##VIDEO ID:TAWt5AJCbpo## okay good morning everyone welcome to the committee of the whole work session where we support community Through quality public service and I call the meeting order at 10:30 on Tuesday January 21st and I welcome a few folks here today we have Bob Thompson the assessor interim administrator um Rowan Watkins and the main feature of our program this warning and information is to discuss the transfer station project with um informational information from the stakeholders which are Dustin and Reena and um the architect that's going to help us understand the whole vision of the uh project so welcome AB thank thank you thanks this is um Robert or Bob we've been working with him a lot l so I'm going to get us started and just talk about um um you know we've been having conversations with you all for a long time um so what we're going to do this morning I think is Dustin's going to go through a little bit of um level setting history of where we are uh now we're going to talk about the plans um the last time we met with Commissioners you asked us to give you final numbers good numbers so that you could look at bonding options so what what we've done um um we've gone away and we've done that we've of course hope to do that before the end of the year because we have pretty strict timelines on all these various different pots of money and we're really hoping to to get going you know do you know put things out to bid and get going yet this this summer and in fact substantially done maybe even done by this time next year so that requires the one place that we're at right now is with you all helping us understand you know what what you want to commit here and how you want to do that then we can go finish things up and get the permitting and get get things underway so um that's kind of where we're at today I mean we saw some numbers in late December and um they were like over $10 million so we said yeah that's not going to work so we went back to the Architects and have made some substantial changes that still met our requirements and Bob will talk about some of those and Dustin will talk about some of those to get that price back down more in the range we had been talking about so um we'll go through some of that with you today we've we've tried to not just say oh here it's going to cost this we've really tried to look at what we've discussed in the past so um I'm going to turn it over to Dustin he's going to give us hopefully a brief timeline of what what the project has been so far and then we'll continue our discussion look at numbers that sort of thing the plans yeah so I just wanted to give a brief synopsis um of where this project started and kind of how we've gotten to this this point that we're we're at um I I originally started having conversations like in 2018 2019 um 2020 with Tim about having to change operationally what we do at Northshore waste um we've just kind of always done it the same way it's always been done up here um we did our best to to um operate the way that it always has been but not always the best way uh Co happened you know 2019 2020 21 and it really changed what we do um from 2019 to 2021 um our amount of waste produced in Cook County increased by 25% more than 25% actually and some of that happened um we believe due to people ordering a lot of things online getting shipped up here um people not eating out at groceries or eating out at restaurants anymore people eating at home so everybody's going to the grocery store and buying things producing more waste a lot of to-go food from restaurants um and people also just doing projects around their house and getting things done while they weren't working and it really put a level of stress on us at Northshore waste that we hadn't experienced before um as you guys all are aware of we have to haul everything to duth um so we're doing 25% more loads in 2021 than we were doing in 2019 19 um beginning of 2022 we started talking with um some stakeholders in the county about how we could fix the issues that we're having um some of those people were the folks in Grand Portage um the chamber um I know an was part of a couple of the the zoom meetings that we had as well um Dave was also part of conversations about composting Recycling and some of the struggles we were going through and really started trying to push together push forward a program or or an idea to to deal with these issues that we were having now in 2022 a lot of things happened um we started seeing dramatic price increases from where we're hauling the garbage to um I think in 2022 our our price was raised by 36% um on what it cost us to to dump the material so not only are we picking up more garbage than we we've ever had um our prices are being raised on the other side and the reason that I I keep going back to picking up more is the majority of that garbage that we were picking up more of was coming from residential homes and people coming to the dump station so when we Bill a customer let's just use the Best Western for example we build the Best Western based on how much garbage they have in their dumpster when we build a residential home for garbage they just have a set rate so if their garbage doubles or triples or goes in half their price stays the same so we got I don't want to say financial trouble but we started feeling it financially as the amount of household waste was going up the price is staying the same and then the commercial garbage where we can charge more based on it that number was going down so our numbers were going up our income was going down um so we got together this group of stakeholders and we started talking about different ideas on on how we could address the situation that we have um I had always had in my head that we wanted to build a transfer station to be able to deal with a solid waste better deal with it inside not outside the elements the birds the bugs the Bears all of those things um can go away not to mention not processing things on the ground which garbage leeching you know hazardous waste into the ground right um so in those meetings with this the stakeholders um I kind of pitched this idea to him and everybody liked the idea and at that time the idea was for us to to try to go out and get private financing um try to secure some grants to help us get this project done um I had reached out to to Bob here and started putting together some ideas for the plans um and started talking numbers and things like that and we realized that as a business um for us to be able to afford to build a building like this um we just couldn't charge our customers enough and the reason that is is because we need a facil that can manage all of the solid waste in June July August September when the streets are full the hotels are packed the restaurants are packed but on a 19 below day in January you really don't need that much room to store garbage um and so that's when we really started exploring our options and saying okay let's see if we can help or if we can get some help from the Minnesota Pollution Control agency or something on a state level to help bring some money in um to fund you know half of the project or something like that so at that time um I had approached Reena about you know joining the team and seeing if she could help us get some of this stuff done we're garbage men it's not we're not used to having political conversations and and meeting with senators and representatives and talking to the County Board um so we we hope that that was something that Reena could help us with uh we went down we met with the pollution control agency and said this is what we want to do uh we need some help um and they kind of shut us down they said you know that's not that's not something we do especially for a private business um we had reached out our our Representatives um and senators and they really liked the idea but they came back to us with the same answer you guys are a private company um this isn't something that we can really we can really help with the money that we have um is public money and and used for public good um so we approached the I RB um and we we're able to secure um $450,000 for the project through the it RB with an infrastructure Grant um and we felt good like okay this is the ball's going to start rolling here we're going to start start moving forward um in early 2023 uh Linda at the chamber had contacted us and said that she wanted to try to help move this project forward um she brought us down to the legislative days uh down in Minneapolis St Paul we met with a a group of of U politicians that we were hoping would be able to figure out a way to to get this project moving forward um in the spring of 2023 um the npca showed up at our our place um and beat us up pretty good they gave us notices of violation told us that we had exceeded our regulatory limits of what we could process for Waste at uh Northshore waste and uh told us that um really we had to change change what we were doing so it was a pretty scary time for us you know just going into summer when the busiest time is and this was in you know early summer before we were really processing as much as we could um or as much as we do um and they said you know you can't do this so I'm just going to interject here a little bit so the kind of permit that Northshore waste has allows them to do the kind of work they do in the open air at a certain volume permit by rule it's referred to permit by rule and the only other kind of permit there is is one that builds a building like we're talking about right and then build the building to the amount of volume that you want and that's the permit you get so it became like in the summer you would Dustin was in a position of having to like literally close their doors and say sorry we can't take a trash today we can only take this much it's 125 cubic yards is what our daily regulatory limit is so if you see those big yellow dumpsters around town the big construction dumpsters one of those is 30 cubic yards which means we would be able to process just over four of those um in a day and that's it and where that became like an issue like when they were doing the demolition for the city the PCA jumped in and said no you know what they don't have enough volume to do that and so they forced the city to hire somebody else to haul that to to come drive from duth and then haul the garbage away when these guys could have done it because of this situation we lost that project because of that another final yeah right me ask a question sure do you have the option um temporarily with the volume that's coming in to be able to load and transport on a daily basis in order to keep it down to where it needs to be in other words if you load up and take it down it might not obviously be cost effective but it still keeps you with compliance yeah so what ultimately happened with the the PCA was um I had responded to the notice of violation um explaining what we were already working on and telling them that I in good faith couldn't tell them that we would stick to their regulatory limits and they agreed that as long as we were moving this process forward they would give us time to work on it um I do regularly update them um once a quarter just saying hey this is where we're at this is how it's moving forward um and so far until today they've accepted that but you know that was in the spring of 2023 and now we're in the spring of 2025 um so we're almost 24 months after after that original notice of violation in answer to to um commissioner Gamble's question as well tell him how many truck loads a day you take down in the summer of light construction was isn't like four five six so during the summer um you know we'll send four semis a day during the peak season um which are about 100 yards per semi or 400 yards a day Monday through Friday so so almost three times what they can do plus they're sending the collection trucks down yeah with the household trash that collect I can honestly