order. You don't have to go under. Shouldn't. You're talking to hook up to Yeah, I didn't. They let me in. I did. I had to use my RSA. Then it comes up on your RSA again.
I've never done that. You just click on that RSA again. That little It was good right there. Oh, there it came. It didn't come before. They've been dying. sports. But then
trouble feeling hurt. [Music] Yeah, I'm just trying to get the death circle. I got her now. Here bill right here.
Okay, we can we can get started with our work session. Uh the purpose of this is for the Grant County ordinance for cannabis just to some more discussion on it talk about a little bit. So in the packet I just put together all
the different documents that have been developed to date regarding the cannabis ordinance. So the draft ordinance, the executed MOA as well as our delegation list. Um and you can see that in there I highlighted
we have uh one city and three townships that we haven't heard from yet. Um so they're indicated on there. Um and then the newest uh document is the process for the cannabis business retail registration. And that is document that
public health developed for the counties that they work with and they're here today. Um and I just thought it would be important to kind of as a full board go over all all the work that's been done to date. Um and then looking into September. Um, and I believe Horizon
Public Health is um ready to go live, like open up retail registration September 22nd. So, um, just kind of looking um to finalize some of our discussions around everything. So, in September, the the
1st and the the 16th, I believe, are the the work dates. Maybe we can um think about if we are feeling good about where we're at in the process with everything. um look at adopting the ordinance as well as we will need board adoption of
the procedures as well. And so um I just thought we'd open it up today. Public health is here's office is here's here environmental services and all the different agencies that will have parks in the campus um ordinance to talk um
through any questions you might have. Uh Ken Johnson did call me about a couple questions. I don't know if we want to stop or start with those. Um one of the questions he had is campgrounds, public versus private. Um
so when we look at the ordinance, there's some definitions on public places and just kind of considering what a campground looks like because we have some that are owned by this. There's one owned by the city of Hoffman and one one owned by the city of Albate, but then there's the privately owned one in
Barrett in and just a little clarification or from your your subject matter expertise how that works in that kind of um establishment. Uh place of public accommodation can be anywhere where the public is welcome. So it could be a business even if it's a
privately owned business. Um the way that we interpret that I mean, I would say a lot of our public health u colleagues would be that um unless a campground has a low pot hemp edible license or a
retailer's license, there would be no on-site consumption allowed because that's not only in your proposed ordinance here, it's also in your public use ordinance that was approved last year.
feel good with that. Yep. Um, another question that Ken Rose was, um, when we talk about the fees, just to clarify, um, in the proposed ordinance, it says Branch County shall not charge
an application fee. The application fee is set by the state. Is that correct? and that we don't have control over. But where we would set fees is for the renewal of any licenses. And I did send
in the in the packet the proposed um fee schedule that's been shared before. And so can you just maybe clarify who has you know who sets the fees and what fees if any is grant responsible
for setting. So, this is very clearly outlined by the state. Um, they don't allow application fees, but there's still registration fees. So, there is an initial registration fee for the majority of registrations. Um, so that's kind of a a key piece there. Uh, we can't charge an
additional application fee on top of that initial registration fee. Um, the state lists maximum fees that you can charge and we would have the ability to choose to charge less or choose the maximum. Otherwise we we cannot charge more than the maximums that they have
set. What we propose to you guys is the maximums which we believe all our other counties have chosen as well. It's 500 right if it's the max or is per Yep. So generally it's 500 uh for those
uh mezo manufacturing retailers. Um it is 375 for those special event organizers. Um, and then it's$125 for those low potency and retailers. Um, and then for renewals, um, it's generally $1,000 um, for most
of those license types. Um, except for those low potency and retailers. Is that um, it was sent? Okay.
I can I can resend that. So, so I got a question. What What is the liquor, not the liquor, but the the cigarette tax application fee per year? What what what do we charge for them to do a license every year to sell
cigarettes? Is that very low? Yes. Okay. Does it help backfill the the enforcement of these guys checking on compliance and things like that? So that in my opinion that should be addressed somewhere along the line.
Um our supervisor that works on the tobacco licensing uh we had a meeting a joint meeting um that Tina was at and we talked about addressing that sometime this year but knowing the time sensitivity of cannabis registration we wanted to start here and then we'll move on to tobacco. So you'll probably hear
from us um relatively soon around tobacco. Um, another question uh was a setback question. Um, if a established business is already selling cannabis products. So the the a
lot of this pertains to a low potency. So the places that we know that are already selling them. Um, in our proposed ordinance, it talks about school, daycare, treatment facility or different attraction moves within a minimum buffer zone. Can its license be
taken away? U, please explain exceptions to distance restrictions for lower potency compatibles. And I know Reed, you had some thoughts on this too with the setbacks. Maybe you want to start. Yeah. Uh so it's already there. You can't
really take it out. That has been explained to us about all our planning and loaning deals is they're already an established business that be it just treating them different than somebody else. It just doesn't work. Like the statute doesn't allow you to do that. It it's one of like it's called a
non-performing somebody. It's already there. It's like you can break those rules allowed. And the exception is only for like the low potency from like the schools and the all the things teamless. It's not from that 500 ft from each other. But if
they're already established half a dozen of them or so, they already are there. If any of them are in 500 ft, that's where it gets a little sticky. And I have visited every single point business. Um I don't believe any of them
are within 500 ft of one another. Um, so it will only apply to new businesses um, establishing their local have edible licenses or cannabis retail licenses. Um, but we added this just because you guys didn't want to take away their lensure um, but didn't necessarily like
want new ones to set up in school buffer zones. Um, you can have different um, zoning for lowquency habitables as different from cannabis retailers. Um, so you can add specific buffer zones for
those local retailers if you would like. Um, so, um, if you didn't want to affect the current retailers, you could have it within 500 ft of a school, 500 ft of a church, things like that, you could implement and add into,
and that's likely what we would recommend. So, you do have some setbacks for those little points. We'll say again what you would recommend us to do to shake because that would require a change to what we have, right? Yes.
So I guess it would maybe have some work for you. Yeah. But the only kickers there are some already that are closer to churches or to other stuff already. So now well and are existing. I think you're saying for new may be fine, but existing
get a little there is some wording out there to kind of grandfather in um the current businesses as well since they haven't like applied for licenses yet. None of those businesses that you have to treat them as existing but new because they're applying. So that gives you kind of a weird
advance. But they they talked about that in the last whatever canvas for a while. I think they didn't want to restrict those guides as much as say like a whole canvas retail business. But so it would be like a restaurant that
would be selling um the drinks that contain the whole poem speak. They're already established and I think we're good with all the schools is what I'm hearing. But then there's other places like
churches and things. So, in towns where there might be a restaurant close to a business like that that is selling it, the committee, correct me if I'm wrong, we talked about letting that be. They've already been
doing it, but then the idea is if new businesses were coming, they would have to be 500 ft from the existing one. So, there couldn't be multiple ones within 500 ft.
We've talked repeatedly about going to countywide zoning and this is your first step. And every every time we've talked about it, the first thing we talk about is they had $150,000 for another employee. You're going to countywide zoning. This is the first step down that
road. if you want to have I mean cities can say we aren't going to have less low potency within 500 feet of each other but that's my two cents on it is we can we can meet every week about new ordinances
we should have put in place so did the federal government not legalize low potency THC in drinks and things like that less than 3%. Yes. So it's classified as a hemp product. Correct. So that's allowable regardless.
Right. I mean we can create a prescription ordinance something that would adhere to that. But sooner or later they're going to marry. The two are going to marry, right? So you're going to have low potency and plus you're going to have whatever whatever dispensary sells what product they do sell. Yeah.
So right sooner or later they're going to they'll come together. at some point. Yes. The difference is that uh cannabis businesses can actually sell flour and higher potency products um and then gas stations and restaurants can sell the low
hearing nothing. Well, because if you put a 500 foot restriction from one to the other and you have a restaurant in the middle of one of our towns, you've pretty much eliminated the possibility of another restaurant opening and serving this low. I mean, that's just
the reality of it is so tarns aren't that big and if we're limiting on what we can have for businesses in them, then that restriction is currently in your proposal. Yes. It's only on they could still have a
restaurant. They just couldn't sell THC. Now you're saying one restaurant can and one can't. So it gets into that deal. Yeah. And I think the reason we talked about low potency not really happening much is because they sell at the gas stations at the grocery stores or the restaurants
and all of those are within so close to all those places already that it really was adding setbacks about taking that ability for them to sell that away. And you could edit it in the ordinance
just saying that the local edible um setbacks don't apply to the same cannabis ones and then you wouldn't need that 500 if you would. Did you you've I mean in my opinion you've eliminated any new business
whether it's a gas station, restaurant if it's within 500 ft. Tell me where you can be in a town that's not 500 ft from an existing restaurant, gas station. We have a very small business district. So I I hear you.
So is is the deal that we want to keep it as it's currently stated with that setback or we want to remove that setback. I would say remove it certainly from other low potency businesses. So for example right now the guy fish
came to the corner and said they were selling it. Hayes couldn't sell it. They're 450 ft. 418 it says. So they would be within the 400 to make the sell grocery store 90 selling at reverse 90 or
just in town here. That doesn't fit. Yeah. If we were a sprawling mega metropolis, it'd be a whole different discussion. say take it out of there. That's what I say. Yeah. And then the other question, Ken, I was
going through the questions that you had proposed. Uh was uh section seven of the proposed ordinance says use in public places. kind of goes back to that same uh first question about like privately owned campgrounds versus
we're not regulating use are we this is dispensable not with this one but your public use ordinance is in public places component that is the very last section
did the state not come down the rules on public view cuz I I agree with that question is are we going to have a deputy come and write someone up and prosecute them because they're at a campground smoking a joint on the deck of their camper?
The state really emphasized just putting this in here um just in case there is a nuisance situation. Um the county and local governments do have a stick to shake, right? Because they want us to be responsible, not them. The question becomes, is your camper at
that campground a public place? If you're if is the camper considered your private property? That's not a me thing. As a general, it's kind of the same unwritten rule. Is the same thing in a fishing boat. Say you're riding in a fishing boat and
you're you're on public water. Is that same suit? My opinion, no. You're paying rent, right? Right. So, I mean, what's the difference if I have a seasonal spot I'm paying for
or I'm renting a house somewhere? What's the difference? So the other question I had I apologize I forgot about this session. Is public refer to this type of ownership or the type of
use concept. Um place of public accommodation can be any place where public are welcome to. So, it could be a privately owned business. It could be a parking lot. It could be anything like that. Um, so it's really up to, you know, how your county wants
to implement that and how strict you want to be. That's what I pose the question. Reference public accommodation. Does that include because we like I said, we had this discussion about campgrounds, right? Right.
So if you're going to put in there public accommodation, that's when I said is it referred to ownership private versus offman or dips campground versus dips. My assumption
that they're there just to allow you the ability to go for stuff, but not actually being forced to actually be used. This isn't the same language that other counties are using. I understand that, but that doesn't matter.
Got a question. Public accommodation, right? What's our interpretation? Well, I think that's up to you guys. Yeah, that's what it is. Look at statute 144.413. It gives a definition of a public place
means any enclosed indoor area used by the general public including but not limited to restaurants, bars, any other food establishments, retail stores and other commercial establishments. Then how would you interpret it?
