Tom Healey signed up. Tom, would you like to come forward Tom? I'm sorry. Public comments. Yeah. Yep. That's That's the beginning of the meeting. Yep. So, if you could just state your name
and I'm sorry. I was hoping to to make a more informed reaction after I heard the after I heard the committee uh take action on a couple of the items that are most significant I think to me. My name
is Tom Heilen. Um three years ago I attended a city county joint meeting discussing uh housing and homelessness policy. And I'm sure that everyone here, whether
you're on the deis or you're sitting behind, have asked yourself the question, what are we missing? I ask myself that question, if not daily, certainly
weekly. And one of the things that we're missing, you know, frankly, I don't know any of these folks, but we're missing public participation. And we're missing a dialogue of
communication with people that have a master's degree in the street of how things could be made better regarding housing, regarding health. You know, one of the items on
your agenda here is uh pending cannabis licenses. I'd like interactive dialogue. Few years ago, um I was looking for a uh a storage unit and I stopped by Commissioner Thean's uh place
of business and somehow he just heard me ask a couple of questions and he came out and invited me into uh his office. Uh, I told him that I moved to Rochester because I'd been a I've been a male
patient now for something like, I don't know, 18, 19, 20 years. Mayo has probably saved my life at least five times, maybe in the last four years. Um, I don't I uh, you know, you've
probably heard about chemical sensitivities and things like that. Well, I have a very unusual immune system and currently I'm I think I'm about month 25 of being treated by male with a protein immune modulator that
costs over $10,000 a month. And that's the reason why I can talk today, much less walk today. and I could probably if somebody was chasing me run around the
building. You know, there's some things that are happening in this community that are extraordinary and beneficial, not just beneficial to individuals like myself, but beneficial to the entire community. There are other things like homeless
policy that is causing mass death in the streets and there is a very close link and I have no idea what the comment time is. I'm not going to soak up your precious time, but I think that I would
like to see perhaps one meeting at some time in the future where you in detail discuss the link between the housing crisis, housing shortage, and material outcomes of the worst kind in health. I can tell you
this. In the 1960s and the 1970s when I was a student at the University of Minnesota and Minscu institution that I graduated from, it was a settled issue among sociologists and political scientists.
When you take poor people and you concentrate them in ever smaller uh environments, what's the outcome? Anybody want to throw out a guess? Not good. Pardon me. Not good. Negative outcome. Yes.
And you're considering a license for cannabis. What is the highest volume drug sold in Mstead County? Anybody want to offer? I'd say alcohol.
Yeah, you you're right, Mr. Theon. But uh a close second and I would suggest that based on lethality um it it is more significant is salted
cannabis. And you know what could you do to stop the mark the mass marketing of salted cannabis? Well, first of all, what is salted cannabis? Salted cannabis is the old-fashioned stuff that I smelled in the 1960s. And
the first time I smelled salted cannabis, I was in a homeless line at the warming center. And I was standing there among more than 50 people. And I said, "My god, what is that smell?" And a guy that's uh I think then he was
like 27, he started laughing and he said, 'Well, old-timer, this ain't your 60s cannabis. No, it isn't because it's salted with methamphetamine and
fentanyl. And that is why whether it's OMC or St. Mary's I'm guessing that there are admissions for opiate circumstances that are probably I don't know is it is it
more than $50 million per year more than hund00 million per year I don't know what the economic cost is but something that I would suggest to this community and it it might be on the header when you have a housing
committee yearto date how many deaths in Mstate County as a result of opiate overdose. And there also should be a cumulative number in the last 10 years because and I'm not saying or suggesting
that you're you are responsible for this. We're all responsible for it. It is a shocking community failure and it does have a very direct connection both with the shortage of housing and the
concentration of poverty in status quo existing homelessness and social service programs. And if you walk down the subway clinic, we're gonna have to wrap it up pretty quick here. If you walk
down the subway in Mayo Clinic and you walk uh the full length uh I've taken predinazone for more than 50 years for my condition. One of the things it does is it really mucks up your memory. But
