to see if there was any sort of solution that we could come up with the issue that they are facing um we uh started working well I specifically started working with the city on this problem a little over a year ago we identified pretty early on that the best thing for us to do is to get a coastal engineer on site who can do a prolonged study to understand the actual dynamics of the wave action in the East Bay before we start coming up with any sort of a design solution we really need to understand what the problem is before we can design something um in the process of that I started looking around for funding opportunities reached out to the US Army Corp of engineer to see if they had any grants coming up uh and they didn't have a grant to offer to me but they um informed me of what's called their public assistance to States program which is designed for um government units of very sizes who are facing issues like this um the US Army of cor of Engineers is willing to offer up their resources um and in some instances cover 50% of the total cost in some cases cover 100% of the total cost um in this situation what they are proposing is an 18-month study of e East Bay gr marray using their Engineers using their resources um the estimate on that study is not low it's probably going to cost somewhere in the area of $543,000 so this is this is a very expensive thing for us to do it's also in my opinion necessary for us to do this to really understand the problem um under the public assistance Estates program as it stands right now the Army Corps is going to cover 50% of that project um we believe in The Soil and Water office that we have a potential source for an additional 25% of the project which means that we're looking now to cover about $135,000 of the total cost of the project um and we're aggressively P pursuing grants in order to find a funding option for that um this annual Grant opportunity with the Minnesota Lake Superior Coastal program came up it has a very quick turnaround we we have a deadline of getting an application submitted by November 17th um one of the things that the Lakes Superior Coastal program specifically called out for were letters of support um for the Endeavor uh and and we'd be delighted to have the the County Board of Commissioners submit a letter of support so um again I apologize for bringing this to you so quickly and and and getting myself on the agenda kind of outside of normal protocol and I have deep appreciation for you allowing me to speak to you about this today um I think that gives you a sense of what we're talking about does anybody have any specific questions that I can answer for you yeah commissioner W um I'm well aware of this because I sit in the Lake Superior one water shed one one plan um committee and could you explain well why don't the why don't we just put in Boulders and I mean or just some sort of thing along the shore and what what happens when that I know that doesn't work but could you explain because it seems like we'll just do that we'll pile up a lot of rocks and it we'll all be good explain why what happened in the past sure I I will do my best with that you know bearing in mind that I am not a coastal engineer right and I haven't studied the East Bay but I think um folks who have an understanding of the history of this place understand why that might not be the best path forward because the truth is those types of efforts have been done in the past along the East Bay um we've seen wall structures get torn out you can still see the remnants of some of them along the East Bay there are large rocks that have been brought in in the past um because there's such a deep reservoir of Cobble along the East Bay what tends to happen over time is this is a very Dynamic Beach so the the if you spend any time there you see this the size of the beach is constantly shifting relative to what lake levels are and what the current weather conditions are and when you place those large Stones along the coast what happens is because this Cobble is moving in and out they slowly start to sink so some of the largest stones that we've put along East Bay in the past 30 40 years are now fairly well buried underneath the Cobble and they'll occasionally emerge depending on what the weather events are going so not necessarily the most effective solution um we are just trying to get a sense of what the full range of possibilities are and and some of those Solutions might be onshore it might be something similar to that though anchored in a slightly different way there's a possibility that we could be talking about offshore breakwaters that's something the Army Corps has mentioned um but I think in this situation like all situations this is a big decision east east BAS is a really important resource to this community and to this County we don't want to go towards the first solution that comes to mind we want to be very intentional about collecting as much information as we possibly can and feeling confident in whatever decision that we make for the East Bay I think that that's really important I've been stressing that to the city I've been exess stressing that to land owners um I don't want to see a situation where we make a mistake here and the East Bay Grand marray is no longer um what it is now because I know it's a deeply meaningful thing to residents here and to visitors here alike and certainly to the business owners of downtown gr maray other questions commissioner stle thank you thank you for that explanation um so all you're asking for really is a letter of support to be sent to whom by the 17th so the letter of support will be to the Minnesota Lakes P Coastal program um I can certainly pass along additional about what the format of that will look like I don't know commissioner Sullivan is that okay for that to go through you that's um and um we'll get that to you in short order I know we've got a tight turnaround here but it it it really is just a letter saying that you're cognizant of the issues along East Bay it's it's an issue of concern for both the the city and the county and that um you're supportive of our endeavors to try to come up with solutions for our land owners here in the area and it's a letter of support it is not a financial commitment that's absolutely correct commissioner Johnson thank you thank you for showing up this morning um first of all the when does we have to have the letter in by November 17th deadline when is the award when would we hear if the award uh it's an annual Grant opportunity I have to confess this is my first time applying for something with the coastal program so I'm not sure of the precise turnaround so I I don't have haven't answered your question many times with these Grant applications it's several months before you hear something back so I would anticipate somewhere in early uh 2025 we would know and I want to express my appreciation that you reaching out and trying to figure out this problem because I've known this has been an issue for years I've attended different meetings this has been discussed I'm glad it hasn't dropped off the radar and we're still working on that um I'm just going to the rest of my comments are going to be about process here um if we knew this didn't make the agenda on a Friday I personally would have appreciated a heads up instead of walking in here and discovering it after 8:30 in the morning that this was going to be added to the agenda I get maybe not all the paperwork came in but we send each other information all the time it doesn't necessarily have to make it here all you all you needed to do was keep us in the loop that this was coming up hey something new might get talked about okay so not against the pro or about the program not against the letter of support I'm concerned with the processes here so thank you any other questions comments all right with that is there a motion to allow me to write a letter of support supporting supporting the Grant application by Soil and Water for the East Bay Coastal program Madam chair I'll make a motion so I'll move thank you commissioner Starley is there support I'll second that thank you commissioner white you have a motion and support anything further all in favor I opposed motion carries thank you so much for coming thank you for the time this morning again we appreciate it all right we'll move on to item four right now which is our oath of office for our assessor and recorder and what I'll do is put a microphone right here want to get a little bit closer yeah if I could you both your right hand and repeat after me I do swear and affirm I do swear and affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Minnesota and the constitution of the state of Minnesota and that I will be diligent faithful and impartial and that I will be diligent faithful and impartial in the performance of the duties of the office in the performance of the duties of the office for which I have been appointed for which I have been appointed for the County of Cook for the County of Cook in the state of Minnesota in the state of Minnesota to the best of my judgment and ability to the best of my judgment and ability in accordance with the law in accordance with the law congratulations to you both thank you congratulations [Music] I'm not a notary are you a notary okay we I can take to the a auditor's office okay yeah do you want to do that can do it right over here she does stamp with her well at this point in time we're running just a little bit late we're going to begin our public hearing which is to consider increases for County fees and um auditor treasur of powers is there anything that you'd like to say as we kind of introduce this item yeah thank you madam chair so the board can change these fees uh after the public hearing takes place and I'll just describe generally the highway department has one uh request to change the Spate services District Administrative fee from $1,200 to $2,100 due to the time uh on this on these projects through the Mis office and auditor's office and the sheriff's department uh would like to change fees for registering and inspecting for dangerous dogs as per the ordinance $500 and reduce the fee for the PBT test from $10 to five and then I will not go through through all of the rest that uh Land Services um has a large list of fees I think there's too many to go through um but for all their Department uh three departments 390 and 394 land use permits inspections septic systems um so forth vacation rental license fees variances appeals uh Wetlands applications Etc so too many to uh list all right well are there any members of the public that wish to speak about the increases to County fees this morning anyone from the public who wishes to speak if not we'll close oh commissioner public all right if not will close the comments to the public and I give Commissioners an opportunity to speak commissioner white I just have a question where it says vacation rental renewal vacation rental annual license is wait no where am I here now I lost my spot variances of appeal oh now I don't even know what I was looking I hear you looking but it says late renewal late renewal okay late renewal fees are 1,200 Uh current fee is 300 and we're going to $1,200 and there's no difference with what's the difference between a late renewal fee and an after the fact renewal fee Neva if you'd like to come forward on behalf of Tim Nelson Neva Maxwell is here today to respond to any questions regarding Land Services fees thank you for being here yeah could I just point out that the the current fee is 300 and the proposed fee is 500 um different column I think the 1,200 is is the oh the revenue is the yeah all right Nea thank you uh so the vacation rental is an annual license and so the vacation rental license holder has a period of time to renew that license for the next year and if they miss that deadline then that's where the late renewal