i'll call the Cook County Board of U Commissioners regular meeting to order on this day Tuesday March 25th at 8:30 a.m we begin our meeting with a pledge so please rise as you are able
i aliance 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 are there any adjustments to the agenda
chair I'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda support all in favor i at this time we have a public comment period you can come forth and uh sit at the little table there with the
microphone sign in with your name and address and um you may I will give you five minutes for your comments so we have one gentleman that came up if anybody else wants to afterwards I'll call on you hello good morning good morning morning
i'm uh Chris Kent i live at 36 Turnigan Trail in Luden excuse me um I'm here today to talk about um dark skies and light pollution i'm uh there's a group of us here in Cook County that are working on light pollution and trying to
minimize it reduce it improve it uh we're group of us here we're part of the Star Skies North group that's a statewide group and uh they're they're a chapter of the international dark skies and that's a works on national things
and international things so um we're concerned about light pollution in Cook County and as you all know Cook County is one of the best spots in the state for dark skies and we really want to keep it that way and improve it um the Boundary Waters is already a dark sky
sanctuary so they're already have already worked on this and doing it and they're working on um reducing light pollution around the Boundary Waters and that does extend down to the shore and the rest of the county so we're concerned about that too
um as you know the the Highway 61 corridor is probably the worst offender along here and and Grand Marray City is the bright spot in the county that we'd like to improve on um so we're one of the things we're doing is we're um
measuring the sky quality and we measure light pollution and so there's a few of us with these meters and we're taking readings around the around the county uh Boundary Waters has to measure that up in their area so they they do that and so we've got readings all over the
county and we're going to keep tracking that and seeing if we're improving or getting worse or what we're doing light pollution has gotten worse over the last 10 to 20 years so we hope to improve on that um the the things to do with
to to improve is is all around lighting quality and uh so you know the best thing to do is shield lights to make sure that they're not pointing up they only point down they only light areas that you need to light
um and the and only when you need them so you turn them off at night when you don't need them or you put motion sensors on them so if it's security concern they only come on when there's somebody there that's a good thing to do um and the color light color is a big
thing too so you know the best lights are 3,000 Kelvin or lower and a lot of the new LEDs are not that if you're not paying attention to that so um the higher Kelvin temperatures really create more light pollution especially on
bouncing off things like snow um so our request is that you guys think about this when you're any any county projects and you know I know you're working on the law enforcement center so we'd like good lights in there um new transfer
stations that are going into the county we'd like really good lighting on those um any other county projects you're working on and also private um projects so new projects new developments that are going in we'd like to catch all those up front and and make sure they
have good lighting before they go in or as they go in um and the other one of the other things we're working on just around the county is um identifying dark sky friendly businesses that already exist and are already doing a good job and we would
like to recognize them and we'll start talking to them and and certifying them as dark sky friendly businesses um you know it's there's no downsides to this it's um saves money and it's consistent with s sustainability and
climate action so it's all good stuff so it's all I've got thank you thank you thank you is there anyone else from the public who would wish to [Applause] speak has anyone on the board received
any comments that they need to address okay thank you we'll move on to the consent agenda we have claims uh minutes from our last meeting uh minutes from the special meeting and from the commissioner
regular meeting looten Mountain application for fireworks seasonal uh liquor license renewal for several out for several businesses approve the hire of Robert Nelson social worker children's mental
health approval and that's it for the agenda does anybody have anything they wish to pull or discuss then be a motion to Okay Madam Chair motion to approve the consent agenda as presented support all
in favor i I oppose same sign moving on to item four LEC expansion project costs updates thank you Madam Chair we have uh Dean Johnson and Henry here from Johnson Wilson and BKV respectively to provide
us an update on the costs that we talked about at the last meeting with their presentation i'd invite them to come forward and share some information with us i have some copies of this Rowan do you That'd be perfect sure
depends on how many I brought i think I brought six send them around thank you [Music] thank you for making Well thank you for having us i'm uh Dean Johnson with Johnson Wilson Constructors out of Duth um we were we are at the SD
level which is schematic design so we have a lot of information but it's it's still a little bit limited so we were charged with verifying the budget based on the SD plans so we went to the market um as a litmus test to find out where
our real costs were for each division of work and I have submitted um a full breakdown of every cost item we've also identified some value engineering stuff early that we feel is not needed in the project and can save some considerable
money um I have this broken down into Rowan asked me to break this down to the new addition and the existing building so in that existing building we have captured a lot of your um bonded and unbonded items so those will have to be
further identified down the road and I also updated that that bonding um on the big ticket items the propane tank the generator we actually put a solar array in there if that's of interest to you cuz I know it was talked about so I threw a cost for that in there um the
new addition right now is if you go to the second page is uh 6 million um $10,948 and the existing building is uh 1,9841 for a grand total of $7,995189 um a lot of these items you
know that were in your bonded unbonded like um take for example the fire alarm system i talked to your fire alarm vendor it doesn't need to be updated um it was updated a big portion of it in 2019 he told me so you really do have a current system but we identified a cost
in here for it and then I identified the cost for like the fire alarm in the new construction which would was 24,000 and some change so there's some stuff that we captured in the bonded and unbonded items that you really don't need but we
were asked to capture the cost so we did the updating the heating system the windows the insul in insulating the exterior veneer um all that kind of stuff so um I guess I would open it up to questions for for the group i know
you some of you haven't seen it some of you have but um it's kind of a it's a good it's a litmus test and I think it's pretty accurate we have we took into consideration the possible tariffs are they real now or not real we're getting notifications from our vendors and
suppliers that there could be a 10% increase on this or 15 or seven or five no nothing has really taken place in our business yet but we foresee it coming so we've actually we've actually taken some of those costs into effect in this number and they might come back down but
right now we it's you know it's very similar a COVID situation where costs are out of control but these costs haven't actually been changed yet okay yes yeah Madam Chair thanks i just want to say thank you for providing this and then just add a little bit of
additional context on to why we made the request to break it down the way that we did and in conversations that Auditor Powers and I had with a bond attorneys uh it's important for us to be able to separate from the new expansion uh to
the existing building there's two different types of bonds that we'd be able to go for so the general obligation jail bonds um can be applied to the new building and that's not the case for what is is with inside the existing building and so then just to reemphasize
what Dean shared with us as we go through this um there are components within the existing building that are deferred maintenance and need to be would need to be replaced whether we do this project or not they're up
behind schedule we've talked about it several times about why it makes sense for us to do those if and when we go through with this project to save costs on mobilization and minimize disruption to the law enforcement center um but there are also things within the
existing building like the heating system or the size of the generator that are are presented here and impacted based on the assumption that we're having an expansion right so that you need a a different size generator you need a different size heating unit assuming that we're moving forward with
the expansion so just want to reemphasize that context as the board looks through the numbers and and how they're split up and and why and we discussed value engineering in that we're not going to cut we're spending the money now we're going to
get it right and we don't want to come back in two years and say "Oh yeah we should have done those light switch plates." But you know none of that and we're not going to cut quality either because this is a we're not going to do this again for
many decades i'm hoping so perfect commissioner G thank you Madam Chair yeah I appreciate uh the breakout on it um and just to clarify that the capital improvement plan work items which are on page three those are over and above the
quotes for the new and the existing and their recommendations is that correct say that one more time i'm sorry uh the capital improvement plan work items that are on page three that amount to a little over 1 million yep those are uh
in addition to the two quotes that you gave us on the existing and the new correct and and the recommendations into discussion because of things that are on capital improvement schedule these are included in there for us to be able to
look at them as a cost basis relative to when we're going to incur these costs down the line correct and the evaluation relative to the like the solar panels if there's been any projection on that when you might recoup that investment if
that's an addition if that makes any sense when you're looking at these proposals yeah uh I would have to talk to the power company to find out i mean it's it's really hard with in northern Minnesota because of the snow covered panels not
covered you know luminaries coming off the sun but there there is a formula you can do that and I will do that for you yeah yeah i think it'd be beneficial from the standpoint of you know every dollar that we spend that makes sense and dealing it with now because of disruption issues and other things and
cost of money today and tomorrow uh that if if it's a feel-good thing as an add-on but it it does isn't necessarily fiscally you know I would bypass the feel-good if if the numbers show it i mean I would say it's a probably a
20-year payback if I were to pull a pull a number out of my Yeah yeah knowledge yeah well I appreciate the the figures that help inform the decision thank you yep yeah just just so the commission knows we had been planning um to have
the structure be available for it regardless so whether you decide to do it now it could be done in the future uh again technology continues to change and uh and go but uh the roof would be set up for that in the addition you you would not be able to put anything on the
existing building and then we would have the electric uh pathways to the roof uh available also so it'll be kind of futurep proofed regardless of uh decisions that you might want to make now yeah and madam
chair as a followup to that then that that uh if if looking at the projections on that from a financial investment standpoint and anything we've learned from similar structures up and down you know the coast would be beneficial in
that regard if the infrastructure is put in place to support it as a future decision as things change that's that's good for um if it's not adding significant to something on the front end that we can identify really isn't
the direction we might go if you follow me it it's really inexpensive to put the infrastructure in for a solar array right now but we've done a lot of we've done a lot of conversions to add solar arrays to buildings and and it gets to be pretty structurally in-depth and very
