##VIDEO ID:FeaBi6Atyw0## everyone I'd like to welcome you to the Cook County Board of Commissioners regular meeting today Tuesday October 22nd and if we'd please stand for the Pledge of [Music] Allegiance IED alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all so are there any adjustments or changes to today's agenda any adjustments or changes if not I'd entertain a motion to approve the agenda as written I'll move thank you commissioner white is there support support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion [Music] carries so at this point we'll move on to our public comment period and opportunity for citizens to appear before the County Board are there any members of the public that wish to speak this morning please come forward you can sign in your name and address and then also please state that for the public record okay thank you my name is Steve Watson I live on devil Track Road I'm in District 4 um so can you hear me if I stand or should I sit I think we can okay anyway I came to talk about um the budget mostly and to and to just address it from my point of view some of you I might talk about personally I want you to know I like you as people but I don't think you're good Commissioners because you don't fight for your District um and I have talked to you three times about um the budget here and um I see you as a yes vote for almost everything that happens and your record is that you're going to increase the taxes every year and Dave Mills year the same you you have you're a when you first started I think you're you said you wanted to keep everything down to 3 or 4% but you haven't been able to do that you should have stuck to your guns and stood and made it happen um you you know I word on the street is that you want to double the commissioner's salary um I have a biology degree anything that lives off of a host is a parasite a leech a tapeworm you know I don't know how you you face your people if you want to do that this is a Ser service to the community not a job I believe you should get compensated but your job is to um Serve the People and and take care of the people that you um represent so I here's the word that through a lot of prayer that this um this financial institution is running on the word is greed and greed always cries never enough that's why you always have to increase you always those are both demonic entities actually and in the word of God it says that um um that entity can only lie kill steal and destroy so if you keep running on that that's what you're going to reap cuz because that's how it will come up about there was others some word on the street that there was one of the Commissioners wanted to talk to a department head and um and got shot down by you Molly um and confronted that they weren't w't supposed to talk to the department heads here you five people were the people were elected nothing happens if you don't vote nothing you're responsible for the mess that's here right now and that is wrong because they should be able to talk to anybody cuz they're they're the ones responsible for all this and um that's dis disappointing my personal opinion is if you need a County Administrator that money for his wages shouldn't shouldn't come out of the general fund it should come out of your five wages cuz he's running he's doing your job you guys should be doing the job you're the ones responsible and if you don't want to do the job resign and let somebody in here who wants to and who will stand up for the people who live here we don't want Aspen Colorado in Cook County and neither do you because those people have enough money to sue the out of you if you do bad things so anyway that's what I wanted to say take care thank you are there any other members of the public that wish to speak this morning right we'll close our public comment and move on to item three which is coverage for County Administrator leave so for the public and for all of our people sitting at the dis this morning we're going to go into a closed session to discuss some private medical information pursuant to 13 d05 subdivision 2a3 following a sharing of some information confidential information we will be discussing coverage for our County Administrator duties at this time is there a motion to go in to close session so move thank you commissioner Starley is there support support thank you commissioner mels we have a motion in support to go into close session any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries we'll right now um suspend our live stream go into close session and we'll return when we are finished we will be e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e thank you all for waiting as we went into to close session um prior to moving forward with this agenda item it was brought to my attention that there was a written comment that was turned in to read during our public comment session and um it was not found until after we finished so I'm going to um reopen our public comment section just so that we can read this this is written to Commissioners regarding the County Attorney vacancy rather than make an immediate appointment for this vacancy I urge you to do what other Counties have done in this situation this includes advertising in the County's official newspaper and posting a listing with the association of Minnesota counties and the Minnesota County attorneys Association in this way you will find the most qualified applicants who are ready and able to file fill the vacancy sincerely yours Don Davidson 583 Southshore Drive Grand Marie Minnesota 55604 all right we'll close that public comment session and move into item three which are is our coverage for County Administrator leave I'd like to begin by acknowledging that we have unfortunately had a situation that we've had to deal with that has required people to in our organization Step Up Show leadership take responsibility and work together so that today we can have a good thorough discussion of how to move forward given the fact that James Yorkie has had a death in his immediate family as we move forward with our discussion today we've had our leadership team meet to discuss this at length we've been in conversation with our County Administrator and we want before the public to be able to have a clear open and honest conversation about how to move forward our leadership team has looked at the job responsibilities of the County Administrator we've looked at the skills and knowledge and expertise temperament and all the qualities that we know are important in providing leadership to our County and so at this time given the review that we've had and the thoughts that everyone sitting up here has had over the last many hours I'd like to begin a discussion about how to move forward as we've looked at the first of all the statute the County Board May designate a properly qualified person to perform the duties of administrator during his or her absence this is set forward in statute 375 a06 we also need to keep in mind that James is dealing with the death of a family member and that this qualifies for Family and Medical Leave Act which was passed in 1993 allowing up to 12 weeks of job protected leave to eligibility employees for certain Family Medical or military reasons we've reviewed Jam's eligibility the length of his leave unpaid leave benefit continuation and all the different aspects that are included in Family and Medical Leave This was an Act passed back in 1993 and we've had experience with it so what in essence we need to think about is until we have further information from our County Administrator how we are going to cover the duties of our administrator over the next 12 weeks there are knowledge skills and ability education experience respectful and Cooperative working relationships with staff a need for strong communication skills and a spirit of service excellence and integrity that is required we have members of our team our employees who have reached out and indicated a willingness to help in areas of expertise and experience that they have this will not be a position that could be filled without support and I'm pleased to say our organization is stepping up to the plate we have to consider current workloads and responsibilities how a division of Duties might occur we have to think about budget financial management plans contract negotiations the levy the list is long and we will have to make some adjustments once our decision is made in our work over the next few months we are going to have to prioritize our work very carefully are there any members of our leadership team that would like to share any remarks at this point I I don't have any to share at this point I guess okay so I'll open it up to Commissioners I have something I would like to say but I don't need to say it first and so if there are other Commissioners that would like to share or comment commissioner white like I just found out about this so like the scenario of a missing for whatever reason administrator like I I don't have the answer for that at all so I'm it's going to be a while to wrap my head around the scenario of suddenly you're someone's gone from your life so um commissioner yes thank you so are you asking that we give um uh idea about somebody in the department heads that could do this or who are you asking to step up for a while I'm not a personally asking anyone to step up that's a decision that the Board needs to make that we need to agree on um that we would vote in public on I'm happy to share my thoughts um so as I got the news on Saturday with what had happened um I started to think about past experiences I've been in in leadership roles or in organizations where there have been duties that needed to be filled immediately and what are the qualities you look for and how do you fill that and I thought about a number of people in our organization CU we are so fortunate to have a strong team I'm not going to um dwell on this but I I thought about Brady Powers Brady has the trust of the community he has an incredible breadth of experience with the county but we have an election coming up and it's a contentious election and one of the things I thought about is the importance of the Public's trust in our election process and the many many duties in addition to that that Brady is involved with right now regarding the budget and the levy and I want to recognize that Brady has stepped up and is willing to offer great support for anybody that might be put into a temporary or interim position as a County Administrator so I want to thank you for that we also talked about attorney hickin knowing that she has a short tenure with our County but that she has many years of experience and skill and expertise and yet we know there's when you're dealing with legal issues ues potential conflicts of interest from that office and so then we started to think who else and we looked again at the skills and qualities that our staff has and commissioner storle my head went where yours did with department heads and we thought about the past when we were without an administrator for a while and what that interim position was like um what occurred during that time period and the impact on uh relationships in the organization and one thing we can be really proud of is we have really strong department heads we're in a really good position with leadership I thought about Rowan Watkins our director of Mis Rowan has presented to this group many times he's done research for our Organization for us individually as we've had questions he is a person of integrity and he is a person that has a desire to serve and is willing to step up to help he's one of those people that said he would be willing to help help so I would like to I guess share that thought with my fellow Commissioners and get your reaction and your thoughts commissioner Johnson I will agree Rowan is very knowledgeable about County business so I'm did did you ask him to be the I can't ask him to be I asked him if he was willing and he is willing okay and then I mean and I agree we have some internal leaders that maybe could help fill the gap for a while and but I'm wondering our previous interim person I also think has Knowledge and Skills so I'm wondering anybody reached out that has been a discussion yes okay so I have not personally reached out I know that there is a willingness so that's I'm wondering about process now how long do we want to take to do this and how do we find willing enable people I mean are we going to just appoint Rowan this morning I I'm I'm wondering what your thoughts are about this process CU like commissioner white I'm still like oh okay I didn't know this so this is very raw very fresh for all of us because we're dealing with the emotions around loss but it is our duty and our responsibility to make sure that things are covered immediately there were things that we had to make sure we did yesterday on the first day of business for example Brady do you want to share your additional responsibility with signing oh yeah just things like signing department head time sheets for example I mean there were things that as of yesterday we had to start to delegate and I want to be clear that we are looking at a 12we period this is quite different than the situation that we had back during the pandemic when our former County administrator left so this is a finite period of time and I'll I'll just add to what an said I think um the leadership committee was uh all in support of the of Rowan uh some of us it independently thought the same thing but thank you other comments questions attorney hickin thank you chair um I guess I'll add to the discussion that since we have in this County elected to run under a County Administrator form of government there are a lot of things a lot of powers that have been delegated to the County Administrator position um um that kind of go unfilled um well there's not an interim person um one important thing is that the County Administrator is who every department head reports to um the County Administrator is in charge of all the purchases and making those decisions the County Administrator makes final decisions as to suspension and termination and hires um so whether or not somebody is officially given the title interim County Administrator all of those individual responsibilities need to be delegated somehow um and soon unfortunately I mean yeah I wish it didn't come up so suddenly obviously that's not in our control and everyone would have would prefer to have have avoided the loss commissioner storle well I guess my thought right now is that uh Rowan has been approached and he said he would be willing if we don't have any other suggestions or background as to who else would do it I would entertain