fee would kick in so it was a previously licensed vacation rental unit is just they missed a deadline on the renewal and then the after the fact is somebody just never even bothered doing licensing and so that's where oh it's come to our attention that you're operating a vacation rental the after the fact fee will apply so those are fees that get added onto the annual license and that's the way a lot of our fees are structured so um so like the variance fee you do the base fee plus the after Thea understand thank you thank you Nea commissioner Johnson and may I ask about the variance fees and I wondering why the after the fact has been eliminated we didn't eliminate the after the fact it is a little bit confusing on here very reasonable question um what we're proposing to do is re remove the square footage after the fact fee for variances and only apply a base after the fact General the very last line on that variance section because there's different types of variances some are for square footage of structure but a person could ask for a variance from any ordinance criteria um so that's generally speaking what what that's proposing to do it would simplify okay frankly so it's just a base rate regardless how big correct of a and and kind of the followup to that is say a person does get an after Thea variance approval then the square footage uh fee would be applied to the land use permit later on so there is still a difference if a person has like a little cabin versus a super large structure thank you for explaining that um my other question I guess was about the dog ordinance and who pays that and how do we collect that money Brady do you have no idea the the dangerous dog or who pays what so we have a $500 dog fee is that the dog owner mhm that's if there is a a dangerous dog designated the owner has to pay a $500 registration fee each year and what that covers is the cost of enforcing the ordinance so the deputy going out to the person's home making sure they have the enclosure and all of the signage they have the dog tag and the Sheriff's Office also purchases all of the dog tags and um signs to distribute to people with dangerous dogs I didn't even know that so how many dangerous dogs do we have in Cook County I think we have one okay M all right thank you for that clarification M other questions uh yes under so what's PB PBT yes this is from the sheriff's department reduce the PBT test from $10 to $5 preliminary breath test for alcohol blood alcohol content concentration okay other questions if not is there a motion to approve the fee increases changes maybe you want changes all right because there's one because there is one that went down thank you for pointing that out I will make that motion thank you commissioner Johnson has their support support thank you commissioner Mills we have a motion and support any further discussion or questions all in favor I all right opposed motion carries thank you all right as we move on we're going to be talking a little bit with some members of our Eda and we have a couple microphones here so we'd um ask some of our Eda well I see we have Mr headstrom here coming forward to speak but we're going to talk a little bit about the potential sale of Superior National Golf Course good morning Madam chair Commissioners good morning thank you for uh us on the agenda and listening to us um little background I'm here with Peter gliss hold uh both Peter and I are on Eda Mike Larsson from Spirit National he's the one that wrote the report that was uh presented or in your pack at the last uh meeting or before that uh hope you had a chance to kind of look through that this is kind of a summary of all that um the golf course was uh kind of instituted installed in 1992 so it's been around a long time Eda uh um done a number of improvements over the years uh there's still some Bond payments for those improvements outstanding um it is a destination golf course which uh uh puts it in a little higher level of uh category of golf course it is uh uh on par with the better courses in the State uh fee structures very similar to Giants Ridge for instance um the report that you were presented talks about the challenges uh uh moving forward one is uh Staffing um upon the retirement of Scott Harrison who uh kind of was a def de facto manager there um you know his baby ran it for years with no pay um and you know Mike is is doing a good job now but uh when Scott retired it threw a lot of work back on the Eda director we didn't really realize that uh you know how big a job Scott was doing it really shows how understaffed we are in the critical areas managers in in HR all kinds of stuff uh as a destination golf course and is any asset uh um very similar to the Shoreline talk youve got there's right on the pop River there's erosion and in capital is going to be needed for that plus uh infrastructure plus Equipment Plus Clubhouse uh the estimate is $12 million um so we're looking at that looking at uh the load on the Eda looking at the capital needs looking at the the hiring needs uh we kind of and it was in Mike's report too what do we do how do we go forward and and one of those routes is to look at selling the golf course uh to a private Enterprise and um you know we'd have to pay off the bonds uh we can then if we did that we could refocus the efforts of Eda on on what we do best that's Economic Development uh in private hands it would add that property to tax roles uh and if you know if we had a new owner who knows who it's going to be but uh you know somebody in the golf business Recreation business whoever uh we would assume that they could leverage uh their own management staff uh HR uh other staffing needs uh you know to really run the golf course as it should be run uh private Enterprises always more Fleet to foot than than government uh any decision now has to go has to think be thought about at the at the going to manager level at the golf course go through the bulf course Board of Governors go through the Eda and by the time all those processes is done you know maybe that opportunity is lost so you know being Fleet to foot is much better than than U being in government um our our board has been talking about this for the last few months uh and we're we haven't I don't think voted but I think we're pretty unanimous and this is a route that we ought to pursue uh we got the opinion of uh Council about okay what is this process and one of the processes uh to get the approval of the County Board to enter into the thought and discussions about a sale so that's why we are here today uh the ask would be a resolution you know allowing us to move ahead and seeing that there's many steps ahead I mean there there would have to be a public process public input we would have uh many steps within the Eda plus I I don't know do we have to come back here Mike um for final approval probably so it's just the first step uh but in order for us to take that first step and move ahead we'd like the the um a resolution from the board you know allowing us to kind of move forward with the idea of a sale of the golf courts happy to take any questions Mr Sterling thank you thanks again so much to all of you that have been working so hard on this I know it's um it's a hard decision to make um but I do have a couple of questions um how where do you find a realtor you know who can work with what 328 acres is it about that and then what's already there um so real would be important and then do you have a lawyer to also help you along working with u is it Fred Fred dutterer Fred okay yeah so he's gray hairs but you know he he goes back to the beginning of the golf course it's kind of ironic uh my uncle Wes hedstrom uh was on the County board at the time that the golf course started and was instrumental in it uh becoming you know destination golf course so um here I am uh Next Generation trying to sell it but anyway that's the evolution and and my goal and I think our the goal of the Eda board is to have Superior National a successful destination golf course and and do the things that it has been doing these last years uh in in uh giving you one more uh attribute to tourism plus the locals uh you know in in that that would be our goal moving forward and a sale is structuring a sale and finding a a buyer that will continue and look at you know making that a successful golf course and to to to the point of how do you value how do you sell it how do you that this is the first step so I mean we have talked about some things but now you know if we can get a resolution and you can Cur then we'll really sit down and Earnest and and um work on those items and just so the County Board is aware there are um real estate groups that have been looking already at Superior National I had a call from Florida from Steve ovich of leisure investment properties they scour the internet they're looking for golf courses and different kinds of Resort properties and so um there is interest and um there will be a number of contacts I'm sure that will be made um once a decision is made to actually pursue sale commissioner white how does is there a outside entity that that actually knows how to give a price I mean what is the value of this golf course well the value would be having two or more buyers compete on on the sale I but where do you set the starting price that's the question who who sets it I I well it I don't know if there is a starting price I mean we we would uh look at offers and and look at the best one I mean the success of the golf course I mean you could value it at $100 million but that won't assure the success of the golf course I mean to be frank I mean we have broke even you know in in the whole life of the golf course you know plus being supported by by bonds and and a lot of Grants so there it's not a it's not a highly profitable Venture but an important one for the county so it you know we're we're I am hoping I don't know if we've looked at that as a board or group yet but you know I am hoping that the the potential buyers would value the property for us Mr Johnson yeah I have a question a resolution versus motion and um I thought this morning you were going to come and I agree we need to do this don't get me wrong but for us to give the Authority for you to go to the next level and do the work figure out what will work then come back to us for a resolution saying yep we approve this sale so because in here we have to make sure that the county the bonds that are owed to the county um are covered so I'm a little uncomfortable saying yes go sell the county to or the court so I just want to make make sure I'm understanding what it is we're being asked this morning so I see the attorney has information absolutely attorney hicken um well I I just a preliminary question just to make sure I understand what you're looking for it sounds like you know uh finding a buyer valuing the property all of these things there's going to be a lot of work on the part of the Eda and you're going to incur legal fees Etc so it sounds like what what uh you may looking for Mr headstrom is is just kind of the consensus of the board that yes we're interested in you moving forward with this at this point you're not looking for a commitment to sell for a certain price to a certain seller or anything like that you're okay uh is is my understanding correct um Mike I don't have the dutter is letter in front of me but it's one of the steps that Fred dutter laid out is you know because of because of the structure you know we we are Eda but we're under the County Board you might say so we want to have your concurrence you know my in my mind it was a resolution for us to move forward if it's just a consensus of the board if that's what you want to do I don't know if that would be we just don't want to go down the road and and then come back here and say well we didn't know about this we're not in favor of that so so