Well, what I heard in there, this T is indoor enclosed. Indoor enclosed. Either way, I mean, that's not sitting on the deck of your camper. I mean, Justin,
so maybe I should ask if it's city, township, or county or state owner. That's just that then become a restricted public accommodation tantrum
compared to a private public accomodation. Let's answer that. Well, we're not attorneys. I don't think I don't think ownership of it matters whether it's public or private. No, it doesn't.
You know, the local tavern is a public establishment. I can go in there. To me, that's I mean, a private would be the I've rented the community center. Now, that's a private event. You need to be
invited to be there and you can't just show up and eat the food where a public space is someplace that's open to the public to show up. And I think in that scenario, the community center, they can have their own rules that apply to renting their establishment, just
like a privately owned campground could have their own rules. Well, city a government-owned or a private campground can say, "Yeah, you none here. You don't like it, you'll have to relocate, but nothing here."
Well, and if you're looking at like a community center or a private uh place that does wedding receptions, um they're a place of a public accommodation, but they can get a uh cannabis temporary event registration license. And so that's where your distinction is or
these places can offer and have on-site consumption is if you have that temporary event permit. And so that's another distinction that um comes into play when you're looking at places of public accommodation. There's the latitude right there.
And it's really how strict you want to be. Um, you could say places Douglas County is saying places of public accommodation is any business that allows the public to come in. Well, I'm not worried about what we say as much as
there's a complaint from one camper to the next. They're calling law enforcement to come and arrest arrest this guy who's smoking a joint on the deck of space he's paying to rent. Well, that's what they I'm just saying that this is some of the advice that we're hearing from attorneys. We are not
attorneys. We are not giving legal advice in any form. That's why I would highly recommend this conversation should be brought to your county attorney so that you guys feel good with it. Because I mean, I don't want to set the sheriff's office up where that phone call is coming every day, multiple times
a day, because we show up and don't ever do anything about it. Well, let's just not have that be there. So, would you repeat what Douglas County when you said any accommodation where someone could show up and expound on that statement?
So they say places of public accommodation could be a business. It could be um like a parking lot even of that business and they they would talk about that as a place of public accommodation. So it's very broad in
their interpretation. So it would not be illegal to use it in that space. It would be any public place. But of course, the sheriff's department would decide how strict they want to be with that. But it gives them the ability to kind of crack
down on it if there's a nuisance. But how does it stop them from making a phone call in their car and lighting up a little bit and getting out of their car and going to the event and the car still sitting in the parking lot? What what's where's the legality and where's the
latitude in that whole scenario? Don't beat that to death until Yeah. Yeah. As far as scenarios go. So, it's just okay. The bottom line here is the sheriff's going to get the call from some citizen. He doesn't know what the rules are or anything like that. So,
he's going to be dealing with that anyway. So, he'll probably talk to the county attorney to see what the what they want to enforce and what they what they don't. You really can't sit out there and drink either. I wouldn't think shouldn't. No. Yeah.
Well, you're using your toxic considerable. I could be wrong, but that's a whole different level of credit. Well, I think I think we've got enough conversation here to kind of move forward. Um, talking to Justin and I think our committee has another meeting
before anything gets brought brought forward. Um, before the work session ends, I would like to just briefly if you have anything you'd like to expound on on the uh process for the cannabis retail registration. So um kind of what
public use your next that is better than yes um the we've created a process for how we register these cannabis businesses. We want this process is really Grant County's process. We are just administering the process. Um there
are a lot of other towns and counties across the state that have already started registrations and they are getting in trouble because businesses are saying you're not doing it correctly or this or that the other thing. And so we are doing our due
diligence on sending um a proposed process to all of our counties. Their county's attorneys are reviewing it because some of it's not clear guidance. A lot of the advice that we hear back from the office of cannabis management is consult your local attorney. Consult your local attorney. And that's why I
want to emphasize we are not attorneys. So while we may propose something, it is the responsibility of the county attorney to review it and then the responsibility of the board to review it and approve it because this is ultimately your process. We're doing our best in interpreting and working with
the county attorneys across all the counties that we support, but this is what um we're trying to do to cross all of our tees and do our eyes so that there's no way that a business who is unhappy that didn't get that one spot can come back and sue us or something
like that. And so what this registration process does is it clearly outlines um a start date for cannabis business registration. It talks about the first come first serve language. um how if we get two applications on the same day, it goes to the application that came in
earlier that day that so would be timestamped. It talks about all of that. Um and so do you did you share that in the work packet? Yes. Is there any questions on the process that we have out by DIPER? I hear that the county attorney did review it and
he's approved it. Um and so that's kind of where we're at now, but we'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. And this this document will come to back for board approval. Again, there'll be a committee meeting where we talk about it more in detail.
This was just to kind of provide an introductory to to what it is and and how it goes along with the process of specifically outlining, you know, kind of the steps and who's doing what. So, we have something to go back and
reference. Um, so again, it's it's not to decide today. It's just introductory. We'll have a committee meeting and like like I said, Justin's already looked at it and thought it looked good. And this is something that we would share then with all the cities and townships that
delegated to the county as well. So they would have the the procedures um as well so everyone understands kind of who's who's doing what basically. But the idea is is September 22nd is the
day that registration application will open and we want to publicly announce that so every business has a fair shot at that. Um and it'll be also clarified in all the three counties that we support is
that um you're not eligible to apply if you only have a preapproval from the office of cannabis management. You need to have full lensure before you can apply. And so that's something that we had all of our counties also agree with. It is going to limit the paperwork that we have, the kind of double checks that
we have to wait and get back on full lensure. So that was another thing that we felt would save staff time and save county money knowing that um local governments no longer get tax revenue this process. So there'll be more to come on that um
in the future. um the ordinance and the procedures, you know, have yet to come to the board, but just wanted to make sure that everyone was aware that September 22nd is a rollout day. I have a question, Angie. Okay, so the 22nd is the roll out day,
but the these to be fully uh licensed by the state or whatever, is that paperwork or can they be doing that now or um we do have businesses that for sure have pre-approval lure. I'm not sure if there's local businesses that would have
full lensure yet. Um so that's we don't know. Um but but that stuff's available for these people. Yeah. So they'd be ahead of the game then if they had all that done. You see there are a couple businesses across the
state that have opened now. Yeah, the odds are that if they were interested in a cannabis retail license, um they've been working on that and with OCM um for the past year and attempt to get our full license.
Thank you. Okay, that'll be the end of our work session. We're going to start our regular board meeting. It's 9:02 or one. We'll call the meeting to order. One minute. Let me There's people
Algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay,
agenda was sent out there. Anything to uh add to the agenda? Motion to approve, Mr. Chair. Second. Motion second approves the agenda agenda. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Both hearing need minute
or sent out. Oh, okay. Okay. Have a motion. Can we get a second? Second. Any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed.
The warrants were sent out. with someone else like an update for Adobe My update my Adobe must be just your computer. Okay. So you didn't
Mr. Chair, I'll make the motion to pay bills. Okay, we have a motion. Do we get a second? Second. Any discussion on any of the bills? Not. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Carried.
Scott, you're up. Good morning everybody. How is it? Good. Ly, how are you? It's a beautiful day to be alive. I'm Scott Libmer from the fair board. Um I got Todd Vip on with me. He's part of a think tank committee on the on the
pavilion. I think we sent out a thing with the what we're looking for. So I think did everybody get a copy of our profit loss statements and all the stuff? Okay, good. We were trying to include that to make sure we're all on
the same page with it. Um I don't know the end what the loan payment was taken out of it. The end balance is $15,700 after our loan payments paid. So uh I guess what we're the nuts and bolts
of it. We talked about a pavilion a year ago with you guys that it's kind of in tough shape and it's we're trying to come up with ideas. We've had a think tank on finances. We've met with Senator Raspersonson. We've went down fundraising. Egg industry is a big
driver for funding in our area and that is not in the best shape right now. Um we have two two buildings we have loans on. Um $76,868,000 what we owe on the two buildings, the bathroom and the creative arts building.
So, um, with those loans, we just cannot afford to do anything with that building. Um, and to start repairing, um, I don't know how many of you have been down the last year or two to see that building, but where do you start, stop, right? The the the roof is
starting to fall in inside the building. Um, the foundation that's sitting on beams, the beams are rotten, so you'd have to jack up, put new beams underneath. The floor is rotten from being wet. The electrical system would need to be upgraded. I mean,
we could throw a ton of money at it. Um, we're we did get a bid last year or a design last year from Odyssey. Um, Hoffman Buildings did finally get back to us with a an also a bid. It's about 300,000 just for the structure. That's
no electrical, no concrete, no nothing to replace. Same footprint as what's sitting there. So, when we did everything, um, it it's going to be right around that $500,000 to put that building back into the way it sits right now. That's tear down, put up new with
concrete inside of it, not insulated, not finished off, just the structure it is. The building would have um overhead doors on the side. Storage is what we would use it for. um it'd be offered obviously if if um the
county were to put this building up. If there was a spot needed for the county for storage, that would obviously come to you first. However, we would rent those spots out to help maintain the building, pay for the electrical upgrades, any of the maintenance that would go for it. That's how we would cash flow that building. So, it would
sustain itself after it's done. Um we do receive, I believe it's $25,000 from you guys right now from a yearly budget standpoint. That does go to one of the payments. I think the bathroom payments 27,000 bathroom office payments $27,000 roughly a year. That is taking
care of that. We put it to that. That's what we kind of earmarked that for to kind of help us with that pro project. Once that's all over with and we can get those two buildings paid off. We're still fundraising every year for those buildings to get paid off. That money would go to also maintain this building
and do these things. So, I guess that's that's the nuts and bolts of the building. Um, we would be going to the three places in Grant County to help us build this building. Uh, get the bids from Huffman, Elbow, and Ashby. Um, anybody that would
be willing to build it. It'd be a post frame building, so it kind of eliminates a little bit of stuff, you know, contractor-wise, but we would try to keep everything in Grant County as possible. We always have, you know, F2 um is a huge supporter of the fair. um
on the electrical side. Um but yeah, the other thing is the vendors that we have right now, the fire department uses the one portion of that building. The new one would have capability for the Grant County Lions to be in the other corner
and the Legion to be around on the other side. So they'd be able to serve inside outside on extreme heat days when people are inside or rain days. Right now it's only one vendor who's serving both sides. And um we've also said that you know like the yellow ribbon committee
was outside in a tent, they could be inside of that building. Um we'd utilize it more for more entities and then there would be more sanctuary area for a rain day or a weather event. Um try to get fans in there for hot days for people to sit and get out of the get out of the
elements. So So that's the nuts and bolts of it. And this is a from that we talked is a it's anformational thing but it'd be nice to know something about it before
we do our budget you know so if we could plug something in or whatever and we feel um at at the fire department and just public safety wise I I strongly believe no matter what happens that building will have to come down before
next year. I just don't think we can with the amount of debris inside every rain event or um wind event. We're fearful that somebody's going to get hurt then we have a whole different project on our hands. So I think the the either the way the building's going to have to come down. What does that
footprint look like for the fair? Um next year I mean the fair has been climbing every year. I mean if anyone's was there on Saturday afternoon evening you couldn't walk around the fairgrounds. I mean, it's it's been an awesome thing to bring so many people back to the fair and to get everybody
out of the elements. That building has kind of helped do that for 100 years or however long that thing has been there. It's it's an old building, but but we to get it tore down and and be ready to be built in the spring. You know, that's that's where we're getting pushed on
that timeline. Then, can you even insure that building? It's insured. Um I believe it's $20,000. I mean, it's not we don't get I mean, you can insure it to the Hilton if you want to, but they'll take your money, but they're going to give your riders a we're not going to insure the ropes. We're not
going to we're not going to insure that. And that's where we're at with it. Just give us the premium and we're not going to actually insure anything. Yeah. It's more of a liability thing than the end of day coverage, right? Correct. And I I want to say we're I don't know what it was. We're tickling 30,000 with liability insurance on the
fairgrounds, period. So, it's it's a it's a ginormous expense and to over you can't overinsure, I guess. But, yeah, the older buildings are getting harder and harder to ensure to get anything back. I mean, a roof goes off it, you might as well tear it down and store it.