that we would um for the 12 weeks um have him as the interro so was that a motion I'm just talking out loud right now for any reaction from anybody else all right thank you commissioner and um did you say that you'd um uh talked about this with the last interim uh outside this organization the person who filled for a while during the pandemic I received a a text and I did not speak with that person was it a um was it like Rowan there'd be a willingness to help mhm okay commissioner Johnson Too Fast Madam chair willing to help or willing to step in there's two differences willing to step in that has not been I have not discussed that okay Mr Johnson I'm just wondering can we bring Rowan here I mean I think it'd be helpful to hear it firsthand than having everybody tell us what Rowan said and what Rowan's expectations are and what help he thinks he might need and what areas he me he thinks he can do fine I don't know I mean I'm just wondering before I vote I I it's kind of absolutely like to have him talk about it um yeah Jenna if you could go get piging Rowan Watkins aren doesn't every employee watch these meetings I thought that's no one does he's nearby he's on it there's a leg true good morning Rowan morning thank you for coming at the last minute come and sit up at the mic you don't need to sign in and put your address there so um Rowan there are questions and maybe you caught this um but commissioner John you just want to restate your your question I prefer to hear it from you directly rather than secondhand sure absolutely and I I just there's a little delay in the the video so I just caught you starting to say that you were wondering if I could be here so that was when I came in so that's all the context I have we're discussing you being the County Administrator for the interim and that's a big role to fill and know you have some skills that can do that I'm just wondering from you personally you feel up to stepping into that role and all aspects of that role or are there different do you are there areas where you say oh that's going to be really tough for me I'm going to need some help that's what I'm looking for yeah I appreciate the question and wanting to hear it from me directly um the process was for me yesterday being called into the leadership committee meeting being told this absolutely devastating terrible news and the question being brought to me about that um I didn't say yes or no right away um I I wanted to know about timeline um was told later about that a 12 week period I had concerns about that um and then the other piece was the sharing of Duties and from the group that was in there between Brady and Allison and HR and Molly and and an and everyone expressing the willingness to help um I I feel the same way if there's a way that I can help I'll do everything that I can and and do what's asked and do what's required um but that timeline that short period of time I think is is important that we stick to that it's not much longer than that if any and I will need help from Brady and Molly and and an and be brought up to speed on context there's obviously things that have been happening in meetings that I'm not a part of and so there'll be a a curve to to be brought up to speed on certain things for sure and have you talked with your staff and your department about what might happen I have yeah and do you feel like they're willing to step up and also I do take some of yours another big consideration that I mentioned to that I'd want to talk to my staff and also my family um I think where we are right now um with our projects that are are going forward I think we're in an okay spot where for 12 weeks those things will move forward we we know what we're doing and we'll we'll be okay thank you yeah commissioner storle thank you m chair thank you Rowan for considering this um it will take us into two year two weeks of January after we've had elections and all so that um you've considered that time frame too I have yeah I was follow up by and like say you know exactly what what would it would look like yeah okay all right thank you are there other questions for Rowan this morning commissioner white what happen What happens if it comes around that that we will need more than 12 weeks then we would have to deal with that right now the future is unknown um the organization doesn't know what's beyond that time frame and James doesn't know right now beyond that time frame so it's really important that we keep focused on that 12 weeks and we are going to need to be flexible and Nimble and prioritize so that we can be successful through this difficult time and so for Rowan what happens 12 weeks sounds like let's see but what happens if it like even if it's like a last minute thing this is not going to work more time is needed does Rowan just stay in his position as the interim or does he go back excuse me go back to being the department head and then we have a vacancy or is this something we'll wait till that moment in time to make a decision we certainly will probably have discussion along the way as we get more information but there's no way to predict that and so what we did is look at this time frame with what we know Family Medical Leave Act what we can do by Statute Brady you look like you have something to say well I just think we we go forward having discussions as what if 12 weeks from now so we're not we'll be thinking about it prior to then and thinking about what steps we would take so that we're not we're not going to wait to think about it for 12 weeks so we'll have other options Rowan I would just add I mean if it was give or take 12 weeks I don't think that's going to be detrimental to our department my question and concern was really from my comparison and experience to how it went last time with covid and and the previous inter term you know being there for a much more extended period of time and so I was just really a question about the boards and intent and and how long they'd want to operate in that capacity and that's that was really it's not that Mis is going to fall apart on the 13th week it's just making sure that I have a a pretty good understanding of what the commitment is and what we're signing up for and if it's give or take a few weeks just so that you know that it's not something that I think is going to be extremely detrimental to the Mis Department okay thank you other questions or comments if not is there a motion mam chair I'll make a motion that we uh have um Rowan Watkins as our interim administrator for the 12 weeks that's been requested thank you commissioner Starley is there support I'll support thank you commissioner Wyatt we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you thank you you do not need to come and sit here today I'd like to thank thank you all for a difficult discussion an important discussion it's important that we be candid that we ask the right questions and I just want to let you know I appreciate all of you so much um commissioner I just thought of a question is this an outof class appointment then and do we did we need to state that we recognize that this is an outof class appointment for payroll purposes or I'm just wondering but the legal might be a good idea since typically that decision would be up to the County Administrator yeah so the board should probably take action on that okay commissioner you want to make a motion yeah I'm I'm trying to think of the right words for that Brady you're going to fix it right I I'll make the motion okay that we approve the um out ofcl class appointment to Rowan Watkins as our interim County Administrator thank you commissioner is there support support thank you commissioner Mel we have a motion in support further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you all at this point we'll move on to our next agenda item I need just a minute we do the consent agenda again all right as we move forward um we have a consent agenda before us are there any items the commissioner wishes to V commissioner white um yes for the hly schroer the county courthouse record County Recorder so it seems appropriate to take item e and move that to Human Resources would that be appropriate sure okay thank you commissioner um so with that change is there a motion to approve the consent agenda minus item e so moved thank you commissioner Mills is there support support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you we'll move on now to the proposed sale of Superior National Golf Course and commissioner Mills sits on the Eda as our representative and we'll turn it over to you thank you um chair um this is just for information the the Eda has a presentation and a recommendation to pursue the sale of the golf course is a very hot topic and a very large discussion and so the Eda asked to get this information to you on the agenda as soon as possible to process formulate questions um ins and outs um and then November 12th there will be a presentation um from representatives of both uh the Board of Governors as well as the Eda to to engage and discuss this so um no decisions need to be made right now it's just to get information out there and get some more focus on it so and uh I'm afraid I can't answer many questions myself um and have questions uh as well so um happy to field questions if if there are some I should pass on but I'd also encourage all of us to reach out to the Board of Governors or whomever on the Eda you feel you have a good good working relationship with to to ask questions and and work through things so um one of the oh I'm sorry go ahead go ahead I was just going to say one of the things I was asked asking at the last Eda board meeting was how many how much of the use at L Lut and Nation is super National is um is from locals and how will this impact locals um so hoping to get that data specifically um and um it could have been presented and I just glossed over it um in in the past but um that was one thing I I wanted to know more about um there's some skepticism on how a sale would or could happen but um the kind of the long and short of it is that it it either requires significant investment and I'm not sure there is public Community appetite and and our board's appetite for that or it should be sold um I've thought about other um public entities that could but we just don't have anything set up and it needs investment now and in the near futures so um I think it's going to be a very healthy discussion and um and and I think it's important it's a it's a big deal it's a really important one and this has been kind of a a Hot Topic in our community for many many years it has commissioner Johnson oh you had a question go ahead commissioner thank you um yeah I just wanted to say um we did have a little gathering to thank some of the employees for their dedication especially uh Mike who came on board 31 years ago and um my involvement with the golf course was in some gardening and whenever um I asked to have a boulder be put over on Fairway number seven the boulder was there the next day and so I have had a good working relationship golfed myself brought family up to golf so there again I don't know how much they keep track of locals versus visitors I know there's a ton of visitors from all over the country actually so that that part would be a good percentage I just don't know about the local commissioner way and I would like to encourage the the the public in this packet that we were given there's more information that can be verbally absorbed so open the packet and read the information there are different scenarios and what the costs are and if if the if the voters really want to know I think was this was a very comprehensive presentation or in writing for us so yeah they did a good and it's it will take time so to read it all and then read it again so to whomever put this together thank you one of the things I'd like to recognize is the thorough work of Teresa baid the former executive director ctor of the Eda in working with this and working with the Board of Governors and the members of the Eda board um this has as you mentioned been something that's been discussed and been a Hot Topic in our community for years um she did a very very thorough uh job and um I find it also um very helpful to have heard from her the amount of time effort the golf course takes for that Eda director role um it's you know it's Economic Development Authority and it's in addition got a golf course and that's very different than other edas that I'm familiar with around the state so I just want to applaud her for her um courage and for her time commitment in making sure that we had a really good report to review and study and to share with the public so that um when November comes and uh we have individuals here from the Eda and the Board of Governors to speak with us we are well informed and have good questions and I appreciate commissioner Mill's thinking about reaching out before that meeting to get questions answered that we have any other comments commissioner Johnson yeah I just want to thank the Eda board um this has been a long time coming um and I appreciate the information and the research that really went into this it's a complicated situation and this is not something that's going to happen soon there's lots of pieces that need to fit together but I appreciate that um the Eda finally is um stepping up and saying we have to deal with the golf course so I just want to say that and one thing I'm going to share um with the Eda um and I imagine there are some board members listening this morning is that I am really interested in getting a market analysis on the value of Superior National um we have people in our County that deal with commercial real estate but not with golf courses that's a whole whole different animal and so I think we're going to um hopefully get some information um from a professional that deals with that to um help guide us in our decision making that is my big request of the Eda other questions or comments if not we'll move on to item number six Highway Department the dynamic duo has arrived good morning engineer Hass and Matt good morning uh so before you we have a couple of policies uh we'll start with our subordinate District policy I believe it was last week brought this to the committee of the whole and had a wonderful discussion about it um quick background as we worked this for several I think Highway committee meetings as well so we had input from that committee meeting um which then we talked about you know I'd say at length at the committee of the whole last week um and then now we're here uh so it's just some minor revisions with it um I guess I I don't know if I need to go into it again or not I mean we talked about it last