if when you read the statements by the Mayo brothers they talk about innovation and it's not passive innovation. It's not innovation that just happens. They were looking for ways to innovate. And as organizations get
bigger and as organizations get older and sociologists and organizational behaviors behaviorists had figured this out more than 20 years, you get reversion to mean. Tom, we're going to have to we're going to have to ask. Thank you very much. I
hope that you will look for ways to be innovative. And just one last suggestion. I came here yesterday to get a physical copy of the agendas. That wasn't possible. I suggest putting like
10 copies of the agenda out on the hallway where people can just pick up. And another suggestion, for example, for the emergency services program grant, put a hypertext link in your agenda so people can go online and they
can read the details of that grant. Thank you. Okay. Is there anybody else like to give public comment? All right. Hearing none, I'll call the meeting order. We'll start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, we'll start with the consent agenda. Approve the SA County board
minutes for May 20th. Accept the projects for assistance in transition from homelessness path grant from the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Approve three 2026 state bonding requests. Approve bridge priority list
for county and township bridges. Approve acceptance of the capital assistance grant for the state of Minnesota constru to construct a materials recovery facility. Approve declaration that the m materials recovery facil recovery facility will be a general obligation
bond financed property. Approve a temporary onsale liquor license for viola gopher count. Approve participation in the annual state measures program. Accept the emergency services program grant for the homeless housing and support services
administration. Approve cannabis business registration lottery fee. Move to approve the consent agenda. Yeah, we have a motion. I would like to just because I I don't think we have a
revised item C in front of us. Uh it's all right. We can pull that and then you can make pull that and uh and uh approve the rest and we can I don't have it in front of us. Okay. All right. So, I got a motion, a
second to approve everything except letter what was it? C C. Okay. All in favor say I. I. Oppos? Carries. All right. Talk about C. Uh Mr. Chair and members, uh as you know, earlier this morning, we talked about including the
uh uh a renewal, if you will, of the resolution of uh February 5th of this past year relative to support of the Mster County History Center bonding proposal. Uh and uh and I know there was language being drafted. We don't have
it, but I would just move we approve our item C with the inclusion of uh presumed inclusion of the of the language relative to the 2523 language relative to the history center. Okay. So, you're adding that on to this. Okay.
All right. I can I can We better talk to Jennifer about this. I don't think that's the way we want we agreed to do this. Oh, okay. Um, good morning board. Jennifer Burkeam, legislative analyst um with SA County. I guess I just would like
clarification. Are you proposing adding it as an item or just passing a separate resolution at the same time? We agree. I thought we were going to draft a document which included it in this document. Uh if that's a reason for
uncomfortableness, we could pass item C and uh and we could pass item C with the with a motion to include this as a separate and aside uh reaffirmation of this 25 thing. Why don't I why don't I
read it that way? That way it's not in the three here. It's separate. So mo moving that this be separately and aside approved uh as uh the 2523 pardon me 20
2025 reaffirmation of the support from All right. So we had a motion to approve the state bonding request as amended earlier today and the addition of a separate request to support the history center bonding requests as we had last in February. That clear?
So they're separate resolutions. I would ask you to bifurcate that please. So we do one at a time. Bifrocate. Well, I'll explain it to you later, Mr. Ty. One at a time. All right. So that's what we're doing. So I thought Dave's motion was two
separate things, but Okay. You can move to bifrocate if you want. No, we'll just take it one at a time. So actually the way I understand it uh is is that you're you're saying go back to letter C and approve letter C as as we
amended it and then introduce another one that basically says that we will continue our support for the history center as we have done in the past. Y that's fine. I mean, I don't know that the second one was necessary because we
agreed at admin that it wasn't necessary, but we'll go through the motion. All right. So, let's consider the first one first. Approve the state bonding requests as amended earlier today. Right. Second. I'll second that. Okay. All right. All in favor say I. I.
