okay good morning everyone april 15 2025 and welcome hey good morning microphone's not on you're right Paul thank you you're welcome so I didn't do roll call and my microphone wasn't on so let's uh reset
ready to go let's try it again commissioner Coring I'm here commissioner Lkey here commissioner Barrows here commissioner Franzine here commissioner Lee here all members are present okay cara microphone
good morning chair and commissioners i'm Cara Griffin the division manager for the family and children's um team can you hear me okay okay excellent so in the packet is the 2024 annual report i
did bring paper copies if that's what you would prefer um I'm just going to highlight a few key takeaways from 2024 and then provide some updates for 2025 or things that you should have on your
radar as we move into the year i will welcome any questions or comments that you have regarding the report today i did bring paper so we'll start with the family income maintenance programs also known as public assistance that's supervised
by Sarah McHusk in 2024 the IMU um family team drastically changed the work the way the work was being done so they reorganized the team um this did result in improved
customer service and job satisfaction so prior to rearranging the the duties the team was averaging about four weeks out in processing so that means they were not getting to applications or paperwork until 4 weeks after we received that
since they reorganized the work they're averaging about 2 weeks out in processing so um split that time in half um our child care assistance which that's really important for us to get to to make sure that our families are eligible and providers are getting paid
is just one week out in processing so we've experienced an improvement in our Commissioner Coring commissioner Coring sorry cara Cara can you just to drill down in that a little more i guess I don't understand what what changed
from taking it from four weeks to two weeks i mean what kind of process have you done that's a that's a 100% change what what are you doing different yeah so the team went to um how they had the
work divided up so you'll see on the org chart on the first page there is 10 financial workers and one case aid that reports to Sarah Musk so under that team what they went to was they have a core
group of folks that are doing intake that's their specialty so they're f focused on intake they're seeing all the folks that come in they're entering those applications they're completing the interviews and then the other the rest of the team is focused on
processing so they're not meeting with the folks they still do a rotation of phone duties um maybe taking walk-ins if the numbers are high um but they went from more of a centralized intake to processing and while that might not be
as favorable if you're thinking from a financial worker perspective when maybe if you're designated as an intake worker you're seeing a lot of people you're um in the office primarily from 8 to 4:30 Monday through Friday um the team was
all in on reorganizing the work because they knew it'd be in the best interest of the people that were serving as well as uh provide them relief with the number of phone calls they're receiving and that backlog so essentially they they looked at just
a change in how they're doing the work and really became more client focused wow that's uh that's amazing that you could change it like like a 100% i mean go from four weeks to two weeks that's just in
changing that around it's yeah I hope you continue to look for efficiencies like that and we had um there was years ago when we went through the reorganization timeline probably would have it seems to me like just three years ago but I think it was 12 years
when we went through a big reorganization and that's how we had the work set up we had intake and processing so we knew that there was a benefit in doing that so we somewhat went back and um went back to how things were being
done 12 years ago when we first went through a reorganization so of course as we get ahead of the work then um people aren't calling as much because their applications are being processed whether they're accepted or denied the application so of course then
naturally we have a decrease in walk-ins as well as um phone calls wondering where we're at with paperwork so the team will continue to really be focused on the reorganization and looking for efficiencies we as as well as going
through those changes our SNAP and cash assistance um of course we have timelines that are developed by DCYF that that's the department of children's youth and family services formerly known as DHS um they have a timeline set at
90% we averaged 91% of timeliness in 2024 so we exceeded the state average um we also exceeded the state average for uh timeliness for SNAP expedite so those individuals that um because they are out
of food or they have a lower income uh to expense ratio we are expected to process those applications within 5 days not the 30 days and we exceeded the state the state has us set at um within 24 hours or 7 days at 80% we
were at 89% and then for a health care uh the state wants us at 95% and we were at 100% of timeliness for processing our healthcare applications something to have on your radar as we come into 2024 currently we have a contract every two years we
contract with Career Force Center to provide our employment uh services so those individuals that participate in our MIP CASH program they are expected to comply with employment services so seeking employment maybe getting on the
job training we've contracted with Career Force Center also known as Rural Minnesota SE for a number of years here in Crowing County last year we had a vendor that reached out to us and um mentioned that they're interested in expanding to Crowing County so this year
when we seek con the contract for this professional service we will of course um welcome a bid from Career Force Center or Rural Minnesota SEP as well as this other vendor um and then the contract would come before you so we
expect to open that up in July seeking bids and then um review those re proposals and bring a recommend recommendation to the board to approve and that'll be around October or November so quite a few months out it's something to have on your
radar uh for child support uh that would be uh page I think I'm now at page four of the annual report child support is supervised by Karen Holt just of interest for this team i I found this um you
know experience is really important in in the in any programs when when it comes to county government um and we've had 14 staff in that team and they have over 197 years of AC combined county
experience um so Karen for example she's been with us uh I believe around 10 years and uh prior to that she worked for a number of years in another county um so amongst the 14 staff 197 years and because of that um years of
experience many of them do participate in state and regional work groups which helps us to influence at the state level how the work is being um performed and the expectations around the child support and of course influencing the
the system across the state so Crowing County we continue to exceed the state and regional performance um for example for paternity statewide the average is 96% or um paternity established our orders are at
102% as long as I've worked in the childport area I've always questioned how can you exceed 100% but we do um so 102% our region is at 101 for orders being established in a timely manner um
we're at 94% which exceeds the state is 86 and regionally 91 and then current collections so the amount of percentage of what is to is owed on all the orders versus how much is coming in and being
paid on a monthly basis um we our goal is to be at 75% so we didn't meet our our local goal goal we came in at 74.69 so just below it we're going to hit it this year uh statewide though is only at 73% and regionally 74 and then a
rears uh collection so collection on balances that are owed that have not been current but have been owed from past months we're at 72% statewide is 69 and regionally is 68 it's important to call out those regional numbers because some of the socioeconomic factors that
we might be dealing with for unemployment or um poverty uh that those are the numbers that we watch closely because our neighboring counties in our region should have some of those similar demographics carl what counties are in the region is
it the five counties yes it would be the Yep the Todd Morrison Aken Cass Hadina so Aken isn't in it not for region five for like Sourcewell but for who we compare ourselves for child support they would be our bordering counties yeah
thanks moving on to social services that would be on page six and seven of the annual report so our reports investigations and assessments continue to be steady over the past three years so we average
around 1,600 child protection reports that come in on an annual basis something to be aware of here in this area is that the state is reviewing um a centralized intake and screening process