week so is there any any additional questions with the with the updated policy any questions that Commissioners have it's pretty fresh in our minds and um thank you for all the little tweaking that you did um those tweaks are important yes I'd like to make a motion to uh approve and adopt the subordinate government Service District policy thank you commissioner mels is there support support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion in support any further discussion mon our board all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you very much uh next one's kind of a similar story this is a new policy though we didn't have any policy any guidance really uh as far as our calcium chloride application was concerned and that was something that Matt and I have talked a lot about and you know as we talked about in the committee of the whole last week you know budget budget constraints really made us take a really hard look at this and try and develop some metrics to follow um that we didn't have before so again this was a policy that had been worked through Highway advisory committee uh we talked about it last week again at length and that was another one that we thought was ready to come before you today so is there any additional questions with this one I guess any questions I just want to thank you for your policy work it is so important in helping us um move in the right direction thank you is there a motion I'll make a motion to approve the policy thank you commissioner white is there a support I'll support any further discussion the reason we were told that the engineer is putting these policies together is he has an he thinks that he's probably going to win the lottery and be gone so anyone can just step in because he will have documented it so it will be more uh transitioning will be much easier part of our strategic plan yay you're doing it I'm glad the odds are with us on this one all right we have a motion and a second any further discussion commissioner stle pardon Oh I thought you were asking to speak all in favor I opposed motion carries thank you so much and now we have our Mis discussion management information systems and we'd like to welcome Rowan Watkins and Jay D you you each get a mic we'll split the difference fight and Conquer good morning morning everyone everyone morning Madam chair members of the board today we have uh just an informational piece for you all uh earlier this year radio communication analyst Jou submitted a armor grant program application to the Department of Minnesota Public Safety on behalf of Cook County and on September uh 24th Mis received notice that the application had been selected for a total Grant offer to Cook County of 300 9,536 with a 5% local match requirement of $2,519 uh the grant operates in fiscal State fiscal year 24- 26 and the tenative Grant period is November 1st 24 so coming soon uh through June 30th 2026 over 17 entities applied to this grant with projects totaling over 23 million in requested funds the average grant funding request was for 130,000 so we're well above that um thanks and parts to how Jay wrote that Grant application uh the Department of Public Safety DPS uh emergency communications division ecn in collaboration with stakeholders and armor subject mat matter experts have scored and awarded this grant based on the highest overall scores and funding available and have determined the final Grant offers to awardees so that's just how they looked at it and looked at what Jay presented and our needs and scored us very high and awarded us a significant amount of money the the grant is intended to replace existing Public Safety armor radios and armor radio accessories the timing is really really great for us the last time we had a huge large purchase of armor radios was 2014 we had a FEMA afg or assistance to firefighter grant that purchased the initial round of this at that time we approached mind do to talk about what's typical for a life cycle what's an appropriate replacement schedule for these radios and communicated to then the fire departments ambulance services first responder groups but you know they're going to be responsible for budgeting and replacing these radios 7 to 10 years so here we are in 20124 10 years later and again thanks to the application and the well-written application that Jay submitted we're now in a position to really help offset those costs for our fire departments and replace those radios that that need it and so last night Jay and I went to the Chiefs Fire Chiefs meeting and talked through this and we have a a plan and made sure that they're in agreement on how we're going to move forward with the types of radios try to have that consistent across the all departments as much as we can that makes it easier on them in a lot of ways and easier on us from a support standpoint um they will and communicated to us last night that they have been allocating funds and have money to backfill the difference this grant won't replace every radio in all of our fire departments um but they have the funds to backfill the difference so it's going to take us from having 10year old radios at the majority of our departments and bring us up to having new good working equipment anything you want to add to that one of the functionality bits that we're looking to explore with the grant as well is um in 2014 when all those radios were purchased they were were purchased as single band radios um we made a wholesale change from the old VHF system to the new armor system and a lot of that capability of using VHF frequencies which are used by the DNR and by the Bia and by the US Forest Service um was was sidelined and so at the meeting last night one of the things that the that many of the fire chiefs mentioned was their willingness to uh to purchase into the same platform that we're looking to to use and to expand into uh some VHF capability again for interoperability within uh within the county and the organizations that we work with specifically for fire um that's encouraging because it increases a lot of our interoperability opportunities um and it will alleviate some of the challenges that we've had in working with those other agencies to try and figure out how do we actually talk to each other so so that's one of the encouraging things about about the willingness that we've seen from the Fire Chiefs and the platforms that we're looking for um for this new round of radios so the last piece that I guess next steps that we'll we'll talk about in relation to the grant is we haven't signed the grant contract yet the the period will again be starting tentatively November 1st um we'll get some paperwork but we'll want to do a little bit more conversation on the details with Brady about the county acting as the Fiscal Agent and what's the best way to do that what's the smoothest way for the grant and with the fire departments do we purchase those radios and re-invoice the Departments for the difference we have accounts that we use for that type of business but we typically don't run that much um that size of expense through those accounts um it's usually a radio or a pager here or there and we do that to make sure that the vendors get paid timely we make sure that we get State bid pricing and that they get exactly what they need they being in the fire departments and it and it works well um but we want to make sure that we're going about that the right way so that's kind of the last piece to figure out in the plan to get this money and get these radios and Equipment rolled out to our fire departments any questions on any of that mission way how many many radios are you talking about so what we're part of the conversation we had last night was Jay's done a really lot of work on different options for radios capabilities and testing and that was part of the conversation last night was here's a set of radios that you know are starting to look at potentially being end of service life meaning that you know there's only a guarantee we can have parts for five years and then as parts are available after that we've seen that before usually two to three years following that and when you get to the end of that then instead of sending a radio that doesn't work in and having it replaced or fixed or replaced for a flat rate of $250 or thereabouts they say sorry you get to buy a a new radio so that was a consideration um different platforms different ranges but the combined total with the match that we're required to provide a little over 400,000 we will buy as many radios as we can with the model of radio that our fire chiefs decide on that is the best divide that equally amongst the fire departments and then they'll use their funding to backfill the difference for the radios that they need that was the best way that we could figure to keep it Equitable across all of the Departments full well knowing that the larger departments do have a greater need um but also sometimes have a more direct line for funding um than some of the smaller departments and so all of the Departments seem to be in in agreement on that and based on the platform I still have to get another tester radio that I'm going to pass around to the different departments for them to see what they what they think about it um but we're talking ballpark On The Low End probably a hundred or so radios for the more expensive versions and then for the less expensive versions probably in the neighborhood of 120 125 something like that so it's you know 102 per Department which if you look at the Active uh firefighters in most of the department that's pretty okay for that's that's a significant portion of the active firefighters in a lot of departments and then those that don't get a new radio their old ones continue to function or yep they continue to function they are as I mentioned the model that we have now is that that end of service life and to knowing that and offsetting that the strategy that we've taken for a while now is as other partner agencies not within Cook County but outside replace their radios they offer those types of radios up and so we actually have about 15 to 20 mobile or vehicle radios and somewhere between probably 50ish handheld radios that if needed they can be brought in and placed if a department feels like they just absolutely can't afford to buy a new radio and we've been running on that applying J's looked at other afg grants and other things knowing that this armor grant program was coming asking our departments to kind of hang in there and wait with us so that we can get everybody up onto again a new single platform a single timeline and kind of keep that going where there's a just a lot of benefits there from the support to the end user when they show up on a scene I know how your radio works you know how my radio works to purchasing power right instead of a single Department going and buying 30 radios if we can kind of continually collectively say we're going to buy 150 radios the price gets brought down and so if we can continue to do this we will but that's the the timeline that we're operating under and the no nobody will go without a working radio yes thanks commissioner Starley thank you well this is great news and thank you for putting this together it's been a constant conversation in the West End and the fact that some of the townships said you know they'll fill in the Gap you know they can write grants like you say to fill in um certain areas and especially something like this that really is important in public safety so appreciate that and I won't say anything until I get the word to the groups in townships in the West End commissioner yeah just my uh involvement in the Public Safety Committee at AMC is I hear a lot about the armor radios and replacement and the replacement schedule and the funding and all that so this is not um luck for us this is hard work and and and good work so thank you very much for that and and um coordination and collaboration and partnership um just really appreciate that so thank you absolutely it's it's so important to make sure that the firefighters in our community have the best equipment that they can have um because we don't have that many lines of defense and so so if something bad happens you know I listen to Pages all day um across the paging system and and it's always fire departments that called first and so those literally are our First Responders they need to have the equipment that works commissioner you had a question um just a comment thank you um and I went online to look at the list of this what is this it's pretty impressive what Cook County got out of that list if you look at the long list of applicants the scores and the amount of money so it kind of speaks to us talking about grant writing and making sure you have an expert in that field write the Grant I think that um kind of goes says talks for itself there so thank you for taking the time and the effort to do this for us huge Point absolutely absolutely well go ahead briefly if I could uh just last regular meeting commissioner white asked me to talk a little bit about the Minnesota model the governance structure of the secb this is how we got this funding through that through those channels and so I just if I could real briefly bring that slide up and talk a little bit about the governance structure that supports it and the value that we get out of it in context of of the grant that we just got I think you do yeah the window there it is there it is so this is the governance structure of the secb or Statewide emergency Communications board and it is defined in State Statute the 403 statute and it gives them um governance over emergency communications throughout the state and I I do just want to spend just a small amount of time talking about the value that we get as a county participating in that governance structure could you click on the statute just briefly it's under secb on the little box to the left of governance up and to the left little further left oh there we go y isor n that's and so this is the link to the statute and it just the summary is that it's responsible for providing Minnesota residents and First Responders with multiple and reliable means of communication before and during and after emergencies uh and the part that I want to highlight is the second sentence in that paragraph of how the board is made up it's onethird from Greater Minnesota onethird from the Twin Cities metro area and onethird from State agencies providing Public Safety and that gives us being Greater Minnesota uh really equal set speaking voice at the table and voting and making these decisions visions and then if we could just go back one click and then show the organizational chart and just there you can actually