everyone I'll call the meeting of the County Board of Commissioners regular meeting to order where we are supporting community Through quality public service to begin our meeting I will ask you to stand for the pledge I pledge algi to the flag of the
United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all are there any adjustments to the agenda hearing none I'll have a motion
to approve the agenda Madam chair motion to approve the agenda as presented support all in favor I I oppose same sign at this time we uh take a little bit of time for public comment period this is an opportunity for citizens to
appear before the board is anyone um wanting to come before the board yes so please sign in and um with your name and address good morning Commissioners and staff morning I'm Mike Carlson I live in Upper
cille on high 61 um I have a basic Mantra I'd like to share with you don't speak unless you can improve upon the silence maybe I should have stop there
but nevertheless let me share a few little thoughts that I have for you I've been thinking about the issues that you face as for some time you need to make timely decisions you of course gather as much information as you can and have
seek advice to help you decide the choices might include replace the thing with the same if it's still available tested and repl placement or a little tested promising
idea well still there would be concerns you have lowest price you have best value quickest fix local service and more variables than you can imagine may you do well as you have to find the best
compromise there is a second page here okay I trust that you will make good decisions based on your reading of constituents need of the county budget concerns and your heart thank you again as you continue in your poorly REM
poorly remunerated public service car through the governance herck County thank you very much thank you Mike anyone else wish to speak good morning morning morning Arvis Thompson um
we the public have heard you say that you want public input you've said that for years under your current system the public has a huge disadvantage in providing any pertinent timely
input we find out on a Friday what's to be discussed or decided on Tuesday that leaves Monday to try and connect with a staff who who can answer the questions then we try to process and be
ready for Tuesday's board so let's say the public does get the information that they need to decide to speak at the board meeting it's out of sync the public input comes before the board's
discussion of issues because it's out of sync does that public input get heard or ignored it doesn't always feel like you really hear or care about what the public may have to
say so the question is does anyone take the public input seriously an example on today's agenda there is an item dealing with the interview process for the County Administrator one piece is the personal
interview should a zoom interview be considered well public sentiment seems to be no to zoom zoom is impersonal there's no eye contact there's no reading of body
language there's no sense of personal response there's no connection the question is how serious is this individual meeting who they would be working for should be of great
importance to them if they are truly interested in the who let alone the where the other discussion s uh surrounds the composition of the interview team I'm sure you will be discouraged
from adding citizen participation we citizens have skills we are open-minded we are interested in what is good for all of us having citizen participation tells the interview interview e that you are
serious in your effort to find a person who will be responsive to the people of Cook County not only the board and its employees citizens will offer a different perspective they have nothing
to gain or lose just an honest sense of who fits citizens will not be in a position in the future to feel loyalty or responsib ility for the choice should he
be a good choice or a poor pit to narrow a field of interviewers places a burden on that team to have to defend their choice in the future please consider adding citizens
you spent time a good deal of time and money getting this far if you trust and follow the system system you've already designed and can live with the outcome
citizens can give you another impartial perspective after all a citizen is only one vote away from a commissioner thank you thank you and I believe there's nobody else in the audience who wish to come forward so we'll move on to the consent agenda
Madam chair I do have some public comments to read you want me to shut the light um I think I can read them thank you I have uh three emails that came in that were requested to be read during
public comment these are from Don Davidson I recently contacted a nationally recognized professional real estate off office asking for an evaluation of our home as a home I also
asked that they evaluate our home as a vacation rentals what a surprise as a regular home they said we were as a regular home they said we were worth five is that better $529,000 as a
VRBO or BNB $668,000 this tells me that Cook County is purposely overvaluing Homestead property and this needs to stop we're not all renting our properties out for short-term rentals look up our current
tax evaluation it's almost $700,000 the county is purposely screwing Homestead owners with your tax policy this needs to stop please make this public comment at the next County board meeting people need to know how
the county is actively involved in this process of overvaluing property and making our taxes higher than they should be that email was followed by this one we've lost so many friends who have moved away over the last 3 years you
know why you and the County Board have made it nearly impossible to live here you keep trying more people you keep hiring more people so you can say that our courthouse is too small you keep taking homes off the homestead list so
they can be vacation rentals the increases in taxes are unsustainable and you keep giving unjustified pay raises to County Employees based on fraudulent studies you don't owe your soul to the greedy people or to greedy employees you
owe your soul to your elected constituency please stop what you are doing you are making it impossible for us to continue to live here or pretty soon you won't be able to live here either please make this public comment at your next meeting that was followed
by this email I have have just sent two emails please make sure that they are printed as part of the agenda read aloud and made part of the public record and Sullivan has a history of ignoring emailed public comments please assure me that my views will be made public at the
meeting thank you has anyone else received any comments they would wish to read okay and then the consent agenda items we have claims and minutes and so on and so forth is
anyone excuse me um needing to go further into any of these if not I'll hear a motion to approve as whole Madam chair I'll move to approve the consent agenda as
written support all in favor I I oppose same sign we um mam chair excuse me if I could just make it make a comment um on the consent agenda you know when I go through this and I look at it and coming in Midstream respectfully
understanding there's been a lot of work that's been done and then I come into it and so I don't necessarily have a lot of background on it but uh to the point of of U trying to be as as open and uh
helpful to allow the public to understand when we have a consent agenda it's to facilitate process processes and we don't need to deal with everything because we have background to a lot of this but but there are those in the public that don't and I don't know that our our packet
necessarily puts these things into context so the reason I bring it up simply to say is that given the stewardship responsibly entrusted to us um if if we streamline processes because we have a lot of things to to deal with
that we need to discuss uh it it would be good if there was some way that would make this easier to understand some of these things that we simply group together and make a decision on so I think it's just a it's
a a challenge for us to uh provide context for a lot of these things if you if you can appreciate you know where I'm coming from on this I think the Public's at a disadvantage when we have a consent agenda which I I
think is good to facilitate in process time but I think it also is problematic in that there's a lot of things on there that the Public's not aware of and and to the extent that we could help them understand some of these things too then they can identify with our decisions
when we when we do things most of these things are hires or a permit or uh appointments so um if there's any large um question then you certainly can as we say pull it and we'd have a more
discussion later on no no I understand that but but still I think even un when we you know listen to what the public comments you know where they soring there needs to be context on those things that that people are are are
questioning and so that's what I'm saying if we look at this we we see an outline and we raise our hand and we you know by motion we approve them I'm just saying if there's some way that we can clarify some of these things and put them in context and they change you know
from week to week and there were questions that I had here and because I'm coming in we'll call it Midstream and um I was able to have a discussion with ran Rowan this morning to put context for me so I'm imagining if that's me what about people that don't
have context at all M white on to that end uh I had requested um a while back that we just identified that we are going to approve the hire of Emily westerland as assistant County attorney just to list
what the I can't read just to list what the items are but then to commissioner gamble statement that's where it the items should be pulled if there's I think a higher is pretty straightforward but maybe it's not to
the listening public or you know the where and wise um but like on on this asent consent agenda is the Emergency Management performance grant that might be something that should have been pulled
just to explain in two sentences what it is and what it's for and but we did not do that but I do think we should uh because there are some people that will get their information solely
from solely from listening to this if we speak into our microphones so they can hear us so uh because they won't read the newspaper they won't listen to wtip they are not on Facebook they are not on other things there's no criticism
there's no statement one way or the other but this is where they get their information and so if we just say well we're hiring this person and this person is retiring if they need more information we five are here our phone numbers are
there give us a call or call the the interim administrator at this point for more information they have a responsibility to do their homework also it's not totally our responsibility but we do need
to tell people what is in the ascent consent I think Madam chair I just wanted to say in reference to the Emergency Management Grant like that item under consent agenda I did connect with Mike Keyport about
that and evidently it's something that is approved every year um and so that's why he felt it was more appropriate under consent agenda and also he was not going to be here today but um I guess I just share that you know I did connect
with him and be like you know should this be not under consent agenda and he felt it was appropriate there so I just wanted to share that right and and putting the agenda together it's um inim um Watkins myself and Janna so we
make a point of maybe um listing a little more information or at least saying um this is what we have on the agenda and going through each item so that it's publicly announced is that what you're asking okay Madam chair if I
if I may the Emergency Management uh Grant would be a good example because I as a commissioner looking at it um and I see that Emergency Management Grant we're thinking well grant that means money that's coming into the county that
isn't going to affect the levy but the the fact of the matter is that as is with many grants it's a matching grant that means therefore that those funds coming in we have to agree to match that amount which is1 15,000 some dollars so
then my question is was that built into the budget and because it's an annual thing we anticipate and so we we build it into our budget but that's something that the public doesn't deal with so if the procession is perception is is that this money we're getting in there is our
responsibility to match that money so it's things like that just just in full disclosure it's helping people understand and and if we help people understand then they can inform us as representatives of them you know because they're more informed that's that's all
just encouraging how how can we maybe help to make things clear thank you suggestion we'll work on that in in the future with um administrator Watkins because we have a public hearing at 9:00 a.m. I want to be
respectful of that sure and um so I'm going to move around a little bit because I know Robbie's here and he's going to have a good detailed presentation so I'm going to move around to um auditor Brady uh under 8A to talk about
that Solid Waste Management sure so this is the discussion we've been having uh around Northshore waste project and the bonding for that and the the first step in setting a fee a solid
waste fee in the statute we're going to be following statute 4.08 and in that we need to establish the service area in this case it'll be the entire County so to follow this as a
um you know a regular process you you have to hold a public hearing so today this is just asking you to set the public hearing to establish the district as the county um and to set that public hearing on February 25th at 10
a.m. um and then at that meeting after the public hearing if you so decide then you'll set another uh public meeting after that to actually set those fees that you've already looked at and discussed and agreed to but this will
formally fit the statute for the bonding any questions or comments commissioner gamble Madam chair is willing to make a motion if you're okay open to that so he a motion is there a second a motion to
establish Sol Waste Management Services public meeting public hearing that'll be February 25th 2025 at 10:00 a.m. support any questions or comments I just had a question normally we have public hearings at 99 and so I was wondering
the just the rationale for 10 yeah the rationale is we have a public hearing set at 9:00 a.m. for the miscellaneous fees okay those regular ones so so an hour yeah that'll give us enough time for whatever happens between
okay I have a motion and second all in favor oppose same sign motion passes unanimously okay and if you want to go on there Grady Brady about the Minnesota county
information system sure so that's one um I debated whether to put that on consent agenda because it's a fairly routine thing but just given that it it isn't something that comes up very often um
that it should stay on the agenda here but it's it's a simple change we have a an agreement with Minnesota County's Information Systems to host our um it's a it's an
IBM uh equipment that we used to a large computer we used to have here and then we decided because they were offering this service to have m msus host that for us so we don't have that in our building any longer and many of the
counties are doing that it simplifies they can work on that equipment there the only change here is they're not able to keep that equipment at itasa County which is where emus is located they've decided they can't host that anymore at itasa so they had to search for another
location uh the location is in buiji it's called the Paul bunions Communication company in buiji so they're simply changing our hosting agreement for that new location the change in fees is uh very
minor and Rowan can explain this much better than I yeah well I didn't we used to have Star Wars figures on the old computer in there or something we had something I think that was sitting on there former system administrator Kevin twe uh like Legos there was Legos that's
right there was Legos yeah yeah so my question was that just just that because of the fee structure being what it is in in our minutes here in the agenda didn't into use it it was negligible it's about $220,000 now and we've been paying about
what uh not much I don't know exactly but not much different and this has spread over several counties yeah in a year's time so it's it's a few dollars yeah difference thank you if I could I I would just add that
it it's a specialized facility they're they're a data center whereas who was hosting it formerly was itasa County and you know at at kind of a a great operational expense and some concern on their end so I think this is a more appropriate fit it's this is what they
do is they hold these types of of systems and and maintain it it's their specialty so I think PA bun Communications right it's a Data Center and it makes sense thank you Mills fin only question is um mcit is uh
listed in here twice is that supposed to be mcis yes okay thank you any other comments or questions like to make a motion to um uh approve the revised Minnesota County's information system hosting
agreement and I'll second that motion any further questions or comments all in favor oppose same sign motion passes unanimously well we have a few minutes here and I'm going to just skip way to the end because this is an important
topic to be thinking about um we did not add on to the um um Coming meetings about our legislative meeting coming up the end of this month from the 25th to the 27th and uh what we need to be thinking about in the next couple weeks is what
are we going to talk to our legislators about um we'll meet with Senator hild and with representative scraba now that they're back at work physically and um um we have found over the last couple
three years is that when we go into their office we are also with other counties and we're all trying to get their attention and so um commissioner Sullivan has put together a uh paper and on that we hand it to them to say please
read this at your convenience um because we know that you know Lake County has concerns and itaska and all that so let's be thinking about what we think would be important to have um our representatives and Senator um help us
with and um we can send those um to Rowan and then we'll tabulate those at our last uh before our last meeting and have that um discussion at our board meeting if there's anything else and then we'll take that with us um because
we want to make sure that we have the essence of time with them but realizing we can't all talk individually um at times we have an overview of where we're from and maybe the top concern but if you leave a piece of paper they have time then to to digest that after we
leave commissioner Sullivan thank you madam chair um one of the important things also is to get input from department heads um as they work with other groups through AMC and we can look at what is realistic given the session that we have and the times that we're
working in um also it's very important to leave print material with the administrative assistance for both our Senator and representatives that is really critical and if we can even send that in advance so they have an opportunity to think about the topics
that we're going to discuss also this Thursday we have our community leadership group and it's really critical we go with one voice for Cook County that we're thinking about County government but we're thinking about the other entities the school district um
the business Community the hospital all the different entities so that we are more likely to be heard yes include everyone commissioner gamble thank you madam chair
um I'm I'm sure we maybe done this in the past but it's advisable when you reference uh the the fact with our lead ership meeting when we look at internally all of the different aspects within you know County governance but when we look at to your comment about
Lake County and the other counties are coming before these Representatives if if we it gets unwieldy but if we can coordinate the voices that we're hearing in within our County as well as with counties that have similar issues as
well as with the district meetings that come from the association of Minnesota counties that identify our priorities if all of those things become Collective our voice becomes louder so I think there's Advantage as opposed to we've often you know been in positions of
decision- making where we have entities come before and everybody wants to one up the other one I think if if we have this coordinated effort uh somehow be able to facilitate that it would reinforce the importance because affects a lot more people than just the
individualism that comes with each County okay so department heads and everyone else be thinking about this and discussion when we have our community meeting it is now
it's really close to 9:00 a.m. would you think so I'll turn this over to Brady then we're going to talk about the Caribou Lake Watershed subordinate District special assessment thank you madam chair so a little background many years ago the board is
established this service district and uh they let it lapse in 2021 when it was again renewed and for a new fee over a 5-year period um these districts are
established under state law of course and uh so in 2021 we did not the board did not let it expire so the the District still exists but now it's asking for uh financing again because
the last financing was to last for 5 years and this time the uh it the request came from the kibou lake Property Owners Association and uh Tom Ryder I believe is here representing them uh Tom you
might want to come forward if there's any questions so they've made the actual request this time for a fee of $250 over the next 5-year period per each of the property owners in this
