agenda so we will be keeping to the timelines so Choose Wisely what you're going to present um Madam chair I do have one change to the agenda before we get started item number three the development of the
kayuna Lake State trail is being pulled from today's agenda oh so we have more time no you don't just kidding this goes till after 11 so we'll just keep on fair enough fa enough um roll call commissioner Corin
I'm here commissioner ly here commissioner baros here commissioner franzine here and commissioner Lee here all members are present okay Gara all right good morning um Madam chair and board members
I'm here today to talk about not only our blade Coalition but our opioid funds so in 2019 um Community Services met with the sheriff's office and we were talking about our exorbitant out of home placement budget as well as the number of children that we had uh in the outof
home placement system and one of the Sheriff's Office Folks at the time said excuse me what we're doing and trying to arrest our way out of this problem isn't working so at that time we decided to form our Brainard Lakes area drug education or blade group uh the blade
Coalition is made up of um a bunch of different areas of the community including Community Services Sheriff's Office local law enforcement Community providers those with lived experience uh Etc and then in 2022 we learned that we would be getting approximately 2.5
million or so in opio federal opioid dollars those Federal opioid dollars came from the uh Federal opioid settlement um and we Crowing County signed on to that settlement and in 2022 the legislature put Public Health
in charge of strategizing um appropriate ways to utilize those uh opioid funds um as a part of that utilization of opioid funds we developed we the blade Coalition um working with opioid dollars
developed our opioid crisis response blueprint which the County Board has approved as a part of that blueprint we did a community survey um in which we learned from community members where the gaps were in service what was working well Etc as a part of that survey um we
developed top the top six primary strategies um in order of importance that's one of the documents that I had um sent to you folks related to the blueprint um there were a couple strategies around prevention a couple strategies related to uh the justice
system one related to treatment and recovery and the final one is related to harm reduction as a part of the harm reduction uh one of the um one of the things that that you uh the County board approved was the Narcan vending machine
in the jail um I asked today to have someone um share their story about the impact that uh Naran has had on her uh life and her experience and that is kayn Colette and she will be um speaking to
you about the impact of that in the community hi thank you for having me today um the first time I overdosed on fentol was January 2014 the people I was with at the time didn't have Narcan and by the time a nurse found me outside of henpen County
Hospital I had no pulse I was revived and administered an archan drip and placed in the Intensive Care Unit thanks to the support I found in croing County Drug Court program local mental health and treatment agencies and the recovery Community I got sober for several years after this the second time I overdosed
was in 2019 almost immediately following a relapse thanks to the quick response from the brainer and Baxter police department Naran was administered by EMTs and I was transported by ambulance to a local hospital for Recovery this was a grueling relapse that consisted of over
a dozen overdoses spread out over 2 years fortunately Narcan was becoming more readily available through programs in cities and other places in Minnesota freely providing this life-saving measur to users who requested it on many occasions I was administered Naran by a
person who I was using with during an overdose on other occasions I was the one administering it to others experiencing an overdose there was one occasion that a Community member also a member of the Southside harm reduction Coalition stepped out onto the street in
front of her home and administered Naran to me before calling an ambulance to North Memorial Hospital this woman was a complete stranger she wasn't a drug user or dealer she was just a woman who was unwilling to stand by and let opiates take the lives of people on her doorstep
I was in North Memorial Hospital twice that day having returned to use and overdosing again this is the insanity of addiction in 2021 my friend Lay Dying in front of me despite my attempts at CPR he had never used opiates but at a party while a group of people were smoking
fentanyl he decided to join in and take one hit at the first sign of his overdose everyone began to flee from the apartment I had to rip a cell phone out of the hands of the person who brought the drugs just to dial 911 for an ambulance he died before the ambulance
arrived you see Naran isn't just important to save the lives of people with chronic addiction who might find recovery someday it's also for the person who makes a poor decision and decides to try it out a party once it's for the inevitable overdose of children and young people that encounter fentol
it's for the community members who can't stand by and do nothing while people are dying in their neighborhood it's for law enforcement as they often are the first ones to arrive on the scene of reported over do it's for parents and families which mine can attest to the value as they have wished they had it during my
days in Act of addiction my family have been the ones to call 911 more than once to save my life thank God they found me in time for an ambulance to arrive and intervene addiction is cunning baffling and Powerful as a treatment provider I can attest to the fact that we cannot
help someone if they are dead addiction can be frustrating defeating and leave families and communities feeling powerless but as the old recovery slow Lan goes don't give up before the miracle happens as I alluded to earlier Not only was I addicted to drugs during my life but I also have an extensive
history within the criminal justice system as well when a person is in the throws of addiction their brain has been hijacked they are no longer making logical rational choices their addiction is choosing every moment whatever is best for their addiction they are
obsessed and consumed by compulsive behavior that includes getting drugs finding drugs and the finding means to get more drugs when incarcerated a person has unique opportunity of having their choice removed from them reality sets in guilt sets in Clarity begins to come and a
person is able to see maybe for the first time in a long time how powerless they have become due to their drug use resulting in complete unmanageability of their lives this is the perfect time to introduce a new Choice like Suboxone a medication that can Stave off the worst
of withdraw symptoms and Cravings giving the person more of a mental capacity capacity to begin planning for Recovery in the last few years the monthly injectable alternative form of this medication called sublocade has become more available to people seeking recovery in their opioid addiction
Suboxone involves a daily routine of taking a medication which can be challenging to people in early recovery especially outside of a protected environment like treatment or jail the benefits of the subloc shot are that it binds with the opioid receptors lessening withdrawal symptoms reducing
cravings and blocking the effects of opioid so even if a person is released from jail triggered to use and they use they will not get high in my early recovery this medication was not covered by my insurance so I went with a similar monthly injection for the first 6 months
I went into my doctor's office once per month and receive my injection I was truly ready to find recovery and embracing the willingness to try anything to help me get there I knew after each appointment no matter what I wasn't going to get high for at least a
month this was different from me having to make that commitment every day because making this Choice every one time a month made the other 29 days easier to focus on my recovery any resource that we can provide that reduces the risk of relapse for an opioid addict increases their chance at
life thankfully I got the injection because I was betting against myself thinking I would probably use despite my commitment to stay clean my history of chronic relaps has told me that my chances of maintaining recovery were not likely writer Brandon Novak said it best
my worst fear isn't that I will die from my addiction it's that I will wake up every day and use against my will those first six months in the ejection in combination with therapy treatment services and support from the drug court team again were critical to getting me
where I am today this year thanks to the grace of God I will have four years of recovery I got married last year and live in this community with my husband and four of our children I went back to college and got a degree in addiction studies which enabled me to get my current position as an alcohol and drug
counselor at a local Treatment Center the miracle happened and my life is full today it's a gift that I've had before but so much precious much more precious knowing how close I came to losing it all thank you thank you so that's one example of the um of
the dollars that you've supported uh going out into the community um in addition to the monies for the Narcan vending machine you had approved uh up to $200,000 to go out in community grants to Our Community Partners and we have a few of Our Community Partners who
receed those grants here today so first I would ask Paul from Timber Bay to come up and talk about the impact the grant that he received has had on the community so timberbay is a uh Christian Outreach to atrisk Youth and we are uh
have been INB brainer since 1984 we focus a lot on mentoring and my specific role in the organization is to um use work as a platform to get into kids lives we um uh I'm just going to
give you so the grant money we we got we received came towards uh to help reduce Camp fees we own a camp out by Lake maax and do Retreats with kids and uh I we I do work projects out there and so I'm going to give you a snapshot of a boy um
he I met him last spring he's eighth grader he uh was a referral from ljp and um needed to work off some community service hours so we went to the timber Bay House downtown here and we had a cat living under our shed and
so we dug around and shed the cat out and and put some chicken wire down and uh I was with him for about 3 hours and probably got about eight sentences out of him imagine an eighth grade boy who doesn't want open up and talk about his feelings um so anyway uh he reoffended
this last fall with a THC charge and um I reached out to him and in January uh was able to take him out to the camp and um and his family only needed to pay $20 uh because some of the the grant money covered the rest of the fee for that and
out there uh we were on one of those 20 below weekends and we were cutting down trees and chopping wood and I and we were sweating it was good it was good work and he enjoyed it and um over this last spring break just uh last week I had him uh for a couple hours to work
off some more community service hours that he needed to do and we were rolling up extension cords used at the Arboretum uh for the um uh Winter Wonderland thing so two hours rolling up extension cords and I could not get him to stop talking
he told me about his offense and temptation to use he talked about problems with his girlfriend and uh I'm going this weekend uh out to another work crew Retreat uh and he's coming along and he told me that on his phone
he has um his his stopwatch set from the moment he left the gravel road at Timber Bay uh the in January and he's going to stop it when he hits back he's that excited to get back so I'm looking forward to being able to Mentor him walk alongside him and hopefully he won't get
into uh predicaments and he's just one of many kids I work with thank you thank you up next we'll have Joe Mackenzie from relationship safety Alliance sorry guys we're we're in got timeline to
here it's big print so it won't take that long and glasses thank you so much for having us um we received 20,00 ,000 uh on the opioid Grant uh and our project was called assisting domestic violence
victims with substance use disorders we had a four-pronged uh way of delivering these Services um started off with Advocate training uh I was ped coordinator for Crowing County and Aken County treatment
courts and had been a uh going to the co-occurring disorders Symposium in Rochester for several years and we sent seven of our uh staff members to uh to attend uh this was the first time that
the Symposium included a domestic violence component otherwise it was uh mental health substance use and uh I'll just go away anyway sorry uh so it made it very
relevant this year for our Advocates to appear uh and we wanted to also vet Megan B Jones who ended up being the keynote speaker for our own hosted training which was prong 2 uh we had a free National Training for the uh croing
County uh people uh didn't matter if you were a professional or just a just a person living in the area uh we had a panel discussion which had seven of our own experts in the different fields uh
our uh training was called strength and Community healing so we explored the intersection of domestic violence substant use Mental Health and sexual assault we all know that those things intersect throughout our community even
if we want to look away sorry uh we were hoping to have two different uh times to uh engage with the community uh however we ended up only hosting one
session uh we had a huge networking uh component to this but the real highlight was really um in the panel uh that was actually hosted by Steve baros the third component was drug
testing and a lock box for medications uh funds were used to pay for drug testing for our clients who were not Avail not afford uh it wasn't affordable to them and also to provide transportation and substance use
assessments because we didn't have a second uh prong to that National Training we had some leftover funds and with blades approval we were able to put that money towards the roof for the Louis sisy shelter uh and this was a critical need as funding from other
sources including ojp was unavailable so thank you very much for that um we were able to serve 245 community members provided 612 services and held four trainings this gave us outcomes of
increased awareness of the connections between domestic violence and substance use it strengthened our Community Partnerships and led to a more Integrated Service delivery and we also received a lot of positive feedback from
the Symposium attendees uh on the value of the panel discussion our future plans include developing additional training opportunities for staff focusing on trauma informed care and substance use disorder prevention expanding our community outreach
initiatives to increase accessibility to RSA services and to partner with local schools to implement early intervention programs addressing domestic violence and substance use I would like to thank croing County and blade for making these
funds available to our community you Mr Andrews you are next Brian Andrews from ljp thank you very much how much time do I have two two minutes it's nice to see you guys I'll call you later and we can
talk uh like you said my name is Brian Andrew I'm the director of lakes area restorative justice project uh we were recipients of the $20,000 uh Grant it allowed us to I guess be creative step across the line when we're the work that we're doing at like area uh diverting
youth impacting we look at it uh prevention intervention and then diversion and then uh re-entry into the community uh for 20 years or 15 years it was check a box check a box check a box the way I the way I looked at it last question that I had was what else can we
do what else should we be doing and so uh we started to add Staffing we add case managers increase connection and change the change the whole direction of how we interact and uh and move the process forward with youth through that we use strength based approach uh we had
a pro-social community engagement so we have a kid that comes in we don't start talking about the harm we start talking about the individual that's where we like some of the other people talking and that's where we learn about what else is going on in their life we take that information uh goals dreams aspirations and we bring it down to the
next level uh when we have that final conference we try to integrate those things into an agreement that holds accountable uh reparation repairs the harm but also helps build the community an example uh I'm down to about a minute so an example was we had a young person
that said they wanted to be a mechanic when they got older uh I don't remember what the charge necessarily was probably property damage uh one of our partners is a mechanic so he we partnered them up together they uh spent several different sessions working on and learning about
mechanics build rebuilding a snowblower and then ended up uh uh delivering it to Minnesota delt and Teen Challenge came into the program identifying as criminal through the process connected with the POs of non-traditional adult and then into goals dreams aspirations uh
positive impact in the community and then leaves as a contributing member of society that's the three entry piece so lots to say two minutes is difficult for me thank you very much thank you thank you Brian thanks okay that is the end of your time does any do any of the
Commissioners have questions I've got some questions for you but I'll catch up with you later okay and then so we do have two asks from the blade Coalition we will bring those forward at another date thank you thank you okay Jim Bray
and the group Madam chair and Commissioners as uh get seated here uh yeah Bob Rogers from Bolton bank and Tom ksh coming back again this is the third time it's update on the 371 corridor planning effort it's
been going on for 18 months or so we're kind of getting near the end really The Last Action that was before you was related to a Federal grant that we partnered with the City of Baxter nisah Crowing County to ask for
25 million to implement some of these uh or some of the near-term solutions that have been identified and studied over the last 18 months and so Bob and Tom are here again to give you an update as we get near near the end I might mention
that we have Mike guined the district engineer for menot here the District 3 and then also assistant District engineer Jim hogen is here to provide support and maybe ask or answer questions if you have any so badam take it away you want any opening words or
you want me to jump right in I know we're limited so I want to yeah I think we'll just jump right into it again thank you for the time this morning to allow us to come and and talk to you again maybe just real quick I I know we've been here a couple times before we're actually in the process of nearing the finish line of the corridor study uh
here for the the 371 corridor from paxer and this one and um appreciate all the support we've had uh from you Commissioners and also from the staff from from the county to to work with us through this process and you know my My Hope as we you know near the end of the