click it the Highlight view chart the link just to the above and to the left of it yeah there we go and so then to just the scope of what the secb now covers and so it's it's NE those blue or the purple uh squares going down to the left a little bit second to the left so it's NextGen 911 land mobile radio or armor Wireless broadband that's cell service and first net uh iPod or integrated public alert Warning Systems that's code red for us or everbridge or other those systems and then they have interoperability Finance steering and legisl committee but the public safety emergency communications is all encompassed under this governance structure and then for us in the Northeast you can see us second from the right we have the emergency communications board which is a joint Powers agreement we have the ability to spend each other's money and do sometimes we're below that is the regional advisory committee that's technical folks like Jay and myself that make recommendations to that board and those board members are typically elected officials County Commissioners Deb White serves on it sheriffs are also commonly there and then below that you have your owners and operators and that's people who own these systems so they own 911 systems they own iPods integrated Public Safety Warning Systems code red that's our Ben Hallberg Lindsey milky the people that own and operate that infrastructure and then the users and so that's f firefighters EMS people deputies boots on the ground folks and that governance structure is known as the Minnesota model and is really sought after nationally and why it works so well is because it is ground up but it's it's information sharing it's the reasons why we know things are coming and can budget in advance because we attend these meetings we go there um encryption is a requirement that's coming that's being pushed down from the federal government for law enforcement traffic we knew that years in advance because of attending these meetings when we replaced Sheriff's Office radios we made sure those radios are going to be capable of doing that and they are and that's a project that we'll be doing this year addition to all the other funding that's there and open it up for questions after this just to speak a little bit more to the the value that we get from this organizational structure um There's 7 million available right now in 911 funds for in a new Grant coming through this government structure for GIS mapping indoor mapping specifically targeting schools but other indoor Public Safety needs mapping something that we again could take advantage of there was 1.5 million in federal funds matched with another 1.5 and state million funds for the next gen 911 program in 2019 and 2022 something we did take advantage of and so for us just going back a few years um we're here in 2024 receiving 389,000 for armor radio funds in 2022 we received 15,000 GIS related NextGen 911 funds helping toine jurisdictional mapping boundaries so that when you call 911 the right agent gets dispatched um 250,000 was awarded across our region that year uh and then in 2020 uh we received $95,000 to offset the cost of replacing our 911 CPE or call processing equipment and that was part of a larger 400 and 45,000 across the Northeast region that makes up that joint Powers agreement so just some context on what that group does the value that we get by attending it both financially and informationally and peer sharing um promise commissioner white I would come back and explain more on that and and provide that information that's a a good summary of it and I'd stand for any other questions if there are any commission and I would like to thank you because the listening public needs to know that there's nobody can explain it as well as these two people in our department I sit in awe and confusion and I'm aware at these meetings that everyone knows what they're talking about and I do end up with feeling protected or the fact that there's good there's good Communications uh in place for our County so uh going forward into the future I believe that for me to ever do a presentation on what I learned at the emergency communications board we I just want one of these two people to do the explanation so with their his history and in and they know what they're talking about so I would concur having sat in that chair for a period of time and we are so fortunate to to have these two um provide providing support for us in the area of communication well thank you for your application your successful application and um we just appreciate all that you do for our firefighters our First Responders search and rescue all the people that use the devices um that are coming our way thank you so much I was thinking about taking a break but we're not going to was a little hesitant about coming up just because that we have our director of Land Services here Tim Nelson to uh speak with us about a septic Grant yes thank you and uh good morning Commissioners um this will actually be fairly brief this is um unlike a a lot of the septic grants that we have come to you before the one Watershed one plan grants uh either through the north uh Lake Superior Watershed or the Rainy River Watershed which we're going to be uh doing some projects on continuing Our Lake Shore septic compliance program this here is actually a continuation this happens every year this is through the DNR uh natural resources block grant it's one we get um that does a perpetuation of administration uh CA kind of a subsidy to us for regulating the septic systems um and that one as we do see a slight increase in that uh one we usually get about about 18 uh six on that and that's now been increased to the 22 or 212 or whatever that is and um then the 40 uh Grand is for a program of assisting uh low income for uh septic upgrades and if you if you take that number septic or 40,000 um if that that could pay even less than one system cost these days so we do generally break that up into a few different uh systems it is uh income base and we try to help as many people as we can as you may well know we do have other programs that are low interest programs uh for folks so we do have um funds available for people uh outside of of this uh to help uh in the upgrade of the systems um and I guess I'll just leave it at that unless you have any questions commissioner Johnson yeah thanks so the 216 goes into the levy amount and the 40 does not and that made me wonder I think I wish Brady was still here um a couple years ago we set aside a half a million dollars for that program and have we have an update of how much of that got used and where we're at with the need for funds right and commissioner Johnson Madam chair we um there's actually a few different programs that we have this is uh separate from that um this is for specifically the low-income income uh requirements have to be met the the pot that we had set aside we did so in anticipation of the uh lak Shore septic compliance uh program that we have that have have done actually a couple thousand uh inspections and you know in the in the average that we've gone through the uh through the lakes that we've done this on and we target the specific lakes and riparian properties uh to get the biggest uh kind of uh ecological um boom out of it as we can um we've uh probably upgraded close to th000 systems um based off that a lot most all of the the systems have been covered themselves we haven't used as much out of that fund um that is that what you're talking about is one that's set aside for it's a low interest one it's a it's a loan program where people uh would be able to apply to and there's no income basis on it we just wanted to kind of facilitate the upgrade of these System since we're unilateral doing all of the inspections and um that the way that it's structured people would uh get the system replaced and then the cost of that system through that low interest Loan program would be based on their uh tax their property taxes over the course of 10 years and paid off in that stretch and I don't know what the exact amount is but yeah we haven't used near as much as what we had anticipated that we used generally we have found that people have uh on on the Lake Shores and the raran lots have funded their own their own uh upgrades and I'll will bring that up just because we're talking budget later in our meeting and are there funds we have lots of projects and lots of requests and I'm just wondering well maybe if there's a fund out there that isn't getting used like we projected it might get used that we look at that my other question here is because I also looked this one up but as far as reporting um it says the grantee must display on its website the previous calendar Year's detailed informations on the expenditures of Grant funds and measurable outcomes and I couldn't find it on our website so where does it get reported we report directly to the state I if the state has that on their particular website or whatever either but I would just thought it'd be interest I was looking at all the counties that get this and I'm just curious how Cook County compares to other counties so I was looking for that and I'm wondering where I can find that can you if you report it can you send just send that to me so I can see yeah yeah yeah okay in fact I can I can uh compile a report and and send it to the to the board over the last 10 that' be helpful yeah no problem about thanks right other questions question were you able to find information from other counties um PDFs yeah I could find some things but I don't really know what I'm looking at so be helpful to compare it with this is how Kone did it and I can say oh yeah I know that okay other questions all right well is there a motion to approve this to accept the grant money so move man CH thank you commissioner Mills is there support support thank you commissioner Johnson so I have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I oppos motion carries thank you so much thank you and Nea Maxwell is going to join us to talk about a rezone that came before the Planning Commission last week and was recommended for approval um to this board Nea thank you madam chair last week at the co County Planning Commission meeting they reviewed a request to rezone approximately 2.4 acres of land that's a part of seagull Outfitters right now and the rezone would make what is currently Resort commercial residential to become uh the Lakeshore residential and F3 Zone District so it's essentially Shifting the existing zoning boundaries between those existing zoning districts 150 ft Northerly so that the property owners can subdivide uh the land that currently houses their home and that they can live at that place uh we couldn't accommodate that administratively to subdivide the land because the minimum lot size requirement for the resort commercial residential Zone district is a 5 acre minimum lot size requirement so the Planning Commission held the public hearing we did not receive any written comments from the public nor was there anyone in person to speak um for or against the requests the application was represented by um Smith Law PLC and the Planning Commission felt that this was a adequate request um for the reasons to rezone land specifically because they were existing Zone District boundaries that were shifting um and the plan commission voted in favor of the request and recommended that this be approved and just so um me Commissioners I'm sure aware but so members of the public are aware this is um an impact to seagull Outfitters just so that we're clear on that and it really aligns with what is the case for um other similar businesses in that area um gives the people an opportunity to live on their property stay on their property whether they own that Outfitters or not any questions for Nea M chair I'd like to make a motion to approve resolution to reone approximately 2.4 Acres from Resort commercial residential to Lakeshore residential and Forest agricultural residential at 12208 gunin Trail thank you so much commissioner mels is there support support thank you commissioner stery we have a motion and support any further discussion questions or comments all in favor I I opposed motion carries unanimously thank you thank you now can we take a break M chair can we take a five minute break we can you read my mind um we will take a short break and return for our human sources item thank you e e e e e e e e e e e like to welcome everyone back to our Cook County Board of Commissioners meeting we are um on item nine human resources and we'd like to welcome Allison plumber our HR Director good morning Allison good morning morning all right so uh our first uh agenda item to uh address um is the acceptance of County attorney Molly hickin resignation so included with the board packet is um Molly's resignation letter um and then also reference to uh Minnesota statute um that we will refer to that will give the board the authority to fill the vacancy uh to complete Molly's appointed term um but first and foremost would be um to accept her resignation with deep regrets this was a hard one to put on the agenda um because Molly is a dear close friend of mine um and we've worked closely our entire working career here um but wish her nothing but the best of luck so her last day would be January 2nd of 2025 um so we'd be looking for having a vacancy and potentially appointing someone to fill that vacancy starting January 3rd of 2025 thank you are questions that Commissioners have for director plumber I'd make a motion to accept the resignation of Molly hickin effective January um 3rd thank you commissioner Mills is there support support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion and support any further discussion commissioner Mouse um no I'm sorry any thank you for your service you're welcome it's been a joy and a challenge both any other questions or discussion all in favor I oppose osed motion carries with regret um and we should put on uh Madam chair we should just make sure we have on the agenda some room to talk about um the transition the potential for appointment I've recommended that the board appoint um assistant County attorney Gan mson as my successor um there are options other than that but there what is not an option is to go without somebody in that role whether they are interim or not uh so but we have some some time to consider that to discuss it commission Johnson to that point I would recommend that we advertise this position immediately that we start Gathering applications and potential candidates and I would encourage um turnning mson to apply but I think we as a board this is an elected position and I would hate for us just to fill it for an um the