Okay. I've heard now that, you know, county used to own the land, the the fairgrounds, but then you guys what? Grant County Agricultural Society, you lease that from the county as a whole. Is that is that what's happened over the years? So the Grant County Agriculture Association
owns or runs the fairgrounds and the buildings. Okay. However, we don't us being board members don't own anything. I don't can't quit and sell it. We can't do anything. From my understanding, if the fair board were to come to a close and every fair board member were to quit, it would come back
to the county, right? Essentially come back to you guys to run the fair or make decisions on that fair. I've heard that before. So that's why you know so we have a strong core of six people running the fair right now. I think we
have 10 fair board members total that run it. We would love for anybody to come and get on the fair board and more is better. Um some young guys have joined now from one from Barrett and one from Hoffman. Um been essential to the
fair board. So Scott, just to make sure I heard Bill, can I ask the question and your answer? Does Grant County own the land? What was the answer? I believe the Grant County Agriculture Association leases. Okay, that's what I heard. I'd have to look at that. I always thought that the Grant County Egg
Association owned the property and buildings, but doesn't we don't we can't I mean, it's non-ellable property. So essentially, yeah, because when we get a tax statement, it comes to Grant County Association, right? So the egg association owned it
must own it. Yes. Okay. But we can't sell it. So in the bylaws it says that it would go back to the count. So that's what we understand. And Scott, you're there's actually two requests, right? Your annual request as well as you're looking information on
the budget with the building, right? Sorry. Yes. So we were looking for a possible increase in our budget as well just for running things. For instance, we had to put a $20,000 electrical upgrade in. Um, breakers were blowing and we were out of compliance.
So, the midwave section and where the food vendors are, um, we had the electrical company came in and put new board in. That was 20 grand. The expenses and and insurance costs are going up so bad. We're we have egg bash to help run the fair. Without that, there wouldn't be a fair. It just and
that fundraiser is is doing very well, but we are egg driven and right now it's it's getting harder. We noticed a decline in donations and help this year for the fair just simply from the economy the way it is. And and that's nobody's fault. It's just we have to get
creative and start asking for help or start sacrificing things from the fair. And we're trying to keep the fair the way it is right now. Um it's been successful and we're getting people there. So that's for a small county. So it's good.
You said that the building going to come down. What's the board's vision then from today to next year? Do you plan on getting the financing and remodel in place and the plans and everything to
have it ready for the 26 fair or would you go without it? At what point does it commence to take place? Right. So, right now, if um we didn't get a budget from from you guys, we we won't be able to get financing for a
building. So, if if you guys um were able to get us that budget or or approved a budget for us to get that up, yes, we would hope to have that building up, have it down, site prepped, ready to go for spring so that they can come and get that building up by July 1st, July
15th, so we can have it for the 17th. backup plan would be um maybe a tent, rent a large tent to get people in the shade maybe for a year to get through if that's not possible. Um it's hard. I mean, we're going to collect bids. We're
getting all that started right now and get things done, but without having a budget, we don't even know where to begin. How big of a building do we need to scale back? Um what that thing looks like. So, I guess what our starting point was um we got a think tank group
getting together um after this meeting, we're going to for a couple people from around the county just how do we make money? How can we fund raise? What can we do? How do we do this thing? Um we've talked to Senator Aspenson and there's really nothing on that end right now
that can help us. So, right now I guess um those are our two options. just I I think it has to come down because it the safety issue either way. He's at 500,000 for a building cement
electrical. What about removal of the existing? That would be a part of that portion. We have people that have said if we can get things going sooner than later, they would help with that with inkind donations maybe or you know volunteer
labor or back hose or you know. So without saying your estimate is from today until July 15th it would be roughly 500,000. Correct. Correct. Yep. The way that we have it proposed. Now if we're going to throw in insulate the
building and and do things like that. Yes. It's it's all at an expense. But as the footprint sits now it would be that's what we would request and that would be the budget we would target and hit whether it's fundraising or whatever we need to do to fix it. But then the
rental the building would cash flow that bill pay for the electrical expenses and any expenses that we had. So if I'm reading this right, you're actually looking for a h 100,000 from Grant County 50 for operations and 50 to finance the loan.
We're looking for you guys to finance the building and then an increase in our yearly budget from 25 to 50 or negotiate that. I mean, we didn't I have no idea. We're putting numbers together would be a h 100,000.
Sure. Whatever that would look like. I And I don't know how you guys budget that stuff. That's beyond my pay grades. But yes, that's what we're just looking. We cannot afford to go get a loan for that bill. It would be have to be 100% from the county help to have that
building. When you did the loans for the bathrooms, it wasn't that like a USDA USDA helped us with the grant on the creative arts building. Um, so it kind of limits us on what we can do for help from them because we just used them on this this project. Um, I believe it's
$27,000 we owe on that building yet. And a lot of that's come from funding or uh fundraising and donations from people. Um, that doesn't quit. I mean, we fund raise year round for everything. I mean, so it it's not something that if we get a
budget increase, we're done fundraising or doing any of that. That there's never a stop to that. Just there's always upgrades. the buildings down where the the cattle are. Um there's some electrical upgrades need to be done there. There's some roof issues, some door issues. I mean, there's an endless
supply of the smith on that sidewalk and stuff. Most of that was donated few years ago. Yeah. Clean that up. That's night and day difference there. It made us handicap accessible. Very nice. Every build. So, that was that was a huge upgrade. So, where's the water man? The closest
water man in that area. comes right into the building or um right to the main entrance. The fire hydrant comes right in. There's a fire hydrant in that corner by that butterfly garden. So, how big is that water? Like 6 in.
It is. Okay. How about sewer? How close do you You got gravity out of it. We have sewer hooked into that building now. Okay. Yeah, there's water and sewer in there. It's a 1 inch line of water in there and then um I believe it's a 4 in sewer line coming out. But you're close to a manhole or something.
Oh, absolutely. It comes to the same place from the city. That's that's where that heads. Yep. Same same place. Yep. Sewer and water come right down that and dead head right there and then it goes to the buildings. Okay. And we don't get no water. So, no, but if you do something different,
you might have to do a sprinkler system. So, you got to have a big enough water supply system for that to take place. Right. And the one the one um spot where the firemen are, there's a hood in there already. So that we would take all that stuff out. The plan is to remove all the
stainless steel and stuff out now just for fear of snow load. Taking that building down over the winter, get everything valuable out of the building now already and put it in a different building. So that's happening either way. And just for clarification, Parl said that the land is in the Grant County
Agricultural Association seat. So I got a question for Tina. It doesn't appear that we have a committee assignment on this body for the fair. Now I don't
know that we need one but um some point this is pretty big ask is that strategic planning is building committee is it I know in the fair board
they work hard at what you do kind of where are we at in relation to that? Well I think we have two two things in front of us. We have the annual requests and I think the building um it's my
understanding Scott that the fair board is looking for a some sort of budget or commitment from the county to move forward with the planning and that can correlate to your suggestion of maybe a big project like this should have a
temporary county committee. Um like we did with the cannabis ordinance. We have a temporary cannabis committee to kind of work through that big project. This could be something similar where two commissioners um name myself and some
people from the fair board um sit down and kind of work on that bigger picture, the scope, the plan. Um but I think Scott, I'm not trying to speak for you, but you're kind you're looking for some sort of commitment to move forward on
the building separate than the annual ask, right? Daniel asked is we just haven't asked or raised anything and with our budgets the building is is is in dire need. That is a main project that we have to address immediately for us on
our side of things. Um whatever that looks like. I'm I'm an open book. Call me. I I don't I've never done this before either. So I'm I'm coming to you guys saying, "Hey, I need help. We need help." We had a fair board meeting on Tuesday. We we're thinking of everything we can think of to try to get this thing
done. It's not. We're kind of coming to an end resolution that we just can't do it. And if we don't get a building, it'll be a tent and wind comes up with a tent. I mean, we're thinking of all the safety scenarios and everything that comes with it. And it's a public safety thing is ultimately what we're thinking.
If that building didn't come down and we had a storm event that goes through there, it could blow that building right up top of people. But you got a chance to look at integrity of that building. It's just not I'm amazed that that insurance company I'll give you a liability take. Well, right now if they came and inspect
it, I don't think they would. And that's why I think we need to take it down. Recipe for disaster, right? So, yeah, I guess we're looking for a budget. I mean, if if it's not 500, do we need to scale the project down? Do we need to find in kind donations? We We're just looking for a budget. I'm telling you what we're looking for. And if
that's possible, great. If not, we we're just looking for a budget of what we need, where we need to start, and the sooner the better. And if we can have it up for 26 fair, I mean, that'd be amazing. Are there any other funding options
other than to put it on our levy? We explored USDA and um Senator Rasmmanson on our side of things and that's not an option and a bank laughs when we go in for a loan. I mean we did look at the capital funds investment um with Senator Raspersonson and he
explained that it that would be on a bonding bill and there's just no guarantee even if it gets approved that it's going to make it through the next steps. So, you know, it's not super uh doesn't give you like a solid
foundation to work from because of all the unknown variables, but he definitely is aware of the project, supports the project, and you know, if we have any other creative ideas or could get letters of support for him through other state agencies, Minnesota Department of
A1, he would support it. He also said that is a shared expense, correct? it was a 50-50 match or something that it wasn't a full on they give you the money and out of sight out of mind and maybe it would be the same with you guys
but when we went through the USDA grant that building cost us an additional $62,000 by using the government fund. So the bid that we had and put in place that by the time we got done with all the other stuff that we had to do was another $62,000
and we'll be in the same arena with public going to be a fraction that I asked you about. sewer water. Yeah. And what's what's poked out there. So there wouldn't be much cost. Yeah. If you had to do that. So I guess what I'm asking you guys is for a budget and then our think tank
group has to get creative on what we need to do and how to do this and what we got to have happen. Um we're not going to take this on alone. We want people from outside the fair board around the county to help put this thing together. I mean there's a lot of passion behind it, a lot of support behind it. So, we just that's what I'm
looking for is a budget from you guys so we can move forward. And I know that doesn't happen today, but at some point it would be great. Well, I think I think Kenny had a good point there. I think that uh we should have a committee working with you guys
try to figure out how to do this. I I hear the word bonding, you know, and you know, maybe that's the route the guy could go and somehow he could, you know, generate the money to pay the bond, do a bond or something for for that.
Um, but, you know, as far as the $50,000, I I we need a motion on that. I can I'll make a motion that uh that we uh add 25,000 onto that fairboard budget
because I think it's fair. You know, that 25,000 been in there for years and you know that'll that'll help you guys out down there. But I I think we need a committee there to sit down and look at this uh you know
and see what we can do. Yeah. Let us know. We're an open book and whatever you guys want for from us, we can meet at any time. We can come here, whatever you guys want to. We're Mr. Chair Entertainment, you know, where I would sit on that committee and help.
Yeah. If you're okay with that, you got some ideas that should come out of committee first before it comes here. That's fine. I need two. We need two on the committee commissioner.
