Good morning everybody and uh welcome to the May 6th uh 2025 meeting of the Candy County Board of Commissioners. We have a uh uh extended agenda today and we'll be uh uh convening this meeting and then
afterwards we'll also uh uh uh reconvene as the uh uh drainage authority for some business there. And then following that there will be a work session uh that will be uh uh receiving the uh initial
budget uh presentation for the 2026 budget. Uh at this time I would entertain uh excuse me before we get to the business please stand for the pledgece 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. Thank you. I'd look for a motion to approve today's agenda. So move, Mr. Chair. Commissioner MDC
moves. I'll second that. Dwayne Anderson seconds. Thank you. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. All opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. Next item is the consent agenda uh which uh
today contains the approval of the April 15, 2025 county board legal minutes, the approval of the auditor's warrants and claims. We're going to pay the bills. Joint powers agreement and court services amendment for the sheriff's office. New London Fire Department
exempt permit. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, joint powers agreement amendment, and a permit application approval for Diamond Lake County Park 3 event. Are there any items from the uh
consent agenda that commissioners wish to pull for further discussion? Hearing none, I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. So move, Mr. Chair, I'll second that. There's a
motion by Commissioner Dale Anderson, second by Commissioner Berg. Uh any discussion? All in favor say I. I. All opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. At this time, we would uh have uh
uh Mr. Richard Mihi uh from the uh uh from MCIT u Minnesota County's Insurance Trust uh come up and uh present to us uh and uh as soon as you're done with that uh
go ahead and grab the mic and although I just introduced you, please introduce yourself for the record and who you're with. Good morning. Thanks for having me. My name is Richard Mihi. I'm a risk manager with Minnesota County's Intergovernmental Trust. So happy to be
out in Candy, Ohio this morning making the rounds. Beautiful day for a drive. So uh my uh objective for this morning's pretty simple. Just want to give you kind of a condition of the county as you'll see in the handout. We'll kind of weave through some generic overarching
memberwide stats and graphs and we'll also talk specifically about CandyHigh. So, if there are any things or items or portions that need a little extra clarification, you have questions, feel free to uh let me know and we'll attack them in real time. If I don't know the answer, which is entirely possible, I'll
get back to you as quickly as possible. So, by way of refresher, introduction, wherever it may be for you, MCIT is your insurance entity. We are not an insurance company. Uh we are a risk sharing pool. So, we've been doing this
since 1979. Kenohai has been in it for 40 years. So we our interests are aligned. We don't have a profit motive. We're a joint powers entity. You will not see MCIT on any hockey helmets or golf flags. You will not recognize our jingle because we don't have one. We are
a bare bones uh risk pool. We take a contribution from our membership. We invest it. We pay claims. And ideally we return a dividend when we have risks managed and and losses controlled as adequately as possible. So, um, there we act like an insurance entity, but again,
we're not a we're not a company for those reasons. Um, one of the most important things is we're governed by a board of your peers. So, uh, we constantly have a pulse on the struggles of our counties and our members. So, we try to tailor coverage as wisely as possible. So, uh, it serves the public
as wisely as possible. So, what we ask of our commissioners to do is just engage. when you have projects, concerns, initiatives that are coming down the pike, we love knowing about those ahead of time. Um, if you have coverage, questions, that's when we want to be uh in your ear and and have your
attention and we want to collaborate and come up with solutions. So, it's always more fun to ride the horse looking forward rather than clean it up on the back end. So, your engagement is your greatest gift you can give us and the rest of uh our pool. typically if you have a question or a concern or an
issue, somebody else in the in the state and the membership is going to have it as well. So, um speaking up and chipping in and chiming in is is beneficial to all. So, I'll kind of buzz through that. Our first stat, I'm on page two, upper left hand, uh box there. Here's where we
have uh been able to be a little bit strategic as far as an insurance entity costs in the insurance world. You're going to hear that uh phrase repeat itself a little bit during my portion. We're battling costs. So, what we've done as a risk pool, we purchase
reinsurance. So, we are a self-insuring risk pool, but when we hit catastrophic levels, we have to go into our reinsurance. By upping that retention, that's how we've been able to knock down some prices and introduce savings. So, our pool takes on more risk so we don't
have to hit those retention rates. Hopefully, that's and you can see that's translating into savings for our membership. Richard, yes. Uh we're just wondering uh there's an overhead uh camera right above you there. Maybe if you can center this on the uh table and
then we'll be able to put it up on the screens up there now. Oh, it is. All right. Looking pretty good. I hadn't seen it. All right. And I'll kind of let my eye go to the the box below below that now. Um as we look at total insured values continue to climb. So this is kind of a this is one of the boxes that
would mirror um your personal life as well. it's it's costing us a lot more to ensure our things at at home. So in the business world and in the public world, we're struggling with that as well. The alarm here is from 21 to 22 and we go from 66 to 7 million and this is all of
the the total insured value of our our membership. So 81 of the 87 counties, 500 roughly members at this point considering all the various a societies, soil, water, conservation districts, historical societies and the like. If I'm looking at 21 to 22, 6.6 million to
7. Okay. And if we jump ahead from 24 to 25, when we get from 8.1 to 9.2, we're starting to look more like a hockey stick than a gentle trend up. So, that's something that uh we're keeping our eye on. As uh with that, one positive thing
or one of the many positive things from 2025, we we have uh higher costs of coverage, but we've also expanded that. So, um, in our equipment breakdown coverage, we've been able to at least have some expanded services. It's more
value. We're It's costing us more, but we're at least, uh, able to provide some additional services and and expand coverages. So, um, we're happy to see that. As I'm on to page three, uh the blue box upper right, this one, uh we're still seeing some settle the dust settle
coming off of uh COVID with supply chain and workforce movement uh stagnant uh back and forth. We try to keep these, you know, it's it's nice when a graph can kind of level set a little bit. If we look at that dip in workers compensation rates, um as we got through
2023, a lot of those uh the body started to move again. People went back to work. We had um lots of things with um wage uh surveys and studies, compensation studies. If you're adding headc count, again coming off of the pandemic, not
only are you having more employees, they're generally getting paid more. So that's when the work comp costs continue to increase. Now, let's go to a little bit of the good news. On the right side of that, we we see the dividend highlighted there, um which we're able to uh return to Candy Ohio. Very excited to do that.
I'm going to talk on the next page on on why that's so possible, but that comes back out of the work comp side of things. So, um, again, a little bit more to come on that bottom box on this page is an interesting one. Um, this is a little bit of a misnomer or an anomaly
in the insure or risk world. If we look at cyber claims, so insurance and risk focus on two very simple metrics, frequency and severity, how often and how bad. If we take a look at the cyber claims, we're continuing an upward
trend. So, they are happening more frequently year-over-year, the great thing is we were seeing we saw a reduction from 23 to 24. So, again, they're happening more often, but they were less severe when they did. The answer, the reason behind
this one is we were able to avoid uh all ransomware claims in 2024. And this is fantastic. this is apparel that we can knock down with technology education and awareness. So, um that just letting us know that folks are not falling for scams and the like
and clicking on things that they ought not with the the level that they had previously. So, kudos to the membership for uh for being part of that. Okay, back page top left box. This is a really fun one to talk to uh with you folks. We're going to talk about workers
compensation. This is a a very tricky peril, very expensive peril for for the working world uh to deal with. Uh Candy Ohio is doing exceptional in this in this uh in this category. So uh you get a score, you get a mod rate um if it's
this is a beautiful formula. It's your batting average, it's your quarterback rating, it's your golf uh index, it's a it's a very specific formula that scores you numerically on how you perform from a work comp standpoint. A great score is
one 1.0. Anything under than that is sterling. You are at 0.8. What that means is on average for each workers's compensation claim that gets filed in Candy, Ohio, it costs almost $70,000 less compared to your peers. So your
injuries aren't that severe. You're getting back to work as quickly as possible. And more importantly, you just have significantly less of them. So that is fantastic. Great for the community, great for the taxpayer, great for the membership, great for everybody. So, uh, again, compliment you on that. U, always
room for improvement. The fun thing here is this is a very sticky score, so it's a three-year historical. We don't count 25 cuz it's happening. 24 is too new. So, we go 23, 22, and 21. If you really dig into the math here, 2021, you're
going to lose a 1.22. So, that number theoretically could only get better. So, um, happy to report that. If you pop your eye to the the box on the right there, that's just kind of letting you know, again, this is, uh, condition of the counties. This is all membership here of, uh, what's costing us money and
and where the numbers are coming from. Your eye probably goes to law enforcement liability, uh, with a significantly higher amount per claim. That's just the reality of that line of work. Uh, 24/7, 365. Lot of, uh, a lot of room for uh, error to happen there.
So, um, and also auto, uh, vehicles are just when we hit a deer, it costs a little bit more than it did 30 years ago with all the gas g, uh, gizmos and gadgets that we put in the vehicles nowadays, too. So, um, nothing um, super out of the ordinary there. What I want to leave you with are these kind of
sections at the bottom. This is again where we love your engagement. You're doing a great job. We want to learn from you. If you're having struggles, we want to hear from you. Um, one thing I really want to highlight, uh, lower right portion there is, uh, MCIT offers no and lowcost training addressing, uh, patrol.
The peace officers accredited training online. I know Candy, Ohio has put about 40 folks through that in the last 5 years. So, that's again something we're extremely happy to uh, champion and work with you folks on. other things like uh benchmark analytics, uh workplace injury hotline, those are kind of generic
stuff, but um employee assistance program as well to to all members and elected officials. So, uh grief counseling, marriage counseling, debt counseling, all those types of uh things. Even if you have uh some leadership issues, if you have somebody new into a supervisor role and they're
having trouble um communicating with staff, uh they're they're can help you through some difficult conversations there. So, um it's there for you. It's a great thing to utilize um and encourage you to do so. All right, I spoke like uh pretty quick there for a long time. I'll
open up any questions or concerns. Uh certainly. And uh Richard, first of all, thank you uh and uh and I apologize for uh uh calling the organization by the wrong name. Not a problem. when we uh when we first started uh it's
interesting to me that the uh cyber claims is becoming more and more of a thing and even a couple of years ago uh we were looking at the potential uh hearing from MCIT that there might not be cyber security coverage right for our
membership. So uh I'm I'm I'm I'm thrilled that we have it because it's it's getting a tougher and tougher thing to do. I know we get spoof emails all the time that we have to uh uh be very cautious with and
uh always checking with our IT staff. So uh are what what what trends are you seeing in this uh right now? Is the market relatively stable? Uh two things kind of come to mind there. The insurers enter and leave the market with uh
massive disruption. So, uh, the insuring world is still trying to figure out who wants to be in this business and who doesn't. As you mentioned, we had Hartford Steam Broiler, uh, exit the market mid policy, uh, midterm a couple of years ago. So, we had to scramble and get new coverage in place. So, that's
one aspect. So, we we struggle with it from there. The other side is uh, we're seeing significant gains in technology and sophistication on how tricky these things used to be. So, the poorly written email with terrible grammar, things that we could sniff out uh pretty
easily uh initially, things like artificial intelligence and and spell check and those types of things make those things easier to craft. The other difficult thing is just the the the arena that we play in, our contracts, the services that we provide, the big projects that we engage in. It's all
public timelines, billing terms, costs, all those types of things. So it just opens us up. We're more susceptible to bad guys have more information to play with to create tricky things in that world. Commissioner MD and thank you. Uh along
the lines of the cyber I see we had a pretty large spike from 22 to 23 and then we had almost a a similar type of downtrend. I was I attended a uh cyber security workshop that you presented uh
in St. Cloud. I went there might have been more than one. I went to the same. Is that about the time uh when we started to see the downward trend and did do you consider that to be a successful um campaign to help bring awareness to
IT people? Great question. Uh in the risk and insurance world, we're we're always pretty hesitant to take credit because then you got to take blame on the other side of the coin. H however, I think everyone is is significantly spooked. Um, and these hit very close to home. We were right in the midst of a
couple of ransomware uh situations, claims that get the attention and when it hits your neighbors and and the people close to you, um, then you kind of, you know, you start taking care of your house as well. So, I think it was a call to action and it has helped drive
down and and I think we've been fortunate and we've also gotten more sophisticated in technology stack and and the human firewall. Think think back to when we were little. We answered the phone. Hello. We were inquisitive. We didn't know. We used our context clues
of who's home right now. Who would be calling? What would they what would they want? There was etiquette. You didn't call during dinner time that now we receive copious amounts of information electronically and we just we just take it as gospel almost initially. So, we have to start the human firewall, the
human filtering is up right now because we've seen our friends and constituents and neighbors get hit so hard. So, um you know, we got to take the good out of those historical bads. Go ahead. Uh thank you. Uh it reminds me
of the text messages. We were to Florida in April and I uh used the easy pass. I guess it was March. um purchased the easy pass at the airport and about two days after getting home I started getting uh text messages that I have
unpaid fines. I'm thinking how realized it ended up coming from Mindot or people claiming it was Mindot's easy pass. But uh I still got one the other day. Uh so that those text messages they they're really easy to fall into those traps.