tell you that in 2012 um Barry and I Northshore waste it was kind of a struggling business up here I'm kind of tutoring on bankruptcy um we were young and didn't know what we were doing and just kind of got into it bar knew what he was doing I didn't know what I was doing um there was way less waste in 2012 than there is today and I can't tell you exactly why but even even demolition wise um we had a a third party um David Smith who hauls I think for for you guys for the recycling center or used to um we used him to haul our Demolition and he would only haul a couple of times a week you know maybe in a busy week you had three times during the summer and we went from three semis a week to almost as much as 20 sometimes so that's how much more waste is being produced up here than there was in 2012 if if I could ask a couple question chair the uh not that you sort through every piece but you track your volume so uh and I think you commented that you don't necessarily know why but can you identify to some extent where the pressure is coming from it seems like it's coming from everywhere to I mean not to make a joke but if everything is just incrementally more residential commercial demolition people cleaning out houses cleaning up properties that have maybe been saving this stuff before I also think people's um ability to get rid of this stuff is maybe better today than it was in 2012 you know just our hours of operation um the efficiency of getting dumpsters out um turning them faster having more dumpsters all of that stuff um I think it all adds up to there just being more within the industry uh and given the nature of our rural location do we see similar experience for that okay yeah I I apologize but I I don't know that I just know our experience um and I'm I'm using the examples of our peak time you know you've been out there and see what we have the volumes and you know some days you come in and we're smiling and saying hi and other times we're like just drop it and go you know I'm talking about the just drop it and go days um so um after going through the legislative days down in St Paul you know we kind of worked our way through 2023 talked about a lot of ideas I think with the board um and um James and you know started really trying to figure out how we move it forward the fall of 2023 we we made a presentation I'm going to I don't know the term for it but the bonding group or the bonding Committee in elely um we made a presentation to them um and explain to them our struggles and how um we needed help to try to push this forward um and moved into 2024 and uh the chamber made the transfer station their top priority for 2024 so when we went down to the legislative days in 2024 um all of the effort that we were working on was the transfer station project and a lot of things started happening started figuring out a way well if we partnered with a county and this was a county owned building then we would have access to this money that we couldn't get our hands on before um and so Judy Ericson who was a chamber lobbyist put in a lot of time last spring um trying to trying to massage her way through how we could get this project done um and Senator hosch child and representative scraba um both worked their ends on this project um to get $2 million uh in uh uh the mineral tax bill uh pushed forward for this project and then right after that happened uh teres at the Eda was able to score an additional $800,000 in a a deed Grant as well um and once we had that money put together that's when these conversations really started happening so we came to you guys in the fall of last year um laid out what our options were and that kind of brings us to to where we're where we're at today so so um I'm going talk a little bit about how the project has changed Dustin talked about going from private to public um all along you know he's had that 11 acres that he purchased um to to build this transfer station so part of the conversation you know people would say to us if it's on County land or if the county owns the building and we worked quite a bit um with GIS and also with Molly trying to identify another piece of County land where this could happen where maybe it could be a land swap you know just a variety of things and didn't really find a better um place because this one is Central makes sense to do this in a lot of ways um in the process of doing State bonding which we had applied for and we were told yep you can move forward this someone at MMB at the state came back and said no the state does doesn't bond for anything that's owned by a private organization but this guy didn't just say no he was actually very helpful he been a lot of time with James and Molly and said look what you can do is that that piece of land can be leased to the county and then um the county would own the building and then um you can have an operational agreement back with the company who going to run it which is the model we took that lease was very specific it it had to be um 25% longer than the useful life of the building okay and the and the management agreement can only be for half the time of the life of the building so if the building is um you know projected to last 50 years uh then the lease had to go for 67 A2 years and the agreement with Northshore waste could only be for 25 years that was renewable was transferable all of those kinds of things but it was to protect the public money and um to make sure that that that didn't benefit a private company but that provided for the better good and you all know me I spent my whole career in um public sector and this felt good to me to know that we could you know have this sort of public private ownership as Scrabble likes to talk about it but that it would it would benefit this community and it would help them be able to maintain their business and stabilize the impacts that we were seeing from fuel rising and everything it was really good solution so when you all passed the um the lease last fall we didn't know the life of the building yet so that part is left out and we talked about at that time doing an addendum once once the building was finalized so that we could put the full life of that lease on there the operational agreement was something uh we had discussed with um attorney hickin quite a bit and I know that she left some stuff for Gan on that so once this is more finalized and that would be who operates it and maintains it you know would be um not the county the county is not going to provide janitor services it's not going to like have to go and Patch the roof whatever whoever has that maintenance agreement uh operational agreement would do a lot of that stuff that's still yet to be determined okay so that was one big change and um one that feels pretty good because Waste Management really falls into the category of Public Health and this building then can be owned by the county um so uh when we came back to you guys we said okay we've raised $3.4 million and that's money that we have to spend and if we don't get get this project built that money goes back so that would be money that's lost and the board said okay and we had some conversations about bonding different kinds of bonding uh goo bonds or solid waste bonds and I think that's where we're at you guys sent us away said we need final numbers so we went away and oh and you also said um by the way we might want to like have you take over recycling or think about that in the future so you need to build that into your plans and we also talked about the fact and Dustin didn't mentioned this but when he when they bought Nelson's um Tim Nelson not thaton Nelson but a different Nelson but then Tim Nelson asked if Dustin could take over running that that one as well over overseeing that one so the one in tofy okay that one needs work it's small it it it was doing a lot of illegal stuff they got kind of hammered too they were collecting things that they weren't supposed to collect and um it's small hard for trucks to turn around in there whatever it's it's it's different um so at that time we said you know maybe it would be good for us to give you some numbers what it would take to make that one more operational out there and also look at the possibility of putting one on the east end in hoveland so we've put together those numbers as well for you today as well they could be considered an aond as well um so the building itself we changed the shape of it the dimensions did a lot of different work on it or Bob did a lot of we're going to I just sat and like talked but um to to make it to make the Tipping floor the place where garbage is put in and loaded into trucks bigger so that you could also manage recycling there and I just want to warn you straight up that probably added at least a million dollars to what we had been talking about but if you do that you're not uh rebuilding that recycling center which needs it over there and the liabilities with that so and making it more convenient for people and you know taking that sort of off the County's plate so there's a trade-off there that that you all could see in that decision making um see what else uh so we've we've looked at all of that for the recycling um and for these other two things and I think that's what we've got yeah there is one thing that I I want to talk about um and you know when I first when we first started this um our plan was to build this transfer station and then it started somehow being a county project and started getting a little bit of cold feet thinking about you know how that changes our operation and I do believe after working my way through this um that this makes sense for Cook County um and the reason that I I think that is it's really safeguarding the residents of Cook County by doing it this way if something were to happen to us you know if if Barry and I were to not be in business any longer or um if you know something happened to us and we couldn't we could no longer operate we put together a plan that puts the infrastructure to manage Solid Waste in Cook County for years to come um and that was the thing that I continue saying um to you folks but also to the Senators and the representatives that we were trying to put together a program that would manage Solid Waste in Cook County for years to come and I believe that that's what we've put together at this point and um now we turn it back over to you guys to to find out if if that's what you want to do as well right and the one last point I'd like make is you're going to see a couple of different things today but we've put together two proposals one is for a 100-year building and the other one is for a 50-year building so 100 years that means that the lease would go for 125 years okay so that's so that that's the difference and um we'll talk about the cost difference but I think we're going to have Bob maybe um show you I think I'm going to these out to him as well yeah and then if we could all get up and and take a look at what Bob put together so what you're going to find in here is you're going to find the four options that we put together for you um you're going to see a 100-year build a 50-year build you're going to see the cost for a transfer station in holand to add a transfer station hland and you're going to see the cost to redo the transfer station in topy so I think after we look through what Bob has done here um we can sit down and answer any questions that you may have come up with M chair Dustin um listening to the you know the background of this which the board has been privy to prior to is that um from my impression uh there are there are things that aren't very glamorous but are needful and um uh sometimes we take things for granted and we don't understand the the inner workings and the real costs uh the problems and the challenges of those that service whether it's private or public U I think this this is a a process that um as you've you know expressed has evolved and when you ran up against something you