Yeah. That's consistent with our other people. Yes. Two. I'll I'll volunteer if that's okay. Okay. Just let me know and we'll bring our people in. So, we have a motion. I guess that
Yeah, we got a second. I had some comment, but I'll wait for the second and then discussion, I guess. Mr. Chair. Okay, we have a motion. We get a second. Well, I'll give it a second, but then I still want some more discussion and I think we're a little premature,
you know, in our budget talks and things like that to talk to lack of any numbers. You know, there's two there's two requests, remember? So, this de000 did additional your your profit and loss statement
clearly states you guys are scrambling without egg bash we're in trouble. Yeah, we can make cuts but it's going to come out of the form of of rodeos and entertainment stuff is where it will come and we can't cut really anything else. Insurance electrical all that
stuff is what it is. I guess my comment would be how this fits into our processes in our budgeting and to identify what what's the deadline or what's the point that
when we're looking at our committee structure and our process to budget to agree to the I don't think our commitment is at stake there is a question but just the question is do we want to increase it to 50,000 without going through what I would say our
normal process and for that reason I wouldn't support it at this point because I think we have a lot of good things happening in the budget process and it feels like in this pretty case we're ahead of the time right I
I'm not in favor of adding the additional money I'm not in favor of doing it now historically we get requests and then we add them in at the preliminary levy time is when we get them. We'll put
them in a spreadsheet and figure out where we are. And so to me, it's just too early. It's a next month thing. I guess I guess my motion that's what I meant was that it goes into our preliminary that we look at it that way.
Yeah. We can put it into the because plug it in and we don't need to make a decision today. Right. Right. Right. No, my understanding is last year I came too late when I got here in September, but come to this meeting to get you guys on Yeah. Yeah. Which is good.
Thinking about what we're looking for or want and do. So maybe maybe we don't even need a motion and we can just agree to put it in there. We'll put it in there and then when we approve if we don't like it, we then we have to have action to take it out. Okay. I'll I'll resend my motion then
as long as we can put it in there and then look at it. So any more? Yeah, there's a whole bunch of stuff going on right now where things are being put in and taken out and then
any more discussion otherwise we'll move on. Let me know what you guys when you want to meet. You tell me. Fairly soon. Sooner. Yeah. Just let me know what works for both of you. I'll get 13.
Stay in the corners often. Yeah, stay in touch. Yeah, we need to get numbers and start talking. Hook it up your cell phone number to her and then we'll put it together. She's got it.
Okay. All right. Thank you guys. Morning. Good morning. Um I'm here this morning looking for approval to increase our Laredo subscription fees. Um, Fiddler Technologies is increasing their um, licensing fee 15% starting January 1st
of 2026. So, to offset the cost, um, I'd like to increase our Laredo subscription fees and print fees for our users. Um, Laredo is a subscription-based internet access program designed for
real estate professionals um, who need regular access to Grant County land records. This includes banks, title companies, attorneys, surveyors. Um, and we currently have 16 subscribers. So, what you're looking for today,
correct me if I'm wrong, is it we're just going to accept the Laredo increases in fees and then you'll put together a new fee schedule. Um, yes, the prove that. I don't I didn't see that in Well, the is that this? Yeah, it should be on the
board item. Yeah, that's the Laredo. Yeah. Yep. It's the current fee on the top and then what we would like to increase it to. So, I'm looking for approval to change it from what the current fee is to.
So, it's going to be our fees will just be the same as what? Um, nope. So, we currently level one is we charge the um customer or subscriber $60 and then starting in January, we'd like to I'd like to change it to $70 a
month. And then the fee for the print is currently 35 cents per print and then change that to 40 or 40 cents, excuse me. Your recorder tech fund is that getting depleted? Is that No.
Okay. because Fibbler is going to be changing their licensing fees. What they're going to be charging us, they're changing it upping at 15%. So to offset that, we would need to increase our subscription fees. So these are just the fees we would charge. These are not what Laredo is
costing us. So each month, Laredo bills us or I bill the customer $60 a month plus whatever they print. And then of that fiddler takes a certain amount.
So currently we charge the customer $60. Fiddler charges us $33. Of that 60 we get the rest. So they're going up. So we're correct. That's their licensing fee is increasing. Um, level two we charge
currently $110 a month. Fiddler gets $60 of that. We get the rest. I will make a motion to approve the fee increases effective January 1. Is that Yep. 2026? Second. You have a motion and a second. Any more
discussion? All in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Thank you. Um, so I will have a new schedule D um to be signed. And then the other change is um we currently offer
Monarch. It is a um streaming data streaming bulk imagery and we currently have no um users of that. So I'm going to remove that from the contract as well. Do we need a motion for that or just giving? Okay.
Anything else? No, that is it. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Morning. Morning, commissioners. Morning. I have two items for you and they are both annual items. Uh the first one is
the annual report for the highway department. It goes over the 2024 financials. All the accounts are receivables, expenses, assets, dispersements, everything is included in this report that we are required to do
every year. I will have it on file in the highway department if anybody wants to come and read through it. Otherwise, I could provide anybody with a copy that wants it. So, all I'd be looking for today are this is generally put together by Jamie. I think I only have one page
in it that I actually do. Otherwise, it's pretty much just an accounting document. So, all I'd be looking for is a motion to receive the annual report. I'll make that motion, Mr. Chair, as a member of the highway committee.
Okay, we have a motion. Do we get a second? Second. Any more discussion? Matt, are you comfortable with the data in the process now? So that report's accurate? Yeah.
Investigator. Yep. I read through the whole thing. I can't say I checked every single number, but I went through it. Any more discussion? All in favor of the motion signify by saying I. Opposed. Carried.
The next item I have is an updated bridge replacement priority list. Uh this is a a list of the bridges that we plan to replace over the next 5 years that are deemed somewhat structurally efficient or on their way there. Uh this
resolution is a requirement to qualify for a local bridge replacement program, also known as bridge bonding. uh from the last list we did which was a year and a half ago like we uh either have or are completing three of those
bridges off this list. So there were some added to this new list. So we'd be looking for approval of the bridge bridge replacement priority list. I will say that uh for the first two on the list, those are pretty much receive verbal commitment that those will be
moving forward next year from the DOT. And the ones that are listed in 2027, depending on when they get completed and submitted to the list, there's a possibility we could move some of those ones up too and get those done as well. Try to maximize the bridge dollars that
are out there right now. I will move that resolution. Second. Any more discussion on that? If not, all in favor of the resolution signify by saying I opposed.
Thank you. Try to get you guys back on. Anything else? That it. That's all I have. Okay. Thank you. We can do it. We'll do it at the end. Okay. Jan is Jaden. Yeah, I'm on.
All I need is just approval of that resolution for the Barrett TIF. I think you should have enough information that was provided in the packet. Okay, I'll move that resolution. Second.
Have a motion to second. Any discussion on any of that? If not, all in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Carried. Anything else, Chad? No, thank you. All right. Thank you.
Aaron, good morning. Good morning. We have some handouts. I think most of the information might have fit in the packet, but um I do have a letter from uh Lucy Anderson who wasn't able to join
me, the director of the Wilson Memorial Library. So I will uh have included that in her report in my handout as well. And then 2025 is Viking Library Systems 50th year of providing library service to the
region. And we did have an open house in July and have some stickers left over from the open house. Um so I will pass those um out as well for details however you so choose.
I have a daughter who's 15 and she's big into the stickers on the water bott. That might be one option. Thank you for having me here today. My name is Aaron Smith. I'm the director of the Viking Library System. We're headquartered out of Fergus Falls. And
um I'm here today to present our 2025 appropriation requests and also our annual or sorry 2026 appropriation request and also the annual report for 2024. And just to thank you for your service to our communities. The Viking
Library System has six member counties, Grant, Douglas, Ottertale, Stevens, and Traverse. And we serve 11 member libraries within those counties. And as I mentioned, in 2025, we're celebrating our 50th year of supporting equal access
to library services for all residents in our service area. Grant County was one of the original signitories to our charter back in 1975. A little bit about how we serve. We are a federated regional public library system, one of 12 such systems in the
state. And our mission is to connect, promote, and strengthen public library service in the region that we serve. We accomplish our mission by by providing essential services to member libraries that are governed and administered locally and also by providing direct
services to rural residents and specific communities such as adult um daycare uh homes and child carees within our region. Also schools and we serve those uh audiences through our bookmobile and outreach services.
A few highlights from 2024. The bookmobile provides 12 uh regular stops in Grant County every other week. And in 2024, the bookmobile circulated 10,235 items um at those stop, which is nearly
2,000 uh more items than in 2023. Delivery. We also provide every other day delivery of materials to the Thorson Memorial Library and we rotated 15,737 items through Thorson Memorial in 2024.
A few strategic activities from 2024 that I'd like to highlight. We did hire a financial and HR coordinator that had been a position that we had um revamped and was open part of our strategic planning process. who are excited to
bring Julia Johnson on board. We're also in the process of completing a thorough update of our reach collections. They haven't really been um touched or updated since that service um was initiated. So that's another large project. And we did also complete a wage
study in 2024 and implemented that new wage scale in 2025. So transitioning to touch on funding for our services. Funding for the residents of the system area shared among the member cities, member counties and the state. The member counties provide
dollars that support the bookmobile services. Non-resident reimbursement which are dollars that go directly back to the member libraries for their operating budgets. Delivery and inter library loan. the automated library system which is the online library
catalog that you may use to put requests on materials and to check your account and then also te technical network and professional consulting and support for the member libraries. State dollars in turn provide funds for Viking library
system administration and facility expenses, broadband and internet service for our headquarters location and each of the member libraries, e- resources and content. So if you use Overdrive or Libby, um the content, the digital audio
books, magazines, ebooks, um is partially funded through state dollars. And then the outreach that I mentioned to group homes and uh child carees is also supported with state dollars. And finally, the arts, cultural, and heritage grants through the legacy
amendment provide funding for programming at the member libraries and bookmobile communities. The cities in turn provide the dollars to support the member libraries and so that includes their collections, their staff, their buildings. So without those city
commitments, um the services we provide wouldn't be meaningful. So a big thank you to the cities for supporting their public libraries and their communities as well. I'll transition to our appropriation request for 2026 and then happy to answer any questions. Um our budget
request for Grant County um the governing board approved submitting a 1% budget increase um to Grant County for 2026. Um that request is $78,653, a $779
increase over the 2025 appropriation request. I'll stop there. And as I mentioned, um Lucy also has a letter in her packet or in the packet outlining some of the successes from the past year with the Thorson Memorial Library and also um um
sharing information how the county funding helps extend the bookmobile and supply purchases that they make to uh break the library as well. So I got a question, Mr. Chair. Do you guys got to solicit legacy funds every
year or are them budgeted allocated? No, we do. We do make a request every year. You do. So, you actually got to get into the Y the game and the eligibility and moving up the list or however that all works. Yes. So, but traditionally you get that debit
almost 100,000, right? Yes. Traditionally 266 you're right in that range. Correct. it is allocated to all the regional public library systems based on a formula. Okay. Um so we do make the request with all of our other systems.
That's the I think it's 40% of the revenue is collected off of scratch or something like that. I haven't delved into that. We have a legacy coordinator who knows everything about legacy. Well they call it let's start sales. They you've heard probably different
terms but they call it the legacy. Yes. Correct. And it got voted in last year. Everybody go to the D. So everybody of course down there up here maybe not so much. Okay, that's all I got.