rest of the term without making sure that we have thoroughly asked for input or applicants so just I would treat this like one of our other uh vacancies we start our your process right now to gather applicants and I have to correct myself because I said Jean mson her her name is Jean Peterson Peterson and some other information that may be new to some of the board members is we've discovered since um we first talked about this this came out that the law changed in 2024 um we hadn't gotten a summary on that but determined that uh you can have a special election for uh attorney and Sheriff now just happened this year so that is possible that's you have to fill it by appointment because you have to have somebody there on the day while he leaves so that's for sure but at some point you could have a special election there are certain dates and times so just so you know that yeah and you don't have to do you know that time frame of are we talking I'm like March April I this is memory that one I think the first date is in February then it jumps to April if I remember right they're just particular dates allowed for special elections and but it's not a state requirement we hold it it's just an now it's an option it was not an option before and that's how it was first presented because we couldn't find evidence of this because it had it's not published on the legislative website yet you had to be aware of the you know and I would like to recommend that we um put this on a future agenda so that we can actually get that language and um have an opportunity to discuss that once we have that in writing and then I have a question does it have to be an elected offici an elected position like we changed for the with Dusty's position we intend to do it when Brady leaves is the attorney position different yes the attorney's position and the sheriff position are elected what opportunity we have as a board is to um appoint someone for the remainder of attorney hickin term and then have an election if we have a special election it does cost a substantial amount of money so that is another factor that we consider so that is why I'd like to have a more lengthy discussion with the information that Brady has um regarding special elections so we have all the information before we make a decision commissioner and can you just remind us all what your term is the the duration um there would be another election in 2026 so the term um ends at the end of 2026 two years two years that's what I thought but I just want to clarify y yeah and the in the special election could occur any time up to to 84 days before that election when it gets too close you can't have a special because you're going to have a regular election but um so it doesn't have to happen right away but it could happen as you choose all right so to confirm in the meantime consensuses to post the position I would say personally I'd like to hold off on that until we get the information from the revisor's office about the change in statute I think it's really important we look at our statute before we make a decision okay Bry can we ask that you get that information for us for our next board meeting yeah I'm looking at it right now I could forward it to you right now that' be good so I'm concerned we're waiting too long again H that we have a time frame we need to work on and we're running into the holidays soon I would prefer that we at at least post it see if we get any applicants see if we get any interest at all I don't know um doesn't mean we have to approve any of them we still have that option but I just think you don't want I mean this was discussed at Eda about do you want to have a posting at Christmas time and doing interviews and talking about that or do you want to do it as soon as possible because you you need to to make some plans so I'm more of an advocate we need to move on this I want to take a look at the language that auditor Powers has sent us oh I didn't yet oh okay will yes um I I um I I feel similarly as far as the timeline is concerned my my only concern as far as posting as soon as possible my concern or question is what are our obligations as far as um um employment law or um hiring as an appointment different is it is or are we under the same um employment hiring laws as an appoint is is an appointment the same as hiring well so um our handbook generally defines how we F vacancies um and I haven't looked at that language to see if it's inclusive of um you know elected positions or not I suspect that it's not specific and the handbook in general says that employee in the handbook uh that that definition includes elected and appointed um officials so under our handbook bringing it up right now y I mean appointed is or excuse me elected is a little bit out of the realm of the entire spectrum that I usually work with um but appointed would be similar to um we appoint the County Recorder now we appoint um the chief Deputy at the sheriff's office and they're considered regular staff and go through the full kind of recruitment process that we lay out in the handbook but let me just double check what the language States Miss what this would be similar to filling Dusty's position it was it was not um the process did not uh we are changing it from elected to um hiring and and because the process did not start soon enough the people that were being interviewed wanted to know if there'd be somebody in place could who could help with the transition we I believe due diligence even knowing who we have on staff that could very well fill the positions you put it out there we put it out there to the public as having the process be consistent across the board consistent so this would be the same getting it out there soon enough to see who might at be interested in the position and and going from that D it's just it's keeping the process the same so our handbook does not clarify um the specific types of um oh how do I want to say it the specific type of role that someone has a in their position whether they were elected or appointed we just Define employment as either a regular position or a temporary position and so regular position would just be a regular position that lasts for an extended period of time there's no specific termination date um it says appointment to a regular position should not however be considered a guarantee of permanent continued employment regular positions are eligible for certain employee benefits um so it doesn't even break down whether they're appointed or elected officials I think that just the elected versus appointed just uh clarifies kind of how they come into that role and then everything else after that once that individual is identified as filling that role then um all of the HR aspect of onboarding and everything kicks in so it's just kind of the recruitment the the recruitment part of the position is a little different but if we're appointing an interim County attorney um then we would just go through a regular recruitment process because they're not being elected in and we would just have to clarify the status of that appointment that it would have a defined end dat because at that point they would have to run in general election to be appointed or to be elected and fill the role for the next four-year term yeah I I just said I think we should do it as soon as possible my concern was just if we're if we if there are things we didn't know as far as um the law was concerned with appointments but I feel um like that Rando liability isn't real and it was just a question I had so um sooner sooner is better and we can go through the process I have a very uh strong suspicion that our best candidate is going to be someone who's worked in the office and has the experience of our organization and and um law in our community um but it's still probably um in our communities and organizations's best interest to to cast that net sooner to gather information sooner so we can process everything um as soon as as soon as we can just for that stability and Brady thank you so much for sending this information to us I had had looked up in State Statute and could not find this so it's not there yeah yet yet and if you look at the dates section it'll it'll read 20510 subdivision 3 it'll read as though it's just cities and towns but there's they're specifying use the dates in 20510 3A are the dates times you use which is February April May um this is for elections right on appointment that's for an election spe that's special elections so but if you just look at 20510 you'll go well this is cities and towns but they're specifying use that use those dates and for what it's worth I I greatly value and respect that it's an elected position um I'm sensitive to the cost of a special election um and and just I I believe we will I know we have a great candidate and I believe we will have great candidates um so I I don't see the need to have that election um greater than the cost of it um I think I could be convinced otherwise but um so I'm what I'm hearing from the board correct me if I'm wrong is that we should go ahead and post this position so I think yeah I I think so and I feel comfortable with that again I'm really appreciative of Brady's diligence and seeking this information out would someone like to make a motion uh I make a motion to um post for the uh appointed position of um County attorney thank you commissioner Mills is there support support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion and support anything further questions or comments uh again want to thank attorney hickin for her service and her work and I greatly value her recommendation as well and I think that's likely the path my concern was again what are our obligations with that appointment as far as the law is concerned and I feel like we should stay with our process our hiring process and um and find our best candidates I would agree and and I hope we get some candidates I know that um through talking with colleagues through the association of Minnesota counties it's very difficult to fill these positions we've all heard that and are aware of it but um we have a motion to post the position and we have a second anything else all in favor I opposed motion carries unanimously all right we have an item that was pulled from our consent agenda which was item e the promotion of Holly Scher to County Recorder and commissioner white you had a question um well it goes to process again um we posted Holly WE Post Holly admittedly 25 years of on the job training and knowing the place and like should be like a shoe in right but the process was to put it out for other candidates and go go through the interview process and like I had stated when uh we replaced Brian silence um got his someone in his position I felt and I still feel that it's not um appropriate for only one commissioner to be on the interview committee for department heads because of the amount of money and responsibility in those positions I as an elected official a lot of stuff is on trust and so I believe I don't disbelieve but I have a responsibility to to be able to say to the voters that I know this is the candidate or this is whatever the situation is and I believe that every commissioner should be sitting on interview committees for these department heads because of the significant responsibilities of these people that we will be hiring for our organization and that so what happens so we have the interview I'm on now I'm on the interview committee and nobody else is which still doesn't make it right that I'm the only commissioner to be part of the interview committee for replacing Dusty and I want to again say we need and I'll and I've heard it well this is how other people do it well I don't believe that is enough transparency and enough Communications among the the Commissioners themselves to know what is happening for these significant hires and I believe that it's it's important that all of the Commissioners are aware of who was interested in filling these positions and I just want us to change that if that's our policy or if that's our process it's just not good enough for me to have only one commissioner chime in I mean not chime in but to sit and make an evaluation and then say this is the one when one has an opportunity to look at all the applicants that might have come in the question is well why weren't these people interviewed or why weren't it should be a full board discussion that's that's what I'm saying so well um just to give some background and it was brought up in the discussion um with accepting Molly's resignation and filling the position so there is no distinction in our current policy in our handbook about different practices for the recruitment selection of department heads um so we're we went through the same process that we are now going to post the county attorney position we went through the same process with previous department heads um I went through that process when I was hired uh Brook lard um and then now most recently uh Holly Schroeder so I understand um commissioner white uh what you would like to see and I know we talked about that when we were uh conducting the interviews together uh for the County Recorder position um in consultation with James at the time being the County Administrator um and ultimately being the one that it oversees the Personnel function of our County um as there was no distinction in our current policy again in handbook um there was no reason to deviate um unless that policy is changed so in order to keep consistency we are treating this position the same and putting it on the consent agenda now um I'm definitely open to providing background information on the candidates um and what that process look like and and again commissioner white was involved in that process in the interviews um but we felt it important to be consistent with our policy and our practice as it currently states to not deviate but we're happy to take recommendations um but again to be fair and consistent with all applicants even for department head positions uh we feel it is imperative to stick with how it is laid out in the handbook until otherwise noted attorney hickin um just to make sure we understand what it would look like if all Commissioners were involved that would be an open and public meeting under open meeting law so it would be a similar process to what we've used in the past for hiring County administrators um it's going to be an increased administrative burden um and I'm not saying it's not worth it no comment on that I just want to make sure we have a realistic um vision of what it would look like it would in it would um include some more complication in scheduling those interviews um the public could be sitting in every single