Good morning everyone and welcome to the Candy Ohio County Board of Commissioners meeting for Tuesday, April 7th, 2026. Please stand as you are able for the pledge. I aliance to the flag of the United
States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. I'd >> like to thank everyone for being in the room today as well as those who are
joining us on our YouTube channel. Uh first of all I would request of the board a approval for today's agenda. So move, Mr. Chair. >> Commissioner Mckek moves. Is there a second? >> I'll second that, Mr. Chair. >> Commissioner Dwayne Anderson seconds.
Uh, any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? Say I. >> I. All opposed. That motion passes. We next have the consent agenda. These are the typical non-controversial uh action items that we take. Uh this
includes uh approval of the March 17, 2026 county board legal minutes, approver approval of the auditor's warrants and claims and the 8th judicial district lease renewal uh agreement. Uh do any commissioners wish to pull any of
these items from the consent agenda? Hearing none, then I'll accept a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Mr. Chair, also move. >> Commissioner Dale Anderson moves. Is there a second? >> I'll second that, Mr. Chair. >> Commissioner Bergens. Discussion.
Hearing none. All in favor say I. >> I. >> All opposed. That motion passes. At this time, we will enter into a public hearing in regard to a slow no zone ordinance public hearing. Uh, and we'll
ask uh uh our administrator, Kelsey Baker, to present on this. Kelsey, good morning. >> Good morning, commissioners. Kelsey Baker, Candy County Administrator. Uh in your packets today, it is a request to have a public hearing for the slow no
wake ordinance um for Candy County. Uh the public uh notice was published the weeks of March 9th, March 16th, and the 23rd. I received one comment in regards to uh
Calhoun Lake. uh staff responded um to this individual directly with uh the answers um to his questions. The main question was specifically if Calhoun Lake should be included within the ordinance at this time. Um staff
recommended that we use highly recreational lakes within Candyoy County. That is why these lakes are listed within the ordinance. Um again, this ordinance addresses um high water conditions. It does not address uh types
of boats. So, wake boats. Um it applies only when lake levels reach defined high water. That's what triggers this. Um it applies equally to all watercraft boats. Um it like I said, it doesn't include I
um I think there was within this question, it was regards to wakeboats and this ordinance does not address wakeboats. It addresses high water levels. And again, this ordinance is to promote public safety on county lakes,
protect shorelines and private property, preserve water quality and natural resources, and to maintain recreational enjoyment. Um, again before I'll let the board chair open up for any public comment, the lakes that were listed within the ordinance are Lake Andrew,
Big Candy, Ohio, Diamond, Eagle, Elhorn, Florida, Games, George, Green, Long Lake, Howick, Long Lake, Wilmer, Nest, Norway, which it which includes uh West Norway as well. Again, this ordinance
gives us a clear, consistent, and proactive tool to help protect our lakes, residents, and visitors during high water conditions while still allowing for recreational uh use. I'm going to ask our public works prior to open up any public hearing, um our
public works director, Mel Odin's up here to um do a little showand tell, which Mel always enjoys. uh um to show how we will uh know if the the water is at the high level. >> Bill, good morning.
>> Morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Um as the administrator said, you know, we as we are looking to find the most efficient way to let the public know, let the law enforcement know, to let anybody that's concerned with water levels know. How do we want to do this
without like physically always shooting the lake with a survey equipment? So, um the staff came up with this idea. >> This the staff came up with this um concept for your for your consideration
where the bottom of the red would be the elevation that you would define as being the trigger for the high water. Um, what we would do in the spring is we would go put a uh 12 foot telpar post in the
lake, drive it in. We would put this over the that post, bolt it. We would survey every one of these so that the high water would be surveyed to this elevation there. And then um you would
be able to know visually if if the um water is in the no wake zone or in the green which would be considered good. So it's it's it's relatively simple. Um this is our first kind of stab at making
it so it's not confusing and and so I open it up for any comments or questions. >> Uh Commissioner Mdeck. >> Thank you. So, would these be placed at uh each public uh access on all the lakes listed here? >> So, we we talked about that over the
last few days and we talked about it again this morning because we've got 13 lakes that we've identified in the ordinance and there's probably at least two accesses per lake if not more if you consider the sheriff access. It gets to be a lot of a lot of like posts and a lot of >> a lot of work. So, we would for sure do
it at one access um and maybe two on the busier lakes like green probably would be be do a couple but we don't want to have well I guess it's up to this body to decide how many we want out but we would also have
a sign up at the accesses that would say you know the no zone is enforced or you know not enforced >> the construction you know you you would flip it down if it's in effect >> but it's only one individual >> I See, >> I think it's a good idea. I like I like
the concept. >> No, thank you, Mr. Chair. Same question. >> Okay, very good. Any other uh any other questions for the engineer? >> Yeah, that seems pretty pretty easy to understand. So,
>> yeah. Uh and and again this is just an ordinance uh in in times where we have high water like we did quite a bit last year and this is all data driven. Can you speak to that just a little bit? >> Yeah. So the the other thing that I want to point out so yeah this is all data
driven. So what we would do when we when we're approaching that high water you know we would we would obviously monitor um all those. Now, the nuance of the ordinance is is that it's got to get a tenth below the red before you can take the ordinance off and then it's got to
be a tenth for three days. So, there's going to we're just debating whether do we do another a 10 line below it, you know, so that you know when the ordinance goes on and then you got three more days, but just a little nuance things, but it would be good, I think, for the public to know. We would we
would match the sign to the ordinance. >> All right. Very good. Um, no other questions, >> Mr. Chair. >> Uh, uh, Commissioner Anderson. >> Yeah. I I just think it looks really nice and it's nice that it's real simple that everybody can understand it, I
would think, real real easily. So, >> so I I do have a question. >> Yes. Go ahead. >> So, I think you started to say it, but I I don't want to put words in your mouth. Did you say it takes 3 days above the line and 3 days below the line for to either
>> No, once it it it's triggered I believe when it goes above the line. >> Yeah. >> But once it goes below the line, it's it's on for three days. >> So it doesn't have to be on 3 days before it is. >> Now, you know, the question is going to be like vandalism and all the things
like that. And I think we'll live and learn, but we'll this post will be probably 6, eight feet down into the lake bed. You're not going to be able to drive it down. If you want the high water to come on quicker and you drive
it down, that's not going to work. >> Never know. All right. Very good. Uh >> Mr. Uh to maybe answer that the data question, we had Austin Hillenbrands, our drainage manager, go through um the the water levels with the DNR water
levels to match that. And so if you were look in the ordinance on this page, that's where it shows um the outlet, the water control. That's where you were saying all of that is data driven. This is all the data driven. It's not pulling our own numbers. We're verifying with
the DNR. Um and then the restrictions would go in um specifically to each lake at the on the right hand column. The restriction from shore, I think this was discussed when we did our um uh the slow
no wake uh resolution last summer. We did 150 ft from shoreline. Like I said, um working through this draft ordinance, listening to the our constituents, um the the recommendation was a 300 ft from shoreline. I left that in there. Also
included within your board packet were all of the lake levels to also show when they went above that and then all of the maps for each specific lake. Um, and so I will leave you now to open up for public comment. >> Uh, any final questions for
>> I got one here. I I just think uh that they did a really good job, Austin, and and everybody involved here because uh put a lot of thought into it. And I know that uh people that I've talked to that have had concerns and they've talked to
Austin and and he's been able to negotiate with uh the the people that were concerned on the lakes uh to you know what level to set it at and and then they all you also I think were in contact with the DNR and took okay everything with them. So I think you
guys did a great job. >> All right. So, uh, at this point in time, we are going to open up the public hearing. And, uh, first of all, uh, if you, uh, wish to speak, uh, we're going to ask you to come up to the microphone up here and pull it pull it close
enough, uh, to you so that it can be heard, that you can be heard, and then we're going to need you to state your name and address. Uh, and, uh, and then go ahead and present. Uh, comments are limited to three minutes each. Uh but at this time uh we would uh request that uh
anyone who wishes to speak uh from the public uh please uh please raise your hand. Okay, yours was first come on up. Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. There. Can you hear that? Okay. Um my
name is Dwayne Camstra. I live at 5487 Highway 71 Northeast East um Wilmer, which would be the west side of Eagle Lake. Um I'm living in the house that I grew up in. I purchased it some years
ago. Um and so I've seen over time the damage that some of these the wake can do to the shoreline. And I guess I would like to speak in favor of the ordinance because I think it's um um it's a simple
way to protect the shoreline that's minimally inconvenient to the people who who live there and who use the waters. And that's pretty much all I would have to say. >> Dwayne, thanks. >> You bet. All right. Uh who's next? Uh right. U Ralph, why don't you come on
up? Of course, I'm short. I have to adjust it a little bit. Good morning. I'm Bob Dickerson. We operate a little business out on Lake Florida. This will be our 102nd year in Kandui County and
contributing a lot to the tourism in the county. Proud to say that. Um, I think that we are just on the the cusp of this whole problem because truly the wakes created by the wake boats are are um not
just when there's high water, it's on a daily basis. And so I think uh the one point that I would make is that maybe we have to look at what we're doing with personal watercraft about having uh the the footage all the time from the shore
and that we also have to maybe have uh limits on the hours that they can operate just like we do with personal watercraft. 9:30 in the morning uh till an hour before sunset would be uh real practical. When you think about the noise that they make just operating, let
alone the speakers that sometimes look like 50-gallon drums on the side of their boats or on the the racks on top. They they just they're very obtrusive. And so I would just like to have you put that in the back of your minds that I think we're only beginning on the road
of this whole thing. But I compliment you on at least starting with the high water. Um, it truly it it's all the time, not just high water marks. Thank you, >> Bob. Thank you. I got you mixed up with Ralph over there. >> All right. And the gentleman behind the
sheriff there. >> Good morning. >> Morning. >> Good morning. Again, I'll say uh Tim Gabrielson, president of the Calhoun Lake Association. When we first heard about this ordinance, we had held an emergency meeting of the board and all
six board members voted unanimously to ask you to include us on this lake ordinance. Uh we're a shallow lake. We're a wildlife and recre recreational lake and we're situated right kind of in between County Park 5 and county park 3. And with both Diamond and Green being on
the list, not being on that that list, we feel we'd be a target for additional boat activity. And one of our main concerns is we have a great nesting population of loons, which we're already seeing them being impacted at at night with the carp fishing because guys will be going 2, three, four, five, five o'clock in the morning out there fishing
carp all night long and it's kind of been driving the loons away from our lake. So, we're looking to uh reduce the amount of activity on the water and by being included in this high water resolution, we think that would be great to help uh protect our shoreline because
Calhoun's a shallow, very sandy lake. Uh and um uh we would just ask you to uh include us. One of our other concerns is, you know, we we have the NASCAR fishing league that comes out on Wednesday nights and they go 70 miles an
hour for 30 seconds of bang up next to our docks and bounce their lures off our boats and off their off the docks. And so that is being on this ordinance would help us uh decrease them that type of activity if they have to stop their wake 300 feet away from our shoreline before
coming in and hitting the shallow waters. So that's what I'd ask. Okay. And just a just a brief question. You reference the uh Luans. >> Yes. >> Uh and uh and the impact of all of these off hours uh disturbances for them. Is
that something that you have spoken to the DNR about? >> We we've not gone to that point yet. Um the uh we have a great relationship with the DNR with Emily uh Wolf and things. Um we just started take to notice it
last year. one of the members brought it up and kind of kind of been just looking it over. Uh I was kind of in the camp at beginning that um thinking a might be kind of far-fetched, but last year um you have four or five boats out there at
night from anywhere from 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock in the morning. So kind of keep an eye on it more this year. uh with the improved outlet structures that they've put in on Calhoun, we kind of feel that that's going to make it easier for rough fish to come upstream
>> and may increase the population of rough fish on Calhoun. But kind of just looking at it right now, kind of keeping an eye on it. >> Okay. Because it seems to me that uh uh those two issues uh that you raise are
probably state level uh issues. uh uh in needing to visit with the DNR about and I don't know if they're I I assume that you're not supposed to uh uh disturb nesting loons sites or anything
like that. So, >> no, but with additional wave traffic and higher uh having wakes that's going to impact the loons because they're nesting on top of old muskrat houses and things like that which are not very far out of the water. And what the resort owner
said here for his lake, I mean, having a a no use opportunity between 9:30 at night or whatever till whatever he referenced, I can see where that would really greatly help the habitat situation. So, but again, it's
probably a next level up. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Uh, anything else that you'd like to provide to the board? >> Thank you very much. >> Okay. Uh, anyone else wish to speak on this topic? >> I'm welcome.