Okay, so we'll uh need a motion for the consensus to add that in and approve it in September like we Okay. Anything else? I'm fine putting it in bill. Absolutely. It serves a lot of people.
Thank you. It's was exciting to see that um increased circulation over last year with the bookmobiles. We added a couple of child carees that I think drove some of that circulation. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Brent. walks
like this. Everybody noticed we were on the water. Morning everyone. Brent Lebransson from the Grant County so water office the district manager uh here to just uh couple things I guess one just give you
kind of an update of our what we're doing programs and such and then also for u request for our agile allocation I guess. So the handout I handed out there is just a very quick summary of a bunch of the programs we're working on.
Uh and the stuff that we help out the county with uh including the WACA planning zoning water plan environmental assessments, lakes shore zoning use permits, Boise Sue permit reviews, tax forfeited lands,
state buffer law, and e-link reporting for her county. Um, as everybody's aware, it's been a busy year. Again, it's just always continuing to grow with projects. So, below that, we'll have a list of our programs that
we're currently administrating. Uh, we have a lot of soil health money coming from the state right now and uh the feds to the RCPP program. um 150,000 for the state RCPP or 80,000 from it's a
separate state soil health grant then the western RCPP which is a a collaboration of five counties in grant or in western Minnesota here as well as North Dakota. Uh we have been
considerable money there available. The one caveat to that is there's also private funds from Cargill Mills, Cargill and General Mills. So anybody who signs up for that does have to kind of release their carbon credits to them
private sectors if they sign up for that program. The one wershed one plans have been very busy as well. administer the Boise sew water plan Omnitar and the Chipua for help with
administrating that stuff in Grant County's location. I listed some dollars there that we've been spending over the last couple years. Again, pretty significant dollars coming from those programs for Grant County land owners.
Conservation contracts is our state cashier program. We've been spending a lot of that on uh tree renovations. Um prior to a couple years ago, we had no money for anything that wasn't crop land. Now we uh it was put back in there. We can do farmstead windbreaks
and with all the wind damages, especially from 2022. Uh we've had a lot of requests for farmstead windbreak replants. Um but that's also available for erosion control projects. Uh well sealing. uh
it's almost an open book for eligibility, but it's just not a lot of money. So, uh this year we do have a special CRP incentive grant we're processing right now. Uh it's an incentive for anybody reenrollments of continuous CRP
practices and or new CRP practices. Uh this year we're looking at paying out just about $120,000 as incentives to again grant fun landowners. Um, easements. We've had a little bit more interest in REM easements lately.
Um, listed there are ones that are either completed and or anticipated to be completed here in the next 6 months to 8 months. uh nearly $3 million worth of easement land on 500 acres
ranging from riparian buffers to wetland restorations to we replacement project being done up by Stonybrook. Um those credits all get to go to the state mind system
loans has been a little bit more of interest. It's basically a low interest loan program for people. We've actually had a lot of interest in septic system ones on that too. Egg water quality certification stuff. Basically landowners who want to get
certified with the state through the egg water quality. There's a special funds available for them people to do practices and projects. Um buffer law compliance reviews. We do that annually. We do the annually based off of light or
ptometry, but then we also do a yearly review between those ptometry times. Um, CRP assistance, we're helping with that whenever people come in, our requests on daily basis, providing field days, typically it's an
every other year thing for the field days. County tours, we do them every other year. Just as a reminder, we are having that next Thursday. Um, you are interested in attending, please let us know.
Assist any K12 education request. We do help out with environs by yearly program updates as a yearly meeting with crop consultants and egg lenders, engage monitoring, and DNR well
monitoring. probably sometimes I miss something. But again, this is kind of my first time here in this position with you guys, so I wasn't sure exactly how much stuff you want or not need. You're all welcome definitely to stop down or review more
stuff in detail or I can definitely bring things to the board more in detail if you want. But it's just a quick uh summary of what's been going on pretty much in the last year. So on the back of
that is kind of our overall budget. The basically with our county allocation we are asking for roughly a 4% increase. Go from currently we're at 116
64750. it would go to 12131340 which is a difference of $4,665.90. Um also requesting to continue with the water plant funds as well as the wacka funds which this
year they are being cut back. So based off our 22 budget, what we received back in 22, which is what the funding levels have been at, was 15,503 for the water planning and 10,189 for
Waka. So a total of $147,540. that would be down from 153 05850 from this year based off the state cuts. Um the other thing that we are being cut back on state funding is on our state
aid. Uh we are being reduced by 20% on that. So we're getting a 30 $31,216% cut in state aid. Um otherwise if you have any questions
open you're budgeting just short of $70,000 negative at least you have adequate reserves to go into we do have yes we have reserves um again with all the programs and stuff we were able to build that up a little bit um we
hate going negative every year this year we're also I think negative 75 I what we were this year. U but that was with some projection of getting a new vehicle and some server upgrades and stuff like that that we had to update. Um
so we'll like I say we'll be okay yet for now. I mean if we continue this path of course it's will be a different story but as of right now we'll be okay yet. Anybody got any questions for Brent?
So the sustainability of the one wershed one plan and that put us through district you know those dollars that are collected watershed dollars that used to go out to that board and then they went up to the red board. Are we clawing enough back to be able to sustain what programs we're trying to do
here? So under the the one wershed one plan uh the Boise Suminka uh it's about 1.6 six million I think it is. I don't have that number in front of me. Uh but then that gets divvied out between five of our counties, right? As well as the wershed itself. Y
wershed takes about half of it roughly for their big projects. Okay. And then the rest of us get kind of what's I mean we all put a budget in every time we get the allocation. But from the state what we're kind of gathering, nothing's finalized yet. I believe they're meeting today and they
meet again next Thursday. But for clean water funding for this stuff, it sounds like it's going to be everything that you currently have in place is going to probably be similar to what that is. It's going up to 88 million statewide. Yeah. But there's also been more plans added.
So the Boise Sue I believe is 1.6. Uh the Palm Dy Terror is 1.1 or 1.2 2 and then the chip was 2.1.
So which were a very small portion of the chip wall right basically with those every time we get those allocations everybody comes to the table with request and then um with projects andor time needed. So well it's a tiny thing to deliver the
projects too once in a while it's too wet and they'll work and you know what I mean and then you shift and we've been Yeah, we've been pretty lucky. I mean, we get a three-year span to spend the money and then from there, uh, they can give us extensions, usually one
extension, right? Uh, especially if it's project money dedicated to a specific project. Uh, those requests are pretty, uh, they come, they usually honor those requests. So we do have a lot of subbasin projects
we've been doing to them a lot of shoreline projects up on Pelican Lake one down in Minka wershed now. Um we are doing a lake assessment on Ter Lake currently. We did the assessment this
spring but I'm still finalizing the report before the end of the year hopefully. Um and so that kind of prioritizes prior prioritizes our clean water funds to shoreline projects for high, medium, and lows. Pelican still on
our high list, but we are going to be moving to Palm Beach as a high here in the real near future once the plan is done. Now there are good possibilities for deliverables on those projects. Yes. Yeah. And we've had a lot of interest. It's one of those things where
you uh it's kind of like you open a can and everything, you know, kind of slow coming, but then once everybody starts seeing it, you start getting a lot of requests. We still have a pretty big backlog just due to engineering backlog u staff turnover in our office. U
engineering, we have two engineers that help us with the TSA, but they also work with five five counties, so they're very busy as well. So, Anybody got anything else? I got one question, Brad. What What is
it that the Western RCPP? What is RCP stand for? Uh regional conservation. Yeah, regional conservation program. But it's it's actually a national federal program through USDA. Um and the state
put in for a request for it. Uh it's typically kind of equivalent to what our E equip is environmental quality incentive program through NRCS. Um but it's a special pot that the fed the federal office gives us as a state and then they div it out. So
and those dollars are all being spent on uh for the state one we can use it for soil health. So cover crops, strip till no till um nutrient management people want. We can use it for tree plantings as well because there's some benefits to
that in there. Those are kind of the big items that we're looking at. There's a handful of other items as well. They're targeting soil health. They're targeting soil health. They're big. Yeah. So, and even going back into, you know, to the dairies when they, you know, when they chop this corn and then you do a
cover crop back in again. Are they making sure those dollars are staying intact when they promise that they're going to pay it? Yeah. So, I mean, these dollars that we have allocated to us are here now. We've just gotten word on the state one in the
last couple weeks. Um, and that's where that 150 is being allocated to every county. That's project only. That's for on the ground stuff. Um, as a lot of people, a lot of times we're just doing a one-year contract maybe.
So, it's putting the cover crops on in the fall. Yeah. And then, you know, they can't do any fall tillage after the cover crops are planted, right? So, before we make a payment and certify it, we don't go out there until just before snow flies and make sure that it's in place and that they go out
and planted in September and then come back in in end of November, end of October and work it up because it's some people are in the mindset that they have to work up cover crops where you really don't need to do that. Um, so but we we don't check on them until just
about freeze up and no cover that way and that's when we don't make our payments until December that way. So currently in grants you got $90,000 in contract. So currently in in the western RCPP we have just just under
91,000 available for contracts or that in contracts right now for the one caveat with the western RCPP is that one does allow for reduced tillage as well and not just strip till or no till. So people want to maybe slowly work into
something there's a little bit bigger window to try something before you have to be locked into something. Um well like I say there the the other thing with that is that uh because the private money is some private money stepped into that they have to release their program
credit shares or whatever. Anybody got anything else? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see. Well, good morning. Yeah.
So, couple things. We're uh coming to you with our annual report. This is Paige Carlson. Paige um headed up the group cares project, group cares camp project, as well as some senior programming in our service area. So,
this is our 60th year. So, our 60th annual report um presenting to you all. And um you know, we're also uh up against some reduced funding for sure. We lost funding in um some of our senior
programming. Um we had a live well at home grant from the state of Minnesota that we did not get renewed. And so some of the things that we do with that is like volunteer driver reimbursement. So, I'm not I'm not here today to ask
for money, but I am here to ask for some thoughts or um future talks about how we take care of our seniors because in Grant County, you know, we know that that number is increasing. Grant and Traverse, I think,
are amongst some of the oldest uh aged people in the state. So, so I'm I'm worried about that. And then the proposal of uh discontinuing the en energy assistance lowincome heating assistance program. I'm just really not
sure what seniors would do without energy assistance. So I just I just got a few numbers on that. Um West Central served four 4563 households. Over half of those um
households were people with disabilities or over 60 years old. and 1190 were families with young children under six. So they so the the state says that the average energy bill is 2172
annually and that our average benefit was $533 to families. So that's uh you know about 25% of their energy burden. So so stay tuned. That's a federal program. So, we'll we'll see
what uh comes of that this fall. So, any questions about programming or um I am excited that we are in the works with Corey and Amy Johnson of Ashb. They are donating a lot to us for our second
new build in Grant County. So, that's pretty exciting. Um, Gene Wstrom had contacted me several times about building a second home in Ela Lake, but I kind of want to spread the love and so I'd like the second home to be
Don't look at me like that, Billy. To be, you know, in another in another town. So, well, of course, we got to spread the Yeah. So So, Ashby, it' be great. Is that lot uh up there where they're cleaning out their old yard? You know
where that lot is? Yeah, it's in the new development just north of town. Right in the new development. Yep. Yep. Because he's got another one there, too. Yep. Just outside of it. Yeah. Nope. This one is in the new development. Yeah. So, is that where the R are you in motion
with that or there's Raptor sitting there on one? Nope. That's not ours. That is not ours. Um, we're working with getting title, you know, transferring the title and um all Corey is asking for is that West Central pay for the appraisal. So, for
his purposes and so we're waiting for the appraiser to come basically and then we'll be building a new house there. Are you going to dig this fall or um I hope so. I I don't know if it'll be, you know, Joe went look at the lot and we we haven't really talked since he
looked at the lot, but I'm thinking it'll be a slab on grade like kind of similar to what we built here. Three bed, two bath. I think that'd be good. Yeah. Ong grade because it's wet up in there. Yeah. Wet. Yeah. Yeah. So, got a question for you. Did you are you
guys doing anything in Wendle along 55 there crossing the fire home? Treore down a house and looks like they're digging a basement over there. I thought maybe that could be you. No. I just might want to comment since I represent the on this board is what
Missy references that we're losing funding, it also impacts the leadership team. because it takes a certain amount of people to run the programs that are left. So, it's a it's a a real challenge in a sense and I know the team is
working hard to keep the ship sailing straight and upight upright maybe just working to keep it upright. We can bring our life jackets on if you would.
