--------- Okay, good morning to the county board. Um, first off, thank you for allowing me to have this committee of the whole presentation. I have a PowerPoint presentation that has about 15 slides. I'm going to try to go through it pretty quickly um, and then allow you an
opportunity to ask questions of our staff and then hopefully give you all some time to conversate amongst yourselves as well. Um, for those of you obviously that know me, my name is Megan Smith. I'm the land management director here for Good Hugh County. I do have the
entire building team here. Um, staff of four. Um, they have a lot um a lot more experience than I do with this department. So, I'm going to try my best to give overview, but again um questions maybe are best answered by them. Um, all
right, jumping right in. Uh the department staffing is comprised of four um positions. There is a building official, a building inspector, um a building technician supervisor, and a building technician. Um plus within
the land use department, um we do share an administrative assistant and then my job is to oversee the entire department. Um, so I noted that at the bottom. The enabling authority for administration of the building code
comes from state law. Um, it has been state law since uh July 1st of 1972. The regulatory agency at the state that oversees it is the Department of Labor and Industry. Good Hugh County has
adopted um actual ordinances adopting the state building code from what I could find from 1981, 1985, and 2003. However, we have been actually um enforcing the building code since 19 um
79. Yes, 1979. Um we issued our first building permit in 1979. Um, a couple things. The county's building official is the designated building official for all 21 townships
and for seven cities. The city of Redwing has an in-house building division, meaning um, their building staff is on staff with the city of Redwing. Um, and then the cities of Zimroda, Pine Island, and Lake City contract with Safe Built to be their
building official. Something that is new and exciting for 2026 is the county board um budgeted for and allowed a um an expense to be budgeted for in 2026 of $18,000 that
allowed us to essentially get estimates and proposals from several different online permitting software companies. And we signed a contract with a company called Gov in early 2026. and we're working with them currently on building
our essentially building our platform that will go live here. Um we're hoping mid 2026 and that'll be an online permitting platform. Um kind of something that you know I think the staff has been wanting to do for a very
long time. The public has certainly been asking for it. Um so we're really excited about that. Um there's some work involved obviously to get that up and rolling but we're excited about it. Um the total cost with gov was 15,600.
Um and that does include a full um integration with our GIS system. So people can type in their address and it pulls up their parcel number and our our GIS database will be talking to our permit database which was something that um was important to us. We'll also have
an online payment option. Um, so we'll have an integrated um, credit card processing vendor essentially integrated into the permit system. Um, oh, I just want to end with my long range goal and the part of the reason
that gov was selected is because their platform allows us to integrate all land use permits. So, not just building permits, but this will be the permit database for where you would apply for a well permit, a septic permit, a building permit, a variance, a conditional use, a
timber harvest um permit, a um you know, solar permit, kind of any of our land use permits would all be entered and tracked in this database. >> Good question. So that'll be um active
for townships to submit the information they need to submit for us to keep processing permits. We can assign permissions. Um we can give you can create a user account. So I mean anyone in the public can create a user account,
but then we have the authority to assign administrative rights to people to go in on the back end and review permits. So that can be given that could be given potentially to townships. But the the document that we get from the township, so somebody's applying for conditional
use >> that they need to sign that they know about it. Will that be able to be submitted from the township? >> Yep. >> Electron. That's that's huge. >> No more of this like, you know, taking a photo of it with your phone and trying to text it to someone and then Yeah.
Yeah. >> Good. >> Yep. Um the this slide really talks about budgeting over a five-year period. The entire board did get an email um that details the entire kind of last 10 years
of the entire land use department and specifically the building division of land use. What I did here is did a snapshot essentially of revenues and expenses. Um you can see here that I'll
start at the top. Um revenues are highly contingent upon in my opinion the economy and specific construction projects that are occurring in Good Hugh County. So in 2021 500 right around you know half a million dollars of revenue
coming in strictly through building permits. Um 2025 down to 360. interest rates were up, construction activity was down. The revenue numbers are going to eb and flow. Um they have nothing to do in my opinion with
anything that's really in our control. Um what we can control is expenses. That is that second column. Um our expenses snapshot there um like I said started with 504 um,000 in 2021 and ended with 596,000
in 2025. A couple highlevel things to note in there is that in the years 2022 and 2023, ARPA funding was a substantial benefit to the county and that we could offset salary expenses. Um the other
thing to note in the year 2025 my actual salary was miscoded pretty much entirely to the building fund and the building department. and it's supposed to be split evenly a third a third a third between the three divisions of land use. So that's why it
is showing up quite high for 2025. Um a couple things I just want again to note is that um there were years over the 10-year period that revenues um the county essentially
generated more revenues than expenses. Um, but the trend over the 10-year period was that, you know, more of the years were a were essentially there was more expense than there was revenue. Um, let's see here. Other expenses,
there's not a whole lot. Um, I had this slide just because I want to be fully transparent about, you know, what is being spent. The bulk of the budget go and expenses goes to personnel costs. Um but there is some money obviously set aside for
mileage each year for continuing education for general operations of the department like office supplies. Um and then vehicles. So there's a total of three fleet vehicles in the land use department. One of them is assigned to environmental health and two of them are
assigned to the building division. Um we are also currently using one of the vehicles that is owned by the motorpool. Um, and that is something that our department did in cooperation with administration to keep miles
um, low. So, we were racking up miles. Dan was racking up miles on one of the Ford Explorers. We swapped it out with a motorpool vehicle to keep keep mileage low. That has worked out really well. The 2027 capital plan does call for the replacement of a 2022 Ford Explorer.