But uh my question um and I have one here. So, um, going back to one of your first slides, you talked about, uh, our, um, achievement of getting a pretty good score for, and it caused me to ask
myself the question, when people work from home, are they covered by workman's comp, if they get a paper cut, they're working at their desk or as I'll give you the answer. With all claims, they're fact dependent, and the circumstances matter, but yes. Yeah, you're you're
covering those folks at at home as well if they're in the state of Minnesota. Yeah, there's some parameters if they're, you know, working from the cabin or on vacation. There's some uh statutes and there's some very
structured um things that they need to hit, but the short answer is yes, they're covered at home. Thank you. Yeah, Commissioner Dwayne Anders. So, thanks for coming here today and explaining all this. Um, I I find it interesting we
we're call it's you're called a risk sharing pool or you you define yourself as that. And I kind of like the idea when I'm reading through this because it shows in 2024 we got a dividend. And I I just wish that like more insurance agencies would switch to something like
your model because yeah, you guys take the individ you know we're a big individual I suppose you could say. But it would be nice if uh other, you know, corporations would take this kind of into consideration because I know in some other countries uh when people buy
health insurance and if they don't use it, they actually get like a dividend or they get paid back a little bit. And here you don't you don't get that. You just pay more every year it seems. So it's it's nice to see this and it's really interesting to Yeah. In the private sector, you could operate under what's called a captive uh and and
essentially self-insure and by re but it is not as popular as you think it would be. It uh insurance can be profitable. Uh they don't lose. You know, if you have a bad year, you get charged more the next and if you get really really bad, they kick you out. Um you know, that's not how we operate. Again, our
motives are just different. We're just our interests are so aligned. Uh that's why they pay us about the industry average bucks, you know. Uh, okay. Thank you. Any other questions from the board?
All right. I have one, but I think it would just kind of duplicate uh uh what uh what has already been said here. So, uh do you have anything else for us uh today or No, just again, thank you for your time and your engagement is a is a gift. So, I look forward to it. If there are any questions, do not hesitate to
reach out. Well, very good. And thank you so much. Glad you enjoyed your drive out this morning. Thank you. All right, moving on then we will um move to the uh 9:30 uh item which is Central Minnesota Jobs and Training
Services annual presentation. Uh Dena uh please come up and introduce yourself and uh welcome. Thank you. I appreciate it. Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the board. I am Dean Awares with Central Minnesota Jobs and Training Services. Well, we go by
CMJTS. It's a lot easier to say. Um, I see the PowerPoint is up. There is a copy of the PowerPoint in your folder on the right hand side. I'll go through and just explain some information. Truly, my goal here this morning is to either
introduce you to who CMJTS is if you're not sure or to reintroduce you. um we're really working hard to kind of rebrand ourselves and um what I like to compare us to is a phoenix kind of rising out of the ashes. So that's where we're at
today. So I'm going to share some information with you specific to the services that we deliver within our agency. Before doing so, I do want to share that we do have both a joint powers board, which Commissioner Dwayne Anderson sits on our board, and he's been newly
elected as the vice chair of our joint powers board, or I'm sorry, our workforce development board. Secretary, you are secretary of the Joint Powers Board, and he is That's it, right? I think so. Nothing. Yes. Okay, perfect. So far. Yeah. So far, exactly. We got
lots of plans for Commissioner Anderson. So, he does also sit on our workforce development board for the 11 counties that we serve. Candy Ohigh is one of those 11 counties. We also have a board member here with us this morning and you might recognize her. Um, Melissa Bob
Warner is one of our workforce development board members. Give them away. There you go. Yelcome. So, Melissa sits on our board. We have a board of 21 individuals and she is one of many voices that helps us
manage our day-to-day um and big picture business. So, if we could move ahead to the next slide, please just to share real quick, these are the 11 counties that we cover in central Minnesota. We do go as high or as far north as Pine
County and as far south as Renville County. So, we've got quite a stretch of miles in between the coverage that we serve. We have nine locations throughout those 11 counties to ensure that we are accessible to individuals who need
us. Um, what I will say about that, we offer a range of services and that's what I'll talk about this morning briefly. I do have all kinds of information in your packet for you to look at at some point at a later date maybe just to refamiliarize yourself or
maybe get some questions answered that you may have during the presentation. Uh we do workforce development. That's our commitment and we serve um everybody from age 14 to 104. If you're looking for work, you
want to go back to work, we likely have a program available to assist you with that, manage any challenges or barriers, help get you back to work quickly. Um, we serve individuals who are new time um, entry workers, um, maybe career changers. They've had an injury on the
job and they can't do that line of work any longer. They need some help with retraining. We've helped individuals who've been employed with a company for 25, 30 years and they now find themselves dislocated because maybe the company had to close their doors or move. And then we also work with the
businesses in Candy Ohio County. So we have all kinds of resources available to help all of the businesses here. Um Bridget Pollson is the business service coordinator here in Candyo High County. Up here is some funding source
information. We do have a handout as well on the left hand side that gives you an idea of where all of our funding comes from. Sometimes there's a misconception that our funding comes from maybe um county services. Some of
our counties think that we're only a public assistance MIP provider. We are not. We're much larger than that. So you can see in the diagram we have funding from state and federal um entities. So we do receive funding from the department of employment and economic
development. We receive funding from the department of labor. We also do receive funding we have MIP public assistance contracts in six of our 11 counties. And then we also have foundational or donation grants that we receive. So,
we're we try to um diversify our funding sources so that if something goes ary in one of those pots, we've got access somewhere else. And Dina, just for the folks listening out there today, uh you mentioned MIP. Uh would you uh tell us
what that is? Absolutely. So, I'm probably speaking for Melissa here, but Melissa is the provider for MIP in Candy Ohio County with um DED or the Department of Employment and Economic Development. MIP is the Minnesota Family Investment Program. So, individuals who
are receiving those county benefits while they're in a hardship of some kind, they are mandatory to come work with some type of employment and training provider. We deliver those in six counties. Melissa has Candy Ohigh County. And essentially, our role is to
help identify those challenges and those barriers that keep people from going back to work or becoming self-sufficient. Sometimes the goal isn't work. It's just a matter of finding other resources of income so that they're no longer dependent on that public assistance. Does that help? Yes.
Thank you. Perfect. Absolutely. So, we can go to the next slide, please. We do have a fund development team. Uh we have a um a fund development manager on our team because like I said, we are always trying to diversify our
resources. Um it's never a good thing to be solely reliant on state and federal funds because they're extremely fickle and depending upon the administration, depending upon who's in charge, um those funds get, you know, they they change. They rarely grow. Oftent times we see
decreases. So we have a fund development team. Uh Leslie is our fund development manager. She's working with stakeholders across the county. So she might be talking with businesses. She might be talking with training providers such as Ridgewater College or CES, the
CDL provider. Um, we're talking with job seekers. We're identifying what types of resources are necessary and then we seek out those grants that we can write for, respond to, and hopefully receive to help residents and businesses here in
Candy Ohio County. I did provide a list for you on the left hand side of some of the grants that we have. um written for in the last year. Leslie has been extremely busy. I want to say she's probably re written
probably 16 grants in the last six months. Um and we slowly continue to either receive or get told, hey, not this time. Whenever we receive a denial letter, we always follow up. We want that feedback so that we can improve our
process in the future. I will talk next about some of the services that we provide to job seekers. So, we do provide what we we consider high quality services. Like I said, we serve every job seeker, whether you're a
career changer, um maybe you're just looking for some interim funds until you find that next job opportunity after a dislocation. Um maybe again you are new to job search. You have no idea what to do. You've been working for the same
company for 30 years and you only had to have a handshake to get hired back then. So maybe you need some help with resumeé writing. Maybe you just need help with career assessments. What what direction should I go? I have no idea. How can I take my skills and transfer them into a
new career? So those are some of the tasks that our career navigators and employment specialists are doing with job seekers. We also have career labs available. I know that there is a career lab here with the career force center that we direct individuals to. We work
strongly with our partners in the area. One of our partners being job service, vocational rehab services, adult basic education. We try to work with them to gain the referrals for those individuals who need our services as a workforce
development provider. Uh, next slide then just gives you a list of who some of those individuals are. Um, we work with adults. We work with youth ages 14 to what we consider young adult age 24. Uh, like I stated
before, we work with entry level individuals. Um, we work with lowincome, unemployed, undermployed. So, we can even assist the individual who's undermployed, not making ends meet, and just needs some help. So those are some
of the uh the categories of individual that we serve. Any questions with that before I move on? Okay, great. So then next we provide businesses or I'm sorry, we provide um
services to our business community as well. Um some of the things that we're able to do there um we have like I said Bridget who is a business service coordinator. If you haven't met Bridget yet, I may send her here one day to introduce herself. She is a ball of
fire. She's got just a ton of energy. She does so much work with Candy, Ohio employers. She sits on several committees in the county, um child care, transportation, trying to figure out what we need to do to help the business. Sometimes it seems strange, what do you
mean childare or transportation? But if an individual doesn't have child care, if they don't have the accessibility for transportation to get to a job, then the employer can't hire. So, we're focused on those activities as well. We can help employers if they know
there's a a layoff inevitable, whether it's a full closure or maybe they have to eliminate a department or two within their business. We can assist them with layoff services where we can go in before the workers lose their job. we can start working with them to identify
what's your next step. We can start helping those employees so that once they're dislocated, they dislocate and they're ready to get that new job right away. So, we're trying to take the stress away from both the employer and the worker. We also have financial resources for
employers in Candy, Ohio County. We can assist them with what we refer to as on the job training where if they have a candidate that they would like to hire, but maybe they're lacking some skills that they need on the job. We know that employers typically identify that those
what we call soft skills or professional skills. Those are number one, right? Are you going to show up on time? Are you going to come in every day? Are you going to do your job, stay off your phone? Those types of things. But then there's also that skills gap. When there's a skills gap, we can help with
on the job training. We can reimburse that employer 50% of the wage for that individual for up to six months in order to give that employer an opportunity to put some training into that worker so
that they meet their specific needs. Another resource we have for our businesses is what we call incumbent worker training. So there are times when a business might need to do some upskilling or upgrading in order to
remain competitive in the market. Maybe they want to avert a layoff. They know I potentially have to lay these individuals off unless I can xyz. Then we can come in and help them identify a vendor or a training provider to deliver
that training they need in order to upskill their workers. We can do up to $25,000 per contract for an employer and we can help them identify who that training vendor would be based on their specific needs. So those are some of the
resources we're able to provide to businesses and we do that as often as possible. Uh like I said, Bridget's out there talking about it all of the time at chambers, economic development meetings, letting them know we're here.