>> Hi, I'm Stan Worm from George Lake and uh the biggest thing for me is notification unless you put it on the front page front page of the Wilmer Tribune. A lot of people don't know about it. Uh the other thing is that the access if you put a sign there's about 50 signs at the
access for AIS all kinds of stuff already and most people don't pay attention to it. So uh one thing I thought it was you know everybody's got an access um dock. So if you put something on the end of the dock so when they put their boat in they
automatically see this just like when you go through a channel on Minnotonka there's a big no wake sign. that would help us there as far as that's concerned because sometimes there's a lag between when it goes on and when people know about it. So it's just a matter of you
know how can we improve notification. So you can think about that. Thank you. >> Very good. Thank you so much. Uh anyone else wish to come before the board? >> Yes. Go ahead and then I'll catch you next.
>> Oh, you're doing fine. Hi, I'm Ruth Schaefer from uh Calhoun Lake one. Our address is 14950 East Calhoun Lake. I just have a couple of quick questions. According to the 13 recreational lakes that you've listed,
is Games Lake included in the Norway, West Norway, or is that just what's written? Games isn't written. So, I'm just curious whether this also includes Games Lake. >> I'll defer to staff on that question. >> I Mr. Chair.
>> Uh, Roger, go ahead. >> On the document we have, it is listed. >> I thought too that I had seen once before that it was not listed, but it must have been added because it's in our uh packet. >> Oh, okay. So, the the March 3rd document is not the latest draft.
>> The the one I have here, it's right after Lake Florida. >> Okay. And what document date is that one? >> Um, I >> for today's meeting, can I >> Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. So, >> when I checked the website, it wasn't up, so I forgot to do that this morning. >> The for the previous board meeting, it
was not uh separated out. Okay. >> In conversations more with the DNR on the lake water levels, we did end up separating that out. So, in the board packet for the for the board today that was sent out last Thursday, Games Lake was specifically called out and then
Norway now just includes the West Norway channel. >> Okay. Thank you. My other question is I understand that you uh went with a more highly recreational lakes which does make sense and thank you for creating this ordinance but let's say that Green Lake has the uh slow no wakeake
ordinance in place. What would it take what water level would it take for Calhoun to also be listed if if green is high and stays high? Obviously we are downstream from Calhoun so we would never be listed. Is
that what this ordinance would imply? Or does the lake level reach a certain level which would trigger the environmental protection of that lake and streams? >> Answer that. You want to wait for board discussion?
>> Yeah, let's let's wait for board discussion on that. Roger, you wanted >> um I want clarification on I I think I heard uh administrator Breaker saying that West Norway something about the channel. So both West Norway and Norway are
included. >> Correct. >> Yep. >> Under >> under one lake name Linton Norway. >> Correct. Yep. With that lake level then >> and I would assume if I may continue there some of the locals refer to middle middle Norway uh kind of a bay between
green or games and and Norway >> that's included in this then. Yeah. >> Okay. If you would like me to answer that your question then, >> um um the board could decide to include
Calhoun Lake. Um if they so choose. >> Um my understanding, and I do not work for the DNR, so I will preface that. My understanding from having conversations with the DNR and our drainage manager, um, water flows through Calhoun faster than Green Lake because there's more
channels leaving Calhoun, um, compared to Green. Green has more channels coming in, but only one going out to Calhoun, which the water levels then rise faster in Green because there's only one outlet going into Calhoun, whereas in Calhoun, there's more outlets and channels that
are leaving. So water flows through Calhoun at I wouldn't say faster because water I mean these are lakes standing water um but it does leave the lake at a um quick pace. Yep.
>> Commissioner B just a clarification uh this is a public hearing for this ordinance and this does not include Lake Calhoun. So if we wanted to add Lake Calhoun we'd have to have another public hearing representing Lake Calhoun
>> and we do have that information if the board were to choose to add that in the ordinance today. I would ask that we call up um Austin Hillbrand today and he can provide all those lake levels. Like I said at the beginning, it is the staff recommendation to leave it out as of now
and if um I've spoke with the sheriff and if there does become an issue on that lake um that then we the board could amend the ordinance. Correct. but you would have to go through the public hearing process to do so. >> Okay. >> My other comment that I just wanted to
make, but thank you for that, is that if the county decides to only put out one of these um due to cost or whatever, you could um ask lake associations if they would pay for the materials to put out more so that there would be more
notification at each of the accesses. I think leg associations would um take that question under advisement. So, thank you. >> All right, >> Ruth. Thank you so much. >> You're welcome. >> Um going to recognize the gentleman back
here and uh David 19,000 1st Avenue East Atwater. Um I have a question on the the numbers. Um like on Green Lake the ordinary high water and the water level restriction are the same height.
So or so that lake right out of the gate will be have the slow no wake zone according to the numbers. >> Austin can can you help us with that? >> Morning Mr. Chair, board members, Austin
Hillbrand, Strange Manager. Yeah. So, we we originally set all these at the ordinary high water mark. If the lake doesn't consistently go above the ordinary high water mark, like Green Lake, Green Lake only went above the ordinary
high water mark four times in the last 45 years. >> We left it at the ordinary high water mark. >> And lakes like Elhorn consistently goes above the ordinary high water mark. We captured the upper 50 to 25%. >> Okay. >> To trigger that weight restriction.
>> Okay. >> Okay. >> Um also >> and then uh come back to the mic. Then >> when in the past would you put on the slow or the high water mark for the slow no wake zone typically? Would you go an inch like you're showing on here or would it be three or four inches in the
past where you would put the no zones on? >> These numbers seem very tight compared to in the past. So, in the past, I don't know if anybody can help me with the numbers where it was set at in the past. That was >> a previous sheriff that would um do you
want to answer that? >> So, I mean, >> so this is Green Lake specifically. >> I mean, we're talking 4 in it was 4 in above, excuse me, 4/10 of a foot, >> okay, >> above the or near high water mark this
year. >> Okay. >> So, yeah, you know, I don't know. So almost include by these numbers here, including this is almost use or pointless. If it only did it in 45 years, it did it four times in 45
years. Why even include that lake? >> So Green Lake was above the ordinary high water mark this year >> for several weeks. >> Okay. >> Um so that's why that's when that restriction would be on. Okay. From the numbers that we have set so far. >> Okay. Uh, and uh, do you have anything
else that you wish to bring before the >> Uh, I just Yes. Not not with you anymore. Thank you, though. >> Yep. >> Um, this, yes, it's easy to see and whatnot, but if you only place it at the accesses, anybody living on the lake isn't going to see it. Um there's
probably more depending on what lake you're talking about um there'd be more boat traffic from lake owners than there is um people coming and using the accesses. So in order for a lake owner to see this they have to drive across the lake whether they idle there to check it or
they buzz over there and go oh shoot I should have went slow. >> You would want to idle first. Um Mr. Chair. >> Yes. So that is a point of a discussion that we're having internally because where is the best spot like where on a
lake would somebody where would be the first place you would want to think to check if it's you know you know it's getting close let's just go check it quick right I mean that would be so that's where we want to put it >> you know we just thought the access is cuz we can get our excavator down there
and drive the post so it's vandalproof >> you know we're not going to go out in the middle of a channel somewhere you know what I mean? So, you know, um I would be willing to take input on >> I don't have a a >> you know what I mean? Because we don't want to put we don't want to put you know, we have 13 maybe 14 lakes
>> and if you put two that's 28 that's a I mean it gets to be a lot. I mean it's not that big a deal probably, but >> they'll never go bad. I mean PVC it will last. >> But we would take the put the post in every spring and take the post out every fall cuz it's going to Yep. It was going to get damaged with ice. So we would do
it, you know, and so this is the first year we'd ever do it. So we'll live and learn and we'll figure it out. But um and so our thought was just do it in an access because you can see it. It's not going somebody boats not going to run into it very quick, right? >> We don't want to put a beacon on it or
we may have to. I don't know. Yes. Um, so yeah, we we just thought so if you live on the lake and you know the water's getting close, just let's just go buzz this thing and just see where we are. >> Okay. >> You know, that's where we want to put it. >> Okay. And if I could get clarification
on when originally um you would put the high water mark or the noix zones on in the past, but otherwise, thank you. >> All right. And uh uh uh we're going to have the sheriff uh give us some information here first.