Yeah. You know, it it's uh a lot of the funding that we have, energy assistance, weatherization, our core funding, which is called our community service block grant, those are all federal funds and they've all they were all wiped out from the administration's budget.
Gone. Just gone. And um you know, do I think that they're going to be zeroed out? I really don't. And you know, I've I've worked really hard at meeting with our Congress people and um we're in the works and trying to get um Representative Fishbach to a Head Start
Center. Head Start, you know, in the beginning it was proposed to be eliminated, but that kind they kind of backed off on that and there's some cuts, but um but nothing too crazy. Kind of flat funding is what Head Start looks like. Um, so it, you know, it it's it's
it's a challenge and you look at I I mean I I talked to Jordan, well, we both talked to Jordan Rasmmanson and and others and, you know, it's an economic development, too. I mean, look at look at how many people we employ down there
that are buying lunch and gas and groceries here in Ela Lake. No, it's a big Yeah. And if you know we've laid off I'm I'm just was trying to think I think five positions. We have about 32
now. We were at but like 138. So we haven't replaced a couple and we've had to do a couple layoffs. But you know when the federal budget is finalized that will give us a real scenario of what that's going to look like.
though. But but I am worried about seniors. I'm worried about um how we can serve them. And you know, we I mean, we could sit here and talk for an hour. We're not going to do that. But you know, our volunteer driver program and our chore program, Paige was in charge
of both of those programs. And they are, you know, we have we had money to go out and mow lawns and snow removal for seniors. And you know, while those are important things, it's also the contact. And you know, most of the time seniors
are just lonely, too. And having someone come in and clean also provided them with some companionship and someone checking on them. And so super unfortunate that we lost that state funding, but my understanding is this is
the last year and that that program is suns setting. So, and also land with the dancing sky, we lost funding with um the AAA program as well. And so, you know, year many years ago, I don't know if any of you were on the board when we used to
operate the retired senior volunteer program, which we would get mileage reimbursement from counties. You know, I I just I don't I don't know how that would look or how, you know, we'll continue working on it, I guess.
So, any questions about any of us? And then our group cares project you guys um give us $5,000 for. Tina, do you have the Yes. I'm going to try and clear. It's just nice on this program to see a little visual of
Yeah. the projects. Re how do I get rid of that this box? You click more right corner. There should be a hiding hide
video or hide the other one meeting. Yeah, we have X. Oh, you have it. Okay. Yeah, great.
Yep. There you go. So, like my city side gave us $5,000 for this project. Thank you very much. We were um based in Ashb for the 2025 camp. And so what we do is we work with group missions who their um office is based in
Colorado, but they have a nationwide um presence. And so we had um youth groups from churches all over the country come into the Ashby School. They slept at the Ashby school for the entire
week and they went out on cruise to different projects within a 25 mile radius of the Ashby community. Um about half of those projects were older adults. So kind of back to the um trying to help older adults stay in their homes
as long as possible. And then the Yeah. Do you want Do you have the Okay, there we go. Get some numbers here. I'm like I I could say numbers but I don't want to be wrong because you have it in front of you. Um so we had uh 215 camper adults
um with their leaders. So each um group came with at least two adult leaders. Um I think the farthest away one um might have been our Texas group or um but they they flew in and um and came. So we had
12 churches all across nine states and then group missions also sends in a team of people that are all over the the country to help lead the camp. Um, so the 37 total crews and 32 sites. And one
thing that was really great and a lot to do with the help from donations like you guys gave us was that West Central um when the crews came in, they assessed the children's or the the kids ability to, you know, carpentry skills. Um, you
know, some kids maybe it was just the painting was about their skill level. others, you know, they've been helping mom and dad, so they had more carpentry experience, and so they take that into consideration, and then they have to kind of cut some sightes the very first week of camp just because they don't
have the um skill set to to get it done. But West Central made it a mission that we weren't going to cut any sites. So, those 32 sites, um, there was a potential for some of them to not get done, but staff at West Central, um, Joe
and the crew helped make sure that everybody that put in a request that was a, um, doable request, uh, got done. And then we had all sorts of different projects from the decks, um, interior,
exterior painting. Um so when you think of like your um older high school age kids to younger college age kids um projects that they um would be able to complete um around the house and many of their adult leaders had construction experience.
Yes. Yep. All the adult all the adult leaders had like the construction experience to make sure that it was um done safely, done correctly um because that of course we don't want projects to be done um poorly. So that was and then we had group mission sends
in inspectors. So part of their um those volunteers they went out to each site to make sure that all the permits were in place that the inspection of the project was done before um during and after. Um so definitely huge thank you to the
Ashby School because they are the ones that took on all of these kids into the school. And these pictures, I mean, they kind of tell the whole story of of things that were done. Um, and we purchased all materials at um local lumber yard.
Yeah. All 32 sites. The homeowners did not have to purchase one thing um for their home. And um Ashby uh lumber helped get all of the the supplies and and things purchased. We
kept everything local like Missy said. And there's one home. Just slow me down if you need. No. Yeah, go ahead. I I was just waiting. Um there's one home um where they they didn't have any working exterior doors and so the exterior doors
either didn't shut completely and so water was coming in and I mean you just think of that sense of security. Um, and so th those individuals were actually at risk of being moved removed from their home because they really did not have a
safe home. And Group Cares was able to put in all new doors um for them so that they could have a safe and secure home and did a lot of work to prevent water from getting into the house. And then this is uh the crew, the the staff. It
was early mornings, late nights feeding the kids. Each night the the kids ended with a program and then at the end of the week the homeowners came in for an overview and it was it was emotional. Um many of the homeowners were very
emotional during that time getting to talk to the kids and um and just that you know we I I feel that we hear a lot of like the next generation coming up and work ethic and what's the the future going to look like. But I'm telling you,
if it looks like the this group coming in from all over, like we'll be in good hands cuz they were hardworking and kind and compassionate young adults. Their hearts are in the right place. They're giving back. Yeah.
Yep. So, it was great. So, 2027 um these group care camps like you, it takes a lot of planning and organizing. So, we will um be looking at 2027 for the next community. Any questions about anything we're up to
down there? All I can say is they made a big impact up around Ash there. So, yeah, it's a good thing. You're older. Did they come to your house? Yeah. 27 there.
We need to talk. You'll see you dragging one leg maybe. Well, thank you. Thank you all for Our sunny California bunchs there. Yeah. Yeah. Looks more like a lobster because
the sun a little bit more power there. How did you say that? I was stubborn. So, all right. Well, we're here to tell you about the EZRI conference that we had back in July. Um, pull it up.
Yeah. Health again. And then that one and the more that so that we had down in San Diego.
Um I averaged about 9 miles of walking a day. Um the Ezri conference there were about 20,000 people there. Um, I don't know if you've ever been part of a crowd of 20,000 people that are all sitting inside of one large auditorium and they
had people who were just just like your parking. They'd be like, "Nope, you got to drive in and all the way to the end and you'd sit right next to each other." And this room was probably quarter mile long and probably a hundred yards deep.
And they had probably a dozen screens across the front so that you could see what the presenter was. And the presenter from where I was sitting was just kind of a little dot on the other side of the room. So, it was it was kind of amazing just seeing all these
different peoples who are I'm going to call us kind of map nerds um all in one location and kind of sharing our our experiences and just seeing what it was. So, um,
I think I ended up at 11,000 or 11 miles a day because my hotel was another 3/4 of a mile to a mile farther away than Carl's life, but that's okay. So, so yeah, it was a lot of walking and um some of the classes were I mean
between one and the other was probably a mile between all of the different classes and there were all day long there were from 7 or 6:30 in the morning till 30 classes available at 8:30, you know, another 30 at 10
10 another. So they they had lots of different learning opportunities for a lot of different people who are at all sorts of different stages of learning about the EZRI product. So again, EZRI
is the basis of what our old GIS system is built off of. That's Pro West. That's kind of the the basis of everything. Want to page? So the first day was kind of just a big planetarian uh or
planetarium and they kind of just went over and they were saying that between four and a half and five billion maps are shared every day amongst users, which sounds crazy, but when you pull up
our GIS site and I just printed off a map for somebody this morning, that's counted in one of those those maps. So, it's it's amazing how many people share maps on a daily on a daily basis.
um they showed some um advancements in ARGIS technology and how counties are integrating departments and I kind of rolled it back to kind of how Grant County is doing it because what's going
on in the recorders office were aware of what's um through Laredo through our GIS. Um, we can also look at the environmental services information through our GIS and we kind of see and work together. Um, and they just had
some examples of what that looked like. Go back. Oh, yep. Okay. Um, and then on the bigger side of it, what MGO is doing is basically creating some of these other bigger programs, how
states are integrating counties together. so that we're all working on the same piece or platform. I got a question, Carl. I mean, what what class of citizens are like realtors and government and Yes. Yes. And yes, there
could the system, right? Yep. Was there. So, you had people who are doing the software side where they design everything to just people who use the product. It was everybody in between. Okay. stay local and they come from clear across and Asian. I met somebody from the world from
Georgia the country. I met people from Sweden. I met people from China. Couple Canadians and some girls from Puerto Rico and a couple from uh where they somewhere over like the Netherlands. They're all over the place.
Yep. They all came the same stuff we were talking just showing different things from from all over the place. It was again it was it was amazing seeing all these different people and seeing how they're using GIS and how they're
integrating it. And one of the big things that I noticed is that like not every presentation I went to I was like oh yeah that's exactly what we can do. Some of it was like that's really cool, but it takes so much computing power to
do what they're trying to do that technology will probably be there in 10 years, but it's not quite there yet today. Like one of the classes I took was where they were showing where they came over and did a LAR of an entire city and basically they're looking at
the story heights, but what they're trying to do is create like a building footprint. Um, and that's really cool to do if you can do it every single year because that picks up new construction. That picks up that people are adding on heightwise or if they're doing things, but again to do
that on an entire city or an entire entire county level, it takes a lot of computer power. So our bandwidth and speed in this county really lets us enhance the system. Correct. Yes. I mean, we're not all created equal yet. No, in this world.
No. So, so these are just some of I didn't write every single class I took, but these are just some of the different courses that that I sat through and looked at. Again, not every one of them was I like, "Oh, this is the best class ever." But there were a few classes in
here that I that I really I geeked out on. I I couldn't help but like really look forward to some stuff. So, I'm going to jump to the next one. So, some of the ones that I really liked were the predictive analysts.
