morning it's April 1st 2025 that being said we'll call the Steel County Commissioner meeting to order first order of business a moment of silence for our good buddy Eddie Alen
and he was a great guy good friend an incredible blood operator he's really going to be missed has everyone had a chance to read over the last meeting's minutes now go right now is there any corrections or
additions to the minutes make a motion to approve the minutes i'll second on it all in favor i post carried any chance to go over to the
agenda public health would like to be added to talk about some grants public health question i'd like to add to the city of Hope is renewing its Renaissance zone and they need a letter of support from us
and that's part of our packet here yep that was on there okay we have two additions to the agenda anything else do you guys want to talk about the RFQ
for architect services that's for the work in the courthouse or y if you want to talk about it we should that someone else put the place been on or just No it's information it's information right now for you guys i
wrote it up it sent it to Janice she was going to get it in your packets yeah okay some just discussion stuff for you guys sure you have three additions to the agenda is everything
if so we have a motion to approve the three additions to the agenda i'll make that motion motion by hand i'll second it all in favor all right oppos no park today no parkour all right
we're not having a parkboard meeting um I haven't seen Reed yet he been there department office
here morning you got for us today well we're just talking about the the culberts down on down road six um yeah we're all ready for the next go around on the snow
you are hopefully today looks like right now it's splitting around us a little bit so but otherwise we're all the machines are ready to go and stuff so um looks like next week will be a good week to start crack sealing again and
stuff it should be in the 50s and so far there doesn't look like any rain coming so otherwise that's all ready to go how's that been going we ended up had to put a new pump in it and uh and
then as the pump went out they noticed that that uh it was a little plastic gear that drives the another deal that that went out too probably because you know put friction on the other one so we
got extra pieces of them too um plus we changed the heating oil in it too and stuff they said that the the life of that pump usually they get between 800 to,000 hours on it we had
1,300 hours so I mean pretty good yeah so how far have you guys gone just a little over one mile on one side so we did the damage them a little bit
you know running the snow blow on them um but not too bad at all so so our gravel roads are in nice shape right now so we did put the road load limits
went on on Monday and stuff zone uh the sign truck we got all that uh converted over and stuff to the new Dodge now and everything the couple little things that they think they got
left to do on it otherwise that's ready to rock and roll beautiful truck thanks guys uh the other truck uh T18 we've been using for crack ceiling uh also uh we've
got a couple applicants from college kids so far uh a brother to the other kid uh he took and text me he goes I'd like to apply for two so we're looking
at one more hopefully so there has been no applicants that so far yet uh for the blade job that'll qualify so
hopefully that somebody does come along you know so that's not right now i'm running that blade so we still keeping that that's still in the paper and baseball yeah i think we're going to put it in part of a form and stuff too yeah
it ended last week we're going to give it a week off and then bring but we did um the courier and then the banner so we can expand it but for now I'll just run that one until
we get somebody then I'll train them into it right now I'm uh working at getting the roads into shape uh cuz it's stuck getting the crone back in the middle of the road and and everything going
but anything else good read the mic thank you thank you so good morning everybody just a couple things today um bid opening is scheduled
for April 15th for your SIP project um so we we will do those electronically online so we'll make sure you have the uh login for that we'll also be here in person too for anybody that might want to be here for that so 31 miles is uh what uh the total length of uh your silk
coat projects are and estimating between uh 1.3 and 1.4 million this u where we expect it should come so paving projects uh have been coming in and pretty good prices so far this year so that bid is one job yes one job and it's got a
couple of alternates with it that you guys will be able to pick from as far as fog seal and paint and some of those kind of things so yep it is one job yeah those seal code guys once that truck starts rolling and do an awful lot of miles so um just gave you guys copies of two hydraulic studies that I promised last
time I was here for two bridge replacements one up north on Conor Road 20 and then one uh down um just uh south and west of Hope on Connor Road 6 the one up north is a non-federally inspected bridge just a shorter bridge
just your bridge i think it's 18 ft long um and then the one on County Road 6 is a federally inspected bridge um which of course would typically mean that you would be eligible for federal funds to replace it but as we know those federal bridge funds have kind of stalled out so
