good morning everyone and welcome to the uh April 15 2025 meeting of the Kandandy County Board of Commissioners 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 well good morning everyone and uh thank you to everyone who's following us on uh YouTube and those of you who are uh in person today uh we have a lengthy agenda
so we're going to get started the first item of business is the consideration of the consent agenda uh which today includes the approval of the April 1st 2025 county board legal minutes approval of the auditor's warrants and claims uh approval of the human services warrants
and claims uh and two safety grants uh 2025 Minnesota DNR boat and water safety grant and the 2025 federal boat and water safety grant uh are there any of these items on the consent agenda
commissioners wish to pull if not then I would take a motion to approve the consent agenda in its entirety mr chair I'll make a motion that we approve the consent agenda i'll second dwayne Anderson moves and Commissioner Mckex seconds thank you
discussion hearing none all in favor say I all opposed motion passes thank you uh at then we would look for a motion to approve the agenda the only other thing is that we're going to schedule in one
other small break uh between the planning commission and the uh resolution 2025-12 uh in order to allow Austin a couple of minutes to get set up and that'll be a good spot for a break for those of us of a certain age
anyway Mr chair I received a notice late last week that a long- aaited appointment was available to me that I felt I had to accept so at 12:30 today I need to leave so I am going to ask that that we amend
the agenda by removing the report uh from about immunization and uh the public drainage report so that we can con move up the uh work session and continue on that so just to clarify I think I heard you
say that you want to move the uh remove the 10:35 item yeah and and I would ask the indulgence of both the board and the the staffers and hopefully the the administrator can get notice to the people below that that they should come in a little bit earlier if if this uh
amendment is approved so the 10:35 and the 1140 you're uh suggesting that we remove from the agenda correct uh Administrator Baker any comment or guidance
um would it be possible Commissioner and Beck to move the work session just above um right after planning and zoning to start probably to start that at 11:30 yeah if we I mean and then we can move
Austin after the work session i just worry the for the immunization update the staff have have something prepared and it's you know it's not dated material though is it well we do have an event that we want to get the word out for so that would be the only thing if
you would be open to that no I'm perfectly fine with that the only the only question is is that we would then re recess instead of adjourn right right correct yep no I'm fine with that was our work session scheduled for an hour about any about an hour yeah yeah thank you appreciate that all right uh that's
okay is uh is that uh going to work for everybody else on the board okay hearing uh no objection then uh uh your motion uh uh how about we uh have a motion to approve the agenda as uh uh
and amended and so just so I understand if I may um we will move the work session up to 11:30 keep everything as is up till that point move the work session to 11:30 and then I'll let Austin know that he will be after that
so he'll be around 12:30 correct what What about the immunization update we'll leave that that'll be left in there yeah does that am I understanding that to let them know okay m Mr chair I so move uh the agenda as recently discussed and
stated and the chair will second is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say I i all opposed motion carries thank you thank you you're welcome uh uh first order of business resolution
2025-9 Prairie Pothole uh potholes wildlife management area uh Corey Netland is uh uh in in attendance today corey step up and uh let us know who you are and who you represent and uh go ahead with your presentation
thank you Mr chair members of the board my name is Corey Netland i am area wildlife supervisor for the Minnesota DNR so primarily um one of the major duties is uh management of the state wildlife management areas across the county um nuisance animals uh other you
know wildlife diseases other things like that but what brings me here today is the uh potential acquisition of uh a parcel to add to the Ralph Prairie Potholes WMA um understand you have a full agenda i think this is pretty straightforward so we'll just uh get get
right to it I guess and maybe we can save some time here too um so a letter was sent out on uh February 27th i don't I don't want to belabor that too much uh the main thing that I would I would point out about that is um that there are reasons beyond
hunting that people value and um state wildlife management areas and there are benefits there that um are not often easy to quantify but uh they exist nonetheless so things like groundwater recharge carbon sequestration soil
erosion control so there's a list of 11 bullet items there and then the the other item on that would be on a on the second page uh right at the end here i talk about the payment in lie of taxes and this is something that um if if
you've heard me here before I always try to get these numbers and be clear of uh what the current property taxes are and what uh the county can expect going forward so in 2024 the current land owner on Ralph Prairie potholes play
paid uh $772 in taxes on that parcel the anticipated payment in lie of taxes would be 1,665 so we're looking at more than more than double the um the amount there so I know that's a question that always comes
up thought I'd bring it up right away um Mr sure um can you Commissioner thank you can you give us uh for purpose of sort of an orientation uh is there a larger map that shows where this is at there is yeah I've got Let's see here i'll just
clear this space here i don't know which way to orient this but facing me or facing you what works best here okay okay hold on let me All right so to orient you up is
north to the right is is uh is east and where we're looking at here it'd be one mile west of Ridgewater College mhm so there's a the road that goes right by the Ridgewater entrance and everything if you take that straight west for one
mile you hit a T right here so we're one mile west of uh town basically and you know the um apartments and such were we're were built down this way so we're not very far out of town here we're right on the doorstep of Wilmer wilmer
being a a town of over 21,000 people um they want to get out and recreate and this is a great opportunity here and it's turning into quite a large uh habitat complex and it gets does get a lot of use so it initially started with with tract one down here in the south
near Highway 12 in the railroad that's Ral Prairie Potholes over on to the west here is a unit that we call Gopher Ridge WMA so they're really um they're really one habitat complex but we have two different names on the wildlife areas in
the in the parcel uh between here is one that Feeasants Forever has purchased that will be added to the wildlife area so what we're looking to do is further expand that complex and add the area in red here so that's the subject parcel that we're
talking about today uh 900 or I'm sorry 92.4 acres is uh the total amount and it's currently into uh an easement it's a reinvest in Minnesota easement this was Minnesota River crepe acres so they
get the CRP plus the rim easement payment um the CRP payments have uh long since seized I think maybe 5 years ago so they went on for 15 years starting in roughly 2000 so it's been you know 5 to
10 years at least I guess cuz some of those tail tail end ones uh were signed up in 2003 or four so um and then that easement payment was upfront too so there's basically no income potential there other than um what the the landowner currently does is
enrolls it into walk-in access program so they get uh a small amount per acre to open that up to the public so the public does have the right to hunt it but that's not permanent it's on a year-to-year basis so what I'm looking for here is to add this to the wildlife
management area in order to guarantee that right for the public to access it and use it and also to give us the right to manage it because we've got a lot of trees that are are growing on this and we want to maintain good grassland nesting cover so getting getting a
handle on those trees and then also um some of the wetland restoration features are um degrading at this point we've had muskrats that are tunneling through there and that'll create a conduit for water to leave which we'd rather not see we want to maintain those wetlands and
the elevation of them have number of grant funding options to pursue those management activities and then it also makes things easier for me in terms of managing the existing wildlife area because we utilize prescribed burning and um if we include that portion in
with it uh makes it easier and safer for my crew and uh we also get the added habitat benefits on that parcel with the prescribed burning so um we're not looking at retiring any crop land here it's already into a conservation easement so in that respect I think it's
fairly straightforward that I'm looking for the right for the public to use it and for us to manage it and um due to the funding source we we do need a resolution of support for this um we are utilizing rim match dollars that would be money generated from the license
plate sales and uh DNR is purchasing it directly there's no partner involved like Feeasants Forever Ducks Unlimited are often involved in these uh this is a DNR direct uh purchase so and all right uh thank you for that
uh Corey uh any questions for Corey Commissioner B just a question it says this a uh Perry Ples property correct that's correct y and is that Irv it was yeah it was at one time it was at one time i thought so and I I just want to kind of give a shout out and I and
knowing the family as well that they'd be very pleased to see because they're very conscientious over the many many years going way back right about the environment and uh this kind of thing so this is uh this has been a fun area to work on over the years
because when I used to drive to Wilmer as a child none of this was here there was no habitat and now um it's going to be I believe it's 467 acres if this is approved that would be right on the doorstep of Wilmer and gets utilized a
lot um good pheasant populations deer uh turkeys have showed up on the scene in this area uh and then uh waterfall hunting is outstanding in the in particular in the two large wetland basins here um blue teal and well all
the all the usual suspects really so well good i'm glad to follow up to see that i've hunted there as well myself and some pretty long grasses there to walk though yeah and I hope to get to a prescribed burn of this this south unit and we did draw a line where we got a
private lands agreement from the land owners but to make things easier here instead of having this all these corners and and boundaries we are making it more straight um straight lines are most helpful when it comes to maintaining the fire line and um got to have the right
wind direction we are not putting smoke over Highway 12 so we need a southerntherly wind flow commissioner Dwayne Anderson yep so uh my question would be uh just for clarity for me uh you said that that 92 acres paid 772
correct and then now it'll pay 1665 yes that's the projected I'm careful to say that it's projected uh to be that um should be very very close i I don't know it's um it's based
on what is it 3/4 of 1% of the purchase price so we have an appraisal we know what we're going to pay it really should be that amount and then that goes on for I believe a period of five years and then I believe the county um may
reassess the the value of that and and that would change most likely being it's into a permanent um uh protection that way and can't be developed or farmed it would most likely go down but starting out that's where it would be and then it's in Wilmer
Township correct that is Wilmer Township the line is right on this this uh township road here between St john's and Wilmer yep thank you any further questions for Corey then uh we would entertain a motion to
approve resolution 2025-9 uh Mr chair I'll make a motion that we approve resolution 2025-9 mr mr chair thank you uh any further discussion you just mentioned uh turkeys Corey and I don't know that they're very
particular about habitat because we've had them in our end of town over so they they can be a nuisance i know in the metro area it's a bigger deal i don't have many nuisance turkeys around here um there's no wood here to knock on but anyway um
there we go that season kicks off on Wednesday so hunting season around the corner well there we go maybe we can coax them out of the city limits all right uh uh we have a motion a second to approve resolution 2025-9 all in favor say I i all opposed
motion carries thank you corey you have a second resolution 2025-10 uh please proceed i do and it's a lot of similarities here uh again this is a parcel that is under a conservation easement so it's a different style this
is the US Fish and Wildlife Service has a grassland easement on this parcel um I'll get a map up here and maybe the better one is uh a wider landscape view here i have several
this is uh let me see well that's I mean I'll I'll jump to a different one right after this but uh the point I want to make with this larger map here is that we have a lot of conservation lands in the vicinity here
and what to just to orient you we're looking at Sunberg up here in the corner and uh what I've always called the church woods there used to be a church here still a cemetery uh but the the woods in Golden Pond right by Sunberg so
it's off to the uh southeast a little over a mile mhm um and we have existing wildlife areas uh existing parts of Cabin Rock WMA 60 acres on the southeast and 120 to the west and then the other
lands on here are other conservation lands so these are all into these solid blocks are all perpetual conservation easements so Minnesota River Crep uh that that's under a rim easement there was some roadbank um wetland mitigation
type type easement uh rim WRP that's wetland reserve program so wetlands restored and permanent easement there but the point is is there's there's a good habitat complex around here and then even the stuff that's not protected permanently um I can't imagine these trees are going anywhere or anything
like that so um but to zoom in a little bit more on the parcel itself I'll put this one up I guess so the US Fish and Wildlife Service did uh take out that grassland
land easement did the cost share to reestablish the grasses and then also restored several wetland basins within there so the habitat is there but the land owner retain the right to hay this parcel and um continues to do so every
every year and that's their right but what I was looking at is that the habitat value of this is not as um not as great as it could be because we're losing all of that winter habitat there's some nesting habitat in the springtime but then the habitat goes
away every summer midsummer um so from my perspective I was looking at uh trying to maintain that cover through the winter we already have that developing habitat complex there um and so again it's purchasing the right for
the public to use this property and also for us to to manage it and I would um probably utilize prescribed fire and uh potentially grazing is another option as well which uh is highly supported by our
our folks in St paul um logistically it's it's a challenge for me a lot of lot of paperwork that way but uh we are diving into that a little bit more but yeah so so again it can't be um developed uh or farmed but we just want
to purchase those basically those rights so then we are getting that just to be clear we're getting that at a discount we're not paying as if this is crop land because it's under an easement and it's appraised as such um as far as the payment in lie of taxes on this
one we had I think this roughly three times is yeah so we you know well we don't need to show that the taxes in in 2024 were $4152 and the projected annual PILT
payment or payment in lie of taxes would be $1,320 so we're looking at more than three times as much on that parcel all right anything else i think that does it all right very good any
questions for Mr netlin no all right then I would entertain a motion for approval of resolution 2025-10 mr chair I also moved commissioner Dale Anderson moves is there a second i'll second that m Commissioner Mdeck
will second thank you uh any discussion all right hearing none all in favor of approval of resolution 2025-10s signify by saying I i i all opposed motion passes thank you so much
Corey thank you and uh uh this is uh uh I think good process and good use of uh uh this land uh in stewardship for future generations appreciate all of the uh uh all the partnerships that we have
with the DNR yeah I appreciate it um just to say I don't believe that this will be an ongoing trend to purchase uh existing conservation easements these just happen to align very well with uh strategic strategic land asset management to have that larger complex
um it's it's always a possibility but it's also a tough sale for me when it's already perpetually protected so we need to have a very compelling reason to pursue those those parcels and in these cases we did so completely understandable thank you so much thank
you all right okay yep we're going to take just a uh a moment and we're going to move uh two items around since we have one uh uh one presenter that is not quite in the
building yet is that door locked is that door locked no oh okay i just didn't want to interrupt oh okay do you want me now right yep so we're going to move up the uh
uh uh this next item the 945 item Candy County Digital Opportunity Plan and with us today is Michelle Morazzki the business development manager for Kandui County Economic Development and uh uh Michelle thank you for jumping in thank
you Chair Gardner and commissioners um thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today um as Chair Gardner mentioned my name is Michelle Moratsky i am currently serving um as the interim executive director uh our new director starts tomorrow and ongoing business
development manager for Kandohigh County Economic Development candy County has a long-standing broadband and advanced technology committee active for over 20 years in recent years Kandandyohigh County has invested more than $6 million
in broadband infrastructure expanding access to over 2,600 previously unserved or underserved locations making a clear and lasting impact today I am here requesting a $2,000 contribution from
the county to support the creation of a digital opportunity plan specific for Candyo High County this plan will build on Minnesota's statewide model and continue our local work in digital equity informed by the county's 2023
digital equity committee digital equity simply means that all individuals and communities have the information technology capacity and knowledge of how the internet can serve them needed for full participation in our society
democracy and economy the project will be funded entirely through local cash and inind commitments with additional support from the University of Minnesota's Regional Sustainable Development Partnership or RSDP if the RSDP application is approved
a graduate research assistant GR will lead the work during the 2025 and 2026 academic year dedicating about 10 hours per week to this project you may notice that the original timeline listed spring of 2025 after consulting with RSDP
yesterday we adjusted the schedule to better fit the project needs this change also increases the total project budget slightly from two 26,800 to 27,600 while RSDP projects don't require cash
contributions having them strengthen having them strengthens the application and help stretch RSDP resources across more communities in Minnesota the GR will focus on three key areas number one is assessing infrastructure needs to meet the state's
2026 broadband speed goals 100 megabits down and 20 megabits uh megabits per second up and down number two is identifying digital literacy gaps through community surveys forums and one-on-one outreach and third
to develop a clear roadmap with funding strategies and potential partnerships to address those needs confirmed cash partners include the Southwest Initiative Foundation Economic Development Association of Minnesota and
KCED we've also requested support from the city of Wilmer and are exploring other local funding options inind contributions already secured from partners such as clues United Community Action Partnership Wilmer Public Library
the Mini Mid Minnesota Development Commission and the Minnesota Office of Broadband Development we know the county still has areas without reliable service i often hear the question when will I finally get dependable internet at my rural home