Caribou Lake subordinate Service District includes both Caribou Lake and bsby Lake but it's the Caribou Lake Association that requested it and the reason it's coming here for a public hearing it's not by State Statute
because the district is created but because uh the board wanted to make sure that everyone in that area both caribou and Bigsby were notified of this so you directed the auditor's office to send notices to each of the property owners
which we did and then publish this notice of the public Hearing in the paper and uh I think we can let Tom speak to the purpose of it and why uh they're asking for such a large increase this time from uh what was asked for
four years ago so may you can give them some background on that sure glad to good morning um yeah the reason why we're here asking for an increase is because of the unfortunate arrival of a an invasive species in the
lake uh first noticed about 3 years ago and uh the increased cost would be to address uh that invasive species um the the fee was set years ago at a level that was appropriate for the water
quality work that that we do and that's about um 12 bucks a year per taxpayer so that covers um water quality testing that we've been doing for decades uh to protect the lake but um that level of
assessment is not enough to deal with the invasive species we developed a plan we've implemented that last summer we used our own cash reserves to pay for that uh so now we're kind of used that up so it's not a sustainable path
forward so we're hoping for this increase excuse me so that we can continue to implement this plan each Summer and the plan involves harvesting we'll never be able to eradicate um these Rusty crayfish as the invasive
species um but by harvesting we can keep the numbers down to a level where the negative impacts of them will be mitigated and those negative impacts relate to Fisheries um the fish population would be reduced uh the
native crayfish uh multiply exponentially we've already seeing that they eat up all the grasses the grasses uh are um absorb nutrient pollution um they're
also a place for fish to breed and lay their eggs so fish population will come down um and potentially the water quality will be degraded so those are the impacts negative impacts of the rusty crayfish uh what we're doing is harvesting just to keep the numbers down
to minimize the impacts um so it again it's about $12 per taxpayer is what they're paying currently we're looking for an additional $38 a year for these efforts
to combat the invasive species when I attend the Caribou Lake Association meetings thinking about 5 years ago when we would have a report about well we're watching it in other lakes and now all of us sudden in the last couple years they're in the lake
that we all enjoy fishing and motor boating and all of that so you could only have so many Rusty crayfish barbecues and then you have to have help so that's um that's where they're at right now U commissioner gamble thank
you madam chair thank you Tom um so I'm assuming the Lake Association when you recognize this and with your uh monitoring the quality of the water and things that that people on the lake are are aware of
the findings and what's going on so there's discussion there's a letter that went out and the response to that everybody wanted to protect you know the the the resource the gift that that you have on that lake so what was the nature of the the discussions leading up to
this public here hearing into what the proposal is that's before the board here um we've had pretty extensive discussions we've had um several meetings we have meetings twice a year of our association our our association is
voluntary um uh but I would say about a third of the land owners you know stakeholders are typically there at a meeting and at several meetings in a row we raised it we for discussion there was good discussion there were we took a
vote uh and it was unanimous everybody at the meeting said yeah we want to do this we're glad to pay 50 bucks a year so I feel like we have very broad support um uh from our membership unanimous support uh the board has been
discussing it for a while um we've considered various approaches and the only one that really makes any sense is is the harvesting we hired the CW daddies last summer you may have heard them they are commercial fishermen um they started on a Pike Lake which is
where these things came from um they harvest them they sell them to the trout to Fisherman's daughter um so we hired them to come to Caribou to harvest to sort of supplement our efforts and they were terrific but it seemed clear that even that effort
was inadequate because they continue to grow exponentially both in numbers and in range so they they they sort of are Marching across the lake sort of almost apocalyptic as you see them spreading um and there's you know it's
really hard to slow it down so we need to up our game even further which we hope to do next summer and we have several strategies we're I met with cedral the Pines yesterday they seem very enthusiastic about helping uh to harvest U we'll hire the caddies
potentially again um but all that takes funding in particular hiring the cow daddies cuz I mean you know that's thank you that's the bulk of our expenses Madam Chair say we we received
from all those letters sent four comments and they were all positive chair and I spoke with one of your um Property Owners on there and very very much in favor of this explaining every effort you have made to
get the information out and understanding that this is part of the excuse me that this and understanding that this is part of the process to have this hearing but really concerned about feeling a little overwhelmed with those invasive species so um it sounds like
it's a greatly support it's a highly supported effort need it's good to hear it kind of the problem speaks to the connectedness of all the lakes in our County you know this came from Pike it went through murmur Creek
um to bsby and then from bsby into Caribou you know all these lakes and streams are connected and and these things once there's an introduction here before you know it it's going to be there so it's to some extent you know
other Lakes should pay attention and and really be as Vigilant as they can and in dealing with this so and we're a resource available for anybody that's interested in hearing our experience um we're glad to share it M gam thank you madam chair um we were
um at the University of Minnesota extension and this was a big topic that was discussed uh as a focus during that recent meeting this last week so um as we become aware of how things impact us
in our in our County certainly we have partners that are trying to assist in in helping and identifying the problems and trying to find the best way to address it I my initial question is to find out when you have people that are in agreement and come alongside it just tends to lend energy to be able to
achieve what you hope to do so that's a good thing y so I will make a motion to approve the $250 special assessment fee in 2025 for each of the property owners within the Caribou Lake Watershed subordinate Service District for use
over a 5-year period from 202 through 2029 last support any further comments or questions thank you madam chair just to clarify um from my understanding if the assessment was $12 and it was going to
go to $38 no go to 50 so it was the 38 which would be 50 yeah is $38 more more correct and and this motion is 250 over over five years so it's $50
perod it's up to Brady if he wants to do it $50 a year or 250 once every 5 years that clarification yeah that should be part of the motion as to how to do that you had you were asking for the 250 at
one time we really don't have a strong preference at my feeling whatever is administratively easier for you e either is is fine is the the letter
sent the letter that was sent out um says 200 a one-time assessment of 250 to cover the needed uh work over the next five years I think that was sort of the model that was established in the
past where we did it once every five years you know I think it it might be a little better to do it $50 a year in terms of public perception because there there will be people who get their taxes and will say oh my gosh 250 a year that's a lot yeah they don't realize it's only once every five years no
that's it's not an administrative difficulty these are um so let I would recommend then doing $50 a year for five year each of five years okay so I will amend it then to approve the motion at $50 per year um
as a special assessment I'll support up commissioner sterley and I'd just like to add however that $50 this year is going to go a lot farther than $50 in five years yes so if maybe just not to
refute what the the motion but to get the money up front but then there's the homeowners so if if the association I think if they would prefer to have $50 a year then we
should go with that knowing their their cons or their neighbors as it were I I I think it's probably politically a little more palatable and easier for people to understand but once every 5 years we found in the past has been a little
awkward and we would get those questions oh oh you know is this every year um I just think it's a little easier and we have you know some savings if we need to balance out our cash flow from one year year to the next so I think the 50 would might be more
sensible so that's how I amended it everybody agreeing on that if somebody wants to pay the full 250 that's up to them but they have a choice of $50 per year right okay all right just so we have all that okay so we have a motion
and did I get a second okay all in favor hi uh passes unanimously I'm still back with the $50 okay thanks so much thank you very much appreciate it I would I would like to add that when I was speaking with the the homeowner on that Lake I in her
telling I envisioned if you've ever seen the uh uh during the um Dust Bowl the movies where they're trying to beat out the locusts coming in to save their crop that was the impression I got from the homeowners on Caribou Lake trying to
hold back the crayfish in the water in the water yes thank you commissioner Mills and and um you know it's got to be very frustrating and difficult and it's a a perfect example to both figuratively and
literally work Upstream do preventative measures so we really want to lean on uh our aquatic invasive species team to to work on that so appreciate the efforts that that Caribou lake is taking
thank you thank you for coming Tom thank you thank you now we are going to have a presentation by Highway engineer Robbie who has a full gamut of projects
going on with Bridges all the bridges all the bridges all of them good morning everybody good morning morning um so we are already on the fifth annual presentation of one of these so this is
kind of the overview yeah um of what we've been doing this last summer what we're doing this coming summer and then I'm not going to go every Pro go over every project on the 10-year plan but that's kind of part of this approval process or this presentation and then also you'll see in
there really the Crux of it is um approving a 5-year Bridge priority list and so that lists all the bridges at least that I know of um that uh we would like to replace in the next 5 years uh the reason I say that I know of is because sometimes you actually find a
bridge that we didn't know about so it happens uh but this helps uh funding this helps things like we discussed before about lobbying efforts uh saying because this resolution gets submitted and gets combined with all the other counties so you can go to the legislature and say hey this is why we
need a bonding bill this is why we need Bridge bonds this is why we need infrastructure money so that's kind of the big picture with this but we focus on Cook County now for a little bit so it's a picture of our interns from this last summer I've talked about that a little bit here before is a ton of fun
um I intend to do that program again I think we're only going to do two though four was kind of a lot uh but why not start big and figure it out from there so um things will go over like I said we'll go over 2024 how those projects went 2025 kind of a look ahead uh Design
Services that we have out there um I'll go over alternative funding a little it uh and then just a quick summary you can see we have one of our inspectors Scott literally holding up the bridge so that's some of the conditions of our structures out there uh so
2024 um Alfred Creek and so this is down on Alfred Creek Road there kind of towards the West End uh great project to get done you can see the before and the bottom you know the bottom picture and then what it looked like afterwards so it's amazing what a little hydraulic analysis and site surveying can do to
say hey this is really undersized that's a a problem I'm seeing a lot in our projects and so this huge scale up is becoming less and less surprising to me the more we do these projects um and so this this project was funded through Bridge bonds and through a little bit of
Levy and TST funds Bridge bonds for us can typically cover 99% of a project um most of the time we uh because we're so small we can cover 99% of the project that's written in statute um there's some some costs from the levy are
locally that we do have to cover no matter what um and most of the time it's approach costs so basically just grading the road so it fits into the project it's typically $10 to $20,000 so it's Pennies on the dollar when you're talking about in this case an $880,000
project um so what's great with that is again $880,000 from bridge bonds we had a little bit of kick in there um you can see what the original bid was to the final cost we had some additional costs as far as The Detour that was proposed and that was used um some of the rain if
you remember that happened earlier in the summer and in the spring washed out one of the crossings so we had to put that back and so that's where you see the additional cost from but uh Northland did a great job um keep this picture in mind because the next agenda item once we're through this we'll talk about is going to be very similar to
this project uh our heated garage it was another great project that got done that was something we had been working on for about two years I think if I remember M to talk about um we had worked that through our Highway committee we had worked that through a committee of the whole and we've talked about it at the
board meeting a few times originally started as a cold storage facility after we did kind of A needs assessment um with the capital Improvement plan while that was getting done we were also working on this and so it really pivoted into you know a heated facility would
treat us a lot better and work for us long-term allow better than just another cold storage building so funding for that comes from our state aid allocations we get money from the state every year portions of that can get spent on buildings actually um and
so and then our undesignated fund balance which we've talked about a lot before Rice Lake uh Constructors was our general contractor on it we had a GMP of 2 and a half million and right now we're just finalizing some punch list items obviously it gets cold up here pretty quick so they have to come back uh in
the spring and you know go through the seeding and that type of stuff so over overall great project to get done or almost done um our project up in Grand Portage this year and so if you remember that is a realignment of Casas 17 uh the reason
for that project was to really take vehicular traffic off of the historic Stone Bridge that's up there and so that's where we are realigning the road we're building a new bridge and so that old historic Bridge stays in place but it becomes a pedestrian facility and so
really it's just a trail through there now a walking path um and and vehicles are going to be on the new alignment um we had some pretty big design changes happen kind of in the middle of construction with this if you remember the conversations that were happening uh with the DNR kind of threw a wrench in a
lot of things we eventually sorted it all out but that caused the bridge to actually get longer and procurement times to actually delay the project um and so right now the approach spans are built it's a three span structure uh so the the first and the third spanner
built the middle span is not there right now uh so we're just waiting for that to get here hopefully it should wrap up pretty early once the snow melts we can get that done um there's a couple other little things we need to clean up up there as well since it's still open uh but you can see Redstone construction
they've done a great job uh kgm was their sub that did a lot of the earth work up there they do a lot of work for us here uh you can see the original bid was just under $2.6 million uh so it's kind of a light 2024 All Things Considered I know that was three projects but I don't like to be bored so
I like you know four or five let's ramp it up a little bit so 2025 what's going on um tofy Park Road we've talked about that a lot here um that was recently awarded to kgm for 7 about three4 of a million dollars um it's a great great
reason why we have the TST fund the transportation sales tax fund that exists up here that half cent sales tax um it's for projects like this and so that my opinion on that is is that so we'll start that after the July 4th parade up
there that was a thing that the township was very very keen on we didn't want to interrupt that and so we'll start this after that and it's a Mill and overlay and partial reconstruction so it's been a great process working with the township working with the land owners on this to really dial in uh this
project uh Spruce Creek uh which we'll actually talk about next but another project up to uh that we're going to construct down on Cascade Beach Road Bridge replacement very similar to the Alfred Creek one that we just went over um and so that was awarded to Northland
uh Constructors or hopefully will be awarded to Northland Constructors uh for about $810,000 this is going to be funded through town Bridge funds and so if you guys remember all the UT signs that allowed us to access these Town Bridge funds so again
$10 to $20,000 out of our local money the rest of it is funded through this other account and we'll start that in early June uh Gunflint multi-use Trail so if you remember the one we finished from Highway 61 next to GES there up to County Road 7 this will be a
continuation of that so we'll continue up the Gunflint around the LEC behind my office behind the school all the way to Fifth Avenue and then turn down Fifth Avenue and finish in front of the recycling center um the portion that'll be on Fifth Avenue is going to be a six
foot wide sidewalk just to match into what's already there the rest of it will be a 10- foot wide multi-use Trail and so this one was interesting we have a whole bunch of different acronyms for alternative funding uh at state and federal level so you have the TA funds
which we were awarded it's Transportation Alternatives uh that was $450,000 I believe um active Transportation funds which is state funded I think was another hundred something, uh and then CRP funds which
is carbon Reduction Program funds um it was very minuscule about $199,000 just because we tried to account for inflation and there was money available so why not why not take it um like I said 10 foot wide multi-use Trail 6 foot wide sidewalk down Fifth Avenue West
right now it's getting reviewed I'm hoping to have it out forbid in March it's a little later than I would prefer but it's a small project it's wholly funded through everything else so I'm not super worried about it I'm assuming uming one of the projects I'll talk about in a minute that contractor is probably going to bid on this one if I
had to bet this one M the hill and little devil track River so this is a massive project actually we're doing some research and it's the largest one we can think of in recent history that we are going to deliver um so this is about all things
considered there's three projects rolled into this one um you have the resurfacing of the Gunflint Trail little lane widening couple of intersection and improvements and the bridge replacement um you have the resurfacing of cut off road there that's a separate project and
then there's actually we're partnering with soil and water here to do they're working on some little devil track River stream restoration so all of that's kind of happening at the same time um overall we're talking about about 11.5 million dollar for everything uh that was
awarded to kgm pretty recently uh but you can see we have a ton of different funding sources on this project to make it happen about $9 million overall in Grants that we have secured in order to do this project we can't do this project without all of those funding sources so
I'm very excited for this one this will be big um I was bugging Rowan and Gan actually pretty recently about the status of the contract because our contractor was asking when can they start and I said yesterday because this is going to be massive and they need to get in there the sooner the better so
that'll be a good one uh Design Services so we work with consult on top of doing our own designs inhouse um obviously we got to keep everybody busy and fed on our staff but there's plenty of work to do and so a lot of it we do consult out especially
if the project is is too complicated for us um there's certain projects like if it's an actual Bridge you know instead of just the Culvert we can't do that in-house so we have to call somebody to do that uh but in-house stuff uh was a little start with Woods Creek there's a series of culverts there along Woods
Creek that we are working on replacing um and is a creative uh way to look at it to help restore Woods Creek back to its natural habitat meaning I think those pipes are undersized and so we're finalizing the Hydraulics right now to kind of verify that um part of that is