right whatever whatever vehicle gets us there I think we're okay mik what was requested for the agenda is just an authorization for for the Eda board to pursue the sale and that's what I understood and then I hear the word resolution and there's no resolution included in my board packet I'm a little concerned so I just want to clarify I am in support of letting the Eda move forward um my opinion but whatever vehicle you want typically what we would do is provide the minutes that would say that this body authorized it and the vote would be in there all right okay that would be acceptable other questions or comments if not is there a motion to authorize the county Grand Mar joint Economic Development Authority board to pursue the sale of Superior National Golf Course so moved thank you commissioner is there support support thank you all right we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I okay o osed motion carries well done thank you thank you so much and we have our Highway engineer here Robbie H to talk about a final payment request good morning good morning morning um yes so in front of you is final pay request uh for a project we did this last summer the Alfred Creek Bridge over the aptly named Alfred Creek uh County Road 28 down there uh I guess does does anyone have any questions about it we had some overages on the project like any project um wasn't anything alarming just some higher than anticipated costs that's all uh but happy to entertain any questions questions by Commissioners Madam chair I'd like to make a motion to accept the work as complete and approve the final payment in the amount of $174,500 .72 to Northland Constructors of duth maty construction company thank you commissioner Mills is there support Madam chair I support good job thanks thank you commissioner storle we have a motion in support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you thank you so much item eight on our agenda today is facilities and we have Brook lard our facilities director here this morning thank you for coming to provide us with uh some updates um about Roofing to begin with yes um there was a claim for wind damage on the 4 building roof and I have said that out to bid and just looking to award laugher Air Roofing the the bid on that one questions that Commissioners have commissioner more for the public then um does Insurance paid for part of this yes um insurance covered approximately 13,000 of that and then we're making up the difference and the bid amount is just for those that are not reading $1,654 25 other questions or comments commissioner Mills any further thoughts on the insulating part of it yes I I went through the facility yesterday with lafer brothers and the insulating you'd have to build up the roof on the top and with the Dormers it wouldn't it wouldn't work properly and because there is zero insulation in it you can see the underneath of the of the roof decking from inside the building the best route would be to do a buildup do a spray foam on the inside and then do a tongue and groove to cover the spray foam up to keep the same look and and the kind of the spirit of the building the way it is that would be the best route to go to to get any actual r value it need a 2 to 6 in buildup and then it would cover bottoms of Windows on the Dormers and it just wouldn't work properly thank you thank you for exploring that what's the uh depth of the spray foam that there considering we are that was just a question commissioner Mills had in the in the building committee we are not going to pursue that yet that would be I'd have to go out to bid figure some things out and figure out what depth we would need to reach a proper R value that would be so that that was just a just a question that I I pursued just in case we wanted to look at it on the roof deck itself and that's not going to be an option so we're just going to go with a rerro for now and then I'll if if it's something we wish to pursue then I'll look at getting some bids and looking at how we would do the insulation from the inside so at what point down the line do we do something like this and what are the additional uh energy costs in that interim of having an uninsulated roof well it'd be the basically the same cost we've been incurring for the life of the building it's never been insulated so yes it's something we need to look at if it's a full year round use building but I've haven't done the research on on what we're spending to do to heat it and what the usage is on it and I think that would be important and then it goes on to the Deferred maintenance list and it needs to be evaluated as to its importance where it is uh on that list right it is is currently not on the list and I mean if we were going to go that route we'd want to look at getting underneath the crawl space and assessing if there's any insulation under there as well itd kind of be a whole entire envelope um assessment of the for building good question other questions or comments commissioner white so when do you think you might do that the assessment it's a little late in this season I understand I mean it'd be a good over this season it'd be a good time to evaluate and do the research and then it'd be probably a spring project to uh most efficient time to spray foam okay okay thank you other questions or comments if not is there a motion to award lrer Roofing with the ton and replacement of the roof located at our community center at the log building so moved thank you commissioner white is there support support thank you commissioner Mills we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries and now on to Vehicles yes um so I have uh kind of come into this uh 2017 F350 uh the issues were before my time here um but this is the recycle Center's tow truck that goes up and down the gunin West and East um there was an issue with the fuel system contaminated with gasoline currently we have $ 6,412 of repairs owed to Northern Truck and Trailer and that was just to get the fuel system back in order so we could assess the other issues that happened with the contaminated Fuel and we're looking at anywhere from an additional $6,000 to $112,000 once he gets the complete motor torn apart to assess all the damage and get it back on the road and being it a 2007 with 150,000 Mi and a lot of money already invested in it that has hasn't gone well um my recommendation is to sell the vehicle to Northern Truck and Trailer he will then cut our invoice in half and we will basically be paying $3,260 to get rid of the vehicle Comm white and when you excuse me when you say sell it does that mean we're putting a price tag on it or we're selling it for $3,000 we are paying $3,000 yeah right yeah yep I I I uh ask Brady for guidance on this and anything under 15,000 does not have to go to public auction can be sold at the will of the Commissioners and I think we would be correct in saying um the history of this vehicle most of us would call it a lemon yeah it's not been a good history there's a lot of transmission motor everything is there been a lot of issues with this vehicle and what would we do to replace that vehicle well we've got um Land Services has gotten rid of their piece of equipment to the highway department So currently they have a 2017 F350 with 83,000 Mi um which will take the place so we don't have to we don't have to go and find a vehicle um we just have to replace that Ford that 2017 F350 with something much more economical for Land Services before spring because their work is pretty well done once the ground freezes up here thank you any other questions or comments um Madam CH I'd like to make a motion to approve the sale and payment to Northern Truck and Trailer for truck number 701 2007 F350 with approximately 145,000 miles thank you commissioner Mills is there support support thank you commissioner surley we have a motion and support any further questions or discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you so much appreciate it right we will move on at this point to item number nine Land Services and we'll ask Neva Maxwell to come forward again thank you Nea so this item is a conditional use permit that was reviewed by the Planning Commission at their October 16th meeting last month it's regarding a Cellular Tower in Schroeder as you may have experienced in your own life when you're in your car driving down Highway 61 and you're on a phone call you may or may not have lost coverage in this area it's just right next to the Lake County border and so this is a little bit of a a gap in the cellular coverage in our area so um the applicant is representing uh vertical Bridge BTS LLC Michael Beck is here uh tonight today as well as his engineer in case if there's any specific questions for them this is a little bit of a complicated case technically speaking because of Cellular Tower and coverage so I'm going to give you an overview of the Planning Commission meeting and then Jay D is here from the Mis department and following the Planning Commission meeting J and Mis Department submitted a memo in response to some of the comments that were made at the Planning Commission meeting and so I distributed that to the applicant so that they could be aware that that would be presented to you today and then the applicant also submitted a memo in response to the Mis memo so there's there's a little bit of complexity so I'm trying to structure this for you so at the Planning Commission meeting um staff gave their overview and the applicant gave a a brief address to some of the comments that they wanted to make and then the questions that the Planning Commission asked centered around whether or not if this Tower could be located at a different location and also still provide coverage to Highway 61 and the applicant said that that wouldn't be feasible um I don't think feasible was the specific word that they use but that it it's not what their plan is that they want this Tower in this location to Prim arily focus on their coverage on Highway 61 um the Planning Commission kind of asked a question of whether or not it could be located elsewhere to cover other areas of Schroeder this specific Township in range of Schroeder does have a lot of private property Inland which is unique compared to other areas of the NorthShore of Cook County um but that wasn't the applicants Focus they were really focused on the highway 61 coverage so that is what most of the Planning Commission discussion centered around ultimately the Planning Commission did vote 5 to one I believe um one person was opposed to the approval of the cell tower um I think the the main points of this it does get pretty complex but the main point is that the existing towers that are in the area are too far away to physically provide coverage to this location this is a Gap a legitimate gap of cellular coverage Cook County has adopted its own Tower ordinance to regulate the location of towers uh to limit the viewshed the ultim um vision of that Tower ordinance when it was enacted is to provide the most coverage with the minimal infrastructure so let's try to really be efficient with our Tower utilities the tower ordinance I don't think really foresaw a case like this where an applicant comes in and they identify a very specific location and say we want to provide this coverage right here um it was kind of making the base assumption that a tower would try to be efficient by providing coverage to a large area so um I'm perhaps getting too philosophical in that but I'm trying to kind of provide some of the framework for the discussion that's to come so um the applicant has come in they focus on this Highway 61 Corridor none of this Tower would provide coverage over the ridgel line which includes Kramer Road uh which is an area of a lot of private property in Schroeder and so that is kind of the con the the pinch point to what the Mis department is trying to say is that this