Um, but I think that's why we always ask for the help from our county commissioners. Please remember and tout our work so that individuals and businesses know where they can go for that assistance. And I actually just talked about this one. Sorry about that. So we
could move on to the next slide. Wonderful. So some of the new things or the innovative things that we have done in the past. I do have some information. I just kind of slid it right inside the folder. It's loose in there, but it highlights some of these innovative
ideas that we've been implementing over the last year. Um, we have Operation Exploration Camps, and I do have some flyers in your packet um to talk about or to share those. We have two camps.
So, the camps serve youth aged 16 to 24. They'll be held at the Ridgewater campus. Um we have one that focuses on the trades and that one is from June 9th through the 13th and then again June
16th through the 18th and we have one running um as well at the same time for healthc care type work. So essentially the youth can come in and they can experience the different types of occupations and industries hands-on. Um,
we have instructors there from the industry that teach the youth. Um, give them, like I said, chances in the in the health care field. They're actually practicing doing sutures or bandaging people. So, they actually get to have a lot of fun in the process. Um, we always
have a waiting list for our kids because we have funding. We can only serve so many kids. Um it is an absolute success every year and we invite you to pop on by if you're available anytime during those dates. Pop on by um just introduce
yourself when you show up and let them know you just want to see what the camps are all about because they're one of the things that we are really proud of here in Candy Ohio County. Uh we also are focused on register apprenticeship. So one of the things we are doing um we've just
applied for a grant. Our goal is to become a registered apprenticeship hub in our 11 counties. So we want to be accessible to employers who want to develop registered apprenticeship programming within their business. We want to connect them to the resources
and help them start that process. And the reason why we want to do that is because we know registered apprenticeship is a great retention tool. It keeps those employees on site in your company. Um they feel valued. um and that you're invested and they feel
that. So we want to mo u motivate that registered apprenticeship in our 11 counties. Uh we also have HR groups and professional groups, professional networking for those job seekers and we host an HR group monthly for any
business in Candy Ohio County. They can join that HR group. They meet with other individuals. Some of our groups are as large as 20 to 40 people depending upon who shows up that day. And it just gives employers who hire individuals, HR individuals, um, almost like a support
group. How are you handling this? How are you doing this? It's a great resource for business again. And then professional networking is a group to help those job seekers, specifically the job seekers who have experience in maybe a higherend job. Maybe they were
dislocated from a six-digit figure job. So they want some of that professional networking. We deliver that and our board chair helps facilitate that uh meeting. Sorry, lost the word. All
right. And then the last slide I have to talk about is strategic planning. One of the things that we're doing as an agency and as a workforce development board, um like I stated at the beginning, we are trying to refocus who we are. Um, we're
working really hard to identify what our community needs are so that we can kind of meld ourselves into that provider. Um, we need to know from the community in order to get things right. So, that's
our goal. Um, Dwayne, Melissa both participated in our strategic planning event. We had an eight-hour day where we brought a professional in to kind of help us identify what were some key topics that we want to focus on over the next two years. Couple of things we want
to try and figure out. How do we motivate the young worker maybe that Gen Z thinking um young worker to stay in the communities they live in when they work, right? We know that a lot of young people leave their communities. So,
we're trying to figure out what can we do different to train up and skill both the employer and that youth and help them stay in their community. Another thing that we're working on is branding and marketing. We need to make sure that
when people see our logo, they know exactly who we are and they can get us uh the clients that we need. And then we're also focused on, like I said, finances. We're trying really hard to diversify and not be so reliant on those state and federal dollars. We are
meeting um myself and Leslie. We're meeting with our uh provider, the the individual who delivered those services. We're meeting with him next week. He's going to help us develop a plan for some next steps and then we're rolling into the work. So, that's a good picture, I
guess, of who CMJTS is. And our annual report is in your packet as well as a gatefold brochure that just gives you some real quick simple information identifies all of the services that we deliver. So thank you thank you so much.
And uh before I open it up to questions uh I kind of want to piggyback on something you just mentioned which is a reliance on federal and state uh funding. What uh what challenges are you seeing out there right now? I think the challenges we're seeing is number one,
the governor's budget, um his proposed budget, there's some cuts that the services that we deliver on a regular basis, um we rely on those funds in order to do that. So, we're hoping we don't get hit too hard. An example would
be Minnesota Youth Program. So, with our Minnesota Youth Program, we are able to serve the hardest to serve youth. So, individuals who are maybe 15 years old and they're already on a path or a trajectory to not graduate. Um, maybe
they're already exhibiting some criminal behavior. Maybe they have parents who are in jail. So, we're talking about some pretty hard to serve youth with our Minnesota youth program and that budgets being cut in the proposed bills. So, we're trying to figure out where are
these other resources where we can pull monies in so that we can continue to do the work, maintain that sustainability without relying on state funds. Same then with federal funds with WA or the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity
Act. We receive quite a bit of funding from WA in order to deliver youth programming. We serve adults who are usually unemployed, undermployed, have a lot of challenges in order to get back to work, or the dislocated worker who's lost their job due to no fault of their
own. With those federal cuts, that impacts us quite a bit. All right. Uh thank you for that. And uh and of course uh this is something that we're going to have on a continuous loop uh as we visit with agencies like yours.
And uh uh certainly uh as we're going to learn today, Kandandy County and all 87 of our counties here in Minnesota are not immune. Yes. At all. In fact, we're pretty susceptible uh to the same pressures that uh that you're seeing. Uh Commissioner Dwayne Anderson. So I I
just got a few comments. Uh so part of that with the funding with our strategic planning session that we had that day uh on March 14th um was a big part of the discussion or part of the discussion was how do we get away where we're not as dependent on state and federal dollars.
And so if you look back a little bit on our on uh Dena's uh presentation, it talks about we're having a fundraiser and it was the golf outing in September. And so I'm not a golfer, but I I I it sounds fun. So, I'll probably still attend, but uh if anybody here likes to
golf, it would I think it's going to be a fun event. But that that's part of it. It's, you know, we're trying to think outside the box and I think connect more businesses with CMJTS. And and another little story I I want to I I tell people once in a while is is uh my first
introduction with CMJTS was when I was doornocking about six years ago and and uh one one individual used to work for you guys and he told me that uh if if it wasn't for CMJTS uh helping a business in the area that wanted to come here, the business maybe
wouldn't have come because there are a lot of people that wanted to work for the business but they didn't have the skills and and then CMJ JTS uh uh helped those people get the skills and it it was a business that provides about 200 jobs I was told. So they really you
really are helpful and word needs to get out a little better maybe somehow. I don't know how exactly that uh the the services that is provided by CMJTS. Thank you Commissioner Rimd. Thank you. You mentioned uh in your presentation about
uh you brought up youth several times. brought up engagement with uh local businesses and perhaps as supporters uh as much as anything. I received a phone call, I think it was last Friday, uh from
somebody from the Wilmer School District that said, "Hey, Roger, do you have any ideas on uh funding? They have 80 students at the Wilmer School District that want are interested in taking CNA training at at the school. Uh, New London Spicer was able to do a program a
couple years ago where they trained a number of CNA students and they're struggling to find the funding for it. Uh, surprising surprising to me at least was that two of the
major employers of CNAs um turned them down for assisting with funding because they have their own CNA training program, right? Uh, is this something that Minnesota jobs and train or that you could Central Minnesota jobs
and trainings could get involved with and either encouraging employees to employers to um, you know, fund a program like that or do you have funds yourself for those kind of programs? So the answer is probably and what I would
like to do is maybe get some specific information from you and I could maybe shoot you an email later this afternoon to start that conversation. If I could get that contact information absolutely we would reach out to them depending upon the age of the students as well. Kind of dictates what funding streams we
have available. These are high school students. So high school 16 to 18ish are we thinking? Yeah. Okay. So we have what we that's what we call cohort training where we have a large group of individuals who all go through the same training together. We have done cohorts
in the past. So that's something we can definitely look into and if we're unable to then we can help them identify what resources are out there to help. Thank you. Anyone else for uh Dina here? Uh I want to uh it's it it seems
to me that we did have some sort of a program in collaboration with Ridgewater here a couple of years back. I don't know if that was uh still still in play or not. So we do work with Bridgewwater College. Dr. Johnson is a board member of our uh workforce development board
and yeah, we work pretty closely with them. Um, I think right now they're trying to pull together a basic Microsoft uh skills training for several of our individuals who come in. They don't know computers. They're afraid if they click a button it'll implode. So,
they're going to put together a training for us right now. You You laughed a little too much. I used to be kind of that way, but I I've gotten better over the years to feel your pain. Administrator Baker. Um, so your registered apprenticeship. Do
you want to explain a little bit more? Cuz I think it's always eyeopening of what you offer compared to if maybe a private company has their own apprenticeship program like an electrician or lineman, you know, journeyman, those types of positions. Um, but an apprenticeship doesn't have
to be in that type of field either. So, if you want to explain a little bit more about that, I'm thinking back to like my WEOA days and all of that. So, I think that's just something that's really beneficial to rural Minnesota um that we don't always feel is can be offered to
us and the benefits of registering through you with deed and all of that. I think that's just um that's really eye opening. If you could explain that a little bit more that would be beneficial. Yep. So, one of the things that we can do with with employers is help them through that process. And
again, they do not have to be it can be a non-union employer. So any employer can register a program or a training program with the Department of Labor in Minnesota and then that becomes a registered apprenticeship program. Um
with WA there are all kinds of rules around who can be a trainer, who can't. With registered apprenticeship, the trainer is waved from all of those requirements for WA, which is kind of nice because then it allows for flexibility in training. Typically what
we will do, there's an application. There's quite a it's a process. It's a paperwork process in order to get it registered. And I mean, we're talking about hundreds of industries can be applicable. Um we're looking at helping with some healthc care registered apprenticeships right now with a couple
of employers in our northern areas. Uh there is a registered apprenticeship that was created at the North Branch School District. So, um I know that there are three believe one was in Wilmer if I can remember correctly. Um we're getting phone calls from
individuals from uh school districts right now saying hey we would like to create a registered apprenticeship program. So those are some of the things we can do and then it helps the employer how how WOA funding can help then is
there's there's a split when you do registered apprenticeship between hands-on doing the job and then there's a specific number of hours in the classroom that must be met alongside the hands-on. So WA can assist in the cost
of those classroom hours so that that offsets the cost to the employer for their employee. Um and then again we can just help manage them back and forth. And we we've seen registered apprenticeship in pretty much all industries. People a lot of times
associate it with union and they associate it with manufacturing or construction maybe. Um the trades. We can go beyond the trades. Absolutely. All right. Uh, any other uh, questions for Dina?