study is that you know we've really set ourselves up for some you know some additional improvements uh primarily safety improvements safety was Paramount and and and what we heard from the public and and from our stakeholders so U that's that's my hope is that we can
again Implement what we're working on here as we cross the finish line of the study but and then the really hard work begins after the study so yeah we're finishing the easier stuff so yeah and I don't want to take a lot of time on on the the background and everything but you know we've been here like Tom it
said and and and Tim as well but just you know some study overview this was kind of a a multi- agency uh effort here with with the two cities with Baxter and niswa the county plane and integral part with with minda and then Region 5 uh was also on our study process so again we
got a lot of good good Minds in the room and and talking about what the issues are and what the opportunities are um and just to be clear again our study limits really were from um the the river crossing on High three Highway 371 in the South End of Baxter all the way up to the county road 18 intersection in in
nisad so that hasn't changed that's really where our Focus has been uh I think mad and others know you know there's there's issues throughout the whole transportation system but this is where our study really had our Focus um and that you know we're not only looking at just the trunk highway but we're looking at what can maybe the supporting
local network do in and around Highway 371 to help solve some of the the long-term transportation problems um as we've mentioned we had a a series of study goals those haven't changed again from when we initially kick things off and we've really broken
the study down into three phases and we are in that third phase right now where we're kind of putting together our study uh taking the recommendations and the alternative uh Concepts that were were uh considered and you know putting together an implementation plan in our final quarter study report uh one thing
that you know again thank you all for for helping uh with this project was putting together that raise Grant application that went in in 2025 in January there um it's actually now called the build Grant but you may have recalled it as the the raise Grant um but you know we're hoping to hear some
positive news Maybe maybe later this year not exactly sure where those federal funds stand but you know ultimately that would really help uh allow the the advancement of some of the improvements that we've we've uh come up with um the next slide here just gets at the needs uh again we've shared these
before so I'm not going to spend a lot of time but really it was really based on safety and Mobility you know trying to enhance the safety conditions that are out there um you know hundreds and hundreds of crashes that have occurred um you know it's not only just those those rear end ones but we've had number
of of pretty severe crashes as well and what this doesn't uh allude to is that during our study process we've had three fatalities on the cdor as well and so those are those life-changing crashes that we really want to make sure that the improvements we come up with can help uh you know solve those problems um
you know we don't like the fender benders but we really uh those real severe you know uh High severe uh injury crashes or fatalities are the ones um that we're really concerned with as well and then Mobility you know the corridor is operating as a four L roadway today you know fairly well um but we have
found that some of the cross streets and even some of the real peak conditions uh with the the the the tourism traffic and all you know we can have some mobility issues as well so we want to make sure that uh we're maintaining that over the the next uh 20 years and Beyond um some of our engagement that
we've done uh over time we've we've we've done you know quite a bit of social media blasts and newsletters website updates we're updating them right now in phase three again um so so there'll be some some correspondences being sent out and then we're doing this round of of Workshop meetings and the
only correction we've got here is that niswa actually is not tonight we're going to actually do it probably in early April um they had a few other things on their agenda that uh were of very pressing importance as well so we'll get to them in a couple of weeks um next we have just an example of
some of the updates that we are adding to the website we we're putting together these one pagers that kind of uh you know will show the public and other stakeholders what is being proposed uh along the corridor so it provides just some background of the study what the existing conditions were at this location and then what the proposed
improvements are and so we've got uh upwards of uh 16 18 of these one pagers that we're putting together they'll hopefully provide that Insight of uh what's being what's being considered and so one thing that is being considered along the corter you've
probably heard a bit about and clearly with the raise Grant application and the improvements that were included in there is um J turns and rcuts and there's a few of these already out there on the corridor um and just wanted to you know for the sake of others that might be joining in on this meeting to you know
provide just a little bit of of background and education on why J turns and why mot is considering J turns as as an option for safety improvements um it really does eliminate uh some of the most kind of severe risky uh movements
at an intersection um it simplifies the traffic flow at an intersection uh hopefully they're not only just enhancing safety but that Mobility piece as I talked about it changes the number of conflict points and the type of conflict points um really those severe crashes typically happen when you have
kind of a a right angle crash or a T-bone crash uh a j turn you know creates more of a we're calling it a glancing or or a deflecting type of a a conflict Point among Vehicles when you don't have people trying to cross over multiple Lanes of traffic at a time um
it it maintains access to businesses and local roads um and it is a very you know relatively low cost but High benefit Improvement and Studies have shown that uh implementation of a jurn at an intersection can reduce total crashes by upwards of 40 uh
42% and uh fatal or injury crashes of upwards of 70% and so again that high benefit uh for that lower cost is is really kind of attractive um we did do a little bit of a case study at the the outside of the bir area where um a
number of of J turns have more recently been installed and so we looked at 20 months of data and found that there was a roughly 54% reduction in total crashes at that location um there was one fatal crash uh involving an impaired driver uh
that's really hard to design for um we aren't out there trying to build roads and design roads for people that make make bad choices and and you know um and then there was one other injury crash so that's just a little bit about background on on that um also wanted to
just share that there is a lot of actual uh kind of education materials out there whether you're interested or you have you know some of your constituents call you and say what are these things all about you know I don't understand them uh why are we considering them uh mot has a lot of good information on their
website uh instructional videos of how to drive them what the benefits are of them uh where they've been implemented and I should have really said you know back at this last slide um I I think this number is probably outdated but there's over 75 of these that are you know installed and and being used
throughout the state and I would say in the next 5 years that number is going to more than double the number that are going on in other parts of of Minnesota as well so um but yeah back to just this you know again this is you know what we're basing some of our information on is that these are being used uh they're
highly effective and hopefully kind of like roundabouts were that the public is going to ultimately understand these Drive these get familiar with these and this will be something that you know really people won't think twice about when they approach an intersection and have to do a slightly different movement than what's out there
today one other thing we just want to touch on for the group is you may have heard about signalized J turns and this is a slightly different treatment to an intersection um there's only one of these in the state of Minnesota right now down in inoka County on Highway 65
um but it really takes that very similar type of of J turn design where you can't make the left turn turns onto the highway or you can't cross straight over the highway from the side streets uh again the benefits you know reducing conflict points reducing those riskiest
movements and all but in this case we add signals and you'll see on the little image up there it looks like there's three signals being added to the corridor well it really is one signal oper you know three operating as one they're all timed together so that when it it's green light for the side street
the side street gets to go green through all of those signals so it's really a single signal operation so again it actually increases Mobility by allowing additional green time or through traffic on like 371 to uh you know have more
time to get through so it can actually improve the the intersection operations um again these are slightly more expensive than a standard uh you know J turn or R cut intersection because you're now introducing a signal system it it increases the price but it is still uh much more cost beneficial uh to
such Capital Improvements is say like a a large interchange project which can be in the tens of of millions of dollars and again just down in the lower corner here um I don't have videos of all these but you know throughout the country um these are very common actually there are places in Michigan and the Carolinas and
all where there's entire corridors they call them Super Street intersections because they use them intersection after intersection as opposed to having signalized intersections throughout uh uh kind of an urban Expressway type of Route so it is something we are considering in in a few locations not in the near
term but more in the the longer term if a problem were to were to arise so um other things we are considering on the corridor just the Alternatives uh in in addition to some J turns is some left in left out options we'll show a couple of these things in a minute um and then grade separation uh you know you've got
the the 210 371 intersection that we've been closely coordinating with with that effort um but there's a few other locations on the corridor that again maybe more longer term uh 30 years out uh might be the right treatment uh as development occurs and and and traffic
increases in certain areas other things we've looked at is just access management again trying to control where and how people get on and off of of Highway 371 and then uh where you all come into play as well um outside of just the trunk highway is looking at the local supporting Road sections of you
know maybe Frontage roads backage roads that could be expanded uh so that again maybe people that are trying to make just a local trip um don't have to go and use Highway 371 that there's that supporting road cuz the last thing we want is to have someone get on the roadway and 3/4 of a mile down get off
of Highway 371 I mean they're taking up capacity they're creating conflicts um you know a lot of times we'll find that you know people that maybe have to you know just get on for a short time they're not getting up to the proper travel speeds and things and and again just uh you know if a local roadway system can be further expanded and
developed it can serve those local trips just going to run through a few of the corridors and at any time if you got questions you know let me know but going to run through some of the the more uh you know segments or portions of the study area that involve you know some of the County Roads or areas where you all
have jurisdiction involvement um this is a a location at the south end of our Corridor at the Highland Scenic intersection um on this map if you're not North is to the right um so that we are looking at you know longterm this is currently a signalized intersection it
operates fine um from a safety and a Mobility standpoint but when the bypass went in many years ago um it was kind of identified at that time you know like hey we should preserve some rightaway here for future Improvement here and so that was done uh mot owns uh all the
RightWay that would be needed to build a a concept like a grade separated Diamond interchange here um and so we are calling that out as being kind of a very long-term uh kind of development uh you know Baxter has indicated that this part of their Community they do anticipate at
a higher growth great uh growth rate uh than than maybe some other areas that are just having infield development so again we were looking at this is probably not going to be warranted for for many many years um but just it really is going to be development driven and hopefully it's not driven by you
know safety conditions uh deteriorating over time so um another option that we have is just uh kind of doing a a retrofit at an existing signalized intersection this was included in the raise Grant um again this is a you know
the County Road intersection here on the North End of Baxter there's currently you know left turn lanes and all but those left turn Lanes kind of look at each other and created an offset intersection is what we're calling this and just shifting the left turn lane slightly so that you're not looking at
the headlights of the person in the opposite direction right at you creates better sight lines and visibility and can have some safety benefits for that so pretty pretty lowc cost minor Improvement again that was one that was included in that raise Grant application um some JT turn options and
there's a series of these I'm just going to show a couple of them but this is a location um again just outside of Baxter uh in in kind of the County area here The Fad and at barbou uh roadway it's a very skewed intersection today as it comes in at a bad angle creating
sightline uh problem so we would realign that intersection slightly eliminate the uh median opening and then you know put in the J turns and so someone that's on barou that is headed towards uh 371 they would come to basically a T intersection
and then have to you know turn right and if they continued South on 371 it would be their normal movement if they actually want to go north they would have to merge over into that left turn lane and do their J turn uh to head Northbound and so we have those conditions at a number of locations
here's another one up around cam um where again several intersections here would be kind of restricted to right in right out and then they would have J turn movements that would allow their their uh uh movement M to go southbound or Northbound whatever they're they're needing to do
there just a couple of others so at nashway we actually had two uh Alternatives that we included um in our early uh kind of U implementation plan um one would be this option that is shown here this is a j turn uh the the I
don't call it a problem but the difference with this one is actually that that turnaround to go southbound is actually a little bit further up the the main line than what we typically try to have the turns at but because of the topography because of the terrain out here uh the natural resources it was
very difficult to accommodate that that median U-turn um you know really close to where nashway uh intersects with 371 so as you see it's a little bit further to the north do I have a you know up up in this area up near hole in the day um
we are showing on this also kind of a a concept that would extend the frontage road on the west side connecting hole in the day and Gall Lake Drive um this is a challenging uh type of connection but it's something we wanted to show as a long term to again provide those local
trips an opportunity you know to move north and south without having to get on to Highway 371 another option here that we have at at nashway is what we're calling it's it's called a green tea or a left in left out type of treatment where um you
know folks that are on nashway have the ability to uh come up to the intersection and take a left onto um 371 and go southbound they still have their opportunity to go right and go Northbound um southbound if you're on 371 you'd have a left to go onto nashway
but we're eliminating that Western approach uh over towards uh Gull Lake Side there because that is really at this location one of the the the worst conditions that we have along the entire Corridor with again sight lines High Travel speeds um if you're if you're at
this intersection with a boat Trail and all and you're trying to get on to Highway 371 um you're you're literally taking your life into your own hands with that movement it's it's very challenging so we would be correcting that and you know moving those movements to other
locations want to show one condition here this is not something that was in included in the the raise Grant it's not in our near-term improvements um this would be looking at uh the intersection up in uh in in niswa at uh County Road
77 and 13 this is a signalized intersection today uh it is been a location where we've had a couple of more recent uh fatalities with with drivers making left turns and getting kind of T-boned and sideswiped there um again this would be a condition if there was a
continued safety problem an opportunity to make some corrections would be to implement a design like this we're not saying that we're we're going in programming this or that we're including this for the near term but this is an opportunity um through our traffic analysis we've done more detailed work
more recently that does show that this continues to operate at a very high level so again people you know their their trip might change by a couple of seconds oops uh by a couple of seconds if you're you're approaching 371 and rather than being able to go straight across you have to take a you know a
right turn to do a left turn to do a right turn um you know you're adding a 1,000 ft 1200 ft of additional travel um but like we said it it really eliminates those most severe movements of of people crossing and all so that is something
that has been you know talked about we're still working with our our uh project team members with with Tim and and other folks from the county the city of niswa and others about some of these because they are new and we know that people are a little bit uncomfortable with stuff that's new um but again some of the traffic analysis is showing that
this can really provide you know not only those safety benefits but also maintain the mobility uh for the intersection so that is all of the the slides we wanted to run through I guess we want to make sure that uh you all had the most up-to-date information that
that we're out there presenting that we're sharing with the public coming up in the very near future um and then just again so you're aware as you know improvements start to get programmed the county is going to be a a key member of of being able to deliver some of these because well mindat can do some of it um