so it' be similar to adult protection which is called the MARK system about 10 years ago that was implemented the state has been looking at that that was part of the governor's task force from I believe it was 2017 it was one of the recommendations to look at
that while that would provide consistency across the state locally our feedback and I've participated in workg groups staff have um stakeholders law enforcement we've invited our community partners to participate in those work
groups to provide feedback as well um while that would provide consistency and there's just one phone number or one online form to complete um our perspective and opinion on it is that it would cause there's more cons to a
centralized uh screening system financially there would be a greater burden at the state level we know that they have a higher administrative cost when they're um providing programs we would still need to have an intake
person here to do followup and um connect with the the partners that are making reports we have concerns about those reports that aren't screened in what happens to them um right now our we record every single report that we
receive so we enter every single report even if it doesn't meet the threshold of child protection some of those families though are at risk for child protection so we do outreach with those families to prevent from them going down that child protection track um our stakeholders we
develop really strong relationships with reporters in the schools community providers our law enforcement it would be additional burden that we still face with adult protection that they have to go through a centralized intake they would prefer
to maybe come into our office and provide that child protection report or call they know our staff by name they they know us we have developed relationships so we have provided feedback that there would be more cons if the state goes goes that way
with centralized intake we will of course make the most of it and we'll we've learned some lessons through adult protection so hopefully we can get ahead of it they given a timeline for when they think they're going to try to do that i believe that June the uh group the
contracted group that is providing the analysis across the state will be bringing it to the state um for with a recommendation i would not expect then that it would be rolled out until 2026 if not even 2027
for adult protection once that decision was made it was about a two-year roll out before the count it actually hit the counties so and another big difference is adult protection child protection has been around a lot longer the rule the
laws the statutes the rules the practice is decades ahead of where adult protection when the state brought out the adult protection there was a lot of counties that were really still in the beginning stages of adult protection crowing County was actually one of the
leaders in adult protection across the state um we had a very strong relationship with the sheriff's department and um had been adult APS was very much on our radar and we had consistency in our screening decisions and our um response to adult protection
yeah do you know Cara in here you noted that Crowing County enters everything into that database that you're talking about and not every county does that is there a movement from the state to
require that of every county or to not require it and don't want people to do it so that their data is con you know is consistent across the board do you know if there's such a movement you know I think that would be a solid suggestion
that would come out of this workg group is that for the state to provide very clear guidelines across the county and expectations on what on the entering of intakes or reports um because there isn't consistency and the
state hasn't provided direction it really is up to those at the local level on if they're going to enter every single report how those reports are entered um but it would be helpful and important that we all were doing it the same way
it would seem like if you enter it all then there's certain data that's available to understand what's going on in our society if you don't if you exclude one portion of it I don't think your data or your analysis can be
complete and and fully um see what's going on with our society so just a a thought I had when I read your report last night yes um we have found it helpful in just locally to be able to look and have a
full snapshot of a family and sometimes just that single report in in itself doesn't paint that full picture and then you start putting the reports together together and then the puzzle becomes whole and it's evident so then you think of families that move across
counties and have history in those other counties and for us to be able to see those reports and know the what was in those intakes and reports it really would benefit us and the families to have that full picture uh in the intake and assessment
team uh that that team is supervised by Margaret Wisco uh of interest is that 75% of those social workers so when you look at that org chart 75% of those social workers have three years or less of child protection experience so we did
experience a high rate that was unfamiliar to us of turnover over the last three years and because of that and because of the training and the onboarding that is required with child protection workers um we've we did have to really focus on
onboarding which meant that there was a decrease in the number of our child welfare and our PAOP cases that's still really important to us we know that investing in cases earlier on and preventing those child protection those families from entering the child
protection system is first of all it's just better for the families less trauma as well as it does assist in us managing our out of home placement budget and our staffing resources and our judicial system parent attorney time county
attorney time guardian and lightm the whole system uh so we did have to um rein it in somewhat in 2023 and focus in 2024 and really focus more on on child protection so we're building our numbers back up again though in the prevention and preservation and we'll get back
there where we were at in 2022 so that moves us into the ongoing team which is supervised by Stacy Brown and um even though we had to shift some of those resources our out of home placement budget and numbers continue to
[Music] um sit very well um actually record low uh right now we have 65 kids in care uh that's that point in time report that we look at every month we have 65 kids in
care uh back in November of 2017 we topped out at 195 so to think 7 8 years later and we're at 65 is pretty
remarkable unbelievable when when I say it aloud and then we need to knock on wood so the the actual out of home placement budget last year in 2024 we were approximately 1 million under budget so even though the numbers are going down the actual number of kids in care our rates have also increased
though so the amount of foster the rates that we pay foster parents goes up every July and that those have increased over the years as well as just the rates for detention residential um our group homes
um have have been going up substantially since COVID and that's mainly due to staffing they need to compete with each other and they need to have quality um staff and adequate staff to meet the needs of the kids in in their care uh we're projected to continue to be if the
last 18 months we use a rolling 18-month average and if we continue to trend where we're at based on the first quarter and we're early into 2025 we still should come about a million under budget and our out of home placement budget is set at for 2025 is at 2.8
8 million currently [Applause] mr chair go ahead yeah cara so if you're a million other under budget so then I'm assuming that for the 26 budget you'll readjust that
number because I I think we want the county board wants all departments to be very close to a projection i mean that that would that would get troubling after a while if we keep putting a high number and
then it comes in a million dollars below correct does that make sense yes correct um Commissioner Coring that we've used um the 18month average to um project out we have continually been
under a and two or three the last two or three years and we've had though some high cost kids that we expected there's one in particular that's actually in a placement right now that it's $4,000 a
day luckily he's in a waiver home so the waiver is helping us to cover that $4,000 a day and it only takes one or two kids such as that youth to get us to that million dollar um where we would
have we would have been right at budget uh how can how can that be how can anybody be $4,000 a day that can you explain that that doesn't make any sense to me yeah he is he's an anomaly um this is the youth that we've
had in care for approximately five years was a disrupted international adoption from so was adopted from another county he in the home that he's in right now he requires two staff at all time and awake