had to look at Alternatives with focus on the end result and so it's taking you places that you didn't anticipate originally but you were willing to without compromising objective meet those things in order to be sensitive to both the objectives and the fiscal responsibility as it impacts the community so we provide a service with fiscal responsibility that the flexibility I think speaks to the integrity of intent and process which is admirable um the challenge is always when something new again in in the county is oh no how that how is that going to affect me and we need to see benefit for the cost that relates to me both service provided and benefit and evaluating um on the front end so often it's talking points that are selling points to try to get a an emotion response in many regards as opposed to an analytical approach to understanding the Integrity of process that leads us to where we're at so I I think it's um what we hear and what we see demonstrated is that that there's Integrity in the process the board's responsibility is to evaluate it as its impact in both service provided and cost to the tax pair so now some of the things when we talk about 125 years there's a bit of there can be a bit of arrogance in assuming that what we decide 125 years ahead of time is going to be actually what it is 125 years down line so those guarantees have to be balanced with the cost difference realizing that the selling point can't be oh my goodness we make this decision in 125 Years everybody you'll be happy with it and then 12 years later what were these people thinking so I I think it's a balance of cost versus benefit and not the emotional appeal of good we can put this to bed for 125 years yeah right so and I I met with Bob this morning a little bit before we came here and um talked to him about the differences between the buildings and asked him to talk to you about that you know yes 100-year build versus a 50-year build it lasts twice as long but there are other benefits um to a one building versus the other so um and we're not here to S you either way it's your option clearly your decision yeah I would say that a b a building that's built for a 100 years is going to be um sturdier and have less issues with it you know just because it's built to last the test of time so that kinds of maintenance issues and ongoing um costs of maintaining this kind of an infrastructure are going to pay out over time yeah um you know but that's there the really two Bob's going to talk about the two fundamentally different kinds of buildings that you're going to see and what the what the differences are and Madam chair as a followup that in uh in designing buildings and infrastructure we all know that lived experience defines some of the rules that govern Direction and so when we're looking at it we can say well we're going to build for a 25-year flood uh or we're going to build for 50 or we're going to build for 100 and there there are substantive things the distinction between that 25 whatever and what I've had to deal with local governance in making proposals if they say well we require that you have to make a minimum of 25 years if I say well I I've designed this so that it's 50 or 100 I've gone over and above the requir but there's basis for why i' I've done that and so we we want to be sure that in in our you observation and Analysis that we're looking at in the context of benefit uh and and looking at the maintenance issues you know the replacement issues and we're dealing with that with a lot of the infrastructure that we have right now so absolutely and we did take that into consideration in this process you know so okay so at this time let's join Bob and see what the design okay well as Dustin and Raina uh said this has been quite a process that we've been going through uh Dustin first contacted us in 2022 and he he said you know I I really need to have a a new facility that can you know accommodate not only the uh current needs of the the county but as well as the future needs for recycling and and handling of the waste so uh after hearing you know the process that he went through I actually I think had the easiest task of this designing Building compared to everything else he's having to work with so what we did um we started out uh with kind of the general concept plan and then we we kept having uh meetings with the design team the Consultants Dustin Marina and we you know we looked at and we said oh that's a good idea and that Parts things redo it so then you know we basically kept honing the the project down and you know consolidating things and trying to see how can we you know not overbuild but how can we share Services between the different functions of the building so uh as uh Raina mentioned uh we thought we had a pretty good plan moving forward and as uh the prices were coming in we're going oh jeez we're running hot on this thing you know what do we get how can we we fix this thing so what we did is we we took a a real hard look at some of the the things in the building and I I think we were able to cut it back without decreasing the quality of what we're trying to do here or even the function of the building some of that being uh the offsets and the floors uh we were able to remove three feet of elevation between the two so that you know that's a smaller building less construction costs Etc so anyhow uh I I think what we have here is a really sound plan um and we're kind of at a cross roads on our side of the fence of whether we approach it as a a pre cast uh structure or do we go down the road of a pre-engineered metal building the difference being a pre-cast building generally has a 100-year lifespan uh pre-engineered metal building you're in the neighborhood of 50 now that doesn't mean to say that either one can't go you know the distance that we're saying it is but there are certain features of each construction type that you know make it a a more viable solution uh we initially started looking at this as a pre-engineered metal building well as we started digging into this a little bit more and we're we're learning how people come in and they're dropping off the waist and he's moving you know the the refug around and then dumping it into the trucks there's a lot of potential for damage to the building on a pre-engineered metal building so as we were going through the process I said Dustin you know this building really wants to be a pre-cast building there there's several reasons for that one you you have the durability of the panels themselves um the panels are erected a heck of a lot faster there is less labor involved to erect a pre-cast building as opposed to all the nuts and bolts that are in a you know pre-engineered metal building so we we kind of got to the point now where we're at Crossroads where we have to say okay if we're moving ahead we have to you know commit to a pre-cast building or we have to go to the pre-engineered metal building and um you know there there are certain advantages obviously to both building types uh the pre-cast option gives you the ability to add on in the future if your needs change you need to expand the facility it's a heck of a lot easier to build onto that type of building is compared to a pre-engineered building um I've always kind of mused you know on a pre-engineered building you want to repaint the building you're almost overloading the structural system of the building they design those things right to the nut of you know the actual code limits and the you know the snow loads wind loads that kind of thing so anyhow that aside um we put together uh this is our latest set of plans on the building and I'd like to walk you through it uh briefly and if you have any questions along the way you know by all means you know chime in uh what I'll start with here uh this is the overall site plan and uh you can see the new building in here some of the things that we had to take into account on the building uh was one the circulation of how the trucks drop off the refuges how the public would interact and move their uh stuff through there so we we got looking at the site the grading and so forth and we felt that this was probably the best position for the building to go um what this does coming off of uh Elias Road uh we have the lower part which is primarily for the truck service and access through the facility um and then you can see how they are able to drive through through the building on the upper end uh we have the another entrance into the site we have a drive-thru Bay so you can come through and then back out and then for the the bigger trucks they can come in on the North side back into the building and then dump their their loads uh with any project nowadays we have to take into account the storm water ponds and how we're handling the the runoff of the systems uh we have to identify a location for a septic system as well as the well uh one of the challenges we came into on the design of the building uh happens to be dealing with the building code and um on this uh we've met with uh State officials uh to kind of review some of these things because building code doesn't specifically say okay for waste Transfer Facility this is what you got to do so there's some gray area in there and I had to go down and actually kind of argue with them a little bit on the interpretation of the building code and finally was able to kind of break the ice if you will with them and they kind of went okay yeah we agree with you so what that means is for the entire building is about 23,500 Square ft uh the building code only allows me to have 12,000 Square ft in a fire area uh before I have to sprinkle it so the the trick in this whole whole process was to divide the building up with a firewall that kind of runs right down the middle through here so with that we have you know the the upper part which contains the Tipping floor uh it's got the um well I'll call them shoots if you will that the waste can dump down into the semis that are driving underneath this uh we have some walkways so you can get up and over that uh on this side we we have uh some parking areas and washing so we can wash out the back of the the trucks and trailers and then kind of the maintenance area down here so you can see here on the North side the trucks can back in they they tip their load then pull back out and then with that they're able to then scoop it in drop it down into the shoes uh probably the the easiest way to kind of Envision this is uh the building section that I have over on this sheet um you can kind of see what's going on here um the the buildings in in two two uh chunks and the floors are offset and the reason for that is that allows uh the semis that are carrying the waist down to theth basically drive through uh the building so for instance this truck comes in dumps its waist on the floor they then scoop it up drop it into the truck and then the truck can continue on and through uh now this is showing as if uh the pre-cast is the you know the the building system we're going with uh one of the concerns we had is with a pre-engineered metal building they don't allow you to have flat roofs on the thing so we'd have to have sloped roofs now the the problem comes in where do you direct all that snow because with those it's just like the the slide at the playground all that snow is going to build up and move and come right off with uh if you will a flat roof building we don't have that issue the snow you know melts goes down the roof drains we don't have to worry about the snow slide so anyhow uh this is a a section as if you took a knife through the building and you're looking in the end of the building and you can you know kind of see the different layers and elevations and such this is another section that's cut right through here looking back at the end of the building here so you can see you can get the two over the road uh tractor trailer units these are the shoots that go through the floor there's a control room