it's not always just all menot and you all are aware of that Tim has been part of those discussions and and you know know that you know they don't necessarily have everything programmed but as things move forward a partnership on these is going to be you know integral to to making sure that these improvements can be implemented when
they're needed and you know at the right time and all too so you have anything to yeah add on just add on a couple things um we have been Bob and Tom and some of the other project team have been working closely with crowing power they have been uh uh engaging with the the project
team about their unique vehicles that they use there I know that there's some touch points with board members are on their on that board and just want to let you know that we're continuing to work through some Alternatives I think it was we got another one for you to look at that's in the mix right now so we
recognize that area and uh their unique use of heavy vehicles um and long Vehicles hauling poles and stuff so we're continuing to work through that um I also just want to quickly talk about the signalized J turns it is a New Concept and I think um at your meeting
at backer they raised some concerns about using those and I want to ech Echo those and there is one in the state we just need to learn a little bit more about that this is not new to the project team but um we want to make sure that that is the the right thing and and time will tell good thing it's not
imminent but um just want to raise um the fact that there's still some work to be done in that to kind of understand those better and the last thing I wanted to mention is that it's really important as we finish up this C plan that this
gets um communicated to our planning and zoning and so there's Frontage roads in first assessment District there's a lot of development up there and we need to be very careful that some of this plan and this groundwork that we're laying
for these safety improvements is not somehow um messed up I can't even think of another word for through a development because of not communication we actually at the office office we had uh a request come in uh to our office
that that wasn't a Planning and Zoning related thing had to do with the possible vacation of RightWay and at first glance was like yeah it's no big deal we don't need it but we went to the corridor plan or draft and found out that there is a plan for a fren Road through there and so we were very
careful about that and I just reiterated that once this plan is done and even at this point uh Planning and Zoning uh the County Board and others that have impact on some of these future projects are aware of these so we can head them off
and that's the challenge with the corridor study a lot of times it'll sit on a shelf and there might be turnover at the county or mind and we forget to pull it off the shelf and then by the time we do some there's a building there a business there and now it's 10 times the cost to implement those safety
things so that's really an important part and they that goes for the cities of Baxter and Nisa as they Implement uh and accommodate development in their cities I stand for any questions I'm assuming anybody else would you like to
add I I I was just going to ask I didn't see anything about can you come to the microphone thank you I just didn't see anything about the uh 371 and and the 29 intersection or 107 that lower 107 you guys didn't talk about that I didn't know if that was that was part of the
study or not thank you Sheriff uh no that was not part of this Corridor study um but that continues to move forward uh this was the intersection this is the intersection just north of niswa it's
actually in the city of Pat Lakes I think it's it's right on the line it's on the line and we have been talking about this just to remind the board this is the one where we partner with mindat offer to fund the intersection evaluation the traffic analysis as we
look for the the best alternative and uh we did that men. paid us back they have come up with an alternative they do have they currently have funding I believe and the alternative it has been identified I think there's some public meetings
coming up to engage the public on what the recommendation was from M so they'll be starting that public Outreach project uh process and I believe construction currently slated is for 28 2028 and it's Federal money I believe and so there's some
uncertainty associated with that and uh we're hopeful that this this will come out on top after that but it's it's being planned there is an alternative there it is something similar it's restricted lefts it's restricted movements no throughs you know two stage Crossings as
a matter of fact that was the the most recent fatality it was related to a two-stage Crossing and a very narrow median and so and no lefts out either um so it's restricted movements to remove those conflict points that result
in the most serious and fatal crashes yes Paul hey just a refresher for me uh so this the safety upgrades study that's totally separate from the $58 million for the
intersection stuff in in Baxter correct we're talking about two different things okay yeah that is correct that that work continues also and there's some public engagement some very recent public meetings that where the project team rolled out five different or four or
five different Alternatives and are receiving public comment on those now this area the south end and the North End uh The Interchange is or that intersection is within that but um it's not part of
this study they're coordinating um mot's kind of the go between between the two so once this is done the County board or Crowing County could have some participation in some MoneyWise on
whether it be Wise Road or any other roads that come on to 371 correct that is that is correct uh we okay we talked about the the near-term ones where it be limited cost that this is um with the raise Grant it primarily
those improvements were within mot RightWay so it was a small cost participation but as we move into opportunities to implement the medium and long-term Solutions there will be an expectation for cost sharing from croing County uh The Fad potentially and things
like that okay thanks no I don't have a a question I guess at this point just uh a comment excuse me a comment or a hope uh just if as you guys work on this project and this study and then 210 371
I just want to reiterate please do whatever you can to um help the businesses in that area with their um traffic on and off the highway because it's it's going to make a uh a big impact on all the businesses and the
small businesses especially are going to are going to feel these changes so yeah yeah I know commissioner we've heard that loud and clear through our public engagement process on The Interchange project um you know that that's that's a Paramount concern
especially you know City of Baxter has has relayed that to us and and as as well the businesses so certainly being taken under consideration yeah and I know we've talked about it before um at that uh event that you guys hosted but I
just know that's it's been a big topic since then and I've had a lot of discussions about it brought to me so Madam chair may I ask a question is it okay um no as somebody who's uh you know
been on in uh driven through that area pretty much my entire business life and and especially now that I'm here as County Commissioner I would not have realized how much that whole quarter has changed between the brainer or between the backer in the Nisswa area um and and
I think uh Tim brought it up really well the the development that's happened along there already has pretty much limited some of the other options we may have had to do some in you know safety things so the J turns almost look like even though I don't really care a lot for them just like roundabouts I didn't
care a lot for them but it looks like Tim didn't plan a roundabout on this one which I'm kind of amazed uh but uh it looks like that's about the only way we're going to be able to make this quarter work at this time with the limited amount of space um and I and one of the things is for our County Board
here pretty much except except for you know Baxter and iswa it's pretty much all in The Fad District all in their first assessors and dist so it all comes right to us here at the County board so uh thank you for your work appreciate that so that's all I had all right is
any anyone else have a question well thank you very much you yep thank you much so now we're ahead of schedule reys would you like to come forward you can either take the microphone or come and sit at the
table and then I have a SL show as well perfect okay hi everyone I'm ree Glenn and I'm currently a senior at Brainard high school and today I'm going to give a Capstone presentation that was a part of my AP seminar class last year for this
project we had to derive a topic from a stimulus packet containing various articles stories and images from this packet I drew inspiration from two sources which you'll hear me mention in my presentation I took a problem solution approach for my project where I
was required to identify an issue propose a solution and discuss some of the limitations and imp implications of my proposed solution after heavily researching the topic of sexual violence towards indigenous women I become very passionate about it and I am very
grateful I was given this opportunity to present once again I hope my time here today opens your eyes to a very important issue in our world and gets you thinking about how we as an American society can make a difference for our indigenous women population Native Americans have been
wronged by the government via mismanagement of violence and the stripping of tribal sovereignty for centuries this government Injustice is represented in a quote from the article small measure of Justice this case serves as an appalling reminder of the evils that result when
large numbers of the politically powerless are placed at the mercy of Institutions engendered and controlled by politically powerful fuel although this quote specifically pertains to economic struggles for Native Americans the themes of justice
and wronging of minority groups are prevalent these themes are also shown in a painting confrontation on the bridge but more so through prevalence and violence towards minority groups for my pres presentation keeping
these themes in mind I decided to explore sexual violence towards IND indigenous women in America through my research I found that one in three of every Native American women has experienced sexual assault at one point in their lifetime this issue has moved many
government officials to to classify The Surge of violence as an epidemic in turn the US government has attempted to attack this epidemic through various pieces of legislation but these laws have resulted in limited tribal sovereignty and failed to properly
attack sexual violence this information led me to finalize my research question how can we effectively mitigate the prevalence of sexual violence against the marginalized indigenous women population in the United States through the legal
system to understand the causes of this problem using his historical perspective is NE necessary dating back to colonization Native American women have been and continue to be the most targeted racial group of sexual violence in
America European cultural Customs consisted of strict gender roles preaching that men have an undeniable superiority and power over women which they use to conquer them and use them for their own sexual Advantage Studies have shown that these patriarchal ideas
remain in society today and are a major cause of indigenous women targeting another cause of this issue is the construction sites that reside near tribal areas many pipeline companies operate near Indian reservations and are male-dominated and often hire sex
offenders and criminals for these reasons and be and because plenty of offenders can't be prosecuted by tribes which will be elaborated on later these sites make sexual violence much worse for native women now we'll use a historical and
social lens to examine the existing legislation section legislation addressing crime and sexual violence in Indian country is a complicated Tangled mess but to simplify we'll first look at legislative blockades first off under the Major
Crimes Act of 1885 felony assault cases rape cases in this context Indian country are referred to federal courts leaving many rape cases unaddressed furthermore the olant versus Squamish Indian Tribe Court case of 1978
stripped tribes of the authority to prosecute non-indians and the Bureau of Justice statistic data shows that four out of five sexual offense cases against Native American wi women the offender is classified as white meaning that many
sexual assault cases in Indian country cannot be tried in tribal court interfering with overall Justice and tribal sovereignty over time the government has enacted laws to try and reduce sexual and violence but they haven't done a
great job first off the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 extremely limited tribal punishments and labeled sexual violence crimes as misdemeanors so tribes could not fully enact Justice with the shorten misdemeanor sentencing limits
in a step forward however the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 increased the tribal sentencing limit for Indian offenders and provided more funding for prosecution this sentencing extension meant that tribes could sentence rapists
as felons for up to 9 years a major advancement since the Major Crimes Act but finally the most recent piece of legislation the violence against women act vawa of 2013 allowed tribal jurisdiction over non-indians which was
a huge step but only in specific cases where the offender has to either work live or have an intimate or dating relationship with the victim vawa also provided a Federal grant for tribes and their new prosecution responsibilities now we'll address why
these pieces of legislation have missed the mark the Tribal Law and Order act which amended the Indian Civil Rights Act applied only to Indian offenders and as stated previously sexual offenders are usually white therefore the sent
sentencing extension and funds would not be applicable in most sexual violence cases however vawa did say that tribes could persecute non-indian offenders if they had an intimate or dating relationship with the victim or lived or
worked on the reservation as of 2013 but often times the victim and the offender have no connection or relationship at all therefore vawa is not as effective as it could be because of these stipulations but vawa did signify major
progress for Native American women and tribes as it showed government care gave more jurisdiction and granted some federal funding to help tribes tribal courts with their new legislative responsibilities but ultimately the flaws I'll weigh the successes leading
me to my solution the first part of my solution solution is forbidding industrial sites to be near tribal areas because their hotpots for sexual offenders and the offenders can likely not be tried in tribal court under
vawa doing this will hopefully mitigate the risk of native women coming in contact with these sexual offenders second the government needs to modify vawa and leave prosecution up to tribes regardless of the offender's relationship with the victim or their
race then to provide tribes with resources they need for housing criminals and conducting court cases under Federal standards a sufficient Federal grant that coincides with the remediation of vawa is necessary but some limitations of the
solution are as follows the solution doesn't tackle the lingering Colonial and patriarchal tendencies that fuel sexual violence today these deeply ingrained attitudes demand individual change that sadly the legal system cannot solve secondly gaining government
support in modifying vawa might be difficult considering how long it took to create a law addressing non-indian perpetrators in the first place lastly a large number of sexual violence cases are unreported meaning that this act would be somewhat ineffective and those
cases would be left unaddressed implications of this solution include the obvious a reduction in sexual violence cases and justice for women in which it applies all of which are very positive but a negative implication is push back
from construction companies and not being allowed to reside close to tribal areas creating some controversy and issues to conclude violence against minority groups particularly indigenous women is prevalent in American society
significant problems contributing to this issue include Colonial patterns the proximity of construction sites and tribes and legislative constraints hindering prosecution and tribal sovereignty in response a solution is
proposed prohibiting industrial sites near Indian reservations amending the violence against women act of 2013 to Grant tribal jurisdiction over all sexual violence cases regardless of the offender's race or relationship to the
victim or the tribe and also providing a Federal grant to support tribal judicial efforts if implemented this solution could ensure the safe safety and Justice of impressed indigenous women um a couple updates since I last
gave this uh presentation there has been uh violence against women reauthorization act that was went into effect of 2022 and that act basically said that it expanded the definition of what sexual violence cases mean um so it did give
tribes more jurisdiction and allowed them to um try a lot of more sexual violence cases which is a huge step but um that act was still limited to prosecutor um non-indian non-indian offenders um if they had a relationship
to the victim or the tribe so that's obviously still a huge constraint of the act because typically um native women Native American um women have offenders that typically have no relationship to them at all or their tribe so um this
did signify major progress and show that the Govern this issue was still on the government's radar but there still is a lot of work that needs to be done in order to protect um Native American women and ensure Justice for them for years to come so yeah that's all I have for today if anyone has any questions
I'd be happy I do have a question okay okay go ahead go who who's going to go ahead you are Paul Mayor Steve all right so I guess ree a question to you is are you asking for some is this more of an
educational thing for the county board or are you asking for us uh as the County Board to to take some type of action I guess I I I never heard any action taken or action that you want us to take and then one thing that did jump
out it it almost make you almost make it sound like everybody that's working in construction or on a construction pipeline are like sexual predators and that's not the case there's just a lot of good hardworking people that are
working on these pipelines and I just hope you don't make it sound like these are all sexual predators they're certainly not no they're you're correct they're they're not and I in my it's just research has shown that the ones that do often reside in Indian
reservations they are just more likely they do hire um they're more likely to hire sex offenders and criminals and um it does show that there has been a lot of issues with um those construction sites residing close to Indian reservations and it's not meant to say that all of