so that's a high personnel cost he cannot be with anybody else he's in a home by himself um and there's a 2:1 staffing ratio and those staff do have to be specially trained in management of
his behaviors and escalation if I can just interrupt too I would suspect that there's a psychiatrist involved and a psychologist and maybe some behavior analyst that might be involved in that and when you think about Commissioner Coring a a psychiatrist you're paying them probably
$300,000 a year to do their job but every one of those professionals that support this young man are costly items in addition to the hourly staff that are providing the 24-hour observation and and care of him so it isn't hard to get
to that $4,000 a day well said he he is an anomaly uh kids that are in detention uh those daily rates are around 600 residential is three 300 to
the 600 and then our foster care so kids that the least restrictive that are in family foster homes are 35 to 80 a day and Cara you said that he was from another county i think you meant to say he was from another country oh I
apologize yes correct he He would be from another country it was an international Okay okay Mr chair and just one other thing to add to Commissioner Coring's point about reducing the budget if we're trending at a million dollars below budget every year we continue to to monitor and
review that on a we're looking at it basically on a monthly basis we're looking at it on an annual basis and we have adjusted the budget down in this area over the past couple of years in fact the last two years we had taken it from 2019 of having a budget of
4.5 4.6 million down to the 2 million just over $2 million that we have for this year so we are reducing that amount we also know that this is an area where as Cara mentioned we have to keep an eye on it because one case can end up
throwing us out of whack and that was one of the areas that we had had some concerns about if you recall where we were trending a million dollars over budget every year for a while so it's finding that balance in that happy medium which is why the analysis that's
currently being currently being done as well as the prevention work versus the reactive work that is involved in this area some of these things and initiatives that you have approved as the board and that Cara and her team
have implemented are having really good positive impacts on out of home placement not only the number of kids who are in out of home placement but the budgetary numbers as well so it is something that we're constantly monitoring through that process
so Mr chair I have another question so the I don't know if you can tell the age of this person but how what does it look like for the the citizens of Crowing County if it's $4,000 how long will that
go on and when that person turns 18 what happens then i mean it just I I think if I tried to explain this to people my constituents $4,000 a day they'd like "Holy smokes." Uh so what what happens
when that t person turns 18 yes this youth will turn 18 during the summer months and at that point he can choose to remain in care continue to work with us there are requirements for that such
as remaining chemical free he needs to be working or working towards an education so whether that's GED or going to tech school or college um and comply with all other CA case plan requirements for this individual that would be being
compliant with his medications seeking um therapy um complying with the rules of the house as of right now this youth has said that he does not want to continue to work with us and that when he turns 18 he will be on his own he
would he will be independent and on his own we will do our best to set him up with services in the community wherever he decides to relocate and um be there for him if he wants to he wants case
management services like adult mental health case management services to help him with seeking services and being um a successful adult in the community so once he turns 18 he is not under any commitment or
anything once he turns 18 he legally can make the decisions himself and there's nothing am I right you are correct okay all right thank you and thank you
Debbie for giving a really nice summary um I do want to while the team has uh you know been very invested early on in this journey of prioritizing family preservation and prevention our child protection numbers were still really high so the team though was all in the
staff the supervisors as well as county attorney's office the judges guardian and lightems the parent attorneys knowing that the agency was needing to be shifting resources and balancing between child protection and um child
welfare and that prevention and preservation and then most importantly was the support that we had from all of you so the commissioners you did um support us early on with hiring additional social workers at that time we called them program specialists uh to
work in that prevention area those pre program specialists have been reclassified when we got that new allocation and we couldn't we we were not able to supplant and I think it's Commissioner Coring who is interested he's always amazed by that word or surprised by that word we weren't able
to sub supplant to what we were currently doing so um we were creative and what we did was reclassified those program specialists to social workers because they already had degrees and they were and that gave us though now flexibility that those workers when our child protection numbers go high we can
shift them and they can jump in and do an assessment or an investigation or maybe keep a case that we have ongoing child protection and then when the numbers go down because it changes on a weekly basis on a daily basis and when the numbers go down then they can shift
and pivot and go back to doing more of that family preservation and prevention work so um just a lot of gratitude for the entire system in supporting us through this journey over the last eight years mr chair Cara can I ask you a
question child protection is a mandated service correct is family preservation a mandated service family preservation child welfare the peace is not a mandated service so I just wanted to point out for all of you that while we're required or mandated to provide
child protection the stuff that we are doing that's not quote mandated is what is having the impacts that Carr has been talking about that is the piece that is bringing down the number of kids that are actually placed in care to begin with because we're doing these family preservation services on the front end
this is what's helping with some of the reduction in costs is because we are doing more programs on a preventative side that aren't necessarily quote mandated services but are having the more impact on preventing us from having to have the high costs associated with
providing those mandated requirements i just wanted to call that out specifically as we start talking about all of these things when we start facing our budget challenges for 2026 yes there are levels of mandates and there are some things that are not mandated that we choose to do but part
of the reason why we're choosing to do the non-mandated services is the direct impact that it's having on the families on the kids and on the budgets that we are dealing with mr chair go ahead
so another question i got to try to figure out how to choose my words carefully on this because I re I'm starting to recall that we had a conversation that and I'm not going to mention any names but there's some nonprofits that help to
facilitate adoptions and and really in a way they kind of sometimes they can be really highrisk children and and then they get here and the adoptive parents can't
handle or those children are just so hard to handle that then the county now and the taxpayers take over that uh of taking care of that child that comes from another country and if I
remember correctly we were going to have a chat with these nonprofits that are facilitating this did we ever do that did do you remember that commissioner Coring you are right great
memory um we did have an influx of kids that international adoptions that were at risk for disrupting or had disrupted and were in under our care and custody whether as a formal guardianship or just in our care
with being placed out of the home i am not able so I provide clinical supervision for the the CH team so I have a good handle on those hund and some cases that we have i'm not aware right now other than this youth that is placed in out of home that um a kid
that's on our radar uh fitting the circumstances that that you described and uh we I had done outreach uh Christa Jones who is the manager of corrections had also done um some outreach with the organization that was
facilitating uh or was part of that that group uh requesting to come and speak to their members and explain what we were facing here in Crowing County we didn't get the opportunity to um attend one of