infrastructure expensive to do it later so you are that's the right track you guys are thinking so yeah all right thank you any other comments questions thanks for all your work on this and trying to figure out you know
future costs and if it doesn't happen then it won't be reflected here and will be in the future there's there's a lot of I mean just keep in mind we're we're still really early in design so when I talked about VE stuff value engineering stuff I'm talking about not downgrading
the building but maybe changing a product of finishes from this ceiling to that ceiling it doesn't it doesn't downgrade the building at all it's just it's an it's an appearance that appearance item that aesthetic item that could save significant costs but I think you'll note there are some
items like in the capital improvement plan uh that he's showing on page three for example the the replace the propane tank right now it's buried um we need a probably a little bit bigger one that you have you have about 12,000 gallons
right now um there's a significant savings to go to above grade and so it'd be incumbent on the design to to look at that find a good location for it so it doesn't impact aesthetically uh what's
going on on top of the hill up there things like that so there's you know that that million dollars that's being shown there's that includes all of that so yeah how you how you pick and choose some of those things we'll be recommending those things to
you and then uh we we've decided as a team uh after we met with you um in the last meeting and I think you're all aware that uh we are um looking to get the the drawings completed
um before the end of May um and hopefully come to you uh uh I think on the 27th of May to decide if we're going to go ahead and and bid at that point um so that's a uh a big time savings in in
terms of what Dean needed to keep the project moving and going so um we're we're committed to doing that and putting that all together so there's still a lot of work to be done but uh this thing will be bid um basically in
June and um by the time July rolls along uh hopefully if everything's approved uh by you then we'll uh we'll be literally uh moving some well I don't know a lot a lot about dirt but a lot of rock here
but uh so uh a lot of that'll be happening so um uh it should be uh should be pretty pretty uh pretty fun yeah procurement is really critical because uh pre-cast is 14 to 18 weeks right now so I mean it's great you get
all the ground work done then you sit and wait for then you sit you'll wait for pre-cast but once pre it's pre-cast it's going to it's going to it's going to be a popup building it's going to go over really fast commissioner Gamble thank you Madam Chair uh so all of the proposal relative
to the costs that you've provided here the only one that is is considered optional all the others we'll call mandatory uh based upon you know what we've requested that that optional only one is the cladding is that correct yeah the
cladding would be uh again depending you know what the uh the vision is uh you have uh obviously two board members on the committee with us uh as we're looking at that we'll be looking at that this afternoon to make some final thoughts of uh how that might go i think
right now we're leaning towards uh the pre-cast walls uh versus uh the additional cladding um uh so it's pricing out appropriately uh to be that way and then I think the the speed of
construction uh is important uh you know so ideally we're trying to get this thing in closed before the winter hits and uh and I think with the timing that we've got moving right now I think it should hopefully happen and uh and then
they'll be able to finish the interior and we've had meetings on phasing and how to put this thing together uh internally to not disrupt uh the staff uh uh you you've got uh all kinds of
operations uh from the jail to the um to the call center and uh those have to be maintained uh consistently and constantly and uh you know so we've have a plan for all that put together so uh
should be uh I think I think we're ready uh we just got to get the drawings done now so in and the claddings where we'll add 3 in of insulation to the existing wall to make it a nice warm wall because apparently it's it frosts up in the winter time right now during hold cold
spells yeah madam Chair as a followup um you know you can you can't give too much information and uh there's an awful lot of it but uh that would be another
example um as to when you look at your return on your investment and if you're getting both the aesthetic and the function element of that in that expenditure those figures help to inform that decision so that that's an important thing so when we look at as
decision makers look at options and things if we have proposals where we can weigh one pros and cons over the other that's beneficial because it it gives us the pieces that we need in order to be able to make an informed decision the other thing if we look at the costing on
here relative to the proposed with the propane tanks is that if we have to exume the existing if cost for doing that is built into it or not built into it then we've covered our basis in that regard so and just when you look at that million 90 number I just realized that I
gave you an A and B option that so it's doubled up there in the bottom so you could take one of those off there and pull that number out but I did talk to one of our propane vendors um and this was his suggestions that these are his numbers you know above ground tanks as
they are not ex aesthetically pleasing they allow for ease of maintenance and I mean right now nobody knows where that tank is at certified not certified does it have anodes does it not have anodes and there's no way to tell unless you excavate the whole thing and if there's
not if there's not documentation that's been tracked since the day it was installed it it can't be reertified thank you well thank you for keeping us posted and up to up to date and we're on board anybody else have any questions or
comments i will get those answers on a solar array and then uh and then the return on investment on the uh on insulating those existing exterior walls okay perfect great a lot of information on but that's good that's what we need ple please ask the
questions you need answered to thank you Chairman um um we're going to get this all out with town hall meetings or public presentations when we get this before we get started right i mean we're going
with this but just so people can say "Oh it's $262,500 for a buried tank but 47,000 just so they so they can they can ask their questions that we don't know somebody wants an answer to it's just
keeping the It's not a negative thing it's just sharing the information with our public with the people that have all of the answers which is probably not any of us maybe Rowan has all the answers but not that he's going to be gone
anyway so um so I would just make certain that we do that transparency and uh I think we have really worked hard the BKV group there's been a lot of input a lot of thoughtfulness and they really
understand that we are a dark sky community and uh we don't want to cut corners and none of us want our name on a building that fails so
I would just say that I I think getting the information we have and is an important in the sequencing that Commissioner White is talking about and I think looking at the schedule because of our short construction season and
trying to move quickly here um my thought on a timeline for that would be the the best timing would be after this meeting now getting reaction from the board who um hasn't raised any major concerns or or um red flags with what's
being presented here today and before that May 27th meeting when they're coming back to request that we move to bid and so just from a a timewise if there's a consideration of doing additional communication beyond what we've already done a town hall or some
other forum um I I'd keep that timeline in mind okay commissioner Gamble yeah thank you Madam Chair uh to Commissioner White's point and Rowan's comment that it's not out of a sense of
obligation that that we involve the public and I think we recognize that it it is uh because they come alongside and help us in these processes it is information but it it is also a refinement of processes because there's
people that do know what we don't know it just that it it means that that the earlier we can do that the better because we don't want to as we found with the transfer station find out things last minute because it's more problematic when it happens later rather
than sooner so I I think um just recognizing the partnership we have with stakeholders overall it it is it's not just out of a sense of obligation which I know you recognize it is because we want to hear from those that maybe see something we don't see as decision
makers that help refine our processes so just building that in is is an important thing because when it comes after the fact now you're caught in a in a situation where it's hard to hard to make make change at the last minute but I encourage that thank you
any other comments or questions otherwise we'll say thank you again thank you we'll see you in a few weeks you bet or this afternoon or this afternoon i I see you came to the meeting with just one bottle of Mountain Dew last last one it was two so we got
half halfway through a meeting we will right moving on to item five our highway department has some things they're going to talk to us about starting with authorization of a purchase of two Mac
tandem axle plow trucks good morning good morning uh I'm actually just going to hand it right over to Matt for the first couple of items so Okay take it away yeah it's it's nice to follow up the uh law enforcement center because it makes our
purchase seem quite small um so what we're seeking today is authorization to purchase two Mac tandem axle plow trucks and this is not an emergency purchase this is not a surprise these are planned purchases and the reason we do two is uh
over the period of like I want to say it's like 6 years or no 8 years we are purchasing or completely uh um uh buying new trucks to replace our aging fleet uh and right now some of our oldest trucks
are over 12 years old and they've got 200,000 m on it and what ends up happening is the cost per truck um in terms of maintenance goes way up and we kind of outlined this in when when we proposed the replacement schedule but
right now our tandemss are on a 14-year replacement schedule and um we order two because of the delay so if I order a truck today uh it we won't see that truck for uh minimum I would say a year
right now up to two years so we just for example uh I came to the board two years ago to well in 2023 to order two trucks and we haven't seen those yet um so as we're budgeting for these trucks uh that money just gets set aside and we we sit
on it and then uh um eventually the truck comes and we pay for it um so that's that's kind of the the backstory for this um so with that uh I'd open up for questions okay gamble yeah thank you Madam Chair and
thank you when uh you're looking at replacement schedules and you're looking at costs because this is a discussion that is often had that the cost to maintain gets to the point where it's not only uh not financially a good you
know decision it's it's disruptive because of unreliable equipment so to speak so when you're looking at your your maintenance cost are you looking at maintenance costs based upon an industry standard or based upon your own personal experience when we put the equipment
plan together 3 years ago at this point uh we what we do is our shop keeps track of costs for each piece of equipment that we own and so what we do have available to us is every truck every grater every backhoe you name it we have a graph of annual costs and what you can
see and what's really interesting is when you take all of our trucks and not just individual year-to-year cost that can that can change depending on the truck when you combine them for a lifetime cost you see this exponential curve develop as on on every truck that we have you can group it together and
see this wonderful correlation where the older it gets the more expensive it gets i guess it's not super wonderful but it gives you an idea of that that's what we're working with so we're not using industry standards we're using the actual costs that we're seeing um if you look back at previous equipment plans
you know I think our trucks were on eight-year schedules i don't know if money grew on trees back then that's why we decided to relook at everything compare it to some other counties uh and really see what made sense for us up here and so that's where we landed kind of on this 14-year number um we did have
a truck what was it a couple years ago get up to about 18 or 19 years and it fell apart driving from the West End back to the shop uh we still got money for it we still able to sell it but it literally you could watch it list to one side as it was driving down the highway so we think 14's pretty okay i'd like