The only other item in the capital plan aside from cars is computers. Um, and our computers are on a four-year replacement schedule just like the rest of the county. Um, let's see here. I want to talk a little bit about how revenue is
generated because building permit fees are a little bit complex and how they're calculated. So, I have a couple examples here that we we'll go through. This slide is really the purpose here is understanding how a permit fee is
calculated. So when someone says the permit cost, what they're really talking about is three separate charges that are being charged to the end user to the customer. It's comprised of the permit fee which is based on the valuation of the project, a plan review fee which is
a percentage of the permit fee and then the state search charge which is defined by statute. We collect it and we remit it. The county remits it quarterly to the state. We do not get to keep any of that. Um I have an example here for a
new shed in Welch Township. The construction value is $125,000. Dimensions are 50 by 80, which is um a 4,000 foot shed. Not terribly uncommon. Um, the cost of the permit to the
customer was $1,884. How we arrived at that was the permit fee was $1,15, $718 in plan review and then 60 of the state state searchcharge. That is an example of what we call plan reviewed
permits. Those permits are permits that somebody has to submit construction plans. A plan review has to be conducted in accordance with the state building code. Once they get a permit, that's what that's what triggers our inspection process. So, application submitted, plan
review happens, permit is issued, inspection start on big projects. That whole process can last well over a year from when they first apply to when they're getting their final passing their final inspection. Um, that's important to know when you think about
budget numbers and year-to-year reports. I say this because there are certainly examples where people start a project and maybe even pay for a project in 2025, but a lot of our work occurs in 2026. A lot of our inspection work, for
example, is happening in 2026. Um, so yeah, I wanted to take you all through a a building permit. There is an exception here. We have what's called flat rate permits. Oftentimes the public thinks of them as maintenance permits. They're permits
that don't need plan review. They are um going to be your, you know, replacement roofing, replacement siding, putting in new windows and doors, installing a new air conditioner, installing a heat unit, a um water softener, a water heater. Um
those range um from 85 to 150. They can typically be processed a lot quicker than a plan review because no one is submitting plans. Typically, they don't require township approval. There's really no zoning approval because they're not changing the footprint of the structure. So, those are those are
pretty straightforward. There are certain years um I think it was 2021 and 2022 where there was hail storm after hail stom um that hit good county. And if you look at the end of the presentation,
there are um the permit numbers jumped up dramatically that a lot of those permits are replacement siding and replacement roofing from hail storms. So >> just a question. So the shed you're talking about is an accessory building,
not a farm shed. >> Correct. This would be a personal use, not an agricultural building. um you know storage of campers and personal stuff, not agricultural use. >> Okay.
>> Y >> um I want to talk a little bit about the city contracts. Goodwill County has seven city contracts. Um they are all written in the same way, meaning we treat all of our cities the exact same
way. Um and we also use the county's fee schedule, not their fee schedule. that helps us keep consistency across the county. Um, and it just makes, you know, administration of the permits that much easier. It's also easier for contractors who are estimating projects to not have
to be like, well, I'm, you know, I'm putting together a bid in the city of Canon Falls and the permit's going to be this, but I'm putting one in Leyon Township and it's going to be that. Um, that is, in my opinion, something that's really important. Um, how it works and
how we get paid is that the city keeps 20% of the permit fee. Remember that's not the total permit cost, 20% of the permit fee and the county gets 80% of the permit fee and 100% of plan review. The state gets 100% of the state search
charge. So on a $335 permit, that would look like um a $200 permit fee. um 130 uh plan review state search charge would be five uh $5. The city keeps 20% of
that. So 200 um of the 200 so they would get $40 in this example. Um so that's just a little bit of how kind of how our city contracts work. The point here is that the cities retain some of some of the revenue that is
generated from building permits. Um, >> and and that that $40 then is what covers their cost to make sure it fits their zoning >> Yes. >> schedule or their zoning plan and
whatever. That's what that's about all they do with that is that part of it. >> Yeah. It depending on the city. So, I mean, um, you know, some of the cities, you know, they do permit intake, meaning, you know, the permit comes in there, they deal with kind of the front
end of making sure it's a complete application. Um, do their zoning review, then send it to us for plan review or have the have the applicant send it to us. um >> because they have to approve that it meets their setbacks which are different
in every may be different in every city >> and that it's a single family not >> in a place where you're supposed to have duplexes da da da da da >> yes yep y um and this 8020 split has been
has been the split for um probably um a very very long time like it has been kind of the industry standard Um, I'm aware that other jurisdictions also use this 8020 split. So, okay,
revenue by source. This is a really good example to kind of understand building permit revenue from townships and building permit revenue from cities. So, in 2025, 190 in permit revenue was from township permits and 174,000 was from city
building permits. Um I will note here that the city of Canon Falls has been an excellent partnership for us. Um they are they have had a very very busy 2025. If you are aware their economic development authority is initiating
essentially acting as a developer building a subdivision, selling lots um helping facilitate new home construction. 2025 was a big year in Canon Falls. our staff spent a lot of time on Canon Falls permits. Um and so for that year, for
last year, for example, 90,000 in revenue came from the city of Canon Falls. Um that can all change. You know, that project is is run by the EDA. Um when they're out of lots, there's not going to be new homes constructed. I think they are proposing to to plat a
new subdivision and open up some additional homes. But this is a really good example of the economy dictates a lot of of what is happening here. The next few slides are
um data building permit data. And for those of you that have like been to the annual township meeting, this maybe is familiar to you because I typically present this at the township meeting. But what this is showing is the columns are the townships. It's really hard to
see um on this little screen, but the columns are the townships um and the rows are the years. Um we keep track of this is single family detached construction by township. Um maybe if
you can see over on on the right here, we're hovering right around 30 um 30 new homes built per year in what I would consider the rural part of the county. It is important to note that a lot of these new home permits are associated
with the tear down of an old home. So this is not net new construction. This is just construction projects that we managed. Um the next slide is building permit data. Um residential essentially residential
construction in cities. The teal column are cities that we have contracts with. So we have access to that data uh any day of the week. The col pine islands and redwing we had to call them and get their information from them. But
I think it's important to look at kind of where our maybe smaller cities are in relationship to some of, you know, the bigger cities. Um, and then to look at total total new home construction across the county as a whole. So I'm going to focus here again on maybe the year 2020
2025. Um, Canon Falls 15 new homes. Um, Kenyon had seven, Wanamingo had eight, Pine Island had 31, Somroa had 13, Redwing had 17 for a total of 95 new
home permits issued um in 2025. So, this just gives us not only an idea of what's happening in the cities that we have contracts with, but the ones that we don't. Um, this is total permits, not just home
construction. Um, and why this is important is for us to understand our capacity to take on additional contracts. Let's just say we would lose a contract or take an on or be be approached by a city to take on an additional contract.