this plan will help us answer that and more by clearly identifying where gaps exist and how to close them thank you for this request and I'll take any questions you may have and so uh Michelle just when we talk about digital opportunity
uh one of the things uh is that maybe folks even have access to the uh uh broadband uh uh but they don't necessarily know even you know uh they maybe aren't computer literate or they need some other assistance can you uh uh
talk about that just briefly absolutely uh digital literacy is certainly a concern that we have uh just because someone has access to the internet let's say they've got a brand new fiber line to their farmplace but they've lived there for their entire life of 80 years they may not have a device they may not
know what device to get and when they get that whatever device it is they may not even know how to turn it on or how to log on to my chart or um what about fraud you know um AI artificial intelligence and fraud and all of the
things this plan can help us identify those pockets as well and what steps we can take to make sure people have access that they need or people that are homebound and they want to talk with their loved ones over you know if I mean heaven forbid we have another pandemic
right and we're all home again um not everyone did have access to the knowledge of using those things sure and I know that uh you uh have done some previous work uh in in terms of that fraud area as well that you identified
as as an issue yes absolutely when I was uh with Mid Minnesota Development Commission I actually developed a developed and delivered a fraud awareness training program um for PE for individuals but also for the general uh
business community so social workers came to this training um people from retail businesses came and we talked about ways that they could see fraud happening and how they could approach people um in a respectable and dignified
manner to keep them safe and our senior population is especially vulnerable to this right now absolutely one of the stories I had um was a gal who talked about a young man at a grocery store um he was a a um bagging person and he
happened to notice this elderly lady coming in every day and this is one of in one of MMDC's four counties and he this elderly lady came in every single day for about 2 weeks and she went to the cash machine and left every day he
finally approached her and said hey is everything okay and found out in a short conversation she was being taken coming getting $300 every day and sending it to a fraudster so he he said "Hey let's talk about this." And that kind of
helped well it gave me a lot of hope for our future and people caring about each other um but it really highlighted the need that this happens every day and so the request uh is for $2,000 from the county to be able to uh uh contribute to
this project exactly all right thank you very much are there any uh questions commissioner MD thank you Mr chair and the broadband committee uh did recommend moving this forward but um before I let
you go or before I give up the floor um did I misunderstand or did you say KCED is also contributor on here i I'm not seeing them on the list um yes we are and that that should be if it's not I apologize um so one of the reasons that
this is coming to the forefront of work to do is that KCD was awarded a $2,000 um a $2,000 grant and yes you're right i apologize that'll I'll make sure that gets added on the final application um
they we were awarded a $2,000 grant from the Economic Development Association of Minnesota for an intern and the requirement is that we match that with $2,000 so we have that uh within our current budget to uh cover that cost as
well and it is it's a paid internship through Edom they require that and then I've already gotten their approval for the GR to fall under that category if I may Mr chair I would move this uh recommendation from the broadband committee for the $2,000
um grant there's a motion to approve the request is there a second i'll second that Mr chair thank you commissioner Dale Anderson seconds any discussion that was Dwayne Anderson dwayne you get the right Anderson
you said Dale oh Dwayne dwayne the other brother all right uh Commissioner B thank you Mr here uh just a quick question about the budget that's approximately $2700 you're $27,000 most that'll be going towards
the uh the salary of the in uh graduate research assistant correct yes yes it goes to pay them a salary or wage um for the hours that they work on the program is it more than one then or just be one person that well 10 hours a week that
for the remainder of the year right well what we would be looking for is someone who could stay with us for the fall and the spring semesters of 2026 okay yeah so there is as I mentioned um just an
adjustment on the timeline based on my conversation with uh RSTP staff yesterday okay and it would be great to have the same person that can just stay with the whole project start to finish good plan thank you all right you've heard the request and we have a motion
and a second for approval of uh $2,000 towards the digital opportunity plan any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I i all opposed motion carries michelle thank you so much thank you appreciate it
all right and we will then move on next to uh Minnesota DNR and Candy County agreement term amendment uh Colin Wright uh area 4A supervisor colin good morning good morning um yeah a uh and just uh introduce
yourself for the record even though I just told everybody who you are sure absolutely yep uh so I'm Colin Wright i'm the area 4A parks and trails supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources work out of the Spicer office and I have two things for
you today um the first and foremost is we have the state of Minnesota DNR has an agreement with Candy Ohio County um I I don't know is everyone seen this hopefully you got an email about it otherwise I have one copy it's in our
packet great um we have an agreement uh dating back to November of 2003 for the cooperative management of what we call the county park 5 public water access site in Green Lake um it's the northeast east side of the lake the reason why we have a
cooperative agreement uh is because um one half that access is uh technically owned by Kio County the other half is owned by the state of Minnesota um we developed the access back in 2003 to 2005 and this agreement allows us to
cooperatively manage their uh the operations there i believe the county still does kind of the day-to-day maintenance we developed the site we're planning to redevelop the site and we do any repairs needed the what brings us here today is
that agreement is in it's technically in a renewal status so there's language in the agreement that says that it was for 20 years after the 20 years is up it automatically renews for 5 years until we officially renew it so
um I have the uh amendment to the initial agreement which is this right here hopefully you've seen it and basically the amendment uh is uh concerns this revision to clause five for the term that's extending it to 50 years from 20 years so it's just
allowing us to continue that partnership one of the reasons why we would want to renew the agreement or uh make sure that the county is still supportive of renewing the agreement is like mentioned earlier we're planning for a redevelopment for the county park
5 public water access site it's probably going to cost between $450 and $500,000 so a little bit of an investment for us for public water access redevelopment we just want to make sure that we're we're all on board here before moving forward mr chair I would move I would move on
the DNR request for extension do does it say how many years another 25 uh it's 30 so that brings it to 50 years from 2003 initially 25 plus the 5 years grace yeah y I'd move on the request from DNR thank you uh Commissioner Mde moves is there a
second i'll second Mr chair commissioner Bergens any questions for Cy colin I'm sorry was here can I just make the comment you may um when I got when I received the email from Colin I I thought I wonder if the whole board even
knows about this and so that's why um I think it was a good idea to bring Colin to the board and put the document in the board packet so the commissioners are aware um that this agreement does exist so all I wanted to Oh I just I just I
saw your hand so I recognize several of the names on the original agreement yes and a good agreement and we appreciate what the state's doing and and and I appreciate that you uh asked about this and determined that we should bring this to the board because I certainly wasn't
aware uh of that and so my only question would be uh uh you're going to redevelop this this year but uh folks over at the county park and the general public will still be able to launch their boats from there during the uh process yes uh
probably not actually so construction's planned for we're anticipating construction sometime in August to start so okay my biggest push was you know if we have to block it off you know we should avoid you know peak at least one or two of the three main you know
fishing opener Fourth of July weekend or you know kind of uh Labor Day weekend and so I think you know we're thinking later in the year might have the least amount of impact just so you know um Rush Brown public water access which is the other access in the north side of the lake is going to be under
reconstruction at the same time so acknowledging that there might be a little bit of a tricky time period there where both both sites are going to be under construction but it's got to get worse before it gets better i guess it's just how we have to time things well we certainly appreciate the investment in uh uh in the public water access
especially on that crown jewel of ours over over Green Lake so Okay commissioner Wayne Anderson thank you thanks Mr chair um so when you start how long do you are you hoping it'll I mean what's the window for doing the
construction is it a month is it that Yeah months that's a good question and I think the timeline that we have now um probably sometime between that one to two months pretty vague but um you know weather is going to play a factor contractor availability is going to be a factor this project's supposed to go out
for bid here in uh this spring yet so we should know more maybe early summer late spring and I can uh you know I can update the county too on some things as well if Kelsey's the best contact or maybe we could communicate with that but
uh still a little bit unknown at this point until we get some details hammered down okay all right well I'm just asking so when we get calls we probably will on this one yeah you bet and and so you know to give them an answer that uh you know so they know yeah right and if you
if you can answer it great otherwise if you don't feel like answering it you can sure send them my way as well okay sounds fair enough further questions all right we have a motion and a to uh
uh approve the uh uh term uh agreement term amendment with uh the Minnesota DNR uh all those in favor signify by saying I all opposed motion passes thank you so much Colin and uh appreciate the efforts
thank you just one quick mention to the second part here uh part of the agreement too is the county you know uh you know please look over the plans too if you haven't already if you have any questions let me know but um that's part of our agreement too that you know we both look over the plans but this is
what we're planning on at this time outstanding thank you so much you bet thank you and uh I think uh we have a we have a break scheduled in here but we're slightly ahead of schedule so if uh uh if we don't mind I'd like to move to the
1010 uh item and uh that is for uh resolution 2025-11 authorizing execution of subgrant agreement ace Bonama emergency management director ace thank you so much for being here today thank you Mr chair again I'm Ace Bonama the emergency management director for Kenya
County i brought our emergency management specialist John Gilbertson along in case there's hard hard questions um we're here today seeking the approval of resolution 2025-11 which will authorize us to execute a subgrant with the state of Minnesota dealing with our hazardous
mitigation plan um we are required to update our hazardous mitigation plan every four years fema covers 75% of the costs we cover 25% our 25 takes into account our staff time so our contribution is covered by the time that
we spend on the project there's no budget cost to the county and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have all right are there any uh questions of the board in regard to this request commissioner not a question but a
compliment and off talk off topic just a little bit i read an article recently about the radar gaps and um you know the work that you've done on behalf of that we appreciate that thank you we didn't get the result yet but we're going to keep pushing working on it good
all right any uh uh any further questions there's no uh uh there's no budget impact uh uh to Candy Ohio County just the time that we spend on it yes just allow you to u uh
uh move forward with uh with advancing and updating this plan all right mr chair uh I'd like Nobody else has any comments i'd like to make a uh motion to pass uh resolution 2025-11
there's a motion to approve is there a second i'll second it motion and second for approval of resolution 2025-11 any further questions or comments hearing none all in favor say I i all opposed motion passes thank you
thank you all right and uh knowing that we have a uh full agenda today with the uh uh board's approval I'd like to move the uh 1110 item up uh uh the bid award for uh
state aid project and with us today is Jeremy Feifer our assistant county engineer jeremy good morning good morning good morning yes as you said my name is Jeremy Feifer i'm the assistant engineer at the county public works department what I am here today for is uh to
recommend a bid award that we opened bids last Tuesday for the project for Candy Township it's part of the road in lie of bridge project where if you remember um a timber bridge was removed east of Wilmer in Candy Township and a
grading job of about 3/4 of a mile is going to occur north of where the bridge site is i believe that map is probably in your packet showing the location of that of that site um we opened those bids like I said last Tuesday um there
were eight biders on this contract with RNG Construction of Marshall Minnesota being the low bidder at the $646,80063 the estimate for the project was over 1 million and it was $1,249,851 um so there was quite a
difference between the engineers estimate and the and the bids that came in we did review the bids and all the bids um looked to be um in line with each other um our our reasoning or I guess our guess for the consultants engineers estimate cost was we were
looking at it's a smaller grading job so it's less than a mile it's a little later in the year so we were thinking maybe there'd be some smaller contractors that were bidding um might not have you know the large equipment or all the trucking needed to um get the
job done you know in a a a quick quick timeline um that wasn't the case we did get some larger um guys bidding so it reflects our dirt numbers and our our gravel numbers came back down to where they normally are and not where the estimate was at so that is what our
reasoning was is for the uh engineers estimate and the low bid being you know quite a difference there um the contract here is was budget budgeted for in the uh county public works construction um program and the anticipated funding
sources from the town bridge account um so we're going to be using a couple different sources it'll be the town bridge account and then the special town bridge that'll be used uh for the funding of of this project here um are there any questions regarding the bids or the the project itself
are there any uh questions for Mr feifer um I have one commissioner Anderson okay so just to be clear the township's going to take care of this right or or do we correct you mean when the cost of it is is the cost is coming through the town bridge account so it would be the state
aid what's left is the township's responsibility yeah and there will there will be um that's covering 100% of the of the funding for that road okay yep so the township won't have any any uh no obligation no obligation okay well
that's good correct well it uh we like this trend of bids coming in uh they have been coming in good this year yeah we can maybe cross our fingers going forward oh I have one other question yes go ahead i know it's in my district and but it's been a while since I've drove that area
because it's kind of hard to get at um and clarify for me again I think we talked about it when we met with the township uh why you're not going west like 15th Avenue northeast it's on this map oh it's just
almost straight west of where the project is is there low ground or or what the 15th actually that was the location of this road was was really uh made up from the the property owners out there and
the township board okay and so so that was their decision it was their decision yeah yes and the the uh we did not design the project um there's a consultant on board to help out the township with designing the road um we will be the ones that are inspecting it and kind of managing the project as it
goes forward it'll be the our public works office doing that but yeah the location the design was all left up to the township okay on that one all right thank you yep and so um I guess the county public works recommendation is to award this
contract to RNG Construction um in the amount of $646,80063 we've heard the recommendation of staff is there a motion mr chair I'd like to make a motion to award the contract to RNG Construction Company of Marshall Minnesota
thank you and is there a second i'll second it Mr chair thank you Commissioner Mdeck any further discussion questions comments Mr chair yes yeah thank you Mr chair um just a comment listing all the things that go into the bid process there's a lot of
little details to bid these out and I can understand why there could be some disruption differences in the bidding as much as there is yeah there's there's many bid items in a project and when you have um a bid item with a large quantity it doesn't take a small little price
difference and it kind of magnifies that large at the end yeah I mean there's I I should count them up there's many different little pipes and so forth so thank you for putting that there helps us give a better Uh understand it was all involved as well you bet all right
we have a motion and a second to u uh move forward with the bid award uh for this project uh final call last call no uh all those in favor signify by saying I all opposed motion passes jeremy thank
you all right thank you appreciate you having here and we will take a Mr mr chair before we go on break I have this uh message keeps dropping down on my phone that taxes are due today and uh I'm going to warn you because I learned this the public who's listening i
learned this the hard way last year i put my property tax in the mailbox and the mailman didn't come that day so don't put them in your mailbox bring them to the post office all right very good and uh thank you for that and we will take a 10-minute recess
it are you ready we're calling the Kandai County Board of Commissioners back from recess uh in order to respect staff time uh like to uh flip-flop the uh 1020 and 10:35
uh uh items uh is there any objection without objection then we're going to do that this will be the immunization update and with us today are uh uh folks from uh uh Kandai County Public Health and uh it looks like Chris Wish is ready
to uh step in and kick this off chris good morning thank you Mr chair uh Chris Wenish supervisor with Kendrick County Public Health so today we have a just aformational a bit um promoting and uh
talking a little bit about what our um immunization team does here at public health um and also our child and teen checkup um so next week uh April 21st the week of April 21st is National
Immunization Week so um to kind of celebrate that and promote that um we have um uh came up with a a new exhibit at the village and um where we're uh we're having an open house next week uh
21st on Monday and then that'll uh span the the week of the 21st where we have free admission uh to to the village for for people to show up and um our staff will talk about that here in a minute but um so today we have uh Brandy Gra
and Ashley Klein bry's our immunization coordinator and Ashley's our child teen checkup coordinator and they're going to talk a little bit about um what we do with immunizations talk about the village and some of the promotions that we're doing and I also like to