Tower that's proposed is focusing on a very specific location um a a tower loc further up the ridge could potentially provide service to a greater area of private land in Schroeder um but the applicant is is stating that we've identified this Gap along Highway 61 and therefore we've satisfied the needs of the ordinance to say that this Tower will provide coverage and ultimately the Planning Commission felt that the public safety benefit to having improved coverage along Highway 61 was uh a better benefit to have that Tower in that location so that was um kind of the long and the short of it there was one applicant or one uh adjacent property owner who was concerned he was a gentleman who has land that has easement to access this uh location um when I spoke with our mcit attorney uh J Squires about this he said that the existing easement is sufficient enough for the county to state that there is legal access to this Tower so that in of itself is not really a reason to say there's not legal access to the tower um and as you know we don't get involved in other private property um disputes into that so um that gentleman was present and and spoke opposed to the request at the public hearing so um and then if you want Madam chair Jay is here if you'd like him Jou with our radio tower Communications analyst should you want him to weigh in further thank you so much Jay if you'd be willing to come forward to the microphone I imagine um you have some comments you can share and there may be some questions as well thank you thank you madam chair and commission um I think that Miss Maxwell puts it in a a very succinct way um as far as the the concerns that were brought up by uh by the radio communications analyst and and Mis Department in regards to the location of the of the tower itself I I I won't disagree that that the vertical Bridge applicants have um have provided uh a great deal of information um towards the approval of the the of the application itself um however in my review of the information I do believe that I find it to be somewhat incomplete in regards to um to the verification of a statement that they made saying that it was impossible to locate the tower in a different location and and accomplish the same goal now with that said the application that they have provided I will also confirm that the application that they provided is for a specific location and a speciic specific coverage provided by a specific location which they provided illustrations for however my job as the radio communications analyst puts me in charge of the ordinance the tower ordinance itself which uh the reading of the tower ordinance that I that I have seen all of the the communications that I have seen from County Commissions in the past in regards to it and in all the communications that I have had with people who um who are subject to it including citizens in in Cook County say that the purpose of this is is to consolidate the impact of infrastructure visually and landwise for the county and so with that said an application of this nature is something we've never seen before and it's something that falls outside of the specific limitations of the ordinance because it hasn't been identified that an applicant can choose the area of coverage and so so that is um that's something that's different for us and so what I would encourage the commission to consider in this is the the spirit of the of the ordinance ordinances itself why would the county choose to create uh Communications districts where the limitations on locating towers and collocation are L if we did not intend to have those be the main backbone of of communications across the county and then does that Spirit then also provide uh enough of a drive to require or to ask of applicants to cover the maximum amount with any infrastructure that they choose to that they choose to install so that is where I'm going with this um I will definitely like I said before I will acknowledge the work that the vertical Bridge Representatives have put into the application um the ordinance uh I do believe is it is very thorough in its consideration um of this if if the commission does choose to go with the location um with the location that is suggested my concern is that then uh the Kramer Road area on top of the ridge will then will will be islanded there will will not be an easy way to um uh an easy way to address that growing population that lives in that area because of interference and also um coverage that happens closer to the you know the the the cell sell companies will likely say hey it's good enough um so that's um that's my my two cents if uh if you have any questions I would definitely stand for questions there any questions commissioner white so so this Tower would be able to it's Fort the location on Highway 61 and it would not because of our Hills get over to Kramer Road is it 100% certain that there would be a site that would cover both the highway and the Kramer Road area well in in my memo to the vertical Bridge applicants that was part of my point was not necessarily to say hey look I don't think that this should get approved I do see the the benefit of the public safety benefit in this area this is a dead spot I mean like we're all in agreement about that nobody's saying that it's not um however there are locations the the ridge the ridg line is very flat going down by the lake and then it goes up and then it's flat again and then it's got kind of like the lumpy stuff back on the Ridge and so I would like to see their engineering drawings that say they can't do it from there because when I I have I have simple tools I have tools that that provide line of sight drawings that that that show elevation um from a side from a side cut and in my in the use of my tools I can illustrate and I put this in my memory I illustrate that that the uh that up on the ridge you not only will get uh coverage Inland but also coverage down at the highway at the same level as you would at the proposed location so all of that to be said I know that the argument that vertical Bridge holds in regards to that is that that's not the application and and that's um you know I do think there's there's there is consideration for that too but but I also think that the that the County Commission has a lot of a lot of leeway when it comes to to conditional uses to make sure that what the conditional use that gets approved is is the right one for the community other questions for J Commissioner St thank you thank you Jay it seemed like when I put all this together it was kind of like a small Webster dictionary we covered a lot of ground yeah um I did drive and it's in my district so I did drive and kind of look around and see um the interesting thing about this is if my understanding is right that this is a private property owner who had connection with some folks in boa Rutan Florida to come and take care of their mobile T-Mobile use now it's a small area and we all know when we go up and down the shore there are blank spots and we can't cover everybody's Blank Spot so that's concern number one that private party has asked right for this to be put on their property which is almost to the county line up on the uh area there um and then some conversation that I've had with um some concerned folks in the West End um is that is it really true that the top of the tower will not sit 700 fet below the Horizon zone is that a I don't have the answer to that right off the top of my head I think that would be a better question for the vertical Bridge Representatives okay um but but what you're stating as far as you know the the infill of of different dead spots is a definite concern of mine um in regards to the ordinance and because there are so many dead spots and whether or not it's financially plausible that that people will decide to or or the the industry will ask to in fill a lot of those locations that that are dead spots um that's a good question I honestly didn't see this one coming but um but that's definitely a concern and I believe a shortcoming of the ordinance okay and then there was a suggestion rather than towers and all of that would existing techn Technologies cover something like uh mini Towers uh pole mounted radios other kinds of technology that would sort of fill in for that limited area that see I don't know the answer to that either however I would say that this this location I agree with the vertical Bridge Representatives that this location would be more suitable for a for a macro site like they're proposing versus a a micro site or a a mini site which would be more of infill for like a municipality that covers more INB building coverage and also um covers a lot of the little Corners that are created in Municipal settings by thick walls running ver you know running running parallel to the signal things like that um so I one of the concerns that I do have too with the proposed location is is that if the proposed location is identified and is seen as being the right location for this Tower I would like to see because this is an application for for one carrier for T-Mobile to be on this site what does it look like um what is the maximum height necessary to accomplish the goal and I think that that's much shorter than 195 ft um so that's another another way to look at it and saying that that the plan the plan is clearly to collocate um that's been called out in their application however this is an application from T-Mobile um and vertical bridge for one cell carrier um what's the goal of that the goal of that could be to get that coverage along that 3M stretch of highway 61 if that's the case does it have to be 195 ft tall because then that would impact the view shed um of of everyone in that area so I know that view is going to be an issue no matter how we how we shake it um that's why our ordinance was created that's why it's so much harder to put a 200 plus foot Tower in our County so what would you suggest for a minimum height then well and see I did I did off the back um of the napkin uh calculations and I I wrote in my memo 140 ft that was that I went back and recalculated I think 155 is more what the what the number would look like um to accomplish the goals that uh that that the uh um that the applicant is is looking looking to accomplish with one cell carrier you thank you commission could we hear from the two gentlemen in the back so they could talk to Jay and not to like when you say could it be done at 155 is this exclusively for teen mobile and it will not be usable for any other is this I just need to hadn't thought of any of this attorney hickin yeah thank you I I understand that request and I understand uh Mr du's request to speak here today um what I'm a little uncomfortable with is that the public hearing for this permit has passed and um all of the comments that you know the commissioner should consider should be within the envelope of the public hearing um at that um lower board level of the excuse me the uh zoning commission or the board of adjustment so um your um the discussion here should be kind of narrowed to consider what's in your packet um and it's difficult to have the kind of back and forth each side you know surrounding property owners and the applicant have their chance to speak all of that happens within the public hearing so we don't have the members of the public here uh to respond um who were at the public hearing on the issue um so so this is this is hard so to bring it back up at this point Madam attorney can I interject um first I'm going to commissioner Johnson had her hand up well I my question was for Nea okay um so at when this was presented it was reviewed and it was 199 with TMobile at the top and there were two other carrier listed in the board packet this was really hard for me understand so I'm going to ask for your help in making sure I'm understanding what it was discussed and talked about so T-Mobile and