Oppos. Carries. All right. Dave, you want to make your second motion? Uh, I would uh Mr. Chair and members, I would move approval of the uh reaffirmation of the 252025 support uh for the bonding proposal of the Ms County History Center
Farm. Second. Okay. Discussion. All in favor say I. I. Oppose. Carries. Thank you. Okay. Now we'll move on toformational items. City of Pine Island update from administrator Elizabeth
Howard. Welcome. Welcome commissioners. Thank you for having me today. Um I think it's been about eight nine months since I was here previously. So I'm excited to see some new faces and also provide some newformational items on Pine Island. Uh so first before you I just
have some uh facts about Pine Island. Uh as you know Pine Island is fastly growing. Uh, so we are one of the we are the fastest growing community in Good Hugh County and one of the fastest um inolstead. And so one area I'd like to point out is our median age. So our
median age is 33.9. Um the Mstead County median age is 37.9 with Good Hugh County being 42.1. So we're quite a bit younger. Uh in fact our 0 to 19 age group actually exceeds our 65 plus age group. And so that just shows how many families are moving to Pine Island and
that we are a very family oriented community. Um housing, I think every single person in southeast Minnesota is talking about housing. And so we do have quite a few housing developments going up. Uh we have two single family housing developments, one in Good Hugh County, one in Olstead County. We have a new
town home uh subdivision going in that's on the Good Hiew County side, but we're really lacking in apartments. And so that's something that we're starting conversations on on how can we facilitate these apartment buildings and have a wide variety of housing available, not just single family homes.
As we all know, those are rising quickly. Um, and the new affordable single family home isn't very affordable. And so we're looking at how can we have affordable apartments, work uh force housing apartments, and then market rate housing. So we're looking at those three different levels on how can
we incorporate those into our city. Uh the school district. So the school district is I would say probably one of the biggest drivers on why Pine Island is growing so quickly. We have a fantastic school district. I believe it's about 33% is open enrolled in the Pine Island School District. And so I
know uh that is um just stretching our facilities. Um they're really they're really growing. And so they're trying to figure out how can we accommodate our Pine Island residents while also uh accommodating that open enrollment. And I want to speak on behalf of the school district.
Uh the school and the city, we have a fantastic relationship. We work every year to make sure that we're growing together, that we're not overt taxing our residents. And so uh we are trying to build kind of our future plans together. And I think that's one of the reasons Pine Island is succeeding the
way it is is because we are looking at the full picture um all all in one. So parks and recreation, uh we have a multitude of parks and different kinds of recreation. I don't think people realizes the amenities that Pine Island
has. So we have two forks of the river coming right through town. We have multiple canoe launches that people can launch in. Uh we're we're looking at adding some kayak rentals in the community. We have a lot of different parks and trails. Obviously, the Douglas Trail starts out in Pine Island, so we get a lot of bikers who like to come
down to Rochester and come back um out to Pine Island. So, uh we have horse trails that can be used as hiking trails. We're looking at uh adding some mountain biking. Um we have a kind of a bluff area that uh Pine Island, the city
owns land to. And so now we're looking at adding some mountain biking hills, trails. So, we're really trying to expand what we offer as in regards to recreation and the city council. That's really a main priority for them is investing in our parks and
recreation. Uh, and then commercial and industrial business growth. And so, last year, I think I had told you that the city purchased 22 acres on the north side of town. And so, uh, the city is exceeding its infrastructure. So, we're looking at maybe some possibly uh some
new city buildings there. In addition, we're looking at some highway commercial business. And then we're also looking uh at a place for apartment buildings, like I had said before on how we can incorporate some affordable and workplace housing uh with the market rate housing. We have the Pine Island
Business Park that's on the southeast side of town, but on the east side of 52. Uh we have multiple lots available there that we've been working with um like ready and area communities on what we can offer and how we can use those resources. And then you may have heard
uh the city is talking with a developer about a 400 acre um light industrial possibly technology campus on the northeast side of town. And so the city's been working through the environmental study aspect of that, the
AU um that will take us into early fall. uh that property currently is in the Pine Island Township. However, we do have an orderly annexation agreement with them that uh if everything goes as planned, then the city would be annexing that property. And so again, that's on
the northeast side um of the city. And then the sanitary sewer district, everyone's favorite subject. Uh so Pine Island has aging uh wastewater infrastructure along with uh uh communities of Wanamingos, Zambroa,
and Good Hugh. And so the four communities um along with Prairie Island Indian Community are coming together to try to solve that problem collectively. And so we've been working the last four years to build a sanitary sewer district uh between the communities. And so the