them are sexual offenders that's not the case at all but there just has been research that shown that there is a connection there um and no I'm not really asking for any action um from this County but we are in an area where we do have a lot of tribal reservations
and there is still a lot of issues so it's more so just to educate and show that there are some steps being taken and that um we should just I guess do what we can and even at our school there um we have a lot of we have an
indigenous Club there and they're looking to gather red dresses um that represent all of the Native American victims of sexual violence so it's more so just like it's a prevalent issue in our community and just to more so
educate Madam chair if I if I might yes first of all I want to thank ree for coming I asked her to come and present her Capstone uh research and speech and I appreciate that very much when we talk about sexual violence we talk about
domestic violence we talk about trafficking these are all things that are are issues that are big in our area because we're a tourist area so these individuals that are being trafficked are brought in and there is a high percentage of Native American girls that
are part of that sit situation so I think it's it's important that we understand and make known that this is a concern in our area the second thing I want to say is that Reese is an example
of the Young Generation that's coming up that is working on these issues that recognizes these issues we can't just sweep them under the carpet I appreciate that this young generation is taking a look at at what is reality in our society today and I appreciate her
efforts and and Her speech regarding this issue I think it's important I think that we need to be cognizant of it and we need to support our law enforcement in trying to mitigate this issue as much as we possibly can in our
area so again thank you ree I appreciate it uh I hope uh the rest of the board understands and appreciates it it is a concern in our in our budget that we have to address so again thank you very much thank
you anyone else no I have nothing thank you m thank you very much thank you re okay flock safety presentation flock what a name we're going to be talking about today or turkeys or do you guys know is
B is he he's not on yet okay okay perfect he's there uh Commissioners Madam chair Craig katzenberger operations attendant with the Sheriff's Office and uh today uh we're going to be talking a little bit about flock safety so flock safety are
automatic license plate readers this is a project we've kind of been in discussion and kind of dreaming about for the last 2 years um and and I've been to several different trainings uh with leaders in law enforcement and when
we discuss what is the number one Tool uh in recent technology this is always uh one of the items that is brought up uh and how helpful this technology is to agencies and uh so I have Bo and
Jonathan from so excuse me from flock safety that is going to be presenting a little bit about flock and about their technology so I'll hand it over to them right now can you guys hear me all right yes awesome I think we'll see if
Jonathan hops on I don't think he was gonna get on until closer to 10:30 Mark but I can kind of take over to start out but um I will I'm going to try to share my screen here quick Perfect all right can you guys see my
screen yes yes awesome well yeah appreciate you guys having me on today so yeah my name is Bo I am the local representative for flock safety here in Minnesota I actually live over in uh Whitebear lake so I cover um all the agencies 25 sworn and above uh but yeah
flock is growing very fast um across Minnesota so I'm excited to uh kind of present uh what we're doing here at flock um and how we're kind of shaping a safer future and partnering with law enforcement communities um across Minnesota but as well as the country all right so the biggest thing
here at flock our mission is truly to eliminate crime and shape safer future uh together we have over a thousand employees here at flock uh with these values and U driven by this Mission um today flock is solving uh close to around 2,200 plus crimes per week with
our technology um 10% actually closer to 15% of the reported crime across the us today is helped um with the partnership between law enforcement and flock and we have over 5,000 Community Partners protected by flock as well so that includes HOA
communities businesses big box stores you name it um are utilizing flock to kind of help in this way um we've seen persistent Staffing shortages it's a little better in Minnesota but um agencies are often seeking new technology to help maximize
that efficiency and that's exactly what flock technology is doing uh to help with those shortages kind of be an extension to your staff helping you kind of cover areas where you might not always be able to get to um quickly um with our technology um it is
a collaborative policing technology so it is truly a force multiplier for agencies um really enabling agencies of all um sizes to solve um a lot of the crime significantly faster and improve that quality of life for their communities as well to kind of give you
an idea of our overall platform today we're kind of talking about our LPR cameras but we offer a lot of solutions outside of that as well with our video gunshot detection uh drone as first responder and then also being able to integrate um current um infrastructure today in communities like their live
video cameras Etc talking about our uh felcon LPR um with our LPR cameras um it is capturing license plate but also vehicle characteristics um so it's going to be infrastructure free um it's going to be
LTE solar based put in strategic areas um obviously we worked with the Sheriff's Office to kind of determine some of those areas um and cover those locations but it's going to offer that 247 coverage um capturing um objective uh vehicle data kind of around the clock
to become a Force multiplier it's going to give you those realtime alerts with our ncic hot lists so tied to the FBI um hot lists in your jurisdiction um Amber aler Amber Alerts silver alerts um you name it and it is truly ethically built so there's going to be no facial
recognition there's no speed tracking um it's all indiscriminative evidence um that it is capturing um and it's going to give you those real-time alerts so what's going to allow for the sheriff's office is if there is a vehicle tied to the ncic um Amber Alerts silver alerts you
name it they're going to get notified within seconds as it's passing a camera um and we set these cameras up so it's more more on those Ingress routes coming into your community in the county so they're alerted on things coming in to be a little more proactive first reactive what our vehicle fingerprint
does is actually going to capture the make uh body type color back racks top racks you name it uh temporary tags state recognition um so we have a lot of machine learning built into it where it's not just capturing that plate because a lot of times when a crime happens you may not know the actual
plate and identify bues but um someone on the scene is probably going to know you know this was a red uh Dodge truck where you can actually put that information um and uh do an investigation based off of that and we do build this with privacy
in mind so we are protecting privacy by Design with flock um that's really what we're built on so all the data is completely owned by the customer never sold uh to private third parties we automatically delete data after 30 days um and no um individual personal data is
collected by flock whatsoever so we are only collecting those object objective based um information on vehicles that you can kind of see with your own eyes if you were standing outside and then got a question oh I've got a question why why would you delete
it after 30 days I I guess I I think about that uh I I kind of follow some of these cases you know this this alleged guy that killed the four college students out in Idaho what if you know
two years down the road you want to look back at something to help strengthen a case but all that stuff is deleted wouldn't that be a bad thing so we do that mainly from a privacy standpoint so it's more of it's the data that is not
being utilized so if there's data you're using for a specific crime that is not deleted so if it's going to be tied to like a case or a crime that's something that you will be able to hold on to but like all of just the data that is collected that's not being utilized
within that 30 days that's what ends up getting purged automatically and then one other question when you first started out I think I lost the word you said objective collecting objective what what is that what do you mean by that I don't yeah what we mean by that it's like it's not collecting like personal information
it's literally just collecting the characteristics of a vehicle so basically just anything you see with your own eyes so okay um it's just looking at the make of the vehicle um in the license plate and that's literally all that it's collecting okay makes sense
yep all right and then um going on that as well so when you're doing a search within the flock system um obviously your um the sheriff's office will have a policy and how they do things but everything is going to be fully audited so you have to put in a search reason it's going to know who's doing a search
um and uh there's going to be a full full audit trail of what's happening when you're using the system so it's going to uh reduce a lot of that bias in crime solving and enhancing that objectivity like we just discussed um and then uh we also have a free and optional LPR transparency portal we'll
actually create a website for uh the community where they can go on there see the policy of the Sheriff's Office how they use the cameras where they're at um who they're sharing with things like that and then here's kind of an example of that transparency portal where a lot
of agencies will put that on their um on your guys's County website or on the sheriff's office website uh you can make that customizable to really show exactly what you're doing with these cameras and everything is kind of out there in front of uh the community to see so you're not
hiding anything at all um nice thing too with flock we are a subscription based solution so what that is um it's going to be fair pricing low upfront investment all solar LTE we do all the permit installation data storage um and then
any life um Hardware upgrades uh upgrades and then any updates to the te technology in general is automatically going to be included so really the first time you get the cameras are the oldest they're ever going to be and then we um here's a few examples of kind of how we're doing it but we are
working with now close actually it's 54 agencies um across the state here's a few of them right here some other sheriff's offices utilizing us include Pine County um Chisago County is looking to come on board here soon but Ramsey County henpen County Dakota County um
Sherburn county is looking to come on board at some point here shortly as well um so we're working with a lot of counties across the state but then obviously a ton of police departments as well um just a couple examples um of how kind of success stories that have been
solved with flock um in the Minnesota area uh one of them actually happened in Taylor's Falls Minnesota so on June 10th um authorities in Adams County Illinois they issued a warrant for a 32-year-old woman who was accused of child abduction um and obstructing justice so the
suspect allegedly failed to turn over her five children to the Illinois Department of Family Services um and what happened was that um agency in Illinois actually put that vehicle information into the flock safety uh platform and they were alerted
that um it had pass one of the flock cameras in St Cy Falls Wisconsin who's another customer of ours um so after multiple agency collaboration and investigation they actually located the vehicle at a motel um across the river there in Taylor's Falls Minnesota and
the uh children were recovered safely another one here that happened in St Paul area so Braidwood officers which is also in Illinois received a flock alert that a stolen vehicle from Minnesota was in the area the officers responded and then after a brief investigation they were able to arrest
the driver uh Willie McDaniel of St Paul Minnesota was charged with possession of a stolen vehicle possession of controlled substance and on top of an existing warrant for parole violation out of Minnesota so it's just another example of that agency in Illinois was able to be extremely proactive of uh a
criminal coming into their Community um to keep from anything potentially happening and then the last one here I want to share with you this was actually one of the first um Amber Alerts that was solved with flock back in 2020 so at 12:33 p.m. um
and this was an example of a stranger on Stranger which um is one of the most difficult crimes to solve um because uh there's not a lot of information based on that so an amber alert was issued at 12:33 p.m. the search was conducted within flock safety at 100 p.m. they
located the vehicle because it hit a flock camera at 2:30 p.m. and this was multiple counties over and then at 5:03 p.m. there was a felony stop and arrest and the baby was reunited with um her mother at 6: p.m that day so uh just
another great example how we're not just using this technology for just uh basic crimes um that are having stolen vehicles but um we have hundreds of these I think we had around 500 in total um the last couple years of uh examples
of like Amber Alerts where flock came in hand but um I believe that is all I had on my end um any questions I can kind of uh help answer um and if one one thing I just want to stress that uh these will not be
used for any type of traffic enforcement we're not using them for speeding we're not using them um for anything like that this is strictly um for for investigations burglaries in an area um stolen vehicles Amber Alerts the more
serious type of crimes uh we're going to be very limited on who we're not going to give everybody within our agencies access we're going to be very limited on on that um I do kind of have a sample uh policy that uh been developing um so we
do have that uh that we've been looking at and we'll have a policy on accessing and the information and how it's going to be used um any other questions right now right off the I just also for the future um we
have talked to several of the townships uh about coming on board uh potentially uh adding more cameras in the future uh other agencies in law enforcement agencies within the county um but I think right now a lot a lot of uh
townships and police departments they they want to see how this is going to work so um that is why we had budgeted money to start this program and we hope uh that that everyone else is going to see and that you Commissioners will see
how how much this is going to benefit the county and and our citizens Madam chair this is commissioner barrows I have a couple questions Craig um first one is how many cameras are you initially going to place
out there yes so right now we will be uh nine stationary cameras throughout the county and we've tried to strategically place them on on Ingress routes into the county and then we will have one portable unit that uh we would have the
option of put on on like for example our Speed trailer we could set it up on other places so take for example uh B uh that's one huge event in our area we could potentially put it uh in that area to to capture license plates let's say
as as people are are are coming coming into that area around uh Briner International Raceway so that would be one example okay my second question go ahead well go ahead uh no I was just going to say the other thing we didn't mention a lot is the ability for us to enter our
own hot list not just from ncic but if we're working in investigation uh we we could add our own hot list if if there's certain Vehicles we are on on on the lookout for so my second question then Craig is
going forward and if townships and cities see a value in this and they want to be added to it have you come up with a cost share idea for this program um I I I guess we haven't developed necessarily a cost share idea
um but uh that that is something we could look at as far as potential cost share or um you know like I said I we're we're hoping that they will see the value and how valuable this will be along with that there's businesses that uh we will be talking with that uh
potentially having them uh come on board um there there's several businesses that we have in this area already that uh their uh their companies Nationwide are looking at at implementing uh flock so
that that is something else we will be looking at in the future okay thank you madam chair okay Madam chair yes Craig uh yeah thank you so uh Craig
I guess I you know I I for one you know I I've always been an advocate for people's property rights and their privacy rights because I think we all have our our expected to to have some privacy in this world the technology
that's been developed you know since I grew up in the 80s is just incredible and you know I was kind of at first I was skeptical about this I did have a long talk with Andy Bradley the chief deputy and I do now see the really the
huge value he he told a story of a a lady I think it was over in Detroit Lakes who had dementia her husband went to town and um came back and their other car was gone and I believe this system
helped to find her I think somewhere down in the suburbs of the Cities so I I think it's a it's a a huge helpful tool for um you know the kidnapping of kids and you know if somebody is driving with
dementia and they are really driving on a public road so um so I I I I think this is now that I've thought more about it I actually think this is a this is a great idea to uh to help catch all these
slimy criminals that are praying on our good people so I'm I'm all for it one one other example I I we look back on in the last year maybe a little over a year I don't know if anybody recalls the the doctor that was tragically um hit on on
State Highway 169 um not too far outside of our our County um and today today it's still an unsolved case and um I can't guarantee that we would have been able to help solve that but there's there's a good possibility if we would have had this
technology in place we we may have been able to help develop some more uh suspects in that case um so that's one aspect you know another thing I I think about is in our County at times we we may have
you know as little as two deputies on for just under 1,000 square miles you know in in the middle of the night and if if I was to talk to a citizen and say would you like to have a deputy sit uh in your area and kind of just keep watch
at night most people would love that to have that security of that that Deputy in that area um unfortunately we're not able to do that and we look at this as a force multiplier for our agency uh just to be uh throughout our community more we're
it it just allows us to to to use that technology to to be around more in our community and in our in our County and Madam chair just one other thing that I just thought of is when I did own my business over on 371 I I had