their meetings or one of their um groups when they got together however maybe just having those conversations and putting giving them a little awareness to what we are facing and maybe the families themselves that I so I'm not sure if they're
still in that business of helping to facilitate international adoptions and county administrator Tim HL was part of that out that outreach as well so phone calls letters to ask to come and have conversations with them so we I have a
tracking sheet of those kids um and we'll continue to monitor that situation well I appreciate that answer i just hope that if something like this happens in the future I I certainly have no
problem making the community aware of these uh organizations that are um providing these services that are really costing the taxpayers a lot of money and it's just it's putting families in a
very difficult position i uh when we had the conversation before there was one child that they were scared of mhm um and so um anyway I'll leave it at that but uh I just want those groups to be on
notice thank you and to add to that um you know it's it's wonderful that families are willing to open their homes and their hearts to kids that need a placement maybe short-term respit or long-term so when
when you're having those conversations as a commissioner um let them know you know Crowing County is always looking for foster homes whether as a respit provider which you don't do not have to be fully licensed but or as a shelter and permanency option which then would
require you to go through the license um option but I always tell people a good place to start is with just respit because that's a background check and us coming and visiting the home and make sure that um it's safe for kids to be in i know that I'm over I have one more to
point out chair if that's Go ahead okay um under the CH team that's supervised by Pat Sharband as you recall uh it would have been now seven eight years ago we received a half a million systems of care SAMA grant to implement Sibs and
SFT so collaborative intention intensive bridging service systemic family therapy uh we worked with community partners to provide the systemic family therapy we went from having eight kids placed in residential many of those out of with a
waiting list we since that implementation of the Sibs and the SFT we have not placed a youth out of state we had great successes with that so those were kids we target families and we continue to target families that are at risk for residential or in need a
residential placement what we did experience though was a high turnover in our community providers providing that therapy it's really intense it's in the home it's not as ideal if you're a mental health professional as being outpatient um it's
a little bit more gritty work so they there was a high turnover because of that we did train somebody internally that is um an LICSSW that works under me has been trained in the model and she part of her time half
of her time um we have her doing systemic family therapy with families that continue to be at risk for residential LICSW yes licensed independent clinical social worker okay we like our initials um and
we also uh shifted resources so that we have depth in our crossover work crossover a number of years ago the county board supported us with hiring an additional social worker to target those youth that were engaged in criminal
activity often ending up sitting in detention at a daily rate of $400 or $500 that adds up really quick so we have a social worker that is deployed immediately so prior to them going on probation we deploy that social worker to get that kid out of detention maybe
it's safety planning and having that kid go back home with services in the home it might be going to a foster home it might be going to residential treatment chemical dependency treatment um and because of the detention numbers going up we shifted and have another staff
that is working in the capacity of crossover and that is all I have mr go ahead so by doing these these intensive inhome we're keeping kids from out of home placement is that what
you're saying so we're investing money into that otherwise we would have be caught on the other side of it the $400 or $500 a day for out of home placement so it is working correct good yes investing in the systemic family therapy
intensive inhome versus a kid going into residential at the $300 to $600 a day now thank you i'm amazed every time you come and present with the complexity of what takes place in your under your purview
and it's appreciative from my perspective of all the work that you do to shift here shift there try to get ahead of these issues again to to the administrator's point some of these aren't mandates but they are getting ahead of it and in the
long haul they're saving some money even though we don't have to do it But so there's a cost no matter how you look at it it's just how much do you want to pay and I and I appreciate the efforts that you have that your staff have in adjusting you know their workloads and
and what they're assigned to do because I think that's sometimes problematic is that change is tough for some people but I think that I you know I just want to acknowledge that they seem to be a group
that by and large is buying into the adjustments to make sure that Crowing County is being as efficient as we can with the resources we have so thank you very much thank you for that comment there's nothing
else appreciate the presentation thank you thank you gentlemen do you want to join up here also we like good-looking men in our room here nice job
all right good morning i'm Lieutenant Colonel Steve Hall i'm the deputy commanding officer for Camp Ripley um you kind of consider me the resort manager and then to my left is Major Michael Pop he's our operations officer kind of consider him the activities director so we kind of think of Camp
Ripley as a resort and when you put it into those terms it makes a lot of sense to us and and I think it does to you guys as well so um appreciate the opportunity to be with you this morning and to give you an update on Camp Ripley and and kind of what the summer looks like at any time please don't hesitate
to ask me any questions all right our mission so underlined uh positive community relations and that's that's really why we're out here today with without our positive community relations we can't do what we need to do we can't train the way we want to train at Camp Ripley it's the support we get
from our communities that that make this possible as you guys know we are in Lakes Country and uh the last thing we really need is like quiet hours at night there's a lot of installations that have received a little bit more urban encroachment and with that the the voice
of the public has has stopped those those bases and installations from being allowed to to train the way they need to train for combat operations so if you've been around this weekend you know we were in full force already um it will continue throughout the summer but the support we get from you is crucial to
our success as well so thank you for that and that's why we're out here uh Minnesota leadership so Major General Sean Mankey twoar general he is the highest ranking general in Minnesota we all work for him basically um and then his senior enlisted adviser is
command chief master sergeant Lisa Ericen so interesting fact she is Air Force so a lot of people when they hear u Minnesota National Guard they think Army but but what you need to realize is that the the Minnesota National Guard is made up of Army and Air Force so the the
Army makes up a little over 11,000 and the Air Force contributes another two a little over 2,000 so about 13,000 Guardsmen in Minnesota the Air Force is stationed out of uh the 148th Fighter Wing the F-16s out of Duth and then the 133rd Airwing that is on the uh
Minneapolis airport which you probably see when you fly in with the C130 so kind of a fun fact so she is she's Air Force it's kind of uh it's very interesting for us to work with her because you think that since we're all in the military we speak the same language but it's a lot like Norwegian and Swedish it's very close but uh it's
interesting some of the the terms that we use so she's been great to work with and she sees things through a different light that the army doesn't always see so it's been really good and enlightening to have her on the staff as well one other interesting fact with Minnesota is that we are home of the Red
Bulls so the the Red Bull division there's eight National Guard divisions and Minnesota is home to one of them so with that we also receive another two star command and that is Major General Charles Keer he will actually be rotating out next month and uh General uh Joe Sharky will be taking his place
but they just recently returned from a deployment if you saw that on the news so we're very happy to have our headquarters back and then his command sergeant major his senior enlisted adviser is Matthew Ericson um great fact for him he used to be a a command sergeant major for Camp Ripley so he's very familiar with us and it's great to