update that I have from the last time I was before you is uh the joint powers between the communities has purchased the land. It's just outside of Zimroda on where that facility will be. And so now we're working on funding for the rest of the project. So the communities
did receive $10 million from the state um two years ago in the last um time they had a bonding bill. Um, and so that is taking care of all the engineering and design and then the land acquisition. We are working on if a
bonding bill ever gets passed on possibly getting some more uh funding. We're also working on some federal funding and um so we're hoping that comes through and we can see um if everything goes as planned and we get the funding, we would see construction
um in about two years or so that that would start. So, we have some time still to solidify those funding sources. Uh, so problems with existing plants, they're um very outdated. Currently, we have
four discharge points where we would only have one discharge point. Uh, if we were to come combine facilities, uh, two of the four treatment plants are in flood zones, um, Pine Islands included. So, it would be nice to get that out of the flood plane. And then there's just
long-term benefits. Uh when comparing, we did the feasibility study and when comparing costs to build one large facility versus four smaller facilities, the cost was actually the same where we see the cost is operational. And so it would save about $500,000 per year uh to
have one facility. And so that really adds up when we're talking about a plant that could last 40 years. Um so we're looking at about a cost saving of $20 million over that time period. And then obviously the economy of scale and staff efficiencies. It's really hard uh to
find uh wastewater treatment workers um for class A plants. And then pray island inning community. I don't want to take the any um ray away from Nikki but uh the city has been working the city has been
working um with Prey Island Indian community. We have a fantastic relationship. We've been talking about ways of collaboration, how we can bring our two communities together, not just how we can benefit our residents, but how we can bring our cultures together and um things like
that. And then challenges and potential partnerships with Mstead County. Uh, one area that we are really looking forward to and there's been a lot of discussion in southeast Minnesota is connectivity and transportation is how can we help
our residents get to Rochester and vice versa. Uh, one huge uh, plan that our city council supports is the age friendly uh, initiative and I know Mstead County has a great age friendly initiative and so Pine Island's been collaborating on how
can we how can we help our residents as they're aging? How can we help them age in place? Obviously, housing is another uh, the city is always open to collaborating in any way possible. We want to make sure that we have a very diverse uh, housing situation in Pine
Island. And so I think that's something that we need to start talking about sooner than later. Child care, again, another issue that no one's surprised about. Uh the city is actually talking, we're looking at doing some different unique aspects for child care. And so
we've had a lot more childcare providers leave the field than have come in in the last three or four years. And so we're really seeing that crisis. And so the city has taken initiative on thinking outside the box. And we have a few ideas that are in the works right now. So hopefully next time I have more
information on that on what we can do to help that situation. And then the school access. So the elementary school is located on County Road 5. I know we've had some access issues in the past and uh as they continue to grow and as that housing development continues to grow, I'm hoping we can keep uh communications
open to help their access point. And then they have also purchased uh another parcel, I think of 80 acres along County Road 5 for a possible future school location. And I just want to make sure that we're talking about access um
between between those facilities. So, uh I tried to keep it short today. I know I could go on forever on everything we have going on and all the exciting changes and developments we have, but if there's any questions for me, I'd be more than happy to answer them. Yeah, I
have a question. Well, it sounds to me like Pine Island's being very progressive, so it's very good. it's going to grow. Uh but you talked about ideas of lowering the cost of
housing. Uh anything that you can share with us about your great ideas about lowering the cost of housing and how do you plan to do that? You know, I don't have an answer to anything. I don't think anybody has. It's it's a matter of
bringing everyone together in the same room. I I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but it's really I think Pine Island has realized that we need to invest more and that the reality of it is to bring cost down, you
have to bring other areas of cost down. And so if that, you know, for a small city of Pine Island, it means a lot when we're looking at like whacken sack fees and connectivity fees. And so, but if we're looking at foregoing fees like that just to encourage
um development, uh our city council and our EDA has looked at um that's why they've been purchasing land on how can we work with developers on taking the cost of land off. Again, when you're looking at a $450,000 house, an
$80,000 lot isn't isn't a lot, but it does it does help. And so I think we've just realized that the investment has to be real that um a lot of different programs have been tried and they aren't