Um, basically they were using model data using statistics and machine learning. Um, one of the things that I thought was really cool about this is that it was a um
like a prediction tool that would would show like over a period of time. you like the example they used was was a tree like they were estimating the life time of a tree. So at at point one it was like oh
this tree should live to be a hundred years. And what they were able to do is say okay well if that tree made it to 25 years and it got pruned it's more likely to make it have a longer life because it's no longer subject to fire damage
because typically fires go on the lowland instead of the upper land. So that tree now instead of living 100 years might live to 110 years. And then there's like different predictors that that predict how long this tree is going to live. And how I looked at that was
actually back to like in our office depreciation tables. Like houses have a time they're built and how long does a house typically last. We have house fires. We have houses that just get damaged. We might have a 2-year-old
house that burns in a fire. Like those would all be put into this analysis and it would be able to help direct or show whether our depreciation tables that we're using for houses is correct. So in
using GIS, which sounds really strange that we're going to use GIS to help predict how long a life a house is, that's what these tools can do for us. So that one thing I really liked. Um, another was the the mapping and
visualization and what they were doing is they had a a flooded area and what they were able to do is take the imagery and they use machine learning to identify trees, shrubs, sand, basically wash out
areas. And they were able to track how the river changed through time. And how I kind of took that is what if we could do this with our land in Grant County when we have tree groves that get removed and put into farmland. What
about when you know new CRP pro gets put in place? It's different than what tillable farmland looks like. So could we track this and could we look at this from a year to year you know when we do our fly over three years could we track to see
are we catching all the changes in land classes and that's something that pro west is already looking at and going yep we think we can work with the solution to help identify this. So,
um, and then the other thing that I really liked was in our land records SIG. I'm not sure what SIG stands for. Special interest group. A special interest group. So, they were super excited and I was too about legal
descriptions. Basically, what you can do is you can take your your legal from the reporters's office and scan it in and put it in the computer and run it through the um the EZRI program and it
will draw out your legal description for you. So instead of having our staff, the reporter staff, you know, the environmental services, when you have to read and like create a whole legal description to to be able to draw out a
parcel, it'll be as quick now as scanning it and putting it in the program and it'll pop the parcel up for you just by the AI, machine learning, reading the legal description. Well, still the disclaimer about it's within two feet, right? That's
well that's that's using the legal description. Okay, that is defines it. It defines the legal description, right? You having to go line by line from point A to point B and inputting every single one of those. You know, some of the
parcels have lots of shapes. He the machine does the reading for you. It reads those lines and draws all them out for you and it'll help a lot. Huge timesaver. Yeah. Um it probably help on the back
end even too for pro west if they're doing that maybe it saves us some man hours there which could save us some dollars or use the dollars we already allocated on other projects. Well it's a true reflection of the description you know and the land tax that is attached to it you know they
correlate that right. Yep. So, so that was one of the really cool things that like the three most important ones that I would say the I I highlighted these ones and these were
the most important things to me going forward. And and after the conference, I did write up a little fourpage synopsis of what I thought of the conference because I didn't want to come here or down the road and be like, well, what
what did that talk about? like I don't remember like now I have something to go back and be like this is what I thought about every single course that I took. This is kind of what the direction I want to be able to go with it and to be able to come back to even Pro West and be like these are this is what we really
liked. How can we get here and help our system be more explainable to the public? Make a few more layers available to the public. um and see how people are doing things differently. I mean, that's really important to make
sure that we are giving people the best product. And disclaimer, I took the same document Carl made after he sent it to me and then I went, that's a really good idea. I should do the same thing. So, I have a similar document that I used to help do a bunch of stuff already cuz I was like,
what is that one? And then also by going they have a bunch of their classes recorded, too. So, you can go back and watch. I don't know if it's for 30 or 60 day. It's a limited time frame, but so then we'll go to you'll see that there's a list of classes I took. If you see any of them that match Carl's, Carl and I
never were once in the same class ever for 5 days. We only one was the planetary deal at the start. That's cuz it was an intro for the full 20,000 people. Other than that, we ran into him maybe once or twice walking by, but the place has so many people and so much
stuff that we never seen him until the end. He said, "Hey, what time do you want to go find food or go look at this other thing?" That was the only time. But so I basically had three classes, too, like Carl did. And the one was Solid Waste. So they basically was a
company out in Delaware. This city has 150,000 people. They had the same contractor for 20 plus years, no problems. Well, they decided to switch contractors for whatever reason and went to a cheaper one and then they ended up with like a 100 to 500 calls a day on miss pickup. The contractors weren't
doing what they're supposed to. They got so bad they had to have their sheriff's department and their emergency manager come answer calls in their solid waste department because they couldn't keep up. Their dire from the director to the guys supposed to be out helping fix carts were picking the phone up and not able to do anything. And everything they
had was the old carbon copies. So you have the original, then the carbon copy, then the third P sheet, everything they did with that. And now as of I think last month, they have transitioned to everything they've done on their iPad on their computer as a full EZRI
checklist or a survey or some way to track all the stuff they got. I mean, they have all their own carts, so they got carts that they punch the number in. So now they know they got, oh, I got 500 inventory and I got 500 out here. They went from basically the 50 years back to
cutting right on the edge. And that was all driven because for six months they had people calling them every single day, multiple times a day, saying, "Hey, my garbage didn't get picked up again." And it turned into literally emergency management 101 for them guys to come in
and run everything. So hope is not to ever have that happen here. But they were very very informative on how to make something that's archaic and old school maybe a little more newer and able to you know automate some things that take a lot of time. Um the other
one of the middle ones I did there was uh strategies for others to adopt JS. And for me that was more of a how do you get other departments within Grant County to use JS because right now I think there's a handful of us that use it a lot. There's a couple that rarely
use it and there's a couple that don't use it at all. And I don't know if there's a department that can't use it really. I mean, there's some of them probably very basic things, but or stuff like Carl and I where it's going to be some pretty high power stuff on some of it, but I that one was helpful to try
and get how people can use the GIS that we already have, already pay for, are already using across a bunch of different departments. And then the last one was a session I attended with our consultant Kyle Wixstrom
who works for Proest. He handles a lot of our backend JS computing work and does the basically the role of the JS technician along with a bunch of their staff. So, I attended that with him and was able to spend about 45 minutes just basically one-on-one chatting with him throughout the whole deal, which led to
us saying, "Okay, we can use that on this app or we can use that to make this app work better or we need to make this app so we can show people this." So, that was well worth the trip than any other meeting I guys had. So there was a map gallery and the map
gallery is just basically people showing different things that they've done kind of across the the world actually for different projects. And this room was probably from the courthouse to the elevator and it was full of full of
maps. And so I told Troy that I was going to I'd show you the the the beat tracking. Um so that was kind of interesting where they're showing where the blank is. Um the middle one is creating a digital map library. Um, and
this is actually one of the things that we're trying to get pro or we're we're in the process of having proest create right now is because we have all the plats um the highway maps those types of things all in a certain format. Well, in
order to get the highway, those maps, they need access into Holly's, you know, carved out portion of the server. Well, if we can put them out on GIS, then we can have these so that all the maps are accessible by anybody in the highway department instead of just
say Ma or you know or Eric. So basically we can make those so that they're available to everybody here so that we can have everything. And these are a couple of photos I took. The one on the left is it's hard to see but it's a public health field. They
were mapping some items that public health had based on where you're at in the state. So, it was cool to see a guy going down every thousand of miles and found this Minnesota map. And then the middle deal there is a dashboard they created when they were doing their solid waste problems. And it seems like the dashboards work pretty good for
informing the public on what is happening. Where are you at? How many calls? Or even you guys, okay, I got 5,000 calls over the last 5 years or how whatever it is. And then the one on the far right was from the uh getting other organizations to use JS. basically
showing what part it is for people who are like the technicians versus the general public. How GS kind of runs the gamut from start to finish. So it was very helpful in figuring out what parts of the GIS that we use should go to which
partly groups. Do you want to share the last page two? So from the our synopsis that that Reed and I both gave, we also we gave these to Pro West to just kind of show them
our thoughts. And from that, Pro West was very proactive and they created a couple page document, hey, we see what you like here and here's kind of a a template of here's how we're going to move forward to make sure that some of
these things can be implemented. comes with this right here because this it was a PDF. It probably was packet packet. Oh, so that would have been part of your board packet. So that's just the information to show that proess is all gung-ho to get get us on and get us
started. And one of the things is um with the EZRI group like every department has kind of their own little niche thing in the like where all the vendors are. And this is an EZRI product. So it was EZRI people talking,
not just somebody else trying to sell us something. Um, but they were showing things in the assessor's office that we're already starting to implement. And so PRO is was super excited that we were excited about this. And so they've
came out and they've created this whole piece of product just for us to get ready. So we we're already seeing the fruit value of the conference here and Carl and I said we don't want to
wait till you know we're less busy time to do this because all of a sudden you've forgotten about it or something it's drifted off. We're just going to push it and get pro started and we can get going so that we see the the as much benefit as we can get from our time there. We're already seeing the benefits
of going Any other questions? I mean, there were vendors like coming out of your ears again. The vendor hall was massive. Just massive problems everywhere.
So, so it was worth it. Yeah. So, you that's something the takeaways you're going to bring to you guys' conferences. So I brought this already to our regional assessor group. So the region seven assessors and this probably just
this conference triggered about an hour conversation in our meeting and how we as assessors can make GIS better and how we can share information together to make you know our other offices
better to make you know Wilin County better to help bring Traverse County up to speed. um just in sharing some of the things we've already done just sharing it with them will allow them to bring their GIS up and operational faster and then with AI this will probably take
it to the next level right wouldn't you say AI is the next direction like one AI is going to be really important in every specific aspect of things um I
don't think there's There's going to be one huge AI that can tell you everything. I think there's going to be an AI for appraisers. There's going to be an AI for environmental services. There's going to be an AI for, you know, coordinators. There's going to be like
AI is I think once it gets really pinpointed down, it's going to be a great product. But thinking that AI can just answer every question known to man. I don't think that's the asking AI questions and them giving an answer is the very bottom of the
barrel level of things that AI can do or is supposed to be able to do. Like that's the easy part that they do. But like they were showing the parcel deal that Carl's talking about where it draws the lines for you. AI reading the document, finding all that and then
drawing the labels or yeah, it's it's coming in 10 years. It's it's going to look a lot different and it's going to be amazing how how much better it is. So, the apps and everything on our GS and stuff like that, are they getting to
the point where all you need to do just talk into it versus, you know, mouse and clicking on things? Are they getting to that level? I think if you had a computer you could talk into, you could do it right now. Okay. Any other questions for us?