earlier but money doesn't grow on trees yeah and Madam Chair if I could just follow up on the other thing in in reading this uh proposal coming before us is that the the budget for this year has the one truck in it and next year it
would be budgeted for the additional truck and so my question is is that when we set monies aside proactively like a contribution to depreciation so that money goes in their funding that that money will be there and it's not an ask over and above what's been projected yep
that is correct right now although you know the costs are increasing faster than we anticipated um so but we'll cross that bridge when we get there yeah thank you commissioner Sullivan um question what is going to happen to the
existing trucks when the new ones arrive yeah so uh typically what happens is uh it's a it's a discussion with the uh the seller so like if we're purchasing a truck from let's say NUS uh which is our vendor um there's a trade-in value and
if that tradein value isn't high enough then we sell on um what's called Minbin yep and um we can often get more uh from minbid than we can in trade in value a little more hassle administratively but
relatively uh easy to do all right thank you any other questions then I'll hear a motion to approve this scheduled purchase commissioner Sullivan madam Chair I'd like to make a motion to
approve the scheduled purchase of two Mac Tandem plow trucks for 716,575256 support any questions or comments all in favor i I oppose pass
unanimously okay snow removal yeah so um we just talked about this in the in the committee of the whole meeting last week um and it's nice to have recency uh on our side so I'd like
to propose that we adopt the revised snow policy uh just for the public's information there's no significant changes in either response time or uh scope of our services it's just refining the language of the policy uh keeping it
relevant and fresh um and we also uh as our sidewalks increase we now have sidewalks on both sides of Fifth Avenue as well as multi-use trails we want to make sure it was reflected in that as well um yeah any questions
commissioner Gamble thank you Madam Chair uh thank you Matt for pointing that out for the public and uh as we met in the committee a whole to discuss this and now it's coming forward for for action and I would make a motion that we approve the revised snow removal policy
commissioner Sullivan support any questions or comments further all in favor i oppose same sign motion passes unanimously thank you thank you very much uh last item uh I'll take instead of Matt unless
you want to talk about okay uh so this last one um I'm not proposing spending any money i am proposing we authorize acceptance of a lot of money and so we have a town hall coming up to talk about the Mill the Hill project and bridge replacement up on the Gunflint Trail
part of that project is a lot of different funding sources this is one of those funding sources and so bridge bonds um is a state state fund uh that we can use to replace our bridges um in the county and so what's nice with this one is uh the Gunfund Trail is a state
aid highway what that means financially for us is we get money from the state every year to work on our state aid highways uh and so there's the money for construction there's money for maintenance it helps us offset levy costs but what it also means is we can tap into bridge bonding on state aid
highway projects and so this isn't for the full amount of the project because it's state aid road uh we can apply for 50% of bridge bonds and so this is approximately 50% of the bridge cost uh and so I would recommend we sign the attachment for about $2.7 million in
bridge bonding to fund the bridge replacement there on the Little Devil Track River uh does anybody have any questions commissioner White and these funds are indeed available yes yeah these aren't federal these are state well the state often gets money
from the feds so I was just Right but this is true state money it's not pass through mdot a lot of times we'll do pass through actually that's how MIDOT operates when we get money from FHWA comes through MIDOT and then to us uh but in this case this is straight from
the legislature the highway user tax distribution fund where we all pay our state taxes um into and that takes a portion of so nice little gift in this take it times that we have commissioner Gamble yeah
thank you Madam Chair so just uh for information purposes when the state has those monies available to us and when that project actually commences is there flexibility or is that a fixed number so the number that we approved today it's it's not it is a specific number it is
not something that changes at the point of construction it's a little flexible it depends if there's money still in the pot so it is it is a first come first serve and so we've talked about that a lot here with our town bridges or even just regular bridges in general where we need to have projects ready in order to
access funds right um because you know bonding packages don't pass every year i don't think one passed this year and so there's some projects we're going to have to look at that are in the plan that unless we make a significant levy contribution to to do them they won't get done and so then they just turn into
plans on the shelf until bonding or some other opportunity becomes available so um in in this case you know right now we're guaranteed that amount of money um if it's less obviously we just return it to the pot uh but if it's more you know we'll have to look at and see what other funding sources we have on the project
as well to compensate for it i know on this particular project we're believe it or not a little overfunded as far as bridge money is concerned road money I'm under uh but we can make that up in different ways and so you know if we're a little over it's okay generally
speaking if this was the only funding source it depends how much is left in the pot and as a followup in the packet uh our obligation is 5% did I read that wrong or was I looking at something else so in other words this
is fully funded as projected we don't have a match at no state fund okay uh where do you want to start um this so this bonding amount covers 50% of the bridge cost so we know that the
project on the whole is $10.4 million so I guess in one avenue you can say we have to come up with $7 whatever million in in other money to fund the project which we did and so state funds don't require a match federal funds require a
match that's an 8020 split uh which we do have requirements on other federal funds we got on this project uh which are okay and signed for and we have so that's fine uh but there's not on on our end i guess a shorter way to say any match requirement that you might have
seen or that is required is met on this project right thank you you're welcome commissioner Sullivan madam Chair I'd like to make a motion to sign the bridge bond agreement and resolution for the use of 2,671,819.20 for the bridge replacement
over the Little Devil Track River support any further questions or comments all in favor i opposed same sign motion passes unanimously so get right there and tell them you're first in line first in line
thank you all um engineer Hop yes what's your last name h um would you just do a public pronouncement about the meeting this evening oh sure yeah that's right uh we're doing a town hall up in Hovind
tonight uh from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m hovind town hall talked about the Arrowhead Trail project um that's one that we did have originally scheduled for 2025 just due to funding constraints and some plan changes we pushed it to 2026 uh and so if you want to come and eat some food
and talk about roads and have an opinion about the Arrowhead Trail come on up okay thank you thanks moving on to item number six um we're going to have a presentation on the um acceptance of the Minnesota State Armor
Equipment Grant good morning good morning thank you Madam Chair commissioners uh it is also great for me to follow these guys who spend a lot of money when I end up bringing a lot of money so um changing it up a little bit right now um this is
not my first time uh presenting this information to you i came a couple of months ago when we first received the award from the state for the armor equipment grant and this is the the formal last steps of that process where it's time for you guys to accept it um
so I have been uh working with uh with Brady Powers in the auditor's office to figure out the process of how the money is going to be coming in and how it's going to be going out how we're going to float some money for a little bit because of the the gap in time between when we're going to start paying our
bills and when the um and when the grant monies are going to be coming in and I guess this is an opportunity for you commissioners to ask me some questions about those logistics as well as for me to present what exactly we're talking about um as far as numbers are concerned
and and how we're going to move forward with it um as far as the grant itself uh in conversation with with Brady uh we've we've discovered we've assessed that this that this grant is is pretty normal
it's pretty standard for the way that the state does stuff there's no hidden hidden expectations or uh or any kind of costs associated with it um we applied for the money we had a really good application we got a whole bunch of
money from it we have plenty of money in our purchase for the for the match and so once the uh the purchase is made we have the um the invoice we submit that to the state they write us a check so it's uh pretty straightforward any
questions that that you have madam Chair um Jay would you explain why do we need these special armor things what is that this is for people that still need to figure this out i mean it's not it's not a slam on anyone
it takes a while to understand it all and what does this mean for our fire departments absolutely that is one of the biggest parts of my job is explaining to people why this is important uh so the armor system is the
statewide radio system that we all rely on for all of our EMS and fire response and for our law enforcement so the state of Minnesota did started this project about 15 years ago um implementing a they call it a trunked system meaning
that all of the systems that are in all the different counties are tied together we have interoperable ability so that we can talk to people anywhere in the state if we have need to and when people come here they can talk to us with their radios that are programmed from a different county this is an incredibly
complex system it uh when when it started you know 12 15 years ago there weren't very many radios that were available to play on the system and so we were we were kind of forced to use Motorola equipment because that's who designed our system doesn't really
surprise you much with that those radios are the same radios that the vast majority of our firefighters are using today the lifespan on one of those portable radios roughly 10 years so we're in the 12 to 15 year range for a lot of these radios and what we're
experiencing is that the batteries are not working as well these radios aren't supported anymore so whenever one of them breaks or whenever one of them is starting to act up a little bit it goes into the great big bin in my office that says broken radios and then we have to
try and find a different solution for that person so the we have a a bunch of radios that I've picked up from other agencies around the state that are used radios but in better shape than the ones we have and so that's how we've been
doing it for a little while this grant gives us an opportunity to up upgrade almost all of our active radios in the fire departments and under Rowan's leadership in the radio program before me and and when I took it over I've been
hammering these chiefs for the last several years and they've they know this that they need to be budgeting for replacement and one of the really good things about this grant is that it makes that cost dramatically lower for a lot of departments so in the in the order
that that I've secured across nine fire departments our EMS service the tribal uh and the tribal government we have enough money in there coming in and we also have uh we've offset enough of the cost that they are
able to to replace pretty much all of their active radios with um a brand new platform we're going to go with a Bendix King platform this is the same radio that the US Forest Service uses so they are very familiar with it
interoperability with the Forest Service is going to be very good um these are upgradable so any kind of upgrades that we need to do as far as encryption that might come down the pipe and or if we want to go dual band so that we can talk more directly with Forest Service and
DNR it's all possible and it's much cheaper than than what the what the Motorola platform was so that was a big part of our application to the state too is that we're we wanted to show people we were going to be really really good with the money and we're going to be