>> Eric Toliffson, Ken County Sheriff. Yeah, probably not a bad idea before I forget. Um so to answer the question as far as in the past, prior to an ordinance being in place, it was kind of all over the place. Honestly, it it basically boiled down to occasionally
we'd get recommendations from the DNR. Um but what you're speaking to was was the emergency uh implementation. So there was no like science or data driven decisions made. It was and when
you look at throughout the state the different things that different counties did. It was kind of that's what's nice about an ordinance that actually puts data and numbers to you know makes it more uh yeah easier to define. So, but
>> and Eric, I think I remember hearing that in the past because we didn't have an ordinance uh uh maybe we had some actions in the past happen that were just called, but there really wasn't any authority for even uh calling those
events at that time. Do I remember that >> rightly? You're you're right, Commissioner. it was uh it uh it was kind of misused or um yeah it was because it when you when you look at the the statute the DNR rule that allows it
it's uh the action is only able to be made by a unit of government of which I am not. Um and again there was really no data. I think a lot of times it was probably driven by public input um pressure from from the public and that
kind of stuff. So then decisions were just made and and uh yeah, it's kind of all over the place and we've had these discussions with the other sheriffs throughout the state that have have active basins and um you know it's uh I think the decision to go forward with an ordinance was to get something a little
bit more of a solid foundation for for enforcement. So >> Okay. >> All right. >> Any any questions for the sheriff while he's up here? All right then. Uh uh it looks like we have uh two three now that uh have have
have already come up that uh I think wish to add some clarifying remarks. I can give you one minute each to do that. >> Stan Stan from George Lake again. I think if we had a system where you could get out the information to all the all the lake associations cuz I can send it
out to everybody on the lake as soon as I get it. We all have channels for that. So I think the AIS board has most of our information. But it'd be nice if uh every year if there's a change in boards and things like that that you would have
the information as far as who to contact on every board on every lake because that would get the information out just like that. So it'd be pretty easy and not cost you a lot. So thanks >> point well made. Uh Tim
>> hi again Tim Gabriel from Calhoun Lake. I just wanted to put in a point of some some common sense. If if Green Lake is at or high water level mark, it's probably fair to assume that Nest Lake is probably also high. Green's about Green's probably probably about 7,000
acres. Nest might be about 5,000 acre lake. We're a 640 acre lake. All that water has to come through Calhoun. There there are two outlets where one goes under the bridge and one goes through the dam. Okay? But most of the water comes through the dam channel. And so when they're high, we're high for a much
longer period of time. Okay. So that's what I wanted to add. Thanks. >> Okay. Thanks. And Bob, did you wish to add >> again? Bob Dickerson, Lake Florida. Just a clarification, Mel, that might help you in determining the DNR has water um
depth gauge readers on most lakes and my wife has been doing it for 40 years now. We we are the ones that report on each lake what the depth is at any given time. Uh we do it on a daily basis. So it'd be very easy for you to pick those spots or if there's a dam, there's a
permanent marker embedded in the concrete at the dam and that would be one that everybody would be aware of. >> Mel, did you wish to >> Yeah. Uh Bob, we did we did look at that and um there's some you know like
Diamond Lake for instance, you can't even get to the dam. So you other than like kaying or somehow get there through muck boots. But um so we we did think of that because that is everybody kind of
knows where those stream channel gauges are, but some of them are not readily accessible for >> depending on >> Okay. And Commissioner Burke, I'm sorry, I forgot to >> No, for you my again my questions are
answered. >> Okay. Very good. All right. We're still taking public comment and uh this gentleman here and then the gentleman in the back. >> Hello, my name is Annie Johnson with the Middlefork over Washington District. I just like to say um I think this is a great program and a great start and
everything new has its its challenges. Um but it's great to see that uh you know something's kind of being developed around it. All new programs and ordinances um are kind of hard to maintain and and everything at first. However, it is just a good learning and kind of stepping stone knowing that
we're learning about the new uh you know, boats, um high water marks, um all the other organizations and even the county all put in a lot of money trying to kind of maintain the water and everybody does a great job and staff here does a great job, but it's kind of just learning from experience and
knowing um you know where can we go in the future to thinking um you know it's kind of counterintuitive to kind of allow sometimes at low lakes or or shallower lakes, you know, high power boats to kind of go through and kind of turn up the water with nutrients. At the same time, the county is spending lots
of money in grant match fund dollars to try to stop nutrients at the same time. So, it's kind of just a little learning program. I think it's a great start and I just hope to see it improve in the future. So, thank you. >> All right, Andy, thank you so much. And then the gentleman in the back here,
>> good morning. Just need your name and address. >> My name is Lee Berdius. I live in Gleno. We have a family cabin on Diamond for the last 50 years. Um, and yeah, it's the information. I like everyone's ideas. That's why I came is to we'll have any given weekend, the only thing
we have on the lake is a pontoon, but we have family members that bring up boats or jet skis. And to find the information, we'll go into the, you know, Google Candy County Sheriff. We have a Diamond Lake Facebook. We'll go looking, but somewhat determines, are we
going to come up for the weekend or not? So, it would be nice to have a spot to know in advance um what are the wake levels? Are we coming up just to have lunch and cruise on the pontoon or are we going to bring up toys? >> And then the other one is to yeah how to
share it. It would be nice as you go through the state websites what you can and can't do. Someone mentioned, you know, luons, things like that. We have a little cheat sheet that we hand out to family members that come to say, you know, don't do this. Somebody wants to ride a jet ski, they have no idea. And
someone else mentioned it, if it's at the public landing, it doesn't go there. They're just they're just going off the dock. So, you have to control them. So, yeah, information would be good. Whatever you can put out there, and you can't always trust Facebook, right? It's where can you know the night before.
Yeah. Thanks. >> Understood. Thank you so much. Uh, anyone else wish to uh comment from the public? All right. All right, I'm going to hold it open uh one last time. I am going to ask uh Kelsey, we have I assume a plan
for uh informing the general public as well as uh conduits for g uh putting that information out on those uh on those other lakes. Yes, >> those signs. Um, we'll work on the notification, but
in talking with other counties that have ordinances with the large amount of basins that we have, it's going to be going off those signs. As the responsibility of boat owners, property owners, lake owners, things like that. I think as everybody has said today, we
will probably learn a lot from this and we will maybe change and modify things on our notifications and communications prior to that. But based off how our ordinance is written, each lake level is different. So, it's not going to encompass all of the lakes that are listed within the ordinance. And I think
where staff and I I hope the board was really coming in at is we are a county for tourism, recreational use, and we also are a county of natural resources and our environment. And so, we're trying to meet both those needs. And so, we felt that this was the best place for
this ordinance to call out each lake specifically for those lake levels. And then it will be up to the property owners and the boat owners and the recreational individuals that are going on the lakes within Candyway County that are listed within the ordinance to pay attention and to go and look at if there
are high water levels. Um that would be something that you're going to drive by about access and look at where those where it's coming in at. I think we all know last year the commissioners, you all were getting tons of calls regarding high water levels with the rain levels that we did get. As respons responsible
boat owners, property owners, you would know to go look at that um um that sign uh to see where the levels are coming in at. But for notifications sending out on um to lake associations and Facebook, social media, things like that, that is
something that we are not going to do right off the bat. But I think let's get through this first season, see what happens, see what feedback we hear. Um, and we can always make modifications and changes moving forward. >> Commissioner Dale Anderson, >> just piggybacking to what Kelsey said, I think that's where the lake associations
come into effect on this is that somebody from the lake association should be watching this this mark and then sending that information out to everybody on the lake because that that's the easiest way to to to really get that information out. like like Ruth said, you guys all have the the
addresses and probably the a way to contact most of the people on the lake and maybe that's a way that would help everybody to to get that notification. So, >> all right. Thank you for that. Uh so, uh final call for anyone from the public
who wishes to comment during the public hearing. >> Bob, I'll give you I'll give you 30 >> 30 seconds is all I need. Just just a reminder to everybody that the soil and water conservation district here is having a meeting and Ruth, do you have I didn't bring my postcard. I don't remember what the date is.
>> May 5th May >> at Little Crow Event Center. >> Okay, you got it. just and and I would encourage you all to come to that if you're available because there there's great research from the University of Minnesota that shows exactly how the uh
the high-speed um heavy boats the the wakeboard boats disturb the bottom of the lakes and stuff. It's it should be a very important event. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you for that. And uh that's it. No one else from the public
uh uh to add anything then we will close the public hearing and we will bring the matter before the board. Commissioner MDC >> I didn't see an action item for dealing with this today. I think go on a different >> it can go on the next agenda.
>> Yeah. >> Oh >> okay. But we we can still do we want to provide an opportunity for comment amongst the board members >> at this time. >> I think we should just move on with the
meeting and and do that when it's on the agenda. Have our debate when and our discussion when it's on the agenda. >> Uh Commissioner B. >> Yeah. And just to clarify that then some discussion to talk about adding Lake Calhoun and that would be at at that time then.
>> All right. I I understand what you're uh what you're getting at. That's uh that's fine. We will we would then take this up at our next meeting uh as an action item. Okay. Uh is that the consensus of the board?
All right. Very good. I think we have some information that we need to gather uh and uh talk to our staffs and hopefully we can uh get you some other uh clarifications as we go through this. I want to thank you all for coming to this public
hearing and for providing that input. As Kelsey said, we know how important our lakes and our natural resources are uh for uh of course just tourism and uh uh and environmental uh uses as well. So,
want to thank you for that and uh we will proceed with the next item then on our uh agenda. So, we'll be back uh uh for an actual vote on this then at our next meeting. We'll get that on the schedule.
So, all right. Uh at this time, uh we have uh Dr. Ashley Chose uh from Woodland Centers and uh uh she will have a report for us. >> Hi everybody. >> Give everybody a minute.
Thank you for having me today. So, I am Ashley Chos. I'm the executive director at Woodland Centers. We like to come every year and just talk about what we're doing, uh, what's going on in our communities, answer any questions you have about Woodland specific or any mental health, substance use issues that you might have questions on. So, um, I
did send in some information. Hopefully, you all have that in your packet. The first page is really just an overview of who we are, our mission statement, um you know, all the things that we do in our community, um as far as our commitments, and then really going into our 2025 client data, um who we serve. So, we've provided over 110,000 services
across um all of our services that we provide. Um and we delivered service to 5,527 individuals whose ages ranged from 3 to 90 in 2025. Um 82% of our services were within our 7count corporate area. Um, we
did deliver services to 72 of our 87 counties in Minnesota. So that's county of financial responsibility. So that might mean these folks are living in our counties, but their county of financial responsibility might be Klay County, but they're living in a group home here. It might also mean they're traveling through the area and we serve them. Or
maybe they're here for the summer visiting family. We still serve them. So that there's a lot of reasons why we're serving that, but that number continues to increase every single year. Um, that we just serve more people across our entire state. Um it might also mean that they started getting services with us and then moved for college but they
still get services from us because we can do that now with teleaalth. So um there's a lot of reasons why that might be but I thought it was an interesting number. Um the next graph there is looking at the seven county total of number of clients. So I broke this down two ways. One just being the count the
number of clients we served by each county within our seven county region. And then that next graph is all all clients served. So I wanted to show you two different ways. So if you look at just the seven counties, we serve 4535 individuals and of them 40 about 42%
were from Kio County. And then if you look at the bottom one of all clients served, um about 34% were from Kyoi County and 17 almost 18% were from outside of our sevenount region. So just give you a different perspective on who we serve and where they're from. Do you
guys have any question? >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Yes. So when you say all clients serve, you're referring to those potentially people who moved away but continue with services. >> Correct. Yeah. So it's including folks that live outside of our sevenount catchment area. Yep. Yep.
Um the next graph then talks about service modalities. This is something we like to have liked to track after COVID happened because we want to see how are we doing as far as delivering face-to-face services versus teleaalth services versus telephone. And as you can see across the board, the majority
of our services are being delivered face to face. About 72% and less than a half percentage are delivered by phone. We don't find that a very effective modality, but sometimes it's what we have to do. Somebody forgets their appointment, they're out and about, they can't do a, you know, a virtual
appointment at that time, we'll do a phone check-in. So, it happens, but as you can see, pretty rarely. Um the there are a few outliers that so this is all of our services when you look at the graph but when you look at certain services some of them are actually opposite where psychiatry for example
only 28% of services are happening face toface the majority are happening teleaalth um outpatients this would be your therapy services 34% are happening face toface you have adult day treatment almost all services are happening tellahalth only.5% are happening face to
face um and so we've just seen some of our service and programs, they're just the opposite. So, I wanted to point out some of those outliers just so you can see that there are some service lines that continue to be highly telealth. You guys have any questions on that? Okay.