bought a brand new Beautiful trailer flat trailer to haul my lawn mower and I had it sitting there I had the the hitch lock up and and it got sto and I only got to use it one time if we would have only had something like that back then
maybe I I could have rode with the deputy over to wherever this trailer is sitting probably down in Mexico now but at least we could have tried to track it thank you couple of questions Craig number one what's the cost associated
with the contract so right now uh we had budgeted $36,000 for for this project um and then uh so with with that $36,000 uh city of Emily is also uh come on board and they are funding One camera
up up in their area on State Highway 6 just outside of Emily uh so that brings a total to approximately $40,000 and uh from from working with Bo there's I I believe there's been some they've done the you know a great job to
be able to get to this point where we'll be able to have the nine stationary and one uh portable system they've given us some some breaks I believe and things like that some discounts and is that an annual cost or is that just a one-time cost so the
there is a little bit more of a cost upfront because it's in approximately $600 for that installation and then it's a $3,000 a year uh per camera for the for the uh short range cameras which the
majority are we did have to utilize a few long range range cameras in some locations which are a little bit more of a cost around 5,000 a year um so there is a little bit more of an upfront cost initially and then a a yearly fee of of
anywhere from 3,000 for the the normal range cameras and 5,000 for the long range per per camera I'm s per camera per camera still a cheaper rate than additional deputies you know it that way you're like you said you're looking at it as a force expander it does do some
of that yes so the thing I didn't really mention is um all the other law enforcement agencies that are on the system we are able to um basically utilize if they allow us to do searches and kind of work together our systems
together to make one big Network basically across the country and then the only other question I have is since it's a technology solution did you involve the IT department in the discussions well so right now as far as anything Bo just from your experience
and in coming in I I don't think there'd probably be a lot of our it other than um the access we'd have it's all cloud-based and it's it's all stored off site on their system so it would be more just accessing on on this side you still
should check with our it team to make sure that we are meeting the requirements of all the things that need to be done there so if you do that reach out it would be a good idea yes thank you we will do that a couple other questions I think um commissioner coring might have actually answered the first
one for me already but you said this is only um for criminal offenses no silver alerts or there it could also be used for for silver alerts yes all right and then how about um life expectancy for each camera maintenance who's
responsible how's that handled you are you able to answer that basically Bo you flock owns yeah yep so you guys own would own all the data and that's the nice part about the subscription is really it's uh unlimited life expectancy because if things go wrong with the camera new
cameras come out new upgrades we actually come out there we'll replace them um all those new enhancements are included so um yeah really the first time you have your cameras are installed they really the oldest they're ever going to be and and the other issue would be if if for some reason we decide
to move a camera we don't like the location it is there is an additional fee for that uh to to move the camera but that would be in the event you know that we'd have to do that okay and these are solar powered you said yes they are
solar powered correct y okay um Madam chair yes um the information you said is is only proprietary to us none of it goes any place else right B correct yep yep you guys
owed 100% of that data so um it would be 100% if you want like if the Sheriff's Office wants to share that with other police departments they can but um totally up to you guys CU you own all the data okay um the other thing when you talk when you talk about the annual
fee you know you're saying so many dollars per cam camera that's it there's not another subscription fee on top of that or anything else in regards to that it's just so many dollars per camera and that's how you include your your licensing and everything is one by by
camera yep yep it's a very simple structure so it's yeah just that cost per camera per year and then um like sergeant said the uh the only additional fee is The Upfront um installation costs okay um it looks like what you have
listed in in the um um PowerPoint that we have here you list a lot of police departments and uh and I we're talking to a County Sheriff's Department here and you you alluded to the fact that you talked about shago and whoever else you were talking to it seems kind of like it
almost looks like this would start from a police department and evolve it seems kind of strange that we're talking at it from a sheriff's department I mean to me just in what you presented so far yeah and I should have put a lot of the sheriff's offices that are on board with flock um but actually we've seen it
especially around the Metro kind of going the opposite direction where a lot of the sheriff's offices came on board and because of the success throughout the county a lot of the police departments then came on board as well um so yeah like the list I have we have Pine County shago um is going to be coming on here probably this month or
next month but Anoka County um hennipin County Ramsey County Dakota County um so we're growing uh very fast on the sheriff's side as well but um yeah um some of our biggest Champions are actually the sheriff's offices and the PDS within those counties started coming
on board because of the successes they were having St Louis county is a is a very large County okay that just it just wasn't out here in this now the other thing is is if we're doing it in the county then are
and all of a sudden uh police department calls you up the local police department says oh yeah can you get this information for me they're just getting that information from us and you're you're all in law enforcement you're all brothers so it it'll be a caseby casee situation that we will look at and uh
it's going to have you know it's going to have to be a good reason for us and and we already work very well with all of our law enforcement partners and work on an everyday basis basis with each other so in the in most cases yes um but
there they will also have to understand you reasons in in what circumstances that that we would utilize it yeah I mean if Baxter put it in place and then you'd be if Baxter put this in place and we had it also at the county in place that information you'd share back and
forth pretty easily because there's both of you are involved in it and both of you have it yes in those cases where it's not um why why should I put it in place in my department because the county has it I'll just get the information from the county and I don't have to pay for it that is that is a
excellent point and like we are hoping that they will they will see the value and uh they will they will see the value in in the system and will we see the cost back will we see something coming back to us then to offset our cost that we're putting out here in regards to it
yeah the hope would be that they they would see that value they would be able to budget and be able to purchase some and then in the future that's only going to help all of us in just just something that was in my head so thank you madam chair that's all I have Madam chair yes
Madam chair now commissioner ly got me more confused than ever asual I got I as usual so now I got to try to wrap my head around this okay so you say that this is proprietary and it's crowing Cy's
information I I I don't understand I I guess the way I was looking at this is if somebody in Iowa kidnapped somebody and you don't know where that vehicle is at throughout the whole
country if that license plate goes across some reader you mean to tell me they're not going to if it crosses over in some reader in Kwing County they're not going to know in Iowa because we don't share our information with them is that is that what you're saying that's
what he's got me all confused on Bo I will I'll I I can see You'd like to answer this so yeah no I can help answer it so the nice thing with the flock Network so the sharing is more about if you're sharing with an agency another agency that's where they can kind of look at the image and the information
tied to that vehicle um that's being collected um if you're not sharing though so like let's say something happens um like within Crow County the vehicle leaves um no matter what even if you're not sharing you're going to be notified
if that vehicle passes A Flock camera you're just not going to have access to the data on those cameras of the other jurisdiction but you'd be able then obviously you know it's in um let's say Wisconsin it passed one of the cameras in Wisconsin you would then be able to reach out to that agency to get more
information from them so the sharing why would why would why would agencies or the people that are the the Departments that are doing this why would you not all be sharing it almost seems siloed if you're not sharing your information is there some reason
why you wouldn't yeah so I I would say most agencies do share with each other uh but I think it's just from a state-to-state basis and how they um just with privacy and how they do things um with that data but I would say yeah in especially like
in Minnesota most of the agencies are going to share their information but even if you're not sharing you're still going to get notified of vehicles and like with the NCI like the FBI lists um that's always going to be shared so you're always going to know um about a vehicle coming through your jurisdiction
that's tied to that and Amber Alerts silver alerts that all goes on the NA national network the sharing piece is more so with like if you have a specific vehicle um you are looking for um and you want to share that data with other
agencies that's where you can do it that way okay thank you madam chair now Paul's got me confused um oh God I'm just entered in this if it is our propriatary data and that data stays
with us and and we have a a vehicle how does the the uh police department in Austin Texas know about this vehicle that came through our area I mean if if it's proprietary daty just to us how is it not over the whole system of flock if
you guys are being able to talk to other departments um I'm trying can you I guess maybe ask that question I'll ask a different way if if the data is only for us flock is actually have has this data across the whole syster they won't be
able to connect the dots yeah so so specific things like ncic Amber Alerts uh stolen vehicles that's that'll all automatically go in there but I think more so so let's just say we couldn't per se go on the system and start
looking for vehicles in Austin Texas it it doesn't allow us to search their cameras per se unless we're unless we're sharing information directly but we it'll still give us alerts it give you an alert then you can
take itur then you can take it further by contacting them directly and say hey we got an alert that this vehicle went through your system and then they can assist us there okay so we can't be looking for Brad Pitt's car in Los Angeles yes exactly that's yes
okay well thank you so much and um I'm sure we'll have other questions but yes feel free to reach out with any questions you you might have Craig so your intention is this will come before the board next week with the contract for approval that is correct would you like it on the regular
agenda or on consent I'm okay with it on consent so am I yeah me as well okay okay okay thank you thank you for your time thank you okay Chris
Pence thanks Paul thank you all good morning good morning uh in your packet uh you've got a list of some potential ordinance updates that Gary and I just wanted to chat with you today
to see um get some direction and as to where we should be looking on this um so we'll just start at the top and we'll just work our way down um and uh so article 6.2a um right now if you look in the ordinance it says that um if you're
looking at members of the Planning Commission and the board of adjustment the um the ordinance says that um each commissioner will appoint one um member from their district and it's good for a two-year term and there's no um term
limits per se and so the the question um I think before you today is is is that the is that the way that um we want to have the Planning Commission Board of members appointed by the board if you look at um the requirements the minimum
requirements you know and so just to maybe to go back you know back in uh 2010 uh there was a uh a resolution the board made that combined the planning commit the board of adjustment into one um into one entity as just a reminder the Planning Commission is is the U
their responsibility is looking at plats land use map amendments ordinance amendments and they and conditional use permits and they typically make recommendations to the board except for conditional use permits in Crowing County and then the board of adjustment is in place to look at variances and
basically appeals of Staff decisions um and so if you look at the board of adjustment has to have at least three and no more than seven and the Planning Commission has have at least five with no more than 11 um so as long as we have five members on the Planning Commission Board of adjustment that statutory
requirement is met um there's nothing in the statute that requires um a a uh Planning Commission or a board of member to be to be appointed from The District in which a a uh um County Board member
serves I did some checking around at some Area Counties see kind of how they did their appointments and surprise surprised Nobody Does it the same and so pretty much every County had a its own little wrinkle and little twist to it um some counties um had an informal
interview process some counties had a um where it was appointed by the commissioner in their District which is that was very limited it was typically appointed by by a commissioner um but it didn't have to be within their District um some uh there weren't there weren't
any that were appointed by the by the board chair uh so there's just a a wide variety of of how they appointed the numbers that they were there um and then a wide variety again of different planning commissions that were and board that were separate entities there were some counties that have put theirs
together similar to ours so um if you look under 6.3a um the the language that we've proposed um would state that um the one member for the plan commission Board of adjustment would be appointed by each
commissioner but not relegated to The District in which the commissioner serves the commissioner would have the option of picking from uh their District but they wouldn't be required to Madam chair um this is something that when this came up it it kind of concerned me and so my question to the Planning
Commission why are you bringing this to us why is the Land Services bringing this to us as far as changing this what what problem do we have in that area right now this can I take that I'm asking the uh Services well it was my
idea that's why yeah um commissioner coring it was my idea that's why you want an explanation or don't you okay okay okay so um that's okay thank you for answering that Paul um the other thing is when I looked through I asked
Gary then to do some homework on it because I wanted to understand it better and he did that and he did pretty much with the mic ones and we have that one in front of us um it looks like the majority of the counties in Minnesota do have a Planning Commission separate than a board of adjustment and it does
show in the state statute that it's it is up to us to either have that or not but the majority of them do have a separate one in the separate ones you do see that where it's allowed it's allowed to be um at random or at large as you would call it in um most of the ones in
the Micah counties are all showing that they are to be uh appointed by the commissioner and live in that including Cass and I think I think Morrison County if I research that so I'm just wondering if it wasn't broke and we've been doing
it since 2009 why do we need to change it and maybe that question is To You Paul well my appointee uh Sue masi who worked for Planning and Zoning for 20 years who is an excellent
appointee uh is trying to sell her place uh their property in my District now Su would like to continue to serve on the planet she hasn't moved yet but he might be moving to some other
place out of my district but still in throwing County I think she's a valuable valuable person to have on the signing commission not saying that I couldn't find anybody else to serve on the F commission but I've got somebody that's
willing to serve let's say your guy John O J decided to move but he would still he said to you hey I'd like to continue to serve but he lived a mile over in somebody else's District I want to have
that ability and I think that should be up to each commissioner on who they want their appointee and if if Rosemary wants her appointee to be only in her District that's up to her leave that decision up
to me on how I want to appoint that person that's up to me I've got an election certificate and I think I should be able to appoint whoever I want capable of handling that job I don't know if that explains it to you or not well it it in looking at the the record
and seeing how other counties are doing it the majority of the counties are doing it the way we are doing it majority of counties aren't having the Planning Commission separate um they're having the Planning Commission separate from the board of adjustment but the majority of counties are saying that you
should appoint one from your own District um and uh and I don't see any problem with that I mean um when I came on board uh there was a different person on the Planning Commission and I appointed somebody different there were other people I could appoint jimie when he came on board there was a long
serving person there Jaimie chose to appoint somebody different from his district I think it'd be for since I we have a lot of townships in some of the outlying districts I think it's kind of an insult to the people of the district to sit there and say the person that's
going to represent you you've elected me to serve the person that's going to represent this District on the Planning Commission well I don't think there's anybody in the district I really want to have do it so I'm going to appoint somebody from outside the district maybe from Baxter maybe from Long Lake Township to be on the Planning
Commission I think that's just disingenuous to the people I serve that's my opinion yeah that's not my opinion I I think I I have the election certificate I think I should be able to appoint who I want to if that person lives one mile