able to have a really big impact with it and I think that when you look at our at our order I think you'll see that that impact is pretty dramatic that with one grant from the state we're going to be able to replace I I can't remember exactly what the number is i'd have to
total it up but 220 radios or something like that so it's it's pretty it's a pretty dramatic um improvement and it's going to put us in a place where um both moving forward and our current level of service is
going to be better so the great part of this of this grant is you put everybody together EMTs and fire department and all of that we received one of the largest grants out of the 178 who applied almost 400,000
yeah that's fabulous Madam Chair and that means we can speak what if somebody comes from uh uh another county with their armor radio can we talk to them absolutely so the way the radios are set
out and and this is a programming standard that's across the state so everyone's familiar with it which makes it so much more useful because then people know what to expect is that we have our regional channels and we have we have a channel for each of our fire departments and then we have the school
we have Arrowhead Electric we have all the big players on the system already and then we have event channels these are things that we use in if the if it really gets sticky and or if we have uh if we have events going on such as the races um uh different uh we've used them
for you know like rallies and things like that that have happened around and then um and then we start getting into regional channels so we have a regional uh a regional zone that has uh 14 channels that we can use that you know
that anyone in the region has those in their radio then we have a state channel and anyone in the state has those in there and then we have federal channels that anyone in the country could come here and then we could use those so it's it's a it's a brilliant system it works
really very well um and this is this action with this grant is only going to improve our ability to to play with other people and to and to speak um across a bunch of different platforms so
thanks Rowan yeah Madam Chair I just like to thank Jay for the work that he's done on this it It's a really big deal for the county the last time we received radios was was 2014 that was a a FEMA AFG grant assistant to firefighter grant
and covered the vast majority of the expense associated there and this time again as chair stoley pointed out um the funding that's available we received I believe the highest award of anyone in the state and that's because of the
centralized program that we have here and the work that Jay does to get all the fire departments to agree and understand the difference amongst the other states is that individual departments are applying for themselves and when we make a a single request like we did here and we've done in the past
it adds a lot of value in why we get awarded the awards that we do and it also ensures that there's interoperability across all of our departments they're all operating on the same radios on the same platform and that benefits public safety and so it's
it's a really important and really good job commissioner Sullivan madam Chair I'd like to make a motion to accept the Minnesota State Armor Equipment Grant on behalf of Cook County and the state of Minnesota
i I support that with a comment that um I was privileged to accept that money back in 2014 oh yeah and uh so um I think over that time I've aged a little bit and probably so is our equipment so yeah and and the new stuff is it's fresh
and you know so much more connective and I don't know it's Yeah it's it's new good stuff but it's it still does the same stuff yeah yeah thank you yeah and I appreciate the the state too making this available because as Rowan said
actually Gunflint Trail had to apply for that grant because it was it was only available to a fire department and so we had to work it was very complex we had to work through them to get the grant and this is so much better so
we have a motion and a second any further questions or comments all in favor i oppose same sign motions passes unanimously thank you very much i'll be tracking you guys down for some signatures so okay thank you thank you
item number seven um we're going to have discussion with land services take a break good morning Neva and Tim good morning commissioners the first item I have for you is a business item from the Cook
County Planning Commission meeting on March 12th it was the interim use permit submitted by Dean Berglin and Dave How this was the reissuance of an interim use permit that was issued in 2016 originally for 5 years and uh through my
annual gravel pit review I realized that that that interim use permit had since elapsed it had happened to elapsed right when I came on board in 2021 so we had a a gap in employment to cover the zoning administrator so it just kind of fell through the cracks uh so they were very
responsive in getting that new interim use permit uh resubmitted and we have that processed we did receive um well first to back up so this interim use permit is for the processing of a firewood operation so there's a kiln there's a few saws and they process the
firewood and then sell it in in the area and uh throughout the years we haven't received any complaints in our office regarding noise but when we do the issuance for the public notice of the hearing that is typically when people say "Oh well that actually has been kind of bugging me." So we did receive a
couple of comments from adjoining property owners with complaints about noise outside of regular business hours and as I reviewed that 2016 interim use permit there was no conditions about quiet hours set in that so that is one thing in this uh review process that
we're able to address some of those complaints so with those comments into consideration uh the planning commission voted unanimously to recommend approval uh for a shorter time period of 5 years the applicants were requesting 10 years originally and setting quiet hours uh
for the noise operations uh no cutting or sawing during weekends at night or on holidays was essentially what the planning commission had settled on for that and um I think that's that's the high point again an interim use permit
is for a specific duration of time so it's different from a conditional use permit conditional use permits transfer with property interim use has a little bit more um attention and control over the activity so this is for the current property owners there's a condition in the list of conditions attached with
this that um if there was a sale of the property the new owner would have 60 days to reapply for their own interim use permit essentially and I see they agreed to um the weekday hours from 8:00 to 5:00 yep which is important too yes
any questions or comments madam chair I'd like to make a motion to approve with the conditions as recommended by the planning commission um for the Bergland how interim use permit support any further questions or
comments all in favor i I oppose same sign unanimously voted thank you mhm and the next item is in our general housekeeping this time of year going through our various ordinances that we
use in our office the vacation rental ordinance is proposed for some amendments uh the proposed amendments for the vacation rental ordinance are primarily housekeeping nothing substantial in the actual implementation of this ordinance we needed to correct
uh we had like a link to the incorrect application location i added in a table that clarified which zone districts are eligible for vacation rental licenses through an administrative process versus some need a conditional or an interim use permit uh and also to clarify the
number of allowed vacation rental licenses that wasn't made very clear uh in the original version of the or current version of this ordinance um and then there's also some provisions that would allow the rental of park model or tiny homes um if they're meeting certain
standards that we had recently adopted into the zoning ordinance that essentially make those types of structures structures look like cabins so it's that skirting that we talked about last month if you recall uh that make those types of units eligible for a
land use permit so to add more consistency between the zoning ordinance and the vacation rental ordinance in how we process these types of applications and uh there was no comments during the legal written public notice process or during the public
hearing either so I received very minimal feedback from the public about this the planning commission had some discussion but not a very lengthy discussion and generally felt that these were good changes to make for clarity into this ordinance and our application
of it [Music] questions or comments commissioner Widen how many vacation rentals do we have in this county i believe at last count this is it's approximately 377
all right thank you thank you that's individual ones not with the resorts that does not include the resorts right there and and I will madam chair um also state that probably going into the next year that is maybe the
next major thing that we'll be looking at overall in the vacation rental ordinance is the distinction between that of the regular just regular uh vacation rentals and those that are resort-based vacation rentals because there are certain distinctions between
those we have certain um resorts out there where um uh the the administration of the the rooms for those are not taken care of by the front desk that they're taken care of by the vacation rental owners so we want to get
some more specificity brought into the ordinance to be able to clean uh and clarify some of that up uh before we go so but that that'll probably be in the next uh major revision uh at this point in time good thank you
questions commissioner Sullivan i'd like to make a motion to approve the Cook County Planning Commission's recommendation to adopt the proposed amendments for the Cook County Vacation Rental Ordinance support any further questions or comments
commissioner Gamble yeah thank you Madam Chair so u just to restate what you said to us that this isn't anything significant it was more cleaning things up um when's the last time that the vacation ordinance w went through a real
uh revision overall and what's projected on that given what we've seen in this whole vacation rental and there was some uh significant discussion too as a classification on some of our other you know lodging
facilities as I recall before that got rather complicated as to providing activities and different things so that whole issue is something that from my perspective seeing the significant changes some of the things
that were thrown in maybe reactionary and not clarified that it's it's something good to look at thoroughly okay um we we did actually within the last couple years have a we assembled a
what I would say huge uh committee we had over 20 people on a on a committee and we did one of those um surveys that we had sent out to everybody and we had received in in excess of 580 responses uh from around the county uh with
regards to uh a lot of the provisions uh that were we're taking a look at with regards to uh uses and where and again that distinction between vacation or the uh resort-based vacation rentals and non uh vacation rentals so um that was a
pretty enormous process uh that went through uh we went through several weeks of meetings they were actually live streamed we had uh those uh on we had um reports going back to the board of
commissioners uh on on several occasions uh for that so that was that was a really huge uh undertaking uh going through that now I will say that as in anything what we find in land use um and and I think this is the same thing that
we're finding with vacation rentals uh even in our particular region that you find those land uses that over a period of time that's their time where they'll grow and mature and a lot of changes will happen and things and we have just
seen even some um um some inquiries come in from other counties around the region about what other counties are doing with regards to park models say uh and vacation rentals and and how do they relate and and everything so this is uh
I would think a continually uh kind of changing dynamic and and one there was uh I I look back maybe 15 some odd years we had a lot of uh kind of runs at the sled dog issue and and and where we were going to put those and how we were going to operate those and we had several
different committees i think vacation rentals is going to be one of those things that we are going to most likely have more uh committees put together and take a look at these issues over the course of the next years as the whole industry as as it is kind of changes and
fluctuates through the years thank you i believe we started in um 2022 and we ended up in later 23 i served on that committee so it's always good to review after a few years for sure so we have a