uh it's going to be more than a few years before you'd be able to get any of the funding for something like that and this uh was uh load posted to 10 tons I believe last year on your numbered county road so so we talked about maybe the uh benefit of uh getting that
replaced with your own funds uh maybe start with that one counter road six so what this hydraulic study does is uh provide you some alternatives to consider for uh replacement size um we made the
assumption that you would be using metal culberts for this so if you look at page four um that's where the uh alternatives are listed at i think it was two or three years ago he replaced a bridge downstream east of 38 east of the
railroad um that was a double line of 8ft culberts um so of course since you're downstream it's a little bigger than what you would anticipate for this particular one the problem with this particular structure is the road's not very high you're eight or maybe eight and a half feet from the top of the road
to the channel so you're not going to be able to fit 8ft culverts in in this particular location anyway so that's why that that first alternative the smallest alternative is a double line of 7T culverts which you can just sneak under the road if you add a few inches maybe to the gravel so it's kind of marginal
on height but the best you can do with that um we also provided that alternate two which would be three lines of shorter culverts six and a halfwood culverts um bigger size just uh looking at a little bit bigger size to match into the channel system and then two
arch pipe alternatives is what we um also provided there which would be two lines of arch pipe um of course arch pipe are more expensive but sometimes uh that's what you got to work with in order to uh be able to get the flow you need to uh underneath the road
um I had thought that maybe the uh double line of smaller slightly smaller arch pipe might be the u best way for you to go on this particular location the uh height of that arch pipe for those 90in equivalent arch pipe is only
6 ft so fits under the road pretty well that wide cattail area upstream of it uh it's going to flow a little bit wider anyway um as Reed and I talked about it just a little bit ago part of the problem in that particular area is that the water stands there all the time um a
pretty pretty plugged up cattail channel on both sides so with metal culverts uh you know your your issue with that is that they stand in the water and you know metal's going to once that galvanizing gets a little pinhole in it it's going to start to rust so other alternatives you could consider there
too is if you go back to alternative number two um I'd read mentioned maybe uh with three pipe you could put one a little bit lower in the channel and then you could nestle one on either side of it so that two of those three pipe maybe aren't in the water all the time and you provide that low flow or that one in the
middle too would be another option for you guys to consider so put some approximate material costs on the bottom of the page there for the uh four alternatives that we laid out for you guys to think about so while you ponder that if you
want to go to page four in the uh Conor Road 20 um hydraulic study um that existing structure is some kind of at one point I think it was a uh um cast in place concrete box culvert uh
it's got some timber that was added to it and um been kind of pieced together over the years so in kind of rough shape um we just provided three alternatives for this this is a um roads a little higher for county road 20
so looking at possibly one line of 8ft culvert or two lines of sixt culvert or a single line of arch pipe would be the uh three alternatives we looked at for you in that particular one so this one here is an interesting one
in the channel system some of the downstream culvert sizes are not a whole lot bigger if any bigger than this particular one the upstream culverts on this uh are single line of uh either five or six foot culverts through a couple township roads to the west so
significantly smaller but there's pretty strong evidence that those township roads overflow quite frequently in the spring you can see a lot of gravel in the downstream ditch and stuff so I would hate to squeeze this one down too much because uh it's going to take a little bit to overflow the road so
and that one there will sit dry up there a honey tornado no water in it that's a big deal so I thought maybe the single arch pipe might be uh your best alternative for that but u any of the three alternatives would
work and that flows to county road 8 way downstream where that flows to where that color where we put in there so just providing some information on those I guess uh how you guys would like to proceed if you're looking to pick an
alternative today or maybe you want to ponder it for a while um if you're looking to hire a contractor to do these if you want to um you know maybe solicit a couple for bids just however you guys want to
proceed whatever you'd like me to do to help get these done how How have we had pretty good luck with the arch pipes in the past filter turned it in have we done have we done something like that where we've set uh that one cart lower and then two a
little higher i mean how did that work i mean it worked out well on high water then would always be they were always open you know um like they do that along the creek too um where we'll