acknowledge uh Linda uh Linda is our uh CTC program assistant and she's put together um a lot of the stuff that you're going to be looking at today stuff with the uh the village uh exhibit that that we have uh radio ads and stuff like that she's put a tremendous amount
of work into that so I just want to make sure I acknowledge her also so starting off we'll uh we'll have Brandy come up here and talk to you hello my name is Brandy just introduce yourselves and uh go ahead i'm Brandy Graph i'm the immunization
coordinator here with Kandandy County Public Health i'm just going to kind of go over some basics on what we have always done and what we continue to do with immunizations here in public health so Kenyo County has um for many years provided immunization clinics to
uninsured and underinsured individual here individuals here at our public health office um we're able to offer children and adults who qualify um vaccines at a reduced fee um thanks to the Minnesota vaccines for children or
minfc and the UUAV or un and underinsured adults programs here in our office we offer these clinics two times every month um all throughout the year usually Monday evenings 2 to 5:00 um we also go out to different work sites
within Koi County and offer flu clinics during flu season um we work closely with local providers and schools to help collaborate and improve immunization rates um and also assess local immunization rates as well um our next
slide unfortunately we didn't have the most upto-date um information when we got these slides to you i do have a print out um of more updated rates are we able to do an overhead
and we can see those versus the slide okay so you can kind of see here um this graph on the bottom just shows our childhood immunization rates um for um children two years um that are up to
date on their immunizations um in years past we have always been fairly close to the state rates um we're looking here green is the Candy County yellow is the Renville rates and the orange is the state rates um looking at
both just being where CHB with Renville County um our rates have unfortunately in 2024 dropped from 2023 um we were for our full series completion by the age of
two at 67% here in Renville or in um Kandio High County and in 2024 dropped to 63% so a little bit of a decrease there in our um series completion rates the state has also decreased a little
bit i think that's something we're seeing everywhere um so just looking at different ways that we can um help increase those rates kind of talk about promote um vaccines we did offer last
year um we gave 598 vaccines in 2024 to 236 clients here in our public health office so those numbers have gone down a little bit um still pretty significant but just looking at different ways we
can help improve those rates in our county so Ashley will come and talk a little bit about what we've been up to and what we have going on i'm going to ask a just a quick question here so if you just put that back up for just a second so you know we're looking at uh on the first chart we're looking at
Renville County uh as part of our uh joint CHB uh having a substantial increase back to prepandemic levels uh within that uh is what differences might there be that is a good question renville County
doesn't public health themselves they do not offer um clinics other than flu clinics in their public health office um they do of course have a smaller population than we do here in Kioa County um which might make their rates
look a little bit higher as well i'm not entirely sure um what their jump is and it's maybe something we have to to talk with them about too and just kind of collaborate and see if there's any new changes i know they're doing a um a text program where they're sending out text
reminders and things like that i know the clinics here are doing that so it's the local healthc care providers that are exclusively providing correct immunizations in Renville County and here we have both the uh uh local providers uh as well as our efforts here
within public health to uh uh help those who may otherwise potentially fall through the cracks correct that's exactly that's exactly right and that's most of the clientele that we see here in public health is those folks that kind of fall through the cracks especially kiddos that maybe aren't
regular that first chart then covers all immunizations correct and then the second chart if we could go back back to that uh oh the one up above that yeah yep there we go so uh all the way back
in uh 2017 pre- pandemic uh uh there was a almost a tripling of what of what the number is now yes uh but we've seen over uh probably the past seven years or so uh a lot of vaccine hesitancy
uh and you know how how do we potentially get around uh around that how what what can we do to educate folks on the uh not just the uh desiraability but the need uh to make sure that our children are immunized uh you look at
the measles outbreak in uh Texas completely preventable yes absolutely absolutely and that's something that we're working with and have been communicating with um different providers especially Dr marin Ammon our director our medical director here um
over at the clinic and trying to coordinate different ways that we can kind of get the importance of them across um kind of meeting people where they're at too and understanding their hesitancy where that's coming from and providing just a different additional
education um and support and within that and I think um with that grant the vaccine grant that we had that Ashley is going to touch on different things we've done throughout the community that's kind of our hope with all of that as well that we can kind of push back on
some of that hesitancy um and make people feel maybe a little more comfortable and and get those rates up yeah and and and don't get us wrong i think the uh there are some people have genuine concerns about uh uh about vaccines but there's a lot of I'll just
call it out for what it is garbage science being pushed by the uh antivaccine forces out there and it's it's worse than unfortunate um and uh uh you know science used to be the
authority uh actual science and now uh you know people question whether up is down and down is up and it's uh it's really disturbing in this area to me please continue yes yes absolutely i would agree with that and um I mean
there's a reason miso was once declared eradicated and is making its way around again so um hopefully with our efforts moving forward it'll it'll make a little bit of a difference so I'll Yes thank you Mr chair um this chart this bar graph is is
shocking to see the drop it was more than half just dropped in those seven years i'm assuming then that it doesn't go back further than 2017 but uh I'm assuming it was still high through that whole period so that one bar started out with represented the
whole uh where we were before and now it dropped off that is that is shocking it is yeah disappointing mhm but you're getting there though yes change that absolutely we're working on it we're trying mr chair commissioner
commissioner and we should point out if I'm understanding the first gra uh we don't have the one that's showing on the screen right now we don't have here um one that shows the trends from 2020 that it is trending upward uh for Kenya County if I'm understanding it right
correct oh there you go yeah the So the graphs on the slide are not the most recent um so the 2024 one is not the most recent that's why we did the overhead of this one um but they
are we are I mean our goal is 80% coverage we we've always been slightly above above the state overall rates or right even with them um obviously still some some room for improvement and some work to do but hopefully heading in the
right direction yeah going in the right direction exactly i have I have one question so So I'm clear are are these just what the county is giving or is this the county and all the clinics in the county it is um it takes into account um anybody residing
in Candy Ohio County so if if that um the data that we get pulls from Mick which is um an MDH source but those vaccines given at the clinic and things like that are shared with that so yep anybody residing in Candy County
all right go ahead take over hello i am Ashley Klene and I'm a public no public health nurse here and I am the grant coordinator for the child and teen checkups program and so yes in response to your question um we
are we're trying and it it is a problem so we'll go over a few things that we've done in the last year to try and promote well tackle this issue so as you can see this first slide shows a billboard that we created um Linda is
amazing and created this put it together and then we sent it off to the company and it's currently on Highway 23 and 71 we're just trying to do our best to get it out there people need to see this is the norm it's still the norm it
always has been next slide we've also been doing um radio ads you've probably heard Linda and myself um we worked with Lakeland Broadcasting and so we've really tried to focus on the main things back to
school get your shots we did an ad for that in August um then in September October November and December we did an ad promoting flu RSV and CO 19 um we also uh made sure that people knew that
there was an RSV vaccine available for adults which a lot of people didn't weren't really aware of that so that was fun to get that out we also did a New Year's ad just starting the the year off healthy get your shots um go to the doctor make sure you're
following up with your teen child and well uh checkups and exams and what's fun is that we did all these ads in English and Spanish and also we were able to have them air 24/7 so people that are working night shifts can also
hear okay so this is one of them i won't play the whole thing you guys want to hear if you want to hear a little piece of Go ahead oh we're back that's right folks it's
Ashley and Linda again your local public health pros we miss you too and do you know what's right around the corner i do it's back to school time which means you need to make sure your child or teen is up to date on their immunizations because vaccines prevent disease and
it's worth a shot for more information contact your local public health office of Candy Ohio County or visit us on our Facebook page so we've done quite a few of those um and again that is in Spanish as well is that the I just wanted Oh
okay you don't have to play that a your local public health pros did you forget about flu season we didn't think so don't forget to call your clinic or of course your public health department to schedule your flu shot now oh and Linda did you know that there is now an RSV vaccine for adults really yep just ask
your provider for more details oh and one more thing local businesses can even have public health nurses come right to their sites and give employees their flu shots that's great for more information contact your local public health department of Candy County so those little videos
Linda helped make but and you might see them displayed on the TVs around here in the hallway downstairs i think there's one up on the third floor yeah oh next slide so we have got we've gotten a lot of good feedback with those some of the things that we've spent
COVID grant money on include some of these out outreach supplies i gave you guys a few things um those pens note the quality picked out by yours truly but they have our information on there talk about promoting vaccines um we've got immunization coloring books in English
and Spanish and we give those out at our immunization clinics on Mondays uh we had first aid kits made tote bags uh calendar magnets that have the the schedule of of um ages and what
immunizations they need and then stress squishy balls um tissue packs i gave you some of those little Kleenex packs i did add a chip clip and some floss in there because we also do a lot with dental as well even though that's not immunization related but it's been fun because we've
been able to to support locally we've worked with Hansen Advertising we worked uh with Mike quite a bit and just great partnership uh we we give these things out at lots of places the fair when we go to school events kindergarten roundup
um like I said immunization clinics and it just kind of depends on what the event is and so we'll bring whatever we think would be good to give at that time this next thing is a postcard um that Linda created and so these have been
mailed to every resident in Candyo High County so they have a reminder just about the importance of getting vaccinated for CO 19 flu and RSB we've also created some bus wraps that you might have seen on the CTC buses driving around town
that is the same picture that we have on our um billboard if you didn't notice so those um run from November 2024 um until October of 25 so this next thing I'm going to talk about Chris kind of briefed on the
Village Children's Museum i don't know if you you guys know where that is it's over by um was it Giladi's Pizza just a fun little like a whole play town and a lot of other people in the community have donated things like the ambulance
and centric care have have donated old um medical supplies and things like that so what we were able to do is partner with them and we created an event it's called Viruses Out Vaccines in a healthy future starts here it's an exhibit um so it explores the battle between harmful
viruses and the life-saving power of vaccines um it's designed to educate and inspire um this exhibit shows how the viruses spread they affect the body how vaccines help our immune systems fight back um we created it to help decrease this this vaccine hesitancy that we are
seeing in our community um so hopefully we can build some trust up again and understand let people be open to to learning and understanding how they work and their role in preventing serious diseases um so this exhibit was especially designed for kids ages 1 to 7
in mind focusing on colorful friendly visuals age appropriate messaging there's playful characters simple language hands-on activities um so people can just understand the basics basic concepts of germs and sicknesses and how vaccines can help um our goal is to create a positive and reassuring
experience that supports early learning and encourages families to have open conversations um about health and wellness so some exhibit materials that we have purchased include these um large virus magnets kids can play with them just a
fun hands-on educational learning opportunity we have an easel with a toy uh microscope that they can look at uh little germs underneath there and learn um there's kid-friendly images of the illnesses and so the parents can take
their phone and scan that QR code and that that brings them right to um a source that they can CDC CDC can learn more about vaccines some other exhibit materials that we bought uh these magnetiles educational
blocks just things that they can again have a hands-on opportunity to build viruses and learn we've uh also purchased antimicrobial stuffed animals there's a little baby care toy center there where they can play pretend nurse and doctor and give
shots to babies with little toy shots we've purchased a TV and a mount and um then we have myself reading a book about vaccines to the kids and it'll just kind of play in the background it's just a it's just a calming background
environment it's um also there are also other books that we've bought too that they can um read and go through okay keep going here i'm all over the place oh okay so this I'm not going to play the whole thing but this is just a little snippet
of what I meant by reading a book i'll just read the beginning it's kind of like I don't know if you know Blues Clues today we're going to read a book hm which one should we choose how about this one how do vaccines work is that
okay with you great let's get started how do vaccines Okay so you get the idea again I don't know if you've heard of the show Blues Clues for younger kids we kind of wanted to have that
vibe oops was very interactive okay so then okay also note that um this video we there's um captions for deaf and heart of hearing viewers so this is our flyer promoting this grand opening which is going to be
this upcoming Monday the 21st from 4:00 to 7:00 so um we've done Facebook posts on our public health Facebook um that Linda takes care of like I said the radio ad we've done interviews actually with the radio um Bob who does
the morning show I don't listen to the radio that much but I think it's on 10Q 102 asked us some questions so that'll be um airing on that and then Peach Jar is an online platform where we can share community events to parents that are registered in it it's through the Wilmer
school district so we've advertised through that um and again next week is um National Infant Immunization Week so what better time to promote this event or to have it and then also there'll be a couple of us nurses there that'll help answer questions and we'll have outreach
materials that we can give to families and wasting the radio oh yeah we we'll play this for you guys this is 30 seconds this is us promoting this event a new event coming up no what is it it's at the Village Children's Museum and it's called Viruses Out Vaccines in
it's super cool all about how vaccines work and it's hands-on great for kids and adults sounds awesome tell me more the grand opening night will be this Monday April 21st from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m and it's totally free and the best part is public health is covering admission all week from April 21st through April
27th if you miss the opening day that's amazing i'm definitely bringing the kids see you there so that's what we're trying we're trying to promote it'll be interesting to see we also talked about um maybe creating a
survey and um having and and asking members of our community their thoughts on why they're not doing it why they're not choosing to do this you know again it's it's the parents that make these decisions so
we're tackling it as we go and uh uh you and Chris will be on open mic tomorrow as well I understand and Randy and so appreciate uh appreciate your continuing outreach in this are there any questions
from the board good job Commissioner B oh I was just saying good job thank you i didn't want the floor but I want to say thank you and this is excellent marketing it was good to see that yeah thank you all right well thank you
again so much uh for your efforts and uh uh Chris I just wanted to bring you back up for just a second uh it's slightly off topic but uh you were uh uh here a couple of days ago uh uh testifying uh on behalf of not just our local public
health uh but all across the state of Minnesota uh down at the legislature uh is there anything that you wanted to uh update us on that um yeah well yeah thanks um so yeah so uh Representative Baker introduced a
bill for um um in regards to the hospital if if you don't know what that is it's a it's a fee that MDH charges um all of our establishments in the county um it's $40 a year but they they also in statute they uh they charge special
event food stand licenses too so somebody that's uh trying to raise money for their local school uh maybe for sports for their kids basketball game uh maybe it's uh the fire department uh they're always doing fundraisers and stuff so each one of those people that that apply for our special event food
stands uh they get charged an additional $40 from from the state right now called the hospitality fees so you know uh our department um we just didn't see why why they should be charging that money i mean we know what their reasons are but
um we're we're only charging $20 here at Kway County Public Health for those special events so to have the state pile on another $40 fee we didn't see that was right so uh so we we're trying to do something about it so we had Representative Baker introduce a bill to
exempt uh those those special events so those fundraisers and stuff so hopefully it gets some uh some traction and yeah Monday was down there uh to testify for that the way I understand this is that this would have actually impacted you know all the way down to a boy scout
troop looking to raise a couple hundred dollars or someone who wanted to try to raise a few hundred dollars for the uh uh humane society would have had to pay this exactly yeah i mean so I mean our community I mean it's we have a lot of people that volunteer their time to
raise money for for all these events whether it's the you know for the fire department for um you know the Boy Scouts uh a lot of you know to keep cost down for our youth when they're playing these these uh sports at young activ or
at young ages to you know to keep down basketball fees and volleyball fees and all this stuff so you know that's our way to to keep those costs down to so to pile on some more fees uh we just don't see that being right so we're we're trying to trying to do what we can to to
get that exempt well appreciate uh appreciate those efforts because uh you pile on another fee and now all of a sudden you're going to have folks who say uh well it isn't isn't it isn't worth it and they either don't do the event or they do the event and just