motion and a second any further questions all in favor i oppose same sign motion passes unanimously thank you thank you then the third item is the conditional use permit
for the Grand Marray transfer station uh it was proposed uh obviously it's a relationship between Northshore Waste and Cook County and so this will be for the processing of solid waste in Cook
County uh technically it says this facility will manage transfer and process all the solid waste generated in Cook County uh I did the public notice i think one thing that is is really clear through this process is that this is a great case where good zoning and good uh
proposals are kind of in harmony and don't create conflict so the location of this for anyone who's familiar with the current Northshore Waste facility is just right across the road uh from that current location and it's all zoned light industrial uh to the land of the north is federal so it's not really
going to be uh developed and uh we received no written correspondence during the public comment period nobody was at the public hearing to comment to this case um it seems like a well situated location for the proposed use this was also in tandem with a variance
for a height relief because the facility will exceed the 35- ft structure height maximum uh allowance in the county and the board of adjustment did grant that variance recognizing that those were safety standards outlined in state rules so that seemed like a pretty valid reason to allow that height uh allowance
there's really no way around it um with that said the conditions attached to this conditional use permit um were two and generally they're just reinforcing all the local and state regulations that are already attached to these types of facilities and the planning commission
was unanimous in their recommendation to approve this conditional use permit questions or comments commissioner Gamble thank you Madam Chair i'd make a a motion to approve uh the conditional
use permit for the transfer station support any further questions or comments all in favor i oppose same sign motion passes unanimously thank you very much thank
you for your work thank you okay so Brady we're going to turn to you thank you Madam Chair talk about the airport hanger uh first I'll start with the uh general fund budget review start there okay yeah so this is this is for
the full year 2024 and just for the general fund in this case what you see is overall these are just budgeted revenues and expenses we have many things that
are unbudgeted but of the budgeted uh our revenues are 130% of what was budgeted and our expenses are 95% so a very positive financial result we've added money to our fund balance
clearly this is uh unudited but it's uh it's modified acrruel so we're adjusting things out of 23 that belong there and adjusting things that have happened early in this year into 2024 so it's as accurate as we can get before it gets
audited but I'll highlight some of the the larger changes and please stop me if you have any questions or anything you want to ask that I'm not answering first item uh just the auditor treasur
revenues are high and that's primarily uh due to uh higher lodging tax administration fees than we budgeted passport fees federal A87 deed tax fees pretty much across the board a little higher than we
expected um the next department general finance administration and here uh we this is where we book our interest money and for the third year in a row we're seeing
these high interest rates that we haven't seen generally for a long long time expected them to come down they have not yet and these follow what's happening what you see nationally the Federal Reserve um has not brought these rates down dramatically yet so a lot of
our money sits in money market funds because it goes for things like highway projects payout of our tax monies and things like that so we keep them shortterm a lot of this money is in money market funds that are still paying over 4% and that's very unusual in the
long-term history and for the last two years we were paying over 5% so again we've we've taken in about uh 1.2 million more than we budgeted so that's going directly to your fund balance uh
to help with uh what happens this year and for next year's levy in that department also the expenses are high and that's because in that department we take unusual things like we had uh state uh aid for public
safety uh 100,000 of that went to violence prevention centers 60,000 you approved to the hospital the sheriff bought some forensic equipment uh next department data processing their revenue is a little bit high that's just due to their service to
public health human services and they charge for that service and those services is in have increased under elections both revenues and expenditures are high it was a presidential primary year we spent about 30,000 on that primary and the state reimbursed us for
all of those costs we purchased election equipment last year which was offset by a new state voter resource grant of about 16,000 a security grant and some use of fund balance
um human resource not a large item looks like a high percentage that just an increase in their wellness grant amount victim witness coordinator their revenues seem low they've not received their fourth quarter federal grant
yet uh next department uh recorders this is uh fairly usual for them in the last several years their fees regular fees technology fees the use of their uh recording system that people subscribe to all of those
exceeded budget some of those fees are reserved some go into the fund balance um maintenance department their professional services exceeded the budget that's plowing garbage pest
control fire control shredding uh in talking to um Brooke we discovered that some of that was the garbage was the uh the toy transfer station Nelson those
fees for that his work were going into department 392 they're now going to the um maintenance department so that was part of his expense change so not really a change but a shift um sheriff's department you see
their expenses are low that's primarily payroll their payroll is 85% that's reflecting their difficulty in filling positions still in E911 department 208 uh the state share revenues exceed the budget
and anything that exceeds that goes into E911 reserves because that's the only way it can be spent in the future on those types of expenditures in the radio department the tower fees are exceeding the budget and
their expenses are low utilities were 76% repairs 20% and snowplowing 34% of budget in the jail department uh 250 the inmate housing and medical costs were
only 50% of budgeted their utilities were a little high 112 but overall they were at 73% of their budgeted expenditures 280 EM revenues are a little low uh we are
expecting the state EMPG grant it's late it's very late mike says it's coming soon so we will see that environmental health this was primarily this high revenue was 143,000 of that watershed
grant that we're in a joint powers with Lake County they couldn't use all of it we could so they transferred it to us um the subject permit fees were more than expected also in parks and trails
uh this is a payroll split with Mitch Travis he's halftime 394 halftime 391 we haven't made that split yet uh we will so 392 that's solid waste the toy transfer station fees exceeded their
budget planning and zoning the vacation rental licenses exceeded their budget by 90,000 which is why their revenue is so high and then we have that adjustment in payroll for Mitch Travis uh on the
expense side for the emergency services conference the expenditures are low and Mike uh Keeport did not need to purchase professional services for uh last year's conference uh the county library paid in
full the historical society is higher in expense and revenue that is an insurance claim for the roof problem so you see the the revenue from the insurance company and the expenses for that repair and then
um community center we're still making uh some journal entries so there's an interfund reimbursement from the community center uh they spent some of their capital um from 509 but some of that money was
budgeted in the building fund under that so we'll be making that transfer ymca operations their utilities plowing capital expenses were all lower than budgeted in extension
uh we budgeted for donations to the backpack program but they weren't required this year she did seek donations because they're trying to use up some of the fund balance in 2024 in photo copies the IT department
purchased three copiers this year uh there's still additional revenue beyond that and that money goes to straight to the copier reserve and under miscellaneous uh technically we've not
received that money because uh we don't get it now till April May June the federal government has become very unreliable over the years we used to get it January so we include it here because um even though we haven't received
technically the 2024 money yet it would skew the numbers too far so we will receive it it's in the mail it's in the mail so so I'll just leave it to questions or I'll ask you to just approve receiving the report commissioner Gamble yeah thank you Madam
Chair thank you Brady appreciate that deal detail can you tell me and this might be an unfair question at this point in time but with the fund balance uh with those contributions that you referred to as we went through this uh where we're at as a percentage of
recommended we we really only know that when we finish all of our audited numbers and the the biggest part of that is that we have to get information back from all of our investments from our investment agents and you tech it's more
technical but in layman terms they have to tell us what would be the value of all of our investments that we have if we had to sell them on December 31st at 11:59 p.m under duress and so you have to write it down technically for that
and we do each year so that each year is comparable um so it's hard to get that i will get back I can get back to you with what's our cash balance that's the best I've got yeah right now and madam chair as a followup on that thank you Brady
um when we when we look at trends and relative to performance on investments that's one thing but when we look at these other things where we're seeing that we have increases in revenues and we're putting that in our in our fund balance and we would always have these discussions to know sort of where fund
balance was and it is a moving target it's it's like trying to stop a water bug uh but there's got to be some point in time where we get the information that inform our decision as to when we're budgeting where we're going based upon trends that we see yeah and we'll
get that uh in the in the summer we're working on our audit now they'll they'll get to that point where they can give us that information by July typically and uh that that would give us a snapshot of uh 2024 yeah so you have any gut feel if
that's a fair question based upon your years of tenor and that it's going to be up well it's it will be up yeah I can guarantee you that so how much I'm not going to guess thank you meals my notes are a little scattered
but from our previous discussion when we were setting the final levy in December um I believe we're and again scattered notes but 94% it was over 90 yeah yeah and 75 is right
like what we're what we're our threshold that's what we've we've set that as our our goal to not go below that for the general fund and for the basically the three major funds highway and uh public
health human services to stay above that and um not use any of that unless if we have to we in our policy that we all agreed on that we would make a declaration as to when and how we would
put the money back at the time that we use it and go below 75 but uh so far we haven't had to make any decisions like that since we did that and so I think um uh I got two different numbers here um
4.273 273 was maybe our overage total and then 2.157 million is what we could comfortably the the 2.15 was a specific
number and that was that was due to it's actually part of that overage but it it it really had to do um with what we were setting aside because of the threat uh from the federal government uh well
really the Forest Service over our BWCA payment and that their their first uh reappraisal back in 2018 said we were going to lose roughly 33% of that funding uh they never
confirmed that because we tried to get reappraisals of the reappraisal and anything so but they said whatever it comes back at you're going to have to pay us back the difference so we set aside roughly 600,000 a year from that point on and so what's left of what we
set aside was the 2.157 million and we said okay we're going to we're we're going to hold that for um keeping our levy down we're going to use that for levy reduction as we need it over the next several years we
use some of that uh for this year's levy so I'll be reporting what's that what's left of that that we declared for levy reduction so to just to continue that um yeah so