have him up at the division level with us camp Ripley leadership so Colonel Troy Frink he is the he is the garrison commander so he owns the resort for the most part and uh his command sergeant major is Ryan Hoffstead so Colonel Troy
Frink is is great he lives up between uh Baxter and Pillager so he's familiar with the area so it was great to have him come in as the commander and the command center major Ryan Hoffstead lives in the Royalton area so we are lucky to have people that understand the the climate around Camp Ripley economic impact so just shy of
$83 million is our economic impact for this past year we we strive to keep that money as local as possible we are the largest um employer of Morrison County we have 800 employees full-time on Camp Ripley
and in the summertime we surge to right around a thousand employees but a lot of our economic impact we hope stays within the community of uh that surrounds Camp Ripley is that 83 million is that year-over-year is that pretty consistent that that's that's pretty consistent sir
yeah we're right around that 80 to 85 million a lot of that is construction dollars obviously our salary makes up quite a bit of that um or our payroll but yeah that's that's very consistent okay located again in the in the center of Minnesota um 18 miles of underserved
Mississippi River we always say we're the largest private land owner of the Mississippi River uh and then surrounded by three counties so just shy of 53,000 acres is what is what Camp Ribby is made up of some of our accomplishments so
558,000 Department of Defense so 558,000 military came through our gates this past year at Camp Ripley and then another 71,000 and some change civilian training as well as Camp Ripley so um if you didn't know all the state troopers from Minnesota and your conservation
officers are all themies are all held at Camp Ripley as well and we are completely 100% stateowned which means that we're we're a good place for any state entity to come and train at so we we got a lot of uh local and state agency partners for that the second bullet there is kind of a um a feather
in our cap for the most part we were the third busiest National Guard training center in the nation in the nation in the nation so you you really got to consider that because of our northern climate so the other two installations are in the southern states and they can
train all year round our our winter is a good thing and a bad thing for us but for us to be the third busiest and be this far north is really a feather in our cap to the Midwest and to our our Minnesota mentality um our staff here and our team have a we don't say no mentality we will get to yes somehow and
not every installation is like that but we we have strived and we work hard on that and it's it's starting to pay off so I've challenged the staff to get to number two which will be a little bit hard but uh it it was a really big accomplishment for us to be the third busiest um the third bullet so multiple
training events with the with our active duty partners so combat has changed quite a bit throughout the the the past year or two and we we're changing our mentality we used to we used to focus on what's called counterinsurgency operations so
imagine kind of the end of Vietnam and then Desert Storm Iraq and Afghanistan and how we trained and how we fought um you couldn't see the enemy very right they didn't really wear a uniform things of that nature we're getting back to what's called large scale combat operations so think more of World War I World War II type that's what we believe
our next conflict is going to be it's going to be with a like type foe so we are changing our mentality and going back to what was old is new again and that's how we're changing our ranks with that we're out of the desert and we're focusing back into um combat in any any climate right so
the active duty has really picked up on this and they've noticed that Camp Ripley with our northern climate and our cold is a great place for winter survival it's it's really fun for us at Camp Ripley to to hear a group from South Carolina coming up and seeing their training plan and we're going to land we're going to do this this this and this i'm like yeah it works great in
70° but it's going to be -10 when you get here and none of your stuff's going to work your your vehicles are going to be gelled up things of that nature so it's been really good training for units that are not used to being in the cold and we continue to work on that and we want to be home to the to winter warfare training in the future and really
embrace our our climate to the north here and get that so they're they're coming and we continue to grow with more training every winter which is good for us and then as I talked about the DNR State Patrolmies and then the 52nd anniversary of Norwegian Exchange so it's the longest international exchange with a foreign country so we've been
with Norway now again for 52 years we send over around 100 troops they send 100 troops to us over there they focus on winter warfare training um in the in the US when they come visit with us we we focus more on platoon and squad level training they're not very used to that and then our combat lifesaver program as
well we we've changed our focus we used to do a little bit more domestic operations with them we had local law enforcement i think Crowing County participated in that a few years ago but Norway wants to get back to more of that tactical and and less the domestic operations we've we've kind of changed our training throughout the years quick question for you yes sir so you talk
about changing how you're looking at the next battle that'll take place how are you incorporating urban warfare into that so uh the urban warfare piece of that um we we have a city on Camp Ripley that we train in it's 26 buildings so
not Little Falls not Little Falls no on Camp Ripley um down range we have a We have a 26 building it's got a government building it's got a school it's got houses it's got um a jail you can actually put it's got a tunnel system underneath it so that that's a focus as
well as that urban training piece okay good thank you yep uh support to civil authority so we get asked a question every once in a while like how do we activate the National Guard so if there was a flood tornado any kind of a natural disaster how do you activate the National Guard step one
the natural disaster happened step two you need to call your county sheriff your county sheriff is the only one who can put the request in for support to the National Guard it goes through Homeland Security Emergency Management and then the governor will will approve the the activation of the National Guard we get asked that question quite a bit and we get phone calls at Ripley like
"Hey can we can we get some National Guardman to help us out we had some storm damage in Randall or whatever it might be." Like well work through Morrison County Sheriff or Crowing or Cass County to to activate us if that's the case and sometimes we get activated and sometimes we don't get activated but just kind of a an interesting fact there
uh construction updates so a few so act access control points so if you've been to Camp Ripley and you've gone through the historic main gates of Camp Ripley in a few years you will not go through those gates anymore believe it or not they do not make the force protection anti-terrorism um law that or rules that that follow so
we are building a new access control point to Camp Ripley the main gate will be closed and it'll be open for ceremonial purposes only the new gate will be to the west of uh the current gate and it'll be more of like a serpentine so you can't gain speed they'll meet all the requirements that we need for anti-terrorism force
protection so that's that's in the early stages right now funding has been secured for that they're working on the the design and uh we're hoping to put a shovel in the ground either late 26 or early 27 for that project and it'll take about two years to get that built so that's a big project for us at Camp Ripley and uh kind of a change to habit
for a lot of us that have gone through the gates i've worked at Ripley for for 15 years now i've gone through those main gates for 15 years so it's it's going to be a change for all of us uh area five so if you've been on camp Riley we used to have a bunch of tin huts and some really old buildings we're trying to increase um the quality of
life for our soldiers that train uncarably in their bedding um you can imagine retention is hard for everyone it's hard for us so if we can make life a little easier for the soldier and make sure that they're well rested when they go down to train that's a big thing so we're continuing to work in area 5 uh we have a pistol range down range the the
qualification tables have changed therefore we needed to add some targetry and things of that nature and then our tea buildings which are our big open bay barracks that everyone sleeps in they were built in the late 70s early 80s and have never been touched so we need to go inside we need to start renovating those as well so it's a project we'll be