one of those job interviews um and that kind of changes the environment for the candidate I think um but perhaps they should expect that if they're planning on being a department head anyway um but I just wanted to make that comment well it sounds like um you know it's important to be consistent and to be fair given what is currently in our handbook but I think commissioner white brings up a an important point and that um this would be an excellent topic for committee of the whole to look at this policy and um to discuss it in that manner um and I guess that would be my recommendation and to be clear it's only for department heads it's not going down the ladder at all only for those those positions where if someone comes to me and say well why did who who else why did you guys hire this particular person and I say well who and they say well who else applied because at some point it becomes public if I am a is does it not if you if you being interviewed is that more public than before what rights do those applicants right so technically legally yes their their name does become public when they accept and have an interview however out of respect for our applicants um and acknowledging that they maybe don't want their current employer to know we still don't provide that information publicly we're trying to maintain their privacy for their current work environment so publicly but as when it happened with and I do not know if the Commissioners know who applied for Dusty's position so I'm the only one that knows about that one and um we were unaware when they came for the replacement for Brian's position and there should be a way for the Commissioners to get to know who else applied for these positions of great uh responsibility commissioner Mills um well I want to First recognize commissioner stle if that's okay absolutely thank you yeah um you know maybe what has worked in the past needs to be looked at now however is there a problem if we would have two Commissioners do the interview to represent all of us because to your point Molly it would um involve a lot of extra information people and everything so I was to join you um on that day but I was not available I was away and we also have to think about the time factor between all five of us two people should be hopefully available and so that's why you commissioner white was the only one there and I had no idea that you might have been showing up and the other part is positions that were filled we were under the gun because of the lateness in advertising requesting people to apply for the position there was not enough time not enough time for the uh and and particularly we needed to wait that 30 days in case someone was going to not want the elected official position to be changed but that there was a 4mon notice and we needed that that process needed to be started sooner so applicants could apply be vetted interviewed and then hired and not have any gaps not have any needs to do an appointed fill in interim recorder um thankfully we had a great person of course there to do that but there are flaws in the process or in the execution of the process that we have and I just want to have a agree I want to have a discussion about that we write the policies we have and so the policies were written by by any by Commissioners times change and we need to review policies to see if they are uh reflective of the commission uh Committee of the whole agenda um there are a number of policies that I think warrant taking a look at commissioner Johnson yeah and I agree should be talked about deeper I am curious if we could all reach out to the other Commissioners from other counties that we all know to also what do they do I'd like some comparison like from Lake and what St Louis is a little bigger I can't imagine them doing that but I don't know I would like to know what other counties our size do we could send something out um not only through district one but we could send out um through Jill at AMC yes and she's done research for us before and been very timely with that so maybe I'll send an email to her to see what information they might have or could gather and then after we get that information we'll take that plus our policy and we can have a discussion at a committee of the whole and I would like that information and you know four counties that have administrators and those that maybe have a coordinator or those that so we make sure we're at the right I want all the information but I want to make sure we're separating out what if there is a difference in those counties okay what structure they're under all right we'll do we'll get that Senter today commissioner white no no um so i' like to make a motion to uh approve the promotion of Holly schroer as the County recorder and register of titles thank you commissioner Mills is there support thank you commissioner sterley we have a motion and support any other discussion all in favor I oppos motion carries thank you i' like to add something that originally this was not going to be my vote not that there was anything any doubt that Holly was the person that would best uh be the the uh successor for uh Dusty uh it was all about the process and since I now feel like we're actually going to talk about the process uh without a doubt she was the one that I felt being the the loone commissioner on that that she had everything of course plus she had didn't need to have uh anyone help her on boarding at this point at all so I just want to bring that up so I think we're we're going to be well taken care of going into the future in that department thank you commissioner Johnson may I ask since you're here so have we posted for um Holly's position I guess oh yeah yeah yeah I'm looking I'm looking at the last ad that I saw and I'm like was that on there or not I can't remember no immediately when we knew she accepted um we posted that um even before it was presented here for approval uh to to get that process going so that position uh will be open until midnight well 11:59 uh next Monday night so Tuesday um Tuesday we'll have the fullest of candidates I believe there's already I think five applications for that position and we still have slightly less than a week to go okay so as far as support for her because she's in that it was a twers office and now we're down to one and we don't know how long it's going to take mhm are how are we supporting her needs to make sure everything gets done or yeah um I've I've checked in with her um I know that she will sometimes um as much as she prefers not to close because of the availability uh to be open to the public um she knows that she could at least maybe close for half hour she puts a sign out or I think too and I don't know if Brady has any input um I think sometimes she can get support from other close offices of just saying um if anyone stops by I might direct them to you just to take like a quick note and let people know I'll be back okay I just want to make sure that we're aware that we're doing something to help her through this transition absolutely yeah thank you commissioner white and that's a nice Personal Touch to say you can't come in but go talk to Brady he'll be nice to you and he'll help you I really want to but not right now I think that's they get a real human interaction well and at least if there's someone Al live person that can be like can I at least take your name and your phone number and what your question is and it I'll relay this information versus just no no Outlet at all yeah they're um I think the offices downstairs are pretty good at at cour those needs so they're they've got each other's backs which is which is great anything else well thank you so much Allison we appreciate all you've done for us all right we'll move on in our agenda to item 10 auditor Powers thank you madam chair so the first item is an annual uh request from uh MCAT for voting delegates they have their annual meeting at AMC uh and it's at Monday December 9th 2024 at 400 p.m. and they need to know who our delegate and Al alternate are for Cook County for voting at that meeting uh currently we have listed an Sullivan is the delegate David Mills as the alternate if uh we don't even need to respond if this is correct I will in any case but um or you can make a change or you can confirm the alternate and delegate so what we've done in the past is just had the board chair and vice chair but certainly I would entertain discussion or comments from others commissioner stake I respectfully ask um that it be uh me because I wasn't able to go to the meeting last December and I've kind of had a relationship with a few of the board members even though they come and go for the last 10 years and I will be going to AMC so okay thank you I I I support that request um I I have no desire to be alternate I'm not certain I can attend the conference this year um clearly if I attend I could but um but knowing that commissioner Starley is available and past experience I'm very comfortable and and supportive of that okay so I can attend as an alternate I'm planning to go but if other Commissioners are interested okay well would someone like to make a motion for a um yep I'll make the motion to have uh commissioner stle as our delegate and commissioner Sullivan as our alternate for mcit thank you commissioner Mills second all right we have a motion and support and anything further all in favor I I oppose motion carries thank you thank you madam chair uh next item I think is the general fund budget review so this is for the third quarter and as you can see for 3/4 of the Year this just general fund um 3/4 of the Year 75% our revenues at 3/4 of the year are at 112% and our expenses are at 69% so it puts our cash uh position uh very positive uh only 29% of our Levy if we end it everything today um I'll go through and note some of the highlighted differences and stop me anytime or ask anything that I don't highlight so um in the auditor's office our uh revenues are a little low that's our third quarter Federal a87 uh Administration fees for helping support the Human Service expenses General Finance Administration our interest rates uh are still very very high um compared to his history recent history and way over our budget um we've taken in about uh a little over a million well that is all interest but uh close to a million dollars in interest so far through 3/4 of the Year almost as high as last year so um most of this money is in money markets but it's paying uh well over 4% yet going down as they changed the market but still rather High and the expenses in that department are above budget because we use that uh Department to pay the public safety Aid we just paid 100,000 to violence prevention center of that 179,000 of Public Safety Aid and the rest hasn't all been paid out yet but um data processing the it charges to Public Health Services are higher than budgeted this year um in elections revenues and expenses are high that's the primary election expenses and then the state reimbursement for that the administrator um revenues the quarter three public information coordinator reimbursement from the hospital not received yet human resource resources has an increase in their Wellness Grant this year the attorney's office and victim witness so attorney's office has not received third quarter prosecution fees yet Federal grant for victim witness not received yet um recorder their recorder technology revenues exceeding their budget as usual um in the Sheriff's Office their uh revenue is low because they don't receive their $126,000 estimated of amortization aid until December the payroll remains low on the expense side as not filling positions I presume 61% payroll at 75% of the year um the jail their housing and medical costs are 33% of budget at this point of the Year some of that may be timing but um very positive environmental health has gotten again unused Watershed grant money from Lake County they're not spending it they send it to us we indicate we can spend it so good partnership uh parks and trails and planning and zoning the the payroll those expenses are off a little bit uh we had not adjusted Mitch Travis's uh payroll to be 50% that's how it was budgeted 50% in Department 391 50% in 394 that didn't happen in perel it is happening now we just have to make the journal entry to make that 50% for the year so you'll see that in the final on this report uh Solid Waste fees are exceeding the budget in recycling the second half of the state Grant isn't received yet uh Emergency Services he did not use Professional Services for the 2024 conference the library historic and two Historical Society uh those Levy payouts that we approve are all paid in full community center asked for an interfund reimbursement for this year it's not been made yet uh YMC operations all their revenue is received in January so that looks high this is of course a very general report doesn't give you the blowby blow detail by Department it's very helpful commissioner Johnson I have a question not about this report but about our 2023 numbers and um was our AIT finished yet not completely and when can we expect that audit they're finishing the Eda and the HRA and then there's just some technical the our our finances are essentially done he's doing a few things on the notes to the audit and he has to have the HRA and Eda audits done in order to complete our audit because they're a part of that I heard at the HRA meeting that that audit is done yeah the last i' heard he didn't have it in it was so it's just it's kind of important for us when we're talking budget and looking at numbers and planning ahead to make sure we understand what happened in 23 and we see it happening here where um we're collecting more in revenues and we don't have as much expenses and I have said a lot there's a dispar disparen I can't say um but and looking back at what happened in 23 is kind of important so we have that continuation of understanding how much um these same line items keep getting out of whack so um I hope that happens soon well we've got the I've got the financial numbers for you okay so the the fund balance Etc so I can present that I don't have it ready for today but okay but yeah I think that's important that we as a board see that information yeah I will get you that for the next meeting for sure commissioner Sterling thank you mam chair um when will we get the fourth quarter is that like December 31st oh oh uh there's a few things that have to happen at the end of a month before um before i' get you the fourth quarter so it would be sometime in January okay we probably for this kind of report um since it's not audited Etc I don't wait for there's quarterly service and supplies I don't wait for that um they're