we dipped into the 2.1 because of that we felt comfortable with that and we spent from that um to try to uh keep the levy lower knowing that that's not a sustainable um system but it's kind of that cushion
to offramp uh to get us uh so that our operating is uh within the the weather there we know we're in a we're in a building phase right now i don't expect we'll be in that for you know in the
phase we're in right now in the long term so there's some there may be some need for it especially with what happens with state government federal government commissioner Gamble yeah thank you Madam Chair appreciate the conversation um in
budgeting in previous term we were looking at you know where we were financially overall and and where our our fund balance sat and if it it would be you know like a family that's looking at their savings account and they're
looking at increasing costs here and there whatever they might be and their vacation plans are determined based upon where they feel their comfort level is as to taking from their savings things and allowing for unanticipated costs so
the the comparison in the example is that when we would look at budget we would look at pockets of money that weren't going to be used that maybe we could use in similar application to try to reduce impact of levy and we would look at this this fund balance so when
we're looking at budging and budgeting the the things that are certain uh are a lot more comfortable making decisions on those than the uncertainty that existed with the pill that has been ongoing and trying to come to a reasonable in good
faith common sense conclusion to that because it's significant for us in our county as to its its funding provision and um uh the uh the phases that we go through relative to building phases whatever
cooching county that used to be my heroes they I think their levy uh last year might have been 18% but the year before it was in the 20s and when I talked to the commissioner at the last corrections uh this past week and just
asking about that he says is because we're in a building phase and uh we just have things that we need we need to do And so managing all these things trying to do it more incrementally be proactive in in looking at how we do our capital
improvements and to what extent our expansion is based upon available revenues bonding percentages things like that that to the extent that we can reduce the burden of levy which is a combination of decision making on an
ongoing basis and available revenues and uh if you look at your history and your position as auditor treasurer Brady um what would you say if if you can recall um as far as as far as far as where the
fund balance sets in comparable and some cases will say like you just made the comment earlier about our investments it's been a long time since we've seen investments in money money market accounts returning what they're
returning right now so that's a context in the case of fund balance what's the context to say where we're at right now on our fund balance comparatively over the years that you've been in that position that might not be a fair question off the cuff but
it's strong it's been over 100% um but that's not unusual for smaller counties to have that the swings that's that swing the larger the county the
smaller their percent generally um given all things and that's that's part of the the state auditor has a very general recommendation on keeping at least 35 to 50% of your uh current expenditures and
fund balance that's to to keep you operating through when you don't have the tax money etc um and they encourage more but that's their gen their general but you'll see the and and that spread
is is recommended more highly on uh smaller counties than large because you need enough to to manage those fluctuations and they're in a in a position to have a larger fluctuation as
a smaller county and you can manage that better with a larger county so smaller percentage is typically uh what you see with a larger and so I think we're in as strong a
position now with a 90ome% as we were with 105 or 110 you know 20 years ago thank you appreciate the conversation thank you Brady
we have um lots to consider in the future we have a budget committee that makes recommendations we have town we have department heads and we have requests so Commissioner Sullivan madam Chair I'd like to make a motion to accept the report for the general fund balance for
quarter 4 of 2024 support any further questions or comments to Brady commissioner Mills uh just general fund budget review or or balance budget review just the budget review
any other questions all in favor i oppose same sign motion passes unanimously and then we'll go on to the airport hanger row reconstruct thank you Madam Chair so this is the first uh major construction or the first
construction really coming out of the master plan that the airport's been working on for some time uh that's not quite complete they'll be having an open house some sometime later in May or May 12th is the um a date we hope we will be
able to have it we're still waiting to hear back from a few individuals but um you can pencil in on your calendar May 12th it's a Monday so right now we do not have a a grant for this project but the way the FAA
works they need uh our approval of a work order is part of the package that RSNH has to submit in order to be considered for a grant so that's why this comes to you today and the recommendation is to approve this work
order to RSNH for design and bidding services for the hangar row taxi lane reconstruction as defined in that scope of services for a fee of 179,493 but make it subject to a a
independent fee estimate and the receipt of a federal grant for the project so you're approving it now so that they can say "Yes we've got the county support on this." The independent fee estimate is required for uh anytime your services of
this type exceed $100,000 then FAA requires that we have an an independent company come in and look at the fees that RSNH is suggesting and uh the cost of that is usually in the $3 to $5,000
range so we're looking at a company right now to do that so uh that'll be part of um what happens before all of this uh goes into effect so we'll get that fee estimate before we spend any
money on this and we'll get the grant before we spend any money on this so so it looks like there's going to be some reconstruction of the pavement will be removed and replaced and some trees taken down that's the whole runway the
whole landing this is just for the taxi lane that is up by the hangers yeah it just leads leads to the main runway and then just down past all of those hangers okay
any questions or comments on that otherwise I'll hear a motion mr sullivan madam Chair I'd like to make a motion to approve the work order for RSNH for design and bidding services for the hangar row taxi lane reconstruction project
support any further questions or comments all in favor i oppose same sign motion passes unanimously and we'll take a 8m minute break before we move on is that meeting this afternoon is that
an open meeting i'm sure there's lots Good morning we're resuming our meeting after a little 8 minute 10-minute break um we'll move on to uh administrator updates uh madam chair sorry the first item uh
intermount county administrator discussion and I will uh just frame that up as reiterate the process described at the previous board meeting um myself made a respectfully requested as the board um looks at restarting the process
to hire a full interimm county full-time county administrator that they also make uh alternative considerations for the interimm position to allow me to go back to my normal role and and focus on um
personal and uh other professional priorities and um throughout that process we communicated that if there was people interested from the public and local community that they could submit applications as well as working with DDA
the hiring consultant to reach out to um a list of individuals who the League of Minnesota Cities keeps who are stated and willing to to serve in that interim capacity and so since then we've we've done that um myself and and Pat Melvin
from DDA and and Chair Stoley took any application that we received and forwarded it to the full board for consideration and hopefully the board has had ample time to look at those and and make considerations and with that I
would turn it over to the board for further discussion okay yes it's been um quite a long step we've taken over the past six months and um we
have received some interest in uh being an interim person until we move along with um Pat at DDA he has sent us the the tenative schedule once we um give him the kickoff date to start so we have
that in front of us with hopefully the idea that we would be ready by the first part of June with an actual administrator but right now we're looking at the interim we've had some applications any thoughts on the
application interim applicants that we have sullivan madame Chair um I've had an opportunity to review all of those that have come in and um see that we have a lot of local talent and really appreciate all of the um interest in the
position and really an interest in providing public service to our community um people are willing to step up but one of the um applications really stood out for me and that was from a former Cook County administrator Reena
Rogers um she served as our interim administrator at the beginning of COVID and she is experienced with the position she has served in that role before she understands our county and our budgeting
process she knows um the um computer systems with which we work and she knows the community um she has relationships already established and of course as other applicants um from our local community she's already here and could start right
away um but I was really pleased to see that application come in and letter of interest and um she is a known quantity um many of the people here in the county whether they be residents her staff have worked with her and um know her skills
and ability other commissioners mr gamble yeah thank you Madam Chair i too appreciate the the response uh we found ourselves in a situation that while discussed openly we we were hoping
that we would be able to conclude and and uh make a decision to move forward and appreciate you know Rowan's service in that position and his his forbearing given the fact that uh we didn't arrive at something and uh as mentioned
following the interviews the um the participation by our staff and the discussion with as commissioners and the community i just felt this is a a benchmark for us as a community to be able to step back and look how when we
partnership together we make a decision that reflects that we've listened we've heard and we're we're trying to put the right person in based upon what we've learned in previous experience and what we hope for moving forward and um so
appreciative of all of that that effort um if uh the board would permit me I would like to to read read something uh this is a um a column that I had had written
um when Reena had stepped out of the position says "When you are in leadership position it is more than essential that the people with whom you work respect you but as the old adage goes respect is never a given." In the years I was privileged to serve as Cook
County Commissioner I came to respect Reena Rogers as we all know respect is not something that you get just because you are put in the position after all any system is prone to manipulation even when a person finds themselves in charge
of something because they just w there wasn't anyone else around to step in true respect according to the dictionary is a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities qualities or
achievements the following is a short accounting of how Reena Rogers earned my respect she came prepared early on I was impressed with Reena's commitment to inform commissioners regarding proposals that involve the spending of taxpayer
dollars she stood out in this regard she was both confidently and casually informative factual and thorough in her presentations always welcoming and clarifying any follow-up questions commissioners might have she thought
strategically one could tell her proposals were framed in a broader context they were consistently thought through and wellreasoned i grew to appreciate the absence of emotional lobbying in her delivery which was all too common in many presentations that
came before the board she nurtured her staff you could often very often catch a hint of pizza in the air in the IT information systems department and you knew Reena was either applauding or encouraging her staff's efforts reena
believed in sharing the harvest of the momentum built with others knowing people who genuinely feel valued and appreciated tend to excel in their performance she invested the time to acknowledge and understand the unique ways each of her staff looked at things