Dina, thank you so much for being here today. Always look forward to uh, uh, seeing our friends from CMJTS before the board and uh, thank you for all the work that you do and uh, safe travels back home. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for having me this
morning and I will Yep. say listen to Dwayne. Come golf with us on September 18th. Thank you. And uh just uh to let the board know, we will take the next item, the 950 item, and then we will take a 5m minute recess. Uh at this time, we have the
Prairiewoods Environmental Learning Center Preschool Driveway Bid. Uh Jennifer Swenson. Uh Jennifer, please uh come up and introduce yourself and welcome. more technology. Dwayne, you want to help with that?
No, I can get my stuff to work with. That's about it. And uh while we're talking about the technology, I got to remember on your Is it set up on your laptop? Yes. Thank you. turn my ringer off. Sometimes it's not set up. Oh, I
appreciate that. Go ahead. Okay. Good morning. I am Jennifer Swenson with Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center and I've been leading the organization for the past three years as executive director and I'm here today to share a
significant milestone. We've had a very exciting year. Um, in addition, we also have an important update, as you mentioned, on a construction project for our newest program, the nature preschool. So, to begin, Prairie Woods was established in
1992 with part in partnership with the Canyuh High County Board. Over the past three decades, it's grown into a regional destination for environmental education and outdoor recreation, all operating on county-owned land with
county support. And what I'm sharing today reflects years of planning and hard work, and it's a great example of how this partnership continues to bring real value to the county and the people who live here. So, first I'm proud to officially
announce that Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center has been designated as a natural resource-based regional park through the Greater Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails Commission. This puts us among just 82 parks and trails across the state,
recognized for their natural resource value, public accessibility, and long-term planning. This is the result of a multi-year process, including strategic and master planning, site visits, and formal
review. And with this designation as a regional park, Prairie Woods is now eligible for legacy funding through the parks and trails fund. It also gives us access to statewide planning tools and strengthens our position when applying for future
grants. and from the commission uh Renee Madson, Joe Chapesky, and the commission chair Rick Anderson have extended their congratulations and we are coordinating with them on a public announcement and it's a big milestone not just for
Prairie Woods but for our county. As part of our regional plan designation process, we completed an updated master plan for Prairie Woods. This plan looks ahead over the next 15 plus years as a roadmap for planned
growth, land stewardship, and expanded public access. So, the plan is included in your board packet and it contains detailed maps, project priorities, and a phasing timeline. Uh, the phasing section, I believe, begins on page 28 and is on the
screen as well. And this this work directly aligns with our new strategic framework which was approved earlier this year and is guided of course by our mission to promote awareness of the importance of our natural environment. And we do this through education and
outdoor recreation. The master plan focuses on opportunities we've identified over time, including the need for improved accessibility, updated infrastructure, and space to accommodate growing interest in outdoor
programming. So you can see in phase one, which is the 3 to 5 year time frame, we'll be addressing some of the top needs, including restoring native habitats and planting more pollinator friendly areas, expanding natural
surface hiking trails for education and recreation, improving vehicle um circulation and ADA parking at the education building, um creating a group camp or new or additional yurt
uh an accessible canoe and kayak launch to support the people who visit for our programs and then remodeling the education building to include more visible and functional welcome areas. So, these improvements are designed to help us better serve the wide range of
people that come to Prairie Woods, from youth and school groups who are the largest part of our current programming to also older adults, community members, and visitors who are exploring the site for recreation, lifelong learning, or regional tourism.
And because this all takes place on county land, every step we take adds long-term value to Cany High County and enhances this public asset of Prairie Woods that already benefits thousands of visitors and residents each year. So,
we've already begun moving forward on some of these early phasing phase one priorities in the green. For example, through a grant with Feeasants Forever, we have begun habitat restoration work on over 50 acres to restore native
prairie. And then of course with the deed grant through Kio High County Economic Development, um we will be completing a section of ADA parking and access improvements that's tied to the new nature preschool. Um, looking ahead, we do plan to write a
legacy grant application next year to support other um, key phase 1 projects, including improvements to ADA parking and pathways, the remodel of the education building at the welcome center, and trail expansion to better
serve our education programs and visitors. And once that process begins, then I'll plan to return with an update on the funding application. Um, and we'll talk about any areas where the county coordination can help us move forward
with that. And so, our goal is to keep making steady progress. Um, and we want to make sure the county stays informed along the way about the value that's being added every step of this long-term plan. Uh, one of our most exciting developments this year has been the
opening of our licensed nature preschool center at Prairie Woods. This has been in the works for about two years and we finally became officially licensed in February and um through this launch of the preschool and getting licensed we
have already served 25 families through this early programming including our popular forest Fridays program and seasonal sessions that we started last fall. Um, our first full programming year with the preschool will begin this
fall in September and we're currently filling fall enrollment. We still have a few summer spots available, but this time frame has really allowed us to time to train and hire staff and make the improvements to
the facility, strengthen our curriculum, and get prepared for full capacity, which will be 18 slots this fall. Some of the kids' favorite activities. so far include um hiking, playing in the prairie, bird
identification, and even kick sledding this winter. And the startup costs for the preschool, as you can imagine, including building renovations to the Westby Observatory, like plumbing improvements, equipment, furniture, and meeting the
licensing standards were significant. This work was made possible through a one-year deed grant and combined with our own own fundraising for the match that we raised through our Prairie Stars event and program revenue. As you can
imagine, there's a real cost barrier to of entry to launching a childare center or preschool and we were able to meet that challenge and bring this vision to life. So, the final piece of that deed grant is creating the safe ADA compliant
parking and drop off area, which leads directly to the next um action item. So, as I mentioned, the final piece of the preschool project is the new ADA compliant parking and dropoff area that will serve both the preschool
families and other Prairie Woods visitors. So, this is a safety and accessibility improvement and it directly supports access to the building which is on county land. And so, you'll find in your packet uh the bid recommendation letter
um for this project and the contractor who is selected and the total cost which is 134,000 um which is written in the budget and it's fully funded through the one-year deed grant um that also supported the preschool renovation. So no additional
county funds are being requested but because the the property is county owned then we are asking the county to sign the notice of award as the land owner so that the contractor can proceed. Um the grant deadline is June 30th and so issuing the award now will
give us time for the contractor to complete the work on schedule. All right. So uh let's go ahead and uh and address that item right now. Um and the uh request uh the
recommendation is to uh uh award the bid to a specific uh vendor. Uh Director Mel Odens uh do you have anything that you wish to just direct us on in this regard? Uh no, Mr. chair.
Um, our involvement has been initially with with just some site work, but I would concur that the improvements that they're doing is in essence going to be needed for what they need to do for this preschool. And they did they did get good bids. So, I'm comfortable with the
bids and the uh uh and the financial impact to Candy Ohio County. It's a deed grant. So there's no matching dollars that that we would be um and I believe there's also if if this is awarded there's a pre-construction meeting I
think this week yet Friday I believe. Correct. So all right I would uh uh entertain a motion from the board. So move Mr. Chair uh Commissioner Mdeck moves award of the bid to uh it was
Swinson and Suns. Yes. Yes. I'm trying to find find the letter. I'm toggling back and forth here. Uh uh in the amount of uh $134,746. Is there a second? I'll second it. There's a motion and a second to uh
uh award the U bid as presented. Uh discussion, Mr. Chair. Commissioner MDC, thank you. Uh, and thank you for bringing this information forward, but and congratulations, by the way, on the designation as a regional park. That's a
big deal. Um, but there was a little confusion in this whole process here, who is to award this uh construction uh contract. We own the property, we being the county, they operate the property.
Um perhaps we should consider a policy similar to what we do within our departments wherein um you know they be uh um authorized up to a certain level to award contracts without it having to come through the county board of
commissioners so that they can keep the process moving a little bit uh faster and smoother going forward. Uh it was just a thought that because there was that confusion as we own the property but it's their project. They applied for it for a lot of their things. They pay
for them. Um so does the county really need to award the project? But anyway, that's for food for thought. That sounds fair enough. Anyone else? All right. Uh hearing no further
discussion. Uh all in favor of the motion to uh award the bid signify by saying I. I. All opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. And uh what else do you have for us? Sure. Thank you. Lastly, I would like to just briefly highlight how Prairie Woods continues to
serve the community in meaningful ways. Uh over the past 10 years alone, we've welcomed more than 198,000 participants uh through school programs, outdoor recreation and conservation work, community events, equipment, and
facility rentals. Um and you will find a one-page visitation summary uh in your packet that shows the steady growth over the years, of course, with a noticeable dip during COVID. Um, but like many parks and trails across the state, the casual public trails use actually
increased during that time. So, we generally estimate an additional 5,000 casual trail users throughout the year. Um, and those those are not counted on that visitation um record. Um, I encourage people to sign up for our
email newsletters uh for more regular updates and great photos of things happening at Prairie Woods. Um, our team consists of 10 staff. We have an additional 10 or so part-time uh seasonal facilitators of our programs
and then dozens of dedicated volunteers who support the year-round work. Uh, you'll see our org chart in your packet for a snapshot of how we support our programs and operations. And we are a nonprofit and we are governed by a board of directors and two county
commissioners serve on this board. Um the popularity of our programs and the fact that we already have equipment and trained staff and facilities in place is a big reason why we were designated as a regional park. So we're building on a strong foundation and credibility over
30 plus years. So thank you again for your ongoing support of Prairie Woods. Um and again this has been a landmark year. We're excited about what's ahead and I appreciate um your help with the contract award um so that we can move
forward with the parking project and close out the deed grant. And at this time, I'm happy to take any questions or hear any feedback or comments that you'd like to share. Uh Commissioner Dale Anderson, thank you very much for bringing this forward and giving the
update. I think um I think the big thing going forward, there's going to be a lot of projects with the the trails grants and stuff that you're going to receive. And I guess I'm not so worried about the money, but I think it would be great if you could keep coming and giving the board updates on what's coming or what
you see coming um and where that's going to go because it is county owned property and I think the people of the county do have interest even if they don't use the facility of of what's happening out there. So, thank you much. Great. I appreciate that feedback and I'll be happy to come back this fall.
Administrator Baker, um to answer Commissioner Indig's question, when Jennifer and I both start, Jennifer started a little bit before I did and then when I started here, we were both surprised that there wasn't an agreement between Prairie Woods and the county. And so, in the last two years, we've
kind of hemmed and had between our schedules. Um I do have a draft. It wouldn't necessarily be a policy. It's a memorandum of agreement. There was one drafted uh county attorney, can you help me? Was it 2002 or 2012? Two. Thank you.