We really have to understand what that means in terms of volume of work, number of permits processed, and what the type of permits are. a new home permit for example or a commercial construction permit is a lot more of a commitment from staff time and inspections compared
to a deck for example. Um so this what this is showing is again total per kind of all in all permits in the cities um and in Pine Islands and Broda and Redwing. Um, this is permit activity over a 10 a
10-year period with valuations. Um, the valuations are important because it really shows us, you know, what what we added in terms of value add to Good Hugh County. So, I'll focus again just on 2025. Total city permits that Good
Hugh County staff issued 371 for a total of 18 million just over 18 oh almost 19 million. Um total permits issued in for townships 436 permits um for a total valuation of 18
million. Um that comes out to eight just over 800 permits issued in the year 2025 um for um around 37 million in valuation. Total number of inspections that are done that's done by county
staff 2393. um that does not include on-site consults with people. That does not include requested visits. That is actual booked um inspections. So the idea here is to get an idea of how much um you
know how much travel time is actually occurring you know for each project essentially. And that again I told you I would try to be concise and fast. Um that is the highle overview. There is a lot with the building division that could be talked
about. Um, I tried to touch on a little bit of everything. Give you all an opportunity to ask questions and kind of go from there. So, thank you. >> Are there any questions? >> Um, how does this how do our fees
compare to the privately owned that the Pine Island and the other cities are using? Um, so I know that um when they were negotiating their contracts, they it was an 8020 split as well. I did not
pull 2020 2026's contracts, but when they were negotiating with Safeuilt and Minsspect, it was a 8020 split that mimicked the counties. Um, that has been very very consistent across the board. Um, >> but what does it where does it start at?
I mean, how much are like say we charge that $1,884, what would that private company have charged on that? I mean, do they have are they charging a lot more? Are we not keeping up with the privates? What is the advantage to those
organizations to go with that private versus stay with or be with the county? >> So, I don't necessarily know if I can answer that question. It'd probably be, you know, I'd really want I think each city has its own reasons for going with
a private company. Um, I don't I don't necessarily know what, you know, what, for example, the city of Pine Island's advantages would be. Um, I know just in talking casually with their city administrators, they wanted to go
with a company that um had online permitting, for example. um which was one reason that they hadn't really talked to the to the county previously. >> So >> go ahead.
>> Just a sorry when you say that's an 8020 split. So is is the city setting or let's take let's take Wabisha County. Does Wabasha County set the fee schedule and then
they negotiate that fee schedule with um somebody who does the inspection part of it >> or how did they do it in Lake City? You came from Lake City. >> Lake City. Lake City set the fee schedule, >> right? um it was adopted by the city council
each year was the fee schedule and then the the consultant or the contracted building official was required to adhere to that fee schedule. So, so to your question, doesn't change the cost. If the county or the city sets a fee
schedule, then the independent contractor is living with the same thing we're living with, 8020 split. >> I I think your question was the overall schedule the same. >> Where do they where do they come up with that 1884?
>> Yeah. >> 49. Where do we come up with that? And what would have if a private inspector would have come out to there, would that still be $1,84? Or are they charging 2,200? I mean, are we leaving money on the table? I mean,
compared to a private organization doing the inspections, any of the staff have any idea? Have you looked at that or >> Well, but we set the fee schedule and what Megan's telling us is the city sets
the fee schedule and then what you're asking is are our fee schedules lower than Wabasha County or Rice County or somebody else. And and it's the fee schedule. It's if your value of your deal is so much, you're going to pay a
fee of this times a percentage to get to your to your permit cost, building inspection, zoning inspection, septic, well, whatever. How how I heard your question, Todd, was if uh you're buying a building or getting a building
permit through this uh city of uh Pine Island, is that overall the same amount to the person getting the permit as in Pine Island as it would be in uh Zumbroda? That's how I heard your question. Yep.
>> And >> and kind of what I would say to that is I did not do a deep dive into comparing the fee schedules of the cities of Redwing, Samroa, and Pine Island in Lake City. >> So, you don't know? >> I don't know. >> No, but maybe even checking with one
particularly since Pine Island is of interest to to see. And then this is just a comment I'd make. living in Wakuda Township, we have our own zoning and so we don't keep anything from the city, but we charge the residents of
Wakuda Township a a permit fee that's in addition to whatever the county charges to cover our uh our basically our zoning inspector. So we actually pay more than what's listed or more than you would in
the city because >> in Wakuna Township. >> In Wakuna Township. Yeah. And without getting any 20% back, you know, and I'm not really complaining. I'm just uh sort of making a point, I guess. I
think um so one thing if you all recall when you passed the fee schedule um the end of you know December of last year um there was an increase um of what's called the plan review fee and I have that highlighted on the screen. It
used to be plan review was for residential construction it was 45% of the permit fee. It's now up to 65%. That was something I did research and that was researched when I was preparing the fee schedule is I was looking
specifically for consistency in what was being charged in our region for plan review fee and we were undercharging um for our plan review fee. 65% is standard is what most other cities are
charging. Um so we're now essentially going to be um you know we're at 65%. So I'll be curious to see how that kind of works out for for 2026. >> At 65% we
margin our plan review fee was less than surrounded communities. >> Correct. Sorry. >> Yes, I said that wrong. >> Yes. >> My questions are just comments to everybody. The premise committed as a
whole and got brought up brought up the building >> county. Um I believe we had a consensus to go through and figure out the financial implications to get commissioners have a more clear understanding of how the building inspection department functions,
everything about it. Are we required to have it? Why do we have it? Why do we continue to do the whole permitting aspect of it? So if that has clarified everybody's questions, the financial aspect is there. It's been there for the last 10 years since 12 years since I've been on the board.
One of the main questions that we seem to get or that I have the understanding every time it was brought up before is are we required to have a building inspection department? No. Is everybody clear? >> Yes, we are. either by contract or by
owning it, by running it or by contract because we enforce the state building code, which falls on the county. And if the county doesn't do it themsself, they have to hire somebody to do it because we signed on with the state many many
years ago to be uh a county that enforces the state building code. So we have to either by ourself or by contracting. So yes, we do have to enforce the building code. >> So an in-house >> nothing to do with enforcing the building code, but that's what everybody
says all the time. Do we have to have an in-house building inspection department? >> That's a different question. But yeah, >> that's the comment that I made that is specifically where this lies is the cost of running a building inspection department.