not that big so uh but you you do have to have your revenues they're they're they're coding the modified acrs uh the first ones that come in so it's good to it would be good to wait at least a couple three weeks to get you know a a better picture of it okay so I'm looking at our calendar in order to have the budget finalized um we have one meeting in November because of the election we aren't going to be meeting um well we're going to be meeting after that to 12th and the yeah 26th December 10th and December 17th our goal is to have it by the 10th but we do have two meetings in each month right so um as I said before I'm just throwing this out but I would request that we have a budget meeting only no speakers No Agenda just a budget meeting at our board meeting then we don't have to call a special meeting or anything like that because we have a lot to hammer out on this paper and I would age that we need to focus on budget for a meeting but there are things that come up that have timelines um just as an example Land Services has items that have a 60-day rule that we absolutely legally have to act on so I don't know that we can say we can have only a budget meeting unless we do a special meeting but we can certainly make sure that there is a focus um on budget for upcoming meetings and I think that is our intended commissioner White how about what how about if we had a budget Retreat we put a f put aside four hours in this room or whatever it might be yes maybe one should go to the active living steering committee or all of these different committees we are on but the budget should take priority and if all the commission and make it be public well it would have to be public have to be public and that would be a special meeting in and we'll have it 4H hour Retreat we'll just do it here or six hours or however long it will take to get through and really do these numbers because we've got to get our Levy down we we have it at 9 something we say we're going to seven we say we're going to five but we're a long ways from that so I think there would be value in having a special meeting special public meeting making it actually be the priority so the Commissioners can have a discussion about it Madam chair and the other thing between now and then um there are some areas here that I think we should also talk to those folks who are going to be affected how would this affect your budget how would this affect how you do things so that we have a feeling for we don't want to just cut you off but give us some input as to how it would affect um where you work what you do Highway Department M you know all of that so to give us some time to do that okay so we have um two kind of differing approaches to this one would be to primarily focus on um the budget for uh an upcoming meeting the other would be to have a special meeting that would only have the budget as a focus um what do other Commissioners besides commissioner white and commissioner stly um have thoughts in that fashion any preferences um I'm one of those Commissioners um I uh I uh would much rather have it in a regular meeting but I know the reality is there are other items that need to be addressed in our regular meetings I we're you know we're usually not fishing for more things to put on our agenda um it's it's what's what's brought to us and often times it's it's fairly time sensitive maybe things could be put off um so that would be my preference would be in a regular meeting I see the value of a special meeting um in in isolating that Focus um and I am open to attempting to to coordinate all that we did have um previous work sessions and not all Commissioners could be there um and and I recognize those challenges too um in my mind it it it really isn't all that complicated we have these new requests that driving the higher Levy the new requests are largely based on our strategic planning and how we see and want to change and develop the organization and so um a part of it is putting our money where our mouth is and this is public money and these are public mouths um also recognizing we can't do everything necessarily at once and we might have to Stage things or wait another year to to do something um um but we can still address those those are future and we can still plan for those and and they're part of our financial management plan um so I don't know that we need four hours I'm open to that for sure um but it's it's you know another way to look at it is just look at our um our new requests and maybe the ones that are ongoing such as Staffing we put in into the levy the ones that are maybe one time such as some planning or one-offs we can take out of uh the fund balance and I know it gets to be Blurred Lines because we're going to have to make things up down the road but I'm I'm a I'm a fan of that staging and staggering not staggering like unsteady staggering as in not all at once and the term is Glide path yeah I'm a big fan of the Glide um and and and so if there's something in between you know getting us down from that 98 I I I think we should pursue that um but I and I also want to address the priorities that we have identified in the Strategic plan which is like I said in turn driving those new requests so um so that was a whole lot of nothing hello commissioner Johnson you had your hand up um so yes I think we need to set time aside just budget talk and um I kind of agree maybe with commissioner stle on a day that we already have a board meeting um we're already committed for that day now I'm going to suggest that we maybe like on the 12th um not totally adjourn but take a break say we do our business we take an hour break we each have a chance to get away from the building for a minute the golf course is on November 12th just so you know that's you know this is where it gets like well that's where I'm saying you're going to have other discussions in the morning but maybe maybe we come back at 1:00 and say okay for the next two hours we're only talking budget everything else has been done but we've got to I hate it when we go to 1:00 for when we start at 8:30 but I would prefer we all cancel our afternoon Tuesday meeting and say we're going to be here instead whatever our Tuesday meeting might be but that's my suggestion the uh strategic plan transparency let's have a board discussion about budget and it's an open meeting so the public can hear how we make these we've made these decisions not that everyone's going to agree or be happy or or ecstatic but this is how the process went you get to hear it and it's transparency we need to build trust we need to well it's just the only way to have a democracy really functioning one so and that is the way we always make our budget decisions it is in public and it has to be commission and I think that whether it's a special meeting or two hours set aside whatever it is I think we need to make sure we inform our department heads that we probably will have some questions for them be prepared to come in and answer questions if needed I think especially in light of our administrator's situation right now it this is where we need to step up and be asking the questions and not relying on somebody else to ask the question for us all well I'm going to recommend that we um take the opportunity um to visit with our interim County Administrator and we will get back to people about a date for a meeting and a focus for that meeting whether it be a special meeting or included in our regular Tuesday County board meeting and I would like to just chime in on commissioner Johnson I think an extension into the afternoon on the day where we're all here to start with uh I think that's probably the better bet and trying to find another day that we'll all be able to get together okay thank you any other input before we move on to item C we do need to accept auditor Powers report by motion oh I'll make a motion to accept the report of quarter 3 2024 thank you commissioner mels is there support I'll support thank you commissioner white we have a motion and support any additional discussion or questions all in favor I opposed motion carries thank you next item is the canvas board meeting uh the election is Tuesday November 5th where canvas board uh can meet between the 3rd and the 10th days after the election I'd like to have it done as soon as possible um just for more time for anything that may arise and it's good for the state to get them sooner rather than later so I'm suggesting Friday November 8th at 10:00 a.m. in the commissioner's room and also uh ask the board to either choose a member uh to be on that board as you are official members someone who's not a candidate at the election so four of you are eligible um and if you can't come up with that or with a uh design then I'll designate someone in your place so is there a commissioner that would be interested in serving in that role I'd be available that would be wonderful commissioner story great is everybody comfortable with that M all right I'll make a motion to set um our canvas board meeting for November 8th 2024 at 10 A.M in the commissioner's room um and have commissioner storle as our um uh commissioner on on the the canvas board is there support support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion in support any additional questions or discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you item 12 um we have had planned to have um an updated discussion with administrator York was planning to be back here um auditor Powers is there anything you'd like to share in his absence well we did send out um the original this is the general fund MH and you all can see that and I just want to point out again it's wrong labels are reversed that's not the corrected version time columns yeah where it says 2023 approved that should be 2023 actual so that if you go through and compare departments you can see the difference from 2023 and that is kind of why I also wanted to see the audit um I wanted to verify M where we're at but if you go through and and and then my other issue um is that I have to manually figure out the um revenues and expenses for each department and I happen to know that ifs will count it so I don't know where this program is coming from exactly it's from ifs and then James you can send it in Excel and then you can manipulate it and so he did this to make it more readable for the board members but when it's incorrect it's not readable and when you don't have all the information that you need to make informed decisions it's not helpful so it you if you were somebody looking at budgets you need to know what that Revenue amount is you need to know what the expense amount is not the final Levy amount kind of important but you need to know the other two that go into it yeah and we this takes a lot of manual labor and so I would suggest we go back to the ifs system of the actual document I get it it some of those account numbers maybe confuse some people but then I'm also going to make a suggestion for this County Board come December I'm talking about training we have people inhouse that can do some training for board members to learn to read the IFS reports every Department here head here gets an monthly ifs report for their Department this board should be looking at that and if you don't know how to read it if you don't understand what goes into it it's kind of hard when it comes to November and December of understanding how you set your Levy MH so yeah so we have a number of items that when we get together to discuss the budget we will have to have and we'll make sure that we address those questions commissioner you're going to have that excel in a in about a minute all right but I think those will all be important pieces when we meet to have and we'll make sure that we also have those printed out so that as we're discussing um rather than trying to read it on a small screen screen we can and yes and it might be that both versions are useful yeah yeah I I mean in my mind I'm I guess maybe my first budget I you know lagged in in understanding but I I I don't really have an issue with either e either format um appreciate efforts to try to make it easier to read and you know in my mind I just flipped the two lab the two column labels around it's not it doesn't hold me up I understand the need for accuracy to make good decisions and and you know the how tedious and onerous it can be to to need to do you know manual um audits basically um so whatever whatever makes it easier and better is is great if commissioner Johnson wants it an ifs that's fantastic if uh another commissioner wants it in a different format I I have no issue with that either it's it's um a horse a piece in my mind it's just uh getting down to what our our vision and priorities are and and balancing the the needs of the community with with the the burden of of the levy um but yeah the more accurate the better for sure commissioner yeah so I would ask that this report report that got attached to our agenda today get pulled and the correct one cuz I know there is a correct one gets put put in so that if the public was to go to our meeting today and look that up they aren't confused and um misled it's really important especially with numbers that we make sure we're putting out accurate information absolutely yeah and I I found this from previous yester and put this out I I made all the number Corrections MH not just to our proposed budget and Levy but then those others that I brought to the board the last meeting so all of those were in are in that document and in the ifs user selected report I just sent to you but I didn't take the time to look at the headings so I didn't make that correction but I will do that on that same report that's fine and and I just want to thank you for doing this um for for the board and I know the public realizes too yesterday when we were updating the agenda and given what has transpired over the last few days um I was appreciative that you could provide that and that we could actually attach it um and get it to everyone so I want to thank you for your work Brady sure um and anything else related to budget um I guess chair if if um when when we have these further discussions I think it'd be really helpful to bring up those new requests again and and then Brady also mentioned that he could provide the fund balance and and just see where where we're at and I know we're in a very good place but it's important to to quantitate that and um and and then try to come up with that strategy with where we're going to Levy and where we're we're not going to um yeah and I'll I'll send out yet today that uh the new requests or called additional Resources with uh I've made a couple of the adjustments that we've already happened so