up here so they can you know scoop the the waist into the the truck and then over here uh these are a couple elevations preliminary elevations of of kind of how the building would look from the exterior um one of the hardest things that we dealt with was actually the elev change here Bob kind of alluded to um because there's such a a change in elevation retaining walls coming out to hold that that upper level I think the one retaining wall that because of the change in elevation we were able to eliminate a lot of it was almost $350,000 just for the retaining wall so yeah I have a smaller prints here you're more welcome to take them uh a little little bit easier to read than the 8 and 1 half by 11s I also in your Coler included an 8 and a half 11 as well but this was just a bigger copy question in doing this U with the the two proposals did uh did you do an actual draft of like pros and cons or is it just sort of a mental awareness in your discussions well yes uh we I kind of have a a breakdown of what I think are the pros and cons uh the pre-engineered metal building that has the lower lowest initial cost it also has the uh probably the longest erection time which then translates back into labor um you run into the issues that you can't uh expand onto the building very very easily uh with metal panels you're going to have higher maintenance costs overall uh the lower parts of the building you know can get damaged dented and you're going to be replacing panels um over time the the finish on the panels are going to fade and chalk and and that kind of thing uh the the pre-cast option has the higher initial cost obviously um installation was a big part of it as well installating the building yeah that that was one of the problems we're we're running into is we have a area where we have a heated portion of the building that's going to be down low well if you go with the pre-engineered metal building we now have to insulate that wall to meet the current energy code requirements so that's another you know panel system on top of a concrete wall so we're we're almost bu building two Wall Systems to you know accommodate the pre-engineered metal building in the the lower area so that's kind of with with a insulated pre-cast panel the panel just goes in it's already got the insulation in there we're we're all said and done um obviously with the pre-cast uh can take more abuse it's easier to maintain overall uh you don't have to worry about the line Min panels inside the building getting damage the insulation tearing that kind of thing we also found that you have to pour a wall up so high in that transfer area so there isn't it's not moist or people running into it you know we have to pour up so high already that the metal building above it ends up being pretty spotty compared to the compared to the entire yes do you have a ballpark price difference just for the well is it like $500,000 different is it a million dollars different about $500,000 difference I think one of the things that drives up the cost of the metal building is the labor piece sure and because this is public money we have to use prevailing wage which we all know and much of the labor would come from somewhere else so people have to stay here and you know there's there are all those pieces whereas the pre-cast Building made somewhere else so the 500,000 is just the material you go to the no no that's the and labor that would be the difference labor and material that's the difference in the two bids is around half yeah I think there's a bigger savings between the pre-cast and the metal if we didn't have to calculate in all the labor to build that metal building out here you know there might be $750,000 or even a million dollar difference in the the price of the material but the erected price gets down to it's a little bit more than that I think In the comparison this is why if it's if it's written down when you anticipate well what's all involved in this and then you look at the pluses and the minus the pros and the cons if that's written down and you show it and you can show it uh you know in in a a dialogue but when you translate that dialogue to Dollars now it's easier to be informed as to why it supports this and and some of the discipline of having that written helps those that make the decision to be more focused on those elements as oppos to absorbing it through discussion and and whatever else the other thing is there a building that you are aware of that is most similarly patterned to what you're proposing that has some lived experience that would inform your assumptions you know relative to your proposal well we have done a quite a few maintenance facilities uh like Wayne transports is probably our most recent one uh we've done some uh buildings for Jr Jensen construction and in the those uh well for the most part the buildings have always gone to the pre-cast part of it mainly because of the same discussions we're having here between pre-engineered metal building and pre-cast just kind of the the overall longevity of the building you know the pre-cast is you know the smarter way to go on those things um we have uh looked at some other facilities as well and I'm not to say we haven't done pre-engineered metal buildings in fact we're doing one right now for twin ports testing um and but their their needs are completely different than what the Su transfer facility is uh we have done some work uh down at wlssd in their uh well trans or waste Transfer area um now mind you that was more of a Remodeling on my part but uh after you see the amount of junk that's floating around in there and and all that I I don't think you're going to be happy with a pre-engineered metal building over the long haul you know yes it may meet the budget you know initially but you know by the time you're done maintaining it and and that kind of thing well I think as to commissioner Gamble's point is that and for the public to have if nothing more than bullet points the pros and cons it's very helpful because as commission Commissioners I don't want to have to know to remember and know and remember everything you just went through as to why when people have it in front of them they can carry on discussions among themselves a simple absolutely I think one of the things that strikes me having spent a little bit of time in Rowan seat over there um and looking at issues around the LC and issues around the why and to your point of do we really know what this is going to need in a 100 years from now that this building can be added on to more easily and economically than the other one so we we think we're building for you know the volumes up and down and the and the growth in the county but who knows how many people are going to migrate up here as other places become less loable so this is a building they could add another you could continue to add on without rebuilding the whole building I think that's another piece that um certainly appeals to my thinking certainly an important consideration yes since we already have the plans in our hand let's have a seat and continue the discussion s yes so Bob since you're here do you have any concerns or opinions or overview of what's Des as far as the construction of the building I don't have any input um when you say cast I'm imagining it's concrete yes it's fully concrete before the next part of the discussion Dustin you could talk about the sure sure we since we've talked so much about the the first page I'm going to just move to the second the second page in here and you're going to see on these two stapled handouts in the back of the folder there's a overview of the tofy location and there's an overview of the holand location um so I want to First preface this by saying um I haven't had Direct conversations with Robbie um I had tried a couple of weeks to set up uh couple of weeks ago to set up an appointment with him to talk to him about this um and obviously he had some medical issues uh so I did meet with Matt last week um and Matt did say he was going to go back talk to Robbie about it and summarize our conversations and an email both of these locations are at the County Garage in tofy and in hoveland um the tofy location um we're proposing expanding Maybe by uh 40 to 50% the area just going back towards where their garage is right here and expanding a little further north and kind of following their road line here and in the hoveland location um this is just west of the new County garage that you guys built um a few years ago um there's some wooded area back there in both locations we're trying to stay under one acre um and some of that is for regulatory reasons the things that we would have to go through to do it um both of these transfer stations were proposed a u-shape drive-thru um with a small building at the entrance when they come in um so you would drive into the transfer station uh on both both places there'd be a building on your left hand side with a little Co Booth almost like you're crossing the border into Canada roll on your window you can check inp you don't need a passport uh you would you would check in tell us what you're getting rid of we would tell you this goes here this goes there they can pay through the window and they can drive through this u-shaped driveway and out a separate driveway to go out of there and I see I'm trying to mirror both locations to be the same exact thing the same building the same drive-thru your drive-thru would be laid out a little different you know if you visualize you're driving through this location you're going to have some dumpsters to get rid of garbage you're going to have some rolloffs to get rid of some demolition you're going to have some dumpsters to get rid of single sort recycling you would move your way through you know there might be a shipping container out there that you can put Electronics in an area that you can put mattresses or appliances scrap metal things like that and then just work your way out the other side um and so to come up with the pricing for this I had contacted all local vendors or local contractors and told them exactly what I was looking for to come up with this so in both the grand Marine location the hoveland and the topy location you'll see that their their bids for everything are directly behind there um and uh I did just like we did with with um Bob and the the folks from Johnson Wilson um suggest that we do build a little bit of contingency into it so we don't find ourself um down the road where we want to do this but hey we don't have the money for it so I do believe that these these numbers are a little on the high side might be 10% on the high side something like that I asked them all to consider five to 5 to 10% extra just so we don't run into any issues so M um I think uniformity is is important and um uh so I applaud you for being mindful of that um a question I'd have on the proposed style uh with the cast is um if you talk to other transfer stations that have that type of building on many planes somebody that's done what you're proposing to do already you can benefit from their lived experience so if you ask them is there anything you would do different anything you would suggest after your experience that we might benefit from in incorporating that I think that's a valuable piece that that should be looked at one thing when you're dealing with multiple users is that how do we protect again the people that don't know how to drive a truck or whatever you know we've talked a lot about that a lot yeah and or doesn't don't know how to back of the trailer yeah yeah and and the thing is is that we just invested in this and after a year look at what's happened so there need to be ways to mitigate that potential real issue and they're all going to come into the transfer station I mean there is going to be you know the older gentleman that has his boat full of Stu that he has to back into the demo pile to get rid of um it's going to happen you know we see it every day