they want two other carriers and I can't tell you off the top of my head AT&T or somebody and somebody else I don't know doesn't matter what height were those other two um carriers at M that information yeah so that's a very technical question my general understanding from talking through this with Jay cuz my first question was could a shorter Tower work does this need to be a full-size Tower and the concept that I've understood broadly from a Planning and Zoning administrator role is that each carrier needs a certain space so the the best spot on the tower is a top and you need a certain number of feet and I would leave it to the people to the right of me over here to specifically stay that amount but you need a certain amount for the first carrier and then the next best spot gets kind of out to the P hey guys we got the next spot who wants this spot and so the next carrier gets the next best spot and then that third spot so by the time you gone down there it's it's a certain amount of height that they all want coverage over and was that in this packet and I just can't find it cuz I don't know what I'm looking for I don't know that I mean it might be in there technically I don't know if the Planning Commission really discussed that in depth because we're understanding that this is intended to provide the carrier you know the other carriers that's a the purpose of this Tower so they didn't really question that at all so I guess I'm wondering and this is I'm not an engineer and like I said this is very difficult for me to understand so I'm wondering that third position down that helps pay to build this Tower how much coverage do they have and was that on my viewshed that I saw that I couldn't figure out was that information in there yeah commissioner Johnson I'm not smart enough to know the answer to that frankly I'm not a radio tower engineer um so I would defer to either Jay um probably see if Jay has a better answer to that than I do and this is where I wish maybe this had been discussed at the Planning Commission level and in a way that I can understand all this information so that's just Madam chair uh one of the options before you when we're in these cases uh and I I neglected to put that clearly in this report but you have the option to remand this back to the Planning Commission procedurally that might be the cleanest way to handle this is stipulate what information is still missing or what do you want the Planning Commission to com to really you know talk about really get the facts straight and and bring you back a better set of information so that if they still recommend approval it's based off of these questions of yours being answered or if they change their mind and they recommend denial it's based off of the answers to these questions and these ordinance findings so that that might be a better way so that the Commissioners themselves aren't trying to do the planning commission's leg work on this um like I said some of these questions this is it like uh attorney hickin said um we try to keep this record really clean and um but it's also our job as staff to be sure that we're dealing with accuracy and facts so that's why some of these later memos got pulled into what is normally a little bit of a more streamlined process thank you commissioner White TJ are what's the POS we don't need to we don't need to isolate anymore the crammer road as as it already is what's the viability of another carrier coming in and saying oh let's just put one for the Kramer Road people I mean to construct a tower is a huge investment and so if there is one down on the shore would that uh probably be not as um feasible to have someone else come in and put up another Tower which we don't want Towers all over the place I get that so would the property owners that's one question the second one was the the private Property Owners heading up where there might be another location to sight a tower that would cover the highway and cover some of Kramer Road population would they be in favor of that do you have people that want a tower on their land it's just no one has the answer till the yeah and and I would I would be very hesitant to to speak for the industry or anything like that um as far as coverage potential um for different areas is um I I I I understand you know that the cellular bands enough to to to know that if you have a number of different Towers in the same small geographic area you run the risk of running it interference with them um because they all have to run um compatible bands so that they don't fight each other with the signal um I I don't know what it would look like down there I I haven't done any kind of any kind of study as far as over the hill what that looks like um so so I I don't have an answer to that I do know that towers are a business and so if there's profit to be had from a you know from a a potential installation then it's got a pretty good chance of happening you know if if there's if there's perceived um profit from it um I'm not certain what the what the answer to those questions is though I would like to give the applicants an opportunity to respond to um Jay's remarks so maybe if you could um put the microphone between perhaps the two of you certainly uh good morning ladies and gentlemen my name is Mike Beck I'm with a company called LCC Telecom Services we are located at 10700 West Higgins Road suet 240 in Rosemont Illinois and we represent both uh ver vertical bridge and T-Mobile and with me today is Jack Matthews he is the radio frequency engineer with T-Mobile now one of the the items and I'll I'll let him address all the the coverage and whatnot all those types of things um you had mentioned that a company from Boa Ron was building this Tower yes that that is how the industry Works what happens is T-Mobile puts out what's called a search ring they they say okay this is the area that we need to provide coverage for this area they hire a tower company they don't build their own Towers typically so they'll hire a tower company in this case they hired vertical Bridge vertical bridge in turn hired us to do the site acquisition for this Tower with the the confines of where that search ring is located the search ring was down along Highway 61 Voyager Highway with the the main purpose of this Tower to provide connectivity to the two towers that are located along there there's one uh approximately 6.3 miles south in Lake County uh that Tower is owned by American Tower and then there's one north of there that is uh approximately same type of distance about 6.8 miles north um and that Tower is owned by SBA Communications and so what what they proposed was to infill this coverage Gap and this was a big issue that was discussed in the plan Commission in fact one of the plan Commissioners brought up the fact that he drives back and forth past this area on his way to work and one of the things he's out generally on the phone and he tells the people I got to go I'm going to lose coverage when I get this area um I also experienced it I was out when I was looking at the search ring at the onset we got caught in a lizard and I had turned off on a side and I got stuck on ice and had it been a real emergency I could not use my phone there is zero coverage now as far as the 195 ft this is very important because if you go down to 140 ft and that's even and and Mr Matthews can explain why it doesn't work but even if it if it was your next carrier is going to be about 10 to 15 ft below that so you're at like 125 and 110 for the next carriers to come along in an urban area that would work but this is a very obviously a very rural area so the next carriers probably aren't going to use that Tower and they're going to need to build more Towers so by getting the 195 ft you could have the next carriers one of the items that was addressed um by the Emergency Management in this area was the need for coverage that's the whole point of this it's to cover along the highway um there's quite a bit of traffic that goes from duth on up North so there's there's a very big need and not only that with Emergency Management uh one of the items they addressed was uh first net and that's not a T-Mobile service that's an AT&T service AT&T is actually on both of the other Towers so the likelihood of them coming to this Tower once it is built is very high and so if if they were forced to go at the 120 level plus or minus it probably wouldn't be worth their while doing it so at the taller height it allows them to to do that now as far as back in the um Kramer Road area the there's some Pro technical problems that come into play um the highway is down the hill so it would be some of that that signal will be shadowed not to mention it's approximately 5 miles back up the hill to get to where the Kramer Road area is and what what happens is the coverage area is approximately 3 to 6 miles you'd be almost missing the coverage area that we're trying to uh cover so those are some of the the highlights that I wanted to put forth I'll turn it over to Mr Matthews to um you know elaborate on his uh good morning um my name is Joshua Matthews I work for T-Mobile USA we're at 8000 West 78th Street in E Minnesota 55337 um I am a senior RF engineer of T-Mobile I've been doing site designs and upgrades for 27 years I've been involved in literally thousands of site new site designs and upgrades over that period of time uh I am the one that Mike described um the search ring the initial area in which we are looking for uh new site development I issued that um initial initial plan and have evaluated all the candidate properties that were uh given to us uh for viability and then we settled on the one that we are presenting today uh I think Mike did an excellent job of um uh outlining many of the issues here today uh I'm going to follow up on on on two points um at no point have we officially um analyzed any uh property higher up on the ridge um those candidates uh were were never initially consulted because of the quality of the ones that we received initially um locing up higher on the ridge is true we uh have a Higher Ground elevation combined with the height of the tower would serve a larger area including uh possibly the area um Kramer Road area as well as Highway 61 um however there are some issues with locating higher on that Ridge um we haven't um we don't know if there's any uh land owners that would be willing to lease uh ground to us uh I don't think that there would be uh Power or Fiber Optic availability available in that area uh I think all those utilities um run along Highway 61 um and obviously the further we are from those existing structures the more expensive and difficult it is for us to um move power and and connectivity to wherever our site would be located um yeah I think that that kind of sums up if you have any technical questions i' be happy to assist with those thank you so much commissioner justly thank you madam chair just a couple questions to Jay and to commissioner White's point about how many towers do we have in Cook County just so they can hear me I actually was just pulling that up I have a a tool that I've uh built in conjunction with our GES or GIS specialist um that that shows locations of all wellknown Towers in the county and I would say ballpark if you include privately held um Towers defunk Towers um and uh you know County state federal those sorts of those sorts of towers I'd say there's probably a ballpark of 30 35 something in that neighborhood um across the entire County though mind you so and these include some of the little ones so so I have on my on my map I have the little um 60ft Tower that's up at se the seagull um seagull Guard Station you know things like that that that we don't really think of when we think of of large communication Towers CU they wouldn't be possible to collocate like a lot of equipment there is it usual to have a tower on private property is it