The next one is about crisis bed days. I thought I think it's always interesting to look at how our crisis units are running and functioning. Um, it's been pretty stable over the last few years and then you can see a hike in 2025. Some of this is because we opened up more beds um in 2025. So we added one
youth bed and two adult beds. And when we did that, we actually added more capacity as well because we had individual beds. Right before that, a lot of our beds were shared. So we'd have two people in one room, which limits our capacity at times to take people. So now we have a youth unit with
seven beds and one of those rooms is an individual room. So we can move people around and shuffle things if we have individuals that can't have a roommate for lots of different reasons, but that could limit us in the past of how many admissions we could take. So that has helped us significantly to be able to take more people.
So that's the admissions piece. Um I did highlight >> Thank you. Uh on the crisis bed days by years, I noticed that since co >> uh the trend has reversed where there's uh more adults than there are children.
uh uh being served. Is there an explanation for that or is it just because those two years were kind of the co years that where the adults were less than the than the youth? >> Yeah, I think those two years were a bit of an anomaly. Um, I think part of why
the youth beds are always a little bit smaller is because before 2025, we had three rooms that could fit up to six kids, but at any given time, we might be full at three because they were shared rooms. So, sometimes we just couldn't have a roommate. And so, that limited us
a lot on our youth unit. So, on our adult unit, we had more individual rooms. So we weren't always full at our capacity of six where with the youth side we might be full at three technically because we couldn't have roommates. Um so that was I think that's a big part of what happens in the youth unit.
>> Yeah. If we could rebuild we would do it differently but have what we have and we we live with it. Um school mental health I just wanted to highlight a little bit of our programs and services as far as school and outpatient. Um so school link
mental health includes uh therapists but also skills workers. So it's behavioral health practitioners at a bachelor's level and then we have the mast's level clinicians that work in our schools. Then we also have a l some licensed alcohol drug counselors working in our school districts as well. Um but you can see over the years the number of
providers has not increased significantly but the number of clients served continues to increase every single year as does the number of services provided. So, some of this is we have gotten better about how to discharge clients and move them on to other services. Some of this is we can
pull them out of class for 20 minutes, have them have an appointment and maybe do that a few times a week versus just once a week seeing them because they might need more care over a course of time. And so, you can see the same providers are are having those clients, but they might see them more often. And
so, that's why those services continue to increase. So, that's school. It's very important. We're in about 15 different districts um providing I think it was over 50 different buildings because in each district we might be in different buildings within that district. Um so
it's a very busy instrumental program um across our across our counties. Um outpatient this includes outpatient therapy, group therapy, um family therapy services and this again is provided across all of our different counties. Um the piece here with the
number of providers, it looks like we've almost doubled, but some of this is because we pull in providers from other other um departments. So, for example, a schooling provider in the summer might come and work in outpatient for a little bit because they're a little bit slower. So, that those provider numbers can include other providers from other um
departments at times. So, I just wanted to show you the number of providers that we have in that program. And then the next graph shows you the number of services that we do every year. Um so, as you can see, 2020 was a very busy year for us. Um unfortunately when bad things are happening in the world we
tend to get busier. Um and so 2020 being a year of COVID um our outpatient program was out of control. We just had so many services happening. And then the the orange bars there, excuse me, are the number of comp evalments. It's what people need to do to get in
our door. Um so as you can see in 2022 we had the most comp valves we've ever done. Part of that is because we started as a CCBHC. every client needed a new copy val. So that year was a very busy year for that. Um and then as you can see that number is dropping off a little bit and some of that is because we
changed the statutes so that people don't need a copy val every year. It's based off of their need not based in statute of annually you'll get a copy val. So that number drops off a little bit over time. >> But Dr. Are you concerned about a return back to
uh potential return legislatively back to that >> to an annual assessments or anything? >> I don't think so. I don't think we'll see that happen. Um because we can do a comp. We can do them annually if somebody is in need of that. It's just not dictating that everybody needs it annually. Some of our clients, you know,
we see we've seen them for years. We could write the comp without them being because we know them right there. Nothing has changed from yesterday to today, but it's due. And so I think for us it's knowing that time frame of when's it important to update. Maybe you've had a change in functioning. Maybe you've had a change because you've
been in and out of the hospital. Those are times where we update the coffee val because it's been a year and that's been helpful for us. I don't see that changing. I haven't seen any legislation to make that change yet. Right. >> Yeah. The reason I ask is that I know that we're faced with mandates to
increase uh assessments that go along for uh different uh subsets of our clientele. So, >> for sure. Yeah. With all of the fraud and and making sure everybody is doing the things they're supposed to be doing, it is possible that that might come up. Absolutely.
>> Okay. Please continue. >> Yeah. Um so, that's kind of all of the graphs and information as far as data. Um, we did implement some AI technology back in August of 2024. And so it's called um, ELOs. It really sits in the
background of our documentation. So while you're doing a therapy service, Elios will be running and it doesn't um, give you a script necessarily. It just summarizes what it hears and provides that to the clinician or to the staff member. So they can use that in their notes. They obviously have to review it. They have to edit it. Um, but it's been
a game changer. all of our staff. This is the first time we've implemented something technology-wise and they've said, "Please never take this away. This is wonderful." So, it's been great. So, 114 of our staff are utilizing this. It's generated over 53,000 notes since we've um implemented it. Uh 58% of those
are live sessions, meaning it's listening live. The other is bullet points. So, if you don't have the ability, a lot of our staff work in the community, they're in homes, they're not necessarily sitting with their computer on. So, what we can do in those circumstances is enter in bullet points of just summarizing what happened and then Elios will give you a summary based
off of that. Um, the average time to complete a note is down to 4.28 minutes. The industry average is 15 minutes a session. So, we've almost, you know, decreased that by a lot. It's been a lot. So, um, it's estimated that we've saved over 7,500 hours of staff time by
implementing Elios, which is huge. Um, and we did not go into this with the expectation of we're going to increase productivity, you're going to see more clients. That has happened, of course, but what it's done is a lot of our staff already had full schedules and they would take their notes home and they
would work at home at night. So, their uh life, you know, and and work balance was completely off. And so, this gives them the day back to say when you leave, you're done. You're done for the day. Um, and that has been a lot for our staff. They're they work hard. They're
burnt out. This is hard work that we do. And so if we can give them that work life balance a little bit more, that's been a big piece for us. You guys have any questions on that? Go >> ahead. >> Okay. Um the other piece we did was measurement based care. So one of the
things we've been working on is we can come before you as commissioners. we can come before our partners at the counties and anybody else that we're partnering with and say we do really great work and we we give good outcomes but we wanted some data to back that up to say what
kind of outcomes what are you doing and so measurement based care is for a way for us to automate sending out assessments and then be able to use that data clinically to make changes in their treatment plans to show outcomes all of those pieces so um from January to
December of 2025 we completed over 26,000 assess assessments through our measurement based care process. Um 92.4% of all clients completed at least one assessment which is which is good. It's means that they're adopting this. Um in
2025 we attempted to collect 5,322 social determinance of health screeners and we had a 98% success rate. And this is really important to us because we know that mental health care isn't just about your diagnosis. It's also about do you have housing? Do you have food? Do you have a safe place to be during the
day? like all of those social determinant pieces are really important. So if we can track this, we can help them get access to resources, connect with their their targeted case manager at the county, all of those pieces to help coordinate their care. So this has been really important for us. Um and then with depression, 42% of clients
with mild to severe depression showed improvements and we had 19% remission rate. We want to get this higher, but this is a great start for us to show some of our data. And then 49% of clients with anxiety showed improvement and 20 25% reached full remission. So
again, just some data to show you the outcomes that we can have with our folks. Do you have any questions on that? >> No, >> go ahead. >> Okay. Um, and then we do zero suicide work at Woodland Centers. We've been doing this since 2021. Um, and we just wanted to show you some of the fidelity
that we've had. So this is a whole model of fidelity. um and it has a scale that you can look at. And so in 2021 we completed this fidelity measure and had a score of 33 out of 95. In 2025 when we completed this fidelity measure again we
were at 65 out of 95. So we've made a lot of progress towards working towards a zero suicide model which means how are we intervening early? How are we screening? How are we looking at post vvention when when there is unfortunately a death of suicide? What are we doing to help our staff or help
the community with that? And so more pieces on this that we want to work on, but we've made a lot of progress in that work. And then the next piece is our workforce and economic impacts. I just wanted to show you all a little bit about who we are and what we do. We have about 240 staff that live and work in our
communities. Um, and of our $27 million budget, 13.5 million is invested in salaries going right back into our community and then 5.7 million in benefits. So again, it's us investing in all of you in our community.
And then community impact and outreach. Um, one of the cool things that we do is we partner with the Stingers. Um, and I don't know if you any of you brought this forward. I know some board some of our board members brought this forward to the county boards, but maybe not. Um, so we do the backpack program with the
Stingers, and we get to advertise essentially with them. And I do have data on the schools if I can read it. Um, let's see. Wilmer schools, it's small. Sorry. Um, so last year in the Stingers
program, we had all three elementary schools and it was about 500 students from Wilmer that participated in the Stingers program. So, essentially, they get these little reading certificates. If you've had kids in school, you'll have our our Woodlands information on your fridge for about four weeks. Um,
and then they get to bring home a backpack if they win the backpack. Um and and it's just really a great partnership with the Stingers to advertise about mental health, get information to the to the families about Woodland Centers. Um and it's it's a really good opportunity. So again, just another thing that we're doing. And then
in 2026, so we are partnering with our counties to do some messaging around um May's mental health month. And then we are starting a new project with AI. Um we have Videa coming in. Um, we are very close to testing this with our staff,
but it will be part of our comp eval process. So, essentially, somebody can call in and start their diagnostic assessment with an AI bot. So, we're testing it out. We're going to just see how this goes as a pilot project. Um, but it's pretty exciting for us because
it's a lot of staff time, resources, and honestly, our model doesn't work for everybody. And so, if we can use some AI to make it more efficient, then we feel like we can get more people in our doors. That's what I have for you today. It's a lot of information, a lot of me talking. Do you guys have any questions about
woodlands, about anything I've talked about mental health in general? >> Uh, Commissioner Dwayne Anderson and then Commissioner. >> Okay. Yeah. So, if somebody has >> thinks they got to come in or whatever, do they just stop in or do they give you
a call first? I mean, how how do they get a hold of you? >> Either way, you can always call us um and we can walk through the intake process. Um, usually we have same day assessments available. So, if you want to be seen today, we can get you seen today. Um, part of our process is we always screen folks. So, if you call in
or you walk in, we're going to ask you some questions just to make sure that you're safe. Um, and if we can't get you an assessment that day, we might have you see our mobile crisis team or walk into our urgent care, which is right here in Wilmer. You can walk in anytime during the day from 8 to 4. Um, and we
will see you for urgent care. So, any of those ways work. >> All right. I think you guys provide a great service for our community. So, >> thank you. >> Great to see that you come here and give your presentation. There's a lot of information there to absorb. >> There's a lot. >> Commissioner Mdeck and then Commissioner
Berg. >> Thank you, uh, Dr. Chose and Mr. Chair. Um, I didn't have a question. I just wanted to, um, make a comment about these critical services that you provide, not only for Canoi County, but I know that you have you you reach a
fairly large region and Uh we're really fortunate to have that available to us. In some communities, they have to travel a lot further distances, number one, and number two, um they have to depend on teles service to to get their their
care, and so we're really fortunate to have Woodland Centers uh in the area. >> Thank you. Thank you, >> Commissioner Berg. >> Uh thank you, Mr. Chair. I just can't emphasize more that how important uh Woodland Centers is, but not only Woodland Centers, but all the other
services we have in our community. We're a regional center for uh health care and mental health is a big part of that. And uh as we hear the governor talking about uh regionalizing services and changing things and so forth. I think it's really
important for Canui County, you know, that we do recognize that that we do that already through our different uh relationships with all the different providers in our community with uh joint powers, with the nonprofits and so forth. And I just can't picture of the
thousands of people that are being served for mental health having to drive. Probably the closest would be St. cloud or go down to the Twin Cities, you know, and dealing with the rush hours uh for deal with some of these things that's being dealt locally. And I and
also uh I'm so glad you put in this uh uh presentation about them financial impact too. >> Yeah. >> Uh that's huge. That is very huge how we get all these extra bumps out of all these >> federal and state dollars coming to this
area because like you said uh uh the KY county staff are the people's staff all these different other programs and woodland centers so that they they shop here they buy food here they purchase other services themselves and that same dollar gets moved around. Uh but I just
want to say we're really lucky that we have uh an area or region that does have a lot of resources even though we keep finding big gaps in those services and and we work really hard to keep in trying to work collaboratively to provide these services. So
>> yeah, >> I was really I appreciate seeing all these numbers. >> It's a lot of numbers >> put together. Good presentation. Thank you. >> Yeah, >> Commissioner Dale Anderson. Go >> ahead. Well, I think everybody said everything, but no, I just want to thank you for presenting this. It's always fun
to see what's going on and and I think I piggy back to what Corki said. The biggest thing is is that we do have a place that's for me 20 miles away if something happens in in our local area that they can get help. And and I think that's the big thing that it would be a bad deal if somebody had to drive St.