necessarily working um because of that there needs to be a larger investment. And so that's what we're looking at. We have a a few local developers that have been loyal to Pine Island and you know they've been helping us grow and so we've been talking with them about real
solutions on what what do you need for us to us to succeed. Right. Well, as soon as you find the magic pill, let us know. I will. I definitely will. I'm hoping I can report back. Thank you. So, I have a question, Mr. Chairman. Um, so,
uh, in the area of child care, what can a small community like Pine Island do to help address the child care crisis that we're facing? Yep. So, uh, one of the ideas, it's very new in the last couple months that the city's looking at doing,
but, uh, a few of our housing subdivisions has smaller plats of land or smaller parcels of land that we're looking for like patio homes, things like that, but they're smaller, uh, land pieces. And so, the city's actually looking at possibly building
childc care pods in um, these different subdivisions. And so they're essentially like two-bedroom, one bath houses, but they could be used as a child care center. So we could have a childcare provider come and rent them, run a child
a daycare out of them. However, if the business were not to succeed, it could still be used for housing in that in that rare case. We're still working through the details. We're looking working through that investment. But again, I think we've realized we really
need to put dollars into that area if we really want it to succeed. So, does that does that help answer your question? No. Yeah, to some degree. I mean, you know, the fact that you're doing anything is fantastic. Um that you're really looking at this um it's a
it's a vexing problem. It is. And and that's where, you know, we we realize we just need to come out of the outside the box. Um, we've looked at centers and I think centers can struggle in a small town. Uh, because realistically in a place like
Pine Island, uh, we have great before and after school childcare through the school. And so it's really that zero to threeyear-old that I think a lot of parents are looking for. And so a center I think looking at not to get too deep in financials I clearly have looked into
this uh greatly but uh a lot of those dollars that they make come from the larger class sizes when you get to the four or five six year olds. And so we're really looking at okay that's probably not going to be feasible in our community. So how do we address this 0
to three 0 to four year old um crisis essentially. So so who's funding the before and after school programs? Uh I believe parents are paying for those. So it's p it's private through the school. So child care.
Interesting. Okay. Dave. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming coming down to visit with this is really important that we Yeah. keep uh up to date with our cities and uh I I just find it really helpful. I I've always found it interesting. We have at least two cities in our county
that are in two counties and uh how it all grew up that way only. industry knows, but uh my question relates to solid waste and and the solid waste from the south half of your city coming to Rochester and and and the question
really is on the north side of your city, so to speak, does that go to to Redwing? It does. And so this is something that we've heard from a lot of garbage haulers back in the city. Um because realistic, well, even it's a city concern just in the fact that we have
garbage haulers coming multiple different days because they need to do the south side of our city one day, the north side of the city another day. Um and so we there's a lot of wear and tear on our streets because of that, but they do. So the north side of the city in Goodwill County has to go up to Redwing and then the south side goes Rochester.
Thank you. That's all. Just curiosity. Okay. Well, thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you. Nice report. All right. Next up, County State Highway 44 and Trunk Highway 14 interchange update. Morning, Mr. Chair, commissioners. I'm Ben Johnson, director
of public works, county engineer. I've got with me Nathan Arnold, our associate director of public works and assistant county engineer. Uh theformational item before you this morning that Nate will be presenting on is an update of our CASA 44 and trunk highway 14 interchange
project. As you all know, this project has been a long time coming uh for Mstead County and a high priority. It started over two decades ago with a 2003 Rocog corridor management study and uh eventual adoption of an
official map in 2010. Since that time, we've had great advocacy to push towards funding first for project development and then eventually securing construction dollars. We sincerely appreciate your hard work and support in
securing those those funds as well as the the hard work and support of our state and federal le leg legislators to fully fund this important project for the citizens of Mstead County. Go ahead. Awesome. Mr. Chair and members of the
board, good morning. Um, I think we covered a little bit of it, but I'm going to be giving a presentation on the County 44 and Trunk Highway 14 interchange project. Let me see if I can figure this out. All right, here we go. Um, the
project location, you guys are probably pretty familiar with it. It's west of Rochester on trunk highway 14 and it's 60th Avenue running north and south. So that's County 44. Um some information
just about this trunk highway 14 in the area is a fourlane roadway. There's about 25,000 cars on it. So there's a lot of cars there on County 44. We're seeing about 1,500 cars a day to the north and about 700 cars a day coming