working on in the future as well again creating a a better quality of life for our soldiers I should say our military museum update so if you've been on 371 you probably drove one day and there was nothing on the ground you drove the next day and the walls were up so the pre-cast walls went up very
quickly and we're we're very excited to have the the museum coming we're thinking that summer of 26 that they should be opening their doors they they are really aggressively working on that it's it's really interesting to see and for us at Camp Ripley that gets the museum off of Camp Ripley and puts it on
onto a public land so they they tend to have a lot of people that are intimidated by coming through the front gates of Ripley so they won't see the museum because they don't quite understand what the rules are things of that nature so that should help them out a little bit and this is not the Camp Ripley Museum this is the Minnesota Military Museum so we kind of get that
that um phrase every let's go see the Camp Ripley Museum it's actually the states Minnesota State of Minnesota's military museum and same thing with the cemetery it's not a Camp Ripley cemetery it's a state um cemetery so we're excited to have this open up and uh it's really
coming along well so if you I encourage you to just to Google this there's a neat video you can watch it's a couple minutes long and it kind of gives you a a virtual tour of what the building's going to look like so has always the museum inside the camp has always been the Minnesota Military
Museum it has yep it has even though even though I when I bring my kids down there I thought it was your museum yeah nope it's the Minnesota Museum just stationed on inside of Camp Ripley so that's the only one in Minnesota the Yes it's there's there's a littleer one I
think down by the um 133rd Airwing there's a smaller museum but this is the Yeah this is the main museum for the state of Minnesota good yep schedule training so um March we had the LSSR the Scottish Regiment out of Thunder Bay Canada so we've got we get a
lot of Canadians that come visit us and train with us we we we joke with them they owe us 25% more now but they uh they take it with a heart they they've been working with us quite a bit we're actually a closer training area for them to come and visit so they're great to to have as a partner um in April which
we're coming to an end in we've got a little bit of aerial gunnery so if you saw some helicopters flying this weekend they were actually doing some door gunnery so they were shooting shooting their machine guns and stuff out of the the helicopter doors into Camp Ripley and then you also probably heard some artillery so we are getting into
artillery season we do our best to to put that onto social media and then on the local radio stations as well to let you know it will get quieter to a degree right now there's still some frost in the ground which which really makes that sound rip across also uh no leaves on
the trees and things of that nature help doesn't help denten the sound and then if you have a low cloud cover day so if it's cloudy you're going to hear it a lot more than you will if it's if it's a nice bright sunny day so just consider those but uh we we do our best to let you know that that we are doing that kind of training so um and that that'll
continue all the way through May and into June and then uh July a little bit more aviation flying around as well and then we have our youth camp programs in into July and August and that's a that's a great program for military youth it's kind of like that old school 1950s60s youth camp that you think of of sending
your youth and it's a it's a very economical way to send your kids to a two-eek school they get to visit with other students that have parents in the military and they kind of share the struggles and stuff that they're dealing with so it's that's been a really great program that we've had for numerous years and then uh some modernization that we're having with our armor so our
tanks and our Bradleys we're getting brand new tanks and Bradley's it's called the Army of 2030 concept so we're updating our equipment a little bit again that going back to that large scale combat operations we need to we need to be able to compete and and defend ourselves against the lake type foe so we we're we're updating our
equipment um kind of at a massive rate right now so we'll have to we'll get new equipment everyone needs to come in and get trained on it uh and then snowplow training will come in as well so every MDOT snowplow driver in Minnesota has to come to Camp Ripley every year and get certified that they can um drive that
that snowplow to a standard so they come and train as well it's just a big sea of orange at Camp Ripley for a couple weeks state partners I think I hit most of these uh the DNR of course is on Ripley state Patrol Homeland Security Emergency Management does a lot of training at Camp Ripley and so does the
Department of Transportation and and we've recently had the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension just leave Camp Ripley they did quite a bit of training at Ripley as well this is a this is an important slide um if if you take away anything please keep these numbers handy
so the military is constantly deploying and it doesn't matter if they're in the National Guard or if they're active duty or or whatever they're doing there there are a lot of people in your county right now that are deployed and their families are struggling you won't know it cuz they're proud and they won't always ask for help but if you do notice that these
three names here can take care of them they'll help them out and they'll support them in any way they possibly can so I I encourage you that if you know of anyone or if you hear of anyone in your districts that are that are struggling to please pass these names along and and these people are more than willing to help them and support them even even if they're not deployed um and
they're in the military and they're just struggling through life they got into some bankruptcy or you know some financial difficulty or whatever it might be um these these people are here to help so please encourage you guys to to give these names out and keep them handy some community outreach that we're
doing so if you've never been to to Camp Ripley I encourage you that to mark your calendars for September 14th of 2025 it's a Sunday we open the doors to the to the chocolate factory so you come on in we'll put all of our new equipment on display you can see your kids and your children grandchildren whatever it might
be can come and crawl all over our equipment we'll have subject matter experts with every every weapon every tank every Bradley we'll have a a Chinook a double rotor helicopter a Blackhawk and a C130 on the ground you can crawl and walk around them and do all that and you can you can go come
inside Camp Ripley and see it for the day so we do it every two years and uh like I said it is not the same weekend as um the craft fair in Little Falls we always make sure that we do not hit the craft fair weekend so it's the ops weekend of that but uh yeah please I encourage you to come down to it's um
from 10 o'clock in the morning till about 2:00 in the afternoon so come down we love a lot of vendors and and it's a really good day some other things we do we do a lot of tours with uh with local schools especially this time of year teachers are getting tired and like let's go on a field trip to Camp Riffley so we get a lot of those speeches things
of that nature food drives um Christmas gift tags so we take 100 gift tags from Morrison County and we give those gifts back to to to children that probably wouldn't have gotten a Christmas present so that's a really good feelood thing that we do every year at Ripley and then we are the largest blood donors in Morrison County so just shy of 5,000
pints of blood a year is what we give so we kind of give back in that respect because we completely understand especially especially us the importance of blood so and then some hunts for disabled veterans and and some fishing opportunities uh environmental programs
so you you can imagine when a when a 70 plus ton tank is is on the ground they're they're doing a little bit of destruction to the environment and things of that nature we we try to be good stewards but we also need to train but our environmental program is is top-notch they constantly get awarded year after year after year and it's kind
of getting boring like "Oh you guys won again." It's kind of like when somebody wins the Super Bowl five years in a row but but we we still want them to win because they're our team so um we have a great environmental program they do they do uh um quite a bit of work for us and in restoring the ground back to the way
it used to look like and restoring it back to its natural habitat as well so we we've got a great program with them and they work with a with a lot of different partners and we have some wolf studies um that that bird you see up there that is a golden eagle so we just