also they'll be we're talking about Paving part of Linc Road just the first quarter mile or so from Highway 61 that kind of gets you up some really steep stuff and around a curve um that is that is pretty problematic and so I'm hoping for that we're looking at 2027
Construction um funding could be a slew of different things the pipes could be Bridge bonds outdoor Heritage fund likes funding stream restoration um but then also Levy and TST dollars can go towards that Paving component on the road uh Casper Hill Road uh there's a
culvert up there I know this is this is kind of a random one and this really came from a coordination with our maintenance staff so every year every other year that road washes out basically blows out uh during the Spring melt and we have to rebuild it um when
you look at it it's just a culvert that sits you know 8 ft below the road kind of in the middle of the stream barely trickles but for some reason however it works up there it completely washes out every year so that's when we identified uh that we're going to upsize um and so
that'll be wholly Levy funed that is tax dollars spent on that um and so we're aiming for 2027 construction on that one couple other in-house things we've talked about the Gunflint Trail a lot obviously there's a of Pavement in this County a lot of the bad stuff resides on
the Gunflint Trail uh so one of them is the redoing the 92s and so it's about a four five mile stretch of road there you know just past midrail um what was really great is we were awarded $1.5 million through the local Road Improvement program that's State funds
um to go towards that project that's not going to cover anywhere near the total cost uh but it's still a huge chunk of funds to go towards it U so we're aiming for 2026 construction again that's something working on in-house right now and then kind of a last big one and it ties into some other things I've
discussed is our Crossing inventory survey um we have over a thousand Crossings in the county that we are responsible for and so those are all the culverts that are under the roads this doesn't include driveway colberts we're also responsible for those uh but these are the ones that are under the road and so what's interesting is just a
preliminary analysis of those we have over 90 that we've identified for upsizing uh 30 of those could become Bridges to give yeah to give you an idea of what that is we currently have a bridge inventory of 60 so if we added 30
it's quite the increase um so we're just trying to take it one thing at a time to see which one of these are problematic which are high priority um and really just kind of work on doing it what's great is where we can update this too as our staff updates you know replaces
culverts we update the inventory so it really helps us kind of formalize our work a little bit um devil Track Road so the chunk of it that's from the ball Club to the end of the pavement there another bad stretch of road bad stretch of pavement um lhb
is working on that design for us right now uh it's about $110,000 contract um that one I moved to 2026 I've been kind of bumping that one around as projects e and flow um you know priorities change we're trying to deliver what we can you know if funding is restricted or
something uh we had one public meeting back in May of 2023 already on that so we got some good public input already and this one would just be wholly state aid funded so again that money we get from the state every year would go towards this project uh a bridge uh you
can see way at the end of the arrowhead Trail there almost literally at the limits of what is ours and what we are responsible for there's a bridge there and so we're going to plan on replacing that in 2027 Ericson engineering is working on that for us right now and you can see with that one since it's on a UT
can be Town Bridge funds and we'll have to kick in probably a little bit but 99% of it's going to be Town Bridge funds lots of projects uh so the Otis Creek Bridge uh and then the arrowhead Trail resurfacing project that's one that's been talked about quite a bit as
well um lhb we're working with them on this uh again I I like working with lhb they do good work for us they treat us as a priority which I always appreciate um you know we're small up here in Cook County and sometimes that gets kind of pushed to the side but but they don't treat us that way so thanks lhb
um but there's kind of two parts to this project one of them is resurfacing the existing pavement and upsizing a culvert at Otis Creek and then another part that we've been exploring is actually extending that pavement all the way up to Irish Creek Road and so we had a
really big public meeting it was great I think commissioner white uh and I were there and turns out and I think if you bring food people show up but we had probably 50 plus people people there to hear this discussion which was wonderful we're going to hold another one um I want to say in March I think we have I'm
still working on a date and Exhibits and um figuring out a timeline that works for them to come up again but wonderful discussion um part of this project and it might be on the next slide is also resurfacing Chicago Bay Road and so that's just to the south of this uh but yeah a lot of work that's going on up
there so I'm pretty excited we had to push this one to 2026 though it was supposed to be done in 2025 um but just it's the nature nature of the business uh flute Reed River and so we've done a a few Bridge Replacements on the flute Reed already but it Bobs and weaves all over our County Roads and
so this one is kind is on the lower portion of the camp 20 Road um right now we're working with MSA another great consultant I enjoy working with uh the existing bridge is an undersized Culvert and so that's an area that floods a lot if you look at the Hydraulics and the survey info that was connected it's
actually creating a secondary River over there so you have normally the main river it's creating a second one because it floods so much so that's not good um so what we're actually going to do is be replacing that with a beam type structure again a bigger upsizing of what's there so it'll be a pretty big
difference um 2026 construction with that one and then fun fact this is the eighth poorest rated bridge on the entire local bridge system that means across the whole state thousands of bridges this is number eight so not something I'm proud of but fun
fact uh this was uh another project that'll is kind of unique and was kind of headed by our maintenance department a little bit is this Fall River restoration project reason our maintenance department brings it up is the southern Crossing there if you're familiar with County Road 6 uh is a big
dip in the road and it's one of those that basically it acts like a dam you can see how wide Fall River is and you can see how wide our Culvert is um it's not good and so just looking at it and going down there it's a very eerie feeling you feel like it's going to fall over at any point and so this is another
one we're working on MSA uh as I've mentioned before is working on the Hydraulics we're finalizing the bridge design uh we push this one to 2027 there's three Crossings here that need to be designed um and that's takes a little bit of work to do and so what's neat though is we're awarded $1.4
million from the outdoor Heritage fund to work on this and so I've mentioned that funding source before again stream restoration where in order to get the stream back to its natural state we have to put in a bridge and so that's been a good uh conversation with the folks down
there to talk in in those terms and especially when you can come with with Bridge bonding to match that as well so um it's been a really good discussion with that group enough about projects alternative funding um so it's something I try and hit on a lot uh we could not do the
volume of projects we do without all of this extra money um historically we've done one project a year or even zero projects a year if you look back to like 2009 um again I've said it before and I'll say it again I don't like to be bored my staff doesn't like to be bored
and so if we can do three four five six projects a year let's do it um there's plenty of work to do so you can see I've mentioned the UT stuff and the Town Road and town Bridge accounts just switching those few roads over to UTS and putting up the sign
that brings in $50,000 annually to us to help towards road maintenance similarly for the town Bridge account we get about $260,000 annually for that that'll pause once I replace all the bridges so that's a good thing uh but you can also access
other townbridge accounts if you need a little bit more funds for a project like that but you can see uh since 2021 we've been able to Garner about $18 million in outside funding and so I think we're averaging about $5 million a year so which is
awesome in short lots of projects lots of money a lot of high dollar stuff um you can see 2024 uh we had about $6 Million worth of construction 2025 we're aiming for about 14 and then the design service projects that we have out there another $15 million in
construction and I went through that real fast but anybody have any questions um commissioner gamble thank you madam chair uh thank you Robbie I haven't had the privilege of meeting you personally did
contact try to connect here but um uh very impressive and um uh I I think it's hugely important just underscore that your resourcefulness has contributed largely to our ability to uh attempt
these projects and um uh that that's a that's a huge value um it can be overwhelming because we have an awful lot of uh infrastructure and uh we have challenges with some of that infrastructure and uh we don't have a
lot of density and money coming from like counties that have a greater percentage of Revenue that come out of Levy from property tax as opposed to our pilt funds that were you know constantly negotiating to try to keep them so it
helps us out so your resourcefulness is is is huge um the other thing is just um the partnership relationships that you develop with the contractors and uh the Consultants that you bring I with regard I think it'd be
helpful with the Gunflint project the 92 project that is slated for 2026 you said that 1.5 million of that was coming from these lrip funds and U do you know what the projected cost on that project is overall I I think right
now we're hovering around the 4ish million doll Mark which is kind of tracking with what we're seeing as far as cost per mile with you know reconstruction or rehabbing roads it is more expensive to do business up here to do construction so I'm not I'm not
surprised if if that project is in that four to five million range and so there's there's other funding sources out there Road money is actually kind of hard to find uh Bridge money is a little bit easier yeah uh but yeah so the one and a half is probably covering quarter of it or so if it comes in lower great
if anyone wants to throw in a two or $3 million bid have had it and and the reason I I bring it up in your presentation which appreciated is is just to understand between now and projected you know start and completion data on this you've got this much money
where are you going to find the other money right and it speaks to the issue of resourcefulness and and when you set out and envision that there's something you want to tackle so you won't be bored but then you also have to figure out how I'm going to get the rest of that money and
uh so that's why the discussion is just you know to help the board as well as the public understand and reinforce the fact that you're resourceful so appreciate that thank you and and to any any shortfall you know my goal with all the grants and kind of all that
alternative funding is to just I guess very bluntly say have someone else pay for it have a different account of money pay for our stuff the gunflints of state aid Road and so that state aid money we get every year can go towards that project yeah and so you know that's money that we can just accumulate then
and save up if there's funding sources that are covering it and so I'm confident you know at this point that we'll be able to do that project no matter what um and you know worst case scenario too and this gets in the weeds a bit is we can borrow ahead um on our state aid account which isn't an
uncommon thing to do I prefer not to uh but we can and so yeah there's there's lots of avenues you know with the grants and alternative funding but also we do get money from the state that's very reliable um isn't a part of any federal freezing on anything and so you know I'm
confident in in in getting that project delivered thank you you're welcome commissioner way um Town Road and town Town Road and town Bridge funding is that state yes
okay thank you madam chair and thank you rabby great presentation as usual um I asked staff earlier about the mil the hill and the four lane um section and I thought there was going to be a healthy
paved shoulder there as well is that changed or oh there is there there yeah so there will be I probably don't have time to pull it up right now but I I watched that meeting and so appreciate the questions um I was trying to type to everybody but I don't think anyone had their computers open um but yes so there
will be I wouldn't say healthy but you know there'll be a four or 5ft shoulder on either side of the road there in the four-lane section so that four lane yeah so for what it's worth the four-lane section will go from about the water tower um up to pin cushion so it's about a mile long section and then there'll be
four lanes they'll be 11 ft wide and so which is a little it's a minimum as opposed to 12 ft that's how we're able to fit it in um on top of the shoulder and then we'll have a guard rail as well um on that Lakeside so you know you won't feel like you're getting flung off
the road well hopefully not any other comments or questions so was someone want to make a motion to approve the fiveyear bridge do you want to you want approval of this I would prefer that yes
all kind of Silent yeah I support I have a motion and I have a motion a second any other discussion all in favor I oppose same sign motion passes unanimously thank you
Robbie but before you leave we had a little discussion here we're going to the legislative session the end of February yes if you have any requests or comments you'd like to send with us uh send them to administrator Rowan can do can do bridge bonds I'll just scream Bridge bonds from the top of my lungs
bonds bonds bonds just remember that but yes I'll send them to R okay all righty good thank you on that thanks for your presentation too absolutely are you okay with this this picture behind us I'm I love I think it's a great location every meeting everyone can see it it's
perfect it's beautiful um yeah so the next thing I kind of touched on this project already but it's it's awarding the Spruce Creek Bridge replacement um I know when you can scroll down to the engineers estimate compared to the low bid and you can kind of go whoa what's going on um you know we we've talked
about engineers estimates in the past here and and what it is you know it's a guess we're doing our best to try and see how much we think this will cost um in this case um I need to have a conversation with our consultant uh because this is obviously way off um but
that being said this project is almost identical to that Alfred Creek project and so once we were working on Alfred Creek and the other thing too is kind of the series of events that takes place when we approve projects and when you know an engineers's estimate gets
submitted you know that this was years ago to the state and so that was already kind of cemented before we knew how much Alfred Creek was going to cost and so once once we had once I saw how much Alfred Creek was I'm not surprised at these bids I think this the the low bid
that we got here from Northland is correct um I don't think think it's something that is we're not getting you know hosed over by 70% on anything um they're very identical projects and so this this price to me uh in my opinion is very very reasonable is what the
project will cost um so I don't know if I I know again big discrepancy I understand that but does anybody have any questions on it do we use the same Engineers do our Engineers need to have a uh so th those two those two were different engineering firms and I'd have
to look back actually at Alfred Creek to see that bit abstract and how close that was um but it's it's something where you know and we've talked about it here a bit where being in Cook County it does it costs more stuff costs more up here and so a lot of times you know firms
will forget to put on that adjustment factor for up here so I'm not again I'm not surprised uh for what it's worth I would not read too much into the estimate um like I said this is a very comparable project to Alfred Creek and so the fact that those numbers are
really close um makes me very comfortable with this and again this is Town Bridge funds this is not Levy money be a small portion that comes out of the levy like I've talked about [Music] before
okay uh Madam chair I'd like to make a motion to award um the alred or I'm sorry the Spruce Creek Bridge replacement to Northland Constructors any further comments or questions all in favor both same sign passes unanimously
thank you all very much thank you thank you thank you so we have um some deep discussions coming up and so let's take a t in a break and then we'll come back and um start with that
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e we're back from our break and um p has joined us from DDA and the next uh topic will be discussion about the um
finalists in the uh interview process and all the thing all the homework that we had the last uh 10 days good morning Pat good morning Madam chair Commissioners staff how are you this
morning doing great doing well wonderful well as you mentioned there there was a bit of homework that was uh assigned to each of you so I do appreciate I know that you put in a lot of uh time and effort going through that
what what I'm hoping to do this morning is uh uh first off review the semifinalist we had eight individuals and if we could go ahead and narrow that down to four or five that you would like to invite in for
interviews and then the second thing I'd like to chat with you a little bit about the interview VI format so um go through that process and try and get some of those details uh first thing I want to make sure is that all of the uh
Commissioners have March 5th which is a Wednesday uh reserved on your calendar that's the day that we were planning to do interviews and if there are any conflicts we should probably address that at this time but that would be a
Wednesday March 5th I think we've all had that date for a while we've we've put that on our calendar when you first mentioned it so we've cleared it yes we're good wonderful wonderful well well then with that you know the next item of
business is to just talk about the semifinalists just to give a little background summary for residents who may be watching we had a total of 41 applicants for the County Administrator position
I went through and reviewed those applicants and I moved forward to the board 12 of those candidates uh since that time we've had several of those drop uh out of um running for the
position simply because for some people they had other applications out there and they uh they took a different job others it was just bad timing for a trans transition so uh through that process we
lost about four candidates but we do have eight candidates that I believe are well qualified for the position and so what we'll be doing this morning is we'll be referring to those candidates
by numbers not by names because at this time the identity of those individuals is confidential so we've got eight candidates and again we'll be referring to by numbers um and you Commissioners have
had a video interview you have a work personality assessment and an information disclosure statement on each of those eight candidates hopefully that information has allowed you to better evaluate each
candidate's fit for the Cook County Administrator position and so at this time I would just ask we go around the table and that you tell me who your top choices are for County administer based
on review of those eight applicants what I will be doing is I will be assigning five points for your Top Choice four points for your second choice uh Etc and I will come up with a
ranking system based on your input so uh are there any questions before we go through and you start telling me what your choices are for County Administrator based on the
eight that you had to review any questions from anyone no we're good okay anybody who would like to jump up and volunteer uh if you would just please you know let me know your first
second third fourth fifth choice if you don't find that there are five people who you would be comfortable hiring Minister you know that number may be three that number may be four uh if
you would just give me whatever your rankings are for the top candidates I would appreciate it uh commissioner Sullivan said she'd like to start good morning and I appreciate all the information and the emails you've sent us um responding to our questions
so I've had a chance to evaluate our candidates on their experience education the video um looking at their um WPI and um have also done some research on the internet and
visiting with people who may have some contact with candidates and so I'll give you my list of top five candidates uh at the top of the list would be candidate number two then candidate
three candidate six candidate five and candidate number four okay thank you so that's candidate two candidate three