2002 it was drafted and then it never approved by the county board. I figured he would know the date. Um and so I kind of went off that modified some language, updated some language. I'll get that over to Jennifer for review. And so hopefully that once Jennifer and I visit
on that, we'll bring it to board and both boards and um seek for approval and any modifications. But I think because there's always been this who's who's on first, who's on second, Jennifer and I've always had that discussion, hopefully this will clear some of that
up having this MOA and um we'll maybe be able to move forward maybe in a smoother fashion when items like this come about. So, uh, I have, uh, one question and and and and then a comment. Uh, so, of course, uh, the county also operates a, uh,
county park, uh, campground, uh, system, and you've mentioned in here, uh, uh, in this master plan, uh, a campground, a yurt, uh, uh, camper cabins. Uh, tell me what, uh, all of that looks like. Uh, is
that for is that specifically for groups or uh is this general public uh uh what is this going to look like? And uh and I assume the funding streams that come out of that are going to go back to support uh your programming.
Great question. Yep. Um, as far as the we currently have a yurt that we use programmatically and so the addition um of uh group camp and additional yurt are just to further enhance our programmatic
use more so than um commercial type uh camping. Um but just to enhance groups that are coming out and would like to extend their stay at Prairie Woods um that are taking part in our environmental ed programs for example. um and be pretty minimal. Um like I
said, we have one year, maybe add a second and maybe four different um smaller other sites for small groups to come out. Mhm. Yeah. Uh and and the reason I asked the question is that uh I know we take a little bit of grief here
in from time to time about uh uh operating the uh uh county park uh system uh here uh when there are uh private uh uh folks who uh also have campgrounds and uh and and that sort of
thing. Uh so I'm just uh that's why I'm wondering about the scope of what it is that uh that you're trying to do there. And uh uh certainly I can take uh take that answer offline as well. So the uh other comment that I wanted to make is that uh uh one of our friends is uh with
us here today who uh was quite instrumental in the uh work to get that uh uh deed grant and absolutely uh Michelle Moratsky uh from uh uh Candy Ohio County Economic Development uh was
instrumental in the uh writing of that grant and uh uh working with you folks and others to uh uh get their items through. Uh Michelle is leaving the organization and going on to an exciting new uh opportunity and I just want to
say Michelle on behalf of uh all of us here on behalf of Candyoi County, thank you for everything that you've done. And uh uh we know this isn't goodbye. You're just doing a uh doing something different. And thank you for uh for
everything that uh that you've done. And uh any any last uh parting words for us or No, I appreciate your time and the feedback and look forward to coming back again soon. Outstanding. Thank you so much. And at this time we will take a
fivem minute recess. it. Are you ready? The Candy High County Board of Commissioners is uh back from recess. And the next item on our agenda is Mental Health Month Proclamation, Children's Mental Health Awareness Day.
Uh and uh we have staff coming forward to uh present to us. And good morning. Please uh identify yourself and uh uh and who you're with and uh take it away. All right. Um good morning. My name is Megan Knot and I'm a social service supervisor with Kandui County Health and
Human Services for the adult mental health, adult protection, and substance use team. Before reading the proclamation, I thought I would provide a brief overview of the responsibilities of the county board as it relates to access to mental health services for its residents. And I don't know, I have a PowerPoint, but I don't know if that's
going to be connected for you guys. Is it in the board? It should be. Yes, I think Leah sent that. So the first is just an overview. According to Minnesota statute 245.466, a local delivery system, the county board in each county is
responsible for using all available resources to develop and coordinate a system of locally available and affordable mental health services. The county board may provide some or all of the mental health services and activities specified in subdivision 2. You can see that below. um directly
through a county agency or under contracts with other individuals or agencies. Um the county the county is allocated funding from grants um to support these efforts and in turn contracts with local partners to support needs in some of the following areas and I'll highlight those here in the next
slides. Um the first area is education and prevented prevention services. Woodland Centers is a contracted partner. We al we provide money is provided to them to be able to provide some outreach and early intervention. um strategies. Uh we also participate in a
local advisory council. I believe some of you guys have also attended some of those meetings to where we talk about and highlight the barriers or things associated with mental health in our in our community. We also and I believe Karin provided this up update last year. But uh just talking about the barriers
or access as far as inner agencies being able to work together as it relates to efforts um involving complex mental health um needs. Uh we uh started a mental health partners group where it involves law enforcement, the hospital, woodland centers, the jail, um
ourselves, corrections just because there I mean everyone has their role, everyone has their scope and so some of these people don't fit into any of the the puzzle pieces or some of them. So we try and have that as an effort as far as how could we maybe work differently with these individuals so that there
someone's being touched or so we just understand what one another another's roles are so we don't leave those conversations feeling frustrated. Um next area is emergency services. So uh funding is provided to a contracted partner. Woodland um centers has a mobile crisis team and crisis
stabilization efforts. They um are of we are fortunate to be able to have them in our community. We are also fortunate to have access to the emergency department with on-site psychiatric assessment availability as well as local inpatient psychiatric units to meet um the needs of uh the residents in our community as
well outpatient services. So in addition to Woodland Centers because they are our local they are a CCBHC um they're a clinic mental health clinic here um we are fortunate to have a variety of options for individuals to seek mental health services um and the onset of teleaalth provides increased
access to services in our communities that would not otherwise um that our residents wouldn't otherwise have opportunities to. We do continue to see a disparity in access to in-person services for individuals for more complex needs. our area. We just don't have um professionals in our area that
can provide in-person care, which results in us having to coordinate, at least the ones that we as the county provide case management to coordinate, and sometimes they have to move because we just don't have local providers in order to um meet meet some of those more complex
needs. Uh community support program services. So, this is Woodland Centers is a contracted partner that provides community support programming via grant. Um and that's allocated um through Candy County. So we in turn and then we work together with them to ensure that they're providing community support
programming. So those are peer supports sometimes not as intensive rehabilitative where they're doing events with um consumers in the community um helping them with activities of daily living um and um some of those efforts residential treatment services. So, um, in this
area, I mean, we don't have, uh, residential treatment services located within our county walls, um, other than the MSHS, that's a Minnesota specialty health system that's run through the state of, uh, the DHS. And that's for folks typically at least in how the
pulse or how things are running right now is in order to gain access to that level of care or that site you need to be under civil commitment uh subject to civil commitment which is a court order um for to get mental health needs but we do work together um with all over
Minnesota there's levels of of care that we are um that's intensive residential treatment those are like substance use treatment programs but for mental health where people can go in in a residential setting to be able to learn coping strategies, sometimes get their medications to the spot what's going to
help them um manage their symptoms better. Um so we coordinate with all of those things. There's also transitional housing. So Woodland Centers has some board and lodge settings. Also UKAP, Project Turnabout, the fortress, the well. We do have transitional services that help these folks that maybe have
need a little bit additional support in order in order to be successful. So that's a great thing. acute care, hospital, impatient and treatment services. Again, we are fortunate to have Rice um Memorial Hospital. We have an emergency department and as they've um changed to centric care, it's brought
an onset of like teleaalth uh psychi psychiatry services, some psychiatric providers that are through their system that provide teleaalth services in our emergency department as well as our um inpatient um psychiatric unit that's um located here. And then for the youth, we
also have the the cabs unit. Yes, I'm more adults. Pardon me on all the acronyms. Um, due to limited bed availability though, we do find that if um, individuals do end up in an ER here locally and they are residents of our county, our inpatient
mental health unit is small. Um, and so sometimes due to bed availability, our residents get displaced to other parts of Minnesota. Oftent times we're seeing the majority of them going to Prairie St. John's, which as you know is um in Fargo, North Dakota, but they accept our Minnesota patients up there and that's a
um psychiatric hospital. That's a large-scale psychiatric hospital. So oftentimes if they can't stay locally here, get their needs met, then we're they're going elsewhere in order to get some of that care, which I mean is fortunate we're able to to do that. Uh regional treatment centers and inpatient
treatment services. So it's no longer called regional treatment centers, as you know, we had over there on the campus there. That's a pretty old language, but that's still what's reflected in our statute. They are um the forensic mental health program or direct care and treatment, and those are things that are run by DHS. Um we don't
have any of those things here locally other than the the adolescent the child and adolescent unit here, but um if we get folks that end up and we're involved with them, there are five CBH locations. So those are community behavioral health hospitals. Those are inpatient psychiatric units that are about 16 beds
or up to 16 beds. There's five of those throughout the state. There's also an NOA Metro Regional Treatment Center. Those are um for individuals that are highest needs. Often those are folks that have um assaulted behavior tied to the criminal justice system that they're
like the the one of the highest tiers as far as as it relates to to needs for mental health. And then there's also the forensic mental health program that's located in St. Peter and that right now is being housed by or it's housing our mentally ill and dangerous folks. So people that are
subject to um civil commitment oversight that has an indeterminant um time frame. Um last one is case management services. That is something that we house here within Kandui County Health and Human Services. The primary function of adult mental health case management is to
assist adults struggling with serious and persistent mental illness established with community services to achieve individual wellness goals so that they can experience safe and meaningful life. Case managers work to assist needs in the following areas: mental health, substance use, social interpersonal, educational or
vocational, health and wellness, transportation, and advocacy. Case managers work with other providers to coordinate to meet the individual needs of individuals with serious and persistent mental illness. Case managers meet with individual at least once a month to monitor, support, refer as clinically appropriate and in
conjunction with goals as determined by the individual. Um, adult mental health authority ensures that there's timely access to care, continuity across service settings, and recovery is or oriented person- centered support. Any questions you guys have
about what I first spoke about? Commissioner B. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I before I say any my questions, uh, excellent update, very excellent, well welled and put big changes since many years ago. Yes. uh but still basically
the same type of services. Approximately how many beds at Rice Hospital uh do we have in the mental health unit and then two questions I'll give you the other one with sometimes with commitments how complicated is that when we end up having somebody on a holder say at Fargo
or something like that. Um so the first question is about capacity bed capacity over um at Rice Hospital. It it changes it depends on provider availability. So, if they have an on-site provider, they can take more. If they have somebody that's more violent, they need to reduce or restrict the amount of patients that they can
have at any one time. I believe right now they're up to, I think, 10 is what they can take. Um, but again, that can change if they have somebody who's a high run risk or they have staffing that's down. They can't take somebody they can't serve patients that are beyond like their client to person
ratio. Um but yes, um that's about where they're where they're sitting right now. Okay. As far as hold orders that we pay for or how like for a commitment pre-etition screens. Oh, sure. For for example. Yeah. Um well, the majority of that I mean if they're on a hold um we
um and I don't know if your question is this, like when they do not meet criteria and they're at a state facility, is that maybe where you're leaning more? Oh, no. My question is doing the pre-partetition screening, then do you have to make a site visit or can you do it by tele? Oh, sure. Video
or um we would prefer obviously if they're here at our local hospital or they're over in our jail and we're doing a pre-etition screening to determine the appropriateness of civil commitment intervention, we do do an inperson visit. But if somebody's in HCMC in the the metro or um Fargo, these are very
timelmited situations. Sometimes we need to do them, we need to turn them around or assess those needs within a couple of hours because of just the timeliness of things. We are able to do those um tellahalth or even over the phone. The court does allow us to be able to provide those interviews that way. But then we're Yeah. Collateral information
are all those things. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Uh any other questions? Um, you mentioned uh case management services and uh maybe this is not the time to bring it up, but my understanding is that there's a
legislation that may uh uh preclude preclude counties from being able to uh uh provide certain case management services through uh outside agencies. Uh and uh Caroline, uh I see you back there
and you're like you're moving around a little bit. Can I ask you to address this a little bit? This came across my uh wire last night. Uh actually yesterday uh and uh the potential impacts of that would be uh uh probably