Thank you. Thank you. Thank good. Oh, uh, a couple weeks ago, uh, Troy Inger Bretson reached out to me and said, "Hey, with so we started taking a lot of our recyclables straight to Hope
Douglas lately since their second floor is now open. So then they can now take the trucks directly there. They don't have to go to Stevens County pilot semi-truck that route." So he said, "Hey, if we switch days of pickup in Ashb from the first and third Wednesday
to the first and third Mondays, that would allow him to send more trucks to Pope Douglas and not be empty coming back or he could go and make a trip less trips back and forth. But the deal is in our contract with him, we spell out in that exhibit which
day of pickup are." So a couple weeks ago, I had that city clerk's meeting. So, I brought it up to Mike when we were there and he said that would actually probably be better since our solid waste is picked up on Monday. Now, they're only going to have to put carts out all on the same day. You put your solid waste and recycling same every 1 to
third Monday versus, okay, I put my solid waste card out on Monday and my recycling out on Wednesday. So, our idea was, well, we have to then amend the contract. So, what I did is I just took a very quick amendment. As you can see, it's basically a oneline amendment to exhibit B. I reached out to Justin and
said, "Hey, how does this look?" and he said, "Yep, that should work. No problem there." So, and I don't see any issues with switching the days. I think it actually in the long run will be beneficial as far as less trips to and from. Even if Pope Douglas, for whatever reason, doesn't work out, it'll work out
better for people and for our haulers if we have to go back to shipping to Seeds County as well. But so what I'm looking for you guys is a motion to amend the contract and then the when I talked to Mike with the city
Ashby he said about that August that first Monday in August would probably be about a good or not August in October that would then give us about a month month and a halfish to get get the word to people put it in the mailing for the city put it on Facebook on the county website on the city website and then
Inger Bretson said hey we can send out a deal too or put it on all of our website stuff as Well, so that would give us enough time to get the word out and then we figure by the time you know middle August or middle October, early November, it'll pretty much have rolled completely out and there'll be no
issues. Motion to approve what you said. Second. Any more discussion? We should pencil correct the date top. I screw the date up. Says October one.
Well, it would start October 1st because that allows us to then do some No, the date is 2035. Oh. Ah, there you go. Well, there our recycling agreement is through 2035. I got to fix the agreement, I suppose. No,
the date is right. No, it says 023. Oh, we're way out there. Yeah, fast finger. Yeah, I can have that. That's easy fix. But we'll be recycling on our ship. Yeah, no kidding. Oh, put it in a spaceship or we close.
Okay, have no other discussion. All in favor of motion signify by saying I. I mean, all right. Um, sent in the packet a uh the two quotes that we got for RSA available. Um, this got a little fast
fasttracked is because um and the deployment of the RSAs, we were a couple licenses short. So, Morris Electronics went out and got a quote on what it would cost to get 10 additional licenses, which got us looking at um what would be a more cost effective
route to go getting the 10 um new licenses for the cost of $2,466 and then having to renew those 10 along with the other 75 in October. So, we got
a second co quote to just get 85 new licenses and that's that second quote for 13,770. And so, um just seemed to make more efficiency and cost effectiveness um to to do all 85 at one time. Um I'd
be coming in September for this in October. We just like I said fast drafted because we need the additional couple licenses. So, I'd be looking for a motion um to approve the renewal of the 85 RSAs with
the new license type um for $13,770. So, second motion and a second. Any more discussion? All in favor of the motion signify by saying I. Both carried.
Okay. We will be going into close session for wage and benefit discussion for preliminary budget planning. I will make that motion. We got to have a motion on to go in.
All in favor the motion second by saying I I post Motion to open the meeting. Second. Motion a second. The meeting. All in favor? I
opposed. Carried. We'll make a motion to close the meeting for the MCIT claim. Second motion and a second to close the meeting for the MCIT claim. All in favor? I oppose.
We'll make a motion to open reading back up. Second. All in favor? I hear. Okay. Board committee updates. uh budget finance.
Great. Well, one thing I was wondering was we as we're getting ready to do preliminary levies. Really? We're doing preliminary budgeting, right? So is there a percent for a department that now minus the
wages but everything else for that department is there a percent that if that budget increases we want to talk to the department head before we set that at the end of September. So if department A has a 10% increase we want to come and talk
the board wants to talk with them about why that is. And I'm not saying set it at 10%. I'm asking if the board wants to have rather than just you know, the the departments are working on or the committees are working on it, but that way you're in front of the whole board to know that, you know,
this department's going up this much. Here's why. Well, this being examples, if law enforcement budgetes for the body cam, $50,000, whatever the thousands of
dollars by default, except the 800,000 or $746,000 program. Is that is that an example what you're saying? It is. I mean, so there's, you know, it would it would be a hundred,000 for next
year because it's not all paid at once. But yes, that's an example of, you know, if that depart, you know, if we say anything over 3%. Well, whatever that winds up being for any department, if they at over 3%, then we're going to meet with the department head before we
preliminarily approve it. That's my question at this point. Would that Troy would that be the budget finance committee meeting with them? Not the full board. Well, no. So, like you and Bill do highway, right? So, and we all know price of everything's going up. So, if we ordered a greater and it wound up
going up enough to push it over that 3 or 4% whatever. Well, Matt or Pat come in and say, "Well, it's because the greater went from 330 to $400,000. That's why it was over. Right. But that would be in front of the pool board. Yes. That'd be the full be everybody rather than Yeah.
But there would have to be some sort of committee meeting first, right? Or just Well, so we'll be Yeah, we would be we should be at some point we got to have a budget meeting to review those that
don't have their own committee. That's a desired effect. then we're all in communicate. I think it's fine. I don't know the the number I guess that looking if we approved the road grader if you use that analogy and it went up. We already
approved it. But if we're approving something new, I'll go back to that example with with law enforcement. That's a whole program. that hasn't been improved. So is that
weigh in differently or we still leave the people we're saying you got to in my mind is you got to pay for it. Right. So there now we've become here is you want to keep it included you've got to get it approved. Right. So that's that's the time you got to do it is
otherwise you don't get it put into your budget. If you don't get it put in your budget can't happen. Does that make sense? I mean, we can do that conversation about that program at any time. Obviously, I mean, you don't have to wait till because if we waited for
everything throughout the year, that meeting would be forever. Yeah. But we're close enough now that things that would drive that up and and I don't know. I mean, maybe we need to wait and see and have the budget committee and
these other committee meetings to see what our general what the increases may look like the outlook at least because I don't want to say 2% and then wind up everybody's at four. We don't
have everybody come in, right? Any more on budget and finance bill committee bill? We haven't met other than the other day we talked about solar panels and things
like that, you know, thing. Yeah, that was just more of a we're going along. Yeah. Getting the new cameras put in place, right? And I don't know if this programming of,
you know, this these solar panels. I don't know if it's state money that's coming out to do all this, but the federal government squashing this. So, I don't know if that's a good direction to go for solar pens. Maybe up top here, maybe not. I don't know.
I'm hearing that's probably not a good investment because you're probably not going to get your credit, especially on the federal federal credit side of things. Maybe from a power company or something or somebody
personnel had a meeting are we? We're getting appeals back. We had a couple back anyway. Yeah. And we'll when we get more we'll proceed. How we committee go middle? Um I normally have Matt put kind of
let's get together but I was over in Wendle and we're kind of hashing out and kind of finishing up on the incidentals over there and and I think I seen the little blade that they shaped the roads with behind a rally truck. And so they were headed that direction and hopefully
from what Aaron Ber tells me uh 55 will be black this week. now weather permitting and you know what I mean and everybody on board with it and things like that. I hope I hope that that's correct. So 54 is done and black and
color two is you know the pipe insulations are done on those two roads and Pine Ridge Park pipe is in and I think we talked about that the last meeting. They were tiring that this morning. They're black out of it. Yeah. They just had
Okay. 50 ft down probably when I come by there. Okay. So, that's where the blade the little blade went then that was behind the behind the dump truck on the trailer. So, I would imagine they'd get at least the one lift on it today. Good.
Good. Glad to hear it. So, maybe Wend will be next. Maybe they at least got to get the base out of it, the drainage corrective. Public safety. I guess there's a meeting today.
Uhhuh. Solid waves. We had that meeting last Tuesday. How did that go through it? Well attended. Good. Yeah. Well received by the public, too. I
thought I went. That was good. strategic planning. We think we've met since the last time. I would like to mention though that
the dedication for the veterans memorial in Hofflin at our harvest festival ran really well. We had seven legions represented. Bill, representative 8. Thank you. And then I'd just like to mention Rob Larson, our veteran service
officer spoke and he did a wonderful job. It was a really nice event and well attended. Yep. Jordan, Senator Jordan Rasmus, he spoke. Yeah. and was lined up and we got gave a little little tidbit there for Jeff
Becker and called him up and got him going he was going to show up and hop in for the parades and then he got to speak and yeah was very wellreceived and very well attended I think considering the Clear
metast Monday. Monday I don't recall anything of any great importance. No, they just there wasn't
Western Prairie. Well, I think in September is one that uh Travers County we will all sign that we'll be in 206 we will be taking over Driver's I think that agreement is
scheduled for September. There should be has budget met for Western Curry, right? Okay. I'm on finance if that's you're talking. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's who does the budgeting, right?
Well, I would assume a living period. That is the 22nd, right? 10. Yeah. You got it plugged into the 22nd at 10. Yeah. Okay. And then yesterday
there was a ditch five meeting in Herman. Greg and were there. Um Emily was there. Uh what's his name from? Bowser was there. Pete
Pete was there and Grant and Travers um uh Brent Brent and his buddy over at Travers were there and couple from uh um
Logan Township for they talked about the chopes and stuff in that fivemile creek and there's some culverts that need to be resized. Some are too big and or too
small and that's about as far as that went because, you know, we're looking for get everybody in to play in the sandbox, you know, because some people don't want them on their land. It's just
stupid what it is. So that wasn't their plan that Greg had kind of put together starting on West and Mid. Yeah, but we got Travers got to get they got to get their stuff cleaned out because then you they have to do their first. Well, it' be a good idea to start on the bottom.
You would. Yeah, but you know, they don't want no more water. Well, it's going to come. So, Okay. And then, you know, there's talk about um ditch eight going north up to the the new pound,
the red path. That's going to be a while. So, I that's two mile open ditch cut, right? Was it that to talk be more than bad? I thought it was too. Okay. Anyway,
that's what I got on that. I got a couple minutes. Hey, u I'm on the Western probation board and we met a couple weeks ago. Uh things are going good there. They they got quite a few people on probation, but they handle the
misdemeanor, gross misdemeanor, and then the DOC handles the so that's been going good. And the money has been coming into each county from the state. Uh it's quite quite an amount where we last year I don't can't remember what we levied
per incidentally what it looked what and we used to levy a lot a lot of money per per year for that. Um, so that's that's there. And then they're they're uh they're talking about they're going to hire another probation officer with some of that money and then they're going to
be try to get into the schools where they can reach out to these young people maybe once a week or so, you know, be in like Gash or West Central or Breenidge or Training, you know, Big Stone down there. So I think that's a good deal.
So, we got a lot of good things going that way as far as money coming in. So, and then the other thing I had is I I I'd like to uh uh make a recommendation on the changes for this fair board committee because that, you know, I was
well intended I'd like to do that, but as I sit here thinking Doyle Spear is big into the fair down there and it's only I think only uh appropriate that he would take my place on that committee because he's a big fair board member and
he's our chairman. So, I would like to see Doyle put on there rather than me. Makes sense. So, I don't know. We got to do something to get that done. But scratch the name. Oh, she's she's erasing them.
Yeah, cuz I there isn't a too many that work harder toy down there represent the Grand Valley. Well, down there. So, That's all I got. Anybody else got anything?
I got had communication here from city of Hoffman with about their intent to amend its wellhead protection plan. And I guess I'll one of the names on there is Greg. So we should update that and and you're not.
And so I think we should get you added as our coordinator. So I would I don't know that we need to do anything but I'll give you this and this and then you can follow up with JP information about it.
The the boundaries isn't changing is it? Um it it talks about missing data elements and just I think it's a general update whatever you do when you amend
your rail prediction rail head prediction plan. Well sometimes it's from nothing just updating dates and sometimes it's quite large. Yeah. Anybody else got
ajourned at 11:38?