that's that that makes the case actually for the concrete building yeah well it it does but even concrete you know without yeah protective devices that are replaceable that help to diffuse the problem it just anticipating all of those things the other thing I I I would recommend is that in putting together your comparisons pros and cons which it might be very obvious and you've been through all of the footwork on this so you it's very clear to you but out of respect for the people that that pay you put it together and often times when you're in the back room and you're doing that you strategize so that your representation is representing the best parts of everything so that we try to sell it and I think back to the Integrity of process is you put everything down that you know to be true and if you've done that then you you amplify the fact that you as a group are doing everything you can to be as transparent and to be as respectful of the people that ultimately are going to help you in partnershi to meet and need so that would be than that would be a a recommendation um and I've I've worked for organizations that have leadership that uh you don't participate in that process we'll tell you after we've met what we want you to know and it it has shaped me to say that I want everybody to know to participate in the process it does two things it helps to mitigate my shortcomings and what I don't see because they see things that I don't and the other is it it builds trust because people see how you make the sausage so I I think those two things to keep in mind is participation transparency that demonstrate mutual respect and regard and learning from other people's lived experience so we build those benefits into what we're proposing would barriers increase the cost and certain places where they would be backing in and they would miss the wall we have that yeah yeah there would be ballards big ballards in addition on our pre-cast buildings around the overhead doors we always put a a heavy steel frame Jam so the the corners of the pre-cast don't get chipped you know if somebody Clips it with the fender the car and that kind of thing so to your point yes I want to build this thing bulletproof yeah I mean you know plan for the worst and hope for the best and uh there's nothing wor and having a building up and like you say in a couple years all beat pieces and people are going for Jesus the the other thing is is the the emphasis and uh how we prioritize prioritize aesthetic function and uh given the nature of this building the the aesthetic is uh it's not obviously when when a person looks at why in the world you know did they make this photog from a hall when it's function is primary right and so the function thing and then saying we're not being you know irresponsible in this regard where we're putting our dollars absolutely right and that's been a lot of the conversations that we've had when we've been working through the the pricing I continue to say we're building a dump you know you guys design hotels and you design you know shops and you design this keep in mind that we need a giant concrete building that can manage all of this stuff do not over engineer do not over engineer do not over and over and I think that's what allowed us to to continue moving forward thank you to commissioner White's point about um putting together some pros and cons to have us think about in the future we uh think this packet is really good give us time to look this over and commissioner thank you sure uh so I see the steel um joists um what is the flat roof is that concrete no what it would be uh it would be a metal deck goes on top of the steel joist and then on top of that uh there' be minimal uh insulation and then a rubber roof on top of that um one of the pros of this uh concept that we're presenting is if you do have a problem with that roof it's very easy to fix compared to a metal building roof or now you're you're trying to either fix it with goop or you know you have to replace a panel uh something like that uh the rubber roofs uh generally have a 20-year warranty to them um you know and so if you have a problem call up the roofer and say hey come up here and do your thing so what's the lifespan of the uh well 20 years is what you can get longer warranties than 20 years but you're just paying for um and we've seen uh EPDM roofs they they've gone 30 years pretty easily so I understand the challenge with snow management it's just every time we're replacing a public roof I think why are we doing this um because metal is 50 years right and so I'm not saying is bad but just my kneejerk is always why don't we have a metal you know you know what's kind of funny I I've been doing this for 39 and A2 years and my my uh previous employer well I bought the firm from them uh but anyhow uh they they really L the EPDM roofs so we kind of figured out how to do these roofs and we have not had the problems that that you know I've heard of other people that have had these flat rubber roofs and they're having problems all over the place and I I mean I I guess we detail them well enough so we don't have those issues in fact um for bentech uh metal Fabrications down in duth they're a big facility and they make these big round uh steel pipes you know they can bend the pipes and they use them for Bridges and you know oil refineries that kind of thing anyhow they had a big pre-engineered metal building and the roof got to the point where jez this thing isn't isn't working anymore and so we said let's put rubber on the top of it and they kind of know is that really the best idea we put that roof on there oh jeez it's got to be about 20 some years ago now haven't had a lick of trouble with it still up there today and so I I I'm aware of those concerns on flat roofs um and I think part of the the problem came in um with like school buildings they would put down uh what was an asphalt roof a builtup and basically it's it's tar and tar paper and they kind of glue it all together and build it up and and those were notorious for leaking over time because the asphalt would crack and seams would would do that then uh with rubber roofs uh I don't know we just haven't seen those those kind of issues um I think a lot of it has to do with the type of system that you put down uh we use an adhered EPDM roof as opposed to a loose laade or a ballasted system um the difference being ballasted you lay the sheet of rubber down and you put rock on top of it to hold it down so it doesn't blow up in the the wind uh adhered uh um basically you you glue it down and mechanically fasten it to the metal deck so when the wind blows it doesn't doesn't blow up um and uh with those types of systems uh we take into account the shrinkage that will occur with the rubber um I had one project uh wasn't ours uh where we had to go in and fix a rubber rof because the rubber had shrunk and it literally pulled all the the wood face out off the building and pulled it in it's like a big rubber band and it just you know cinched it down so I don't know uh we I don't I don't doubt the quality of that install I guess my point is okay say say it's ra for 20 years say we get 30 years out of it versus a 50e metal roof that's my kind of point is like there is a replacement schedule for the roof what is that cost is this the 100 Year got concept or is this the you know the and so that's that's just my question I trust the experience and and expertise so I'm just asking one thing I I should say in that uh pre-engineered metal building option that we were looking at that is not the premium Roof System that we're looking at that's where you take the Metal Sheets you overlay them and then you drive screws down and have the ceiling washers on it uh they do have uh standing seam roofs which are significantly more expensive um and those are the types of roofs that you're talking about where you get the 50-year warranties right um you know it's kind of that the cost benefit um right with with rubber uh you don't have to worry about hail damage that'll you do um especially with the long slopes of this uh taking into in account the expansion and contraction of the metal panel you know as it heats up during the day it's going to grow then at night it shrinks up how do you accommodate that movement so with anything there are pros and cons yeah to the systems yeah I'm just if this is the way to go it's the way to go I get it but I'm just I hate replacing roofs I do just like why are you replacing the roof right so minimizing that is kind of what I'm always looking for but it's not cost effective I get it I I want to make sure we're investing on front end rather than every having to do something that's absolutely you'd have to change the roof profile have a metal roof which would increase the cost well Nots don't you don't lay correct me if I'm wrong you don't lay metal roofs flat you might have something is 212 which is pretty flat but then you're losing the ab IL to shed snow anyway well it at 212 there's not a lot on a standard metal building the typical roof slope is a 112 So for every 12 ft of run it goes up one foot right so it's what you would gain is not um snow loading shedding I think with the metal roofs the quality of the material has increased significantly over the decades and then it goes to installation yes and who you have in temperatures of the day it is the um preparation of the sub surfice the the biggest uh concern is if you go with the pre-cast option to go to a pre-cast roof or uh pardon me a a standing seam roof that's going to change some of our costs in there uh what we have right now is a steel bar joys in there uh um they're long span joist that can go from side to side as soon as we tip that thing up now we have to have more panel height and volume and here we go yeah and so it doesn't make sense but it's just a reaction every time I I understand y if it doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense that's fine it's just um something I hope we're considering for that long term the building absolutely Mechanicals on the roof uh yes uh there there's really not as much mechanical as you might think on this uh yes on the lower roof part will be the Mechanicals for the heated portion of the building uh the wash bay the exhaust systems that type of thing up on the tip floor area that is pretty much it'll just be ventilation just to draw some of the the smells out of there okay bring it up commissioner white and I had a lot of similar conversations just last week with the LEC expansion and bkv and our facilities director we talked about a lot of the same things they brought up cost recovery just in labor of cast they talked about EPDM being the the pr primary choice if possible and operationally Facilities really really liked the flat roof for having to do maintenance and and repair work so I want another consideration to the conversation I own an old building in River Falls uh that a brewery is in and we have a rubber roof on there and we have issues with it you know building was built in I think 1884 or something like that and the fixing of a rubber roof is actually it's pretty nice you know we have we have a little leak and we have a guy come over and he goes up on the roof and he identifies where the leak is and literally throw off some glue and throw a new piece of rubber over over that issue and the rift doesn't leak anymore you know so we haven't had a lot of issues but some M chair um is this is it the same roof propos over the whole building between your heated area yes it is it it doesn't sound and I'm not aware like the insulation given the fact that heat rises that there's much insul insulation involved in that uh over the cold part of the building there's very minimal insulation in there uh that's primarily for adhesion of the rubber to the the lower parts once you get down into the heated parts of the building then we have to have 6 in of rigid insulation adding it in yes so the heated portions