you'll see it on there it's 630 just with adjustments other actions and I'm thinking of can we be reminded about the other not just the fund and I I we've already I think last time we had the other two major accounts on there but I'm thinking airport M and let's yeah what else oh and then I was wondering about our debt Levy we're at with I mean our debt payments I tried to add that up at what percentage we're at right now we're cuz I'm trying to was it 233,000 or something that we are planning and taking out of fund balance to pay our 2023 yeah so I forgot my paper that's what I presented a couple of meetings ago uh not a couple but at the proposed Levy yeah we had that's there were two there were two items one was the the additional 300,000 that HRA was asking um that they may not need but they have to ask for it right now because he said either give us a loan or put it in the levy so we put it in the levy at this for this Junction that seemed appropriate to use the um it's really the arpa funds the one that we have a lot of funding left to use so we put that 300,000 in that item and the other was the new uh bonding we bond for the yeah so we put it to offset those two numbers using the so in essence that's a could call it a fund balance use but it's actually this but it's actually arpa money it's at arpa money yeah and we haven't received the airport budget correct we just the dollar amount we did we accept that I don't remember yeah I could have been we have the airport budget but we may have an update after November first that could impact the budget so Poss okay okay but yeah if we have all of that information available at the same time yeah that would be helpful I think all right thank you good discussion um lots to gather but all important information to have as we continue examining the the levy and budget for 2025 yeah the so you somehow we've got to get I mean you may want to hear from department heads that day yeah or maybe you don't need to hear from all of them that day but either to know then or at the subsequent meetings so that they can be there to address so it's a chicken and egg sometimes you need them there to know it might why you want to ask a question so we we might you know be able to get some written information from department heads and then be able to request their attendance questions so I guess what I'm saying maybe um you could ask questions you can send them to me individually if you have questions and I'll forward them to departments uh you know looking for their get their answers and their words for example we will do that okay not knowing it may not all happen for the November 12th but for the next meeting if not that one absolutely commissioner Mills um I just want to remind us to that um when we're having these types of discussions and we have these types of questions it's extremely important to keep our administrator or interim administrator in the loop so the question may not be directly to the interim or administrator but just knowing the types of questions and um and and and being in that loop I think is critical so U might be tricky in the beginning here but hopefully it'll be a smooth uh onramp just to just to get R in the loop and and you know make sure he's in these discussions um I think that's going to make everything a lot easier so I think it's appropriate Brady for us to send questions to you um but I would ask if we do that that we also CC Rowan on there um absolutely yeah y all right thank you um we'll move on to item 12 um commissioner updates commissioner Hawkins Johnson excuse me let's see what have I done H and there's okay oh Arc they're having a retirement part party for Wally on the November 15th and that flyer is on my counter with my notes for this morning so um let you all know that if you want to go to Virginia to have a party it should be fun they a party in Virginia I don't have anything else really that happened I guess that I can think of right now all right commissioner white uh hold um no there wasn't a lot of uh no I didn't have a lot of uh interaction with anybody last week and formal manner so but I would ask that if I have the opportunity to go to the Indian Health conference up in Grand porage that the active living steering committee get are you my alternate on that one I will not be able to attend um oh active leing steering committee yeah yeah yeah um it's 11:00 on a Tuesday I'm not even sure if I am the alternate well look 11:00 on which Tuesday and do you know the date November uh November 5th 5th 5th at 9:00 a.m. I'm sorry 9:00 a.m. I have a 9:30 um I see it on my calendar I must be the alternate and it's virtual that looks like so I'll try I'll do I'll do the juggle I'll I'll be there for a half hour for sure thank you thank you for pointing that out I'll click yes anything else commissioner white no well I I had no that nothing I went to the uh chili feed after twirling around the rock uh the block five times and then at the Hub on Saturday and then just parking really illegally parking people in and walking to get my chili from The Hub so I don't know the uh results of that but there were a lot of people the information that I received was that 40% of their sales were to tourists that were there people in their families for mea so it was a real it was really good timing they did very well that's awesome commissioner Mills uh largely a Eda uh we're on our second round of interviews um and I am excited about that uh we have a hiring committee which uh have three Eda members myself my bersheim and Peter kled as well as uh Jason hail um on that committee and um very encouraging so I'm hoping we have a special meeting of the Eda board scheduled to uh hopefully uh offer the job um and it's it's scheduled um oh shoot I just saw it the mhm 29th all right that's I think the the biggest well I guess I guess it relates to previous conversations to just a butter of policies and stuff but it's been a challenge just to get the four of us um able to interview so it's it's a lot of lot of doodling all right commissioner story oh I'm sorry and yesterday I was in duth for the chb meeting but left early I saw commissioner Johnson and commissioner suvin both attending virtually um and I left partway through the cdc's presentation and it seemed at the time like kind of a route presentation I didn't know if there was more after that I missed that you guys could clue me in on um they are going to send the slides and so um I think that's something that we can share with everybody when we get them yeah and Cook County was very well represented it was a good thing that we did um post it that we did create a public notice on that yeah I just um yeah thank you commissioner sterley um thank you we had our district meeting up at if falls which I forgotten how far away it is I'm in Virginia and I'm think oh I only have another hour two and two and a half hours but anyway the roads were good great dated travel just a couple highlights we did um you know do the voting on the environment and all of that that'll be coming to us through our association of Minnesota counties and um the secretary is getting all that together so we can do the voting on that I don't know if this jogs um commissioner Johnson's memory of that meeting which was good good news from AMC they um really are our understanding that we really have really cannot travel to St Paul for an hour meeting so they're going to do a lot more virtuals good starting in January there'll be um a virtual um training for new Commissioners and uh chairs and vice chairs and it'll go all the way through um into April so that was the good news there that they'll be doing that um the other thing I'll report on is our association in Minnesota Counties have had a discussion on having a representative of our group down in St Paul when the legislature starts John angaro has um retired from St Louis County and he was their rep and so we um wrote a job description and uh he will be representing us um down at the legislature in January and he said that he would like to finish his term with us and then we'll talk about the future but I really think it's important to have a representative there and uh he's been with us for over 10 years so I'm uh looking forward to working with him we all are working with him uh come January any other items Township information anything you'd like to share nothing right now okay so um with commissioner Johnson I was at the h meeting and um director hail did talk about the fact that he would be engaged with the interviews um with the Eda um but that he has um as of October 11th um no longer serving in his capacity with the Eda so we clarified that uh we had a Planning Commission obviously today we voted on one of the items um related to SE all Outfitters but um coming before us in December um will be um an item related to the potential addition of a cell tower in Cook County and so I would encourage Commissioners to make sure that they look at the Planning Commission documents all the information that's there and um if you have time or so desire to look at that discussion prior to December quick question is this this wouldn't require a modification to our cell tower zone no this actually um it and just so people are aware if they haven't looked and commissioner storle is very familiar with it because it's in her District but it's down um very close to the county line for Lake and Cook County uh very close to Highway 61 it's a very small service area um but um I would encourage you to look at that those questions and whatever and um we have till December but and is that an erection of a new tower yes um the Cook County Historical Society just to give you an update has had their um new roof installed and um that was Rhino Roofing out of duth um and Brady and I were discussing this earlier um it's amazing with how steep those roofs are to see how um adept the roofers were at um working with shingles and equipment and whatever on there and also making sure that um areas where the public were um located between world's best donuts and the Historical Society out in front and um off to the south side or the lake side of the building that all was secured and um done very well we've had one rainstorm um since the roof was torn off um there were no leaks or damages it's um been very well done and so um we will we paid half down prior to the installation of that roof and and now we will pay the other half of that bill in the near future um also the Historical Society had their annual membership meeting altim mcwaters was recognized for for her work with history throughout the county and um really incorporating the true history of of Cook County and um there's a very nice spot on wtip that features Alta and I would encourage you to um listen to that the airport commission met um and I'm so proud of the work they have been doing um as you know all those Aspen trees and birch trees along the runways grow up very quickly they've spent hundreds of hours brushing and completely um cleared the south side of the runway all the way back to the tall trees which they can not legally touch um and um the awas is working much better and um they have just gotten so much more done given the good weather that we've had um so they are going to continue to um work on the north side of the runway um but they had an equipment breakdown we're waiting for parts late last week and hopefully um they are working as we speak um and then um lastly related to the airport um attorney hickin is going to be engaged in a mediation and maybe attorney hickin you want to talk briefly about what will happen on November 1st um well it's just an agreed upon mediation with RSN and I I probably shouldn't go into detail but I'll be there um Stephanie ball our um attorney will be there also um and I will report back to the board as to our um as to the result of that um it's quite possible I'll be in contact with um the chair and or our interim County Administrator during the mediation if we if there are some close calls that need to be made um but y all right well thank you we'll look forward to hearing more in November um with that we have our um correspondents and memos or sales tax comparison um and with that is there motion to adjourn no I just have a question for attorney hickin um what's happening with the tennis court is that moving forward for for repair for redoing it there was an inspection um again for repair um so the the contractor umac and lakeh hold manufacturing whose product was applied to the surface were up last week um and did an inspection Brook lard was there on behalf of the county Kyle orberg was there on behalf of the tennis Association um the company made a commitment to be here first thing next spring to make some repairs and do um a surfacing I'll be working on getting a written agreement with their attorney um to Commitment commit them in writing to doing so within a strict timeline um as I understand it it's their desire to complete all that work before school is out down in the Twin Cities because a lot of their work is for School tennis courts and that has to be done during the summer so um it sounds like it's mutually beneficial um that those repairs happen um before the summer season up here really gets started so that's good um I'm hopeful but uh yeah we'll need to continue to follow up with those companies and then I have one more question about the subcontractors doing work um Brian had mentioned this before he left but there was new fencing around the Little League field and the gate is not acceptable and he was told that they'd be back next week which was like a month and a half two months ago and the gate is for security so you can't like get into the fence and and uh it's it it doesn't it's not it cannot do that and so I believe that Brian said that that contractor was paid in full and uh I believe that we that gate needs to be fixed for one and two we need to reconsider probably Brook should and the administrator bills are not paid on work until it is uh a to the to the uh meets the standards or approval of the county oversight like for the tennis court and and which which they have not been paid in full is my understanding but the gate people have been paid in full so just going forward it's a minor thing but it's a process that we need to follow absolutely and we'll check with Brooke on that okay thank you good questions anything else for the good of the order is there a motion to adjourn so move thank you commissioner Starly is there support support thank you commissioner Johnson we have motion and support any last items all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you all thanks um I'm sending a text a message right now to the brook because I