don't come to you for the local guidance exactly yeah and we want to make sure that you know these events are safe they're saving they're serving safe food i think we've tried to build relationships with with all our small communities so they come to us and we give them the education to serve safe
food and and I mean our fee is only $20 per event which um you know we try to keep that as low as possible so um yeah well appreciate your efforts on that i uh I didn't give you fair warning at the break that I was going to ask you that
question so thank you for being a good sport and for coming up with that good morning Kelsey and two I'd just like to say publicly congratulations to Chris he's just got a recent promotion to our health protection supervisor caroline was here a while ago i can't remember how many months ago talking about a
public health kind of reorg update and so we're kind of moving slowly through that to make sure kind of we're making those right steps and so Chris was recently promoted and so he's doing well in his new role and he's adjusting well so he'll do a great job and then just thanks to the staff to do the doing the
presentation we do have very creative staff and we're very fortunate to have them with us for this marketing campaign so thank you thank you all right well we will release the four of you and we'll have Caroline come on up and uh we'll move back to the 1020 item uh and this
is uh uh involves a partnership for public health corps caroline hi good morning commissioners uh Caroline Khan i have the opportunity to serve as a health and human services director and again echo Kelsey's um congratulations to Chris he's been a great asset he's actually been with our public health
department uh for over 20 years so it's been fun to to see him grow and and step into new roles such as testifying the at the legislature um after his first week so um that's actually a bill that he helped um formulate and and on behalf of our community so I think that's
wonderful uh this morning I just wanted to provide anformational update of an a unique opportunity that we have through the Americanore uh through a a subset division through public health called AMPACT uh we've been awarded the opportunity to bring on what is essentially a paid internship um I don't
see my I suppose I don't have that plugged in so uh you should have the PowerPoint in front of you if you want to follow along with me um so AMPACT is an opportunity uh it's a national nonprofit managing and scaling high-quality Americanore programs one of
the first programs was the reading corps in 2020 uh 2003 um it focuses on education and healthy futures and it's one of the largest Americanore grantees um it has been something that AMC has provided education and opportunities on
um through different areas to try and encourage public health departments to utilize this uh free resource why is public health communications important i think it was important for you guys to see the opportunity from our team previously because without the co 19 grant that we had at that time we would have not had
the capacity to do the marketing um that you saw this team put together um our foundational responsibilities as a public health department are to carry out uh areas of responsibilities that must be present in every found or every
public health department throughout Minnesota you've heard me talk over the past two years in relation to the systems transformation within public health uh what I haven't talked about and I'm going to steal from our neighbors is the eight blue boxes and those are our foundational capabilities of assessment and surveillance community
partnership and development organizational competencies policy development and support accountability and performance management emergency preparedness and response equity and communication those are the eight blue boxes the foundation of which our public health department should be built upon
uh previous to my joining Candy Ohio County we went through a a cost and capacity assessment uh which indicated that communications was an area in which we did not have a robust capacity to take on what we have is the opportunity for our staff to take on certain initiatives that fit within their
current grant work related to that grant funding that we had at that time our grant they were able to take on immunization marketing and outreach in new ways that previously wouldn't have been available to that scope um what this opportunity with AMPACT would be
able to bring on an Americanore member or an AMPACT member to serve um our our local public health departments uh in the communications area this would be areas um that are also essential component of our community health board
strategic plan um and meet that limited capacity need for our consistent and clear communication and to be able to be responsive to community needs as they arise they'll help share critical health information engage our communities and highlight program impacts the role of
the Americanore member is to enhance our communication strategies support our internal and external messaging take on unique uh projects such as immunizations there's currently a a national trend of mothers diluting their formula and using
three ounces of water instead of two and like not understanding what the dangers of that can be for their children currently we don't have the capacity um within our current grant structures to take on spaces like that will we do it yes but having clear and consistent
individuals to carry that message forward is a capacity we don't currently have um they also can act as a bridge between our public health initiatives and the community some of the key objectives that will have this impact member focus on will be increasing our
public awareness supporting our social media and newsletter and digital platforms enhance our internal communications uh templates and different program updates and our messaging tools and to help us build sustainable communication strategies and improve our community engagement having
somebody that that is their focus and their training to take on we are blessed with an incredible team that has unique skills and creative abilities but they also have job responsibilities that they must take on too so we just add like hey we have to do this so will you help out
so this would be somebody that can help kind of steer that in a consistent um manner as well and and provide that additional support as a host site we will be responsible for providing training and oversight and equipment being a supportive environment and
provide clear division um to ensure efficient operations ampact will be responsible for supplying the stipens for this individual supplying health insurance and access to um different member assistance programs educational awards potential child care assistance
that's all handled through AMPACT as the ho as the partner we are just the host that helps provide the experience and the learning um and some site supervision which we thanks to the foundational capabilities um grant we are able to provide that site
supervision under um our foundational uh health responsibilities grant our impact and our outcomes we're striving to have stronger community engagement continue efforts like you just saw into the future and in new ways to address other community needs uh
maintaining our focus on immunizations as that is also a key component within our community uh we'll aim to inform more residents and stakeholders re-engage our stakeholders after COVID things just got rep prioritized and now it's time to
come back and and carry that torch further and re-engage with our community which we've had really positive uh results with so far and we'd like to continue further also hopeful to engage this person with some of our opioid settlement funds um and community
conversations related to that work um so I'm excited for the opportunity we were given the the grant award to to welcome an Americanore member uh to Candio County Public Health for a year time this will be the last time that that guar funding is guaranteed there if that
funding continues there would be the opportunity to reapply for an additional um some local public health departments have had years of AMPACT partnerships our partner in our CHB had a communications focused uh um impact member just about a year ago and had
really positive um results with that experience and we're excited to to take our turn too so any questions commissioner Anders so uh so because you're getting this grant now or you have it already is it we we were awarded
we got an email uh this week saying that we were awarded the opportunity to welcome a member okay and so if you wouldn't have done it now you wouldn't be able to do it like say next year no no next year because you did it now you can renew it no because we did it now we'll be guaranteed for a year
opportunity um at that time it depends on if that funding will be remain available within that program to apply again okay but you would be able to if if it's there yep we could but if you didn't do it now you wouldn't be able to next year is that Yeah it's not guaranteed to be open next year for
funding so right now for new funding or whatever yeah for or sustained funding so it's like an in any internship it's a it's a time bound experience um to provide education and and experience for individuals in their educational uh process with that um or recent graduates
with that uh public health experience while also helping us leverage our communications foundation okay and then how much was that grant so it's not really a grant that we will receive what we get is the individual ampact will pay a stipend of up to uh
$1,275 every other week to the member uh they also provide educational awards up to 73 n $7,395 they might they also have opportunities for federal student loan forbearance different um health insurance where they pay the premium so
that's all handled outside of Candy Ohio County we have no financial responsibility or ties to this member in that regard okay and then if you like the individual when this expires you'd be have an opportunity maybe to hire them for some Well that depends on my board of commissioners okay but no
that's not where we always have people leaving but what we're hopeful to do is is is to this is a new experience um we know how to do communications but we haven't had the opportunity to have somebody have that be their primary focus and help and help leverage that
further uh what Renville County had was the experience of how beneficial that was to their programming so they recrafted an existing position to make that possible um it might be something that we look at in the future but right now we just want to take this as a learning experience for both our member
and for us and to keep our our our responsibilities to our community moving forward as we should commissioner B uh thank you Mr chair um any idea when this will actually take place when they will uh we can start recruiting for a member immediately if
we'd like so as soon as we hire one well so they do the hiring so we can send members to them they do that interview process they will talk to us as the host site about what we would are looking for what we'd like uh review candidates with us prior to make to make sure we're an
appropriate match um but they handle that part um so what we'll do is we'll help say hey this isn't an impact experience if people that candy county will have a host so we can send say individuals that applied for other positions with us and maybe we um went a
different direction based off other experience we can say hey this is a new opportunity you could apply for that and and potentially still join our team in a different way i just may follow up so this the clock starts ticking or the the year we get is once we hire the person
then it's not the calendar year type of thing excuse me to uh to my knowledge that is how it works okay thank you sounds good any other questions commissioner Thank you um and again just because of everything that's in the news every day
about about uh funding both from the state and the federal government um can you or maybe you plan to uh provide us with the uh fiscal note regarding the providing of training oversight and equipment so the pro the equipment is
equipment that we currently already have within our department so we'll just be loaning that equipment so it matches our technology needs uh to for this individual and the training and oversight that we provide we can now code that individual's time to our foundational public health responsibilities grant so the fiscal
note actually should be a levy positive because that person's is a role currently is levy and now we'll be able to assign or code that time to a different grant so a lot of our time in in public health is coded to different grants by 15minute increments so
Commissioner so it won't be a new staff position it'll just somebody who's on staff and the resources we already possess will be utilized and deployed appropriately so and this uh to piggyback upon uh what Commissioner
Mdeck alluded to uh public health is under attack uh there's no other way to say it uh at the federal level and so if we're going to do these foundational public health responsibilities and do this public health transformation like
we've been working on for 20 years uh and we need an update because it's been over 50 years since there's last been a real transformation of public health within this state uh we're just going to have to do more with less for right now
and unfortunately that's that's kind of the way uh uh that we see it and uh you know uh you know spending some time in this space uh uh as as as part of my duties uh this is this is highly concerning to all of us uh who care
about uh public health in general i I I can hear your concern and I think the the the highlight is is public health uh personnel has always been working with more with less for 20ome years so they're the experts at it they
know how to still get the job done with limited resources and be and be savvy about bringing things and opportunities in to help um achieve the goal without um big asks so I would just uh remind uh
everyone here and uh out there as well that uh our public health department among others within this uh uh within this organization literally saved lives during the pandemic uh and and make no
mistake about it uh this is uh such a highly important uh uh piece of work that we need to uh continue emphasizing within our organization as well so any other
further questions for director Khan all right well thank you well I hope to see you all on Monday to 7 all right and Okay I did check that off already we are at the 11 o'clock item actually and so
we'll call to the podium Gary Gear our environmental services director in regards to a landfill uh contract award thank you Mr chairman yes Gary Gear Kenya County Environmental Services Director here this morning with the agenda item for the award of the
landfill contract for phase 8A 8B I'm sorry for 2025 and it is including the MSW uh cell construction which includes clay borrow from neighboring property
and the uh of course the inclusion of all the leech eight collection treatment underneath the cell and then the liner compacted clay poly liner and then MSW on top of that is the ultimate uh how the landfill construction proceeds uh it
includes an east access road which is uh just development and grading uh to make it accessible for the compactor to go back and forth without having to go across any asphalt or anything it's the steel wheeled compactor for the landfill work uh the access ramps of the litter
fence extension um and those with those items the proposal came in at1,796,47320 which is about $125,000 under the engineers estimate so I'm kind of happy to report that or see that that that's a a good thing to see
uh and so with that staff would be recommending along with our engineers F engineering recommending the county board approve this contract today you've heard the recommendation of staff is there a motion
mr chair I'll also move i'll second that mr chair there's a motion and a second to approve the recommendation of staff questions comments commissioner Anderson yeah so it was under the estimate by how much was that again $122,269.80
thank you you bet Mr yeah and perhaps it could have even been uh less than that if we really only borrowed that clay instead of buying that clay from the neighbor yes sir commissioner Dlanders I I drive by there
every day and I just want to say that extension of that fence will be will be great i mean I feel sorry for whoever has to go and clean up what's against the fence this morning but with the northwest wind that fence definitely is worth the money and the and the time that was put in to build it there is no
garbage in the road ditch and I think that's a great thing that we've spent that money on it it is an overwhelming task just for to work uh to start at that south end on the inside of the fence now because it's all in but the the good thing is it's all in one spot helpful
any other questions before we vote hearing none all in favor of the award uh signify by saying I i i all oppose fine motion passes thank you all right Gary I understand since we have a minute I understand we made the news yesterday
oh boy i haven't heard the news yet oh uh in regard to the Lee uh okay did it come out good oh it did well it got up by WCCCO oh okay good yes uh I found out yesterday too apex was the company that was originally you know contracted with
the county to develop and implement and uh the leech treatment collection system and uh it's been I want to say almost a year and a half now since we've trucked anything so we are treating all the leech um it's not to the percentages of
permeate and concentrate that we were originally kind of hoping for we're kind of uh 50/50 for percent of uh permeate uh is the clean water effluent that comes out of the treatment facility and then the concentrate is the thicker
sludge that comes out and that we collect and we uh honeywagon back up into the working face of the MSW cell so while the it that makes a little more work for us because there's more concentrate to haul but we are uh I think ahead of the curve of a lot of the
way uh landfill law is being uh presented to us by the state uh as in regards to I should say we're ahead of the curve because we're already operating uh we hope to only get more efficient um but because other landfills
are going to be mandated to have on-site treatment in the near future and we're already there so and and and this is and this is something that uh was started uh more than five years ago yes correct 2015 was uh 2014 contracted and 15 uh
operational sure okay commissioner Anderson yep thank you commissioner Mck so you said we haven't had to haul anything out for like a year and a half off off site to get treated so even last year we had quite a bit of rain last spring and summer that that you were able to keep ahead of that we were able
to keep ahead of that yes so that's good and um weather point oh I I think just Ryan Batton is our landfill superintendent up there and he just does a terrific job and we've done a lot of storm water improvements too that
historically we didn't watch or monitor quite closely enough so because storm water we don't have to treat as leech 8 but as soon as any kind of rainwater or storm water comes in contact with any MSW then we're collecting it capturing it so we've really done some grading and
burming and work to minimize rainfall events etc to being having to be calculated into and countered as lee so that's helped us too but we were able to keep up during the so we were we were able to keep up during the rain last year that's good
yes commissioner thank you Mr chair um so when I was asked I'm out there yesterday when WCCCO was out there because I was there 15 or in 2015 um when we started it and one of the questions I got and couldn't answer was
uh you know when we as a board at that time did the collective gulp on what our investment would be what was that investment if you recall um the initial the initial was I think 3 something okay
million is what was originally and then we have added to it a couple times as we've made adjustments to the system so we we're at more than that but we are operational too so and and as I recall
um what really drove this um and I think what pre preceded you Jeff Redberg I think was here at the time was that there was some threat that um we would would no longer be able to bring our wastewater water treatment to the treatment plant here in Wilmer because of the chloride levels and that's kind
of what got uh them looking at some alternative ideas uh and then of course the uh that was a need and then uh we had hoped that an outcome would be that we would stop spending the money to haul that correct uh water and it looks like