have more insulation than the than the and and commissioner Mills said if it makes sense it makes sense but it seems in the context of making sense it's all predicated on cost MH because if you're if you're saying we want the best then it makes sense to go with the best but the cost trying to balance that this is what we propose based upon our experience managing cost and something that'll perform well and that's been our that's been our goal through this process has been trying to manage the cost versus what we we're getting at the end of the day again we're building a giant building to manage garbage you know we don't it doesn't need to be fancy it doesn't need these fine finishes it does but it does need to be durable and it does need to hold up so we don't run into issues down the road um and so when we're talking with these uh folks on the design team we continue to say you know got to watch the numbers got to watch the numbers um don't make it fancy but it's got to last so exactly what you're saying is what we've been ech echoing to the design team yeah and I guess my point is just that 100 Year comes right Y and so again the rubber is the way to go for the 100 cost great but it's just always my understanding metal a better longer term but a much more expensive short term but I trust the engineering architect just your experience and sure the 100e cost sure we we've had experience and we're not unique in this regard as a county with buildings that are put in place that we have too many surprises after they're in place and that's why I think the due diligence it it it requires a a team that is uh always unearthing always looking always whatever you know what you want and and you're willing to invest yourself in a process of determining that based upon your values and so the last thing we want is to sell something that becomes a nightmare I agree I agree that I you know whenever I've approached a building I I treat this as if it's my money going in there is this what I would do for this building yeah you know I you're absolutely right budget is King you know and we got to make smart decisions on everything and to go ahead and and do something uh you know just because we think it's cute or whatever uh if we have the luxury of money and we're looking for cute okay we can do that but you know to Dustin's point this is a functional utilitarian building and uh you know that's not to say we slap it up and we don't care what it looks like but you know we we got to be respectful of the function of the building chair as a followup if I made that just philosophically that um you can have knowledge and not have a lot of experience but you got a ton of knowledge and that can be problematic so we we shouldn't be enamored by the amount of knowledge somebody has but we should be looking to understand the experience that has created and formed from knowledge wisdom yes and and to the extent that that exists then you benefit from all of those things and if you have an individual whose temperament personality is such that they aren't intimidated by the questioning uh because their confidence in their lived experience that's also healthy so when we establish Partnerships we want individuals that are going to to do that to be honest with us help inform us answer the questions and demonstrate that they have wisdom that has come the years of experience and I I would just like to add that when we said you know the price needs to come down in every case we kept the quality of the building but made decisions that changed like elevation or the way we did firewalls or things that would reduce the cost without without having a negative effect on the quality and the purpose of the building I mean I think that was always how we had about can we do this a different way and so I really um I feel I mean personally I've looked a lot of these things and I feel good about it I've certainly had my time dealing with the why and all the issues that were were there um and saw the way poor decisions and shortcuts have impacted not only the building but public attitude about that building and believe me that is the last thing I want to have my name associated with that's what I'm saying that wisdom comes to experience so when when we look at the pre-cast building versus the metal building are the roofs included then also yes everything is there everything's included that's so that's basic that's what you see there is what we need to do right yes yep so you'll see on this two-pager that I put together right at the beginning so everything is up front with you you'll see the budget for the pre-cast building you'll see the budget for the metal building you'll see the budget for a hoveland transfer station and you'll see a budget for the tofy transfer station I've gone and taken the whole price of the build um on the top line the money that we have so far are and um to Mr Gamble's point about the running into issues um I know at the end of December you guys had talked about a little bit of fiscal recovery money we kind of saved that at the bottom for contingencies just in case we dig a hole and find that there's a rock that we have to deal with or or something changes in there um both Bob and Johnson Wilson would like that number to be higher um the contingency the contingent number to be higher um just because there are unknowns um but that's what we agreed upon to bring this number to you so so basically the you know what what we're what we're asking you to consider is that those bold numbers on on those so the 100-year building versus the 50-year building and then um depending on whichever one of those you isues then do you also want to have these extra service areas for people at the other ends of the county to make you know because I I mean I know that whenever we do these things when the Y was built it's a perfect example that people that were on other ends of the county they're like you guys always put money in grar right that doesn't really help us so having having a place where people in hoveland and people at the West End of the county can take the same things at the same you know where it's more convenient for them seems like an important thing but again you're you're looking at at that do you want to do that do you want to spend that resource doing that in the case of tofy I would say that that place is only marginal right now the fence is falling apart it's been dented down there's not good room to turn around in there um they were collecting things they weren't supposed to collect um and and there wasn't room to do that really anyway so that place is already a place that the county probably should put some money into um that Dustin is just operating now but he doesn't have the he's not going to fix it that's the County's place so these are just things to consider and I I would just add one more thing I know that these are big decisions but the clock is really truly ticking and this is not like like and I'm not trying to pressure anybody we've certainly been having this conversation a long time but we really need to know what you guys are going to decide sooner rather than later because they have to finish plans we have to apply for permits have to get out to bid so that we can take advantage of this construction season so that we can meet the timelines of the money we've already secured that's that's the burning platform and and I and I I don't I don't want to I just want to like put that out there because this is not something you can take two months to decide so um get your questions out because this is truly this is not that time we've been having this conversation with you all for a long time and um so that's that's that's the reality would we have time for conversation to talk about this at the next board meeting which is next week or the first board meeting in February Madam chair I would recommend that the pros and cons information come to us prior to any discussion the other thing two things one is and I apologize I haven't looked to see what our total budget is for recycling center um which is another conversation but it it would be good if if you are taking that over and we look at that the efficiencies gained the one place serves all kind of thing that that's another I see as a big component part of it that should be understood so that we are in a position to be able to communicate that the other thing and it's something that we're sort of aware if we had to do with any permitting processes but uh it it was discussed at our our last Northern Count's land use Coordinating Board getting permits if if the discussions the recent inspection has sort of greased the shoe in that process if we've talked to the people that are the providers or the authority in that regard so that we know that they're on board so that we can move forward so that all of this effort and push and the the timeline money isn't all of a sudden held up because we run into a a a permitting Authority that has demonstrated they will take years to get back to you on something I know so I I listened to you talk about this at the last meeting yeah and it's one of the biggest concerns that I have and why I've been pushing these two about the trying to get this done so we can get we can't apply for anything until these decisions are made and I have had convers ation um I was fortunate enough to get lined up with somebody who was fantastic at the state who's in this permitting program for a transfer station um he said get a hold of me let me know what you need I'll help you um the inspector who was up here with the notice of violations um the inspector's boss they were all copied on this email I've had personal conversations with them um we've even talked as much as like okay so if we start running into issues what are some things we can do politically and have a call made hey we need to get this going because the clock is ticking um the I money has already been extended and is running out the the $2 million um had a 30-month I believe don't hold me to that but I believe it had a 30-month timeline that we had to have the project complete by then um and I don't know that there's anything for the deed money but not we haven't found out yeah but there there is definitely definitely concerned so um we can absolutely answer immediately the questions that you have about the pros and cons like we can get that to you I don't know if it's tonight if it's tomorrow but we can lay those out so that a decision can be made the best decision by by the board um so if it's you know on the business meeting for next Tuesday we will give you everything that you need to have that conversation and I would recommend excuse me but um bringing Brook into the conversation about recycling center as well as Tim because I don't know what those budget amounts are but I know that it's been on the list for a while that that building probably needs to be rebuilt it's a mess and I don't know what the cost of that is but I'm guessing it's more than the million dollars that got added into this project to and and that metal building that's an example of a metal building that is deteriorating so um I have a couple notes Here Tim wanted to be here with us today he wasn't able to make it um but I'll we'll get the total budget for the recycling center and I Brooke and I both have and will find the Deferred maintenance cost that's associated with the recycling center already and we'll put that together and share it with the board as soon as if that budget can reflect the revenues as well as the expenditures because i' I'd like to I'd like to see what we're generating if we're recycling things it's a negative well we know it's a negative but but we should see what it is because it's how do we manage that and what can we approve on the other thing that we haven't talked about and I know it's it's noon is is the assessment issue how how we annually are going to have contribution to that I mean you've maybe had many conversations that