uh out of my district so be it I should be able to appoint that person I think and I think I have an election certificate too I don't carry mine around but I think I have the same thing you have correct yeah and I don't know why you keep looking to every other County thr County does things way
different than C or Morrison we've combined our department we they haven't changed anything for 100 years we're doing things way different you're always looking to other counties this is the way the other counties are that doesn't make it right didn't say that I'm
looking at it for information doesn't make us wrong County to see what we should do make your own decision for your county if I got three votes on this we'll move forward
well I have a vacancy right now and the person I appoint will be from my district I think I want my district to be represented and I think that you have better representation if the person
actually lives there you know I just went through appointing everybody and it it was it was difficult to find some appointees for certain positions um that were the the ones that were actually
already vacant um but I was able to find people but I I think there may be a time where we may not have um someone from our district that we could appoint I personally want to have everybody that I appoint from my
district and I will continue to do it that way but I can also understand the the difficulty that if you don't have somebody that wants to step up you look at our Township boards right now and our Township don't even have people that want to serve on their Township boards
and um so I I think it could potentially be an issue so i' I'm not opposed to us having the option of going outside but I personally would would uh appoint everybody from my district I guess that's the way I feel
I'm going to do it the way we do it now if someone else chooses to do it differently that's up to them I want my area to be represented by someone who lives in my area Madam J Madam chair in in looking at the other U
ones that are out there as a guide not saying it's a gospel and we're doing everything wrong here at croing because I believe we're doing things very well here um it does have in some of theirs it does say if they can't find one for their District they may appoint one at
large I don't think that says it in our in our six in our six chapter or whatever I don't think we have that in there that's the reason the language is coming up before you today because the language says commission District currently commissioner can appoint
whever they right but if you add it in that as some of them say if that commissioner can't find one in their District they may appoint one at large that would eliminate this whole issue right well and but not to sit there and and and if you can't find one and in
certain districts you can't in the district I serve I have people that would be willing to serve other than the people I have serving right now and and Madam chair and members of the board when I spoke with the counties when they had that it really it wasn't an ordinance based that was more of a
policy that they had set in place as far as if I can't find from my in their documents when I looked them up online under their Land Services documents okay so that's what I that's what I looked at and I I do have cop I mean I I really appreciate what you got here because that was really helpful to
help me drill down on that but I did also look at the land service documents their ordinance and see what they had actually in the ordinance I think the language here accomplishes your I mean I think it accomplishes it where it gives people the flex you know the commissioner the flexibility to pick you
know from I mean I think the question you have to ask yourself is who among the board is going to decide if they've tried hard enough to find somebody you know I mean that's I think that's the question that with that standard I don't know how you would meet that threshold of of I can't find somebody and then somebody that would be up to the
commissioner of that District well then I if that was I still don't like the idea of changing it myself I would like you if you want to do it add something on the bottom of it and and and say if if you can't then then uh appoint somebody and that's what I can show you
some of those ordinances that are out there in other counties if if you think that' be uh advantageous so that's all I had on that anyone else hey let's go on okay so I guess we didn't we did we get
it Debbie Erikson did you read the tea leaves on this or is it is it from what I read in the tea leaves is there's consensus that the language would the language change would allow a commissioner to make an appointment based on what they see fit for their
District that those who wish to appoint from their District could do so and those who wish to appoint in an atlarge capacity would be able to do that as well with the language that is being proposed okay okay these this will come to a public hearing yes there will be
public there has to be a public hearing to amend the ordinance y yep that'll be before the Planning Commission Bo adjustment will be the ones where the public hearing will be held uh if we move down uh on our list we there's just a couple housekeeping changes that um we want to bring up one
would be article 10.3 e this is in the land use table cables um we would propose to change adult use from a conditional use permit to a um interim use permit um so that way if new ownership would come in that situation they'd have to come through the process again um and then uh if we ALS there's
just some house cleaning that we missed in article 10.3 um just on the on the uh commercial and land use District T tables and in article 10.3 F so we just that was an update that was missed and there was also an update that would be missed um
as well as inter 10.3 where um right now we have Resorts listed as a conditional use permit in Waterfront commercial but we I think we want to add commercial into that as well because we have some resorts that are commercial and some that are Waterfront commercial so um that isn't on the list here but I think
it's an area that we would want to address um while we're doing this update um if we jump down to article 12.3 again there just a couple um cleanups here we have we have some regulation that was put in place back in 2011 about um
agricultural uses on steep slopes which should be over 12% and there has to be special approval from our office and the nrcs to do that and we've never enforced that we've never had an issue with it so I propose that we would delete that regulation of uh a uses on steep slopes
in 12.3 and then in 12.4 there's another provision that was added in 2011 that's never been implemented which would basically require notification of agricultural production in areas adjacent to new dwellings so if you're going to propose to build a new dwelling or or have a subdivision of land in
agricultural production areas there's the ordinance says that there's supposed to be a um a document provided and an easement recorded that would let people know that if you're going to live in agricultural areas you can expect the things that come with that such as smell and noise and and that and so um I would
propose that we would remove both of those provision because they've never been implemented and and uh I don't see any longer having them the value um in the ordinance again if we jump down to article 16 um this was just an update that I missed frankly when we went
through and changed everything from commercial 1 and Commercial 2 to Commercial and commercial industrial from the light and and heavy um I just didn't um get article 16 which is our commercial or section cleaned up and that's what that would be proposed in
article 16 um article 17.1 B um this is the ordinance section that talks about the commercial storage facilities and right now we have a provision there that talks about a 100 foot setback for to um to the side yard setback to the property
line that was intended when we put that in there to say 100 ft if it's zoned residentially um but it was not intended to be 100 foot setback for commercially zoned properties and so the proposal will be to clarify that the 100 foot setback would be if you're adjacent to a residential property and only a 10-ft
setback for commercial property uh and then article 23 which is the section again on um adult use within the county if we do change article 10.3 to reflect the interim use change from conditional use we would also need to change that in article 23 as
well um then article 29 we did make a change in the ordinance last at in last December changing extractive uses from cup from a conditional use to an inter use we need update in article 29 which is the specific article dealing with
extractive uses um article 37 deals with um our septic system rules and I did receive notification from the association Minnesota counties that when the uh pling control agency put out their um model ordinance um that we used
years ago that there is a um misrepresentation of a statute 47182 it just needs to be deleted it should never have been there in the first place so they just recommend if you're updating the ordinance it be that would be a good time to uh just delete that
reference um and then our arle 40 is the section on land use districts related to sign permits we need to update that again from commercial 1 commercial 2 to to consolidate that in article 40 so I have gone through and done a thorough review of the ordinance itself to make sure that we're not missing any more of
the commercial One commercial two updat so hopefully won't come back again with this a little bit embarrassing frankly to be here today in front of you having to take a second bite at that Apple so um again so we do in article 46 we just have some definitions that we need to clean up as far as
um are commercial again and are commercial industrial we are proposing to add a definition of suitable area and what suitable area is is the area that can be used for development that is um above the orw of a lake that's not a wetland not a steep slope and not a
bluff we have we use the term suitable area in the ordinance to talk about the land that can be subdivided we just didn't have a definition for it so that would clarify what suitable area means for development be happy to answer any questions or thoughts that you have on Madam chair um
you know you know we did a big change in the comp plan I mean it was a you know it was a 20-year change in the whole comp plan and and you know I know you can't catch them all and I know you said I'm not going to hold my breath that you're not going to come back with some other changes down the road so just to let you know I mean it was a large
change and and we have to make the ordinance match to what our new comp plan is the only question I had and I think it was it was Z in the in the commercial uses you know sometimes we Grant a uh a conditional use for a commercial use and he says new ownership
would require the new interm use new a new interm use permit when you say new ownership if it's under an LLC or it's under a corporation you you know you could still keep the shell of that name there yep and you could change who's ever going to
be owning it it could be all of a sudden bought out by a national conglomeration and it's going to still fall under oh yeah but we did it because Joe had that and he was running that business there well now just Joe just sold it to a Fortune 500 company that interim use is
still there because it didn't change owners yeah new ownership would require them if they were to sell property and generate a new deed you know create a new deed for the property that's what would take that's what you're going to consider new ownership otherwise we can't get in the weeds of that would be our standard that we'd
have to apply to that okay okay thank you that's all I had so the other uh item that uh is in the uh packet this morning is just looking at unlicensed vehicles uh right now we have in the ordinance under our um saw
waste ordinance and the land use ordinance limits um people that have two unlicensed and inoperable vehicles on their property once they um are above that number if they're in the agricultural forested zoning District they can apply for a conditional use permit for a Junk Salvage Yard um we've
gone through um two of those since I've worked with the county since uh back in 2008 um so it's not something that's very common but it is common to have more than two unlicensed vehicles um on people's properties and um and so uh
what we wanted to talk about today was just the idea of is two the right number is is that the right number that that uh people should have on their property or would there be um a way that we could increase that number based on your excuse me based on your lot size to
might what might be a more reasonable um number and so uh you know we have some options some counties I've called around and did a little bit of research to talk to other counties and some counties do um have have the two unlicensed inoperable vehicles um some counties
have not just don't regulate it they you can have us all the junk cars that you want um some have um more of a conditional use permit or an interim use permit for it with some timelines on it um and uh and and some have it set up where you you can have the unlicensed
Vehicles you just can't be visible from a public road um and so what uh you know Gary and I have had some discussion a little bit about it excuse me and and what we're proposing would be that all properties regardless of your zoning could have up to two unlicensed in operable vehicles um but if you're
located in the residential districts if you're not in Shoreland and you're off the lake um depending on your lot size you know you could have pop up to 10 Car Max with up to 10 acres so if you had you know if you had eight Acres you could have eight cars if you had five
acres you could have five um and uh and what we're saying is that any of these vehicles would have to meet setbacks to Road and and to property lines it wouldn't require um any permits from our office it wouldn't require anything like that it would just we think it might
provide some more reasonable um use for some folks who do have some of these vehicles that they have for you know parts cars they're trying to maybe get a buy two three cars cars and make one out of it that sort of the thing and um we just two we bump up into a lot of issues
with two cars um just being a a number that uh sometimes depending if you're on the Lake Shore two is a pretty fair number I think when you're you know maybe more in our rural residential areas or the Egg areas you know that
number might not be you know um as reasonable as maybe a few more cars to help out doesn't we're not regulating um Farm you know farm machinery farm implements those sorts of things that's just it's just really vehicles and and what we're concerned about is just
differentiating between operable and inoperable and and licensed so youd if it's not the you know in some counties have it set up where you can just simply go down to the DMV and and you know pay your tabs and and then they're tab for you and that's good enough and Arin says it's they're licensed and they're
operable and operable yeah so just interested in any feedback on that if that's something that would be um an option or if the current two car limit is what we want for the county well if you have 1.7 Acres how many cars could
you have everybody could have two then everybody gets two everybody gets two no matter what even in charland in the Shoreland yep everybody gets two on my 40 acres I'm okay yet ah Hadad 2.7 2.7 Acres Rosemary You' get two you'd have to have a whole other for the third car
okay well um couple questions number one how is this being enforced now so right now when we the are we basically respond to complaints when people will call and make a complaint we'll respond to that we're not out actively looking or are
looking for um junk vehicle violations okay and how does this ordinance play into our abatement uh process and so forth right so there's two es that really play affect your one is our Solid Waste
ordinance and that under the solid waste ordinance gives us the ability to go in and do um the abatements and the cleanups the land use ordinance doesn't have that um doesn't have that and so um we the if we were to so we would end
up if we change if we want to change the number to whatever number we is is decided upon it would require an update to the solid waste ordinance as well because right now the solid waste ordinance is limit set to two as well so both ordinances would have to be updated um to make this um to make this happen
so but um I what I would say is that it it really wouldn't have any um impact on our abatements as we do it now it would just um give folks a little more flexibility in how many vehicles they could at before we stepped in and started talking about the need for abatement if they were unwilling to to
you know gain compliance with the ordinance my um my thoughts on this are I I think about a lot of people in our community people I've got several friends actually that this would affect
and actually already are if we were enforcing it um our racing Community there's a bunch of people in our community that you know I can think of a gentleman that's races three different classes of of stock car and races ice
racing in the wintertime and those that are not capable of being licensed and he does all of his work out of a one stall garage so that means that all of his race cars sit outside um so he's in violation even now um I can think of
several other people that are in the same same situation um my my thought would be either we stop regulating Al together or we just um make the definition between
um a junkyard and regular citizen at 10 and call it good Madam chair but the trigger for this is if if the neighbor is also that has those ice Racers the neighbor next to him is okay
with it and doesn't complain nothing's really going to happen correct but what happens when that neighbor moves sells his house and the next person come in and well he knew that when he moved into the house that's not the way the statutes are written or the ordinances written that's my point I know I know I I I think back to years
ago down in Mr corings District I got dispatched to a call of a complaint where a guy moved into a dairy farm they bought a house right next to a dairy farm and then complained when the when the stink happened well you knew what you were moving into right well
yeah so I that's why I think this is that's my thought you know that's how I think on it so well and I think they're I mad chair yes Paul go ahead go ahead well I
think there has to be a way to prevent this you know because well we all know what this stems about and if you've got a yard full of cars that don't
move I can see the the race cars they're they're operable but if you got a yard full of cars that are inoperable the neighbor shouldn't have to look at that so I think we have to have it
regulated Madam chair yes Madam chair I I can see where Jamie's coming from but I still think we need to do something uh Madam chair in your District right off a Wise Road I don't want to say what road but I think we all know which one we're talking
about there we've had issues for years and years there and Chris I don't know if it' be appropriate would it be appropriate to tell the the recent uh complaint that we had in my district as far as cars are concerned and