set the one down in in the main channel like even on that power bridge up there the second one uh that one of them's in the main channel and the other one's like 6 8 in higher than the other one just got a little bit more high water
flow uh because the other one's running full already so sometimes it can help um with just that one covert in the bottom it can help keep that velocity higher during the low flows and help keep them clean as clean
them so the key to them is to make sure you do a good job on the rip wrap um on the ends of them so that they don't wash out underneath is what what your trick is this is actually getting to be uh fairly standard practice in a lot of streams in Minnesota just because environmental
concerns in Minnesota so it's done frequently we've done a lot we we also talked about uh maybe with the ones that are sitting on County Road six maybe we get uh a little better pipe uh you want
to explain that Mike yeah um they have polytric coated pipe that you can always consider um that uh is also helps preserve the metal on it um sometimes with the cost of the polytric coated pipe sometimes you just go one gauge
thicker on the steel just have a thicker steel to it sometimes does as much for you as as the coating so uh what I would do in that situation is uh I'd ask the the culvert supplier for price on both of them and just see which one's more cost effective the trouble with the
volutric coated pipe is that it's it's so sensitive to installation i mean if you uh if you nick that coating too much and you provide an opening for the water to get into then the steel starts rusting underneath so it just you have to be pretty careful during installation
to make those things work out if you guys remember many many years ago 15 16 years ago uh the uh two pipe at Fuller's Lake through Connor Road 5 when we were going to uh pave that road uh the uh spring before we paved that washed out
because the culverts had rusted out on it those culverts were less than 20 years old and they were polymetric coated and they still still rusted out and washed out so so would you say like on six for example the three pipe system
or the one pipe system on the longevity of probably the three pipe system would be more of a longer jeevity because the one would probably sit in water all the time but the mother two would probably stay
fairly out of the water yep they stay out of the water and have a better chance of course the issue you get with that is that well if the one in the middle rusts out and you need to replace the one in the middle then you're digging it up so then what's the difference if you're going to be digging up 40-y olds you probably don't put the
other two back either so right that's kind of a crash there's just not enough road height on that area there to put big big culberts in unless we raise the road height in there
that' be a lot of material to fill that in oh I mean even even the arch pipe options and you wouldn't have to raise the road would work in that situation um it's just with the arch pipe options you only need two lines of culverts so
and you have water sitting in culverts all over the place too um sometimes the water isn't the biggest thing that takes your culverts out sometimes it's just the uh acidity of the soil in certain areas makes a bigger difference sometimes than even the water but how
much cover was in the arch pipes uh the uh uh road I think is 11 ft at that location i Nope that's the one up north uh probably 7 foot car i think it was 9 ft
where the particular where the where the bridge is at so with the arch pipe if there's six foot there's three feet yep which is where the the bridge is at and then there's a dip in the road the cover on there yep more cover is better more cover yeah okay it's better yeah that's what
happened with the two further east of that sixth bridge right didn't we have to get a whole bunch of fill to go over those because that road is like this now over the by quite a lot
east there on the east road where it was that's the one yeah 38 so I think I think we should get bids out on this so we can get this done this summer and uh I'm all right i'm just I'm
just trying to find the best option longevity wise and with the cover I think that's probably that probably is a good more cover on that yep so maybe we'll go with that two arch pipes two arch pipes so the the option three there
option three they're a little better gauge too so you guys would still purchase the culvert so maybe if you if you want to get some quotes on this I mean this isn't something you're going to want to do a formal advertisement on that that gets to be probably more expensive than
you need on these particular type of projects you don't meet the state bidding threshold to have to do that so to me the easiest thing to do so that you have uh um competitive quotes so that they're all bidding the same thing and so if we just put together a one little page one page bid sheet and put
the quantities on it and say "This is how much RIP wrap you're going to need this is the length of the culvert and then send it out to various local contractors and just say "Hey send us a price back." Okay that way they have all the same because otherwise you get one guy that's going to say "Well yeah apples to apples." One guy's going to