have commission why you wanted to say something oh we just had to do with building talking about AE landscap just irr I just think I'd like to hear yeah so Brady did share the uh document from ERS where they had projected the assessment I think they're saying what 25 for residential yeah 50 commercial and so and I'm looking at this number here I know it's showing 10,000 just over 10 ,000 residential units in Cook County and I I think that that number came from a 2022 data query we had put together when we were reviewing the short-term rental um committee the the advisory committee for short-term rentals was looking at a cap and what percentage of residential units we would set a cap at and that 10,000 units it includes all residential structures such as you know garages houses um I I was kind of going through the list today and I I could pull it up on the screen I don't know if it's worth our time or not but out of the assessment data it's extremely complicated to come up with a a number um that I'm comfortable with you know sending out and saying you have to pay three residential fees you have to pay one residential fee because this this formula is adding multiple residential fees onto a single property tax statement and for example I'm sure you're all familiar with this cabin it's right at the top of the hill when you're driving out of town on Highway 61 it's at Robert londs um that you know the Dex caving in the structure hasn't been used in many years that is is adding a fe on to that parcel now this is a triplex in the data query with 10,000 this is paying one residential fee but there are three housing units within that building another one and this is partly because of our assessment record should be I guess changed in a way but this is down at Bruce blocks this is eight units this is only tallying one fee in that 10,000 count so clearly there's a lot of work to be done to determine what's fair you know if if uh there's a property that has foral rundown cabins on it and they get a $100 a month assess this is a monthly assessment right no it's annual it's annual okay I was just looking at the monthly count on that sheet but you know if they're getting a $100 assessment for four cabins that haven't been used in so many years what's what's eventually going to happen is they're going to say well how did we determine who's paying what and they're going to say well the assessment record had four residential structures on it and then I'm getting a call you know why are you charging me a 100 bucks when so and so next door is paying 25 so you know I don't know if it comes down to my office parsing through this list we need very specific details on does does Bob L's old 70s the last time it's probably been used was in the 70s does that cabin have to pay it I mean this thing the deck has fallen in you know a yurk that could be there today gone tomorrow is that going to pay it uh if somebody's parking a camper on theirs on their property probably not showing up in that 10,000 count but they're creating garbage and they're using the service um is it is it possible to look at it as individual just each parcel that would be my suggestion and we actually have the zoning accounted for on every parcel now we we didn't have that 5 years ago we could look at parcel counts so automatically each parcel is getting a fee now that fee may be based on the zoning you know more for Resorts more for commercial but you know obviously this is up to the Commissioners but that would be a lot easier and cleaner and I think you know when you talk about equality of of how you're determining who pays what you know now obviously in that formula you're going to have somebody producing like Best Western produces a lot more trash but this isn't necessarily for the collection of trash it's more or less just to administer this to to pay for the infu to pay for the infrastructure everybody uses right do we need to figure that out before before we set the bonding is that I would if you're going to use that to set the bonding you need to know but there's different bonding options right like there's that waste solid solid right the go and before the difference I was kind what's the difference why does that matter and maybe there's other costs if we transfer it or change it or whatever but if it because of our timeline if we need to do go bonding I don't know and then we can figure out that Solid Waste bonding is that an option or is that putting the C part the horse or what's yeah we should have Ellers on the phone to get to really talk about all the options but if you were if you wanted to start collecting this fees so that you could pay the bonds next year you need to get it on within a month we have to have that decision we have to know exact parcels and what we're going to put on each parcel um they can they can change Bond timing of course um give you an interest fee the first year and so and Brady all of our tax system is is very much automated I mean if if if your office was tasked with you know putting these onto the tax estimates and the tax bills how is that how does that translate you know if we're if we're looking at assessment information yeah that you then apply the only way I can think of that you could do it relatively easy would be like a value based system and I don't even know how that would work I mean msus might have to program stuff so we can put this in I don't know how the special assessments work can you just apply a special assessment to Any Given property type and um yeah the ones that we do now are paral based and courtly ERS each one but I'm sure people do this all around the state so I'm sure there's a way but msis may have to be involved in that cuz it might come down to you know we we develop this list of parcels with each PID and then a second column saying this is the fee and can you could you think you could take that in and put it into the statements you would yeah I'm sure that a question so we talking about I have a 30 Acres Homestead it but then I have another 160 where you bushwack your way to get in so are we going to be charging me a fee in those 20 those other eight brid there's four more four more Parcels So currently Ellers does not have vacant land into that calculation so it's only it's only putting a fee into if you have a residential structure and then I think the commercial and Apartment information came from a separate data quer so there also is probably some overlap in that where something that's currently counted in the commercial column is showing up 16 times in the residential column for a resort so it it it's going to take a lot of work and we need to know exactly what what the fee is for what in order to say you know what does Bruce block pay down at his you know complex down there with all the different houses and apartments and what does uh somebody pay with you know residential house what does somebody pay if they have a house in a guest house you know residential non Homestead and part of their calculation was to have as many Parcels as possible and so that the fee is low um if you get into trying to figure out Val who's generating you know the waste then you make it complex and but maybe not fair but it'll be the complexity be over there so so we we took out the duplicate lines where you know we got this 10,000 number it's there's duplicate lines with the same p and it's accounting for different buildings we eliminated all the duplicates and the number was closer to 5,000 but that doesn't include vacant land and again I mean if if vacant land becomes the next year as developed land I suppose the classification is going to change that's why it would be easier to just classification the fee might be the best based off of classification because that's something that if we change it now all of a sudden it's going to start getting that assessment light I don't know how the tax system but at least there would be something there to flag it that hey now this property is potentially producing trash okay so for next week we need the pros and cons and the cofy recycle money that goes to there and and money that comes out from there and you'll do that and we'll put together the pros and cons yeah I'll out to to Tim and can probably work with Brady on The the total budget and yeah recycling center Ellers is available yep and we that's right we could call Ellers we could right now he was waiting for if you have different numbers if you don't I don't know if I can add any value to the conversation but um either today or if we're going to talk on Tuesday I I can come up with numbers I just need to know what am I what exactly am I putting the number on right Tim unfortunately who isn't here today uh we talk a lot about just trying to need to find the balance between making it simple enough that it doesn't become an administrative burden but but there's a level of fairness and to me personally when I think of that I mean we know that different businesses when they generate more trash they're going to have cost associated with that they're still paying for the trash service this is in my mind mind the way I thought of it is sort of just a basic need and kind of a common good that everybody in the county needs to to see and so if I even if I have a piece of property that's vacant and I don't generate a ton of property on it or trash on it but I get charged $25 a year for it to make sure that we're meeting mpca rules and all the other things that are associated with what we've been talking about today to make sure that we have the infrastructure to deal with the trash in Cook County that's value to me individually that I think is very worth it and just that's how we've talked about the conversation being Being Framed going forward it it we need to have an element of fairness I can see troubles where somebody has four buildings on a single single parcel they're getting four times the bill that the guy next door has eight vacation rentals in a single building and isn't getting it that I can see some of the is isues associated with that I like the idea of a parcel based very kind of flat rate um but obviously maybe parcel based but also with the zoning yeah right right commercial parcel versus absolute you know a resort parcel versus a residential parcel yeah and again just to finish the thought there is just because of tying it back to we don't want this it's got to be fair but we don't want it to be so complicated that it becomes administrative ly burdensome for us to implement this and and that's I think the the balance that the board will have to look for to try to decide Madam chair to speak to that point is you know if you have that vacant land that you know right now we're thinking isn't going to have a solid waste speed part of that might be that you know so and so is not dumping trash on your vacant land because there is this option this easier option to get rid of the trash and and they could still be using it camping or or something like that you had talked somebody had mentioned people with campers You Know M somewh just having a road yeah what do I need a road for I just bacing land we do need kind of Baseline value and then we can contact Ellers to join us we can uh as Brady said they're they were on standby today if we had specific questions we wanted to to ask them um but I'm I'm sure they'd be available for us on on Tuesday this was their recommendation to to do it in that broad based classification method but um to keep the Fe low and uh and this it would generate they had a 5.2 million in their projected and we at this 25 and $50 charge would cover that Bond payment and some addition in their calculation for like a transfer or the cing Center we would also cover that well we have a lot to digest here so that I think next week we'll have more questions and comments and all of that commissioner yes thank you madam chair um years ago dealing uh and executive director of nonprofit and we had multiple uh cabins and uh in