usual to have a tower on private property um the well I guess there's there's two there's two different ways to answer that question first question is the the tower ordinance was put in place in 2008 which was before most of our of our actual weightbearing Towers were developed that was prior to the armor system the armor system was a big kick in the pants for the county to build more towers and to create the the Partnerships possible to make sure that those were financially feasible um so before the ordinance was put in place there were not a lot of towers there were a couple of great big uh tele television and and telephone Towers um which are now part of our backbone um um but post ordinance the the drive has always been for collocation so most of those towers are either privately owned Towers on County owned land or their um uh or their um yeah privately owned Towers on County owned land or publicly owned Towers on on County owned land there the typically there's a public element in a lot of the towers however elsewhere in in the in the state and Country I do believe that that that's a lot more normal um to have uh privately owned Towers on private land um a lot of times the lease arrangements for those types of towers tend turn out to be beneficial for both parties so I just find it interesting when I drove around and up in the property that the companies found this little piece of land and contacted the folks who own that land I I find the process really interesting it if yes if you would okay so as I mentioned at the onset we get this search ring so what our company does we do the site acquisition I personally am responsible for handling the zoning portion so what we do is we take that search Ring We plot it out on a map I do a zoning analysis to see what what regulations what the setbacks the height requirements and all that kind of details and then our site acquisition people what they do is they take the um the County's GIS map and they plot out all those property owners that live within that search ring and then once we get that we obviously determine okay so this parcel over here can't work it's Zone residential or whatever the case may be but in this case obviously it was all pretty much zoned agriculture far I what is it1 F1 yeah so all the the the entire search ring was pretty much open and so what we did was we took that GIS map and we sent out letters to each of the property owners within that search area and we said would you be interested in leasing out space for a tower um in this case to your point about privately owned I mean um publicly owned property there was none in this area so it had to be a a privately owned parcel and what we do is we provide candidates as Mr Matthews had mentioned and he selects which one will work best within his Network um and that's how we came to choosing the lot that we did and we did a lease agreement with um Mr Evans Mr and Mrs Evans on this property and and that's how we came to that property thank you you're welcome so other things that we should be thinking about are discussing I know one of the things um I am thinking about and I had an opportunity to be at the Planning Commission meeting um where this was discussed is I'm concerned a little bit about um whether this really fits the character of the area um the superior hiking trail goes through this area and I know that there were um remarks about camouflaging the tower um but I also know that it's a very open area I looked at pictures provided by Miss Maxwell of the hardwood deciduous forest that's there it's very different than what was described in the um initial documents provided um to the commission so I have a question about that and then I also am concerned about the size of the service area being so small I do agree that there is a need for um Communication in that area but because of what I see on the Planning Commission because of discussions in the community about the development of Kramer Road um I would like to see an analysis of a location that might benefit both of those areas Nea if I may Madam chair as you're making your considerations I just wanted to say procedurally speaking the county does have a timeline for processing these applications so we'll be at the 120 day Mark where the county needs to make a decision by December 20th um the applicant does have the right to wave that but we would want that in writing if this was to be um going closer to that date for any decisions thank you for clarifying that other comments or questions that Commissioners might have commissioner well I believe that because now we have a new Dead Zone along Highway 61 leave Grand marray and head to Grand porage and the whole I get nothing anymore nothing nothing it used to be a spot or two and nothing at least to highway or to County Road 69 like brand new thing that just happened two weeks ago nothing don't know why so but it's a heavily traveled not as much as going towards tofy and down the road that way but is our primary concern I mean Aesthetics are important we get that but the safety of the people that live in travel in this community our we have spent a lot of money on eem on emergency services and I believe that the safety of our people is Paramount to trees M I'm going to get letters on this one but it I mean it has to be in balance it has to be in balance and a tree comes back but if you have a bad accident on Highway 61 going down where there's the ditch goes straight down we know that what those roads are like that road is like I believe having coverage on Highway 61 is pretty darn important but I will go to what Nea has said that we should send it back to with what Jay has brought up with what the procedure is from our attorney because of the hearing process and to just review what we've discussed here in the different considerations and I understand a tower is a business investment and so those concerns need to be considered also should it be not um fiscally viable for this company for eight or for T-Mobile AT&T for them to put a tower someplace else then is it better to not have any Towers you know it's rhetorical I don't know so that's I don't believe we are as attorney hickin has said we are not in a position to make a decision today on this Madam chair if you do remand us back I would request that you could potentially provide me with the list of items that you want addressed so that we can make sure that we hit every item that you're asking questions about so that we're not going through this again where well we didn't address X Y and Z so so if you could please that would be very helpful so let's all talk about right now what those questions might be so I brought up a question about um the character of the area I do agree that Public Safety is paramont that we also need to look at service I would just like to see that we also have an opportunity to potentially include people up the Kramer Road that maybe with a different location we could deal with both of those issues but I agree with the public safety being the priority commissioner M yeah I think um I appreciate the work that's being done to to bring coverage under the areas that that that doesn't have it but I'm I feel like this uh application is against the spirit of our ordinance um trying to consolidate and and get you know best coverage with minimal infastructure and so I would ask to look at other areas um I feel like if we approve this one it would shoot ourselves in the foot to get coverage up on near the Kramer Road and so I would ask to look at areas that have that broader coverage and that really is what the spirit of the ordinance um is all about is minimizing the infrastructure and getting more coverage the highway absolutely because that's where all the traffic is but then the residen is up up Beyond because we want uh coverage uh throughout so um that's kind of my my take on and I would I would also you know suggest that the Planning Commission look at that um in consideration I know there's some of it but I know there's time constraints too so um I just feel like there's a lot more conversation that needs to be had I don't know if every I I guess people were uh involved in varying degrees back when the tower ordinance was put into effect but there was quite the public process there and input and um and I think the weight of this kind of infrastructure um deserves more more uh discussion I would agree with you commissioner storle um could this be put on the November agenda for planning tomorrow is the November Planning Commission meeting so technically it could go on as old business um and I think that if it's a matter of discussion I think it just depends on how technical of additional information you're requesting from the applicant and what their capacity is to respond to that or likewise like I said if if they're willing to put in writing that they wave that 120-day timeline then they could go on the December Planning Commission meeting um and and that would be okay also Eva what about a special meeting at the plane commission do they do that not with Thanksgiving coming up oh true commissioner Mills specifically I'd like to learn more about the shadow that you talked about by having a tower further back like that seems very strange to me considering all our other coverages along the highway um The Towers up in Grand uh you know you know old ski hill road in Grand marray those are up on top of the Ridge and cover all of that Shoreline so I'm just not understanding that um and I'd like to learn more about that as well as like I said Inland um looking at that because my concern is um we put this Tower here but then it interferes with another Tower or uh interferes with the plausibility of another Tower it's just economically um so I'm really trying to get quality product that's going to serve the public the most absolutely and in response to that I mean I don't have an answer to that question uh commissioner Mills but I also these are the types of conversations that that I wanted to have have happen at the Planning Commission like my in my memo the first the first paragraph of my memo was I didn't feel like we had enough time I felt like it was like the the the conversation was was trunca um due to time and and yeah I'm good I'm glad he's no in his head too because I think that would have a lot of this could have could have been hashed out if we just had more time um in the Planning Commission itself so so with that said I mean I'm just going to leave that hanging out there because I uh I would have I would have loved to have time in the Planning Commission with the Planning Commission to respond and to and to have a lot of these conversations there during the public hearing at that at that meeting instead of having it happen here um because then we kind of are graying the the lines of where this information is supposed to be popping in so so that's just that's me no I I fully agree I when I went went to make the presentation I I was told that we we've talked about Towers enough let's move on so I we didn't get to really address everything unfortunately um uh my Josh has a a question about the location there seems to be a lot of questions about the possibility of alternative locations um and I why I want to address that uh I can certainly analyze and look at any location uh it's just a DOT on the map and and I can simulate do you need a specific location to look for or can we give you criteria to look for locations either could be viable okay do you understand what our goal is then I I do understand what your goal is my issue is is that there's a significant difference between looking at a theoretical location and having that actually be viable I can draw a DOT on the map that would cover Kramer Road would cover Highway 61 assuming there is such a location but the landowner isn't interested or it'll cost us a million dollars to plow in power which makes it nonviable in