candidate six candidate five and candidate four correct wonderful thank you thank you who would like to go next I'll go next uh commissioner white Deb um my choices
are number one would be number four and then I kind of rated uh candidates number one two and three all as equal uh in their final numbers and then if I have if I have to
have number five it would be um it would be number five okay all right so what I'm going to do commissioner white
um is then give candidates one two and three um uh three points each uh since they all tied for your second place or typically we try and the point system
we try and prioritize so um giving candidates one two and three three points and then giving your last place candidate uh number five one point
all right so thank you well I can be next my top five candidates are this um number one is six 2 8 say that again number one is
six is your six choice no no First Choice that's my first choice is number six oh I'm sorry number six is your first choice okay and then second is two candidate two third choice is candidate 8 fourth
choice is candidate 7 and last candidate is two I'm sorry could you go through that one more time I seem to have I had candidate two as your second choice s the first one is six then two
okay then eight seven and two that's twice you had two twos oh sorry six and three sorry 872
six three 8 seven and two okay that clears it up all right thank you thank you commissioner gamble or Mills yeah I um I struggled quite a bit um I really appreciate the um the
numerical guide it it really helps begin it can be overwhelming to try to evaluate the the various um candidates with their various experiences and and and so um and then I had a number of close calls and ties and
so the numbers only get you so far and you have to go through and find some other um ways to evaluate and um really grateful for our technology um I was able to go back and
watch videos of board meetings um that the various candidates had been a part of and to see how they they operate how they perform um a little bit about their personality and and leadership style through that as well so um there's a lot
of information out there and I um I keep changing my order um so um the first two I have not changed um that's those are the first the first two I feel the most confident of and that would be seven and
two okay and then uh beyond that it it gets a little uh trickier for me um and I guess uh where I'd go is probably 13 and eight
one three and eight okay thank you uh commissioner Campbell um so evaluating this um and having been part of the process
previously looking at the things that we identified that we felt were important and I think uh in evaluating uh that there there there should be an evaluation that uh includes um is more
comprehensive and and I would look at these things uh which have to be minded out which are core competencies core values behavioral competencies their education relative experience in the field their character and integrity and
their temperament um knowing these things uh H you you can be more disciplined in your process in determining I will I will say that having been a significant played a significant role in defining
the County Administrator position and the values and the things that we were looking for when we lost our first County Administrator went through it again we had to revisit all of these things and put together a structure we had additional things that allowed us to look at some of these other things that
we could measure and in while there are some things that we could look at uh they didn't cover all of the things that I think are integral into making sure that you bring a person in uh to the
culture as it is and um somebody that that you identify can help to change culture we've had 10 years of experience um and that can be measured on multiple levels uh we did have a a
town hall meeting that was intended to let citizens give input on any number of subjects and my intent in that meeting was to take those concerns or issues that citizens would bring up we had a little over 50 in attendance and uh and
then I would just write them down it was intended to be a listening session we did respond to questions uh give them an opportunity to ask a question if they wanted to and um then I would take all of those issues that came up and list
them and then print them and then give them to all the attendees and they could rank in order of their priority what it is that was most important we did not get beyond the issue of the County
Administrator and so it underscores The Importance of Being sure that that we are Discerning we are wise and uh we are responsive to things that have been identified by the public by
employees by inter relational um through interg government and personal experience having gone through that and spent considerable time as I'm sure fellow Commissioners have done um I only have one candidate that I
under that criteria would even consider and um that's no disregard or disrespect it is a discipline and evaluation ation that leads me to that conclusion and um yet even with the one candidate there
are questions that should be asked to clarify anything that comes up when you listen to interview and when you read resume and you read a cover letter and you look at the um work personality index that was provided and so that that
one candidate is six okay and as we've had discussion before if the pooling candidates that come before that we receive resumés and gone through a process if we get get uh to a point where we say you know really if
we've done a good job of identifying what our values are uh in response to the experience over 10 years um and we find that that the match isn't there and we aren't in alignment with our values and our expectations and
the competencies then and then we just we would have to start again and the question is always posed if you don't find somebody that you really fits all of those things and you've done your
homework in that regard are you willing to step back and say there isn't an individual because we've had 10 years in which we've have an experience that um uh um has been problematic and that can
be identified substantively not just an emotional response the other thing when you look back historically you'll find that none of the three individuals that served in the capacity of County Administrator and we as a county moving into a form of governance we had no
experience with none of them had any experience as a County Administrator and I felt that uh we really would be better served had we had somebody that was respected and had several years of experience so they
could mentor and help us transition into this County governance because they were respected they knew what they were doing uh they they would be responsible but not malleable meaning that we would shape their
opinions uh that would be in conflict with their lived experience and so having said that when I look at this and evaluate this if I have individuals that are a replica of what we've experienced in the past I think we're setting ourselves up again and so that's my
response I appreciate your listening thank you commissioner Gamble and yeah certainly as we go through this process if you know if the board comes to the conclusion that none of these candidates are viable uh certainly your
satisfaction is is most important and we are not afraid to go out for another recruitment so where where we are based on on your input I'll just go through and I'll I'll list the applicant number and the number
of points uh that were that were assigned based on your preferences applicant number one had a total of six applicant number two had a toal toal of
13 applicant number three had a total of 13 applicant four had six applicant five had three applicant six had 13 and applicant
seven had seven and applicant eight had four is there any question about the point system and how those numbers were arrived at if if not I think you you clearly had
three applicants that had 13 points um and then you had an applicant with seven and two applicants with six uh certainly you'd want to I believe have discussion
about possibly interviewing the three candidates with 13 and then I would encourage you to consider having four to five applicants because you don't know if these applicants you know will do more
research looking into Cook County uh or will'll have other things happen in their lives that may cause them to to withdraw prior to our interview date of March 5th so I will open it up for the board
to have discussion at this time again using numbers and you can certainly talk about individual candidates if you would like commission Mills thank you madam chair uh thank you Pat for for running the numbers there um I agree that we
should we should um well and and these these uh inperson or these next interviews rather are um do not guarantee an offer being um presented um I think it's worthwhile
to to interview those top three and uh I guess four would be pretty easy obvious and then it's in my mind it's a matter of decid in between the two six pointers and maybe having more discussion there
um would you say interviewing six is silly uh not number six six candidates what I would say is that it's time consuming and you certainly want to respect your time but also the candidates time and if you're bringing
somebody in who you know the board once you know could not see them actually getting the position based on what they've seen to this point um six would seem to be uh excessive I
guess in in my mind but it certainly is doable yep uh but remember you know one of the things that we be talking about as we get further into this process is you know is the board receptive to reimbursing for for travel you know
whether that be flight you know lodging uh renting a car different things like that so um certainly we can do six it's going to take more time especially as you consider maybe also having staff do an interview um you know we haven't
talked yet about will there be a public reception so that public can provide some input will that be after the decision was made will that be with the finalists who are being interviewed so um just things to consider but certainly
whatever the board would like to do we will make happen thank you yeah no I I understand all that I was maybe a rhetorical question just drawing the line between five and six um but I'm happy to have more discussion
deciding between the fifth and sixth I guess my looking at it um the candidates the three uh 13s and I would add a seven that would be it Commission
and I would agree on that because the ones that are six it's like no that no I don't think they would be what we need in our organization I would also add that of um candidates that are in that top four
group um I'm aware that one of them is a finalist for another position um and so potentially could um withdraw if they received a position so that makes me want to consider um the
two individuals that have score to six commissioner one of the things when I reach out to candidates following this meeting and I inform them that they've you know been selected for an interview I will inquire with them you know are
you committed to coming to this interview sometimes individuals once they get selected for the interview you know within a few days they may take a look at the airfare the timing and things may change um typically I I'm
able to figure that out within a couple days so we could certainly you know if you say we'd like to have four candidates and I reach out and I find out that one or two of them drop if I have your
permission I can go ahead and include reach out to other candidates who maybe weren't initially invited and invite them knowing that our numbers have already started to decline unless we say um the sixes but
don't go below that because that would that would keep the numbers still pretty high sure yes yeah that would put us that would put us at uh six six
candidates if you were to go with six or above on scoring that would put you at six candidates right okay Madam chair um
I I think it's the board's responsibility to vet the candidates at this point so that it it isn't pushing out um Beyond a number that seems reasonable as Pat has
indicated I mean we're all aware but if you look at how that impacts the resources both fin financially and time um and just capacity mental and emotional whatever capacity in the
interviewing process to do our due diligence and uh understand um what we're hearing and and evaluate that with energy um I don't believe the number of candidates lends credibility to the
process I believe the process has to define the integrity and what we look at as to who the candidates are we should be interviewing and if you look at what we do have as a resource right now and evaluating those candidates I just think it is unwise to
build numbers as the appearance of Integrity in a process when there are straight out things that are huge red flags and and so why if there are huge red flags would we want to interview somebody I think we're setting our
ourselves up for failure and it is a big uh part of what we heard uh in the public uh hearing or the public town hall meeting that um we're just going to we're just going to do what we did before and that's why we have to learn
from our lived experience from the input that we get from the people that are stakeholders in this and do the discipline of looking at what these things need we I have been in a number of meetings as Commissioners have of
late in boards and they're they're talking about best practices they're talking about the meaning of words they're talking about processes they're talking about discipline and every time I hear these things I'd say I would like
to see that applied to this process so that we know when we look at somebody if somebody has very little concern for others and that's what they say is a self assessment and we have a 30y year
highly respected County Administrator who in one word says the most important thing is relational do you think that an individual that has scores low on concern for others is going to meet that requirement that somebody who spent 30 years in the position knows the
importance of that to create a healthy culture and if if we have accountability attention to detail um there there's things in there that are hugely important and if we did the core competencies and the core values
and all these other things look at the education component look at the education how do we shape how do we equit people to have the tools to do the job we're asking to do in a county and so there's just a lot of
things that are there so I appreciate your L listening and I say this respectfully but I don't think the number of candidates from the pool that we've been given is going to help us I think it it it sets us up to be
vulnerable to make decisions that are outside of the things we should have screened already at this point what I have heard Pat say that um he will call the candidates to see if anybody
withdraws and then we are looking at 3 13s and a seven if any of those withdraw then he could go to a six or leave it at that that's what I'm hearing we have to help him understand and we
need to understand that he will have the opportunity to find out if it's still a good goal list of the numbers that we gave him the top four or would he need to add somebody else if somebody drops so and I am certainly comfortable
with um the four that this board has identified as the top four okay I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware that one of those candidates did have another position that they were seeking
okay okay any other comments or things that we can help Pat with if if I could get a a motion um that would be wonderful and certainly in that motion you can say that your goal is four and
should the candidates upon initial contact any of the con any of the applicants withdraw that I uh include the we've got the two individuals who
applicant one and applicant four which both score to six if there's a direction on which of those candidates would be preferred uh to be considered as a replacement should one drop obviously if
two drop I would you know reach out to both of the six candidates but who would be the board's First Choice one or number four any opinion on that commissioner gamble um would I would thank you madam
chair uh Pat what I I did is I I took the the candidates that we had the eight I went through all the information that we had and and mind out what I felt you know through the the video interviews through the um work personality index
through looking at the number of things that I had uh that I used to evaluate each one and then I assigned a numerical value to all of those things so I do have all these candidates rate rated
from you know one to 8 and uh based upon that rating that I have my recommendation would be candidate one but I'm saying that reluctantly but I'm just giving that perspective from my
standpoint thank you between the two sixes were being asked any opinion on that that my my opinion is candidate one to keep or to drop to keep if he's asking who would
you take of those two I'm saying candidate one okay one yes administrator Ron I just for context I don't know if the other Commissioners have the numbers in front of them I've been calculating along with Pat and and
have the numbers reflected um as it relates to the the difference between the two sixes here I as I'm looking at it it it stands out to me that applicant 4 is one of the board memb top choices
and of the makeup that we've that the board has selected here um it it looks to me that Pat you can verify this for me that every other commissioner's Top Choice um would be included in this and
so it's just something that looking at the numbers stood out to me correct exactly R yes so just between one and and four candidate four was one of the board
members top choices just because I have the numbers in front of me I thought I would share that okay commissioner Mills I really appreciate that um I I do agree with commissioner gamble however with um if I if I needed to pick between one and
four um I would I would pick one but um I I also agree that we sh that in our in our best case for what we have we would have four candidates interviewed so um
commission um candidate one would be a backup in my mind okay so would put we would put that a backup or unhold depending upon any phone conversations he would have yeah that's just my opinion and well that's
what we need yep commissioner gamble thank you madam chair I think I think it would be healthy and it would be in keeping with best practices if this process that we went through the homework were something that we had a
discussion as a board to understand why we made the decision we made because it it it it seems a little bit inanimate in a way to just arrive at something without the value of one another's
perspectives that refined our Impressions so it it's not going through a process to say we went through a process it's understanding what we learned through the process that informs our decision so I I I think this is really
uh is set up to be problematic because how do we know what we value and how do we attach our responses to what we've heard from our staff and from our public and from our lived experience and we're denying The
credibility of all of that by simply going through a structure that could lead us in a direction we really don't want to go well one thing I believe really helped me is I went through all of the different descriptions of their
personality and everything then I matched them across the board that's how I came to my conclusion with the video with their resume with their education so that's I think we're going to get deeper into everything when they
actually come and appear before us commissioner M that's essentially what I was going to say is I I hear what you're saying commissioner Gamble and I agree it's it's almost like we're working in silos for this part of it um but once we get um the names out there and it becomes public then then we can have a
lot more Frank discussions I feel like and and open um but to your point the fact that we're on the path without that I I I understand your concern about it lacking you know genuiness or um or or
openness and um then and I don't I don't like that either um my our past hire as as I had similar feelings um and and then
um working through it with the in-person interviews um it I felt like we we were able to really talk about things a lot more um and commissioner sty what you said about going through the and commissioner gamble too believe um going
through the personality index and and pairing that with the video interviews and and then um in my case looking at meetings and their interactions with with boards um is how I is how I came and and how that fits within our
community and our and our organization that's how I came to to my list um and I'm assuming that's how everyone came to their list it's funny how they're all very different but there's there's crossover and similarities and um and I think that's where we're leaning now is
where where are those where are those intersections and and then um trying to further evaluate those um it's not perfect by any means um but um best foot forward and really trying
to see if something can work without clearly without committing to any any decision on on who if anyone so Pat do you need any further clarification no it sounds to me like
uh it sounds to me like uh applicant number one is the backup uh should any of the four uh higher Point scoring applicants drop out so well I just that there was just two
Commissioners who who voiced an opinion there so I think it's important that okay y okay so if the rest can yeah if if You' be willing to you know Iron that out for me uh see if that there's total agreement there or if
there needs to be more discussion on who that this is commissioner white uh I was the commissioner who really wanted to have a number four and um um because when some of these other uh another one