from the south. So, still a significant amount of traffic we're seeing there. One thing of note to note is Mindot did come and kind of close that median with in 2022 just from some of the safety concerns that we had. But we also know
that we're working on this interchange project to restore that mobility and open it back up and allow free movement there again. Here we're shown um the infrastructure
improvements that we've already completed and where we're looking to go with future projects in this kind of northwest in western part of Rochester and Olmstead County. Um though these projects are addressing aging pavement, we're also planning for the future and
making sure that the reconstruction projects address safety, drainage, and future growth on our way. of probably the first project that we did in this area. We did a project earlier that was within town and we uh
turned back high drive east of West Circle Drive. But then the first project I'm showing here in 2021, we reconstructed county 44 or county 4 out to county 5 north of Byron and we
realigned county 105 up to Oxbow, pulled that out of the flood area and along with four, we really added shoulders, fixed drainage issues, made it a much better roadway. In 2023, we realigned
two uh kind of poor angled intersections and put in one roundabout to tie 44 and four together. And then in 2026, we're looking at doing this interchange project which will tie that into trunk
highway 14, allow access out of kind of that growth area that we're seeing and allow people onto trunk highway 14 a lot better than what's out there today. Then of course out currently in the CIP
and it's probably out at about 2030. We are looking at the yellow area there to the north. 44 goes north up to I believe it's 70th Street and then cuts over east and will tie into 52 which will
allow kind of finish the continuity in that area and make sure we're addressing everything as we go. Kind of the next question is where are we at now with this project? We've shared a little bit before, but
we've completed our environmental documentation, which we been working on since kind of when we've done some preliminary design, and this was we started all that in 2022. We got our environmental documents signed at the
end of 2024. So, 3 4 months ago now. Um, we've completed our preliminary design. I'll share that layout here in a little bit. Um, and we're working through final design, so we're halfway probably a little closer to having 90% plans
done. So, we're al getting well along the way. Um, right away way acquisition, we start that at the end of preliminary design. I'll provide an update in one of my slides in a little bit on that. And then for construction, we're looking at doing
like an initial clearing project this fall for taking care of some of the environmental things like tree clearing. We need to do some mowing for some of the birds, bats, and bees in the area. And then we're looking at starting the main project next spring. It'll go all
next summer, a little bit into the fall as far as they can go. And then in 2027, we'll probably end up working all summer long on it just from how much work is out there. We have had uh three different open houses and we'll plan on doing some more public outreach as
staging and construction details are locked in. We have on kind of in that process, we have had multiple constructibility meetings with contractors and are working through the staging to make sure we're doing the best thing and for
impacting traffic and getting it constructed as wisely as possible and as little of impacts as possible. So, they've been pretty excited about the project and are super interested when it's happening. So, it's that's good to
hear, too. I've got two different kind of layouts to show you guys. Um, this first one, I don't think it's been shared before, but this is at the top of this slide is 4 and 44 where the roundabout was
built there. And we that's 19th Avenue. We're looking at building another roundabout there. This was a little gap segment. It was in the CIP separately as a project, but we're pulling that instead of it being its own separate project. We're moving it into the larger
project just to reduce impacts, hopefully see some savings, have a bigger contractor doing the work and making sure we're addressing this se segment so it doesn't happen once we're all done with the interchange. That is will be a four-lane
section in there to accommodate for the future. Right now, there is some development kind of bubbling around there, but nothing solid yet. Right now, it's a Township Road, 19th Street, right? 19th Street to the It's County Road to
the landfill. Then it's a Township Road west of the landfill, east of 44. It is a township road, but I think the city is now maintaining it. Okay. There's a lot of different moving
parts. Okay. In this area, then this layout's a different view than you've probably seen, but it's really similar to what's been seen in the past. Kind of working from the north end to the south end. Um, we have a first roundabout at the
north end. We'll be tying the intersections of 15th Street on the east side to 14th Street on the west side. Right now they're kind of offset, but this will make that provide some continuity there. And then as you go east down uh 15th Street, we will be
putting in a bypass for or not bypass and overpass over trunk highway 14 that'll tie into 7th Street in the city of Rochester. Um, as we move south of 15th Street, the
next roundabout that we come to, that will be an on andoff ramps for the actual interchange. There's some unique things going on there just with we have some uh high power transmission lines that go