We can contract out. We do not have we do not have to continue to spend the $200,000 a year that it is or more could be less depending on the year. We don't have to. That was a premise of the comment that I've made all the time. Every time it gets brought up since the first days we've been on the board till
today. You guys can simply make that assessment decision that yes, you feel it's best to spend county money to subsidize a building inspection department to the tune of 100 200 how many $100,000 a year. City of Redwing residents, they get to
subsidize it. So does Simroa, Pine Island, Lake City. Same as some of our other departments. So that was a premise of the questions and comments that you guys need to figure out from a committee of the whole that you get this understanding that 10% levy increase does it justified to continue to spend
how many hundreds of thousand dollars on a building inspection department that we don't need to have? We don't need it. We're not required to. But adding to that is if we corrected
our our where we set those initial fees, we could generate enough income to keep it here at the county. That's why, like I said, are we leaving money on the table by what we're charging? So, a citizen in Pine Island, they pay a lot more for a a uh building permit than
someone does in Rosco Township. Is that true? I don't know. That's why we when Megan I already identified the cost when she went through and said we're undercharging at the 20%. So we bumped it up. That's what that dollar amount that you're asking
was a specific question I asked to have addressed because of this question coming up. But if if that was a thought process, I think you folks are being overly optimistic that you can charge your way out of the dollar amount. And then you still have to be legit with
the taxpayer and say, "Well, we need to increase instead of up to 65%, we need to add another 10 to 15% on to cover our cost." I don't know that that's legit either, just to cover our additional expenses. >> But I see that the private companies right now are still in business, so they
are making enough money to do this. >> Yes. >> So either we're not efficient enough or we're just not charging enough. So >> or the quality of the service is different or the pay of the employees is different or the benefits of the
employees is different. Um but I but I think the question is buildings need to be inspected and there's rules about what needs to be inspected and what standards they need to be up to. And I I think if I'm understanding you correctly, Jason, um you're suggesting
that perhaps the private uh sector could do this job um at less cost than uh what having the county there be a county department if I'm understanding you correctly. >> Simple basic understanding of the functions and core functions of
government. If it's why are we doing it if it is done in the private sector? I have no idea. >> I mean, I understand the premise that people think and I mean, some even the city of Redwing or the other communities find that they can probably make money
on it. Uh, yes and no. Can they? But again, why would we be duplicating what is done in the private sector? Why every other entity or I mean business, anything that it is, we're trying to eliminate really eliminate jobs, but what's the
why? I assume the city of Redwing is doing it the way they are because that's the what they think is the best way to do it for their citizens. >> No, because the city of Redwing whether they're gaining or whether they're losing or having money, they do they may
feel that they want control, but at some particular point in time, they identified it as a money-making entity that they could make money with. and and obviously when you look at what we've over the years there's years that well no I'm not even gonna say that they've we've broke even because we haven't all
the expenses aren't in there anyway. just a comment and then the numbers you put together really tell a story and you know um I took the last five years 21 through 25 and I you could pick them
all doesn't really matter >> um the average of those in value increase um or value of the permits is 40 million5 500,000. For the last five years, we've averaged 40 million.
But I didn't look at just the building department. I looked at the whole department because there's a piece of this that we're not talking about. It's that continuity of from the zoning side to the building side to the septic and
well side, which affect how a permit and how it processes through. And when you fragment that and you take one piece of that out of there and you say that's going to be done over here, then the person that talks between the zoning
department and the building department are not in the same room. They're just farther apart. And and it can work, but it's not as seamless as what we do right now. We we do that 40 million per year in new
permits for a total cost in that department of 488,000. The biggest chunk of that by far goes to well and septic. We have to have the septic department. That's
state law. So we have to regulate that. that department cannot generate nearly the revenue that the building department can or that the zoning department can because you just can't charge that much for septic permits. So basically through
all the numbers I gathered that probably accounts for 200 to 250,000 of that 488. So the rest of it is run on just over 200,000 and that covers
building and zoning and that's all the land use permits and all of those things. So from a cost standpoint 40 million at 488 it's like a little over percent 1.2% or something of the
cost of what we're getting for that. It's not inefficient. It's just that it costs money to run >> zoning. There's no two ways about it. >> You talked about Wakuda Township. I come
from Leon Township. We weren't charging enough to cover the cost of having the planning commission meetings >> by the conditional uses or variances we're hearing. So, we had to significantly raise those so that it
wasn't costing everybody. It was trying to cover it. We've done that here and we're doing that again with changing the fee structure. The cost will come down to the general public, but by and large the general public wants us to protect
water. So they want us to do septic and well and by and large they want to know that if they go out and buy a house in Wanamingo that it was inspected and it was done properly and we can assure them of that. Ultimately,
when we took on state building code, whether we give that to somebody else to administer the inspection part of it, the responsibility, according to Steve, always falls back to us. If they don't do the job right, it's on Goodyu County.