Cloud because by the time they get there might things might not end up the same way. >> Correct. So I I think that's the biggest thing that's really a of great benefit for us in this area is to have this facility close so that people that are in trouble have a place they can walk into or can make a phone call. So
>> I really appreciate that part of it. So thank you very much. >> Thank you. Yeah. And those partnerships are so important to us because we can't do it all. So, I think especially here in Kyway County, we've built some really great partnerships um in every county honestly um because we're we're not everything, but we want to partner with the people who are doing the other
pieces to fit all those puzzle pieces together so we can help meet the needs. Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> All right. Very good. Uh Dr. Chos, thank you so much for being here today and >> thanks for all your support. Appreciate it. >> Appreciate having you here. Thank you so much. I'm going to ask the uh board if
anyone needs a uh short recess at this time or if we can continue with our um uh >> with our agenda >> might be a good idea >> continue. Okay.
>> Okay. Uh we'll take six minutes. Hey T, are you ready? Y >> we are back uh from recess and at this time we'll uh request uh we're we're going to hear a we're going to hear a presentation on uh
child abuse event pre child abuse prevention month uh proclamation and an update and we have uh staff with us today. uh please uh speak into the microphone uh who you are, who you're with, and uh uh introduce the rest of your folks.
>> My name is Nicole Mson. I supervise one of the ongoing child protection units here. >> My name is Karly Crayons and I supervise the other ongoing child protection unit here. We also have um some of our children's staff that joined us today.
They're seated in the rows in the back or on this side, I should say. We wanted you to join us for Child Abuse Prevention Month for April. April is nationally recognized as Child Abuse Prevention Month, a time for our community to come together to celebrate
the small actions each of us take that make a big impact on the well-being of our children. We affirm the importance of families and communities working together to prevent child abuse and neglect. Prevention services and supports developed by this collaboration can help parents, other caregivers and
communities protect children and streng strengthen families. Preventing child abuse and building strong, safe and healthy children and families will benefit the entire community, setting up future generations to succeed for prevention services. In 2025, the
agency served an average of 59 families per month through child welfare case management. The agency also completed 26 parent support outreach program assessments to offer assistance to families and 22 families were served through parent support outreach program
case management. Um I'm going to read the proclamation for child abuse prevention month. Whereas it is critical that children are guaranteed their health, well-being, and protection. And whereas thousands of children in Minnesota are affected by child abuse and neglect each year, often
causing lasting psychological, emotional, and physical effects. And whereas all families can benefit from strong support systems and resources in the face of challenges. And whereas although intervening in the lives of children and their families, it is
important. It is an important responsibility at all levels of government. Preventing abuse and neglect is a shared obligation. And whereas effective child abuse prevention activities succeed because of the partnership created between child
welfare professionals, education, health, business, community organizations, law enforcement agencies, faith-based organizations, and families. And whereas Minnesota's encouraging commitment to prevent child abuse and neglect demands that individuals and
communities partner together to support parents in raising their children in a safe and nurturing society. Now, therefore, the Kandway County Board of Commissioners do hereby proclaim April as Kand or Kanday County Child Abuse Prevention Month and urges all citizens
to join in to promote the safety and well-being of all children and families to recognize the child welfare professions and allies whose work tiredlessly to protect our children. Let us also honor the strength and resilience of
survivors of child abuse. Thank you for that. And uh uh you have anything else you wish to present >> on this? No. All right. Then I'll uh ask the board uh would anyone like to move the uh uh resolution proclaiming uh uh
child abuse prevention month in Candyo High County. >> Mr. Chair, I'd be more than happy to make that motion. >> Commissioner Berg so moves. Is there a second? >> I'll second that, Mr. Chair. >> Commissioner Dwayne Anderson seconds. Any discussion? the uh uh the work that you do to keep
our kids safe is uh uh oftentimes behind the scenes and unnoticed and uh it does not go unnoticed up here. Uh we thank you for everything that you do uh to uh uh help uh anyone who is uh uh being uh
impacted by uh uh the adverse uh uh uh effects of uh uh mental and physical uh child abuse as well. So with that uh any other comments? All those in favor of the proclamation
uh signify by saying I. >> I. All opposed. That passes. Thank you so much. And ask that you folks hang on for just a couple minutes. And uh uh while we uh uh have our folks from uh uh
public health, uh uh Jody, come on up. And uh uh we're also going to talk about National Public Health Week. >> Good morning. Uh Jod Emerman. I am the public health manager and with me this
morning I have some of our public health staff and I will have them stand up and introduce themselves and the area that they work in. So starting with Patty. >> I am Patty Johnson. I am our community
health supervisor. part of that I oversee our shift program, our child and teen checkups, our canvas substance use prevention grant and um as well as our um foundational grants. Um I also have
our bilingual support staff and office staff underneath that. So thank you. >> My name is Mary. I'm the communications coordinator. I'm helping check.
>> And I'm Shannon Tumbler, public health nurse. I do family home. I'm a nurse on the disease and control in the county and help. >> My name is Sarah Ash. one of the support
and various office public health planner. I monitor the cha for a few years. Um I worked basically the disease prevention team. Uh I also
do some work with the IQ program and uh basically my main role is Chris Wes. I supervise the disease prevention and control team environmental health program and emergency program.
>> And I'm Britney Schmall. Summer community health strategist. I run the SHIP program and help run our new Smart Food Systems regional food coordination for 19 counties >> and of course our director. >> All right. Thank you. Um so we are
celebrating our national public health week uh this week and Canuah County Public Health is proud to serve our community every day. Uh in 2025, our dedicated team issued 342
special event permits. We issued 193 car seats, made over 1,500 home visits, administered 455 vaccines, and served 18,000 participants through the
WIC program. These numbers represent healthier families, safer events, and stronger communities. This week gives us an opportunity to recognize and thank our dedicated staff who show up every day with compassion,
professionalism, and a deep commitment to caring for our community. Their work often happens behind the scenes. However, it impacts its impact is felt everywhere. Our public health team consists of 27 staff
um who have a vast range of knowledge and skills including a registered dietician, community health strategist, public health planner, community and outreach coordinator, nutritionist, health educator, and a bilingual program support
specialist along with environmental health specialists. uh accounting specialists, office and program support staff, and our public health nurses. 2025 was a year of transition and growth
for us in public health with five new um staff starting. This year's theme for public health week is ready, set, action. And we are ready. There is a lot of good work to be done
and our days are full. We are proud of our public health staff and we are proud to serve the community in Candyo High County. Thank you for having us this morning and um yeah, we are ready to get going.
>> Thank you. Any uh any questions for Jod? Uh >> well, I don't have a question. >> Um I just got a comment. You know, it it's it's almost intimidating, and I know everybody says it's intimidating to get to the to the podium, but it's intimidating to me a little bit to have
all you in here as staff. I mean, you guys have I I jokingly >> bring any sharp object. >> Yeah. But I jokingly have said probably to a few of you as new staff people, well, you're still here, but you guys really do the hard work and the things that
really probably are difficult. I hope there's good days. I know there's really bad days, but really want to thank everybody that's in this room right now for doing the hard work in making this place a better place for our families and our kids. I mean, it it's it's a big deal and it's become a really big deal
in the last few years for for all the things that you guys do and and put forth the effort of of making this a better county. So, thank you very much. >> Anyone else for comments? All right. Yes. No,
>> let's give him a hand and say a big thank you. >> Well, I I I agree. >> Yes. >> Uh and with that, at uh at this time, we are going to take another brief recess uh to uh allow for uh uh some photographs and then we'll uh continue
on with the rest of our agenda. So, uh we will be in recess. So I it, are you ready? >> All right, we are back from another recess. Uh and at this time uh we would
uh ask Mark Besson uh for a presentation on resolution 2026-20 uh Candy County Township broadband deployment. Uh Mark, it's been a while since we've been able to do one of these things. It's great to see you here.
>> 2024. I was just thinking the last time I was here. So um Mr. Chair, members of the board, good morning. Mark Bashan. and the chair of the EDC's broadband and advanced technology committee. Today I come before you with a project
requesting some funds. This project is mainly in the area of Surveya in Whitefield Township. As you know or you may know, Minnesota has not funded its borderto border program. Um it is out of money and so we no longer have that resource. However,
we were able to identify an area that had sufficient density and close enough to existing infrastructure to make a project happen without asking for a grant um from any other um place. So,
this project specifically is with vibrant or meager co-op in Lichfield. This would serve 52 locations mainly again in the town of Seveya, the unincorporated city of Seveya, U and along County Road 3.
As you see in the cost breakdown below, uh, Vibrant is contributing 40%. We've asked everybody to contribute a little bit more because of the state not contributing. Um, so that amount is higher than normal. Uh, the county the same way and the township the same. So
we have all the players back. We have the township contributing, the provider contributing, and now we're asking for the county to contribute. In 2024, um I came before you and asking uh to allocate uh basically the remaining
broadband ARPA dollars at uh $262,528. Today, I come asking uh for $100,800 of that uh recommendation of that money to fund this project. That's my presentation. What else can I answer?