quite severe for Candy County. Yes. Good morning. Caroline Khan uh director of health and human services for Candy County. Uh to speak to that, it is still an evolving legislation. I believe it went to committee yesterday afternoon. Uh my understanding in in connecting with our partners at Maxa was that was
related to our home and community based services programming. So necessarily within our um our waiver world per se. Um so that would be affecting um clients within that that's are served by our um waiver programming. So not not our
mental health team necessarily. The case management that's provided through our adult mental health and children's mental health is separate from our case management that's provided through that legislation. from a a small lens that would be a significant impact to the community and to the state overall. For
Candy, Ohio County, we traditionally don't contract out for our case management. We do a good job trying to keep that case management in house. Uh we have less than a handful of case contracted cases at this moment. Uh just
because it was more um effective and efficient to contract with a partner. I believe we have four active partnerships at this moment um that would relate and be affected by that legislation. Is that fair? Yes. Uh and and and thank you for that clarification, but uh but that was
uh that was on my radar in case it came up here today. So, yep. Uh any other questions? So, we have two uh proclamations here. The first one is for uh uh mental health. Yeah. And I can read the mental health one and then um Robin who does the children's program
will read the other one. So um the proclamation for for mental health month is mental health is an essential to everyone's overall health and well-being and all people experience times of difficulty and stress in their lives and prevention is an effective way to reduce the burden of mental health conditions
and there is strong research that companionship, humor, spirituality, religion, recreation, social connection and work life balance can help people protect their health and well-being. And mental health conditions are real and prevalent in our nations. And with
effective treatment, those individuals with mental health and other chronic health conditions can recover and lead full productive lives. And each business, school, government agency, health care provider, organization, and citizen shares the burden of mental health problems and has a responsibility
to promote mental wellness and support prevention efforts. Now therefore, the Candy County Board does hereby proclaim May 2025 as mental health month in Candy Ohio County. The board of commissioners chair Steve Gardner also calls upon the
citizens, government agencies, public and private institutions, businesses, and schools in Kandui County to recommmit our community to increasing awareness and understanding of mental health, the steps our citizens can take to protect their mental health, and the
need for appropriate and accessible services for all people with mental health conditions. All right, thank you for that. and uh uh go ahead and read the uh uh other one as well. Introduce yourself first. Of course. Good morning. My name is Robin Striker and I um am a children's
services supervisor. I supervise children's mental health truency and um our family child care and child foster care licensing. Um so the proclamation for children's mental health awareness day May 7th, 2025. Whereas addressing the
complex mental health needs of children, youth, and families today is fundamental to the future of Kandahigh County. Whereas the need for comprehensive coordinated mental health services for children, youth, young adults, and families places upon our community a
critical responsibility. Whereas it is appropriate that a day should be set apart each year for the direction of our thoughts toward our children's mental health and well-being. Whereas each child, youth, and young adult with mental health or substance use disorders
requires a un a unique approach, a collaborative framework has proven effective in addressing the mental health needs of these individuals and their families within the community. Now therefore, the Candy Ohio County Board does hereby proclaim May 7th, 2025 to be
Candy Ohio County Children's Mental Health Awareness Day and urge our citizens and all agencies and organizations interested in meeting every child's mental health needs to unite on that day in the observance of such as will acquaint the people of Candyo High County with the fundamental
necessity of a year-round program for children, youth, and young adults with mental health or substance use disorders. and their families. Robin, thank you for that. And I understand you have an update for us as well that we'll get to here in in just a moment. Uh let's go ahead and take uh
take the proclamations one at a time. Uh would someone please move on the first uh proclamation uh for proclaiming uh May 2025 as mental health month in Cano High County? Mr. Chair, I'll make the motion to proclaim mental health month
for 2025. I'll second that, Mr. Mr. Chair, thank you very much. There's a motion and a second uh discussion or comment. Uh I just want to say that I can think of at least one uh uh former commissioner who uh uh has uh publicly
uh talked about uh uh personal mental health concerns over the uh uh over the years. and and and I just want to add to that and uh uh you know thinking back of uh to myself as a younger man and having to uh uh having to address some of those
types of things. Uh there's no shame in seeking help and encourage everybody to do that and this uh uh and this proclamation uh uh speaks to that as well. Anybody else? Mr. Chair, well stated. Thank you. Well
stated. Uh all those in favor of approving this pro proclamation signify by saying I. I. All opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. And uh let's do the proclamation, your proclamation, and then we'll receive your update. Is that all right? Or would you like to do? I
already did the I'll move on this proclamation for children's mental health. Mr. Chair, I'll second that motion. All right. May 7th. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? gonna make sure that the kids are all right. Absolutely. So, my children's
mental health team um consists of five social workers. We have 57 open cases right now helping children in Candy O'Hay County and we're working on 13 more intakes and referrals just this month. Um so, we get several referrals
coming in and they can come in from different places. We get them from parents, mental health providers, our truency workers, um children, uh child protection workers from the schools. But because this is a voluntary service,
it's important that the family andor the client um are open to accepting this service and sometimes that can be a challenge. Um, in order to receive children's mental health services, um, the child or the youth needs to
complete, um, a diagnostic assessment or comprehensive evaluation, and there needs to be an identified SED statement, which is a severe emotional disturbance statement within that evaluation to be eligible for children's mental health
services. So, any questions? Any questions for Robin on this matter? All right, we have a motion and a second to uh uh proclaim May 7th, 2025 as Children's Mental Health Awareness Day.
All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. And you you have one more proclamation. I have two more. Two more proclamations. Yep. Okay. Do you want me to do the
proclamation first or just a little update on which one I'm doing? Yeah, you go ahead and uh do your presentation. We'll take these. So, um this one is for child foster care. Um I have one child foster care licenser
that goes around and license um any of the the foster providers in Cano High County. And so last month we did highlight a little bit more of child foster care during the child abuse prevention month. So I'll just briefly kind of go through some numbers that we
have going on currently. So currently we have 56 children in out of home placement. Um some of these children are living with non-custodial parents. Some are in residential treatment facilities, group homes, um foster homes, PRTF,
which stands for a psychiatric residential treatment facility, or maybe they've tri started a trial home visit with their custodial parent, but custody hasn't been returned yet. Um but of these 56 children, there are 21 children
that are in um relative foster care and five in a non-relative home. Robin, quick question for you on this. it. If I remember correctly, we were very concerned about uh this type of
placement uh uh a year two three ago uh as being a significant cost uh driver for uh for us here in Candyo High County. And it seems to me that number is lower than it had been in the past. Can you speak to that? Um I I really
can't with you know like past experience since I've only been here for a little over eight months. Um but I think you know what we are trying to do is work more with families and trying to establish more of um a safety network to
help provide um that safety and security for these childrens so they can remain home in their families. And so, um, I think we're we're trying to get ahead of that and working with the families sooner. So, either if they are in foster care,
they can come home quicker or um, you know, if it's in the middle of an incident, we can try to establish what is our safety upfront and maybe avoid the foster care system because we know that kids leaving their home can create
a traumatic event for them. Thank you. Anything more to add, Caroline? Yeah, we have a significant decrease to to speak to your question. Uh, Chair Gardner, uh, last month during child abuse prevention month, we did talk about that significant decrease. Um,
whereas if you notice, we did make an error in our proclamation that's in the board packet where it reflected 150 children. We had grabbed an old proclamation to update and missed that part. And that I think is a is a representation of that change too. Um at the point in time in which that time that proclamation was used we did have
150 children in care. Um and now today we are down to 56 which is shows a tremendous impact and change in the in the way that um our teams are working with families to prevent out of home placement if at all possible. So are you asking us to accept this proclamation
with that edit? With that edit please. Yes. uh we would like to remove the edit. Um we'll read um either a change uh it would most be reflective to just say that we we do have children in out of home placement uh regardless of the number. Um that does happen and our
foster families um whether they be traditional andor relative do step up to the plate uh to meet the needs of those children um and step in and lean into those families. Outstanding. Thank you, Commissioner Dwayne Anderson. So I I missed the breakdown of how you had you
had 56 are in placement right now and then you had 20 21 with relative care and then yep 21 relative foster care and five in non-relative homes. Okay. So that's that makes up 26. Where's other? So I so I said 56 children in out of
home placement and so that's not necessarily foster care. Okay. So, we have different placements that are in our system. We consider them locations, but they're not in this the same home with their families. They're living somewhere else at this time. So, that
could be a hospital setting, the PRTFs. It could be residential. It's just not necessarily in foster care, if that makes sense. Yep. Thanks. I I learn something about this all the time. So, and I just want to thank the people that do foster care. I mean, they really have
a good heart for these uh little kids. So, uh, Commissioner Bur, uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, what the question I have is, is there a problem? Do you have enough foster care, uh, families, uh, to, uh, to meet the need. So, um, you
know, there's been a lot of push to make sure we get we find relatives. It's important if kids cannot stay at home with their parents that the next best step would be find a relative because then that's still within the family unit. Um so we
have been very fortunate to excuse me um place more with relative foster homes than we are with traditional. Um, so we do have some traditional foster homes that are empty right now because our foster kids are typically with their
relatives. Mr. Chairman, if I may just follow, excellent program. I I really think you talk about the money and the cost of the program actually is saving dollars because the next level of care is very costly, but it's the best
service, too, and that's so important and it's a great program. So, uh, uh, hats off to both family foster parents as well as, uh, regular foster care families. Commissioner MD,
thank you, Mr. Chair, and, um, thanks for that explanation. I had the exact same question Commissioner Anderson did about uh, the numbers getting up. We used to do a um oh I don't know what they call it a family night or something like that where we did some ice cream
and cake and whatever with f uh foster families and um both family ones that were taking care of their own and others uh kind of in recon do we still do that? Yeah. So, um what we are planning this year is we are going to um
recognize each of the families by giving them some sort of a a gift card um someplace where they they could maybe go as a family out somewhere. But then we're also inviting them to um the first Rock and Robbins event that Candy County Health and Human Services is going to
sponsor because we'd like to also um recognize them and invite them to that event as well. And my understanding is that uh that sponsorship is coming out of some uh uh left leftover uh co dollars. Uh
Caroline, uh I I had had a question on this and so I know you answered it for me privately, but if you could answer that here, that'd be great. Yeah, it's it's actually um mostly for the our COVID immunization funds that we had had as well as the opportunity to braid in some other supports through other fa
state and federal funding. Um we used that as an opportunity to continue leveraging our message and meet various targets um and an opportunity to highlight what healthy communities could look like, whether that be through substance use prevention, mental health, and immunizations.
um as well as an opportunity to encourage our foster families to come out and have a family fun, family focused event. Um and kind of marrying some of our targets together. Um I apologize. I was trying to give my staff the opportunity to to
be the focal point today. So, uh but as Robin mentioned, an opportunity to to invite our foster families to come um and enjoy some fellowship together as well as have a family focused event that's free and in the community and encourage participation. um with with established networks. Well,
it's good to get in front of thousands of people at uh at one time. So, that's a good thing. And uh uh uh no no no blame to you. I'm the one that's asking the questions that uh uh and and I apologize for putting you on the spot uh
uh on this, Robin. So, so uh our segue here then would be that there is a proclamation here. Yes, there is a proclamation. um National Foster Care Month May 2025. Whereas the family serving as a primary source of love, identity, self-esteem, and support is the very
foundation of our communities and our state. And whereas in Candy Ohio County, there are children and youth in foster care being provided with a safe, secure, and stable home along with the compassion and nurture of a foster
family. And whereas Candyo High County has many dedicated traditional and relative foster families who give generously of themselves to provide nurturing, safety, guidance, hope, and love for children and families in need.