of the higher scoring applicants uh said uh someone who's not look not even in the state who says oh yeah Cook County would be a great place to live how often have we heard that where people want to
move to Cook County because they hear it's a great place to live regardless of what their job is that they take they get here and it's not as great as they thought so to I don't think they were pandering but I
do believe that just to say we're a great place to live I I would like these people to actually be here to walk around and on a t Belo day or something and tell me it's a good place to live I mean I'm not
opposed to 10 below but but um people there is such a built up fiction sometimes about what Cook County is like like life in cou is and I don't know how that it can't be dispelled but it has to be taken into
consideration that um people that don't live here don't know what they don't know about living here and that could be something that they actually once they arrive realize that this is not the place for them not
that it's a bad place but it doesn't fit them so to to seriously look at people who I mean that statement is a is a warning to me because we've heard it before and um I very much would like to
think that if anyone actually uh whomever gets this position will actually live in the county to be part of our community entirely not just uh a long-term guess
so I for one really think that candidate was that candidate candidate candidate four um should be considered there are I have a lot of questions for that candidate but there were um that that also send up
alarms but um by and large I would like to be able to have a conversation with candidate number four commissioner gamble thank you madam chair I think um this is why the
discussion is is important because what drives each of us as as what we choose to look at and if you look at processes process is defined for us I feel uncomfortable always
turning my back back to you commissioner and then you should stay on mic as well but um processes uh create a discipline because um you know we've there's been discussions and and some discussions say
I like to hire internally that's a value you've identified another is I like to hire locally because we always have people say that they Cook County but do they really know when they get here so that becomes our priority and so one can
go on I can say I think it's important that we have somebody that's nurturing and really relational and build a trust cult that's my number one so when we list all of the possible things we can throw out there that they like pickle ball and I
like pickle ball that we we put those in there and then you prioritize what is the most important things inherent into the position so that either emotionally or preferentially that isn't disciplined by
identifying value and assigning the values because because for me if I look at that value list then whether they live here or they they know the realities of Cook County or not that's
that is a value added but it is it is not critical to the core values the core competencies their education their experience all of those other things but if I'm having this discussion respectfully with each other we refine
our perspectives we we know what our value are and we have the opportunity to lend our voice to prioritizing those values because what we want is somebody that doesn't say hey I'm glad I'm here but what do I do and
then the staff are saying well wait where's where's the coming alongside and helping me and creating a culture that people want to stay here if you look at the interview you will find a situations very similar to our situation in one of the candidates that says when you ask
the question what is the Great greatest thing you think you accomplished the response I came into an environment where we had a 20% turn over 20% of our staff were leaving annually and why were they leaving not because
they weren't being paid enough they were leaving because of the culture that is a hard thing to look at but we are elected to represent the best interest of our constituents and hard discussion s have
to happen we need to know what the problems are and if they reflect badly on us accept that as part of the responsibility that comes with stewardship in representing people so I'm just
saying when I hear something like that I want somebody that can change culture and I knows how to do it and what's more has proved they can do it thank you to um administrator Rowan Watkins comment
that number four was one of the top numbers maybe we should keep four then instead of one or along with one now we're incre increasing the numbers though for
interviews how do you feel about keeping number four with number one as a alternate to four commissioner Sullivan so as I have um listened to our discussion and
thought about how I've evaluated candidates um the research I did beyond their experience Ed education the video and the um print materials that we had I would say the one thing I'm very clear
on and I think all four all of us are clear on is that the top four candidates um are under consideration so I would like to make a motion that we um recommend for bringing for an in-person interview the top four
candidates support further discussion what if one of them drops out then we're at three I think three is fine do three okay okay so we have a motion and a second to take the top four
candidates to come to uh Cook County for interview and And to clarify that's candidates two candidates three candidates six and candidat seven correct right there's a lot of numbers
running around right now any further comment or question on this motion commissioner G thank you madam chair and I appreciate the boards for bearing here um I would like to recommend Pat that these candidates that
we uh are confir in for interview that uh they be given a core values list to which they need to rate the uh prioritize their core
values um as to what's most important to them in lead in this leadership role it's something that we did before and it had value and I think it's something should be included prior to to the interview and I'd be happy to submit
that cor Val's list for them to evaluate the other question I have is that uh in you reference attributes for a leadership position unless I miss something in the packet that you forwarded to us the cognitive social
team building skills business and strategic uh as far as these attributes where were they measured and has the board had the benefit of looking at that evaluation which was alluded to but I could not find anything on
it some of those values commissioner gamble would have been in the uh personality index I understand that I understand that but if you look at and and you certainly are aware that there's
multiple different processes that can be used for interviewing and so you'll find some commonality and uh and yet if we if we have to extrapolate from the word personality index the attributes for a leadership position you will find that
there are those that are missing that are not touched on and that's why I think when you're evaluating you should be able you should be evaluating on the basis of core competencies behavioral competencies core values education relevant experience character integrity
and temperament because I can guarantee you that that when you are looking at the whole person that you will have a better picture of what expectation is when you're that thorough Pat do you have any comment
about that another list so in our profile in the profile that we uh put together we had the desired uh attributes um a portion of it you know I'm not sure
the core values that you're referencing commissioner gamble uh that's something that was done previously correct we we did it in our first interview Madam chair pat we uh we did
not have uh that listing with the consultant initially but we went through a much more rigorous process in evaluation prior to getting to our final interview we had two candidates and uh that we we went to
final with and uh then in our second after we unfortunately lost the first individual that served for one year then it was included and the consultant said we didn't have the benefit of this in our first uh you know
interview process but we're including this because this gives us a perspective that doesn't just have to do with the disciplines it IT addresses this issue of The Who and in my experience the who is foundational to the ability to deliver
on the one commissioner Mills I believe go ahead P I was just going to say if there's something that you would like us to do prior to the um final interview with the
finalists regarding those core values I think that's certainly something that we can have discussion about and and work out if there's some sort of uh a response that you would like from them um on those core values uh we can
certainly have some discussion about how best to have them you know do kind of a self-evaluation of of how they do in those areas I I'm certainly subed to that yes so if we would submit those to
you then you would need to get them to us before March 5th they would not be part of our questioning process we already have the 18 questions so they would not be a part of that or how would this fit
in so what I could do is uh once we have a a decision made here today I'll be reaching out to the candidates I'll be asking them for their references uh asking them to authorize a background check I could have a document of core
values and it could be a kind of a homework assignment that we ask each of the finalists please you know Briefly summarize uh you know what are your strengths and what are your
weaknesses in relation to the core values listed here that's something we can work out the details uh in the next couple days so that I can provide them with an additional um homework assignment in
essence to specifically address what commissioner Campell is bringing up on those core values um and that would be due back to me uh one week uh prior to March 5th so that I can then add that to the
information that way bble to provide you as the commissioner so you can see their response to those core values commissioner Mills thank you madam chair um and thank you Pat for for your willingness to work with us here um
uh and thank you commissioner gamble for for bringing up your concerns um it would be really helpful if we all had that list um because right now it's just you know and so and it would be help it would have been helpful to have the list
I mean right away age um and what we as a board had as a similar list although um it's not directly evaluated as the desired attributes I think that has a lot and I think commissioner suin spoke to this is there's a lot of overlap
there with the core values just from what I'm hearing because I don't have the list and what I what uh uh desired attributes list I do have and then also there is overlap with the that um WPI um assessment and so you know I
think this is uh important enough that we could take some time now um and go through the core values and and maybe discuss where they do or do not overlap with both our desired attributes and and how we want that evaluated and then also
with the the WPI because I think it covers quite a lot um but but maybe not everything um Comm gamble thank you madam chair thank you commissioner Mills uh and and I apologize again you I'm coming sort of
Midstream in into this if there's things that you are privy to or you've had discussions on that that I'm not aware of then at least what I'm looking at is the resources I've been given and I think that the resources that I have been given and having been such an
integral part of the process and two times and and it it is I I need to underscore and I can't say this strong enough it is not about me it is about us and outcomes and processes and so there
are some things that are comfortable to each of us in just how we like to live our lives but when we choose to be a servant we lay down those things and we become what we need to be to serve other
people and we discipline in areas that are uncomfortable for us and stretch us but that comes part parcel with the responsibility we have so my point is is that again if if there's some things that you looked at that I don't didn't
get the information back on their holes in my understanding of best practices and everything I know and the inter people that I've interviewed that are highly respected in this position and part of my charge that I've said and I I
called am uh AMC on this and uh it wasn't able to get through but I want to find out the most highly respected long-term County administrators in our state and I have a question for them what are the three questions based upon
your experience and your knowledge that you think are pertinent to be asked when you're interviewing candidates for this dis position what are the three questions and relative to questions we've already identified them and we
have no uh ability to change that we changed questions the consultant said we went through a process here's the questions we think we need to ask and then we'd come and when we came to our last interview here's the list of questions
we've put up are there any on there you want to eliminate or any you want to ask we had that flexibility we asked the questions that refined through our processes we really felt we needed to ask so I think they can be suggestive in nature the questions that exist at this
point either the number or the specific question should not be limited to compromise which our end goal is to make sure that we are mining out the information we need to measure to our set of values identified based upon the
input we received so I think that's another is we are not locked into these questions we need to make sure that the questions align are aligned with what we're seeking in the position relative to the values that we
identified M Madam chair I guess I wasn't speaking to those question no any question no but I that's a because commissioner sterle's comment we have the questions oh I see so yeah yes we have these so are you saying that this needs to be readjusted well I'm saying
they should always be open to the Readjustment we are not locked into a structure that that prevents our ultimate you know and that's why I'm saying if there's questions that come up then we don't want to be restricted by what we have in place they should and
that's why I gave the example we got to the last interview and we said the consultant said you want to change any of these questions add or subtract and we always had that flexibility with the focus on our intent maybe we should look at then um for Pat to have our questions
resubmitted along with these or readjusted with these so we have a final maybe not so much asking them their core values but questions that we can ask that's a separate thing as commissioner Ms pointed out that's a separate thing right these are all structures that are
best practices to help ensure that we do the best we can as stewards of this responsibility commission suan Madam chair I think we have a number go ahead Pat just to clarify Commissioners I provided
a a list of questions just as kind of a starting plate but it was with the expectation that you would be reviewing those questions and you certainly can revise and and right up to the day of interviews you know we're going to have
a set list of questions that we come to come to the interview day meeting with but certainly before we start interviews I'm going to say are there any last minute Chang ches do we want to eliminate do we want to you know we haven't even gotten to the point where we've said how long are interviews going
to be typically we find them to be about you know 50 minutes uh but certainly if if you want to ask more questions we can do that what I'm recommending is what I have found to be successful in other interviews obviously you know if we're
taking a look at at four candidates you know it's 4 hours a commissioner time it's 4 hours of Staff time um but yes we want to put in whatever time is necessary for you to be comfortable and confident we want other people to be
included in helping you to make that decision you know the desired attributes we've got leadership and management qualities we've got communication and collaboration skills organizational awareness and team development ethical leadership and professional Integrity
operational and functional expertise those are I believe what commissioner gamble is talking about in terms of being the core Duty so I I agree with commissioner Mills that there is overlap I I haven't seen what the
core u values are but I believe there is going to be overlap between that and what we have in the desired attributes people have told me in the past that when people come in to interview it's amazing what a difference
seems somebody on paper and even seeing them in a video interview how much different they can be when they actually come in in person and you meet the person you're interacting with them it's not you know on a video but it's in person there can be you know some pretty
significant differences in in your thought process uh based on meeting that individual so we will be getting you know to the next stage and that's where the questions can be more point did more direct obviously we're going to want to
ask everybody the same questions but you're going to really get a better feel for the candidates the finalist at that point commissioner salivan so we have several things going on right now so I'd like to clarify we have a motion and a
second to look at four candidates I think the first thing we need to do is see if there's any further discussion on that and then take a vote and then we can discuss the values and the questions
okay we had a motion in a second are we ready to vote okay all in favor I I I oppose same sign so we four for um yes and one on
no on that question of the four candidates so moving on then Pat would you want us to submit questions to you and you'll reorganize the question list according to our suggestions Madam chair one of the
challenges that I that I run into is that uh individuals may have over overlapping questions um so if I'm taking them all in and making the changes uh it becomes maybe more challenging whereas if uh the
board as a group could come up with those questions that way um it just uh facilitates having agreement on those um but I I'm certainly open to whatever you would prefer to do like I said if someone
comes in with a suggested question another one has one that's worded a little bit differently but hits on the same topic I'm often times kind of found picking and choosing but if you give me the discretion to do that I can certain do
that commissioner Mills pardon if I missed this um how many questions would be ideal I think 50 minutes is an appropriate amount of time are we just talking five questions or um 10 or [Music]
um I was looking at about 18 questions for a 50 minute interview um about 18 questions is what we have found to to be about the right time me wow that's more than I've had interviews that have gone
longer than 50 minutes with five questions so I'm I do have concerns I also trust your experience there I just have had different experience so okay well um and certainly as we're going through
the process uh if we do find that we're running out of of time you know we will make a change early on as long as we stick to that change with the subsequent interviews the first one will be kind of a a trial okay can this person make
through 18 questions uh our experience is that it is about three minutes per question well for instance one of the questions I think would address um some of our concerns is what does leadership mean to you and what's the most
important what is most important to you in leading an organization that really gets to the point of their leadership and which I think reveals quite a bit of um their experience commissioner gamble thank you
madam chair uh to the issue of personal interviews and the benefit of personal interviews I I wholeheartedly agree with that because a good interviewer is not just listening to the words and the combination of words they are observing
um uh both the you know body language um eye contact and inflection of voice all of those things are are telling you something if you know what you're looking for and um one person can walk through the forest and walk out of there
and say yeah well I did that and another person walks out of the forest and did you see the ladybug on that leaf did you see the color of this that's because they've learned to be looking and and they have an appreciation for for what
they can see if they just pause and do it so and in my experience in Cook County in interviewing we identified and I referenced this with the grocery shopping list we identified we worked hard we put together our list but we
lack the discipline so that to the point that you're making path that there's a lot that when a person walks into the room we cannot step away from the structure and the discipline of adhering to evaluating what we're called to evaluate so that the Charisma the
presence the color of the suit or skirt or whatever else they're wearing takes us away from the structure we need to adhere to and it happened it happened so that is why yes there's huge
benefit if we know what we're looking for in evaluating a person but we have to be careful that the motion doesn't supersede all of the other things that we work so hard to identify so at this point I would say if
we have any other points other than what's on the 18 list here we should submit it to Pat within reasonable amount of time so that he can readjust that does that clear with everyone
that's if that's what you want to do it's optional if you want to add a other question or things that you think are important commissioner Sullivan prior to doing that I would like for all of us to have the list that commissioner gamble has of the values um I think it's