any scenario you have to have access to the site sure but these are what I'm hearing is you just don't know right right so that's what that's the hard work we got to find that out there there there in lies the rub right uh our application before you today is for a specific property that we uh are perfectly fine with moving forward we have analyzed it we've looked at it it meets all of our criteria it'll hit all of our coverage goals filling you know the 12 M separation between the other two towers were 6.3 M to one and and 6.1 to the other it's almost dead in the middle which is where I drew the circle uh so what I'm afraid of of have happening is is that we go to a plan commission we look at a map of a theoretical site everybody says that looks great and then this application dies in favor of something that doesn't yet exist and that sets us back 6 months a year or more and that also includes um the the theoreticals also includes the fact that um we have to do NEPA shipo uh FCC FAA approvals not to mention the soil conditions on this theoretical part may not work they might may not support a tower where this has already been done on this site so it's really difficult to come back in such a short period of time um at least we got to play the long game here like I'm glad it works for you guys but we need to make sure it works for the public right we need to make sure it works for as many people as possible understood and Kramer Road is approximately 5 miles away so the potential of Two Towers all and IC and guard is is a possibility I mean that it it really is I mean unfortunately the the map that uh Mr deu provided that the the county originally came up with the closest Tower that's in that overlay is approximately 20 mi away it's further north of the tower that they're connecting to and the typical coverage radius is 3 to 6 miles so 20 mi away to go to a tower isn't going to you know it's like spitting in the ocean it it won't do anything so we're in a lot of theoreticals here that I don't I don't think we can give you answers because I don't know what the soil can uh is like I NEPA could come back and find that there's arrowheads all over the place up there who knows we we don't know that without and and nepas take like 6 to n months it depends I mean it's just is that a problem very much so yes can you explain the timeline for you guys they're looking to build probably in the spring but I mean so a as I've expressed we're looking for the long game for the benefit as many people for the public as possible and so we want to make sure we do it right um not just that it's convenient and cheap right that no I'm not saying it's convenient or cheap I'm just saying that we have an application in front of the county based on me being able to meet all the criteria in your zoning ordinance which we do and we have provided the spirit though I think that's what we're you I have a qu commissioner I have a question we have a we have an ordinance are we to but they're not meeting the spirit it's not their point to meet the spirit they're they're meeting the the what is in the policy they're meeting all of the criteria for them to have to know what the Spirit of the writing of that ordinance was it's not sensible it's for whomever wrote the ordinance and I'm not criticizing it should have been more clear perhaps then but if they are meeting all of the criteria you can't fault them and as I said building a tower and all of the footwork that goes into it has to be really expensive I mean it it's expensive if you're just going to build a house you're going to have to do soils Wetlands all of this and a tower is even more and so um I I don't think it's the fault of no it's nobody's fault it's not a fault but it's if they've met all of the criteria should is the onus on us for not having it stated more clearly that we well it's it's a this is a collaboration this is a partnership and so it's a back and forth and we got to work together to get this done I think they understand what we want to get done yes do we understand what we want to get done are we here for the most coverage and for as many public or what's our that's for the safety of our for our right as many people as we can yes attorney uh I hesitate to add to this conversation and just add more complication first of all I I W to uh I want to endorse what commissioner white just said here which is that it is the language in the ordinance that will always control in a court over the spirit of the ordinance and so if an applicant is following the language uh that you know we need to honor our side of the bargain on that ordinance um I also want to remind everyone of the scope of this conversation this is an a single application by a single property owner uh and we are this box body um is the decision maker the Planning Commission at the Planning Commission there was a quasi judicial process in which both sides uh got to give their um comments on the application you had members of the public you had uh Mr D was there um this one representative for this applicant was here um and the I mean what the courts what the law says about um limiting people's property rights is that you need to have that quasi judicial process in order to provide them due process if we're going to tell a property owner you can't do this on your land um then we need to follow that process that we have established and and uh in this County as in most counties what the Board of Commissioners has decided is that there needs to be a Planning Commission um in order to hold that process and bring their recommendation to the board the board it's not a um you have not delegated all authority to that board but you have delegated the responsibility of running the process and so by reopening uh the that process that hearing that record here um that's what I'm uncomfortable with I'm also um a bit uncomfortable with uh talking about this as if the um applicants priorities should be be the same as the County's priorities of you know getting the most coverage the county could be seeking a piece of property and building a tower for the purpose of creating the most coverage but that's not naturally going to be the priority of of this single property owner of this parcel on the west end of the county so we do have many of our Partnerships are based on that though in my understanding of the ordinance that's how I got the spirit of the ordinance but is this a partnership or is this a property owner requesting to exercise their property rights um I like to have Partnerships in this particular case uh it's it's all private um my fear is that like I said it'll be shooting Us in the foot and limiting other potential uh coverages and so that was one of the things that I'm asking for to look at right um and in which case if it is very expensive uh then there can be partnership there it's I'm I'm very happy with the technical expertise that you bring to the table and I want to make something work this location I I think needs more discussion and and I think there are some shortcomings there um they're uh just as far as priorities are concerned um and and what the ramifications are Inland um but miss Max will have hand I don't know if this helps or hurts the complexity of the conversation but with attorney hickin and commissioner Mill's discussion there I did want to point out that um within the findings for the conditional use permit for the tower as written in the tower ordinance um item K is stated as uh it recognizes that the proposed facility will be constructed with the best interest of Cook County in mind so the the written findings for the cup did to some extent ask for these towers to be thought for the cook County's interest which kind of comp adds a little complexity I think I just wanted to note to that so my thought is that um if vertical bridge is willing to give some additional time so we can send this back to the Planning Commission to get these questions answered is that something you would be willing to do it depend that's I I can answer but it's not necessarily 100% up to me I mean we've already extended at once um and and I'm sure they feel we've addressed because I've I've kept my project manager at vertical bridge in the loop the whole way that we have addressed all the the criteria in the zoning ordinance and I I I feel like if we start going down this path path of looking at Parcels we could be another 9 10 months before we could even be able to come back to the plan commission and and that's not a reasonable uh time frame for what what they feel and I feel is a good solid application so I don't know I mean unfortunately we have Thanksgiving in here otherwise I would say it would be easy to have a special plan commission meeting i' you know be back for that and then we talk about it in December before this board again but I don't obviously don't think that's going to happen I think it is feasible to have it on the agenda tomorrow as an on as a uh old business item for the Planning Commission because I think both parties agree that uh it was a truncated discussion and the County Board could ask the Planning Commission just a flesh out the discussion don't rush it and and really think through go finding by finding and after going through the actual findings listed in the tower ordinance and the zoning ordinance make you know do your review give it a little bit more time um you know again that will be tomorrow and there won't be any new information provided other than the two memos that were submitted to you that the Planning Commission did not see um and maybe with those two additional memos the Planning Commission can think through those findings a little bit more clear as I said before this was not um a unanimous decision by the Planning Commission they also had a little difficulty in reviewing this and then it could be before you on the first meeting in December that would meet that 120-day deadline that's what I was going to ask yeah I I have a zoning what time it's 4:00 y I have a zoning Hearing in Douglas County in Superior so I could EAS be available to come back tomorrow so I I have no problem if you remand it back to the plan commission um we won't worry about the 120 days at this point um that will also give me an opportunity to talk to Vertical bridge and let them know what your thoughts are and you know I I can get some guidance from my project manager what she thinks of you know going on this Kramer Road analysis and you know and and we can bring that up with the plan commission and obviously uh Mr duu and Miss Maxwell know obviously what the discussion is and the direction you're you're leaning I think that would be acceptable um would other Commissioners agree to that as long as it's in December I guess I'm okay with that okay I don't want to we don't want to stretch this out any longer I do have a question why have we had to extend it already so it's just a part of the actual timelines so the application was submitted August 22nd we have an initial 60 days to do that review the county has the right to extend that deadline and additional 60 days we just need to cite the timing so it was the nature of the Planning Commission meeting was October 16th that County board meeting was the next week after that I did not have time to get it on the agenda by the deadline the deadline to get it on your agenda was before the Planning Commission meeting and then this meeting was later than normal too uh just weird weird timelines between the Planning Commission and the County board meeting and so we've got that we got a full 160 days to make a decision and that would land on December 20th and you have a meeting the first week of December right correct okay that is correct right thank you all right well um I think we should make a motion yeah I make a motion to send it back to the Planning Commission for uh discussion of all the or uh um items in the ordinance um and