we finally achieved that this past year we have achieved that um and one of the things we've been waiting for for a long time is a standard operating permit from MPCA is there any update on that we Yes we're we're going to work through
uh they have been holding off our issuing us or or wanting us to even issue us a new permit for the landfill itself we're still operating under the permit that was originally issued in I believe 2014 and because they've wanted us to not
renew that permit until the demonstration research project which is our lead PJ treatment system we're under that permit they were wanting to put us all under one umbrella and get the demonstration research project permitted under our facility now the state is
saying they're going to they're able to separate the two and hold off on that so we're hoping to repermit this year the facility and then bring the demonstration re project on when we want to which is I I think a benefit to us
yet to hold off on that because as as soon as we become permitted if we have a bump or a spike in one of the uh sampling reports then we're in violation of the permit so as long as we can maintain it as a separate until we are confident we're not going
to have that that hiccup uh and be in violation of our permit then uh so I'm probably speaking in circles but we have we have a permit to re repermit this year for the facility and they're going to allow us to
uh work with them as to when we would then ultimately bring the demonstration research project under a permit and do we have a goal for when that might be once we understand that the hiccups are uh not going to happen
i like two years a year yeah I would we've been a year and a half of operation right now without giving it uh but we've been we've been above some of the the standards in the sampling reports so that's what we're trying to get a comfort level with
and I would say two years because we always we also want to leech aid is really uh temperamental in temperature as well so it depends upon winter or summer whether you're meeting the parameters or not too and when you might see a spike
or after a big rainfall event that uh oops we just have too much flow we're able to treat it but maybe we had a spike in XYZ analysis so we're trying to get our comfort level so that we can come to the board and say and that you
would be comfortable to approve coming under this permit so and not have a vi we what I'm concerned about is having a violation that we don't want to deal with right thank you Commissioner and um one of the one of the challenges we had with it
was maybe viewing it as a goal post being moved a little bit when they then added the boron requirement which uh we have dealt with um it was expensive to deal with it are you worried about any other
uh future um requirements that the the biggest requirement that I think that the state is uh trying to balance and get a handle on too in a lot of other aspects is is of course POS we all hear a lot about that uh our treatment facility treatment le treatment system
is treating all of the POS and we're capturing and retaining those on site so they're people reviewing this and engineers studying it are excited about that that this technology is working to capture the POS the the boron is the one element yet that we still struggle with
with getting over the intervention limits and what we're trying to do is the the intervention limits are uh drinking water standards and then so that that's an incredibly high standard uh to meet for discharge
so I think that will be talked through with legislators andor the MPCA as well to try and get us what they're what I'm understanding is they're looking to try and get a sight specific standard for us and and for individual landfills just
based on historical data of what their uh waist stream looks like so um I think if we can get a sight specific standard that'll really help us feel comfortable in ultimately getting approval and if I just uh could follow up on your comment
about PAS uh the forever uh chemicals uh as most people know they came from from products that protected clothing and and furniture coverings and your teflon or stick free pans and other things um fire
returns uh they are all the rage right now in terms of the concern for for the chemicals in 2015 when we um thought about this project or it was proposed to us uh PAS while certainly they existed uh was not uh on anyone's radar and the
current uh method now is that a a leeate that would be hauled from an untreated landfill um gets hauled to a waste treatment plant gets diluted down to the point where okay now you've met the standard because it's just dilution is
the solution and uh it's still there it's just uh got diluted this one when if we were hauling water to the Wilmer wastewater treatment plant uh the the leech it there wouldn't be any um PAS in
it PAS in it correct and that's the plus right thank you uh any further questions mr b thank you Mr chair uh initially I was just going to comment that we do have a movie star in our presence i watched the uh the WCCCO uh uh
commercial about this on on the news last night and I saw Commissioner MDAC on there it was about a one or two minute uh uh news story about Candy County in the landfill and they did an excellent job of that and I think we're just really breaking ground here can you
just give a little bit of history if if I attended the groundbreaking back when we first installed that um that were we not one of the first uh uh sites in the United States doing this kind of filtering
we we were um initially and I I think Apex would probably still say we put you on the spot i'm sorry the the the technology has changed a little bit midstream from you know single pass to multi-pass through there so it is a an
RO treatment system uh but yes first uh is it's significant that the technology we have in place and the treatment that we're accomplishing and it says a lot about our commitment to our environment exactly
all right well thank you for that and uh uh did we vote yet yep we did okay all right well Gary thank you so much and uh we do have a request for a 5m minute break so we'll take that at this time it are you ready ready
candy High County Board of Commissioners is back from recess uh we're at the 1020 11:20 item planning Commission recommendations eric Van Dyken our zoning administrator eric good morning thank you Mr chair members of the board
eric Van Dyken County Zoning Administrator here um before you today with a couple requests um glad to be back with you after a couple months uh absence as schedule uh dictated for me so actually my first time addressing um
Commissioner Gardner as chair so glad to be here with you um the two items that are in front of you are action items they come from the planning commission um commensurate to their meeting of April 7th the first is a um action
request on a conditional use permit from Justin Anderson this land is located in the far northern reaches of Canui County west of Highway 71 in Kfax Township um
the proposal here is for a feed lot at just under 1,000 animal units this will be a beef feed lot a total confinement facility um the applicant proposes kind of a three-phaseed uh proposal phase one
that would go up um I would say directly um phase two that is planned for hopefully in the near future and then phase three that's perhaps a little bit further down the road um hoping for an option to expand for family purposes down the road um each of them being um
total confinement the um uh county feed lot officer Russ Hilbert was able to provide some insight at the hearing and had a letter of review i've since um been understanding that Russ is starting to get some more information some of the preliminary plans and stuff
that he will have to approve before this this feed lot is um ultimately um permitted under under state permitting guidelines and so as is typical you'll see the conditions um draw in those state permit requirements or kind of
attach ourselves to compliance with the state permitting as is as is typical for us on feed lots in particular and so the planning commission in this matter does recommend approval um with four conditions and the findings as you see
um in the draft minutes and before we take this matter up uh I want to give the floor to Commissioner Dale Anderson yeah Mr chair I will not be commenting or voting on this i have a conflict of interest thank you for that Mr chair uh
Commissioner B yes I just want to make a note i guess I'm a little concerned it was on our time frame for 11:20 i'm not sure uh we have two of these uh concerns coming up and that uh some people may have wanted to attend the meeting today
so I'm a little nervous that we're moving forward in case other people wanted to be here even though they probably won't be speaking but to be present uh yeah I think uh I think two items uh and correct me if I'm wrong Eric but uh uh
we have the ability as a board to move uh items around on the agenda and two this isn't actually a public hearing correct that's correct there'll be no public hearing today and I would defer to administrator Baker on the flexibility of the of the board's agenda
certainly it's been my um historical um interaction with the board that we we do kind of move up and down based on uh um usually at the planning commission level what the what the chair there says is that um items you know can can move up or down a little bit on the board agenda
commissioner B thank you Mr chair yes I'm quite aware of this this is not a public hearing just that we have uh I believe other commissioners as well receive communication and phone calls concerns about these and uh I uh being as open as we can I would just like to
if we would be able to wait to see if anybody shows up or be on time on this one but I just want to express my concerns but legally or technically you're correct thank you for that um and so what we are to consider uh primarily
is the testimony then that was given at the conditional use hearing yes that's correct the record as is set um through the through the process including public hearing that's correct because as uh Commissioner Berg indicated uh I would imagine most if not all of us have
received some uh uh other communications uh uh from folks out in the general public and uh we are we are aware of that but uh uh in order to uh process a cup uh we have to go by
what's on the record yes that's correct okay any questions or comments on I I have a question Commissioner Anderson so when I'm looking at this I see a map but I don't or I overhead or aerial photo um
but I don't see where it's being proposed on the location okay do you have any idea yep i can uh I can give you a little So usually with these applications I'm always asked to give a kind of a general um vicinity map um and
I can highlight for you on the with the overhead uh camera here the the kind of the three phases they're actually nicely colorcoded and um there is one uh property line question in here that I can I can update you on as well so here
is um here is the site in question the um uh you'll notice way on the far over here this is Highway 71 coming up and down and then this is the drive the drive in right here this is the main farm site as it's been operating back
towards some of the grain storage and feed storage area here the number one here is you see is the first phase of the barn the um this is where the cattle will be located and down here will be a combination of um stacking slab manure
storage and what what the applicant is referring to as a kitchen which is maybe just a little different we don't think of cooking for cows but um um what he's proposing in there is actually a robotic feeding system so this system will mix
and feed and measure um feed for for the cattle so pretty pretty neat um pretty unique proposal then phase two would be a wing um or another barn coming off this way that that same robot could could service and phase three would be a
little further to the north here all right and any other questions so uh Commissioner B yes i'm I'm a little concerned about this and some of the information we received and my concerns would be I just want to share it with the board as well as you well aware of but that we should
address this once more that uh the person there's somebody lives within about a quarter mile of there am I correct no the all sites exceed the quarter mile setback so we wouldn't it wouldn't be approved by the planning commission or
recommended for approval by staff if if a setback was violated so how close is the closest person then um the closest is the closest site is going to be to this direction and um a quarter mile
probably comes more somewhere's somewhere in here perhaps I believe um so a ways away from the so yeah we always we always measure all those setbacks and of course GIS gives us great um access to be able to do that with a high degree of um accuracy okay
the the concern I received would be that as you're probably aware of that concern too that uh that there was other uh uh uh sites around there that created a smell let's put it that way and this
would be the third type of uh one and it was close to them and they're really concerned about that and it affected them being outside already um and so they're think their their quality of life is being changed because of that that's that's you know and you already
took testimony but I just wanted to was that a concern did that ever get brought up or anything like that yeah thank you Commissioner Berg uh certainly that was part of the testimony at the at the public hearing and explain it better than I can yeah part of the planning
commission discussion um certainly did acknowledge that um you you had various testimonies um of people on on the planning commission that acknowledged hey you know I might have grown up in a similar situation i've I've smelled some of these things myself there was a general acknowledgement that we do um
recognize in our zoning that in agricultural areas we will experience agriculture um and so what the what the zoning ordinance does is it says in egg areas we have certain levels of agriculture and when we when we go above
certain levels we will be a little more well ask a little bit more of a producer so in this instance we're saying you have to be located a certain distance beyond that um when we when they meet that the practice and the the inference from the zoning ordinance is that we
believe it to be an acceptable level of disturbance in an agricultural area that we do acknowledge there is some disturbance when we raise animals when we operate machinery all those things that come with agriculture um but those are expected and considered broadly
acceptable um in the district and so the plan commission did acknowledge those those things thank you Mr chair so you you do then you are saying there are two other uh uh areas or farm hog places for example
that could uh impact and so if there's a possibility of three places that's still acceptable then is that living in an egg area i mean it's kind of a gray area for me and I can kind of understand their concerns but you're saying that's acceptable
well thank you Commissioner Burke so according to our ordinance is acceptable it's so for me it's not a personal judgment whatso whatsoever and our our ordinance does not have a density limitation on on um feed lots so it doesn't say you know x number in a township will be enough or too much or
whatever um the county has historically had matter of fact there is times when the county board has passed and still has in effect in its history what's called an um livestock friendly um named itself to be a livestock friendly county
and so part of that um that livestock friendly approach is to say that we welcome livestock production and we generally treat it as something that um is a part of the community that we don't
just tolerate we actually value and so with that there we don't we have not adopted at the county level particularly stringent like feed lotto feed lot setbacks or density limitations that say if you get this much in an area you you
aren't allowed to have anymore okay commissioner Anderson yeah so um on your on your drawing or whatever that you have there uh I can see phase two and phase three they're 350 by 70 um phase
one is is that the same dimensions or is it uh smaller bigger i can't really see the one number I 70 but I can't 304t the width is the same at 70 and the the length there is listed at 304T okay and is that including that one cement
slab or whatever you have on the on the right side there um or is that that no that's extra that's that's that's extra so that if you see it look at the top there it's it says uh that's 50 feet so and these plans are a
little bit subject to potentially change so for the planning commission the overall what they're weighing and balancing isn't necessarily what's an exact dimension of a barn but does it meet standards um is it above the 300 animal unit threshold does it meet all the other standards and then the the
pollution concerns historically that we have we have not layered on top of what the pollution control agency requires on these so one of the big parts of Russ's testimony is that he has checklists for um the barn and its sighting he has
checklists for any engineering including the the stacking slab which is actually going to be considered kind of a liquid manure storage area um he has checklists for approval on manure ma storage and management um record keeping all those kind of things so one of the benefits we
have is having because the years ago the county board had insight to enter the feed lot program we have a local feed lot officer that's able to be very responsive to these uh to these things for our local producers okay and then will they there's no they don't go out
on a feed lot they they stay they'll probably be staying inside the barn the whole time oral like a hot confinement type thing yes that's correct total confinement oh and then sorry will be curtain drop curtains or or what or don't you know that at this
point um I have not seen the exact design i believe that the south um is is open quite a bit but I'm not I'm not fully familiar with the um the ventilation that might be proposed okay thank you Commissioner B uh thank you Mr chair is there any other conditions that
could be put on this uh uh project that would help eliminate the order well his historically the only thing that I have seen um and invol and involve some myself there was a time in
Minnesota when um certain generally there were hog facilities were targeted with some technology called BOF filters i I got my start in Renville County and those um there was a guy whose name was Dick Nikolai he worked for the extension service and he was pioneering um the
idea of BOF filters usually that is necessary to have um a very closed ventilation system as well so you're pulling all air through some defined areas and then you put it through um um something i've never really seen that required um or asked of a beef facility
if I'm to speak generally about cultural societal response for most people um there's a little hierarchy of voters if you could call it that way as far as what people find offensive beef does not beef uh or cattle in general beef and dairy do not tend to be near the top of
that we tend to find that swine and poultry are the the odors that people and I'm speaking somewhat broadly here but um find more offensive and so I've never seen a livestock um beef facility
um being subjected to those requirements and in in my 21 years here working at the county there's been no real trend to say you need some additional odor controls above and beyond mr go ahead Miss Paul yes and that was the only
situation there and I think that's what the person's attitude was who contacted me um and I I listened to them and it was like well this is one more even though the other odors are a lot stronger let's put it that way but you know that they have to live with those
or odors at different times throughout especially the summertime when they're outside this is just one little bit more that might be just too much that's what they're saying so but it's understood that the odors would not probably be as bad
as hog power okay thank you Eric i'm seeing in the uh uh record uh that you had three members of your commission uh that were out on the uh viewing uh committee and that uh uh they uh uh they
actually viewed this as a better solution uh being that it's a uh closed operation that should help with the odor uh I'm not sure I understand that quite but I I assume it's because this is a full confinement facility
yes and somewhat that had to do with the type of manure storage so a bedpack is typically not going to be as odorous as if you had a um a pit underneath that liquid manurs just tend to have they
they off gas more because usually one of the more offensive odors that people find is are our are odor or gases in the sulfide family so you know you think of a rotten egg smell sulfides tend to trip a trigger for people and liquid manurss
because of their biology and and how they break down they tend to put off more different sulfides hydrogen sulfide and and hydrogen dulfide etc and those so it's a lot related to the type of manure storage as a bedpack that would