important that all of us are looking at the same materials or to add or subtract yes commissioner Mills yeah I I I agree and um and yeah I think that's a great idea to have questions passed on to Pat it it
it might be a difficult um to ask Pat to to take some off and to add some others um just and just to be clear um commissioner gamble you do have the same information as far as what we worked on um this is in the administrator profile
uh desired attributes and that was in the email that has the links for all the interviews and everything it's it's the ninth uh page out of 10 so that is what I'm referencing um about the overlap with the core values and then you know I do think there'd be value to look at the
core values these desired attributes as well as the WPI just to see where things line up and where the holes are um if if we want to you know really get as much out of these interviews as as we as we
can and M so P um what is the time frame on any uh added comments questions if I could have that in the next two weeks and I will I will send an email out to everybody with kind of a
deadline uh date to get that information back but we're we're certainly within you know we've got time to go ahead to revise those and like I said even up to the day of interviews if I come in and
you want to make a a change that morning we can do that and we'll just be consistent in applying those changes to the entire group so but it would be preferred to have changes certainly the majority of
them uh made at this time versus the day of the interviews right right okay thank you on that just so we know kind of your time frame too commissioner gamble yes thank you madam chair yeah and just to clarify
that the questions uh submitting the questions to Pat and that there's redundancy or overlap or whatever you know fine it's just it's the the point the inherent you know nature of the question that we just we want that included as a question but however you
choose to Wordsmith that that we're fine with that and the board all questions that it the list will grow with what we have now and what would we add but we have the discretion of saying anything else that came up or anything you want to eliminate so we we aren't losing
control of that stewardship of that process and so commissioner then you're willing to send us your list okay within the next week or so commissioner Mills this might not be very popular but I I I I I feel like there's value in having a work session
to go through these values to go through the questions and and try to really get as cohesive of a list that we can send to Pat as a group maybe we should do it individually I'm just trying to trying to be as collaborative as we can you're suggesting a work session
together or now you said individually Committee of the whole uh together is what I was I was saying there could be great value in that we have Committee of the whole next week we could stay after committee the whole or have't be the committee
the we already have a topic would that be acceptable to stay after committee the whole because we're all together it works for me I know there a meeting at 1:00 for some of you so between after the meeting
quy the hall and before your next meeting that works I would just say based upon prioritizing again the importance at whatever we might have in conflict because I don't have my calendar right with me but uh that yeah I I agree we're
there and timing and importance yes okay okay so Pat then we uh we have our committee the hold next Tuesday at 10:30 and then we have a topic or two and then after that we'll discuss this okay much
appreciated you're welcome so I won't send out an email I'll you have the list of questions uh and I will just anticipate hearing something after your meeting next week then right okay anything else
you want to add today thank you yes I just wanted to go through and and talk apologize I'm taking so much time uh but I did want to kind of get your thoughts on reimbursement um obviously I'm just
taking a look right now at the uh at the candidates uh we do have a candidate coming from looks like uh Oklahoma um and so that that would be our furthest
away candidate uh does the board wish to do any sort of reimbursement this is optional uh but it certainly helps you know get the candidates there for an interview uh what I have seen is sometimes cities and counties will
reimburse uh up to $500 or $1,000 for uh flight lodging and car rental um is there any interest in doing so from the Cook County
Board commissioner gamble thank you madam chair uh Pat I I would suggest what's normal and customary just from The Stance standpoint of professionalism and the image that is sent on behalf of
the county but again that's why it's important for us to evaluate the numbers relative to that commitment financially and I would say if somebody is really interested in this position they will get here if it's that
important to them I mean I really believe that if there is a position that or a job that that is a great that they really are interested in it by they're making the effort to get here on their own dime
makes a difference to me I know it has been in the past um you would offer them up you up to like $500 and they have the choice of accepting it or not commissioner Sullivan I would also
like to point out that I believe candidate uh number seven is from Ohio so we have two individuals that we would be considering travel for commissioner M yes thank than you for that clarification correct yeah it it's a
two-way street so how much do we want them to interview you know it's it's how much do they want to interview how much do we want them to interview and so in my mind I want to make this as easy and as welcoming as possible because I really value the expertise that they could potentially bring to our
organization so I don't I don't I don't need more Hoops to be jumped through I I I'm looking for um I'm really trying to find the substance of of the candidate and um you know they they will be taking time out of their schedule that's certainly
um uh not an easy thing for uh high level Executives to to always do and so um and it's my understanding is it is common best business practice when when you're um hiring to to do that so um I
hear what you're saying skin in the game is important um but I I I also I also want to make this encouraging and commissioner Mills we had 41 applicants for this position it seems as though we are quite a draw for
people and I be truly believe that this is a community that has that is valuable and is a place where people should really want to be and that's just uh
that's just my opinion I mean best practices are whatever but I don't believe everyone's going to go away because if we are giving uh travel expenses to those to FY here then what about those that come from from other
places we will give them a pum and motel lodging also so that's four people that we are for four candidates that we will be giving uh uh support to to get here so yeah I think it's money well
spent gam um Madam chair I I would suggest that what's normal and customary because it it's it's the image that's conveyed but then the other side of that is the
financial commitment that we're making because we're spend spending other people's money that I I think it's important to protect those two values fiscally responsibility but um uh a sense of understanding The Branding that goes on
with every decision you make and so to Pat's comment that if it's normal and customary to offer an up to a certain stipend relative to you know where the individuals coming and what we're
compensating I think that that would that would protect two values I would certainly support that and I think um maybe having a consistent dollar amount for each candidate so they can choose to use it whether it be for a flight or whether it be for a
reservation at a hotel here um might be the most Fair way to approach that Devil's in the dollar what's that amount I just Googled uh uh flights from Oklahoma I haven't looked at Ohio and uh I didn't look at dates specifically but
it ranged from $260 to $900 the $260 was a was a faster flight we're counting on Frequent Flyer points maybe or or no baggage included or yeah um so it just gives a
perspective and P you said it would there was a range you you typ Al see yeah I I would say you know some are are from $500 to a th000 you know for
some people if it's $500 maybe you're not covering all their costs but you're helping out with with some depending upon what airfare lodging and car rental is um so yeah and from $5 to $1,000 and
it's reimbursement so it's not a you know you're going to get $1,000 it's uh show us your receipts and then we'll reimburse you for those expenses they're also taking time away from whatever their their current job is so you know and then in the end they're not getting
reimbursed for all their uh time and effort but it's not moving Mr s so I'd like to recommend that we look at $750 to be used for either Hotel meals or
flight um and I'm thinking of that number in light of what hotels cost here um knowing that this is the ski season and um what kinds of costs there may be um but again that would be something that
would be offered to each candidate so I'll put that in a motion and make a motion to allow $750 stien for each of the individuals who choose to come here for an interview okay uh
support um I would suggest a thousand um if we're talking about the difference of $1,000 for and that's what the four candidates potentially could be is a maximum per time a difference of $1,000 for what the salary is and the impact it
has on our on our organization our community uh and our our our Levy um I think it's a it's a a worthy investment to to try to make that uh accommodating accommodation and and um and encouragement but uh I 100% agree with
the reimbursement um side of things of course commission General thank you madam chair uh friendly amendment that in in the motion I mean I I would agree with the 750 and and I would agree with 750 from
the standpoint of just being mindful of the fiscal responsibility and the discipline of how much is out there in making a a choice it would be interesting uh in looking at the receipts to see what the receipts tell you MH uh so my point is is that in the
friendly Amendment it would be that they will candidates would be reimbursed up to 750 and I I may have have misspoken I thought I said that but yes up to $750 reimbursement can I ask for some
clarification would that include car rental I would say any expenses related to their travel or lodging meals and the travel piece would certainly include car rental thank
you commission Mills um just having uh traveled recently for my daughter and um and knowing the cost of car rentals knowing the cost of airfare knowing the cost of hotels kind of no matter where
you go um I'm I'm skeptical that that'll cover it and and maybe that's what we want to do that's the angle we want to take um is to have a little skin in the game too um I don't think $750 uh for if you do all three of those
things um is going to uh be way off but um but I just want us to recognize the reality of of what these costs are and um like I said I think that to commissioner Gamble's point about fiscal responsibility is
this is a really wise investment to try to get the best candidate we can um putting the money forward there um and hopefully having that better return so if we want to go through and see what I mean maybe you did knowing you commissioner salvin you went through through and saw what those costs would
be I'm just I would be surprised if those costs would add up to less than $750 and I have not gone through them okay commissioner gam thank you madam chair so Pat we're going to draw on you again uh given when I look at the list
of counties you're Consulting and cities you're working with um what is at present time normal and customary for County our size relative to reimbursement so it's it's another
context in which we understand the decision before us you could say if you got X number counties you know and you're finding that the normally it's this so yeah I I would say you know I recently did NOA County I would say you
know they had uh internal applicants there but I would say probably $1,000 is the going rate for um reimbursement of interview expenses when you have people coming in from out of
state and do you make a determination to differentiate between out of state and in instate when it comes to that certainly because the in instate individuals again have to provide a a receipt reimbursement so obviously you
know what I'm going to say in my communication if the board does choose to go this way is that you know it's it's got to be uh economy class uh and you know uh obviously you know it's not going to be the Hummer that they're that
they're renting so everything has to be you know within reason would we make a distinction between out ofate and inate well that's what I'm saying Madam chair and Pat is that um and and I had made the comment to commissioner
Sullivan that it would be interesting to take the receipts and just look at the receipts and see what that tells us and so here's my point if you if you make it a blanket whatever your amount is going to be that knowing how much I have I can
make a choice based upon where I'm going to spend it and I would say you know for pum uh uh or expense if I attended the AMC conference in Bloomington that that rate that night
was you know it was just under $200 with tax and they were full so you couldn't get in well I could get a hotel for the price of just the tax alone I could get a hotel so my point is is that if I've got more money I can get this hotel I
can can eat this I could rent this kind of car kind of thing so it it is telling just because you have the money how do you choose to spend it so I I understand this seems like crazy conversation when we've got multiple things that we need to deliberate on but it it is important
just to say well if you want to take the worst case scenario like an engineer would and build a ramp that will hold when it's full then you're going to go and everybody's going to be based upon making that worst case scenario which is how much is it going to cost to fly from
here and hotel car rental everything else so let's set it at that but then it'll trickle down to say well when I call a book I won't call to find out what's the best rate I'll just take whatever rate because I got the money so anyway I I realize it sounds crazy
but commissioner Mill yeah no I hear what you're saying um it's just that the cheapest I could find I think is going to be $1,000 yeah so that's why I'm like uh I think need $1,000 to to make that accommodation but I appreciate that you
commissioner Mills have looked that up um you know like I say I did not do that because I didn't know who our final candidates would be but given that research that you've done I would um amend my motion to go up to $1,000 but I
do agree commissioner gamble that it's very telling what those receipts would say um and I'll support that Amendment thank you um okay so we have an amended motion that we would reimburse Folks up to $1,000
for any expenses they choose to spend it on um um my understanding was um car rental lodging airfare I would also include meals meals okay okay just so it
yeah just so not the whatever that's well those are the Bas would you reimburse or mileage at the IRS rate if they're using their personal vehicle I I I think so I mean instead of
instead of flying that's well it's part of the Thousand or whatever you're going up to $1,000 yeah anything related to their getting here it's up to whatever you want to do if you just want to eat one big meal and then pay out of your pocket that's fine bring a
tent and and based on past experi you know uh these individuals are in most cases very conservative and they recognize that it's taxpayer dollars and I will certainly put that in my email to them asking them to please try as as
much as they can to keep cost to a a minimal amount so uh haven't had problems in the past and I don't think anybody is trying to you know plan an elaborate weekend to coincide with their interview
so I will do that and it is March here so I don't think so nothing elaborate so are we all clear on the motion the amended motion up to $1,000 okay all right we're ready to vote all in favor
all all right oppose same sign okay we have um pardon we have h four Ys and one nay okay motion passes the the next question Commissioners uh
do you want to allow remote interviews in the past I have had some candidates ask if they can you know participate remotely my question to you would be would you really feel comfortable hiring somebody that you haven't met in person
shaking their hand you know interacted with them um my recommendation would be to say no you're providing the reimbursement you know if they are truly committed they should be coming in for an interview but that's again entirely
up to you so we are all nodding our heads that they need to only thank you okay uh the ne next question is is there anything that you would like to do as part of the
interview to Showcase Cook County uh in the past what I've had some uh jurisdictions whether it be a city government or a County uh they maybe have someone who's kind of a historian who will take them on a a bus tour of the community uh maybe you've got a new
building you know showcase or highlight something uh within the county that's not something that you have to do but it's certainly something that you could do obviously at the same time that they're trying to sell themselves to you
uh you're able to sell yourself to why it's a great place to work at in Cook County so any thoughts on that as part of the interview I was thinking back to when um we hired our last administrator it was
Co so we couldn't do anything and so um I know in the past we have introduce them but it all is a time frame because if we start let's say at 9: in the morning and we have four candidates
that's a lot of time shuffling them from wherever they're staying so I think we would need to think about a coordinated effort to perhaps have somebody like administrator Rowan kind of Shuffle people around or um the board members
would need to attend the interview um so I think we kind of have to think out what their schedule is and then um my suggestion due to time restrictions too
is informally have our meeting here like we do with commissioner uh committee the whole and um have a public um meet and greet after that person is hired both with the uh
you know employees and then a public one later later on depending upon the time frame of all that but um that day I think needs to be kind of thought out in terms of shuffling the four candidates in a timely manner because it's going to
be pretty much a full day or better so commissioner Sullivan your ideas um Madam chair I'd just like to share with the board a couple of examples of ways that in um previous interviews and other organizations I've seen this handled um
one would be as Pat suggested a common time for all the candidates to get on a school bus we'd have to really coordinate with the school to see if that's possible if not we'd have to work potentially with Arrowhead Transit but
to have a tour and um on that tour would um not necessarily have to be board members that are on that tour but it could be department heads and for example the bus goes to the highway department an engineer house meets
the candidates talks a little bit about it and then staff there have an opportunity to interact with the candidates um as they're going through the facility but we could have you know uh Brook lard for example take the Y and
Tim Nelson could potentially take uh the recycle center but we could think about our facilities and make sure that there's somebody who can meet and have staff interact with the candidates another way that I've seen this handled
is that um department heads each get one candidate and take them around on a tour of in our case it would probably be the City of Grand marray rather than the entire County just due to time and distance um but that is a method that
I've seen work very well commissioner Ms um I I think it's important if there is going to be a tour that all the candidates have a similar experience and so going with different people would certainly have a different experience um
yeah I'm not feeling like a tour is um our best use of resources I think really the interview um and they are free to explore on their own if they have specific questions maybe we can set something up
um uh I certainly see the value of a tour I just I'm trying to weigh our our time exactly time resources because if you're driving from schroer to Grand Portage up the trail you know where do you draw those lines which do you show City of Grand marray is what I was
thinking yeah and so that paints a picture right but I feel like our community is uh uh very desirable as commissioner white um pointed out and and I think the profile U paints a really good picture of our community um
so I'm not I would not be pushing for a tour I can be supportive of it commission would there be value in having City uh representation uh Lead City leadership and Grand porage leadership to be able
to be on the bus and to answer questions about the greater about more of the community it certainly would be if we go with that um model but uh we also know that we could have a meeting greet and we could invite our
CommunityWide leaders to come here along with the public to interact with candidates commiss gamble well one of the options um other communities have used is the night before
interviews uh maybe there's a a public meet and greet uh individuals can come to Grand marray and and have you know maybe an hour um and meet the finalist so the finalists would then you know come in uh
the day beforehand get there get settled come in for the meet and greet and then the following day they would have the interviews and go through that process that's certainly an option to span span more than just one day but to to hit the