It's not, you can't write that into a contract that they're responsible. What are they going to what are you going to hold them to? So ultimately it all is responsible to Goodyu County to do this. If it costs a few dollars for everybody in the county to know that building code
was was enforced equally through most of the county, I think that's valuable. So I while I understand Jason's question, first you're going after probably the most coste effective part of the department. The least cost effectively
certainly is not that. It certainly is well and septic and we're not going to give that up. >> You're not correct with your well and septic buildings. They're all separate line items in the budget. They're all >> I understand that but they all work together. >> Yeah. But you can't bring and say that
you can't decipher down this $400,000 in expenses because that's building inspections. Well, and septics. >> No, the 488 >> is the whole department. It cost us 488,000 a year. You can look at you can look at the budget which last year the
budget in 2025 was 848,000 that we had to levy for it. The actual amount of that levy we used was499,000. They have come in under budget every single year. So if you don't look at
actual numbers, yeah, you can inflate it, but it's actually saves us. They they are more efficient every year than what they do in the budget. And part of that is they don't know how many permits they're going to get. So they guess, but they are coming
in under budget every time. So >> I'll I'll just make a comment first. I hear good things from my neighbors about you guys, and it's always nice to hear that. and uh I can't remember the last time I heard a complaint about land use and so I very much appreciate that. Um
so thank you. I I think where I'm coming from the actual uh preliminary budget request for 2027 is more in the neighborhood of 20%. Okay? It's not 10%. And our our citizens
aren't going to uh tolerate a 20% levy increase, nor can many of them afford that. So, I have no interest in picking on your department. None at all. But I have a great interest in saying, how do we figure out a way to provide the best
services we can and get that levy increase into something that's reasonable for the means of our citizens. And so, I think we have to be looking at lots of departments. And so, it has nothing to do with the work in my mind that you're doing or how efficiently you're doing it. It's trying
to figure out how in the world to deal with this 20% levy increase request for 2027. So that's where I'm coming from. >> I said one more comment. I I think if some of the board members remember a couple years ago, I wanted to have
quarterly meetings apart from our regular board meeting day to have departments come in and explain their whole department >> and it went by the wayside. Nobody wanted to do it. this is exactly what they're doing. They're no getting us app. And I think that would be valuable
for all departments or a majority of departments to come in and let us know exactly how that >> all fits together because you're right, we have a >> we have some challenges with the budget. No doubt about it. >> Yeah. but not knowing this kind of
information in depth. >> And I think we're going to need some help from all the department heads on figuring out where can we find some savings because um we have to live within the means of our citizens. And we don't have an open-ended piggy bank for
what we can spend. And that isn't me trying to pick on you guys. I it isn't because I think it's a kind of a a problem for every county that there is in the state and trying to figure out the ways in which we can do that. So when I ask you this question, this isn't
meaning that this is what I want to do. I think you guys do a good job. But I do have a question is do are we aware if there are counties that are doing what Jason suggests that is basically um partnering with a company and having
them just take care of it all. And you maybe don't know the answer and I'm not asking you to be a do a big study. I'm just curious about that. >> Your question yes county contracts with um a the private sector
Dakota County does not, but several of their townships do. >> I I don't think they do much for countywide zoning in Dakota County. >> And Olmstead County is another, um, interesting example where, um, some of their townships enforce the building
code and some do not. >> Um, and so, uh, Winona County, for example, has not adopted the building code. Um, and I realize we're running out of time here. Um, this is a map again. It's from
Builders Association of Minnesota. It's from 20 2019. I don't know if it's super up to date, but it shows a cluster of green and those are the counties that have adopted the building code um countywide. It is important to note, I think, that
especially when you get into northern Minnesota and outstate Minnesota, there's not countywide adoption of the building code. Um, the state of Minnesota does not like that. They they're pushing for, you know, full adoption across the
entire state of Minnesota. I think they've set some long range goals to have 100% adoption. Um, in my experience, and maybe the team could could verify this, um, the trend is essentially to take this green area and make it bigger. Um, you know, so I
to me there's not going to be less enforcement of the building code really. It's it's just how it's managed internally and really the decision happens um does it happen at the city level, the township level, the county level and everybody does it a little bit differently. The end of the day um I
don't think there's a perfect solution other than the way that we're doing it in my opinion protects the public the most um because we're creating consistency and uniformity across the county as a whole. Are are there any other questions or
comments? >> I guess I'd just like to see where uh you know, Wamingo, we inspect in Pine Island, they do their own private. Each of them community has a $400,000 house. What is that costing that >> person? Yeah. I mean, is that >> we can get we can get that,
>> you know, I mean, are we bas I've said it, you know, leaving money on the table. I mean, do we need to adjust that that first fee? And yes, the 20% is fine. And I I didn't look at this for this meeting, but I know that we've been getting less in fees than most counties
have. I know that. Yeah. >> Just one more comment. And last year's budget for whatever the levy part of the land use budget was 4 848,000.
The one we approved now is 755,000 for 26. So >> a drastic decrease. Mhm. >> So, I think we need to be looking at the numbers and not just assuming that the building department's going up cuz they didn't. They went down. And my guess is
if I went and pulled some information that says what they projected for 27, >> it would probably still be there. >> Not at 88. >> Make one last general comment, I think. But I I to some extent, I think we have to find a way to look at the whole big
picture. And I think when we pull out individual departments, there's things we can learn from that, but we have to be looking at the whole big picture. And again, I kind of think we have to be doing that this whole year and maybe have uh meetings sooner than uh July or
August about how we're going to do that and uh um see what kind of consensus we can build between the five of us. Oh, that's my last comment. Anything else? Okay. Well, thank you all for coming in
and I again I appreciate all your work. So, should we take a fivem minute break? Sure. Part: 2
Okay. So, Bo, let's get started. All right. Good morning, commissioner. Thanks for the opportunity to talk to you here. I do have some slides that we can go through, but ultimately if you have questions about anything related to some of the work that we've been doing at the soil and water, now would be a
good time to to ask. But maybe as a guide, I have a few slides just to go over some high points of what we've been doing lately. Is that all right? >> Uh, one of the one of the first things that uh we're involved with with some of
the other county departments including here is county well inventory. Um you would you would think that some of the uh state level uh agencies would have records of all every well that's been drilled in the state. That's just just
not true. Um so unfortunately there's a lot of wells in our county here and a lot of southeastern Minnesota that are undocumented. um the department of health realizes this and um so they contracted with um
our office to help identify them. So with land use, health and human services, our our office and the GIS office, we're doing an initiative here. So if you do get uh contacted by different land owners in your area about what this letter is all about, please
encourage them to fill it out. Um it it It's important uh to identify these wells and and get as much information as we can on them. Mainly mainly to see what people are actually drinking. So like if for instance uh one of our
aquifers gets contaminated with something, we can identify those land owners and have uh some cautionary procedures to follow. Um I spoke with Earl in emergency management last week and he was also interested in this type of information.