um would have less odor potential than if um sometimes you will see new beef facilities as well with a deep pitted barn underneath it and then the air of course is being drawn through that all the time and um evacuated out so it doesn't make gas go up and kill your
livestock and then uh uh of course this had to uh go through the uh conditions and findings in order to be uh uh brought to us uh today and so uh you know there were four different conditions uh but uh
but the findings as uh uh as relates to uh uh odor uh the planning commission found that uh uh adequate measures have been or will be taken to prevent or control offensive odor fumes dust uh and uh that's based upon the recommendation
of the uh uh planning commission which of course had the three member viewing committee as well that's correct okay Mr sure Commissioner of Deck so actually the findings are staff findings they're not the commission's findings and staff findings presented to the commission
well Mr mr chair if I may um when the planning commission adopts them they become the planning commission finding so staff recommends and the planning commission takes ownership of those and says "We find this we conclude this." So um if if I may provide that
clarification Commissioner Mck yeah and uh I am on planning and zoning and um I voted in favor of this and but I look at finding number one even though at the time we voted on it it says it will not
substantially diminish or impair property values or the uh enjoyment of the property um I farmed most my life and didn't have hogs but um I know that the way beef are
fed today uh they can often smell like like hog excretment and I'm concerned I I know there's a way forward for this to happen where both parties will have some uh satisfaction
um because I am concerned you mentioned hydrogen sulfite and the cumulative effect of the hog operation and the beef operation if there could be some mitigation about the odors leaving the property I'm going to be much more comfortable going down to number four
the planning commission finds adequate measures but it doesn't say what those measures are and um I have learned since the meeting on on Monday night that there uh uh or since the planning commission meeting that there are some measure that can be taken but perhaps
should be uh actually a condition of the things such as vegetation that that breaks the wind and keeps the wind from going downstream is this neighbor is directly downstream from from these or downwind I should say from these uh
operations so I I don't think we can I I think there's a better way to do this that is not very uh expensive and wouldn't delay the effort and wouldn't make good neighbors out of both parties i'm going to have a hard time or I won't
support this uh as it's presented and I would recommend that we remand it back to the planning and zoning for more specificity on the uh mitigation for the odor uh thank you uh that motion
Uh I didn't I didn't hear that as a motion mr chair I I will make that motion that we uh refer this back to uh planning and zoning uh to look at one more time to see if there's any other conditions and just to review that based on the concerns about the impact on
somebody's uh living near there and their quality of life because of the There is a uh motion to refer this matter back to the planning commission
is there a second i will second that all right there's a motion and a second to refer back to the uh uh planning commission any discussion um I had something and now I'm trying to find it sorry give me just a second here
i'd like to ask the uh county attorney uh if uh he can potentially give us some some guidance on this matter or maybe I should ask you first Eric but uh typically uh in this instance uh
uh now I'm I'm sorry i'm making an assumption and I'm going to I'm going to back off from that so we have a motion and a second to refer this back to the planning commission any discussion Mr chair one of the things when we remand that back as I understand it from
a previous experience as we remand it back we need to have a reason and and I'm citing um uh staff findings number one and four as as not being as complete as it could be in order to mitigate the
uh hydrogen sulfide because that can also be a uh um public health issue mr sure if I may I'll accept that as a friendly amendment to my motion if you need to i don't you could correct me if
I'm wrong i don't that's it's a requirement of remanding it back so it's not really a Okay any change to the motion okay am I right Mr may follow up it's it's just a motion not just but to
hand it back review and report back uh whatever reasonable amount of time you'd see to do that because we don't want to if we don't also don't want to make them have to wait too long for a decision from the board
and uh I would then ask the u uh county attorney to weigh in on on this matter uh my only question for Mr van Dyken is any timelines that a decision needs to be made one way or the other yes um
County Attorney Baker uh we would we are operating under the 60-day rule uh I believe that this would require that we extend that 60-day rule the 60-day rule does does allow for extension up to an additional 60 days and so this would uh
I believe put us in that put us in that territory so we will we will need to do that um the only thing other thing that I would note in um kind of in general response to what I'm hearing is that um for remand to be helpful for the planning commission it is good to have
as much specificity as possible as to what additional the plan the board would like the planning commission to to look at um and so I'm hearing some things from Commissioner Imic over here um and then I'm also seeing that um
Commissioner or Administrator Baker would like to um perhaps weigh in on that i think if I can maybe uh Eric Mikin can clarify this as well as when we get recommendations from the planning and zoning committee they as Eric mentioned they are the recommendations
and findings from the planning commission we need to treat every request the same we oftent times get questions about the uh conditions and findings some of these plans may not be 100% complete uh that's the staff's
position as Eric mentioned Eric and Russ will be working with this landowner um but I just want to remind the commission to treat every request as equal because we we oftent times get requests um that are that are still being worked through
right so I just want if you can maybe clarify on that a little bit um but I would just remind the board thank you um so one of the things I would note is that um historically odor of course and
feed lots go hand in hand right there isn't a feed lot that's ever been approved in the county where someone hasn't said I don't want this odor i mean that's just that's an inevitability history tells us
that we permit I don't recall a single one none has been denied in my time here um we permit and we if you go back to like the the height of the hog wars Holland Pork an operation that I used to work for myself
personally at one time um the genesis of that was significant as to what people felt like the impacts might be historically we have never seen data that says property values go down um never in the county anywhere we've we've
approved every feed lot with that understanding i talked to the county um assessor regularly to see if there's any pattern that shows so we con continue to conclude time after time after time that property devaluation is not a is not a
thing from these when they when they meet standards and and this one does and and must and you had no testimony to that effect uh from anybody who was questioning it upon that basis correct that's correct the most that we tend to get is fears from people and of course
those aren't those don't substantiate anything i would speak generally about trees as odor control they're generally not effective and and windbreaks don't really they don't do much and they're notoriously hard to follow up on x 10 20
years down the road holland Pork had some required um and they really didn't grow up and become they didn't change anything about the area they kind of just kind of felt good for a period of time so those are just a few general comments um I have
some information that I could use to direct the planning commission from what Commissioner Mik is is saying um the more specificity the better if it was to pass excuse me before I go back to Commissioner Berg uh I just ask Shane if he had anything else that he
wanted to weigh in on in this matter um nothing additional i just was trying to note some of the specific things if this motion was approved included um whether with regards to number four whether vegetation or other conditions better address
odor what are the adequate measures identified in for number four that are being taken and then there is question regarding finding number one or some of the things I heard commissioner B uh thank you Mr chair i
just want to really clarify that I do have a lot of respect for our staff and the excellent job they do and I've said that many times in the past at the board meetings and um and you probably did an excellent job on this as well i'm not saying it was a bad job done on this i
just looking at uh the idea of reviewing this looking at one more time because I I have a concern about this and it was a concern has been expressed to me about this concern uh from the from the community also I just want to uh be
aware of as a board I feel a responsibility of of I've been on the board for seven years now and I never made a request like this and uh I think as a board member I just want to I don't want to just stamp everything that comes in front of us and also I think I have
an obligation to follow through with my feelings on that so looking looking forward and I don't recall the board during those seven years that the board had requested i believe there's been some requests that be taken back for planning to look on one or two other
episodes maybe but this is it so we're just looking at uh making sure we get everything examined I feel comfortable with commissioner MD uh this is not set setting precedent as remaining something back to the it it's the reason we it
ultimately comes to us um and I want to reiterate that there is I believe there's a clear path forward here um that can can be a good neighbor uh path
forward as well and remanding it back to the planning commission for perhaps a little bit more specificity to how those order odors uh would and thus would be controlled um uh it may be an abundance
of caution but uh it sure beats the alternative of turning the the the process down voting it down because it would require what a year before they could reapply without a change substantial change in in fact the ordinance does
require a year um between a denial and a reapplication does anyone else wish to weigh in i'm extremely uncomfortable in not uh moving through the recommendation of the uh uh planning commission uh this is an
agricultural area we are an egg community at our at our heart and uh yeah I maybe maybe you can answer this Eric maybe not but I mean how long has the farm been there how have they
how long have they been in this type of operation i assume it's generations i I would not be able to speak to that question okay all right anyone else mr chair I I could respond
to that um when the people who are concerned about the odors uh bought and and built their bought their place and built their house it was a relatively modestized dairy down the road since then there's been a hog setup
and this proposed uh directly upwind from them so uh we're not really comparing apples to apples there anyone else are we ready to vote i I just have one comment about like number
four it just says that adequate measures have been taken but it doesn't specify what measures were taken and I know that was uh what Commissioner Mck said at the same you know when he brought up this concern so Eric if it could be more specific
this is standard language that we've seen come across our desk here time and again correct that measures will be or have been or will be taken this isn't anything out of the ordinary to Kelsey's point uh this this is no
different than most similar types of requests that come across our our desk here correct uh Commission Chair Gardner yes that so that language there is the planning commission's judgment based on the
record and the record itself establishes what some of those things are the testimony so the type of barn the fact that it's um a total confinement the fact that it has a type of manure storage system that is not given to um
not given to great odor um the fact that there are state hydrogen sulfide standards that can't be I'm not aware of ever a facility like this that would even approach um state hydrogen sulfide standards at at property line that kind of thing so it's those types of things
that are in the record so we don't the record stands and the planning commission generally I mean can't doesn't incorporate all those things in the text of the finding but it but it play it references back to it um is that
is that helpful at all or but it doesn't really cite it i mean you know in in these findings it isn't really cited this is why the measures have I mean why we believe that the measures have been taken it doesn't really you know I know I know they talk
about it up here but there's nothing and that's typical of our findings so all of the other findings that you've approved since I've been here would been would have been typical so this is not atypical of the findings that we that we would have and adopt if you would like those findings um amended to include
more detail that's certainly part of the direction I'm I'm hearing from the board if this motion were to pass that would be part of what I would ask of the planning commission and just to play the tape all the way through so if this does get remanded back to the planning
commission there is not a new public hearing correct you're going based upon the record that was created at the original public hearing well I would say if the board asked for another public hearing we would open the
record if the board is asking for a reconsideration based on the record as it is that would be and that's what I'm I'm not heard asked for another um public hearing so we would proceed to go back i'm not asking for one i'm I'm I'm wanting to make sure that we understand
what the process actually is and I was just noting that if the board wanted it they would have to ask for it so you're you're right and maybe I maybe I said more in response there than I should have um as it stands I'm understanding we would go back with the record as it is they would continue discussion in
some of these particular areas around finding number one and four as I'm hearing and add some specificity to their conclusions and that discussion may or may not um change how they view some conditions or or that i mean we
that would remain to be seen and then I'll ask attorney Baker uh if he sees any issues with uh a second public hearing on on on a matter like this i mean I suppose it can be done but
point of Mr chair nobody's asking for Nobody's asking for one hearing all right all right but but then I just I want it to be clear then that we're going based upon the already established record uh from that original public
hearing if this is if this is what happens all right Mr chair so we go ahead just one more last comment all I'm asking is that the planning and zoning committee look at this again and report back to us as
soon as possible i don't I don't want to blow this too out of proportion i'm not asking for a vote uh to turn this down at this point at all but I'd like to see that reviewed all right are we ready to vote there's a
motion made and seconded to remand this matter back to the planning commission uh roll call commissioner Berg I chair votes no commissioner Anderson I commissioner MD
I three eyes's one nay the matter is remanded back to the planning commission and you have one more item for us well before we go that there should How would you word the motion to extend the time for an additional 60 days sorry about
that um so that can just be done administratively okay um and so I will send notice to the applicant that we are extending all right and then you can continue with the next thank you Mr chair the next
action item before you is a um a final plant this final plat um comes recommended from the planning commission it this is a um a property some of which has historically been developed um in
recent times and some of it that has sat um open for a good number of years had a I believe an old campground on it many many years ago um and uh this this land is kind of where um uh the old um mill
dam is coming through there it's it's just immediately west and north of that it borders on the waters of Nest Lake and um it's uh the final plat is the completion of a process that the board has had some say
in already you may recall that back in February the board approved a conditional use permit um for a planned unit development so plan unit development is a um kind of a clustered um type of development that allows some
density multipliers and it preserves open space it pushes people back a little bit further from the water it does a few things in um in exchange you could say the developer gets a few things and then developers asked to give a few things back to the public um and
subsequent to the conditional use permit hearing we came to board for that approval and also the planning commission held a um public hearing on the preliminary plat for um for the nest and uh along the way this is an area
that is sewered um or within the district um this property itself has not um had the sewer um infrastructure that it needs um that we've been working with
uh Corey Smith the Glacial Lakes um sanitary sew and water district administrator um throughout the process it may be um interesting for you to note that you will um should you act on this today and uh you will see this name come
up again because the um there's a development agreement that the that glacial lakes requires um for um the design there that is about I would say 90% complete as of as of this as of today according to to Corey so that
developers agreement will come through the glacial lakes board and then it'll come back it will actually come come to you so you you've been involved early and this is kind of middle late and then you will still have involvement down the road um should this continue to move
forward um so the proposal here is to um approve the final plat as you um um have in your packet i will make note that there's um some easements that the um council and surveyor um for the
applicant had originally um missed and those were brought to our attention those have been included on the uh um on the map that's in your that's in your packet um there is one area of one of those that overlaps with
unit six um and I've spoken with um Corey Smith about that that's actually an easement to the county and Corey says that that is not necessary and will be superseded by the new um easement the other thing to note is that new
easements are not shown on this plat and that's not an oversight that's by design because CIC plat or common interest community plat um establish easements they can't by statute they fall under a different type
of platting requirement than does just a typical most of the historical plats that you'd you'd associate with development in the county um so because of that new proposed easements will be layered on top as written easements and
recorded um after the fact so um uh I have also been in regular communication with public works director who um the first time we talked there was concern about you may recall in your conditional use permit there was a condition around
potential for human remains i think we all know that there have been places around Green Lake where um Indian encampments and Indian burials have been a concern and this property had some specific attention drawn to it so from that point on we've been working with the uh public or works director on um
where does the road come out who permits the access um is he comfortable with um the development pattern etc so with those notes um I would make one final note and that is that there has been a fair amount of um discussion um at
various levels in the community back and forth into my office um around with various um I had opportunity to speak with the council from the Middlefork River Wershed District the other day um about some concerns that the wershed district was hearing and um had having
to do with storm water um and So I want to highlight that when you originally approved the conditional use permit storm water requirements were um addressed under that conditional use permit um in referencing um the state
permitting required here and holding them to holding them to that so that is the preferred um method in this uh in this development that the planning commission and previously the county board has approved so um that's maybe a little more history there than I