say "Well I probably need 50 yards of a prep for this." And the next guy says "Well I can get away with 20." Well then their bids are skewed so so alternative three on Conor Road Six what do you guys think about 20 up north there right at the bridge itself there's a dip in the road I think to the north of that
right at the bridge itself this is the one that was 11 ft so um you know an 8ft culvert you're still going to have pretty good cover over it without having to raise the road there too so that's certainly certainly an option it should
be sufficient there put the round pipe in the round pipe which one number one number one that's 12 yeah I didn't check with the true north on that but that's uh what I think you
typically use for that size you think round pipe or arch pipe round pipe pipes a little less expensive okay i'm thinking you guys probably don't need a formal motion on this today go out to get bits get quotes on it when you get quotes
back down a few years with me or not but put my legal hat on I get trouble that's what I have for you guys today um next commission meeting we'll have uh the uh bit tap or the seal quotes hopefully that all goes well and
you guys can move forward on that sounds good unless there's anything else that's all I had okay thanks Mike business here
you guys in the middle of this did good morning morning don't have much for you just three building permits to go over look like David Laughlin wants to add an
additional grain bin greg Dickerson wants to add a grain bin and Jacob Alm wants to expand his living room edition so I read through may they all look good to me yeah okay to you looks good to me we get a chance to see
them as well yeah looking to approve the three building permits i'll make that motion nolan i'll second that motion mc Perry all in favor all right we'll listen to And the only other thing I
have is just a reminder equalization meeting 16th and 17th of this month it's in the paper it'll be on Facebook and I got flyers everywhere too motion carried thank you thanks Casey we can do this quick Brandon if you want
this city of Hope Renaissance hey what do you got there Barry h What do you do there it's just they want a letter the Renaissance zone needs a letter of support from at least two
entities two political subdivisions and they they want one from us and they're getting one from the school i think they've already gotten one from the school so this is they just want our okay and for us to print up a letter of support and for the renewal of the Renaissance so I believe it's for
another 10 years okay and that's that's what it is this is a letter requesting that a letter of support do we support a letter i'll second that second by all in favor i
post motion carried we need to sign j you can write up a letter of support easy enough okay perfect thank you use okay just waiting the 2026 budgets are going out to everybody so just so you're
aware it's that year great so I got them all ready to go to all the departments and fire districts and cities probably i'm hoping if I get them out early get it done early would be easier it won't
drag until October i hope not so and Ben did provide a was it 3% or 2% i can't remember four okay four um with so we talked about this but I can't remember what we discussed but he said
the salary schedule look at and go from there so very good is Wayne here for a sheriff update what do we got going on there that RFQ thing quick since he's here
again wayne I did talk to him yesterday he said he was just going to talk about the tent or something for um down here when the days are going on for the portals next year yeah sure just gonna see what funds and stuff like that
let me talk can I talk about the elections quick start then sure can so I was contacted by the Linley School um and it was asked to would we be willing to run their elections i kind of
had a discussion with April about it and they said "Well I'll check with the commissioners but it's going to cost us more money a lot of extra work to make all the districts maps and stuff." And another thing too is they are every year and we're only every other year so it's
like you're still going to have to run the election on the off year um I didn't tell her yes or no but I to me it doesn't make sense if you still have to run the election on the off year that we don't run it was kind of leaning towards probably not and I
mean it's going to cost us extra and we don't do it for any other schools i told Newport we ran Newport CGs this year at the beginning of the year I told her I wasn't it just cost so much and you have to make so many different ballot styles yes there's a lot of different districts
yeah so I kind of told Melo I said "This is probably going to be the last year that we're going to run your election for you." And so I would just rather stay out of the schools fire districts and let them handle it themselves so and I can I know down in Hope I share all
the information on where I get my ballots where I get all the envelopes and they do order from that website i don't but it's just a lot of extra work in one so I don't know what your guys' thoughts are about running
all the other elections but I can kind of relay after school [Music] yeah I think you have enough to do it's your call that's you do all the footwork for that
okay i just wanted you guys to be aware that I'm probably going to say no so if you hear something about it that's fine and I'll agree with that that's not for sure that [Music]