And just uh I I don't expect you to really be able to see this uh but colors are important. Uh so every every uh colored parcel is a parcel that we feel that there should be a well on um from tax records. The green ones, the dark
green ones are good to go. We got all the information we need for those parcels. We know where the well is properly identified with the point on a map. The yellow ones are ones that we need information on or maybe not don't have any information on. Um, but we know
there should be a well there. So, our staff and county staff have been uh sorting through this uh over the past few months. Uh, there's about 6,000 uh uh parcels to review. And so far, uh,
this morning, I think Savannah said that she's located 1,600 new wells based on some of the counties data that we've been keeping locally. So, Pam Holse, Willie Root, and Megan's office um, have
records of existing wells beyond what the state has been recording. So, we should be wrapping that up later this fall. Um, and yes, the the state is compensating your staff and our staff for for doing that work. So,
>> a quick question. What does the red signify on the map? >> So, so red is zero data. There's a house there. We don't have any old well information from Pam and Willy's office. We don't have any uh MDH information. We
have zero information. So, those lands will get a letter um like was on the previous screen asking for information on it. And yeah, and if if folks have trouble with that letter or uh trying to give us information, just have them call our
office and we'll walk them through it or bring them in and walk them through it. Um, one one ongoing thing in the town of Good Hue, partnering with um the city of Good Hugh on a nitrate issue that is uh is coming up in the city's drinking
water. Um right now there's about 7 milligs per liter of nitrates in the drinking water. It's been rising uh for the past few decades. Um largely attributed to um a lot of manure
in the wellhead area, a lot of animals in the wellhead area. a way of life in the Goodwill Township area um and a lot of agriculture lands that um that receive nitrogen application um to grow crops there. The unfortunate thing is
the underlying soils are very porous to some of that. Am I still talking too far away? This is supposed to be the informal meeting, right? The cow. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Okay. So yeah, the the nitrate issue is
is is rising and um we have a opportunity to work with some land owners in the recharge area, the groundwater recharge area of the city, uh to try to do some things on the surface that protect the groundwater. Um so things on that map or that that slide
um are like no tail, no tailing your crops, improve soil health, uh reducing manure application disturbance. So, we're just knifing in the manure just below the surface to reduce the surface at the right rate and the right time.
I'll say that again later in the presentation. And then um yeah, cover crops that middle picture with with green that sucks up any nutrients that are leeching in the critical times of the year that might get into our drinking water.
And just to give you a status on that, all the green parcels around town, so that's the recharge area around town, all the green parcels are land owners that have voluntarily adopted some of the practices that I was just talking about.
Um, we do have funds right now to help with that and they will be running out this year. So, we've been trying to educate the land owners to try to figure out how to continue to do that on those fields because uh it it can help reduce
uh nitrogen to the groundwater by 30% by just implementing a few of those practices. Any questions on that? Yes, there's >> is there any is there any personal wells that are getting tested that would give
us some insight into that issue? I mean, I can think of where all the livestock is around goodu in any direction. Um or um is there anything with
the fertilizer side of it too? Yeah, as far as the testing goes, um we see similar values in the Goodyear area, if not higher on some of the personal wells. Uh the city of Goodyu has two
wells that they operate. The shallower one being their primary well uh has seven parts per million. Their secondary one is really for emergencies only. That's like 700 ft that have zero nitrates in that one. But is extremely
hard. So without any pre-treatment, which the city currently doesn't have, um it's hard for them to incorporate or blend that water into their system without having a lot of phone calls or stained clothes. the purple clothes that Good Hugh has on would soon turn to
orange and rust. But um so but the the the the private wells around town, yeah, if they're that same similar depth, they're all about the same amount of parts per million nitrate. Um shifting to the watershed side of
things. So, until recently, every county soil and water office or county uh government was competing against each other for similar funds that help land owners do conservation practices.
That changed about oh 10 years ago now and now we work together with other partners and county governments on a watershed basis. So now all the funding that we work with from the state of Minnesota that uh relates to like surface water and groundwater comes in
the package of for instance the Canon River wershed which Commissioner Anderson represents you all on. Um I've I was leerary at first because I had experience being the county water planner and you know kind of keeping tabs on just Good Hugh County. Uh but we
we ended up really competing really heavily against each other um for the same funds. So, this is this has worked pretty good. Um, in the in the in the Canon River so far, we've been able to build, you know, 72 dams. Those points on the map or those dots on the map are
all projects that our staff has implemented on the landscape. A lot of them are what maybe some of you saw in that tour last summer in that rainy bus tour that we took um uh similar to projects like that.
And then one maybe highlight or one project worth noting is a a project on the Little Cannon River. Uh we've our office has been working with a few land owners over the past five years to talk about um uh what we can do about stream
bank erosion and um those land owners decided that they would like to open their portion of their property up to the public for fishing. Um, so the DNR has funds for that. Um, we we do not, right? So the DNR offered fishing
easements, uh, purchased fishing easements from those five land owners and now we're in the works of trying to find money to do a stream restoration through there. So you see in the left picture, those banks are basically vertical vertical banks that are about,
you know, 10 feet tall through the properties. The plan would be to uh restore the stream back to what it looked like before we were all here. Uh in order to figure that out, they look at different like reference stream uh reference reaches of streams
in the area to see like how curvy it was or kind of what the bank heights were and then they emulate that for the restoration plan. So, if you see that blue squiggly lines on the right map, that's kind of the proposal of what it will look like.
Um, Large Sam's Outdoor Heritage Fund is one of the main funding sources that will be pushed towards uh funding the construction side of this, but when it's done, um, it could be the longest stretch of continuous stream with an easement and fishing restored uh, in
southeastern Minnesota, which is pretty cool. Any questions on that? >> Yes. >> So from the picture up there, you're saying that going down to the stream is
maybe up to 10 ft straight down. So for the farmers who have um voluntarily given a fishing easement, then do you have to go in there and allow and figure out ways that people can get down to the river?
>> Uh yes. Uh good question. Um as part of the project, those banks go like this to looking more like this. So, it's a a ton of fill that needs to get moved away from the stream banks and slope back and
then added more bends to it. So, adding more bends to it also increases flood storage during flood events. That's another benefit, but it also slows water down. Um, so yeah, there's a ton of uh uh leg work that goes into the
permitting side of things. If you can imagine trying to put a a culvert in across the stream, that's one permit, right? But this is a little bit bigger permit we need from Army Corps of Engineers, DNR, uh the shipo stuff that um the public works director was talking
earlier. So there's a lot that goes into it because we're moving so much dirt with these projects. So then does your office do that? And then does are there funds to cover that? Does the homeowner cover it? How does that get paid?