typically give but I know there's you you you've probably been hearing some things and um I wanted to be able to try to address a few of those things on the front end and certainly I would open um myself to to any questions or clarifications that um that you might have so the recommendation from the
planning commission and staff is to approve the final plat as presented eric I just wanted to say that uh I know that at least several if not all of us have been in receipt of uh uh some of those comments surrounding the uh uh storm
water and uh uh they are not uh part of the record per se but uh uh there is uh at least a part of that that gives me some pause personally uh in terms of process
uh and how uh how we uh do or don't get uh or solicit uh feedback uh from various other uh stakeholders who might have uh concerns in this uh in this area uh but that's that's what I have to say
and that's and that's it anyone else any questions comments for Eric mr beck uh yeah I just uh want to make sure there there was some um indication that that there was some or
questions regarding the ordinances have those questions been um addressed well it depends on what you mean by addressed so um well if I m it seems like someone has indicated that we have
gone a foul of our own our own ordinances in this process and so I just want to make sure that that those questions have been answered internally they they have been answered and not they have not been answered externally if that's your we're referring to so I have um consulted with
County Attorney Baker and um we we have discussed um some of the things that have been um um I don't want to I'm going to choose the right word here um some of the things that have been circulated if that's maybe the right word and uh some
some of those areas of of law are maybe misunderstandings um some of those are different um um different areas of um law that aren't applicable um so I would I'll just use one example um I
read comments that said that there is a engineer sign off on the road that is required that's a misunderstanding because that deals with areas when we're dedicating a public road and so that's not an applicable requirement um here
because we have a private drive and it's not held to um standards it's not reviewed and approved by the um county engineer in that way so that's one example to say that yes we have gone through what what we have seen as concerns expressed i have talked them
over with county attorney Baker further than that I do know John Cobb quite well who's attorney for um the middle for Crow River wershed district um and and he and I went through a lot of this stuff together he's happens to be someone I know quite well and have
worked with quite a bit um because the because the watershed district had come um come forward with some some concerns um and I would quickly quite if I may quickly spin that into um Chair
Gardner's concern about um soliciting comment we if you could have seen the the uh the mailing list that um that was sent out for this it's it's three pages of print about that big and includes all partners
um above and beyond what the law requires including middle fork croer wershed district um including department of e natural resources and uh so our professional partners um land owners up and down um for both hearings um so two
hearings on the matter so um I'm not sure where there would be an identifiable deficiency in the process process that we've followed to solicit um feedback um there had been some that it would have liked to comment at the
final plat level that is not and we cannot accept there because our ordinance specifically says that there is no public hearing at the final plat a final plat is not kind of a hey let's let's look at all this arh a final plat
says we've looked at it we believe this is responsible and has met the standards go finalize things and um now put your you know the the cleaned up layout as it were gets gets its last last stamp of approval we don't get to final plats
typically and kind of reopen the whole consideration of it that's not that's not how um final plats would would generally proceed so Mr chair Commissioner and I will acknowledge and take full responsibility for that misunderstanding because I was asked in
a text message whether or not there would be uh public hearing and and uh I'm what got about a year and a half or a little less than that on this on planning and zoning and and don't know the depth of all the ordinances nor am I
an attorney and I had never been to a to a planning zoning meeting where there wasn't public testimony and so I uh mistakenly said that and I apologize to those that um understood it that way uh but to to
um to carry on this uh questions that you invited us to ask has there been an engineer involved with the planning of this development yeah the Bolton and Mink is is the local engineer for the um for for the applicant um working on all
all their design for water sewer um their their their private drive um storm water and and state uh state storm water permitting so yeah they do have an engineer um engaged and working on those technical aspects thank you and they
continue and I ask you at the planning and zoning meeting that the boxes that need to be checked for them to move forward whether it's MCA uh MPCA or any of the other agencies wershed um who would be responsible for that overall
um oversight regarding checking the boxes and everything being done and could you reply to that again so when it comes to things that the county has required um oversight of this development the myself the zoning administrator would be responsible for
that so it seems like the biggest concern here is storm water uh management um and I understand that there are there are two storm water inlets that are involved is that correct
um there while adjacent and nearby there there might be more than that there are several or there is a storm water inlet on on the property um in one location not not all or even majority of the property um would necessarily go to that
probably what that takes is the um the majority of the uh the parking lot from the adjacent church and I just want to be clear there is no additional storm water runoff that will be added to the system is that I mean
well all development adds some i mean every every house we permit um you know adds adds some we permit bigger houses we hold properties to a standard of of coverage and so this property is subject to that as well um and so anything we
build that's impervious does does add some the state in their construction storm water permitting at um at certain levels which this this application will cross this development will cross does begin to require permanent um on-site um
storage um and so their exact formula for that I I I don't have because I'm not an engineer and that that isn't um you know that isn't something that we would get involved in the calculations of but um they will they will prove that out to the state and follow the state's
requirements for that and and currently all the storm water from that property and most likely all the adjacent property is is entering either Nest Lake or Green Lake if it enters Nest Lake it ultimately enters Green Lake so now it's
it's going there it might take a while to get there because it percolates first but you know um the runoff gets there so certainly there are existing structures there some of which will be replaced one of which is staying so those those
properties were we're shedding off water at you know a rate that's commensurate with a property that has some development um the rest of the property all properties do do run some off there isn't there's really no soil that takes up you know unless you're really just sitting in an open gravel pit there's no property that probably takes up all rain
water and yes they would be directly or indirectly going into Green and and Nest lakes historically one of the real benefits of this type of development um is that it moves the potential homes um further away from the lake so there is
greater filtration um than you would typically see so a standard lot and block development that doesn't go through this um gets to build closer to the lake and of course the closer you are the less um vegetation and and land area there is for for runoff to go
across before it potentially enters water another one that I would note to you that you may recall in the um conditional use permit uh approval the landowner agreed to and was is required to
um re um establish native vegetation in the shore impact zone on the eastern side of the property as it gets near the near the channel there so the the benefit there is that native native vegetations where which were removed many years ago before this landowner had
purchased it um the native vegetation does a lot better job of um holding back water and infiltrating uh causing it to infiltrate so um so there's some really nice features of uh of a development like this and the way that this
development has been improved through the conditional use permit process that can give some added added um confidence eric you mentioned uh uh probably about five or eight minutes ago that uh the Middlefork district had uh uh expressed
to you some concerns surrounding uh surrounding the storm water would you characterize what those concerns were well the most recent I would say um were fairly generalized concerns i mean I No
Fork is a is a um organization that I mean their whole focus is on on water quality right so I think it's natural that that an organization like that would have um um overall concerns anytime there's development there they probably have some concerns i've I've
spoken with Andy a couple times um some of it I think was maybe um confusion over process like how how do we make certain judgments that we do um the storm water requirements uh in our um subdivision ordinance first thing
to note is that they're not obligatory they're permissive in other words they allow the language of it it allows the zone administrator to require certain things in certain situations and so it has a builtin judgment there and
um in this case there was no there was no desire to say storm water controls or or storm water concerns shouldn't be addressed at all the the the path chosen was let's look at it through the cup process which we have that's running
parallel here and so some of that I think was um the the Middle Fork Crow River wershed district hearing things from the citizenry that maybe was not agreeing with that judgment or that path that's a different perspective and
certainly the public will have different um perspectives on judgments that are made and and I've had a chance to talk to Andy about some of how we arrived at some of those um some of those conclusions so um that that would be how
I would characterize the uh the concerns as they've come to me from from the Middle Fork and in uh in those concerns being expressed was there any uh concern as to whether or not MPCA would in fact
act upon uh uh I I did not managing the storm water i did not hear that and so um a couple things I'm doing and will do to make sure that they will act upon it um is that I've already asked the told the
applicant that um reminded them that no development occurs um until that permit is in hand and that I want I want to see that i've requested a copy of it um thankfully interestingly you also have an example nearby that follow this
exact same pattern it's on the same lake it's the same type of development it's at Castle Shores um it's mostly built out now you probably have I imagine most of you have been by it at some point we did the same exact approval with that um
there was never any concern there from the public or from the from the watershed district and I know for a fact and I was involved in several checks on the um storm water controls during the process um I know the state inspector was out there on site and uh I um was in
regular contact with the developer during during that process as well so that is a if you want to kind of look at a recent point in time and a recent uh a near geographic example um that would be a good comparative for the board
commissioner B thank you Mr chair in comparing them uh this is approximately what three acres I understand this property here uh the one you we want you said we should compare it to how large of an acre acreage was that as well as how many units did that have compared to
how many units are are here that was a little smaller that one actually just bumped the three acre threshold this one when some additional land was added is closer to five um okay and so the units there I'm going to test my memory uh it was
it's either 11 or 12 I believe so it's a little bit less because they have a little less acreage there um most of those are are built out i think they have two units to sell the the back units as you can imagine uh don't necessarily sell quite as quickly but uh
so a little bit smaller development but many many similarities um to this they also had a vegetative management agreement um etc so quite quite a bit of overlap in it mr chair thank you and thank you for clarifying that because my
perception is kind of different of that uh but you look at the properties and they're different properties in a sense one's got more hills than the other one or whatever and so it seemed like a larger area and and fewer housing uh options there uh but before we go I just
want to make a point that um it's important we c cross our tees and dot dot our eyes on on all these projects that we get involved in here but it's also I do want to recognize and appreciate and hopefully the the contractors and the people building
these facilities and doing these things that we do value what they're doing and we're not trying to make it complicated for them and appreciate their interest we do need housing and we need all kinds of housing and and and I appreciate that some that this is being built and the
question is you know how is how is it going to work we wanted to make it work and we don't have an issue coming down the road and just kind of revisiting uh several of the other things and and some of the things you know we passed last time and and I am no expert neither uh
far as planning and zoning and uh but uh help me with this so the storm water thing is you're saying is is even though we're addressing the contractor's building storm water issues plan but
there going to be a similar plan and that's to that is to come and is is Bowden Mink's uh engineer uh information is that public record is that available if somebody has a concern about that of of drainage and that type of
thing storm storm water thank you Commissioner Berg um so to the extent that the applicant is applying for a state permit I believe that data practices would dictate that those submitts um under that permit would be
public record similar to submitts under under our permitting authority well that that is available at at this point if somebody wanted to find out more of what it's going to be like for whatever reason i'm just there's a lot of questions have been brought up to me uh also you know the major major concern is
the quality of the water as well so um and I think we addressed this last time about the streets and so forth going through there so is that a a done deal has anything been changed there you know I think one of the concerns was my concern was about the fire trucks can
they even get in there you know because the original plat we saw uh just wasn't it was hard to understand and how a big fire truck could even turn around in there um has that been already decided upon and and we can't revisit that at
all well so the ordinance does dictate that we reach out and consult with the um the fire chief and I have I have contacted their office they did not um they did not provide any comment on on the design so that was similar to what
we received on the um on Castle Shores as well so we do we do um make that contact that's a 20 foot road but uh there's no on street parking correct that's correct okay commissioner Mdeck thank you Mr
chair um this has probably been the longest you've stood at the podium in in my uh uh history uh for two planning u considerations um I just hope you understand and everybody understands
that we take our responsibility serious here and at the same time to Mr commissioner Berg's point is that we have to reach a balance between development and and progress and maintaining the quality of of the water
and that's why all these questions are being asked and that's why um you know we have that expectations of the developer so um with that I am going to move on this recommendation for planning and zoning to accept this final plan
there is a motion to accept the recommendation of staff in regard to this plant is there a second i'll second that Mr chair thank you a motion and second any further discussion commissioner B uh thank you Mr chair just one more final question and as to
Kenya County attorney Mr baker and I think it was fairly clear but you're saying legally uh everything that been presented or is is legally correct moving forward with this i was satisfied
with what Mr van Dyken provided me all right anyone else all right hearing nothing further all those in favor of approval of the final plat signify by saying I i i all opposed motion carries thank you thank you we
are at uh at this time at administrative uh updates and did anyone have anything that we needed to cover under that i have one item very briefly uh is that uh and I think uh folks
should have just seen that this morning uh that we have a West Central Mental Health Housing meeting uh on Thursday at 100 p.m that we all need to be there uh so that we can make the handoff to the new board this Thursday this Thursday it
just came up we will at least need a quorum of this body to what time take that hand off 1 p.m at uh Woodland i think it threaded a needle thank you i I did think of something else too Mr
chair yes um and the administrator probably is aware of this maybe it's in your report but uh I attended the North Fork Watershed District meeting last night and um supervisor what are they called over there manager uh Brockler
brought it to our attention that he is up for renewal and he had sent a letter in and uh so that appointment needs to be made i think it was due in May but if we get our first meeting in May I think we're we're probably okay because I don't believe they meet until the second
week of May so we'll be looking at that for our next meeting agenda yes okay uh anyone else i do administrator Baker I wanted to say this before Commissioner MDK leaves um the 16 bed the all the
final closing documents have done been done uh we were able to get the uh Wells Fargo to release the termination uh letter so we have that all of the documents signed notorized um and so the final transfer
and final closing should happen today then I will sign a 45day amendment termination agreement uh so that we can do any reconciliations um up until April 30th i've spoken with Karen Anderson Andy Thorson Shane Baker um I've worked with
uh QTAC Rock Jenny Bolton she did a lot of work with us with broadband agreements back in the day um and so I've worked with her on some bond council information and the warranty deed but this really took a village to get this all done i don't know if we ever would have thought it would have
taken this long starting in August it was a It was a lot of work i will say that a lot of administrative work on my end uh Andy's end and Karen's end but it was a really It was a village it was a team effort um and so I'm happy to report the closing will happen today um
and then I can provide a later report if needed but I just wanted to let everybody know that all right thank you for that um we do actually have uh Austin Hillbrand's here and he has something
that he wants to uh uh present to us but we had talked previously and now of course all that time that we saved earlier is gone u and uh we had scheduled a work session for after this meeting uh Commissioner Mdeck I know has
a uh hard stop at 12:30 uh today and this is kind of your uh thing that you've uh wanted us to kind of complete in in in regards to the subject of uh board operating guidelines or procedures
um so I'm going to ask the board if we want to consider rescheduling that work session as hateful as it is commissioner Rebeck I I would greatly appreciate that because um as we left our last meeting and I know
everybody's busy but um I was hoping that we could get that draft that we got in our packet this time I was hoping that we could have gotten that shortly after that last meeting so we had time to go through it all so if we would reschedule that would give us an
opportunity to because the LA both Friday and yesterday my day was from morning till night so I haven't had a chance to look at it no understood and there's and there was some delay in that that was I'll actually take responsibility for because I was asked to You're retired man do some do some do