how unsafe it was or would it not be appropriate to talk about that now uh Madam chair I think I can give some just some high level details of what of the situation uh we had a complaint um about uh in the last couple months about um down in commissioner Cory's District
about somebody having 20 about 25 uh you know inoperable junk vehicles on the property and so staff went down to um do a um just to do investigate and really see what was going on then they noticed that they were there they called the land owner and said they wanted to meet
down there and um it got very contentious really quick and um it was it it got to a point of where it uh um staff had to leave the property um pretty quickly because it was it was the threat of physical harm was coming because of that um and so it was it got that was a little bit of a challenging
one they were the folks were really unhappy because they had living in Brainard and been you know wanted to have these vehicles and so they you know in their mind they moved out of town so they could have these vehicles and and um we're unhappy that the you know that the county had the requirements of only
two you know two vehicles they're also unhappy that you know um when we went out to take a look at it um you know we drove by other properties that had more than two unlicensed vehicles and they didn't think that was fair why you know why are you picking on me um and and that and so you know as you know here
and I ended up talking with the with the the gentleman about it over the phone and um he just didn't think that he felt that if if there was an ordinance it should be you know we should be enforcing it across the board and um we explain that you know we U respond to complaints and that he if you wanted to
file complaints he's welcome to do that and he said he wasn't going to you know file complaints on his neighbors he wasn't going to be that person and we so we understood that we hear that quite a bit um and but at the end of the day we still had you know spoke to him that you at the end of the day you know the
ordinance is what it is and and um he end up hanging up on us and and that's we began having this discussion about well is is to the right number and is is there a you know possibility I think this property had closer to 8 Acres so he could probably have up to eight Vehicles maybe the you know the 25 maybe
still too high but at least it would give him more flexibility than just having the the two and you know related to the one you know um commissioner franzine that you've talked about over on on that's been in the county attorney's office office for a while and so we're just waiting for them to um
take the action that they need to you know compel compliance in that situation so well I just want the ordinance to have enough teeth that the people who are the neighbors won't have to put up with something like
that I mean the the gentleman if you want to call him that is he follows the law but I mean you know license all these
vehicles and um but it's not fair to the neighbors to have this mess in this it's a it's quite a nice neighborhood well and it's also important remember that some of these neighbors have tools at their disposal also where you know some of these plats
have covenants and decorations where they can take action you know against their neighbor that wouldn't require the county to step in and that would be a much quicker process you know to go through that as well so there are options that people have it just requires them to go through the legal process of enforcing
the covenants you know that they've agreed to amongst themselves as to how they want to police themselves so that is always you know we always inform people if there are covenants on property that they do have that as an opportunity as a tool that they can use to you know to uh try to work with their neighboring property within the
development to follow the the rules of their covenants that they have Madam chair yes I guess I would say that I'm I'm okay with you know I I think Gary and Chris tried to come up with something that was a little
more lenient you know so that people out in the country they don't want to live in town and they want to have a little more little more freedom out there but you know it it kind of goes back to what I've always said commissioner dwey tou has talked about property rights and
I've always talked about property rights rights but again I've I've evolved that yes people have property rights but if you got a whole pile of crap in in your lot or on your 8 acres and somebody else
lives next door don't they have property rights too I I think they do so I think we need to have some kind of a reasonable compromise I think this this works for me I think it's even a a being a little more lenient than what we have
now and so I I I know that we have to have something because uh I've drove on every single Road in my district and I I see lots of violations you know and and we're we're not we're not seeking these violations but if somebody
calls obviously we have to respond you know but I but I I support this I guess I call it compromise language thanks Madam chair this is commissioner barrows and and my position and I'm not going to be real eloquent
here but I'm going to say that I appreciate the ordinance as it stands and that is what I will support in this situation thank you well I would I would like fences or something
so the neighbors don't have to see the all of the the one little better thing on that Rosemary is here we say they have to at least meet setbacks so right now you got have a junk car could be right on on the property line they can leave it there for here at least you would have we'd have them meet setback
so there'd be a buffer of at least 10 ft hope there's some trees or something it's better not saying it's perfect but you know it's better than what we currently have I guess the one question I'll I'll leave you with is what's wrong with the person that's offended about the neighbor's yard putting up their own fence so they don't have to look at the
neighbor's yard they have but they have to drive by their neighbors who's on the road I I get that I just maybe I haven't evolved commissioner coring but I think people's personal property they should have a right to use it the way they want
to use it and I think telling somebody that uh they're limited to what they can and can't do in their yard when they aren't in a Home Owners Association or a Lake Association or city limits I think that's I think it's not I don't think
two is the appropriate number so so well Debbie Erikson you're going to have to try to read the tea leaves on this one so what I hear I hear one wants no change one wants no regulation two of you want some kind of change that's what I've heard so
far I just want something that works Madam chair how many of these do we have come up in front of us that you guys have to address it junk car violation these violations we get yeah I mean you know in a year's time do you have a lot of them come
up we might get calls on you know we had couple hundred violations called in last year you know 25 of them might have been about junk we we get quite a few junk calls it's not about cars it's not about cars it's about washing machines and
right I mean lots of just how many how many washing machines can I put alongside my garage that's why I brought up the abatement process why I asked that question is I I'm not saying that we need to stop our abatements or any of that stuff I'm just saying that you know
vehicles are a different thing and you know the definition of vehicle even in this ordinance isn't is vague I mean if you look at it just at the way that it's currently written and proposed it does mean every tractor that's line you know on somebody's field
and um snowmobiles you know you might have a guy with a bunch of antique snowmobiles that's technically can be licensed so therefore that would be in violation of it so but we've kind of took some I guess you can say discretion on we left
it with um basically trucks and cars and we've kind of left the other stuff alone that's what we've done I mean y we didn't want to open up every tractor you know we have had one where they've had uh it was a I don't know 30 40
snowmobile so that one was a little over the top that we worked with that that person on but typically you know we try to leave it to to to this cars and trucks so does that and I uh I know I'm going down a rabbit hole but so when you
say cars and trucks does that mean you're excluding RVs oh RV would be truck but we would we' regulate RVs okay don't RVs get charged as personal property if they're not licensed uh depends yes they could some
of them do and some of them don't depends on if they're worth anything there's to throw another Wren in it let's get out the shovels we're going to dig it deeper yeah a boat falls into this too boat trailer just from what I
hear there are there is some want from a few of you to make a change to allow for some flexibility in the language perhaps allowing for more Vehicles than currently but with some restrictions
involved in that as well so I don't think this is quite Prime and ready for action yet at this point I would agree with that statement okay is there something you would want us to go look at or look for what further direction would you like
yeah to give otherwise we'll we can shelf it and leave it with just two countywide which that works we just don't know is is it the best solution the only thing is is if we don't make a decision today we're not going to get it in these ordinance these
new ordinance changes we're not going to get it done now if we don't make a decision now I don't know what other BR update well that seemed like it was a it's a better change than what we
currently have to allow some flexibility if you have 10 20 30 40 acres we still would go out there and say you only get two cars and so it just seems like that seems a little heavy-handed it is this maybe doesn't isn't perfect so if we left it at two
you know when you get somebody that says I know you had to drive by five places to get to my place so go back to all five of them and tell them to do the same thing you're you know like is there something that we could regulate better still not going to be perfect but could
it be a better regulation well I can see how this could be better for some people but it's not going to solve or change the complaints you're getting in my district correct correct absolutely doesn't do anything for that for the
smaller Lots yeah yep absolutely I totally agree and now we're not proposing a change because we do think two is probably a lot on you know an acre is is is it's probably quite a bit yep uh remind me again how you broke
down the the lot and acres and multiple Acres how did you so our our thought process was that we follow that regardless of your lot size everybody gets two of these inoperable vehicles and then if you're in the rural residential or the Egg zoning then you
would qualify to get one per acre up to a maximum of 10 cars total so if you had seven acres seven cars five acres five cars Y and anything over 10 that's going to be a junkyard basically right moving forward and we thought because of our
County the sensitivity around you know the lakes in the Shoreland we would just leave that the way it is regardless if you had 30 Acres but you're in Shoreland District you still only get two cars y Madam chair just to maybe put it into
a little bit of context the change that is being recommended or that is being suggested would basically make more properties compliant than what they currently are correct it's not necessarily going to reduce the number of complaints you get it's not going to address the issues like you're talking
about commissioner franzine I just think it will it will eliminate some of the to some of your point commissioner Lee that it would eliminate some of that requirement for those folks who maybe have five acres and do have racing
ability and have multiple cars it's going to make them compliant with what the ordinance says versus being non-compliant and requiring resources to check into a complaint it's not changing how the enforcement would occur this
would still be complaint-based only you're still going to get complaints from your neighbors in most cases who are not happy with what those situations are but it gives a little bit more guidance I think for staff and a little bit more flexibility with how we would
be administering it are we going to move forward are we going to move forward with what they've proposed to us or or not is there three votes not yet Madam chair it's um I believe it's a step in the right direction it
definitely isn't going to be a fix all but it does take those people people out there that and that are haven't even had a complaint that aren't compliant and make them compliant so I'm okay with it I mean it's not perfect but it is a step in the right
direction Chris or Gary could one of you maybe elaborate a little bit where you talk about that they must meet all required setbacks to roads and property lines sure you know uh side yard setbacks 10 feet Road setback is 35 in
most cases so that is a better um outcome I believe when you have the sensitivity nobody wants to see the stuff in a lot of cases you're still going to see it but it's not going to be so close to the road in some of these situations it's not going to be right on
the property line in some of the situations so you're it's kind of a tradeoff you could have a few more but you're going to have to locate them um you know further away from your neighbor or the um RightWay so the sight line of the road so it's I know it's not perfect
it's like you know you want a c then you have to build a fence and it's like oh gesh well do you want to do that we we could regulate that but it comes with its own bag of you know can of worms may I make one more suggestion Madam
chair uh because this is an amendment that would be needed to occur to the ordinance it does have to go through the public hearing process just like everything else so it would go through the public hearing at the pcbaa it would then come back to you for final approval so there is opportunity to weigh in on this again at that point perhaps we
would move it forward with the recommendation that Chris and Gary are presenting get the feedback that might occur at the public hearing and when it returns to you for final approval you can make your final decision at that point I see I see three heads nodding
okay for that suggestion so perfect one one is just spinning thank you thank you you got a knot in there somewhere thank you thank you very much thank you gentlemen is there anything anyone else
has to bring up we still got one more going oh we Jour not yet oh oh did okay to put us oh there it was oh shoot we I thought we were we're okay no
we're not you're behind time look at that CH you're you're not keep up on task here my is I can get it rolling uh okay Madam chair if you'd like please I thought we
done we uh wanted to give you a quick update on what has happened with the 2025 assessment for taxes payable of 2026 uh I'm just going to give you kind of a broad overview and um the three in front of you will'll take you on a on a deeper little bit of a dive in the area
that they um uh overse so um do we have the clicker or do you guys click for us I got the clicker here oh you got a clicker yeah here I'll take and then I'll hand it to you Sandra and I'm done clicking I guess and it's not clicking you had a
clicker oh oh that was you guys there we go does it work now oh yep it works now perfect so uh just broadly uh you can can see the different um classifications there that the big one
at the bottom the total um valuation notices are hopefully going to go out in the mail maybe Friday or early next week probably at the latest but we went up about 99.1% uh overall evaluation for the 2025
assessment uh this is on um if you think of the county as a whole that's that represents uh 73,500 and some parcels about 1,500 of them are personal property the rest of that is real estate um you can see the
uh largest gainers here are the residential and the uh seasonal um or excuse me the seasonal recreational um 133% and then Apartments actually went up 133% Sam will address here in a sec the next um quick slide is
um all those valleys were set off of uh basically 1178 um ecvs we did validate and review 2200 um but you can see about half were rejected for things such as um relative
sales payoffs of contracts um things that wouldn't actually be a good indicator of market value yes sir ecvs electronic certificate of real estate value okay they used to be coming trip you know triple uh and W that's
probably when she was in the assessor's office and then must have been around 2009 they went electronic and did this got rid of the paper we're hoping they do that one day with the recording of documents too where it be all electronic but uh and then the other thing I was
going to touch on is the new construction of the county this is a kind of an indicator is the county growing or not as far as valuation standpoint goes and you can see 260 million and some change there in new construction countywide and that
represents about 1.2 uh% of the overall so we kind of went up a little bit north of a percent and new new construction that did not exist last year uh in the assessment um so there's that and these guys will
take you through the um different areas a little bit on what kind of happen inside of those big broad increases okay is it the the right button yeah it's that button there you go all right thank you I just kind of go through a little bit what's happening in
more of the residential markets and these again are based on sales that happened between October of 2023 through September of 2024 and that's the data that we analyze for the 2025 assessment um but we were seeing
some increases yet in lak Shore properties um the higher quality dwellings especially we're seeing a pretty big um increase in um acreage that land seems to be going up quite a bit um what people are willing to pay
for that acreage is going up and then another interesting thing is residential storage um it's kind of been a big um factor in our market and it's just on the rise right now um we've seen more of a leveling off to maybe just slighter increases in in off-water
Residential Properties and we'll kind of talk through a little bit about some of those um our off-water residential sales we had a total of 500 sales um with a median sale price countywide of
284,000 and our sale ratio is 96.88% so basically what that ratio is telling us is that um right now with um what properties are selling for we're right there at what properties are selling for in the market overall and the state
requires us to be that 95 to 105% so we're we're sitting pretty good and and we're feeling like um that we're not over processing properties overall um the number I have on here for I just thought this was might be a kind of of interest to you because it used to
be a few years ago it was pretty rare to see an off-water property over a half a million dollars um and now this year we've had 39 sales of off-water properties over a half a million dollars um the number I have up here the 635 is actually a um I should have made that
correction that's actually an average um sale price the median is 592 so they're pretty close but average was 635 for onw waterer residential we had 328 sales um the uh median sale price