>> Yeah, that's that's a good question. These projects are pretty complicated, but I'll just say um the first step of having these projects be available to have public funds be put towards them is the landowner selling uh fishing
easement. So those land owners opted to voluntarily sell the fishing easement to the DNR which allows the DNR then to find >> to go and do their stream project through that easement area only. It's not hunting easement. It's not bird
watching easement. It's for fishing only. So people are aware of that when they when they go on site. But then so once that once that funding pool opens up that it's public access then like lassard Sam's ar heritage fund is one
DNR funding direct is another funding source. Our office will not be putting any funds towards the construction but we might be offering some money through the Canon River wershed to help with some of the design part of the project.
>> Yep. I mean we're talking millions millions for this project. Sure. Okay. Thank you. >> I have a question about the fishing easement. Is it is that would allow an unlimited number of people to come onto your property? >> Uh that's good question. Fishing
etiquette is al is often taken into account. >> Yeah. >> How many parking spots that's taken? >> That's what I wondered if you had to provide parking spots then or that people just park along the road and there's a designated area that you walk in on. Is that right? >> That's correct. >> Okay. Yep. And so theoretically it could
be a thousand people, but I think you're saying that's not how fishermen operate. >> No, that's not usually what you'd see there. >> Yeah. No, >> thank you. >> And then so so for Goodyu County, we have basically uh two watershed funding
sources now, the Canon and the Zumbro. Uh here's a summary of some of the work that we've done in the Zumbro over the past three years. Uh I'll just highlight a couple there. um the feed lot storage or the manure storage projects. Uh we
looked at one I believe on that rainy bus tour. It's an example of one that was funded through >> the Zumbre wershed group. And then um the rain barrels I believe those are all part of a Redwing um project that we
worked with the city of Redwing on for rain barrels and a couple specific subdivisions that they have some issues with runoff. All the dots again on the map are are projects itself that we've implemented on the ground. And an example of one of
those project is one out by Kenyon we did last year. Um this is a project on the Baker family farm. Um about as far as away from here as you can get from Redwing. Um the project was a dam that
was failing due to a pipe failure. It was originally built in the in the 60s and those pipes just uh erode and corrode over time. Um it drains a fair amount of land. The picture really doesn't show the the size of the dam very well, but um it it holds back about
120 acres of of crop land watershed. Uh we were able to secure some federal funding to help the land owner pay for the project, but ultimately they were still on the hook to pay um a fair amount for it. So these projects that I'm talking about, remember, are voluntary and um
they cost land owners money uh a fair amount of money and they're considered conservation projects that we um develop and administer through our office. And then the other project in the canon I would just highlight or in the Zumbra I would highlight would be um Orion feed
lot project located just east of Goodu. uh as a family farm that was basically daily hauling their manure and and wasting a lot of the the value uh nutrients in manure every day. Um so they wanted to find a way to um capture
that and use the nutrients at the right time of the year when the plant their crop can can use it. Um it's a a substantial amount of funding uh out of pocket from the landowner to make this happen. Um, and then just the picture on
the bottom left of your screen, just threw that in there to show that, you know, there's very specific standards that are need to be met when these are being built. They're not thrown in willy-nilly and uh just thrown with some concrete in a pit. Um, spacing on rebar
is engineered and important. And then there's also a water stop that you can barely see along that that line there. um the the concrete line that uh is required on some of these projects. So that doesn't allow seepage through the crack there.
Any questions on on those two projects? And then uh one uh one initiative that uh Scott uh had me be a part of. So, I represent uh the county on the Zumbbo regional water
trail. Uh it's a group of folks um led by the mayor of Oronokco to establish the Zumbo River as a regional water trail just like the Canon Valley bike trail. Uh this is a water trail. Um, and with like any of those trails, uh,
through the state trails commission, you need an approved plan. And, um, I think the county has donated funds over the past few years to help get that plan written. And it is. Um, and now they've selected a few sites that they want to work on. One being in Zambroda at the
Covered Bridge Park. Uh, just just an example of what it could look like down there in the photo of a walk-in access for for kayakers and canoers. So, that's in the works. Thought I'd update you. And then
I I believe we were sent around a few videos in the past about the watershed work that we've been doing in the Canon and the Zumbro as outreach efforts. And I wanted to maybe take a few minutes to talk about some of the other outreach
things that we've been doing and how we get those type of videos in front of people. Um so in the Zumbro River wershed, you'll see a bullseye around southeast Minnesota. That's the broadcast area of um what we're using now as as KTTC, the the NBC affiliate in
in Rochester to get some of our um our news and um promotional videos like I'll show you in a minute here out to the onto the public. Uh selecting the selecting the program to best fit your audience is really important that we found. Uh, Channel 10 News in the fall
has a sports extra that like a lot of the people in rural southeast Minnesota watch to see basically how their kids did in sports or their opposing team did in sports. Uh, so we kind of played on that. We made a a video about we have a
baseball video and we have a football video about soil health if you can imagine. Um, so we we kind of uh geared it towards soil health and um and I'll just show you one here. Hopefully this all works. >> Hey, good run.
>> Hey, good run. Hey, is your dad here? >> No, he's out doing tillillage again. >> Save time for the important things in life when you switch to no till farming. Managing soil health helps to reduce erosion and improve water quality, all while increasing your bottom line. Contact your local county soil and water
conservation district today for more details. >> That's obviously a play on u having time for more important things in life like watching your but lot of traction on that. We we have a
relationship with a few of the sales reps at um >> at KTTC and they'll offer, you know, cheaper >> uh advertisements being ran during like Vikings games or gopher football game or
things like that to get it in front of the audience a lot more. Um, we obviously don't have budgets for putting it in a Super Bowl commercial or anything like that. So, we're pretty f frugal on the ones that we we actually can uh do, but it it gets in front of a
ton of people. Um, which is great. And and then one of the one of the videos that you may have seen before uh was like a five minute long video. as part of the production, we we asked the company that that did the videos to do 30 second clips so we can put them out
in front of um people on TV and on on Facebook and things like that. So, here's an example of one of our farmers in in the county telling their story about conservation. >> For a dairy farmer, for me, the challenge is you're always taking
everything off the land and replacing it a lot of times with liquid product. So that's where this cover crop stuff has really helped us out. And the no tail, when you go to no tail, you need some doing the tillillage. And soil health is
all those critters down below. It's what makes no work. >> So So that was really focused on us not beating the drum so much. land owners get sick of hearing it especially from the government about how to improve your soil and improve our water. We want to
have approach be from land owners that people know and trust in the area to tell why why it's important to them and how it works for them. So that was the background behind that one. And then one final >> dairy farmer for me the challenge >> that's pretty funny.