thing you want to help discuss the ambulance stuff yeah Ben fill me in on that you got a board up not yet um so the uh part of legislation from the last legislative
session SH from 23 uh required the formation of ambulance districts very much the exact same as what fire districts are um it required that for a few different reasons one of the main ones being that way out west there was an ambulance service that all of a sudden just closed uh and there was no
reporting requirements nothing that was in centric code that allowed uh any discussion with that ambulance service with the community um and so the legislature in their infinite wisdom decided that they needed to do something very similar to the fire districts uh by
doing that they formed required ambulance districts so what we're doing here is um we have to form uh actual ambulance service districts you can be exempted out of that if you're like part of a city part
of a current fire district part of a county etc so if you think about it we have two main ones here in in Steel County uh the southern part of the county is Hope hope is part of the fire district already so there's no requirement for them to form a separate
ambulance district finley uh up north here that's all through West Trail um because they're not part of a district already they have to form one uh so in they're in that process of forming one um in order to do that they have to do
um they met with Jenna and Glenda because it spans two counties um discussed maps and different options and what that all looks like uh they have to form an organizational meeting that is coming up on Monday April 7th at 5:30 in
Mayville at the they call it the training center but it's that building right across from Glush River Bank in Mayville to the west um so on April 7th at 5:30 p.m they're going to have an organizational meeting my understanding of it and I really don't know what's all
going to happen there but my understanding of it is that they will uh from the people that are there they will form this organizational board that district board then will be the ones that manage the
funds that you guys um levy right they'll be the ones that come to you that request that money they'll be the reporting people they'll be the ones that do out those funds if you guys you know if you guys levy those funds
so the that one's coming up um I don't know all the districts but basically if you live within the city of Finley the city of Sharon and the northern part of Steel County um you are an eligible elector for that new board um myself and
Kyle are planning on going to that meeting um glad to have to run the meeting jenn to run the meeting um so there'll be a few of us there um like I told the township officers here this last week um Kyle and I are planning on
one of we want to get representation on the board um if we don't get representation on the board we we definitely want to make sure that we have enough Steel County residents there um so we've been pushing that really hard for the Steel County residents especially the ones that are in the district currently
um at the end of the day the that board is the one that manages the ambulance over here that's the basics you have quite a few townships listed a lot of townships so have you the township leaders yeah
it's like the whole northern part of of Steel County glenda did those notes are kind of from our meeting with Stefan um and things that he would like to see i know he wants a variable board it's like seven people each other
i think Stefan wants 10 i think we're leaning more towards seven i don't know like how many I know he wants two commissioners on it from each side i know Trail County I talked with Lendy yesterday said Trail County commissioners are a
little weird I suppose but so but he would like two commissioners and two other commissioners and he wants a very large board not sure why but basically you would be rep I
mean you would be if you're on that board you're representing Steel County obviously but you're representing that whole ambulance district so that whole ambulance district also covers into into trail county too so it's not just in Trail County I
believe they had like 300 I remember they have the larger port of West Trail so Trail County is going to be doing all the levy work basically so that would be like for budgeting scene all Glendel will do all the budgeting stuff for that we'll just
collect the money and send it over because they have a larger area that they cover so So this this district will have the power to levy and well requests that as does
every other district every other board that you guys form it's the same as like the waterboard they can request that to you guys request it okay you guys approved the version by the budget depending so I don't know how that looks for our contract either i just
contract i'm not sure how any of that will work and I know when we told the townships I think they were they seemed interested in it so I'm hoping that some of the township people show up they seemed interested on Wednesday last Wednesday whenever we met with them that
Bo was there he was laughing at me so yeah that's right i think it's gonna happen fairly fast i think they're ready by a lot i mean they have to start from scratch but I think it will happen fairly fast because it has to be done by the end of 2025