>> Need a motion, >> Mr. Chair? >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Are we ready for a motion? >> Yes. Yes, we are. >> I think this is a great project. >> I was just mathing. >> Okay. I I think this is a great project. It was a nice little surprise that it came together really good and I'm glad
that Vibrant was really eager to work with the community of Sava. And so I make a motion that we move forward with this uh project. >> I'll second that, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you. We have a motion and a second
to move on resolution 2026-20. Any discussion? >> Mr. Commissioner Berg. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's unfortunate that we can't leverage those dollars with the state anymore. Um, but I'd just like to mention how these are dollars
that goes way back to COVID and and how the county dedicated millions to to this project. We're coming to the end of those dollars, but it's sound like a really good project and it's exciting to see this still moving forward. I'm not sure what we can do after this, but we
got to keep working at it. >> And just a note on that too, um, you know, the state stopped their border border because of the federal bead dollars. Um, though this area doesn't qualify for that. We did have some areas that did qualify for bead. Um and so you
probably will see some additional work particularly in um is it Green Lake Township? Um and then a little bit maybe in Wilmer Township areas. Um but that's federally funded through the state. Um so you you
probably will see a little additional work in there. >> So good. Anyone else with questions for Mark? anything on the horizon? I know that there's a uh a limited shelf life on those ARPA dollars.
>> Yeah. So, these funds the the remaining funds have to be spent by the end of 20126 from the committee standpoint. Um it's on the agenda for our next meeting as far as a recommendation to you if there's anything else that we can do um with those funds. Otherwise, it's a you
know, I think the county indicated for technology uses and those kind of things. As far as grants from elsewhere, everybody's really looking at these bead dollars. It was um I can't remember 60 60 billion or 40 billion, can't remember. But anyway, we're going to see a lot of action from the federal
government on that um those dollars. And I think that's the idea in the state is there uh might be concerned with the office of broadband development using the $600 million that was designated for the state of Minnesota. We really advocate to continue to fund the board
of border program still because most of the county that remains does not qualify for bead funding and without that funding it's really hard um to find projects that are affordable for local areas. And just off the top of your
head, uh, uh, with the, uh, with all the work that's been done over over the last five, six years in this area, uh, how much of the county do we have left to cover before we're uh, considered quote fully served?
>> That's always a loaded question. Uh, I don't know if I said in in land area, you know, there's probably a third leftish if I was just to guess. But a lot of what is left over is stuff that uh uh is
kind of last mile type projects. Would you say >> um potentially part of it is we've had you know two very responsive companies come from both the west and the east and kind of converge in the middle. So we're kind of looking at that middle section
that's kind of try to keep pushing towards basically the highway 71 line. Um, it's not that any are any harder probably than others. It's just that whenever the funding timing and where the infrastructure was at the time
happened to be in this case because we funded um it would have been is it East Lake Town? No, Fallen Township is next to there because we were able to complete that project is what enabled us to complete or to do this project in
Sava. So, it's kind of just working working from the outsides in. >> So, it's an ongoing effort. >> It is. >> Commissioner Dale Anderson. >> Well, this isn't pertaining to this, but I' I've had some people ask me, there's still some people up in Dovery Township
that got kind of missed when the Vibrant came through because of um somebody else having access to them. I think there's 42 or whatever it is sites. Is there anything that's on the horizon to to give them people an opportunity to get
hooked up to vibrant somehow or is have you heard anything about that? >> Are they people that already have like charter or spectrum service? >> Well, it was supposed to be put in by them but it never has been put in either. >> I guess I'm not aware of that. The only
thing is during the with what separates doy from others is because part of doy was already served by charter, we couldn't use state funds. So anybody that was um served even if the the line
wasn't to their house, we couldn't go to for that. However, that's for the line extension. So if charter is in the road but not to their house, the line extension is the answer for that. Um, other than that, I guess I'm not aware of any other ones um that would have
been missed off the top of my head. >> Okay. >> But you certainly reach out to the EDC um and we can get an answer if there's specific questions. >> Not a problem. >> Commissioner MDK, >> thank you. Yeah, those are always going to be the hardest miles is those those
last miles. And I I really think that as we patiently wait for bead to uh deploy and to be available, I was uh I think it was four three years ago I was invited to AMC when Senator Smith and Senator Clolobashar and Jim Mundo the
commissioner of commerce were there to announce the bead program. Yet we've seen nothing of it so far. Um I I continue to uh hold out hope. Uh but in the meantime, um I think we can continue encourage and
consider ourselves as a county, how we might uh be creative about how to find some long-term funding to continue to uh create these matches that are most likely going to be necessary. and um uh
you know the Vibrance and the Federateds. By the way, what Vibrant didn't work in Dovery uh so just so they don't get thrown under the bus on this um uh continue to work with them to to
get as much um uh additional coverage as possible and thank you for your work. You've been at this for about six years now or maybe longer. The time really goes by. I appreciate your uh your stick tuitiveness. >> Welcome. I thank the committee too because we've had a very great and
active committee that you know really started around 1999 2000. So history goes back very far. >> So >> Commissioner Dwayne Anderson. So, uh, to answer Chair Gardner's, uh, question
about how much we have in the area or how much has been done or whatever, I have, uh, 13 townships and seven are served. And then uh there's six that still need some. But uh just about every uh town is going to be served after this
except I think uh the town of Blumus is I think about the only one that in my district that won't be won't have any kind of high-speed internet at this time. So we made a lot of progress in six years, but there's still more to go. So,
>> yeah, I looked up just I don't want to waste the time, but you know, we when I came back in 2024, it was uh 2,612 locations and uh brought in over $21 million in infrastructure. So, um been very successful and I think
there's only been one grant that we haven't gotten that we applied for. So, um it's been a great program. There's no doubt. Um so, we've been very successful. And just a brief question for admin administrator Baker. Um, uh,
the ARPA funds have to be fully spent by the end of, uh, this year. Uh, and do we have an approximate balance? >> No, not really. >> I I do, but I don't have that right in front of me. Um, we have been the biggest one was the broadband because
the board allocated 75% of that. Um, and I just did have a conversation with Mark maybe about a month ago on where we are at and Federated I do believe followed up and most of the dollars already are spent on the payment. So, they've been um the uh um the telephone companies
that we're working with have been getting us their bills u and in invoices so that we're able to funnel those dollars out. Um and then the remaining balance from um after the board action today within that allocation would be 161,000 give or take for the county then
to use for technology or like Mark said if there's another broadband request he could come back and ask for that >> Mr. Chair and I believe they needed to be obligated and we did get everything obligated. Is that correct? So, so the deadlines don't really uh apply to have
them spent. Although the contracts that that we did use money on with federated and anybody else, those need to be completed. >> My my understanding is that they they had to be fully uh spent by the end of 2026. >> Yeah. And how we did that, Mr. Chair,
how we did that with the remaining dollars at the end of 2024, I think it was, um satisfied that. Well, it's satisfied that we had allocated them somewhere, but I thought they needed to be fully spent. Let's let's look into
that offline. Uh, at this time, we uh we have a motion and a second to move on resolution 2026- 20. All in favor signify by saying I. I. >> All opposed.
>> That motion passes. Mark, thank you and uh thank you for your work. I know it's uh probably going to shift uh with the shifting programs as we go along here, but uh appre appreciate having you on board and helping us >> and thanks to all of you for your
support with broadband. Thank you. >> You're welcome. Thank you. >> Uh then we will have uh Sher Wner, economic development manager for KCED and uh Marv Calvin as well uh interim uh
director. uh and you're going to present on the uh Canary County Housing Study 2026. Good morning. >> Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to be in front of you today. Um kind of here and as all of you know, we've been going through a little transition in our office and uh we
should have been in front of you before and so uh I am responsible for that and I take full responsibility for not being in front of you earlier to bring this to you. So, uh, today you'll get an update on where we are in the housing study and, uh, Miss Wagner will present that and then I will stand for questions if
you have questions. Uh, but we'll kind of try to help you along in your agenda today and give you a quick version rather than the long version. So, Sheree, >> good morning. Thank you so much. >> And Kelsey, thank you for letting me
know. So, we did uh initiate the 2026 study. We did that with the direction of vision 20 240 and the funding for this program is also coming through uh vision 2040 in 2023. They did a refresher of the housing study is my understanding
and this is the scheduled five-year normal full housing study. Um, this comprehensive study is being addressed a little bit differently than the previous one in that previously the housing studies focused on Wilmer and
then five communities. This one is still waiting heavy to Wilmer and the five communities, but it's also making sure that all of the communities are being addressed in this housing study. And then um each of the communities then will have a info sheet that will give
all of the specs about their housing needs looking forward. So that as developers or contractors or construction companies come in or as we're looking at other economic development pieces bringing them into the communities, we would know all of the data on each of the communities and
we can help guide these projects based on the needs of those that are coming in and the needs of the communities and where we feel like we can fulfill those needs through the housing. Uh in addition to that, we did choose to
stay with Viewpoint as the company and the reasoning behind that was they have done it historically. They've done a great job, but by utilizing them, we've also reduced our costs because they don't have to start from scratch. They can use their baseline information and then continue from there. But again, we
are diverting a little bit on that this year. We are looking at some priority areas in moveover housing for people who have lived in their homes, paid off their mortgages, don't necessarily need to be in a five-bedroom house with two
people, but there's no real incentive for them to move over into a smaller uh capital gains. There's no financial gains. So, we're looking at what are the needs for that? What are the possible solutions for that to do move over housing as well as looking at mobility
and disability services and what those look like? Candy Ohio County has a high percentage of people in mobility issues and making sure that we are incorporating that into the study as far as needs as well. And then looking at different models of housing options, not
just the top three of single family, multiple living or duplexes. And then in addition to that, we were recently at a conference that was talking about the trend being taking a buy level home, finishing off the top
level, selling that so that the cost is less expensive, leaving the bottom level open and available. So as the family grows and moves into their home, they can build it out to fit their needs and that reduces the overall cost of the building of the homes. And then in
addition to that, there's lots of changes and additions on this one is we're looking at not only a startup home, but a single family home for the first-time homeowner, but also for the average mean of the employee and then
the cost of somebody who's more established in their careers. So, three levels of the financing so that we can figure out how to make affordable housing within the county. So, what questions may I answer? Commissioner and
>> thank you very much and thanks for that information. I'm particularly excited uh as you probably are going to anticipate this comment about the move over housing. Uh about 10 days ago I listened to a webinar from Dr. or he's not a doctor Ben Winchester from the
University of Minnesota Extension who talked specifically about move over and moving back um demographics. And by move over, they're talking about um people who are living in their homes that are probably struggling to keep the gutters
cleaned and the paint on the on the walls and lawns mowed who would prefer to have something with less maintenance. About eight years ago now, the New London EDA, which I serve on, um was able to very uh efficiently move some
land to a developer who put in I think it's 15 units uh in the west edge of New London and they were all rented before he even broke ground. There was that much demand for it. And what that does is that opens up the homes of these
moveovers for the uh younger population to buy as a starter home. And a lot of them can put their own sweat equity into improving these homes. Many of them unfortunately do need a lot of um deferred maintenance, if you will. So, I'm really glad to hear about the move
over portion of it. >> Any uh any other questions for Sheree? Is that the Do you have more? >> I just say lastly, we'll be doing uh about a July will be the first review. Uh so we'll be taking that to 2040 and other stakeholders to review it and then
we expect the finished study to be near year end. And that's all I have. >> Okay. Uh any other questions uh for Sheree? So this is uh this is for uh information only. This will be moving forward. I was glad that uh uh selected
the uh previous firm uh for all of the reasons that you uh uh that you mentioned. I think it's going to be interesting because uh the number one housing issue uh that was identified in the last study was senior housing. uh
and uh uh obviously if you look around the city of Wilmer now uh you've seen a lot of different uh types of that but it'll be interesting to see what remains to be done in that area here and throughout the uh entire county uh also
with the uh city of Wilmer uh currently working on their uh uh new zoning ordinance uh and where both you and I sit on that work group. Uh it's going to be interesting to see where they go with some things that are maybe a little out
of the box uh compared to uh uh traditional uh zoning that uh uh tends to be uh uh at times uh not inclusive of uh uh of anything that is you know
different shall we say. uh used to be that uh back in the 30s4s uh uh into the early 50s people would buy would build the house they could afford at that time uh but have a design where they could add on to it or they just simply didn't
meet need as many square feet. Well, today's trend has been to move into all of these larger uh uh footprint uh and uh uh so many different resource demands. uh when you have something like
that and cities struggle to pay for the infrastructure they already have. So uh it'll be really interesting to see where the uh uh uh where their uh development uh and ultimately the council lands on
uh in terms of that uh uh ordinance. But of course it's nice to nice to be able to be a a small part of that. I know Commissioner Bird was a part of the group that uh looked at the comprehensive plan and uh so uh you know more to come and this will be highly
informative. >> I think uh uh former director Bachmann always used to say that these things maybe had a uh uh 30 36 month shelf life and then they needed updated from a economic development standpoint. So, uh
this is important work and I appreciate the uh uh work of the u um uh uh vision 2040 uh in partnering to uh fund this. So, uh with that, anything
else? >> All right. Thank you for helping us get back on track. I didn't help you very much there just the last couple minutes, but >> thank you. >> There we go. All right. Thank you so much. At this time, we'll have Logan Bankston, the county feed lot officer,
uh, with the, uh, 2025 annual performance report. >> Good morning, everyone. >> Good morning. >> So, quick overview with this. This is the annual report of the work that's been done with the feed lot program. So, we meet our minimum requirements and everything after that with these credits
is, you know, extra credit for us in funding. So, they haven't said what the percent or the numbers per credit will be. that won't be released till probably June July and that's when the funds will be released as well but for you know 24
those funds were 133 per credit the year prior to that was $68 per credit so it kind of varies with the state and the funding and the general pot that they divy out between the counties um so the numbers were a little low compared to previous years in inspection
wise but with credit was 113.75 PCs that we that we acrewed um with the number of low inspections just because with any transition with Russ going out in June I started June 25 there's always that learning hiccups and
what the state wants and also learning on the septic side of things my attention was kind of pulled both ways but open for any questions on this form if you have any >> Mr. Sure. >> Did I just hear you say uh mention
septics? Do you do the septic inspections as well? Okay. >> Yep. >> I got a question. Go ahead. >> Um so you said there were you did 113 inspections. >> No, that's the PC credits. The inspections was 34 that were required
and it was a total about 40 inspections. So some of those that aren't required by the state to be registered will still go out because it's within the county and want to make sure everything's good. >> Okay. >> On the, you know, the waterways and ditches, lakes, uh, wetlands, all that.