evening beforehand if you'd like let see like a reasonable idea that they would know to be here the day before then we would have something here I don't I mean I think the idea of getting on a bus and touring around is okay but uh time frame for interviews
really needs to be the interviews W and then uh I really believe the meet and greet um we could maybe do it at the community center or we do it here we have light snacks and we invite the public and everybody in the county who is interested to come and
meet these people and I don't know if people are if someone's going to fly in I'm not a big flyer so I don't know how at that time of year Well it's not spring break yet is it I mean I don't people don't come this way for spring
break but but for them to be here the night before I I don't know the timing but that's typical yeah okay nothing big going on yes just one other consideration as we're talking the logistics of this day
um again the recommendation from the Personnel committee as well as the mat team was that department heads have the opportunity to sit in during the interviews and so as we're talking Logistics and who will be taking people
different places if that's that's just wanted to bring that up and keep that in mind that that's the recommendation and and something hopefully that we'll we'll finalize before we get off the phone with Pat right I think that they can be they'll be aware of the um four
candidates and um they can come and go um they don't have to sit down on everyone if they want to but there'll be a flow if they understand they can be there at certain times okay commissioner white will the these interviews will they be public
so the entire anyone in the in the public can come and sit and listen be great question yeah we'll be just like here we're recorded yeah they it would be a live stream I would
understand oh yeah so so yes those when the board is conducting their interviews those are considered public meetings an individual from the public could choose to come in and sit in the back of the
room and observe those meetings they're not there to participate but they can certainly sit in the back of the room and um listen and observe with regards to staff uh we have a couple different
options for involvement um one of those options is for staff to be able to ask their own set of questions of the candidates and do a a separate interview when the staff does their interview uh
they are providing input because it is ultimately the board that makes the decisions so they can have a separate interview of their own with each of the candidates and then provide input to the board the board would then look at that
input before they make their decision um otherwise you know we're open to you know having staff fit in on the the vard interviews uh but if they want to come
up with their own questions more specific to you know individual departments and different things we can certainly work with the county on that if that's your choice I go ahead thank you I Pat I if you could maybe provide a
little insight on on a recommendation to how to facilitate this but the the at the heart of the recommendations that I referenced were the ability for the Matt team to have the ability to to view and listen to the interviews that the board
conducts but then also before a decision is made an opportunity to provide some feedback directly to the board and so that's that's at the heart of the request from and the recommendation from that I that I mentioned okay and typically when we
have scheduled interviews uh we'll have interviews uh overlapping each other so you know we'll start the department heads with doing interviews and their interview may be not the full 50 minutes but maybe you know 35 minutes uh and so
the candidates will be coming in they'll be going to maybe a staff interview and then to a board interview and we just kind of run them through that process um with meetings occurring concurrent with one another just to make good use of
time so the staff can come up with their questions similar to how the board's coming up with their questions uh if the board would like they can see what the staff questions are of the candidates um and then they do have an opportunity to provide input so they're
not saying here's my top candidate but they're saying you know they're answering questions such as what strength would this person bring to Cook County how would this person fit in with the current culture um those are the input questions
that are then shared with the board before they make their decision to help help them uh in making that decision on who they choose to to hire or not to hire okay yes yeah I just I'm getting
some feedback here as we're as we're talking and also just the the conversations that we've had before I I don't think the mat team is looking to ask a separate set of questions I think they're just looking to be okay in the process where they we're you know we're all kind of reading from the same sheet
right we get to see the questions that were asked and how the person responded and then provide some feedback to the board on on how those questions and responses um landed for them and so I I think that's not to to try to complicate
the process anymore but if there can be an opportunity for we will be live streaming it it sounds like and so maybe at the end or or at some point structured in a point for the mat team to provide feedback to the
board okay sure so that that makes me think for them to be you know actively observing the board interviews is what is what you're asking for correct yes
correct and then okay and then an opportunity to provide the board with just what what they saw and what they heard and and um you know just provide feedback on their perspective of the interviews
okay sure I can work with that and I can share with you kind of what our feedback form looks like and and we can adjust as you see appropriate and you will be here in person yes I I will be coming up I will
be there in person so yes just I will be actually participating with the board um as we go through the interview process I'll be helping keep track of time and uh just making sure that our we
stick with the questions okay yes commissioner gamble thank you madam chair and my recommendation would be that we don't have any tours our primary focus is to interview and we want to
devote as much time which is a resource uh into asking questions questions and allowing responses um I think that U the benefit of a meat and greet is if we want that meet and greet to provide opportunity
for citizens to provide feedback prior to the interview which is problematic um meaning because if it's going to be the night before then uh it's it's a problem trying to get that feedback so to me the benefit of a meet
and greet is to the extent that you get feedback when people in interact with the candidates so looking at that I I would I would recommend that that the focus is on the interview and that there isn't a meet and greet and that there
isn't any tour and that um the mat team are employees whoever that chooses to be that they would be present uh and this is how we've conducted before not that it has to be that way but the process we followed as
Matt team were invited to sit public could sit they don't participate in the questioning but they are able to observe and listen the Matt team then meets individually uh amongst themselves and discusses and then makes a
recommendation and a and an individual that represents the mat team consensus can come before the board during the board deliberations to make the decision the final decision if you wanted to elongate it and have the mat
team that sat in on the interview everybody come and express their convictions uh their their observations and recommendations I believe it is better and less wieldly to have the mat team discuss amongst themselves and then
their rationale is represented to the board and the representative from the mat team then is sitting in while we deliberate and make our decision and then once you make that decision at that point you'd have a meet and greet introduce and then you'd do your here's
our town thing with the candidate that you want to make feel welcome and celebrate that I think that's a focused energy and it's it's uh contributing our resources to our objective which is
let's find out and make sure we get the right candidate and then involve those people so that they feel that they those that are Stak ERS have an input into that and then at that point introduce to the public and have press release and do
the tour do it all commissioner right um for the listening public would you explain the acronym Matt and who's on it this is a Rowan question
man management management advisory team advisory team thank you it's a team team team you say at Team like like ATM machine so so basically it's it's those individuals that are the department
heads that represent the the employees overall and so given that responsibility Authority and management role as a supervisors in those departments it's it's very important that they are part of the
process I agree 100% with commissioner campell's layout of the process I I every single every single point there so they will arrive the night before and then we'll have a time frame the first one would be here maybe 8:30
and then start going with the Departments and then we just progress along the way um Department come here and interview when they're done being interviewed they would be going SP part
of that money there anywhere because they would have a car and and will we be making a decision on that day no no our next our first meeting in March is of the 11th so we meet everybody on the 5th and the
following Tuesday is our first board meeting so at that time typically typically what we do DDA Human Resources uh typically we do have individuals at the end of the day of interviews we do
have a decision um typically what happens is we we get input from in this case the map team uh and you know then the the board has some
discussion and typically we do uh have board authorizing me to work with the the board chair and another staff member and we jump into negotiations after that but if you feel that you need more time
um we can certainly do that but we do find after the day of interviewing that there is typically you know an individual who stands out is being kind of a uh an ideal fit for the city or
county um and so we do keep kind of things moving because again the more time that that's taken up you know if they've got other applications out there Etc we try and kind of get you lined up so that we
have a tenative agreement within a few days of you making a decision so but you let me know what Cook County is comfortable with and I'll work with that thank you madam chair um again just
look generically at processes I I think that it's beneficial after having the interviews that there is time for deliberation and certainly time for the mat team and and I think that when you go through a full day of interviewing you have to
look at our humanity and and I think again we need to be mindful of everything that it is that contributes to us being in the best position to making a decision and if you feel whatever and it's it's realities and sometimes you look at things that just
seem really quirky that organizations sports teams and whatever do but they're intentional because they understand that that there's vulnerabilities that comes with trying to pack everything in my recommendation is that that we would have the interviews and the fresh
information that we have um we we can digest that and then come back in a in a short period of time with the mat team being able to have their deliberation so that they aren't rushed and then again in that short period of time catching
our breath we come back and we freshly approach things based we've learned the importance if you take that format is to make sure that the notes The Impressions that you have that you've documented that well enough individually uh as Matt team or whomever
so that that you aren't forgetting those key points that you're connecting to but when you get into that discussion following in the interview at some point following not the same day uh you will you'll be in a better position
to look at that and uh it it's just also something else that it takes the emotion out on many fronts and the fatigue issue and get you focused on the discipline back to what we need to do so my recommendation would
be that we would not make a decision that day but that we would have a timeline that directs the mat team and Commissioners to do their their homework and then to meet and make that decision and then cont contact Pat rela to making
an and negotiating an offer if in fact we get to that point so we're meeting on a Wednesday would you recommend the next day I think the next next day would be be fine the next morning
yeah yeah and that fatigue is real I I have a very distinct memory of it and um and I want to recognize that I hope that it's going to be maybe an obvious thing or we'll have a decision that same day but I think practically
realistically expecting the next day is is uh is the way to go so Madam chair pat um I don't know that it's necessary to necessary to make a motion if if but if we want to make a motion as to process I think we've had
the discussion and then it can be outlined uh based upon the notes of what we discussed and if Pat if you have the information and intention based upon this discussion and you're ready to move forward then I think we're fine is that agreable to you
Pat cell phone died so the decision and discussion was to make um our decision the next morning on the six yes yes that I can certainly accommodate that and I will uh uh put
together a schedule with with those understandings laid out in in the schedule uh I will be working then with uh Rowan and Allison to put together the schedule and uh yeah we'll we'll have
everything all planned out so that when you come in on March 5th you'll have folders you'll have information and everything will go very smoothly that day for your interviews and then the following day Thursday March 6 then
you can have more discussion and make a determination at that point okay very good commissioner Sullivan I just think um we should make a motion and determine the time because I know this room is used at a certain time on that day so
I'd like to make a motion um to begin deliberations at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday March 6th we have a motion to reconvene the morning of March 6th at 8 a.m. is there a
second second further discussion commissioner Mills what is the what what's the conflict potential conflict um at noon there is another meeting in here for two hours so I want want to make sure that we have plenty of time to and they need
to set up for that meeting so I want to make sure we have all the time we need how much how much time for set up half hour I think 8:30 would' be fine that that's what I was wondering it's 8:30 8:30 be F all right I'd be happy to
amend okay and support okay we have amended motion to meet the morning of March 6th to make our decision at 8:30 a.m. any further discussion all in favor I I oppose same
sign motion passes unanimously thank you very much Commissioners for your time this morning I didn't mean for it to go on so long but I think that uh been very thoughtful and uh you put together a great plan for interviews so I will be working with the
the four candidates and uh keeping uh the county informed if there's any changes but we'll be putting together that schedule and looking forward to March F thank you so much for your time this morning
Pat thanks I have a great meeting thank you thank you thank you I just have one question will the public be here on that Thursday morning to listen to us okay oh it's a public meeting it has
to be a public meeting I think it has to be for all five of us so they'll be there when we make the final decision I mean I've been in that I think it has to be I mean if it if it has has to be I think I think we maybe
had two people that yeah that did show show up that morning but yeah in in keeping with the open meeting yeah so they have the opportunity to be there during the interview as well as the final deliberation MH okay great M CH can I ask um when you
made the financial decision on $1,000 was that vote was for in favor and and what was the who was the commissioner I was the N okay then we'll go on to item number
nine a report from administrator updates um Madam chair we missed one from HR oh sorry approved I'll leave okay make a moving on to
H thank you all right um let's see uh we're going to talk about um bringing forth some job descriptions and job grade updates uh as part of our uh job description and review process that
we are conducting with DDA um different subset of DDA than our administrator search um so it's been a while I think kind of it was Qui over the holidays but getting back to it and hopefully trying to wrap this process up here um within
the next month or so so I have a fairly larger batch to bring to you today so included in the agenda packet um and on the kind of cover memo um there are a total of eight positions that are either
job description uh updates maybe with or without a uh um a grade change sorry collecting my thoughts uh so I'll just kind of uh summarize those positions for you today um that are included so we have some leadership
positions uh that are kind of the first few bullet points we've got the auditor Treasurer position um that one the grade was reviewed and is determined to remain currently at a 240 where it currently
sits uh we've got the County Attorney uh that would be a change in the job grade from a 250 to a 260 history on that one uh the end of last year um given the transition with Molly hickin and looking
to recruit an individual to fill the remaining term for that elected position hence Jean Peterson uh we did draft a job description for that and approved it at that point with the job grade staying at a
250 um but that one we held off on reviewing the grade given the conversations that we went into with the potential movement for our leadership positions and looking at adding that 270 grade so we took care of the job description because we had to recruit
for it and then went back to reviewing the grade um so just history on that one that we are now at that point of reviewing the grade uh the county sheriff position a change in a job grade currently it's at a 240 recommending it moved to a 260 I do want to add a couple of notes
on the auditor Treasurer and the county sheriff positions so these These are elected positions historically just like with the county attorney where we created a job description historically we don't have job descriptions for
elected positions um most of what they do is mandated and directed by State Statute and that's not uncommon to not have job descriptions in my counterparts in other counties they also don't have job descriptions for that so that's why there are none that are included in that
in the packet uh then we have the victim witness coordinator paralal uh that includes an updated job description recommendation that the job grade remains at a60 we have our lead dispatcher public
safety system specialist that also includes an updated updated job description recommendation that the job grade remains at a 170 we have our Soil and Water Conservation District district manager and Watershed planner uh also includes an update updated job
description uh recommended change in a job grade from a 190 to a 200 we have our aquatic invasive species supervisor includes an updated job description and a change in a job grade from a 170 to a 180
and last we have our assessor appraiser trainee position uh includes an updated job description and a change in job grade from a 130 to a 150 uh also to note that that assessor appraiser traine that's like a tongue
twister right there assessor appraiser traine position is not currently filled uh but it is an active job description as potentially it may be filled again um in the future commissioner s I'd just like to share with the board um as director plumber
was talking about job descriptions for elected officials uh the Personnel committee did create a job description which has been approved by that committee for County Commissioner that will be coming forward to you at some point in the near future and a grading just a thing no
grading but um just to be in alignment so that all those elected positions do have a job description okay any questions for Allison I'll make a motion to approve the job descriptions listed with the job grade
updates I'll second that any further questions or comments M gamble thank you madam [Music] chair Allison uh again coming in Midstream on all of this
um when a job description is created and um uh it has when you hire somebody come in normally when you're hiring somebody they come in and you've got your your range and you hire based upon experience and what they bring to the position so
when somebody's scored at whatever grading it might be that it doesn't automatically ensure that they're going to be paid at that grade it's all subject to the experience of what they bring to the job so they're going to be within a a range or is it just that when
you do the grading that you have set that wage and that's what they're going to get when they come in um so there's two things involved with determining the pay that someone is offered uh when we are looking at bringing on new hires so when you look
at our pay table we've got two factors we've got the grade and we've got steps so the grades that I list on here here is basically the row the pce scale um from beginning step to last step that someone would be paid for that position
I think what you're maybe referring to is where we start them on the steps for that specific grade so um typically when we look at uh the initial offer um looking anywhere from maybe a step one