so there any commissioners that want to go beyond that board i'll do that already involved quite a bit of that being fair chief thank you need six more so You live in the
area so does Richard yeah denny and I or do I need to be at that meeting well if you're going to be on it you got to be at that meeting april Monday monday April 7th at 5:30 in
Mayville makes a trail and steal at the meeting so that get voted on the board right all that be interesting to see what comes in
the meeting or how many people come like Jenna said there was a lot of conversation on it on Wednesday was there too like I said until that board probably gets set up you know then they kind of know the structure of all that would accept Y and I know
Glenda was searching for some bylaws for counties that have done this because the state didn't give us anything if this is what you have to do do it okay lots of questions but so say something didn't they say something they wanted a couple employees
of Batman service to employees if you're employed by the ambulance you cannot be on it you're getting paid by West Trail you can't be on the door there's a conflict correct right is this also something
that's not what oh yeah yeah probably half so it'll be kind of how I equate it is is back again back to the fire district side so the fire districts they get all the levy money and then they do it out
fire chief and and some of their people have to go to the district meetings still and you know discuss whatever you guys discuss but and then the fire department has their own obviously chief assistant chief that type of thing so I I think the ambulance will still have like Stefon will still be in charge
people underneath that nothing's going to change there but the break between Stefan and so Stefan will be here busting money for his business right now we don't have an ambulance in
town do we no no we going to work on not getting money i think they're sitting in it's been here and there i don't know there's not one in the garage or the shop over there oh it was here though it was gone there there maybe for a little
bit but there's not one over there we should even try to get one right i know there's How much we pay a year for that he said he was one year i know there's one old one sitting in there i thought he did too he did and there was one i didn't hear anything when he was here
in the meeting he said there would be an ambulance here whether or not there was somebody to drive it maybe we can discuss that we gave out scholarships to do some EMT training too and I think three of the four completed completed that i don't
know what ever happened as far as I remember or all three of them were I think all three of them i think it was that was who the scholarships were going to go to was to the Finley area
wayne what do you got for us i don't know what do you got for me i got nothing oh talk about your hund huh your hundredyear party yeah that's the only thing I have is that
um the as we've talked before the corals is 100 years old we're talking about doing that well that's coming up now next year but I just want to know how you want to do the budget for that you want to budget that separately i don't think it's going to take much probably
[Music] some publications uh might be a tent i mean it's going to be I don't think it's going to be much money we going to put you in the dump tank what are we going to do no we're not no we're not doing any of that you
can pay for it right now my my plan is just to have uh yeah is to bring in one speaker at least one speaker maybe two um the department heads need to be here so we can they can all uh introduce
themselves and um their offices talk about their offices and this thing we want to keep down to about an hour hour and 20 minutes at the most um noon to 1:30 give or
Everything will be during Finley days so serve lunch and stuff like that um my plan is to use the uh and I've talked to the Finley uh days committee and I think we'll just
bring the uh food trucks here and then people will pay for their own meals we'll set that up probably right over here in the little parking lot so somebody wants to add a meeting so I'm hoping to have a rep on there from the county commissioners uh as soon as
we have some time here everything is just kind of busy busy so something for next year but I just don't know how you're going to want to do the budget side of it they'll tell me if we have to have a meeting before the budgets are due in middle of May whatever it is or
if it's something we don't have to worry about how much do you think we're looking i don't think it'll be a lot but maybe I'm wrong maybe I'm not thinking about something I'm not maybe there's something there I'm not thinking about but mostly it's going to be to get the word out
um so it might be some extra mail stuff other than that I I some posters and something ads and you know that adds up mail huh mail things out that'll add up that'll add up i don't know if we need to mail anything out i mean I don't know
if it is yeah it's going to that's going to be a couple grand yep so like maybe 4,000 is what you're looking for i just don't think that we need much more than that Perry i just don't I think we can cut the costs to stay way down
i think if we're going to want people to come we're going to have to provide a meal though versus them come to Could you want to provide a meal for So I don't know it doesn't have to be anything fancy but I think that's the only way we're going to get people well during Finley days is the problem and