and would innovate she always seemed to be on the lookout for ways to enable their talent she earned respect too many leaders take their titles and authority for granted some leaders believe that they are owed and or command some level
of unearned respect just because of where they are positioned on the organizational chart reena legitimately earned respect from those who worked under her leadership from fellow peers and from me not just from the position I
found myself elected to but also as a person a apart from the title she was willing to stick her neck out on behalf of her peers because Reena was respected and therefore trusted by her peers she was asked to represent their
concerns before the county uh county administrator when they were wrongly excluded from the annual evaluation process reena's advocacy resulted in repercussions that only proved to validate staff's concerns while there
are countless number of individuals who find it easier to shelter in the shadows and not speak up Reena demonstrated she remained worthy of their respect a voice that others could depend on she owned her decisions there are not a lot of
leaders who are willing to admit when they are wrong their ego and self-defined image stand in the way when an individual chooses the wrong path and never admits their mistake or should they attempt to protect those whom have done wrong including themselves they
soon discover they have dug a deeper hole from which to climb when they are endeavoring to earn respect reena chooses the path of vulnerability in her honesty it was never about position or dominance i appreciated that Reena
possessed a broad enough mind to embrace the differences that make each of us unique i found she willingly fostered an environment of respectful listening believing everyone deserves to be heard even if she didn't always agree with the
other person's ideas or opinions she seemed to despise false promises and people who create lots of unnecessary noise to get attention she's authentic and kind-hearted i have found the most respected leaders are the most authentic people reena's
executive presence is genuine and true she has made those around her feel that the matter they matter and she has welcomed constructive dialogue regardless of hierarch hierarchy or rank observing Reena over these years since
the moment I first held her resume in my hands some uh number of years ago I think it's 10 10 10 11 years I have found her to be a kind-hearted person as you have heard me quote many a time regarding the importance of a person's
heart for from it flow the springs of life Reena has demonstrated she has a steady wellspring of kindness that flows from her heart it is hopes Reena's presence was created has created a long lasting impact that will leave a
positive mark on the county's administration and thereby the people they serve give thanks when thanks are due and with that Madame Chair I would like to make a motion to authorize our human resources director board chair and
interimm county administrator Rowan Watson to offer the position of interimm county administrator to Reena Rogers and if accepted negotiate a contract agreement to be brought before this board at a f future date for approval
thank you Gary commissioner Sullivan support any further comments Commissioner Mills i I uh I appreciate the the words there and the support and it makes a lot of sense for for Fina's experience and and what I've as well and I just also want to thank
other interested members of the community um one um in particular Tyler I have known personally and um was really excited to hear of his interest and and also interest in the in the non-inter or just the full administrator position and it intrigued me to have
kind of that trial run as a as an interim into into um into the full administr administrator so I was I was curious about that but considering our current situation and the number of projects we have going on and Re's experience within the county I think for for our continuity it makes a whole lot
of sense to to have uh Reena join join back again so thank you for your willingness and thank you Tyler as well for your willingness Madam Chair and I would like to also uh thank everybody in our community who came forward and said yes they would
step up so we can get rid of Rowan Watkins in the chair um and the guilt when we see him sitting there yet six months in so I I really appreciate it shows what our community our county community is like and it's uh heart it's
heartwarming even though we often don't get along i think it's really nice that we all seem to care so thank you and um I just uh you know this is about the interim position but as we move forward in our in our um full
administrator um position and discussion um I just I've been hearing a lot of feedback in the community that's very similar to the feedback we already got through the process and it just uh is a is a great uh position to be in to have
that dialogue as well as that support and affirmation and um I think now that it's been uh more discussed uh in the community as well we may have more applicants that are local coming forward and and uh showing interest so just want
to encourage any and all in our community to to continue to do that and and hopefully this this go around we'll we'll make a uh choose a can choose a administrator okay so we had a motion and a second any
further discussion all in favor i I motion passes unanimously with Yes please come forward first of all I'd just like to say um how
humbled I am um really truly for your confidence and uh um you know I uh I feel very strongly about this community i feel very strongly about the connections and the communication and uh
the web of relationships in this community so um when this was sort of suggested to me um the answer for me is always obvious if there's some way I can help then um you know then yes I' I'd be
glad to help um I certainly wasn't looking for that i finally got used to after two years feeling okay about being retired so but I I think um I understand the role of the interim to be the person who uh keeps wheels on the bus who makes
sure that if there's a crisis there's a calm handling it um I'm hoping that there's no new pandemics um and you know I I just I'm just appreciate I just
appreciate your confidence so thank you and I'll do my best for you thank you so much i've known you since we all came together in Cook County and you came to head up the MIS department
and the after results is Rowan Watkins the head of that department now which is a good move and um we're going to move him on back into his department quite soon here commissioner Mills um just a couple things i I did write you a poem
but after Commissioner Gamble's um meeting I just decided that was probably did enough just kidding maybe just a maybe just a ha coup impromptu just teasing or a limmerick
i'll do commissions um also I just wanted to point out um one of the concerns that we had talked through in our leadership committee was just the potential conflict of interest because um I'd like to address that yeah your work with Northshore Waste um and um we
are far enough along in that process where I feel like we can we can cut that um right potential conflict and uh I also wanted to just lay it out there because we want to avoid any perceived conflict as well so Absolutely so that
um I have been working with Northshore Waste for about 2 and a half years um in a sort of 1099 capacity you know just like you know hourly you know oh you need a application filled out you need me to go to a meeting uh you need me to
make calls need me to hunt down funding whatever that is um it's been a great um thing for the community and I've really enjoyed my relationship with Dustin on uh the reasons that he brought me there are all done um I'm not going to manage
projects of of construction or anything else so um for them but maybe for us yeah maybe um well and I and and honestly I would be involved now in the county's side of that um so uh I talked
to Dustin last week when I was thinking about this and I said you know I'm done with this now maybe a year from now when I'm done with county again we can talk about other things but no but that we have cleanly uh ended that relationship
and I will not be uh doing any work for hire for um Northshore Waste uh during this period of time and I appreciate you clarifying that and right also I just want to point out the
advantage we may have with the position that you are in as a county as a community just because of your knowledge with that project and where things stand and where we're coming from um I see advantages there as well so right so I mean and and Dustin probably be the
first one to tell you this often through this whole process my point of view is always from the public sector because that's where I spent 30 years of my career so I would say well we can't really do that because that's not fair to the public and what you know and that kind of fairness that was there I think
is the reason because I saw both sides of it that we could get to the solutions that we did that really are good for the community but um but yeah he's it's it's really fun to work with him but it's
done I'm I don't have any I don't have anything else to do there right now so we're good but I I appreciate you bringing that up because uh if there's one thing I really care about it's no perception of any kind of advantage or conflict of interest right
Mr gamble yeah thank you Madam Chair yeah I I appreciate that and and uh I I would say that uh it appears haven't asked Dustin's opinion on this but it appears that the timing of this aligned
well as well it does and um and uh to Commissioner Mills point I I think that there's a lot of advantages that we see in that transitioning in the role uh given given the knowledge and it's always beneficial to the community when
you have somebody that's been well informed because they've been part of the process um your application which I don't know if you kept in your baby book or not but uh this was received back 2013 you had applied for county administrator position in Cook County
and uh you ended up in the ID department but uh just a a paragraph that I noted under bullet point 8 here my leadership style focus on empowerment mentoring and collaboration a leader cannot and should
not try to be an expert in everything as a leader my skill set seeks to understand the larger context and how the individual parts fit together i love the role of mentor particularly in soft skill areas like
communication i believe if I do my job well everything else everyone else will do their job better and those words are words that uh I'm sure in in my experience in working with you previously as a commissioner uh because
of of people's trust in you um and and moving forward we make decisions and sometimes uh people sleep with fear and trembling at night based upon the decisions we make and in this decision saying who's going to entrust this staff
to whose care that uh those words I think underscore uh a very important element of who you are and how that translates to your both leadership and your mentorship in this period of time for whatever that might be so thank you
oh thanks and I'm just amazed I'm pretty sure I don't have a copy of that document oh you don't no just I could have it bronzed but it might be hard to read yeah yeah well I look forward to working with you um Vice Chair Mills and I will meet
with you periodically the rest of us at various times over the next few months and you say you're able to uh begin work immediately however the four of us will be taking off tomorrow for Brainer so we won't be around but um I was thinking
maybe next week i think maybe Monday would be a good day you think yep so um then I I believe our next um will will be to um let um Pat know that
starting tomorrow they can start advertising and um we're on our way with that and uh beginning a new course with um reviews and on our way for the next step mr gamble do you want to no go ahead all
right thank you Madam Chair um I think part of the the uh input that we got in the process of the interviews and everything else that came from the public is that uh uh as commissioners we we need to we need to step back and and take a look at
process and um some of the things that that we heard were were challenging relative to the process that we've been through and how we got where we were and uh so if we just start up right again without a discussion I don't think that would be wise and I don't think it would
be responsive for those that have said you need to take a look at your process um as I recall uh and and what I just read from the resume that that I had received back in 2013 from Reena as well as all the other applicants that there
were questions that were posed if somebody wanted to apply they would respond to these questions what that enabled us to do was based upon the values that we identified what we're looking for is to be able to link responses to those values so it didn't