and their findings on that um really appreciate you being being available for that and I really hope that we can get something that's going to and and benefit us all yeah and just to be clear we're looking at the alternative of possibly the Kramer Road area that's what I'm supposed you know we're supposed to be looking at the ability to cover both correct if it's possible it's right and I also heard in that discussion some discussion about the shadow toow clarify make sure that we still have coverage on 61 correct so we have a motion do we have support support thank you commissioner storley any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you very much for your time I appreciate it very much we'll see you tomorrow all right all right so we will move on to item 10 human resources and Allison plumber our director is here to talk about approval of job descriptions and job grades good morning good morning all right all right today I am bringing for two job descriptions these have gone through our job description review process with DDA that ongoing process that we're hoping to wrap up at the end of this year um the two job descriptions um I will list here for you we have the human resource General list uh includes an updated job description the job grade will remain at a 170 uh and then we also have our Land Services director that is also an updated job description with the job grade remaining at a 240 are there any questions for Allison Madam chair I'd like to make a motion to approve the job descriptions and uh for the human resources generalist as well as the land service director thank you so much commissioner Mills is their support support thank you commissioner Starley we have a motion and support any other questions or discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you great thank you attorney hicken thank you all right me get to it sorry for the delay it's going to be a very long meeting I think already okay um so what I have before you in my two items under the attorney category here are both related to the NorthShore uh waste transfer station which is really a County transfer station which we anticipate will be operated by Northshore waste as you know you've uh you've seen this project in several different forums and had information at different points uh at the last meeting uh where this project was addressed the board approved up to $200,000 for uh design plans um and that is what is covered in item a so this is an architect agreement before you for your consideration um it's been bounced back and forth a few times between myself uh norshore waste and the architect firm to make sure it meets all everybody's needs there's still one minor uh correction which is just a the wrong ZIP code so I'm going to have to use a pen to actually Mark that out instead of my computer uh before it gets signed if you approve it today um but uh so the idea behind this contract is to come back with a design so we know more about the scope of this project how much it will cost um what it will cost to hire a construction manager um as you're aware there are still some gaps in funding um from the anticipated uh cost to build the transfer station um if it's okay I'd just like to quickly address Item B also uh this is much more simple um but part of the funding is a $450,000 Grant from irr through the Eda and in order for so the Eda is the pass through organization in order for um them to give us the money as and in this case we're the developer um that's how we're described um we're also the owner of the project obviously but um we're promising ing the Eda that we will abide by the terms of the grant agreement that the Eda has signed with the irr um the timeline is the in in my opinion the um most relevant thing for us to consider here it if you uh read the development agreement um you saw that we need to begin construction April 30th or before um there might be some flexibility in that I think that um Arena Rogers is is trying to get a little more flexibility for that timeline um but essentially we need a a shovel to hit the ground we need um some action on this project by April 30th of next year and that's going to require us to to push um so uh as more items come up on this project um we we'll want to keep them moving through the board process um keep moving towards construction as best we can even after my departure so I thought I should point that out and mention it thank you so much are there any questions for attorney hickin commissioner white yes one doesn't usually break ground our plan on breaking ground in April in Cook County I mean it could be June I mean so is there a caveat in there I mean with weather permitting with frost being gone permitting uh there's no caveat built into the grant agreement no oh has talking with Northshore waste they they mentioned something even as simple as um starting the process to bring utilities to the site would work would qualify so I think something along those lines that could happen sure in that time frame a lot of site prep work has already been done on the site so it is in some ways construction ready but yeah that a a step like that could um satisfy this requirement so that's that's why I'm coming to the board and Advising you it's okay to sign this one with that timeline other questions comments All right so let's um take first item a I'll make a motion to approve the agreement with RW Fern and Associates for architectural services to obtain plans for the county own transfer station to be operated by Northshore waste thank you commissioner Mills is there support I'll support that thank you commissioner white we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries unanimously and then Item B which is the development agreement with Cook County Grand maray Eda for the grant funding I'll make a motion to approve the development agreement uh between the county and um the Eda for the transfer station project thank you commissioner mels is there support support thank you commissioner Starley we have a motion and a support any further discussion or questions all in favor I I opposed motion carries [Music] unanimously and our last item on our morning session auditor Powers thank you madam chair so this is uh related to what you just spoke about what we have is uh a requirement to obligate state and local funds this is some of our arpa funding so just to clarify we received two two fundings on the American Recovery plan this is the first one that we received the state and local fiscal recovery funds uh a year later we received some of the second funding which was actually 2 million alog together and that was the local assistance tribal consistency fund which is much simpler um that second funding does not have an end date and does not have any specific requirements as to use General government allowed use on that second funding on this one we have specific uses and it has to be um obligated by the end of the year and obligated can mean a contract um or it could be if we had a subrecipient have a subrecipient agreement um as we have had for some funding with h and 500,000 has gone to the HRA through this and a subrecipient so the total on this one is a mil 61124 we received on the plan we're also required to allocate interest to it so we actually have accumulated more funds since we've allocated interest towards this and with the two that's a total of a million 279 606 um we'll have to allocate some interest for 2024 don't have that calculated yet actually goes through the end of the year um so at this point we've spent 726000 as you can see there uh 500 for the HRA already and the rest for Public Health Human Services pandemic response Etc there was 150 allocated to Arrowhead electric for Brun band The Last Mile but they don't need it and I confirmed that with them again recently so uh that leaves us with 553 right now that we need to allocate or lose we have to send it back if if we don't obligate it um so what we need to do is to make that obligation some requirements under this are less strict than they were originally uh we had very strict uh categories at that time and it's opened up a little bit so some of the options that I see right now uh we could obligate for the design costs for the law enforcement center uh this is what the work that bkv has done we've approved that uh they've given us an estimate of the costs proposed fee for 655,000 th000 so um third option then is uh HRA as we have been using them as a subrecipient and talking to Jason hail uh they' they've got projects right now they've got one called the Nora scogan Housing Development uh they have additional needs for envelope and energy Improvement program and funds that could ensure rents said Gunflint view uh to keep them at 60% of the Ami for 11 units uh yeah I don't know what that would take to but in the in this case we would make a subrecipient we wouldn't need to know all of the details we just have to obligate that we would spend the money that way with them as a subrecipient so I don't know that you have to make a decision on how to use you may have other ideas too for the use of these but we need to do it at this meeting the next meeting or the first meeting in December so absolutely yeah well it's really good information I think for us to have particularly as we go into our budget discussion this afternoon so I appreciate getting this this morning um so that we can be thinking about that as we look at other items as we have discussion with our department heads and what it would save on our end would be uh the normal for a project a building project with the bkv those design funds that would be part of your bonding cost and so if you use that money for this uh that would just reduce the bonding cost for that project and the NorthShore waste is just to come from our uh transfer station funds that we've saved for Tim Nelson's possible projects and the building fund so that would take some pressure off the building fund um and of course housing projects so you've got you've got three really good options but and we can do a combination you can do a combination that's the important thing and Jason asked if uh if anybody has any questions about those projects that he's proposed here and I'll get those questions back to him uh hopefully before he leaves so all right thank you so much thanks commissioner Mills um and there's more options Beyond these three right you said there's pretty wide latitude about what we can use things for so I'm just thinking about some of the other requests that we have from this past or for next year's budget that we could use for our budget purposes um give me an example and I'll uh I'll look at it uh an example would be say um planning for uh uh the Sawtooth Bluffs that's yeah that's a you're the amount that's in the budget is a fairly small amount mhm and uh we have a good source of funds for that right now is the uh parks and wreck money that we're collecting and I guess I would opt for that gotta because that is not being used it's not in the budget right now and being a small amount I think that would that'd be a simple way to do that one and um in the past we've used arpa funds to kind of um on ramp the comp study could we use these funds for similar buffering of the levy it's I'm not sure because it says to obligate gotcha and I'm not sure yep a wish to Define it yep yeah I think it has to be more defined thank you they've made they've made some concessions on this first one but I don't my sense is that that would not um meet their guidelines thank you any other questions or comments for Brady all right well if not I think um we'll take a motion to recess until 1:00 pm. this afternoon is there a motion so moved thank you commissioner Mills is there a support thank you commissioner stle we have a motion and support to go to recess all in favor I I opposed motion carries we'll see you back here at 1:00 thank youy phew