then they have the people here already i understand so I mean we could have one of the vendors serve the meal but or I've only guess I've done only I've
done two county courouses i did Turo counties many years ago [Music] and I can't remember i was at another one maybe that was opening at Gregs but you weren't here there was no meal at either of those though that I remember but there might have been i was not here
when this one opened no but I know I've been here a long time but no I was not here 100 years ago so I I mean you're putting a meal together and then then I'm going to have to have extra people and then how how many do we
plan for yeah i'd be 50 or 300 you don't know i think we just I think we just do Like what just bring the vendors up then we because then you you what if you run I mean if we did cake or something i understand that yeah i mean
I mean maybe do a couple cakes or something i'll have to talk to people that do that i you know but I understand that part but I don't think we should the meal is here it's they're all good venue or uh you're
talking during like Friday or Nope saturday be right after the parade okay oh man that gives us that hour and a half yeah everything will be set up here for the vendors and then Are they going to want to move the vendors off downtown h
We've moved them before no we'll move them back downtown yeah that's not a problem but unless I'm missing something so if I could have somebody that would like to be on that committee and we'll try to meet uh soon i know that uh the outside committee she wanted some stuff
she talked to us yesterday she wants to hurry up and meet and uh get certain things done outside and so I don't know do we do we order something to to give away that day
or you know there's a lot of question we could ask give away or sell that day some cups glasses you know something easy megan just texted me and she said community potluck that day that
No I will not do a potluck no no that was out well I think I think we kind of need to narrow down what we're exactly looking at what the county and I I don't
know yeah I think we have to have a brain session sit down and see if you want to do a souvenir cuz I don't think it's uh we're just going to do a tour and and pretty much couple speakers i have a speaker in mind i'm going to
reach out to a speaker who's um are you talking for this summer summer 26 26 yeah but the problem for budget wise it has to be in that's that's my problem you guys are gonna want something
there so I don't want to be I don't want to be in a business of our general fund without just thinking that general fund without just skip the budgeting part of it it's a big event it's for the courthouse it's for the county right
it's 100 years yep you should decide which one of you wants to be on that that's where they really want us somebody that could be on that committee because I want to meet very soon so by the end of April but we could come back in May
she's going to do all the outside stuff plants we talk about some apple trees and trees need to be planted she's working on that little garden out here where this uh parking lot was done she's working on that
little area too right now so I don't know how many how many do you want on that is the four of us probably I think um Pam Monte has not necessarily volunteered to be on the committee but she will do all the look up for us and she will prepare a whole bunch of stuff
for us to have um and then I'd like to meet once we meet I'd like to meet with all the department heads i think all the department head should find and it's not that difficult to find is uh names of every especially the elected officials that have been in their
offices and and appointed officials i think that's all it's just going to take a little work and make little things up and put in front of their doors is saying these were the and then maybe there's other special guests we need to invite that I'm not aware of
be nice to have some old commissioners back some old elected officials back if possible many of them left around but there's a few here and there so should be your courthouse none in mind what's that should be your courthouse
portfolio first oh that's you isn't it i can do that why are you shaking your head yes richard's saying yes i don't know why you're shaking your head yes yes sugar I'm good with that so we'll get together i know everyone's going to have busy
schedules in April here so far and all that so but I think we could get back in uh I think we'll get a quick one together in a couple uh put a little budget together ourselves i think we can be back in that in the May then you'll know exactly plan
then you can figure out where you want to stick that money where it comes out of we're going to try to keep it as low budget as possible only 100 once only 100 once only 100 one time
yeah other counties do it i know I did in trail many years ago and that was was it was pretty busy there it's kind of a fun time listening to the stories hour and a half with time so but yeah if anybody else has input
I'll get together then with uh the four that I know that want to get in there and we'll go from there other than that everything's going pretty smooth and normal fires in my department that's about it so any other questions for my