up to a step three given any other pertinent information experience education Etc that we want to consider in starting them off at a higher step typically we try to start people off at a step one which would be the low Ed that beginning uh wage for that
grade and thank you for that that if if there's a matric in place that makes the determination and having said on the Personnel committee when the Personnel committee was different we didn't have re human resource director so Commissioners and those that
participated on the personel committee the department heads would come in we would evaluate um you know their job description if it was revised by the department head and and then based upon the Matrix which was a discipline we
would set where they were going to be and um it it seemed invar variably that then job descriptions were were written in order to reach a certain level as opposed to what actually were asking in
you know the employee to do and so that's why the discipline of the Matrix is hugely important in that evaluation it's not subjective when it comes to the hiring and you're assessing based upon your Matrix then you set that and that should be fair and reasonable uh the
other the other thing is that if we we go as high as 260 and now we're saying 270 what what informed the 270 and if in fact 270 is where we choose to set that top then that is going to have a ripple
effect in what it does to every other employee because we've now raised the bar so what informed that 270 needs to be made in that context of understanding the effect overall and the need to justify the
270 so there is a matrix in place um we contract have hired DDA to go through and do the job description review process for us that includes reviewing the job descriptions um they are basically in charge of the language they choose the
language to make sure that it is consistent that's why we don't have individual employees or department heads writing and drafting their own job descriptions because there can be differences in the languages used um so
DDA um Tesla that I work with with DDA is responsible for creating the job descriptions to again ensure that consistency in templates information used and then we utilize the Keystone
factoring system for that Matrix of how uh positions are graded and there's five factors involved in that um and within each factor there's a rating point system to determine um a points which
then equate to a total score which then equate to where the total points fall on a scale again there's no Matrix when it comes to determining what step we offer somebody that is a management discussion um usually between the County
Administrator and HR um and that ensures that uh departments are um again consistent with uh organizational practices of where we start people off to ensure there aren't in um inequities
amongst the offers coming from different departments um so that was something that was uh kind of instilled when um James was here over like the last year when I came on was really kind of taking ownership um and oversight of those
initial offers again steps within the grades um I was going to address your second part of the question totally BL down so um the 270s so we went through a lot of discussions uh last year at the
end of last year um in the job description review process we have we were um let's see over a two-year period of time uh so this was what fall of 2024 I mean so
we're pretty much wrapping up the review process we're going in a little past two years now but going through that process we had reviewed most of the non-leadership positions and there was indication and I think a lot of individuals could kind of
see a lot of those positions being graded um and creating upward pressure on our leadership positions so now we're getting into our leadership positions and our Matrix that we use has a grade 270 has always always represented a
grade 270 um in those materials and then it became apparent of like well there's a reason there's a 270 we don't know why it was left off um it was a decision made at some point to not represent to have that 270 represented on our pay
scale but going through the process and having um positions being graded higher putting that upward pressure on our leadership positions and then taking into account our Benchmark counties and the data
related to those Benchmark counties it became apparent that we needed to add that 270 in to um be consistent with the pay philosophy that that the county said that we would follow going into the job description review process so added the
270 created ability for those upper tier uh those upper tier uh positions to have that movement as well and again then to really um not create that bottleneck that was created by other positions uh and grades coming up through through
this two-year process okay Madam chair um Allison I I appreciate your response I would say that um whatever system you put in place that that U the
fundamental concepts that inform that decision that Benchmark where you are is going to drive everything beyond that point and I I I personally and and from a constituent standpoint and having been
part of the process uh in in doing our comp study um I challenge that the comp study through Keystone initially was credible because of what it didn't include in comparables and um when I said well if
Keystone's not going to do it I will do it and then the County Administrator at that time says no that's something I should do which there was no follow through on that uh and but I did do comparables in looking at things and uh
the credible credibility of of the last study is highly suspect and if I go through and commissioner Martinson and myself in the first term we spent unbelievable amount of time trying to make sure that we were doing
comparables um on multiple issues relative to light counties multiple issues so that you were comparing Apples to Apples and uh there was a reluctance on the board to want to evaluate that and uh that where I think again
integrity and credibility and I think from a County Administrator position if that's the direction that we're going that that County Administrator this is why I go to core values if Integrity in processes Integrity in who I am as a person if
being willing to deal with push back on issues that that's all predicated on The Who that sits in that position so there needs to be agreement that that we are in fact evaluating things on a premise that is rightly positioned Benchmark
whatever you want to call it so I I challenge I challenge The Benchmark that's that's my position so and you have every right to have that position um I was not involved in that process this was prior to my time being in a um
a leadership uh director level role but from my understanding is that there was quite a bit of due diligence in that process there was a Committee created there were representatives from multiple different levels from this organization
including Commissioners department heads other staff um and from what I from what I know is that they did a lot of research and they spent a lot of time in determining those benchmarks to ensure
that there is an Apples to Apples comparison um for what can be every county is very different but looking at multiple different indicators of data um that would be very comparable to Cook County um and determining that pay
philosophy um going forward in how we look at job descriptions are grading our pay um ultimately it was also then presented and approved by the board um so I would say that that has some
indicator of approval of that process um but but again I would have to defer you to um to others that were involved in that process and how that went and madam there will be another opportunity
potentially to look at those benchmarks um yeah and so what I would say again is I use an analogy whatever I choose in ingredients is going to determine what the outcome in the Entre is going to be
and so it's it's critical that we understand what ingredients we're going to throw in because whatever we put in the oven it's going to end up being what it is based upon the ingredients so the analogy here is when you look at comparable comparisons having been part
of that process and having a consultant that said here's our list of recommended comparables and we as Commissioners could adjust those we did adjust them because they they weren't comparable and we had no problem once we got those
ingredients in place then we knew moving forward process is process but whatever you put into that process is going to determine outcomes so I said I would say from the standpoint of of uh credibility
to a process and integrity in process that um it should be provable multiple different ways and that's that's what basically the public wants to know the public wants to know is it has that the
those primary fundamental values been protected in this process and having been part of that and and seeing what we've seen in the last few years um that's why I say
I'm I I I challenge I challenge our outcomes they're predictable but anyway I appreciate your listening and and my my commitment is and I don't think we need to consult to make the comparables knowing what it is we're looking for and
and I did a study of comparables and the counties I talked to said wow send me that because nobody's doing it this way anyway so again it's not about me it's just it's about focus on on our stewardship or responsibility so thank
you for listening and your input yeah any other questions for Ellison thanks so much for bringing all of this up to date and almost successful almost get in there thank you almost now we'll move on to question we
need a motion we have a motion in a second I believe oh sorry all in favor I I close same sign motion passes 4 to one administrator updates all right
thank you madam chair members um the big ones that I continue to provide updates on um top of the list administrator hiring process I think we're we're well up to date on the process there the LEC Edition project we continue to work with
bkv and our design team and we are happy to report still on schedule and plan to have bkv and Henry here to provide the board with uh an update on the process and a schematic design of the law enforcement center expansion and all of
that it entails including um options and considerations around deferred maintenance uh that exist within there and and the pros and cons of all of that as well as some detail on um when we would be able to get uh some numbers
from our construction manager at risk Johnson Wilson on that project as well another one that I've mentioned is uh the kind immediate space needs and and project that our facilities director Brook lassard is working on uh for a
redesign and creating some office space in the basement of this building and um we have a a design that we've shared and I believe now we have received or Brooke has received numbers I haven't seen them yet um but we're we're working on
finalizing that so that ideally I believe still this month um maybe as well on the on the 25th or or maybe now time limiting uh early March we will bring forward um a proposal and a and a consideration for the board of the work
that we would do again another project that is intended to address the immediate space needs as well as accomplish uh some deferred maintenance and including mold remediation for a uh mold problem that has been discussed
several times and was down there and then um lastly the the transfer station uh auditor Treasurer Powers made mention of of some of the deals uh the ordinance that needs to happen there and then we're in works on
the uh contract ends as well with the the use agreement and and the other components that are there as well as uh having follow-up meetings with Land Services and the highway department um to make sure the the location and the
permitting process for our satellite shops would which are both uh next to Highway Department shops uh tofy and hoveland respectively um get laid out in a in a way and can be permitted in in a way that they need to so good good work
continues to move those projects forward and um I no no major concerns or red flags from anybody involved that uh that I would bring forward to the board today so just in summary uh everything's moving along as as good as it can I
stand for questions okay thank you on the update thank you there's no questions or comments we'll move on to employee concerns commissioner concerns reports meeting updates anything
specifically right now that we need to know about commission suan surely thank you commissioner or chair stly um Cook County invasives team met on January 29th and they just um I had mentioned they had events um at the brewery and
for a weed pull on Gunflint Trail but they did um secure the dates for those events so um at Voyager it will be June 21st which is a Saturday and the weed pole on the Gunflint Trail Wednesday July 23d and then many of us attended
both no and AMC Zoom meetings recently um to discuss the implications for counties related to Federal changes that are occurring and also uh related to the governor's budget and just
general recommendations um prioritize your issues be realistic and breathe just wait for information to come our way um on January 30th fire wise met and both Brady along with Mike Keyport are
really busy dealing with Billings that have come in towards the end of the year so I appreciate all their efforts on uh getting that up to date February 4th we had our Hazard mitigation meeting I know commissioner white attended that along with me and it
was really great to see the large number of people in attendance um from Grand Portage to um other organizations um here in Grand maray and throughout the county to really look at how do we prioritize those hazards
now natural disasters that may occur and then what do we see as immediate issues and we talked a little bit about the grade and the fact that there's a bridge out there and how do we deal with that um but there's a very comprehensive packet that was um put out and a lot
will depend on what goes on with FEMA as far as we move forward and what grants might be available um but I really appreciate Mike ke port's leadership with that um initiative that's done every five years
um mcit has a series of meetings on Zoom that are part of open meeting law I would just encourage people if they haven't been able to attend those to look at the recordings but it's very very good um it's a four-part series uh
Soil and Water Conservation District met talked about funding implications um currently the um aquatic invasive species budget is cut by 50% um that is the proposal and S swcd would be
impacted in 2026 by reductions um so they were just laying out funding implications the Rainy Headwaters Rem milion River one Watershed one plan has met that was just an organizational meeting I'll continue to chair that
group but we brought on new members and uh just kind of did an update of where we're at at this point those are going to be quarterly meetings now now rather than monthly and then it was really fun last Saturday we had the Gunflint Trail mail run um half the county was was up
watching the sled dogs and it was a great event good Community Builder and um nice to have snow that we could have that event so that was appreciative and lastly yesterday there were uh three of us attending the legal land use training
that was provided Neva Maxwell brought in J Squires and um talked a little bit about case law and its impact on some of the decisions so there are packets I know that other Commissioners who are unable to attend did receive this morning and those would be my
updates anyone else commission white um two things um we had a well the Hub marketing this is marketing now they are having a uh love the Pasty sale uh
you can pre-order until Thursday they're $8 a piece and it's a fundraiser for them anyway there's that but the other thing was that commissioner Gamble and I had a uh town hall meeting uh on Saturday
10:30 to 12 and uh a number of people I don't remember the number if it little over 50 something people I think 51 um came and the discussion focused on the administrator the process the higher the
history and um I would like and it was it was not wistful but it would be um this is controversial but I um they they they as in they the public
that was speaking would like to have an opportunity sometime to have more than just two Commissioners at a time do a town hall meeting know I understand that uh pro professional commissioner storle goes to the Town Halls on the west end
and does that and we put out a lot of different information in different venues and but it was astounding disappointing sad that there were people that expressed uh an ignorance about the uh
addition on the law enforcement center and on the uh what was the other thing that I thought transfer transfer station so anyway since the beginning I have I really like I like doing the face to
face doing that and and um building trust and hearing from the and even when I can't give a answer I just get to listen to people which there's value in that and so if how would it be here's my question
because I intend to have more Town offer more Town Hall meetings like uh the engineer the highway engineer will be coming because it's the arrowhead Trail he'll be coming within uh he'll be coming out to uh in March we'll see what the temperatures are like but either the
hovland town hall or the kville town hall the hoveland town hall is a big dance hall and it's really hard to to heat and so to save money we heat the smaller spaces at Colville then um and
it's close enough but but to put it out as a possibility that maybe there'll be a quorum there and if anybody wants to show up besides me they can and we don't have to worry about more having a quorum at a meeting
so there was that question if how does anyone feel about that and as far as the expenses go every town hall that I've had this is not cost the taxpayer or the county anything I have paid for everything every meeting out of my
pocket from the rental to to advertising to whatever else we had the food so I would be willing to put that announcement in the newspaper also but just maybe have a chance for more people to show up and interact with the
community if it worked into their schedules commissioner gamble thank you madam chair thank you commissioner white yeah uh it was intention actually I had checked on various locations because I was looking to do to be able to find out facility
availability in all five districts and then we as Commissioners we would be able to make it convenient for people in that District to show up and all five uh Commissioners could be there to field questions and to listen primarily it's it's a listening session um and looking
at it we'd be able to post that so the public could be aware but because of the timeline of things moving as they were it was trying to find something and then I had checked with Genie just to find out to make sure because we want to be in compliance and want to be respectful um and so in the
future uh if we choose to do that in in our districts and make it so that all Commissioners can be there to answer questions that can be done as long as it's posted um and so it there are some counties will do annual uh
surveys um from their public just to find out how we doing where we're at and assess performance just like we should have you know and reviews of all employees it's what we can do to come alongside and help how we can support and how we can learn to be better on
behalf of the stewardship responsibilities entrusted to us so um the willingness to ask the willingness to provide opportunity outside of the limitations of our timeline here is and no dialogue this allows them to dialogue and to listen and there certainly needs to be
parameters so that that it's healthy but we shouldn't let it get to the point where it's so pent up that that uh that's an issue there will always be individuals that are not happy with something that uh but but the parameters are there create the opportunity and if
it happens you can let off steam on a regular basis as opposed to waiting how long to do it but we should look at at how how we allow stakeholders to inform our decisions from staff standing point from our experience as elected officials
and from the public standpoint so I would just offer and thank you for your report I would just offer that on the first part of March we're going to have a discussion on communication procedure and policy okay on these kinds of meetings yeah that's all I want to say
right now okay can we move along anybody I have one thing about the bkv group will be meeting on Thursday and I think there would be great value in having another uh commissioner participate or at least sit in maybe not on every one of them but
just to get a feel for what is being proposed more than just me this Thursday at what time did you say this Thursday yeah it's this Thursday Rowan is it it's this Thursday at at 11
11 11-2 it'd be available that's in the ITV room yes here at the court anything else no okay so um we have upcoming meetings
to note listed here just a reminder to the public um Monday the 17th is President's Day so the courthouse is closed and just we added on our legislative meetings um coming up the end of the month 25th to the
27th and uh we have the lodging tax comparison uh through November 24th in our packet and we have February staff anniversaries Julie Bergland a temporary office support specialist one year Rico
Riv Public Health and Human Services one year JD Co radio communication analyst three years Karen Christensen from the veterans service three years Nick honer from the auditor's office three years Kathy an
Travis attorney's office six years and Tim Nelson from Land Services gets 26 years with us which has been wonderful to have him aboard that long to uh help us out in that area and no further
business I will ask for adjournment motion so move to support all in favor I hi we are adjourned thank you for all of your attention and so forth stiff here now could you stand up
and just that and let everybody El have sure