some proofreading uh which is something I used to do in a previous life uh and uh just you know look for formatting and various things and I was I was slow to the ball on that and so for that I apologize
um I know that we if we're going to if we're going to reschedule then I want all the input sent back to Kelsey and Steve and then we're going to approve it at the next meeting that we've we've waste way too much time on this and there's no reason
that we can't look through it i look through it look through it send your comments to them so when we come back we don't spend another two hours going through this it's just foolishness well noted does that uh sound like a fair process
for everybody all right hearing no objection to that then uh uh we'll have Well yeah uh I I think this is still a work session that at this point um going through it with a I don't want to Yeah well it'll still be a work
session yeah yeah oh you said during the regular meeting no no no no no okay just like this time okay i did not know any and so let's uh let's have uh Melissa send out a doodle poll to figure out when we can uh get everybody together
and apologize to the media for uh uh having to having to do this but we've just simply run up against it today can't we just Commissioner B thank you Mr chair can't we just do like we did this time maybe the next meeting or the meeting after it looks like a shorter
agenda uh that we don't have short agendas coming up right now okay that's that's kind of the issue uh May 6th we've already planned the budget work session i've I've planned that with staff it's been requested to by the board so I want to make sure we get that done okay and then the May 20th um is a
health and human services work session that's already been kind of reworked um so it would be looking at an off week in May um or it would be looking at uh that first meeting in June
we could do a work session following that board meeting um and and I want to thank the entire staff and and board for their consideration here uh I think the doodle pool is the way to go on that um and I know that uh Commissioner
Anderson Dale Anderson is going to be uh uh hopefully in the field soon and so we'll we'll take that into consideration too but uh uh I don't consider this a waste of time and I don't consider this something that we have to rush into we
want to we want to make sure that we get it uh right for us and for future commissioners that's fair enough all right uh at this time then we'll continue uh with uh having uh Austin Hillbrands come up uh 2024 public
drainage inspection reports sorry I didn't Are we going to have the noxious one first or the Yes okay all right good afternoon everyone austin Austin it's gonna give a second
okay while that goes we could maybe run through the Yep go ahead noxious perfect good afternoon everyone austin Hillbranch drainage manager um a inspector got two things for you today first thing we'll go through is the 2025
uh noxious weed appeals committee that's going to be resolution yeah I I I apologize i missed that one so go ahead sure yeah that that's resolution 2025-12 so Minnesota statute section 1883 subdivision 3 requires the county
board to appoint a noxious weed appeals committee the noxious weed appeals committee would consist of three three um regular members and a a list of alternate members um the noxious wheat appeals committee is there for
um land owners of Candy County if the county a inspector or local noxious weed inspectors which would be the township supervisors or city mayors sends a notice um inspector notice number one that's to control eradicate noxious
weeds on their property with within five within two days that landowner could appeal that decision um appeal that to this noxious wield appeal committee and that would uh that that would then trigger this appeals
committee to have to go there within 5 days to to decide if um the noxious weed that needs to be controlled or eradicated is valid and then agrees with the either the county a inspector or local weed inspector if not then that
that notice dies so um if they do agree with the county a inspector or the local noxious sweet inspector then we would move on to that enforcement um the next enforcement step so any questions on the noxious weed
appeals committee commissioner Berglin thank you Mr chair actually I'll move to approve resolution number 2512 there's a motion to uh approve the recommendation to uh move forward resolution
2025-12 i will second uh can I ask a question Mr chair you may now yeah so Commissioner Mdeck uh brought this up dwayne Underthun is he still around or Yeah I was wondering about too that's a great question i did not call
him this year so okay all right so we might have to appoint somebody else that one different okay he's no longer township yeah i don't know about that but I know he's resigned from the township recently and Yeah he said he would he would let me know whenever he didn't want to be on okay yeah thank you
sorry miss all right any any further questions yep so again this does not um just because they're not on the township it just they're they're residents of Candy okay so
so we have a motion a second to approve resolution 2025-12 all those in favor signify by saying I i all opposed motion passes thank you austin go ahead with uh uh with your other item business perfect so we're going to go through the 2024
drainage systems inspections um are you did the computer work but we have it so you have it available okay okay so we will start there so these inspections took place last year in 2024
from May all the way through October um by statute we're required to do drainage inspections a minimum every 5 years on open ditch systems um we also look at tiles down intakes whenever whenever they're available of course um
we are required to document repairs and buffer violations under 10375 that's going to be our repair statue and the in this inspection statute so I also include um noxious weed areas
tree spray areas and other issues category so if you look at the first first page or the first um overview map that kind of shows where these inspections took place this year the majority of it was on the western side of the county um I plan to
break the county into three into thirds basically i know it says we have to do them every five years because I'm 2024 is my first full year in Candyway County i want to get everything done in three years and then we would probably you know move back to that fiveyear rotation so
um just looking at the overview map if you still have that pulled up in front of you it's the blue lines are going to be county ditches the purple lines are going to be our joint judicial ditches we have all the repair points that were found on inspection i have them in a category just for me to keep track of um
awaiting open awaiting seed invoice done and cancel the red dots are going to be private outlet pipes that need to be replaced i basically send those people a letter if they're still there within five years then we would have to look into doing some other um some other way to enforce
that um red lines on there are going to be our buffer violations yellow lines on there that aren't the um city limits they're going to be um noxious weed areas that's just me for me as the county a inspector to keep track of um
we got tree spray areas and then there's a different shade of green for other issues so so that's kind of the overview map if we can go to the stats page now the next page that's going to be we have 32 systems that were inspected about 201
miles we found 118 repairs on inspection that list the repairs the different uh categories I put them in just for tracking um there was 18.75 miles of buffer violations like I said 16 private outlet pipes those would be the red dots on the
map and the next inspection year is going to be 2029 austin uh I did communicate with you in advance of the meeting on this and uh there's a little over 9% uh of the miles that you had covered where there are documented
buffer violations and uh uh I had asked you about a specific uh uh property owner uh who had several miles of this but you'd indicated uh uh that you're working with them and they're uh they're
going to take care of this uh uh and is are you finding a desire to comply yes I I think so we have a good specific landowner you were talking about i have a good working relationship with them um and they're they they plan to comply
they plan to rent a drill to take care of their specific issues most of theirs when we get into this we'll we'll talk about the two different um ways we have to we can enforce buffers majority of his are on buffers that we actually own the easement on he has a few rental
properties that were ran through the buffer ordinance so there's two different ways but the ones that we actually have the physical easement on they've all been staked so he knows right where 16 and 1/2 ft is i did that last week so for them so okay and actually for everybody that that we have the easement for so and then you
anticipate compliance from everyone else as well i anticipated compliance and then they'll be inspected again after July 1st is the deadline they have to have those put in and I will go over that a little bit further into this um after July 1st if it's not put in we come back to the actual drainage
authority for each specific disc system and we if it's under that 103 um 705 statute where we have the easement um we we can we can um go in and plant that for them and put it on their taxes
but I do I do believe there's going to be voluntary compliance for most of these and I've received phone calls from several people already so Okay thank you continue okay i just also want to point out these were done in May through October last year so stuff has changed we did have
record rainfall last year i would argue we have record grass height when I do these inspections i'm driving along on the four-wheeler and you do miss some things so I mean if any landowners are listening to this and they have other issues feel free to give me a call we can we can definitely address that so um
also the winter you know anytime every during winter we also get different areas that slough off and stuff like that so what we found what I found is that once I get through these initial um inspections my my workload essentially
would be less coming than you know we keep on top of this it it makes it a lot easier to keep keep these ditches looking nice and functioning properly so um so I would let's we'll just go to the next one here that's going to be county just seven i'm not going to go
through all of these but we'll we'll skip thank you for that yeah yeah i just want to give you just kind of the base on how these are set up so you got your drainage system the inspection date um the next inspection year um who it was inspected by your commissioner district so county district 7 is all in district
five right now after redetermination though this one will end up being in three as well so just but as of the inspection date that's whose district that that has benefited watershed paying for it so and this was done by foot and ATV you and also this one wasn't done by
drone but pickup and drone are listed so basically you would look at your repairs are listed there and the repair number if you look at the next page on the map you can reference the repair number on the map to see where um things are so there was some noxious weeds present on
this system no buffer non-compliances no tree spray areas no other issues um I don't have a good way to get to the next one but I was gonna I was planning to go to county ditch 10 so you're going to have to scroll down a little ways
okay page Unfortunately they're they're all they're all individual inspections so I don't have page eight in our packet i think nine on mine oh nine yeah the other eight oh that's where the photo is yeah sorry sorry I had intentions we had
intentions of doing it on the computer for you guys and and I teased you a little bit about the not going through the whole thing because your your report is about 40% of our packet today sure sure yep yep so county district 10 I just want to point out that's in all of
your commissioner districts it infects the city of Wilmer um Eagle Lake um it itffects county dish 12 that goes into district three um so a lot of these repairs we we
actually do right away in the fall um 24150 that's that is going to be a larger corner um that we will plan to do and I hope to work with Hot Creek WHED to get funding for stream barbs to go around that corner so if you look at the map on the next page that's going to be
you know closer to Highway 23 and section three of um Edwards Township so but how how would you guys like me would you like me to go through just some ones that I want to point out or go oh yes absolutely sounds
good so we would keep going ahead county ditch 10 we would keep going ahead to county ditch 27 we'll skip ahead to that one so carnage 27 is going to be up in
Arcter Township um there is several repairs that we found on this system this system I do believe needs I'm this one is going to be next on my list for redetermination of benefits um so you
can see all the repairs listed if you take a look at the map and you look at 24100 that's going to be in section 12 on the east side of the map or on the right side of the map from where it drops from County Road One down to the
lake bottom there's several corners that need to be repaired so this this will be one that we that need the redetermination to be done before I can start to do these repairs through that section actually all of the all of them that I have listed I would like to wait till after redetermination was that one
on our tour last year yes yep yep okay so Oh yeah you can see the se several buffer violations a lot of the So if you look at the buffer violations you go back and it says enforcement option we got Candy County buffer ordinance these
ones ran through the buffer ordinance through the SWCD so okay same thing with so the buffer ordinance and the the other statute where we have the easement both have a deadline of June 31st or July 1st one of the two so and they've all been sent letters to put
those buffers in um the next one I would like to skip county ditch 29 we go to county ditch 31 this is our second largest system yep second largest system there
so we have several if you see outlet pipe listed these are for county tile outlet pipes only so and then it lists the sizes again we would reference all these numbers back to the maps several buffer violations these buffer violations will be ran
through the buffer ordinances or buffer easements that we already have on the system so some other issues here's one with some other issues there's fences that I can't get through that are in the buffer strip technically they'd probably be grandfathered in i would just I just like to mark them so my tree sprayers
know that they can't get through there they're going to have to come all the way back out etc so and then there's a few different areas with equipment blocking the buffer strip so any questions so far austin on the Mr chair sorry about
that Commissioner Anderson um on the buffer violations I guess the only thing that I'm curious about and it's not your fault i'm not saying that but I mean most people had to have them buffer things put in 5 10 years ago so how did
these get missed for so many years or what was how did that happen i guess that's a great question i I don't know I don't know that I have a good answer for you um generally the soil and water does the inspections for the buffer ordinance um
And they they do usually catch quite a few of them generally a lot of these are going to be further back where nobody can see and I believe most of their inspections are done by the road or desktop on the on the imagery actually so yeah I that'd be my guess a lot of them too sometimes the farmer you know
just eventually ends up spraying it and you know they lose a foot every year and all of a sudden we don't have anything generally the ones that I mark again they all have to be put at 16 and a half feet but if I can't comfortably drive my four-wheeler down it it's too short yeah but
so let's see the next ones the next one I'd like you to go to is county ditch 40 so it's going to be two more down so county ditch 40 is an all tile system we did have some landowner complaints about tile not working out there it was on the inspection list i
did the inspection at that point so there's large portions of the county tile that are plugged with tree roots grass roots and mud and we need to replace this from Highway 71 basically northwest if you look at the map um we did have a landowners meeting on this one and I kind of laid out options for
the land owners on different options we would have we we elected to go plowing flexible dual wall all the way that way we only have a gap every 525 ft that tree roots will will cement those gaps or joints and tree roots won't be able to get into the tile anymore essentially
fixing this one that that that'll be a bigger bigger project coming this spring here so that's not very deep either is it no it's it's it should be majority less than 5T so they won't have to subcut it'll all be done by plow it should take them that's one reason why we've had
problems with it so Yep exactly yeah especially with the grass roots even you know you don't see that too often but these old cement tiles if there's put grass on top we get tree roots in there or grassroots in there as well as tree roots um the next one I'll skip ahead
to is the way down i mean a lot of these don't have much if you skip ahead to like JD2 I should have printed the one that is in your packet that got numbered but that's all right now we're
getting JD2 that's this is going to be the start of all the joint systems so the joint systems I just want to point out that I only inspect the candy iconic portion unless I see something further downstream into the neighboring counties that I I mean I I have the right to go inspect those dish systems but that's
how we set this up you know with the neighboring counties that we all inspect our own stuff so um yeah there's not nothing too exciting going on with JD2 if we want to go to JD18 should be the the last one I just want to go over with you
guys they're all in order you know so keep [Applause] going i'll get there eventually here so JD18 we share with Chipo County and Swift County and if you remember
some of you maybe I guess Commissioner Dale Anderson was the only one on the joint board for Swift County we we did a they did a large um water water control structure in Chipoa County so this system was short on money i we didn't we didn't start any
of these repairs yet but in the coming up here these are some several large corners were found that needs um rip wrap and then I would probably work with soil water to see if there's any cauture for stream barbs if there isn't we would just do rip wrap but stream barbs basically help their cement cement pillars basically put in the water
strategically to help slow that water down right as it hits the rip wrap and that helps guide the water around the corner so but that'd be the these are the main ones that that are going to have you know future bills coming in the future here so that I just went through
now so any question any questions for us well it looks like you had a lot of uh a lot of time on that four-wheeler i don't I don't envy you on uh on that it's fun
for like the first month maybe or something commissioner B oh thank you Mr chair i I remember when you first took this position have you How do I phrase it you have really grown in this position you're doing an excellent job uh and
this is laid out so well so we went through it really fast i I took my time earlier on and looked at it and as Commissioner Gardner said you had me really busy well done yep perfect thank
you if I could add to that Mr chair you may you're doing a fantastic job that That's my opinion so all right and so this is an action item uh and we are to uh the action is to accept the uh uh 2024 drainage public
drainage inspection reports i'll make that motion Mr chair thanks i'll second it we have a motion and a second to uh accept the uh reports any further comments discussion questions hearing none all in favor say I i all
opposed motion carries thank you thank you Austin thanks for your flexibility on this we appreciate it no problem we are down to administrative updates uh uh did you have anything beyond what you gave
previously okay uh appointments calendars committee reports uh uh anyone have anything that they wish to uh bring forward today nothing that's that urgent that Yeah I I I didn't have anything that but inform
you but no I I because of the time frame I have nothing to say be meeting with uh Representative Baker on Thursday morning so try to have a conversation there does
anyone uh we took care of all yes yes uh does anyone else have anything for the good of the order if not then we are adjourned thank you everybody