through there that we're going to relocate with our project, the railroads in there. So, we need to make sure we're coming up high enough to avoid some of those. like I think we're about 30 feet in the air. And then as we come to the south side, we have a on andoff ramp
roundabout that ties into 14. Then kind of as we move a little bit further to the south, we have an uh intersection that will tie into the
St. Mary's neighborhood. And then one last roundabout at County Road 34 or Country Club Drive and 44. And that's kind of where we tie back into the existing kind of an update on our
rightway acquisition. We've we have about 30 properties kind of you can see in the blue or cyan or whatever color you want to call it um is where we're ending up impacting a lot of it in the middle is
new new rightway just because we're designing a lot of it about 300 ft west of the existing interchange just did not impact some of the a lot of the houses and businesses that are pretty dense along the 60th Avenue corridor we're impacting about 30
properties. There's 22 property owners that own those 30 properties. We've made all the offers at this point. We've settled with 10 of them. So, about we're a halfway there. We started about a month and a half ago. So, we still have
a little bit and we're going to keep working on that. And our title and possession date is September 20th of this year. That's just so we can get the environmental projects, little ones, kicked off and keep it moving. Jumping into funding, here's our
current funding and estimate for the project. Um, kind of the total cost is about $92 million. we're seeing right now, it's stayed pretty much the same since we
moved from preliminary to uh 60% plans. We're going to update this again at 90% plans as we get closer to having real quantities and that sort of thing. Um, one thing to note with this is this does include that project to the
north going from 19th Street up to four and it also includes design, rightway, construction, and construction administration. So, this is an all-in cost there. Sometimes when you see them, it's just the construction cost or that sort of thing, but this is kind of what
we're looking at as a true cost for the whole project. Um, just from the engineers estimate, you can see that it's about 2/3 MOT 1/3 county for the engineering costs. Um, we have put together quite a funding package for
this. Just uh got $60 million for the corridors of commerce. And then there's a whole bunch of, you know, five other uh funding sources that work together with everyone to make sure we secured all that and kind of reduced what the
county's individual cost is. Um, we definitely appreciate everybody's help, the county board, local support, state legislator, and our federal legislature helping secure some of these additional pots of money and really
appreciate the team effort it takes to fund one of these and keep it moving forward. Um, though, right now, I think we're in looking like we're in really good shape and as we're seeing prices, this this might even come down a bit.
Um, I've got two pictures of mockups of what we're looking at for the interchange right now. These are from kind of like you're on trunk highway 14. This one is looking eastbound. That is the 44 bridge. That'll be of course 300
ft west of the existing uh existing alignment of the roadway. the aesthetics on the bridge. That's what we're we're looking pretty similar to that. It might be a little bit different, but kind of the same colors
and some of the rock patterns. Some of the things to take note of are on the left hand side of the screen. You can see the railroad there and just kind of how things are laid out. and then jump into the other
direction. This is westbound looking west. So before we would have been coming the other way kind of under that bridge already, but here you can see kind of the magnitude of some of those offramps that we will have just between the railroad
and trunk highway 14. The bridge on the right hand side, of course, the railroads right behind there. That might open up a little bit more as we're moving through final design, but I think it's looking pretty good and pretty exciting to be making it this far and
having things to actually look at. With that, I thank you guys for your time and stand for any questions. Questions? Where where are you moving the power lines? Because I don't see them in the drawings. Um, Mr. Chair, we are working
with uh Simpa to have them relocate them, but they're using a fairly similar plan to at West Circle Drive where it kind of runs up the north side and then we'll come back down and tie into the existing lines. So, it'll it'll kind of
follow our ramps up and down. Yep. Okay. Um so um when it comes to acquiring the land um are you confident that you're going to be able to uh negotiate with the rest
of the owners and if not will eminent domain be used? No. Very good question. So with through our rightaway process that we have for every project we do this is there this one there's just a few more little steps
we add in there because it's a federal project but what our pro process is we have open houses we share the design we make initial contact with these property owners and kind of start the process there get appraisals make
offers and we set it up every time for every property owner the same way. If we I think we're going to have a lot more that we settle with prior to our title and possession date where that is where we would enter the eminent domain
process. It's really hard to tell where we end up, you know, whether it's one or two left. Usually, we end up in really good shape once we make it to that time. Okay. Thank you. What's going to happen to 16th Avenue on the south side of 14?