the cabins were bunk beds State Fire Department this is during a time when there was financial crunch so the state was looking for pockets of money money and they came to the State Fire Marshal and said we're going to just borrow your money we'll pay it back but we'll borrow it well they got used to having that pool of money so then they told the State Fire Marshal your funding which came from a percentage of all fire insurance which made sense it was logical now you're going to have to fund and what we're going to do is we're going to assess the fee on beds and so when they would come in the state you know that's supposed to be doing a safety check spent more time Counting beds and we had a cabin that would have eight beds you could sleep eight people in it so we were assessed eight times based upon what the criteria was if you went into a Holiday Inn and they had two queen beds in there they counted that which you could sleep four they counted that as two so when I heard what they were doing they said well if you don't like it you can go to this state capital and they're going to have a discussion and I did and and I said this is unfair it should be based upon a revenue basis which is an assessment and the tourist industry was just not going to have that at all well we ended up having the file because we felt it was unfair so my point is is that the basis under which you make your assessment needs to be something to the issue we've been talking about that it seems reasonably fair and it's driven by that effort the other thing is if this is like the business part this is this isn't assessment that will only run to the extent that the bond is paid off right and we won't find a way to say let's just keep this because it's nice to have that money we have to be upfront in saying what it is and why it is and the basis under which we've made it and let the public say this seems reasonable we understand it we all benefit so we're willing to do it when you take the additional levies that exist in this County on top of this and on top of the additional sales tax that we get to charge and whatever else we cannot continue to layer things unless the people that we serve believe that this makes sense so do we have all the information we need um Rowan will send the information to you and as soon as we can get it and you can distribute it to the Commissioners absolutely yep one last question and it doesn't have to be answered now but just is is is there a way that just a simple zoning or the tax classification could be used for I'm I'm hoping simple way to yeah I'm hoping to maybe look into that I can maybe like I I'll put together a spreadsheet that will say the partial count and the zoning and then you know you you guys could take and manipulate that a little bit and you know I can make it so a spreadsheet is interactive where you say if we set the fee at 30 or 20 or 10 you know how much does it does it raise I can do p and zoning and I can do p and class class ification two different options I I'll try and put together some some numbers that then you know you or Ellers or whoever wants to play with the financials of it they have a better idea of something that I'm more comfortable with like this is based off of your zoning and your parcel count if you own five Parcels yeah you're going to get hit five times well and I guess I was wondering about just tax classification as well as is SM value like is it is the is the fee a better way to do it or is the percentage on your property value and classific you know like I think that gets more messy especially because I think it's going to change every year if you do it as a straight level this is more like so it's it's harder to know when you're have the payback I mean if you do it as our Levy as our in the other General yep go Bond then it's one number CL it your tax system like any other that that's the that's the easiest the special assment that's why then it's by value they um I'm not sure exactly where the assessment started other than that's a bonding method typically for these kinds of projects yeah typ that's what I'm wondering was just like are we making this more complicated than we need to or is there or you know is is there whatever just an idea mhm yeah I would say if you make it complicated you're adding to the cost of the project because the operational cost of the county goes up and it's sort of a that's a hidden cost at that point Madam chair could could you in your pros and cons identify the the steps the biggest things that have to happen in order to manage all of this because I think what that what that has to do with is we need to answer this question we need to do this we need a decision from the board but we have to know from your perspective what are the things that have to happen here to keep us on track we should identify those things so we have a context to understand you know where you're coming from and what we need to be sensitive to I think from these guys it's just which build do you want right or is there it's that and then we can start the process of moving forward the applying the applying for a a permit is a perfect example of plan reviews like we brought the plans to a certain point um and we we stopped to get this information to say can we move forward with this you know that's really the answer that we're looking for yes we're going to move forward with it I'm a garbage man this all sounds really hard to me the stuff that you guys are talking about um but it sounds like it could take some time too well um just put it in context that General obligation like a levy we've already set our Levy so we can't put it on in that manner that's done for this year we could do it next year but a special assessment can be done so Brady could could we theoretically at the next meeting I'm just asking kind of could we could the board make a decision we're going to go with these options or this one option or these things atand whatever could they make that decision saying we're going to do that and then next meeting we're going to make or how we're going do we're going to do the bonding later so that so that does it those two things have to occur at the same time just I'm just wondering if we if we can make a decision so that we can move ahead with finalizing and starting the permitting knowing that the board's going to do it but they have haven't figured out all the how I'm just wondering if that's possible yeah Madam chair yeah I mean I see that as problematic only from the perception is that we say yes to something we don't know how we're going to fund straight out is what it is which seems to be irresponsible that's fair so that's understanding and having the conversation is good it just I I think that we we need to know we need to know how we're going to fund it sure before we say the yes to something and say well we'll deal with that letter because if from the taxpayer standpoint that's the question I want to no answered is yeah I can see the value but what's it going to cost me so I I really think we should try to figure that out I'm just try that's my opinion I it just it just feels like yeah it's more complicated it might delay it right which I think our balance in that is to try to say yes but are we willing to do that at compromis and we're on every relationship we're trying to build trust so exactly yeah but but I but but my fear is that that the that process takes so long that we end up losing the other funding yeah no I understand Madam J to that end can we not have a special meeting get the information we need to have and as soon as we get it and know it's going to be forthcoming on this date we put out a public notice that the Commissioners will be having a special meeting to make this decision as opposed to waiting for another business meeting next month I me I understand the urgency of this I understand and agree with commissioner gamble about process and about transparency and like the more information the better we have I mean we have to have all the information go forward but having a special meeting that this is what we're going to talk about and approve we never had one of those we can decide that after we get together next week I mean it might be possible Madam chair that at our next meeting we can these decisions we'll see what information come back then if we need a special but Madam chair I think with that in mind the people that have to do that how doable is that for you and Brady I think it it we can we can come up with some of the numbers to determine what that where that fee might have to land to end up with these same numbers in the end of the day relatively simply we're actually simplifying what was more complicated I think by changing it to a parcel and Zoning type fee and like I said it I think you'll have enough information even as early as next week because you could you can literally just take the Sprint sheeet if I develop it so it's interactive you can put in the fee for commercial residential and it'll you know it calculate it calculate it all that way the other thing is is was 5.2 million and you know we're getting closer to 5.9 if we're going to include both of those so that's so if we give them some these final more final numbers they can adjust and the numbers before were $25 a year or something 25 25 assuming 10,000 okay there would be 10,000 Parcels for residential and so okay so maybe the difference would be 26 and they built they built it in with a little extra okay good we'd be collecting about 383,000 would cover the bonds and um get ready for if we added or recycled didn't have the numbers yet um chair a question I had I guess I probably could have asked a lot earlier but you said you're doing 125 cubic yards a day a week right during the busiest week that's what our regulatory limit is a day okay do you know what this building is projected it could handle a day that's part of the permitting process they identify that based on square footage cubic footage of the building area things like that um I can tell you that we did go a little bigger than needed with the anticipation of what we've seen for growth over the last 12 years um and what could happen um storage isn't my concern storage and being able to operate Machinery at the same time is my concern me we could fill that building up and you know not get rid of garbage for a month but to be able to operate Machinery to load and so on and so forth is and really maybe it's because it's indoors it's no longer regulated to that we can shut the doors it's all enclosed right so the trucks are loaded maybe they don't go till the next day but they're not outoors and okay another piece of food for thought down in toy I know a lot of people that gather for social Gatherings down there when they're ding off trash on Sundays a little coffee room oh did you notice that oh yes I hear about it all the time that's where like all the news gets shared and it's such a small little place too by cars are parked in and nobody can get around and that's why we're getting us shap you know if you guys want to chat that's fine but just outside the gate on the right hand side is where that coffee maker is going we you know we bought broy that nice new shed I know so that he'd have heat and we could gather with him there too put a coffee maker in there already done anything else so we have some good things for next week thank you for providing all of that and for you coming today that's the whole purpose that we created committee the whole over 10 years ago so that people can hear what's going on and and understand that when it comes before the board we have good information thank you thank you everyone so on our information here the standing minutes from the standing committees uh airport and budget and building and Highway and Personnel all included in the package meeting is a Jour always goes where you can't reach it I know sure you can leave the table set up like this we have another meeting I'll do it oh