>> What are you buying now Paul? I need a new manure spreader. Mine's worn out. I use it every day. You're still daily hauling. Heck, invest in manure storage like me. Now I've got more time for the things I love. >> Save time for the important things in
life when you add manure storage to your farming operation. Manure storage reduces nutrient loss and minimizes environmental impact. Contact your local soil and water conservation district today for more details. One thing I just wanted to say on going
through the um being on the committee there at the the uh worms, how the significance of those worms they showed in all these videos, you know, cuz for so long it was just chemical application and chemical
application and there wasn't any worms, right? I mean, now we're getting them back in and how vital, you know, that is to the soil itself. It's pretty cool. >> Yeah, that's one of the number one visuals that some of those guys are point out is how many earthworms there
are recycling and providing the glue in the soil and it's pretty cool to to see them be proud of worms, right? So, um yeah, that's that's cool. And and yeah, um, Commissioner Greset
represents you all on the Zumbro board. I forgot to mention that. So, and then my my closing comments is that the watershed approach I think has led to um uh getting more projects on the ground and assisting more land owners, which is our ultimate goal here at the office.
Um, we have been able to le leverage a ton of outside funding from the USDA farm bill, uh, from the EPA and, uh, federal sources like that, including the state of Minnesota as well. Uh, your funding that you provide, the soil and
water office annually, uh, stays in the county. It's for our land owners doing the projects that I showed you earlier. It's for our contractors building those projects and our business owners and ultimately improving our water. Um, I'd like to partner in the future
with the county if we could and and Nick on some uh some of those type of outreach campaigns and getting more creative and uh getting in front of more people if we could. And then I'll just end with um we went to the state capital just like you all do um in March and I
think we met with we met with six of our representatives that morning and I think we met with one of them at 10 a.m. and he already had seven meetings that day and retaining information at that level is pretty tough. So they all mentioned
tours are cool and um the tour we had last year although the weather didn't cooperate was cool. Um, and I'd like to do more of those with you all if we could. And then my board wanted to emphasize that uh the time you give us at the county fair, that board meeting
is is really cool and um a good tradition to keep moving for our conservation farmers and acknowledging the good work that they do at that meeting. So, if we can continue to do that, that'd be great. And yeah, any questions? I'll happy to
ask answer. Just a a comment and yeah, I know Todd sitting on Zumbro and I sitting on the cannon and even going back farther than that to when we had the Southeast Water Board and and the funds would come down and then we'd
split them up by counties and then later in the year or two-year cycle we were shifting dollars around and many many times we're shifting dollars to Goodyu County because Goodyu County was getting
projects on the ground and other departments didn't have either willing land owners or enough staff or for any number of reasons were not getting the projects in their area on the ground, but our department in Good County or
your department in Good County was doing that. And that's, you know, that's part of a little bit part of the funding that allows you to have enough staff to actually access the dollars because you have people to get stuff done. And um other
counties, some other counties haven't invested that way to get capitalize on those um dollars. So, it's good work that you do. I appreciate it. >> Yeah. Thank you. And thank you all for your support. It's allowed us to have
our technical staff be some of the leaders in southeast and in the state as far as like uh what they can all do without um you know outside engineering. So we have like certain standards that
uh we can achieve as staff um for technical authority and we have some of the top two in the state uh that have been in our office for 22 years now. So it's been good. Thank you. Any other questions? Go ahead. >> Do you have the uh
website or the uh to get well testing kits? I know that's been uh you know, because I went and did it and I was so happy that everything turned out good in my well. So, my my you know, my place on that map there wasn't green at all. I mean, when I did my well testing,
doesn't that coordinate with or maybe that map isn't updated yet? I don't know. Yeah, you you'd think uh there'd be a little more coordination >> on on how wells are documented, but um unfortunately no. You may have gotten your well tested and then there's no
record of, you know, where it is on the M MDH's map. So, that's kind of what that initiative is trying to solve is get everybody on the same page with the same dots. But to answer your question about the well test, yeah, we have we have it on our website uh linked to any
land owner can get a free well test in the county uh that's a rural resident that's getting well private wellwater as their drinking source can get a free test by filling out a form. We work with Mstead County Lab on that. Um I believe
uh land use has a link as well. So, >> and when you say the aquifer, how many how large are these aquifers? I mean, is the entire Rosco Township on one aquifer or is there six of my neighbors? We're
on one. And I mean, it it the more people that test, the better it is for everybody, right? Yeah, absolutely. Knowing what you're drinking is important. Um the aquafer question, think of a stack of Oreos. There's many, many aquifers underneath us. It just
depends on which well you're drilled down to, right? Water quantity is not an issue for southeast Minnesota, but water quality is, especially in the upper Oreos. So, something to think about. Well, then
kind of to piggyback and I got neighbors who have wells that are 30 feet deep. Mine's 400. Actually, two of them are 400. And you know, and we used to be at 123 and I know several that are like
180, 190, 200, 220, 230. I mean there's many different layers you can draw from and you know the choices there in your question about well testing and well identification and you know there
are so many databases out there and it's like MDH's doesn't they just don't connect all of them together into one and I think that's where we need to get to and I think you're working towards that. It's just really hard to pull all
those subsets together and get them on one page. And God, you know, we talked about that in 2015 at the Southeast Water Board. You know, how do we get these wells all on the same page? And it's just hard to do.
It takes a lot of work. So, thank you. >> Anything else? Well, thank you. Anything else you want us to know? >> Uh, no. Just thank you for the time and then I appreciate a a tour again if
that's okay with you all and we can probably not do it on the the county fair day. That's really busy. It seems like uh between between the board and the pork booth and yeah, it's gets to be a lot. Uh, but if we could do that again this summer, I'd appreciate that. to
show you, show off some of the projects and then invite some legislators that can make it too. So, thank you. >> Sounds good. Thank you. >> Thank you.