happen so late in the game and um I think personally that that responses to questions that we've identified as being important is more valuable than having video interviews that that we observe that's a discussion that can be had but
I I would say that that all of the particular things that define our values it would be beneficial if we would were to revisit our approach to this and um we do have uh Pat in in place and our
commitment in the contract initially was that this funding would be with us to provide that service as a consultant going through this process and because that's in place then we take advantage of that but I think we should step back
and not to delay processes certainly but to be sure that we are helping to ensure oursel to uh to be good stewards of the opportunity and to do it right so that would be my recommendation and
and in fact I I would if we had a discussion on this I would craft those questions and in in posting the position I would request that they would fill these questions out and that our public health human services not I'm sorry that
our um uh personnel department that that they would receive the applications and that we would be privy to those things because we know what we're looking for as opposed to having that filter before they get to us because it caused us to
backtrack and so um I certainly would welcome a conversation and and others in input but I I think we can I think we can do a better job moving forward and there's substance to demonstrate what that better job would be i think we can
address a lot of that the first uh meeting in April and everybody put together some ideas so that Pat has some guidance in in that area and discuss that yeah meeting in in April so anything else on our new interim
no in interim Watkins you're still that yeah madam Chair I just in relation to Commissioner Gamble's comments I would say in somewhat of anticipation of that conversation um happening Pat Melvin
from DDA presented us and I shared with the board a a proposed timeline and just for clarification that that proposed timeline um did have an assumed start date kind of the the best case scenario an assumed start date of posting for the position
tomorrow and so just for clarity and and context for everyone that you know to have those additional conversations will and and the associated time with it that it takes will push that timeline down
kind of correspondingly and I and not to say that there's anything wrong with that or that that's not the way that the board should go just to say that that's um something that DDA will will need to update and and be have clear communication with about the
expectations there agreed thank you so um we've done uh our as you say Commissioner Gamble due diligence in selecting our interim
um administrator at this time I would just like to open it up for any further comments about the interim Watkins that we had for the last six months as a board member and now as board chair I would have to say that working with you
has been um a wonderful experience because for whatever reason you were always there you were there because we had a question you were there because we talked about what we needed to do for a certain project your family has been
fabulous in sharing you with us your children I'm sure wondered well where's dad and uh your wife is saying where are you going again but we also want to thank your family for working uh also with us in terms of your time and the
weekends i tried not to say anything to you on the weekends because at least was that the time for your family so my appreciation for your work and um we'll send you off in the back room where you're actually in charge
of all the folks there and um just my appreciation for your work thank you Commissioner Zull madam Chair I'd just like to also thank Interim Administrator Rowan Watkins and extend our heart
heartfelt gratitude for the service he's provided all of us over uh a very long three months um stepping into a leadership role during a time of transition is never easy and you embrace the challenge
he was professional he was dedicated and he just has an unwavering commitment um to our organization and our community and your willingness to step up and provide that steady leadership ensures continuity in our operations you demonstrated a very deep
understanding of the needs of our staff and our departments as well as expectations of our citizens and you had a thoughtful approach clear communication and just an ability to navigate complex issues that was significant and gave a very positive
impact for all of us so we're fortunate to have you and individuals like Reena Rogers in our community who are willing to serve us with dedication and integrity and true commitment so I'd like to thank you for your service and continued leadership we appreciate what
you've done and look forward to working with you in your former role as director of management information services thank you Mr g yep thank you Madam Chair uh there is a saying that uh well comment that people make if you love country
music i'm not trying to slam country music but uh they say if you play a country song backwards that you get your wife back you get your truck back you get your dog back and uh so uh the analogy can be made that I think each of
us uh not only as as staff in the community but as as commissioners if we played back uh the role that uh Rowan has been in we would inform ourselves on what it is we are looking for and there are a
lot of things that you identify in qualities that you see in somebody that you'd say "Boy this is something that's valuable it needs to be protected and it needs to be something that we we seek." And so what you have done is not just
service but you've demonstrated to us what it is we need and what we admire thank you thank you well of course I'm going to say something with your permission i I grant you permission thank you um I'm not
going to go on and loa this fellow it's I just say it's about time you get back you've set the bar high for our interim and for our next administrator and you need to get back to your kids and family and I'll be really happy to see you at the baseball games and everything else
going forward so thanks and good luck thank you okay Madam Chair yes Jan oh yes madam Chair commissioners and Rowan I just want to quickly um thank Rowan for your service during this time you've been
awesome to work with um you're sharp you're open-minded and you're able to do all of this and continue to smile and I appreciate that so um again thank you so
much for all that you've done in your time and uh I Oh shoot i don't know now I'm without words but I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you and also um thank you to Reena for being willing to step in uh it means a lot to me and I've
appreciated my time working with you i've learned a lot so thank you thank you you too here's your And yeah I just want to express my gratitude as well uh very difficult time uh to start and circumstances and there was very little
hesitation um and and and the transition was uh as as smooth and effortless as it could be i know that um that was maybe just how it looked um but but very well
very well done and um I'm not surprised I guess but but grateful 100% and um yeah couldn't say anything better than the other commissioners have just really appreciate your work thank you
yes i just take the opportunity to thank the full board um it really has been uh a good and meaningful experience um I want to thank all the applicants who
put forward and and Reena for her willingness to fill in uh it's not a decision that I came to lightly i you know strongly wanted to stick it out until the the board was able to fill
that role full-time um but ultimately my request to be relieved as interimm administrator is from a desire and a need to focus on personal life priorities and and other uh professional as well as the
role as MIS director and the the timing felt appropriate um and I this is one of my least favorite things to do to talk about myself here in this way but I I got a couple phone calls from people who are interested in the administrator
process and they were or um position and curious as to sort of kicking the tires why why aren't you applying why are you stepping down and and so I want to be open and clear about that that it's there's nothing hidden or anything wrong
this is a great board to work with this amazing staff at the county um I couldn't have been successful in any way without the support of so many different people um and so it it's not that it's I'm my wife and I are are building a
house we're in the middle of the process of that i have three little kids i have two aging parents who are you know live alone and uh off-rid and there's so many different priorities that I already have in my life that require time and
somebody else could probably do this job better and less time but for me it's a it's a 60 70 hour a week job which is a a big big time commitment and so for me it's it's those reasons and I wanted to be open and and clear about that as the
board moves forward with an administrator hiring process that there's there's nothing wrong there's no good reason and it's a great job and a great group of people to work with so and uh again just just thank you to the board and to the county staff and to the
MIS staff in particular who've we wouldn't have been able to continue on the way we have without them being as professional and capable as they are so thank you and just a lot of gratitude
you're very welcome anything else amen amen okay then amen we'll move on commissioner reports and meetings to uh note anybody have anything they'd like to share commissioner Sullivan thank you
Madam Chair um I just wanted to express my gratitude to the community for being part of the legislative visit that was last Friday we had excellent turnout at a number of events and um it's nice to see people engaged and involved um Cook
County Coalition of Lake Associations met recently and we had a couple of presentations elena Hanzel was there to talk about uh budget reductions to soil and water conservation districts also
spoke to the 50% reduction or proposed reduction for aquatic invasive species and Senator Hoschild came to their meeting and um engaged in conversation for about 15 minutes so that was really positive um at a state level our um
solid waste management group that is part of AMC the association of Minnesota counties has been meeting we've scheduled meetings for the next uh several months and we're going to be working on as a a group um talking about
regulatory challenges funding and resources landfill capacity closures that are coming up that will impact um our waste management as well as others in the state we'll talk about waste reduction recycling um and in our most
recent meeting one of the things that came up it which we may want to talk about is how do we recycle batteries that are in vapes um as I um engaged with other commissioners around the state found that there are ordinances
that have been written that require um businesses that are selling any kind of vape to provide recycling for that so it's very safe and um more controlled than people just tossing them in the trash so that might be um something we
look at in the future had a chance to um work with the airport commission again um we'll be providing we hope a um public meeting likely on Monday May 12th from 5 to 7:00 p.m that will be at the airport and it'll be an opportunity to
meet with RSNH and the people that are developing the airport master plan get feedback from the public and show them to date what MDOT Aeronautics and the FAA have um approved and we had our safety committee
uh just Monday and um were able to get a copy of the MCIT safety committee resource handbook and that was really valuable because it talks about what are the statutory reasons we have that committee and gives us more definition for the work that we'll do so um that
will kind of be guiding our operations in the future and um one thing to note we still have a number of openings for our sheriff's department as well as other positions in the community but in speaking with
commissioners from St louis County they have moved to creating commercials on television and I saw the first one on Sunday which was an ad that ran for the sheriff's department and listed all of their positions and they're now
advertising on TV not just social media um so it just shows and reflects how challenging it is to get people to fill those positions but I just wanted to point that out and that would be the end of my reports anyone else
we'll move on then to our uh upcoming meetings um starting tomorrow we have the AMC leadership uh summit in Niswah that several of us are going to that our next um county board commissioner regular meeting is Tuesday April
8th we also u in our packet have the sales tax comparison through January with no other business I'll ask for a motion to adjurnn madam Chair I'd like to make a motion to adjurnn
support all in favor i I voted unanimously to adjourn thank you all for your comments poems limmericks limmericks and thoughts