And whereas foster, kinship, and adoptive families who open their hearts, homes and hearts to support children whose families are in crisis play a vital role in helping children and families heal and reconnect, thereby launching young people into successful
adulthood. And whereas there are numerous individuals and public and private organizations who work to increase public awareness of the needs of children in and leaving foster care as well as enduring and valuable contribution of foster parents.
Therefore, the Candy Ohio County Board does hereby proclaim May 2025 as foster care month in Kandohigh County and urge all citizens to volunteer their talents and energies on behalf of children in foster care, foster parents, and the
child welfare professional staff working with them during this month and throughout this year. You've heard the recommendation of staff. Is there a motion uh to approve the proclamation for National Foster Care Month? Mr. Mr. Chair, I so move.
Thank you. And a second. I'll second that, Mr. Chair. All right. We have a motion and a second. Discussion. Commissioner B. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I actually had a quick question for your conversation before. Um, until recent, fairly recently, there used to be a
a kids place in foster care got a a blanket from a quilting uh club. Do they you still do that or not? I am I'm not sure about that. Okay. Or is that still in existence or We do have a um a supply
of donated blankets and and quilts. And if the case manager feels that the child could benefit, some children do come with ample items and some children don't. Um I think we leave that up to the case manager's discretion of of that being a meaningful um item for the child
uh to receive. Okay. So not not an automatic and that the kid would would get that as yeah not not an automatic at this point. Okay. So but they are still available. Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh then all those in favor of the
proclamation signify by saying I. I. All opposed. Motion carries. And uh we have a u uh public hearing coming up at 10:00. So I'm going to ask you or 11:00. So, I'm going to ask you to be uh brief with this last item, the Child Care
Provider Appreciation Proclamation. Um, do you mind if I give my update real quick and then I'll read the proclamation? Really quick. Okay. Um, so we have one family childcare licenser on the team. Um, this year there are 78 providers that are renewing their
licenses and seven new applicants. Um we have a project going on um in Atwater that the construction phase um is just beginning and that will be a special family child care. Um this building will be half daycare and it will consist of
four daycare pods and then the other half would be independent living apartments. Um, we had a we have a wide range of providers with with several years of of service. And you know, as I mentioned, we have the seven new applicants, but we also have 45 of our
78 providers with 10 plus years of service all the way up to 35 years. So the proclamation child care provider appreciation day for May 9th, 2025. Whereas our future depends on the
quality of the early childhood experiences provided to young children today and highquality early childhood services represent a valuable commitment to our children's future. And whereas Kio High County childare providers are serving children so family members may
accept or maintain employment. Whereas the contribution of child care providers to our children's future is worthy of the highest respect. And whereas by calling attention to the importance of highquality child care services for all children and families in Candyo High
County, we hope to improve the availability of such services. And whereas Kandandy High County encourages parents to take May 9th, 2025 to show their child care providers how much they appreciate them. Now therefore, the Candy County Board of
Commissioners do hereby proclaim May 9th, 2025 as Child Care Appreciation Day and urge all citizens to join in acknowledging Candy County's childare providers for their invaluable contributions made to the children and families of Candyo High County. Robin,
thank you. Is there a motion? Mr. Chair, I so move that May 9th uh will be the Candy County Childare Provider Appreciation Day. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll second that, Mr. Chair. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor
say I. I. All opposed. Motion passes. Thank you so much, Robin. Thank you for the work that you do and uh uh thank you for uh in front of us here today. I appreciate it. All right, we
have five minutes uh prior to the public hearing. Uh, do we need another break quick or shall we uh uh do you are you able to take your item? Yes. And I just was speaking with Austin and he's seems
texting me right now. Um I if it's okay with you, Mr. Chair, I can go and then Mel and I can go. Well, Yep. We'll we'll be okay if we can be quick. It'll be it'll be 11 o'clock somewhere. Yep. It's okay for us to start at 10
after 11. Okay. Let's what our attorney with Ricky Nan said. So, if I can go and then you please do. Yes. Kind of keep it rolling. Get it, you know, unless I can do this in four minutes. Right back on. Yep. You
guys can do it. Uh Kelsey Baker, Candy White County Administrator. Uh this morning I am asking the board to appoint uh the North Fork Crow River wershed uh board member uh Bob Brockler. He was
the only one that submitted uh a letter of interest. Um as I was looking at North Fork a little bit before um it covers Pope uh Stevens Candy Ohigh what am I missing? Uh Sterns Mer that's it.
those right Pope Pope Sterns Kandohigh and Maker Little on the northern part um northeast part of the county and so we only had one interest so I would ask the board for approval of Bob Brockler. So move Mr. Chair. Thank you. Is there a
second? I'll second it. Any discussion? I just want to if I may miss M want to point out there's often some commute confusion between the North Fork One watershed one plan and the north fork one watershed. This is the
watershed with offices based in Brutin. Yes. So it encompasses just the north fork of the Crow River. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? All right. Uh hearing none, then all in favor of the appointment signify by saying I. I. I.
All opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. Uh Director Mel Odin. Mr. chair, members of the board, Mel Loen's, public works director. Um, were we thinking just do one of mine or all three of mine? Hit them all.
Are you able to do that? I am, but I am going to take 30 seconds. And we're I mean, they said it's okay if it's 10 after. Thank you. So, you're saying I can talk? Yeah. No, we didn't. We didn't say that.
I know you. Other than that, go right ahead. Okay. No. Um, so the first item I I'm bringing to you is a um quarters of commerce application for project readiness. Now, this is a little bit different than what we've done before, but under the corridors of commerce
program, what they were doing and and a little bit like what other agencies are doing is they're getting projects ready because of all the work that needs to happen on the soft side of things like the NEPA documents, the wetlands, the
the designs, all the things that take more time now than they perhaps used to. So this quarters of commerce application is for a project readiness. It's a $2.9 million application. It it would it would be the two and a half miles to complete the fourlane on the southwest
part of Wilmer. And it's supported by the highway 23 coalition. And it does fit all the phasing that we've done as a result of the bypass project and the um the phasing that we've done on on the county side. So it's my recommendation,
Mr. here to to continue to support that. And as in included in your packet, we did make application, but if the board doesn't support that, we can still pull the application. So, it's my recommendation to um continue the
application and and let it go forward to be eligible for the 2.9 million of corridors. You've heard the recommendation of staff. Mr. Chair, former commissioner Niss would not um forgive us if we didn't uh support this
readiness application. Mr. Chair, I move to to uh accept the recommendation of staff. Thank you, Commissioner B. And Mr. Chair, I will second that. And I live about a mile from that I think area and I can see it across the field. So,
yeah, it's absolutely it's absolutely necessary and uh uh thank you for uh putting that in uh proactively. Uh certainly we uh uh with all of the expansion out at the uh uh rail park now and pending uh it's just it just makes
more sense from a uh uh commerce and from a safety standpoint to uh uh get that fourlane extended. So thank you for that. Any other commissioner comment on it? I was about 12 when this project started so it'd be nice to finish it. We
started more than 10 years ago. Um, so well well so Mr. Chair, the only thing that that we're going to put this in, but there is always confusion in the public because there's a project that was led on April 23rd of this year to do
some resurfacing and and we're detouring on our county road 5. Um the the question always comes, will this fit what they're doing today? And yes, it will. So we won't have to redo something other than a minor connection at the ramp. Okay. Well, I had to run uh home
from uh from here yesterday and again this morning and uh uh gosh, that resurfacing can't happen soon enough. So, uh we're glad for that project as well. Uh Commissioner MD, I would add one other clarification. This is a project readiness application, not an
application to start laying pavement. And we're going to get that. People are going to say, "Oh, they were." No, it's not. But this is the first step in in getting down that road. So, all right. Any other questions, comments? We have a motion and a second to uh approve the
application. All in favor say I. All opposed. Passes. Mel. Item. The next one is last year's uh batuminous work that we did with central Specialties. This um this involves all the work we did out in the rural part of the district. Um we've
or county we um here a few weeks ago we did the Wilmer Avenue or the the urban stuff with with Dunx. Um this project was completed last year on September 4th. It is under bid or it's it's the final amount is under the contract that
we allocated for this project. So it's my recommendation, Mr. chair to accept a project and make final payment to Central Specialties out of Alexandria in the amount of $32,137.71. Uh, you've heard the recommendation. Is there a motion? I'll make that motion, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Dwayne Anderson
moves. Is there a second? I'll second it. Commissioner Dale Anderson. Thank you. Discussion hearing none. All in favor say I. I. All opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. And item number three. Item number three, Mr. chair is our annual bridge
replacement program resolution. Now, this is a requirement for funds through um through most state aid or any application that you make on the federal aid side. And so, you might remember that last we normally do it in the fall or December, November, December, but
then we had that that non-destructive testing that went on. So, we went from five bridges to 17 bridges. That's now on the list. So, we want to revise our our bridge resolution to include that. And so, with you um is the updated
bridge resolution that shows the the additional bridges. It it amounts to about $10.2 million in need now that we have on these bridges. And we do use a variety of funding sources and and normally we use about six. But one of
the things that the administrator and I have communicated with some of our representatives is um the bonding bill is important because we don't depend solely on the deponding bill. This would be about 4 million to to satisfy this
need and our need is a little over 10. So it should be noted that we don't completely rely on one source right for this uh and uh uh in addition to any levy dollars uh
your your le Yeah we we leverage the levy dollars correct. So it's my recommendation Mr. Chair to pass resolution 2025-14 um with the revisions as stated and update the bridge resolution. Commissioner MDE so moved Mr. Sure. Is
there a second? I'll second that. Thank you, Commissioner Mdeck. Um, you said we moved from what 11 to five five to to 17. Okay. Are any of them threatened to be closed as a result of or or maybe the inspection? They they do want to go out
and look at one pretty close to um Commissioner Anderson's on Conro 17. They want to come out um yet this spring soon. um they want to take a look at that one. That's east of Lake Lillian. It's on County Road 17. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. East. Yep. East of four. Okay. I know which one. Yep. So, that that's one that um and then we've also got some township bridges. You know, I think what what piqu the interest is they I think they've got three left
to test of the timber bridges in our county and and our recommendation is to do that just so we know now we know the full circle of what we have the problem and um and they want to come on recheck the one on road 17 which is
eligible incidentally for federal bridge off system. So, we're hoping that we can stay on top of this, but yeah. Well, time is of the essence in uh in some of these as well. You just brought one back online. Yep. We brought two. Well, yeah,
we brought one online and one that was basically should have been closed. It was down to an 8 ton. So, now they're both uh we just brought them on um here a week or two ago. um um 20 ton and third 20 for a single
vehicle and then 32 ton for semi- traffic. So outstanding commissioner um director Odin's also mentioned um you know the uh encouragement of legislators to pass the the bonding bill. I have a
letter drafted. But one of the things that in the past has been a bit of a challenge for some representatives and senators is that it wasn't clean. You know, that things got added to it. And uh it's going to be a skinny bill if we get one. Last year was actually the
bonding year, but if we get one, it's going to be uh pretty skinny. But I think it's going to be really important this year not to let a couple not to let an imperfect bill go to waste so we don't get these projects uh back uh done
in our district. And even if it's not in our district, I'll use dams as an example. The DNR gets a certain amount of money. So we have a dam on Lake Calhoun that is in uh pretty bad shape, but it hasn't risen to the level of of it's like fifth or sixth on the list or
something like that. If we can knock if number one can get knocked off through a bonding bill, that moves us up in the queue. And so we'll get there sooner uh by having a bonding bill. Well stated. Thank you so much. Anyone else? Uh so we
have a motion and a second to move on resolution 2025-14. Last call. Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I. All opposed. Motion passes. Thank you very much. Uh at this time we will recess the uh Candy County
uh board of commissioners uh and we will open as the uh uh uh ditch uh public drainage authority. Yes. Yes. Thank you. You need a motion. Uh need a motion to uh recess.