was 536 and we're at a ratio of 95% again so still feeling like we're not over assessed on values overall um of the onw waterer sales over a million dollars again a couple years
ago you would have just a few um this year we've had 49 sales over a million do the median is 1.4 million um interestingly enough the average was 1 Point almost $1.9 million so there's a
lot of properties well over that um 1.9 million that are selling so little information there um going to look at our large Market data Baxter
brainer Breezy Point Cross Lake I won't run through all of these but U just for example brainer had 144 total sales um eight sales were on the water we're at a ratio of 92% on those almost 93 um and
then our off-water properties we had 136 sales and we're at 95 um almost 96% for a sale ratio so again we're sitting pretty good um throughout the county and our larger markets um some of the vacant land that we're
seeing is we're seeing everything is increasing quite a bit um basically that 30 to um 50 acre size range it's about $4,500 an acre is what typically properties are selling for in the
median um going back to that residential storage um that we talked through a bit um this was kind of an interesting slide it came up in conversation because we have a median sale price for vacant land
sales at 120 and then improve for 110 and I just wanted to explain that um the vacant lot sales there's a brand new development in Cross Lake right off of County Road 3 that they're actually selling for about 100,000 to 130,000 per
lot um just for the land and those those residential storage developments so that's why that one looks a little bit off compared to what it normally would be but then again the improved um sales there
$110,000 for a median is what people are willing to pay typically on in the middle there for those pole pole buildings on a on a lot essentially so um we had some pretty significant
changes in our in some of our Lakeshore front edge again um both Gull and white fish are at $1,000 a front foot um basically the lakes on the on those chains um they the median is kind of they average around
you know $6 to 8,000 but then you get some of the the smaller Lakes like Thor on the gull chain and and um Mud Lake on the white fish chain that are at that lower rate at 3,000 and and 4,000
and uh we're just getting ramped up not only for board of appeals and Equalization but also for our 2025 residential quintile um be looking to be sending valuation notices out uh pretty soon here in in the month of April um to
start doing reviews in May um if you look the the the area and for this is for the residential quintile um the area is kind of in that purple Emily Little Pine and down on the east side of the county and the Northeast side of the
county that's the area that we'll be um doing this year and um just as a reminder we review 20% of the properties in the county every year so that within 5 years we we um have seen all of the properties and we are meeting our
statutory requirements for that yeah and just to clarify the valuation notices and the tax STS are going to go out either end of this week week or uh Monday Tuesday next week um Mac has promised us that and um she'll
deliver on that she proba laughing but uh just to be clear on anything in that purple we do send out postcards to say we are coming um you know and that's what she was alluding to in April so you may get a few calls from that but it it's a uh hey we want you to know we're
coming out if you need an appointment please let us know or if they don't want us there we just soon have them call us instead of showing up at their door and kind of getting chased off that way so we that has been very successful over the past seven eight years as we've done
that um to um people just want to they one of the big uh comments is they just want to know we were coming most of the time they're okay with us reviewing the property um so that's the way that we're trying to give a heads up thanks Gary I'll pass it over to Sam
now and he'll go through some more of the commercial markets good morning morning um just going to start with some of the commercial and Industrial value Trends we saw we had uh 29 sales for the
2025 assessment after we made all adjustments to the properties we ended with a ratio of about 96% um and an overall change of about a 5.35% increase um some of the changes that
were more Broad and sweeping were uh commercial land on Baxter 371 and 210 between Baxter and um Brainard uh we've had several sales in the last few years indicating we need to go up um same with
just commercial land not in Brainard and Baxter um we've had several sales in the last few years indicating that those are more valuable now than they had been um convenience stores motels and Retail also saw increases and once again those
are based on sales um and then Auto Service type buildings which would also include if you see um buildings where they're selling power sports equipment and things like that but they have kind of that front office area and in the space in the back where they they maybe
do repairs or storage we kind of lump that all together as one building type because one person moves out maybe somebody else moves in so um that style of building we were a little high on so we reduce those um Sam yes on a lot of
those like like you talked about the ones that are going down they still have a fair amount of usually property around there because they have to store all their vehicles you and and you classify that you know that parking lot under different class than you classify the commercial yes so we do have value rates
for land and we have value rates for parking lots and other types of improvements this is just for specifically for for the building rate the building rate component if they have that style of building we had several sales and we were a little high on them
so we so we reduce the value yep so in areas like say Baxter 371 where we had to increase the land there may be an auto service style building that actually saw an increase in value because the land increased because of
the land not because of the over yep was bigger than the the building decrease that's what I was leading to yep and so then in regards to Apartments we had eight sales um after all adjustments we ended with a median ratio of
98% um and that was with a 133% increase so um part of the change also was because we converted to an income approach method of valuation as opposed to more of a cost square footage based um so
some properties would have seen a greater increase some might have gone down but we just think it'll give us a much more consistent valuation much more um you know consistent valuation for the various taxpayers in the county that that we know they're being treated um
the same as their neighbors or you know competitively with the people in other parts of the county so but even after that significant increase we are still in that you know 90 to 105 um range that the state requires of
us for the commercial quintile this year we are basically just doing the city of Brainard uh the commercial assessors also um review all exempt properties so that's going to include all your schools and churches and and things like that so
um the numbers are a little smaller but some of those take a full day so um brainer for the uh commercial quintile and we don't typically send out many postcards on the commercial or exempt just
because slightly different market so excuse me um I'm going to hand it over to Michelle now and she's got some information on special programs good morning Commissioners good morning
Michelle get closer to the microphone um so I'm starting out today talking about the special property tax programs that the county manages and just to give you some idea of how many uh applicants active applications we have in the county for
2025 Homestead which can be owner or relative occupied properties we currently have 22,000 just over 22,000 active homesteads within the county um we received and approved just over 1,400
applications in for 202 4 um that's pretty typical we would generally receive 14 to 1600 applications a year most of those are properties that were already Homestead and have sold and a new owner has also applied for the homestead
there um one great program that's available is the disabled veterans market value exclusion um we currently have 740 active applications for disabled vet and of that um that excludes over 163 million in taxable
value for those veterans which I think is a great opportunity for those veterans within our County uh to qualify for that they do have to first be an owner of the property and Homestead the property that's the first qualification if they meet that qualification then
they have to be a service connected disabled veteran at 70% or higher to receive that benefit or a surviving spouse of a veteran that's passed that is was totally and permanently disabled those they also
qualify um one program that and they have to live in that home yes correct right they couldn't just have it and be living someplace else correct yep it has to be their permanent residence in which they Homestead okay um another less known uh available
program is a blind and disabled um so this would be just the general public not related to veterans that are either legally blind or that are receiving a disability income through say social security or
railroad um or possibly perah or something along those lines if they Homestead their property they too can apply for this additional benefit which would reduce their taxes on average maybe a couple hundred do but every little bit
helps um and then finally the 2C manag Forest special prop prop tax program this one um qualifying properties that have a management plan on their property they can apply for this and receive
approximately a 35% discount in their property taxes over if it was just classified as Ro vacant land any questions on that before I no all right I'm going to move on to some property tax information um we have have as of the
beginning of March uh we have 1,584 delinquent Parcels for payable 2024 of those 981 are first year delinquencies meaning they don't have any prior years with delinquent taxes they just didn't pay their 24
taxes um we with this there's some statutory regulation or requirements that we have to follow and this begins their forfeiture process or their end of redemption process as soon as they become that first year delinquent prior
to becoming delinquent we do send out two courtesy letters to our taxpayers we send out one after first half so in June and we send out a second one in December after the second half is due giving you know sending out just a reminder hey you may have forgotten to pay this you know
trying to to get their attention so that they can hopefully get it resolved before it becomes delinquent once it becomes delinquent we send we have to file a delinquent property tax list with the courts by the middle of February and then by March
20th we have to send out the notice of delinquent tax letters to our taxpayers we typically send those out at the by the end of February to give them some time to pay before their name gets listed in the paper a lot of people get upset if they if they show up in the
paper um the we have to publish within the paper by March 20th each year the list of delinquent taxpayers the first publication was March 12th this year for us and that was in the dispatch The
Courier and the echo will be published this week for the first publication we then have to publish again two weeks later and remove anyone that has paid up within our time constraints of meeting the deadlines for the papers um so the
second publication will be March 26 within the dispatch and we'll remove as many people as we can that have paid prior to that if those Parcels are left unpaid they will be up for forfeiture in 2028 you mentioned that uh 981 of them
are new this year what's typical what's the typical number for new uh I would say it's that's pretty typical at this time I'm looking back I guess I don't at the beginning of the year beginning of the process each year the
report shows around that 1,200 and then as people pay before it gets in the paper I'd say it's about the same okay that is typically we're in that one and a half to 2% delinquency rate every year that's total delinquencies the first year delinquent is right around that 1%
basically is what it ends up being okay that brings us into property tax forfeiture for 2025 currently we have 153 Parcels pending forfeiture for 2025 and those are for taxes that were due and payable in 2021 um so you can see that number drops
drastically by the time we get to that forfeiture process uh our timeline for that is that we for the forfeiture end of redemption process we send a courtesy letter that's not required by Statute we send that out typically April to may give people an opportunity to again pay
those taxes up before we start adding additional fees start um continue on with those processes uh we send the official letters to anyone has who has not paid between that May and June and then anyone that has a structure on their property has that has not yet paid
will get served um by the Sheriff's Office and that typically happens in June or July um something new that we started last year was we sent a final reminder letter about two weeks before we forfeited the parcels that had not yet
paid um we felt that was a it really got people um to contact us and ask what their options were at that point what we found is that people tend to forget they got those first letters early early summer
maybe got ser and served early summer and then they forget that they have a deadline so we did start that last year and that's something that we plan to continue and then our end of forfeiture would be or end of redemption and forfeiture would be mid to late September is our typical
timeline in 20 24 we forfeited 15 Parcels this was actually quite low compared to past years's um on average we would forfeit 50 to 60 Parcels a year so we were very happy with that to have
such a low number especially going into the fact that we have the new legislation on forfeiture and new rules to follow um excuse me we'll go on to that so these 15
Parcels forfeited in 24 and they're going to fall under the new regulation legislation regarding the sale and proceeds from any of these partials that sell within six months of these the new laws are within six months of the forfeiture these properties have to be
offered for sale at public auction this is if they're not repurchased between the time of forfeiture and the sale in this case we have 13 Parcels that are currently available for sale at the initial sale price which is the estim made in market value and those Parcels
are for sale on the our new online auction which is Public Surplus you can get to this from our County website um Land Services land sales and you can see those 13 Parcels up there that are available they have to be made available
for 30 days at estimated market value and that sale began March 10th and will remain open until April 8th if they're not sold at that estimated market value auction then the parcels will be reoffer for sale at minimum bid minimum bid
under the current legislation is the total of any delinquent taxes special assessments fees penalty and interest um it and anything so that's excuse me it'll be made available we there is no
set minimum length of time that we have to offer them at minimum bid we've chosen to offer them for 15 days at available at auction at that price and it's at an auction then so somebody says okay I'm going to bid you have 15 days you can you'll be
bidding on an online auction until the day of close and then then you would that is correct yep so that second auction opens April 9th so the following day the first one closes April 8th second auction would open April 9th if for any of the parcels that have not
sold and would close April 23rd from either of these auctions if there are any surplus proceeds so any proceeds above the minimum bed we now have to make those proceeds available to the part interested parties that
forfeited we have to notify them um within 60 days of the sale and then they have six months to make a claim for those additional proceeds so if the person who's actually buying that property is bought it it has to go into this so does that fund does that go into
like a trust fund or that money sits there until you finally figure out who who gets that money and how they receive that money but the person who's buying the property is able to get the property that he paid for or she paid for and is able to use that property after the
Foreclosure yes there's no comeback at all once it's in that foreclosure part there's no comeback from the original owner that it was foreclosed upon that's correct yeah okay they would they would have to repurchase it before it was sold in order to
maintain that property um but once lost their rights on it yep they've lost their rights once it's sold that new owner has has that property okay so the only thing after it's sold that they would potentially have a claim for is any surplus proceeds right right right
yeah if they if we if they do not put a claim then those proceeds stay with us and um um if it's not so uh excuse me if it's not sold either auction then the forfeited Parcels are treated treated
the same as if they were forfeited years ago so it would go back to having the option to sell them to a city for a dollar or another Authority for a lower price be able to um do a direct sale to a neighbor or um if those
aren't options then they would come to you for setting the price and go up back to our normal process of sale and if they're sold at that point then that money is handled the same as it was Prior there and no one would have any claim to proceeds at that point any of those with that whole thing that was on
that Tyler hennipin is there any of that how much of that money goes back to the state on is it only when there's proceeds left over it goes back to the state so the pro um the proceeds that go to the state are for any Parcels that forfeited
between 2016 and 2023 okay so these the new process for anything that forfeited in 24 in future is just what I've explained okay where the property owner would have an option to claim those okay um any questions on that I know
that was a lot if not that finishes our presentation do you have any questions for us I think uh comment maybe if it's okay Madam chair that you you were looking I've always heard between the 95 and 105 95 and 105 looks like you guys have kind
of nailed it there on that 95 you know I mean on on that lower end you know where I mean we're we still hear out here that all man they appraised our property this much and it's way overvalued and this and that well not according to this you guys have
been appraising it pretty pretty pretty close so yeah our you know it's 90 to 105 State Statute says try to hit 00 uh strategically we shoot for about 95 96% what that does then if that's your median sale price the majority of
the sales are going to be le uh more than what we have it assessed at so then that puts us in a good position to justify all of the values so that hopefully the mass of of folks don't feel like they're overvalued then they feel they're over taxed right yep so
that's we try to do that by Design yep thank you anyone else right thank you you thank you well meeting is adjourned