saw golden eagles for the first time it's probably been 8 years now and we're kind of like what is that big bird they're they're about twice the size of a bald eagle and so you can imagine when you see that thing in flight you're like what is this thing well kind of interesting they're from the Arctic Circle and they come down and they winter at Minnesota so this is their
warm area to come winter as they come down to Minnesota so we've we were able to um put a little backpack tracker on their back capture one and and monitor its movement so that's been interesting for us and then like I said the bear studies that we do and then uh wolf studies and things of that nature as
well as deer u partnerships so with being 53,000 acres of natural habitat we we have a great relationship with the local schools so anyone that's going for an environmental program a biology program can do a lot of internships at Camp Ripley we strongly encourage that it's the best classroom you could have i'm a
biology I was a biology teacher and a bass life so I wish I would have had the opportunity to do my environmental degree and my biology degree at Camp Ripley that have been great so I get a little jealous when I see those groups that get to do that and we get we get some some free labor out of the deal a little bit but we we try to make it um
enriching for those for those students so we've got good programs central lakes in St cloud as well as US fish and wildlife prescribed burns so let's talk about that for a sec um we are burning sometimes we're burning because we want to burn and sometimes we just burn uh we
do our best we're burning a little over 14,000 acres on Camp Ripley a year uh our model kind of is we would rather light it than fight it so we try to get ahead of it but as you guys know you could have snow on the ground one day and two days later we're dry and we're
burning and you're in a red flag status and we've had a few more cases this year than usual with that but we've been able to contain them and control them so uh you might see smoke from Camp Ripley if you do please go on to uh social media or listen to the radio and say "Yep it's planned we're tracking the burn in fact
we're burning right now some more ground on at Camp Ripley because it if we don't do it a couple of things right it could it could encroach or leave Camp Ripley's um borders which is never a good thing and the other thing is it stops training so when there's a fire on one of our our shooting ranges and things of that nature we have to we have to stop the
training and put that fire out it damages our target tree things of that nature and then again those soldiers might not get the training and qualifications that they need because they're on they're on a tight schedule as well so we are in in burning season right now uh army compatible use buffer program so
this is a army program since we're a base they they kind of work with us and again I talked earlier in the in this presentation about um urban encroachment what this program does is works with willing land owners to put their land into an easement with uh with army and
uh basically they they go into an agreement they get I think it's about half the value of what their land is and with that they they come back and say we promise that we will never develop our land they can still have cattle farm things of that nature because we always say corn and trees don't complain right and that those are good neighbors for us
so with this program and we've got a lot of people on a waiting list it's all funding based of course but it's been a really good program for us and has kept kept the encroachment around Camp Ripley to a minimum so uh unexloded ordinance so this is uh this is your safety slide so with this
as you guys are are cleaning out some of your relatives houses or things of that nature if they served in the war they probably brought something home they shouldn't have brought home and with that please call us we will we will dispose of it not like a camper says do not put this in your vehicle and bring it through the front gates of Camp Ripley i can't tell you how many times
we've had this happen and we just stop and like please just stop moving let's take care of it so but with that if you do see something or if you know of anything that you might see in either house or if you're unsure of what it is just give us a phone call or call call 911 and and the sheriff's department
will get a hold of us as well and we'll we'll remove that that ordinance from you and with that that that concludes my brief i'm open to any questions you might have sure i I have one if you don't mind Mr chair so how are you going to get up to
be number two what is your marketing plan to get your to get your uh camp up to being number two in the as far as being in the United States instead of number three so uh to get to to get to from number three to number two there's
quite a bit to that right so we we kind of have to roll out what's called the red carpet to some of these these units right and and it's really customer service it it's based 100% on our customer service you know everyone that that comes to Camp Ripley is like we've we've never had anybody like this before
you you go to other installations and say you had a a shooting range scheduled until 5:00 but but life got a vote right and your soldiers still need they didn't get through their their qualification or their training there's You'd be surprised how many installations would say it's five o'clock you're done you're
done training get off the range we We're done for the day that does not happen at camp and if it did they call I'd get a phone call and it would not go well for our team right so we'll stay out there we will stay out there until the till we need to anymore we cater to changing um training schedules things of that nature
we provide good quality training and we keep our ranges good everything is is meticulous out there you look at some of our ref ranges you swear on a golf course our our our employees take take a lot of pride in and that's if you ask me what the most important thing on is Camp Ripley is my it's the employees that is
our that's our number one um the most important thing on Camp Ripley is the employees of Ripley and if they're happy they'll do a good job and they'll take pride in what they do so how do we get to number two is through some advertising um we position ourselves we posture ourselves to be more supportive I I'm re
I am now the national training center chair so I I represent all training centers ers in the National Guard that was kind of by design because I want to be number two and with that I I got a little bit of influence you know but but I also help out our other National Guard bases and that's that's our model there is we'd rather send you to another
National Guard base to to help them out as well but um it's going to be a challenge we were third place but we've got a lot of ground to pick up from second place so second place was like 800 and some thousand and like I said you saw us at 550,000 so we we may never
get there but for a northern climate I'm I'm pretty proud of our team they've done a really good job and I only I only say that because you know in Crowing County we're Minnesota's favorite place you know right okay thank you yes any other questions
i I will say I want to say thank you that my windows rattle even at night when you're shooting that big artillery off because I tell my wife that's keeping us safe and and that's the training that you provide so thank you very much for all you do down there and
I don't care how much it interrupts my sleep or my day i just I applaud you folks you're wonderful team to have around so thank you thank you sir and we we truly appreciate the support we get from our local community it's it it
helps it out helps us out a lot yep all right well thank you very much thank you thank you gentlemen enjoy the rest of your day we'll see you next year absolutely morning Joe morning morning board members commission mr
chair Joe Lux fleet manager for Crowing County today I bring with me Austin Kubish Crowing County Highway Shop lead worker um we're here before you today to discuss or inform you about a project that has come up that Austin has been
working on um it's an innovative idea that he's come up with for an adapter plate to um mount our front mounted plows on our trucks our big tenon plow trucks to our
big loader um to basically put another tool in our toolbox for us when we need that out there on the roads if if we have to or around the shop or down here at the parking lots downtown um what this is is we Austin has come up with
this idea um there's some uh local funding out there through the the uh Minnesota Local Research Board um it's it's through the University of Minnesota it's actually called an OPA funding um which is operational research for local