No, you're right. Well, we still we we still have administrative updates. You can just say Les, but you need a motion to open. Okay. I need a motion to uh open as the
drainage authority. So move, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thanks. All those in favor say I. I. All opposed. Motion passes. Austin, go ahead. Thank you. He's got
Hopefully I didn't I didn't realize that that screen saver was a shot of a the county board building uh meeting. ID is uh signing in. Sure. Mhm. Can you hear us? The
speaker looks like you're muted. Yeah, we're gonna we're using the speaker out there. Kale, one more time. Can you hear us? Can't hear you yet. Looks like us muted.
Yep. But we're going to play it over the speaker. So, mine's just here for the podium or Oh, okay. Yeah. Gotcha. It's kill. Now we got the whole firm there. Kale, can you hear Can you talk once and see if we can hear you now?
I'd have to give it a call and see. Um, does does he have a lot of speaking, Kale? Yes. Yep. Um, why don't we just call him from my phone? Okay.
Here comes it. Here comes it. Well, then let's um I don't know what's going on with the audio. is that was pretty good. Can you hear us now?
And you know, one night Right. But but you do you want to help? Just get just just checking better use. might implode on me.
The city of annual budget one street pretty lean street and then there's a tower's working you just want to keep making some noise we'll see you look like you're Yeah, I think that'll be the next. He's
going to try one more. Okay, sounds good. Chef on just column and let them know. We'll put him on speaker. Hey, Kale. So, I got you on speaker phone here. We're just going to go that route. Okay. Okay. That works for me.
All right. All right. So, we're We're ready. We're ready. Square square sheet square. Okay, let's go like that. Kale, are you there? Yes, I'm here.
Okay, should be ready. Try again. Try again. We should be ready now. That already sounded better. All right. Uh thank you very much and uh thanks for everybody watching who uh thank you for your understanding that uh we're working through technology
today. Uh so we are the Candy County Board of Commissioners acting as the drainage authority under Minnesota statutes chapter 103E for Candyo High County Ditch 10. And this is the matter of a minor alteration or change to Candyo High CD10 and 75th Avenue
Southwest Crossing. This is our bridge number 34520. And uh with us today uh is Austin Hillbrands, our drainage manager. And then uh online we have Kale Van Bugan from Rinky Nunan. And uh uh Kale, let me
turn this over to you. Kale. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The uh the order of business for the hearing today is going to be uh following my brief introduction of what the board's obligations are as authority. Mr. Austin
Hill Brands, the county strange inspector is going to submit for the record evidence showing that notice for today's hearing was complied with as required by Minnesota statutes. Following Mr. Hillbrand's presentation, the Candy Ohio County Engineer, Melvin
Odin, will present his engineers report explaining the proposed minor alterations or changes to the 75th Avenue Southwest Crossing of Candy County District 10. Following Miss Rhoden's presentation, the chair is going to open the floor for public
comment, and the board will take any comments or questions by any affected or interested party relevant to the proposed minor alterations or changes. So, if there are any members of the public present today who have comments or questions, at that time of the
hearing, the chair uh will recognize you. You can come forward, state your name and address for the record. If you have property affected by the proposed changes, it would also be helpful for the record if you identified that property. For the board, as the chair
stated, the board is meeting today in its capacity as the drainage authority. And it's the drainage authority that has to review and decide whether or not to approve the proposed minor alterations or changes being proposed by the county
highway department. We're acting under Minnesota statutes 163.17 which states that the board shall approve the proposed minor alterations or changes upon finding at today's hearing that those proposed changes will
not affect or impair the efficiency of the drainage system. That's for the benefit of the land owners who are taxed and assessed benefits for county ditch 10 happening concurrent to this proceeding. The drainage code Minnesota
statutes chapter 103E also requires approval for the change in hydraulic capacity at this crossing by the uh director of the Minnesota DNR uh division of uh water
resources. the the request for the director approval has been submitted uh as of last week. The director or her design had not provided that uh approval yet, but uh the drains authority can certainly continue with its purpose and
its hearing today. The the highway department would just need to ensure it waits until the written approval from the Minnesota DNR is granted before proceeding with construction. So following the public comment portion of today's hearing, I will help the board
uh deliberate its required findings and then the board has several actions it can take today following the public comment portion of the hearing and its deliberation. Uh the board can certainly continue today's hearing and request that the county highway engineer or the
drains authority staff or its legal council investigate and provide more information to the board. If the board feels that the proposed changes will impact the efficiency of the drainage system to benefited land owners, it can deny the request uh by preparing
findings and adopting an order at a continued hearing. Or if the board finds there will not be an impact the efficiency of the drainage system, the board can act today by adopting findings in an order approving the proposed minor alteration or change. So with that,
before we move on to Mr. Hillbrand to submit evidence of compliance with the notice requirements. Mr. Chair, do you or any other commissioners have questions for me about the uh procedural history or the law that's required for today's hearing? Uh do any members of
the board have any uh questions in this regard? We do not. Austin, go ahead. Hey, good morning everyone. Austin Hillbr manager today to here to talk about uh where the
notice so we have an affidavit of posting notice was posted uh April 10th on the main bulletin board at the kai county courthouse the main bulletin board outside this room um there is an a we're waiting on the affidavit of publishing notice was published in the
west central trainee April 19th the 26th and May 3rd and then the DNR letter that Kale mentioned um was emailed and mailed to director Katie Smith and area hydraologist Emily Wolf on April 14th. Area hydraologist uh Wolf confirmed that
they received the letter by April 15th. Area hydraologist Wolf stated that the letter is in its final steps review yesterday, May 5th. So thank you and uh uh Director Odin's uh engineers report.
Mr. Chair, thank you. Um we have reviewed the the engineers report which is included in your packet uh February 12th of this year. And when we do a hydraulic risk um hydraulic reporting risk assessment,
we we do focus on the four main things. We we always want to make sure it's a good project. It doesn't alter the area and it's going to be safe. So we we do look at the natural stream width. In this case, uh the picture was up on your screen. it. This the recommendation here
is a double 12 by 10. So it'll be 24 feet wide. Uh we are replacing a timber bridge. So we do feel that this matches uh the county ditch 10 natural environment pretty well. Uh we do check it against the the ADT requirements for the over topping. Um under extreme
events, we want to make sure that we we satisfy what we need to against the ADT level guidelines and it does meet the the risk um guidelines. the velocity through the structure is is 3 ft per second which is well below um what we'd like to see on uh the maximum velocity
between eight and nine. So it's well below the the scouring capability. And then the last thing we do is is is the area for flooding and in this case uh the flooding is negligible. Any upstream dis or any upstream um
stage increases is less. It's only 0.1. We can go up to six inches. So, um, my recommendation is to approve the hydraulic report and risk assessment. Mr. Chair, you've heard the, uh, uh,
recommendation of the, uh, uh, of the engineer. Are there questions for Mr. Ogens? Move to approve the hydraulic report. Well, uh, uh, uh, we're going to, uh, check first. I'm sorry. I should have been more
clear. uh uh with uh if there are no questions for Mr. Odin, then we would be ready to uh uh hear from members of the public who would uh wish to comment. Are there any members of the public who wish to comment on uh on this
item? All right. hearing and seeing none uh then uh I I will hereby close the uh public comment portion of the hearing. Uh Mr. Van Broen, would you advise us of our options at this point?
Thanks, Mr. Chair. So for efficiency sake, in case there were no public comments or questions opposing the proposed minor alterations or changes, we did prepare a set of draft findings and an order approving the county highway department's request for the drains authority. Those are in your
board packet. to proceed with approving that request, the board needs to deliberate on the question of whether or not the proposed alterations or changes to the town crossing will affect or repair the efficiency of the drainage system. So, I'll ask if the
commissioners have any questions or any discussion on that question. Uh once any questions or discussions are complete, uh then we'll do a roll call vote uh deliberating on that question. Do the commissioners have any any discussions
or any questions about the effect or the impairment of count? Are there any uh questions for Mr. Ben? All right. Then we would then entertain a motion on this matter. Commissioner Ide. So move, Mr. Chair, and thank you
for the clarification. Uh and this is to uh uh approve the draft findings in order as presented. approving the uh alteration to the CD10 and 75th Avenue crossing. Is there a second? I'll second that, Mr. Chair. All
right, we have a motion uh from Commissioner Mdeck and seconded by uh Commissioner Dwayne Anderson. Is there any discussion? Commissioner Burke. Mr. Chair, thank you. Uh the hearings I have a little trouble
hearing was been going on to some degree. Was there any mention that uh was there any uh written comments concerns submitted? Maybe you addressed that already. I don't think you did. Yep. There was no written comments or any any comments at all actually from
the public on this this one. So, thank you. Thank you very much. So, we do have that motion. Is there any further discussion? All right. We'll vote on these findings and orders uh by roll call. Commissioner
Dale Anderson. I Commissioner Dwayne Anderson I Commissioner Berg I Commissioner Himdeck I Commissioner Gardner votes I we have five A's zero nays. Uh the motion carries and uh uh is
there anything else uh Austin that we need to uh cover in this uh in this regard or are we okay to adjourn? I think you're good to adjourn. All right, Mr. Van Bugen, thank you so much. And uh uh is there uh anything from your end
that we need to cover? Nothing further from me. Thank you, Mr. Chair and board. All right. Thank you very much. Uh and then with that, we will adjourn the uh uh uh public hearing of the uh Kandai County Drainage
Authority. and we will uh move back into We need Oh, I'm sorry. We need a motion to uh uh close the hearing. Mr. Chair, I so move to close the hearing. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll second it. All right. Discussion
hearing none. All in favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Thank you so much. Thank you everybody and thanks for moving us back out of that. Uh we will then reconvene uh come out of recess as the
uh uh Kandandy County Board of Commissioners and uh we are down to that point in our Heading.