Is that turned into a township road then? Existing 16th Avenue. Um, Mr. Chair, yes. The south side of trunk highway 14, it'll end up being culdeac at trunk highway 14, but then reverted back to the town, then revert
to the township. And right now 60th Avenue of course is on it's on Cascade Township on the east side and Cal Martell Chip on the west side. So we've been working with them and they know what's coming.
So Okay, good. So can I just follow? So everything south of everything south going to the old Highway 14 and even further south that's that that's a township road. The existing 60th Avenue, not the new road that we're going to build. Can you bring up that me? Oh, the
existing. Okay, you're going to keep the existing road, huh? Yeah, it's going to serve the neighborhood. All right. Okay, that's fine. I got my question answered. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be great for the neighborhood a lot less traffic than it was three years ago. Yeah, we've definitely heard from the neighborhoods
that they're and one of the reasons I think with their initial studies, we had it moving further away just with the current traffic and potential traffic. Right now, we'd impact them with construction if we weren't moving it over, but then also they're set back a
little bit for the future, too. Okay, Mr. Chair, just uh and this is just my preference, but uh if we were to have a a ground, this is significant. This is $90 million worked on for 90 years almost. And but uh is if we were
going to have a groundbreaking, would it be in in the fall or the spring? I am guessing we would have it in the springtime is when I'd anticipate doing that. Just right now some of the some of the uh property owners around there are
moving dirt around and we're going to cut some trees down and things like that. But I think the more significant okay would be in the springtime. All right. Well, this is this is a it might be a time to celebrate. This is a a monstrous project has been working
project. No doubt. All right. Thank you, Nick. Thank you. Okay. Um, now we'll go to our board and committee reports or whatever whatever else you'd like. I'll start out on this end then. Bob, would you like
Okay, Brian. Michelle, you guys are quiet today. Greg. Well, the only thing is that we're waiting for the end of the legislative sessions to see how everything's going to impact us, but other than that, I
have no report. Okay, Laurel. Well, I'd like to report that Commissioner Tine and I drank a lot of lemonade uh last Sunday. We were guest um judges for a lemonade day tasting uh competition. This is the the lemon the the fourth
annual lemonade day that is sponsored by the Rochester area Chamber of Commerce. It was a very fun day where we got to ask kids about their lemonade recipe, their goals, uh their their branding and display and it's all to encourage um
entrepreneurship among um our youth. And so the actual lemonade day is this Saturday and so I just encourage everyone to go out on Saturday and support our youth who have um lemonade stands around the community. Great talk
next. Okay, Dave. So, commissioners uh Rossman Mueller and myself yesterday were in Lake City to the district association Minnesota counties meeting at uh just just I won't try to report on the details but uh
Commissioner Rossman gave a wonderful report on Homestead County as well as talked to the uh issue of the uh soil health initiative that we have regionally and did I guess I said a fine job. Uh I I really thought it was a great meeting because we we received
almost up to the minute uh reports on what's happening in St. Paul and uh a lot of you know other background information as well. So a day well spent. Great. We also, by the way, Commissioner Mueller and I toured the uh probably
trespassing a little bit. We we tooured the uh the the tire site out at in at Viola and uh and got through it without a flat tire. So uh but uh there are some solar panels out there that could use a little work uh visa v wind damage and things
like that that uh you know aesthetically and from the standpoint of optics could look better. Okay. All right. Um, in light of the fact that we're about to embark on a road tour, today's quote is a paraphrasing of a conversation between
Alice and the Chesire Cat in the book Alice in Wonderland by Louisis Carroll. If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. That I'll take a motion to adjurnn. Move to adjourn. We'rejourn. Thank you.