>> Okay. >> So, >> all right. Thank you. >> Uh, Commissioner B. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you expound a little bit more on what emergency response is? >> So, funny you bring that up because I just got a call prior to coming here that, hey, there's runoff going to a
ditch. can you come out and take a peek? What's going on here? And you know, I'll keep the anonymous or whoever's calling on that. So, uh, another emergency response was someone's throwing manure in a ditch. So, it's going to talk to the land owner going, "What's going on? Did you know the rules?" And a lot of
these are the people who are under those requirements register that they don't know the rules. So, it's going out there and engaging with them and telling them, giving them the heads up on, hey, this is the setbacks. Don't put it here. just kind of giving them a little bit of information and uh just giving them my
contact. Don't be afraid to call me if you have any questions on setbacks, requirements, all that. >> Commissioner and >> or they don't know they're in a shoreland district. I remember when I learned that I was not very happy with it when I was farming. >> Yeah, there's, you know, there's areas
where it's barely in one region, but then it's egg in another, but unfortunately where the cows are or goats or what, whatever, they're just in the shoreland zone. Yep. Uh in general, I don't imagine you have any issues by and large gaining
compliance when uh when you go out on these. >> No, everyone's pretty cooperative. Uh you know, they know shouldn't happen and you know, stuff happens as it says on the farm, so to speak. So, everyone's been pretty cooperative so far and you know, we want to just do our best.
>> Okay. Uh anything else for >> action? We need action. >> Approval and a signature. >> We need action. >> Yep. Understood. Uh so uh with not having any uh further discussion then is there a motion to accept the report?
>> Mr. Chair, also move. >> Thank you. Is there a second? >> I'll second that, Mr. Chair. >> All right. We have a motion, a second to accept the report. Discussion hearing none. All in favor say I. I. >> All opposed. >> That passes. Logan, thank you so much. >> Get a sign from you, too. This time we
will uh hear from >> I think it's I'll get it to you. >> We'll hear from uh Auditor Treasurer Lisa Whis uh on the matter of consideration of setting a public hearing uh on a proposal to re recognize
Calhoun Lake as the official name of Calhoun Lake Calhoun. Uh Lisa, good morning. >> Good morning. Lisa Whis, Candy High County auditor treasurer. I'm here this morning to request the board set a public hearing on the petition to
recognize Calhoun Lake as the official name for Lake ID 340062000. At the March 17th meeting, the board heard a presentation on the history of the Calhoun Lake Calhoun uh name. A petition was received in the auditor
treasur's office uh requesting to recognize Calhoun Lake as the official name for lake ID 340062000. The petition meets the criteria under Minnesota statute 83A.05 and the next step is to schedule a
public hearing. Staff recommends scheduling the public hearing by approving the draft notice that's in the board packet and setting the public hearing for 9:00 a.m. on May 19th here in the commissioner's boardroom. >> All right. Thank you. Is there a uh
>> so move, Mr. Chair? >> Thank you. We have a motion and a second. >> I'll second that. >> Thank you. Motion, a second to uh set the public hearing. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. All in favor say I. I
>> I all opposed. Motion passes. And you also wish to uh have us set a public hearing on a proposed lake improvement district. >> I do. Um the next item that I have is to request that the board acknowledge receipt of the petition to establish the
Lake Andrew Lake improvement district under Minnesota statute 103b.521 and to set a public hearing date to consider this request. The petition comes from the Lake Andrew Lake Improvement Association. It was received by the auditor treasurer. It meets the
requirements under the statute 103b.521 and the signatures on the petition have been verified. The next step in the process is the for the board to set the public hearing date and staff is recommending setting the public hearing for 9:00 a.m. on May 5th here in the
commissioner's boardroom. >> All right. Is there a motion? >> Mr. Chair also moved. >> Commissioner Dale Anderson moves. Is there a second? >> I'll second that. >> Commissioner Mckex seconds. Any discussion? >> I I just want to say I helped kind of
with this a little bit. They we I it's this is a new thing. So, this has really kind of been groundbreaking, I think, for our county. This has not been done um that much. And and I want to thank Kelsey and staff for helping out the lake association and thank the lake
association for all the work they've done on this. I know this wasn't an easy uh feat to get this put together. So I hope that it has good outcomes and I hope it um takes care of what their needs are for for the future. But thanks for everybody that's put a lot of work
into this to figure out how to make this work. >> Anyone else? All right, hearing none. All in favor of setting the public hearing say I. >> I. >> All opposed. That motion passes. Thank you, Lisa.
>> Uh and uh uh Administrator Baker, uh uh uh we have the matter of the uh 2027 budget timetable. Um >> good morning again, Kelsey Baker, Candy County Administrator. before you today in your packet. This is more so a
discussion um is I'll be presenting this budget timeline to the department heads this Thursday actually at our monthly department head meeting. Um but it just kind of walks through the timeline. So as of this week um the budget financial
recap um will happen at the April 21st board meeting. The first quarter annual or first quarter reports um will happen at the 21st meeting. uh will distribute the board or the excuse me the budget packets out to uh department heads and quasi government agencies. Um department
heads will then be um asked to send back their budget. Um we won't worry about salaries. Um I'll do their one-on-one meetings with all of the departments between May 26th and June 12th. And then I would be suggesting a board work
session at the July 21st board meeting. Um and then we would have another board work session August 18th. Um kind of like our what we have typically done in the past. And then at the second meeting in September, we would the board would then adopt the preliminary budget. And
then and so forth. And then you see at the Tuesday, December 1st, we'd have our truth and taxation. And the second meeting in December on the 15th, the county board would then review and do the final adoption of the budget meeting or excuse me, the 2027 budget. or my question to the board and I don't
necessarily need an answer today uh but if the board would like a work session um at that first meeting in September so you would have a work session in July August and September um that would be up to you guys because then and then if you or if you wanted to
call a special board meeting like you had done uh last year for the 26th budget that um that fourth week in September based off how the dates fall. And so, like I said, if that would be discussed, we could um plan accordingly
then um and set up those meetings and then I could include that information with the department heads as well when I communicate with them. >> All right. Uh Commissioner B. >> Oh, thank you, Mr. Chair. I do like your suggestion about September 1st. Uh looking at another work session if
needed and so we have that option kind of in the back of our mind going forward. And I was going to comment, but I'm so glad you brought that up, that, you know, we can still have as many meetings as we can possibly get to get to our point
>> that we want to accomplish together as a board that we agree upon a good budget going forward. >> And I would I really like that idea about September 1st. Uh I would be uh asking uh fellow commissioners if uh if they have any
thoughts on uh something along those lines having that uh additional meeting. I think there was maybe a little constrnation in the last cycle uh about uh it was maybe felt that this uh initial timeline did not work
out uh uh given the circumstances and uh wanted to be able to have more information. Commissioner MDC, >> sure. I think just having a work session prior to um rather than at the same meeting as adopting the preliminary
budget would be helpful. Yeah, I agree with you. That's uh that's perfectly fine with me. So, would we be looking at that first meeting in September? Is that what I heard you to say? >> Yep, we could schedule that. >> Okay. Uh
uh any uh as as Commissioner Anderson uh >> No, that's fine. I'm just looking. >> That works for you. >> Yep, that's fine. >> I I see a head nod here. U Yeah, let's go ahead and uh uh put that one in. I think planning for it now I think lends
some uh certainty to the process and certainly there will be questions that come out of that August 18th uh work session that uh should be answered prior to uh having to set the preliminary budget. Okay. So uh I think uh I think
it's a great plan and we will uh uh once again look forward to the process. And Kelsey, I think you mentioned to me that you're starting this just a little earlier than uh uh than is usual. Yes. The >> a full month earlier. >> Okay. Okay.
>> So, I think just with everything that's going on with legislative issues, we're going into union contracts uh I'm sorry, union negotiations this fall. Um so, we're hoping to get ahead of a lot of these tough conversations, not only with our legislators, commissioners, and
staff. And so we're just I think you can always plan ahead, but there are always things that will come up throughout the process that might slow that um slow things up a little bit. So at least if we can be as much as prepared as we can on our end, hopefully that will help the process.
>> All right, sounds great. Uh well, good. Thank you for uh presenting that and uh we'll add that uh additional uh work session in there. >> Okay. And uh uh I think uh the process
uh is you know sometimes difficult but uh but we'll get through it. >> So >> all right thank you for that. Uh do you have any uh oh we have a couple of appointments. >> So I'm like I'm just going to stay up here for a few more minutes if that's all right.