transportation groups um this is just they help to give some money out to these innovative ideas that people around our state come up with to help provide that funding to purchase these extra tools in our toolbox and we've
applied for that grant or for not it's not not a grant um for that funding um and Austin has really taken the lead on this and come up with this idea uh presented it to the this board um for this funding and they have approved that for us um we're already they've already
discussed it re through what he's submitted and uh we bring him here today just to discuss it a little bit with you and fill you in on what the project is so I'll turn it over to Austin good morning good morning Austin So I kind of I have a lot of experience
in you know commercial snow removal and stuff like that i've used different types of loaders different types of attachments and other items for snow removal um the idea kind of came to me uh with our old push box that we were using on our loader starting to get
towards the end of its lifespan um we've been starting to have some issues with it about why not you know look at having some sort of a plow that we could use for both the parking lot um and also be able to use that on our roadway system for various activities or various snow
removal um so I had reached out to falls to you know see if they had something like this available that we could look at adding it into our budget to procure it that way um I was met with uh well we just have an adapter you can just you know mount it to your plow and then your
plow is now suited for your loader and with that it took away the versatility of being able to readily put it onto a truck so we have a spare we have two spare plows right now um that we can interchange onto a truck if we have an
issue with another plow during a snow event uh with that if we're using that for the loader and now we got to put it on a truck now that takes valuable time that that plow could be in use on our roadway um and we have to take and put
that back to a truck mount so I kind of talked with the CEO at Falls about what I was looking for um I'm sure you guys saw the photo of it i I explained I want to be able to just act like I'm unhooking it from a truck and hook it
back up to another truck so basically what you see on the left there that is our loader style mount um that end goes on the loader uh the other style that's more on the right side there that's what the front of our trucks look like so that is exactly how
it would go onto a truck so we are not changing anything physically to the plow it is an intermediate adapter to go between the loader and the plow so this would essentially stay mounted onto our plow and then on the off chance we need to take the plow off and put it onto a
loader or put it onto a truck um we would just hook up to it with a loader unhook it hook up to our truck and go so with that uh I brought it to our ERPC committee uh we had discussed it and being that this was a piece of equipment
uh that was not in production yet uh I was suggested or mentioned to bring it to uh apply for the opera funding for it so I submitted the application for the opera funding i believe it was a couple
days and we had heard back that they had approved the funding request for that uh and then all we have to do is procure it uh we have to take some photos of it do some paperwork on the back end of it for for the committee for you know so that
way they can kind of see their side of things and bring it forward to the LTAB committee so a question go for it so you have an invoice that shows up for falls for $5,700 yes sir and is that the cost of
them producing Yep a couple of these items for you yep yes Mr chair or each item I guess it is so and then further down it talks about the University of Minnesota and you're talking $600,000 and that which must be the opera budget
that they have I believe so yes so that has nothing to do with what Austin you're trying to achieve or Okay i have to say a couple things here congratulations thank you you talked
about the time and the safety factors that it would save i'm worried about the time and I'm going to tell you why because when I read through this you have to go present somewhere about the magnificent piece of equipment that
you've produced so you're not saving Crowing County any time because you're going to be gone from the work site to present to these organizations about this great piece of equipment correct so I'm being facitious you don't have to
answer this uh I I I congratulate you on on uh looking at it and and trying to figure out a way because you also mentioned if you need to bring that plow into the shop and it's just a quick hookup and and you bring it in much easier than what you have to do
currently yes so I I think there is some validity in the time savings but also the safety aspect of it and and I think that this is an example of kind of the creativity and what we look for in our staff and and you certainly have stepped
up and you not only you contacted a a manufacturer you contacted the went through the opera process so I I don't know what negative thing we can say but I'm trying to think of something so can I help you um sure go
ahead no no no but I congratulate you i think this is a great opportunity uh one of the things I looked at Austin is is this kind of like what I would think of a quick tatch on a Bobcat you know you know type thing and this is that piece that that allows you to go from one item
to another um in the loader that that you're going to be using this on is is does that loader buck is that loader bucket you know the actual bucket on the loader come off and then this attachment goes on it's all kind of the same correct and the loader bucket can come off and go back on just as easy as you
can bring the plow and that back on yeah yep yep so right now the loader bucket is it's a it's a push button um attach and disattach so you take the bucket off um I would compare it more to an adapter going from like your your your garden
tractor bucket to like a skid steer style okay bucket you got two different quick adapters there two different quick couplers that you're just trying to merge into one now is this only designed to work on Falls brand plows at this time currently yes is that all we have
is Falls pretty much plows yes and will it work on either a one-way or a two-way plow i mean do do we only have oneway plows on our trucks we are going to all two-way plow truck on on all of our trucks uh the trucks that we are currently in the process of phasing out as our our rental trucks or our spare
trucks sorry um we're on the we're getting rid of those uh over time here so we're starting to phase out the oneway plows uh with that being on the way out um that oneway plow is also uh a
different adapter y and my different mount on there so when those are gone we're still going to be able to use this for the foreseeable future thank you Mr chair go ahead i think this
is going to Excuse me this is going to go down one second he's getting choked up yeah I know i was thinking of commissioning myself got to love allergies uh I think this is going to go down as one of those why didn't somebody think of this sooner
things so only question I've got is uh doesn't really show scale it looks to me like it could be topheavy how will this sit on the ground by itself like when you're off the loader and off the plow yep yeah it it is definitely something that we could take and I mean beingings
that we have a spare plow the spare plow is you know just standing ready out in the bullpen so when we are in an idle season so to speak um it would still be attached to that spare plow and then whenever we're going to use it then we'll just uncouple it from that spare
plow and then move it around to a different plow if needed okay so if the if the spare plow is on a truck and you need the bucket on the end loader then what do you what's your plan uh so that top stinger portion is stationary so it
is it is in a position where if we had to set it down we could set it down on part of our asphalt somewhere out in the parking lot or some something similar to that cool any other questions again I have to say
congratulations i Mhm hope you don't go find a job as a forget what it is because that's not in my world but uh as a designer or whatever they call it but uh stick around okay appreciate it commissioners I just want to say one last thing for Austin austin is one of
our for the shop one of our top innovative people um over the years he's come up with a lot of great ideas on different things in the shop different thinking different way of doing things he's done this for since he's been with us this is one project that has made it
to the top and as a fleet manager it makes me very proud to uh to have him do this and and bring it to this level so and I think you should be very proud and so should you Austin so I appreciate it thank you very much thank you for coming up and
presenting it to us all right i see nothing else on the agenda does anyone have anything all right we're adjourned commissioner Coring we'll see you on the 23rd