>> Um and then we can maybe go back through because we do have I'll just go briefly over it. Um, we have our ditch hearing for JD1 this afternoon at 1 pm. Um, the three commissioners were notified by us and all of that information for today. And then, um, Tuesday, April 14th at
5:30 p.m. in the multi-purpose room in the Health and Human Services building for the shotgun rifle discussion, that public hearing. And then we have a public hearing for on the 21st at 9:00 a.m. for Ditch 62 during our regular county board meeting. And then on May
19th following that board meeting, Community Corrections would like to do a full work session with the board. Um so and then we'll add those other um those other two public hearings will be regularly during the board meeting. So th those would go on our um calendars as
well. The other two appointments that I have um were for the Middlefork Crow River Watershed District. The letter of interest, we had one submission. Um, this was also public noticed in the paper for three weeks. Uh, met all of the qualifications. We do have Sarah
here with us um today if the board would like to ask her any questions, but this was the only letter of interest that I received for uh the opening for the Middlefork board. Um, and so my recommendation would be to approve the letter of interest for Sarah Seitzma to
be added to this uh watershed board. >> Mr. Chair, I would uh move on the recommendation of Missma for the Crover Middle Fork Crover Watershed District. >> Thank you. There's a motion. Is there a second? >> I'll second it.
>> We have a motion and a second discussion. Commissioner Bur. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had an opportunity to listen listen to Miss Sisma uh give a presentation on the Hot Creek project and she seemed very confident.
All right. Um, anybody else? Uh, Commissioner, >> thank you. Yeah, and I know Miss Sema showed interest the last time there was a seat open and the incumbent was also interested and so thank you for your
patience and waiting for the next opportunity. So, welcome board. >> I assume we'll get to that. Anyone else? Uh, hearing none. All in favor of the recommendation signify by saying I
>> I. All opposed. >> That motif. Thank you and congratulations. >> Thank you. >> We'll see. >> And then we have one other appointment um for the Minnesota Extension Committee. um we still needed to fill a
spot for district one and um I believe Trish worked with Commissioner Berg on this and so um I would recommend approval to appoint Scott Feden to the extension committee for district 1. >> Mr. Chair, >> so so I got a phone call last night. So I if if it's okay I have one more to add
to this. So from district 3, Dale Law actually called me last night and said that he'd be willing to take the other position that's missing from my district. all >> to fill that >> that's okay with for that opening. So if that's okay with everybody we could do it at the same time others we can wait
till next month >> I would defer to Shane if that if you I think that's fine too but >> commit >> so that could be my motion both of >> them both at the same time. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> All right. Uh everyone understanding of
what's being asked here? >> You made a motion. We need a second though. >> Yep. I'll second that. >> Okay. And uh and and the motion is for both. >> Y >> Okay. Very good. Uh discussion. >> Okay. Hearing none. Uh all in favor say
I. >> I. >> All opposed. That motion passes. Thank you. All right. We are down to u uh administrative updates, uh appointments, calendars, committee reports. Uh I did
want to uh uh have a brief discussion uh in regards to the public hearing next week on the uh shotgun rifle ordinance and uh just want to uh want us to be able to get some clarification uh as board members on when people are
reaching out to us uh and if they know for example that they're not going to be at the meeting uh at the public hearing next uh uh Tuesday uh what do they need to do to make sure that their uh uh thoughts and feelings on that are are uh
made part of that public record. Uh and uh uh the sense uh the sense that I get is that they need to send something indirectly to the administrative offices here uh to uh administrator Baker. Uh would you care to help me out with that?
Um yeah, if they do have any public comment to send them into um the county administration office and then I will provide them um the information and make sure that we can have that on the record for the public hearing. And so then for those who have reached out to us
individually uh uh if there's anyone who's uh who you know uh isn't going to be able to be at that public hearing but wants to make sure that uh for example they have reports that they would like to be uh uh part of their uh
presentation that type of thing that would be part of the u uh uh hearing and discussion. uh so that uh when we do vote we will take that uh into into consideration.
Commissioner, >> thank you. Um I just want to be clear that we are we as commissioners who will ultimately make the decision um can still use the information that we received uh via these last couple months
via emails and phone calls and you name it. I guess my I guess my concern is that uh if for example somebody has a uh uh report or something that uh some source
that they're uh uh referencing. Uh and I guess I'll ask Shane this question. Uh if if that is not part of the public hearing, is that something that we can actually consider in uh in in in in our deliberations?
>> Right. it won't be part of the record that forms the basis of the decision. >> I think you always come with, you know, information from all sources in life as you make these decisions and you can't just separate that. But what would justify the decision is what's in the record,
>> right? So, okay. Uh so if there's if if if there's something that might somebody feels might be really instrumental in that decision one way or another uh though they should endeavor to make it part of the public record and
then we should be utilizing just what's in the public record or no help me out with that a little bit. >> Well I guess that's what I'm saying is you bring all experiences to life in making any decision and this would be no different than that. >> Okay. I'm just saying
what would justify, you know, outside of, you know, other forums would be what's in the record if it was a rational decision. >> Okay. Okay. Well, because uh as you can tell, I was a little muddy on that and
so I just wanted to ask the question for uh uh for everyone else uh as to uh you know, what we're going to be able to do with what we have. So, looking forward to the public hearing uh and uh that's uh downstairs again
>> uh in the multi-purpose room uh 5:30 p.m. sharp and we will go until uh everyone who wishes to be heard uh is is heard and then uh uh what is our uh end goal? Are we looking at uh making a
decision that evening or are we looking at uh or bringing that back. I think I heard uh a couple of weeks ago or a couple of meetings ago that we could uh defer the decision to as late as the first meeting in May. Correct. Is that
correct? >> Yep. >> Okay. So, uh Commissioner and >> Yeah. I I don't think we should deliberate the evening of the public hearing. >> Yeah. I'm >> that should be at a separate uh meeting. >> Yeah. Uh Commissioner B. Yeah. Thank
you, Mr. Chair. And I understand there's been some talk about the our board meeting on the 21st looking at that possibly >> and I can add it to then >> that's be a good time. No sense of waiting till the very last meeting and the people have been putting a lot of input into this and one more meeting. We don't want
to put them off too much longer but I do like the idea as m commissioner mentioned too that we have a chance I think this overview a little bit further after that hearing. Yeah, I would agree because uh because some of some of this will there's a high likelihood that that
there will be new information I should think that's coming before us. And so in all fairness uh we've taken this long to go through a step through process to be able to hear from everybody as needed uh and uh uh give everybody ample time and
opportunity to be heard on the subject. So, uh, and it's a lot for us to take in. Uh, I want to, uh, I want to, uh, commend, uh, uh, my friends on the board who, uh, uh, are patient enough to, uh,
look at this and understand that, uh, uh, we're just we're just making sure that we're covering all all angles on this. And so, appreciate your patience and uh, appreciate your patience with me today. Thank you, Mr. Commissioner Berg. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just
really the input we've received so far has been huge and I just think it's all the input I've ran across and I've heard from people and I think the rest of us have too was has been very professional, very well presented both sides and u it's really appreciate hearing from
everybody. Never experienced as many people to hear from and it feels good to hear and get this input too. We appreciate it very much. >> Absolutely. Uh so at this time uh we're down to report outs. Is there uh anybody that uh uh has something uh that is of
particular entrance interest to the uh uh uh board at large? >> Just Commissioner B. >> Um yes, actually we had some extra time in there. We the one thing I'd like to bring up is that we did have our Hawk Creek one watershed plan uh meeting and
we talked about going forward since there's some changes there and uh at this point uh Renville County and Chipper County is going to be taking the leadership on this the administration on that and they're going to co work that out. So feeling good about going forward
with that. >> All right. >> Uh Commissioner Dwayne Anderson. >> Yeah. So on for me on this week uh for Pioneer Library, we're going to be interviewing uh candidates for our new
director for the Pioneer Library system. >> Okay. Roger. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. So on uh I I now serve on the board of directors of the Highway 23 Coalition and uh Highway 23 Coalition has their annual member
meeting on this coming Friday in MOA. uh Kenyo County and the city of Wilmer and the very local region here have benefited greatly from the efforts of Highway 23 Coalition. They um trying to get the pavement on the 2 and a half miles from 71 over to County Road 5, the
interchange at New London, uh the gaps. Uh so we've benefited a lot and now our new focus is going to be on the northeast end for anybody who ever goes up to the northshore and you suffer through north of St. cloud to I35. Now's
your time to to uh put in a good word for the efforts uh that we could achieve up there. And so um I'm invited we have three uh opportunities to attend without any charge. Uh I go as a member of three
sisters. So I'm not going to use up one of those. I would encourage staff or or board to attend with us. And the other thing I wanted to uh bring up is the um uh progress of the uh EDC hiring committee.
We had a preliminary meeting uh to whittle it down to four candidates last day before holy Thursday, whatever the day that was last Thursday. Um and uh so the next step is and I understand all four of them have agreed to um be
interviewed and so that'll be the next step and and so we're moving through that process and we have some very good candidates and then um that's all that really uh I wanted to share with all of you. >> Commissioner Dwayne. >> Yeah, I I just wanted to make uh let you
guys know that I am running for reelection again here this uh next time around. So before I forget that. So, I I've enjoyed doing this for six years and or this is my sixth year and and uh you know, one of the main things that I
pushed was uh about uh getting high-speed internet into our area and when I first ran there was there was nothing. And now we have uh you know, everything clicked for me. I mean, everything went my way, but we got seven townships that have it now. And and then
I think uh well several of the different towns like Princeburg, Raymond, uh Candy, Ohio, Atwater, and Lake Lillian have that and now Sea is going to get it. So it's really great and it it's just kind of fun to keep pushing our county forward. So
>> outstanding. Thank you. Uh Commissioner Dale Anderson. >> Well, yeah, it's kind of crazy. We've actually been off for three weeks, which is kind of amazing when I looked back. But the one thing I wanted to bring up is me and Steve went to a leadership training up in Brainer and it was probably the best one that I've been to.
>> Um very uh simple way to understand ways to communicate with constituents uh communicate with people in in different situations and and how to not be so you know the best example that I thought was the best is if you're really nervous or
if you're in for a fight you're going to lean forward like I am. But what he really talked about is that we all need to lean back. And sometimes people think we're not paying attention. But if we lean back and turn a little bit, it takes the pressure off of everybody being we're kind of opening ourselves up. And I thought I thought that was the
coolest thing that we that we got taught was to not sit there like this like we're like we're in the battle to just lean back and and let people talk to us and let us absorb what they're saying. And I think that really will be a cool thing for me to think about. Um, but it
was a really good thing. It was a three-day um, session that we went to and and the guy was very good at making it down to earth in very practical situations of different scenarios like that to help become a better
commissioner and and do our part to take care of the county. So, >> Commissioner Burby, anything? >> I I pretty well said it said it I think already. And to go along with that, even if we do lean forward, be sure we smile. >> All right. And uh as Dale indicated, uh
actually that's been mostly the last work that I've been uh able to do uh pretty much for about the last uh 10 days been laid up a little bit. And so uh uh happy to be uh bouncing through this uh once again. So, uh, with that,
uh, is there anything else for the good of the order? Otherwise, then we will adjourn the K County Board of Commissioners. Thank you, everybody. Uh, I would remind uh Commissioner Berg, Commissioner Anderson, and I will be returning at 1:00 for a uh ditch