other stuff sheriff stuff sounds good okay yeah thank you put the work out to uh anybody that's out there too if they'd like to be on this community on this committee get a hold of me maybe there's somebody out there listening wants to be on there
great uh treasure update are we doing this 9:15 oh no should we take a quick break for recess for that we got time for a five minute 10 minute recess
anyone got a motion for me motion by Strand second second by Perry all in favor i 10 minute break okay me too would be easy though it's I was thinking a cup
alcohol cups but I don't want the cups to break if you throw it imagine people I knew people I don't want
or sell something i'm I won't get ahead i'll check out but I said okay they get access okay not my badge again
in terms of [Music] I haven't seen anything people what's this water cookies water i think I'll Yeah we always use water there's been a small
20 minutes real yeah i don't want to be there but not ready close around your brother okay yep all right it's
9:19 meetings back in order is uh is Bobby on there bobby with us scott let's do Scott first scott first yes as well oh go ahead Scott oh thank you thank you for having me everyone it's a pleasure
to speak with you yes uh in January I started this project i'm happy to answer any questions you may have or give you more information but the idea is uh I requesting a letter of support from the Steel County Commission for honoring the 70th anniversary of the Lawrence Welk
Show's national debut he's originally from Strasburg North Dakota son of farmers and I personally take pride in that because on my father's side of the family we have Midwestern roots in Wisconsin and my grandma grew up on a farm and uh I also in terms of the show
itself I like the wide variety of music country PA uh jazz pop from the time you know so I like it but I'm a younger person you know I'm 36 and I wonder how many people my age and younger are aware of the show and you know that it's familyfriendly you know people my age
and younger that are starting families might want to look at this as something they can feel comfortable with their kids watching with them you know not have to be freaked out about what's that you know popping up on the screen and I have submitted a proclamation request to Governor Armstrong's office in January
i've contacted Congresswoman Fedorch's office twice once in January and once about a week or two ago and I have the email of one of the staffers that said I can send more information about this i've been interviewed three times twice for Bismar TV stations uh KX and KFYR
Plus march 14th i was on Fargo North Dakota today and I among the support I've received I don't know if you have copies of this with you but I have a letter from the North Dakota Farmers Union uh the North Coast Fest in May not last week I received two letters of
support that I think are interest that are important one from the NDSU excuse me North Dakota State University uh performing arts department their associate director of music and oh yeah the other one I understand Steel County
is a rural farming community and the former chairman of the House A committee in Congress Colin Peterson who represented the district that borders uh North Dakota on the Minnesota side he gave me a letter of support as well so I'd be happy to answer any questions
or give any more information and also I'm prepared to I can't remember if I gave the auditor a draft yet but if I haven't I could be happy to give you a draft letter of support to consider and if you want to tweak it you can do that but thank you for your time and your
consideration what exactly are you looking for uh in what sense i mean the main goal is a letter from us or we don't know oh I'm asking from you yeah at the at the moment at the moment just a letter of
support i'm very much supportive of this it's only a good thing i mean I what you guys' opinions are on this no I agree imagine you write letter for it diana yeah
i'll make that motion got a motion from Chris i'll second second from Strand all in favor i post approved scott if you could send me that letter I don't remember you sending it
to me and then we'll talk we'll talk via email so okay that sounds great uh thank you to everyone that this means a lot to me to have Steel County on board and if I could just throw in a quick personal note I did go to the Hope North Dakota
website and I thought that was cool that they had a smiley face on the water tower i know that's not gerine to this i just wanted to know that I'm not just pretending to be appreciative i really did research the area a little bit and I I really like what I've seen and that you're proud of your farming
contribution so thank you and I hope you guys have a great day thank you you too thank you you're welcome thank you outside good morning hey good morning how are you guys good how are
you is Eric on the phone at the moment he's the guy with all the answers he is yeah not yet i don't know him yeah I talked to him just a little bit ago so he didn't plan on calling in did you guys get a copy
i made copies of both reports if you want to pass those around Oh while we're waiting for Eric to get on so I made just made copies of the report we went through for the exterior the architectural kind of component side of it and then I um contacted one of my
mechanical engineers I work with a lot and had him just kind of give us an idea he's worked on some of these courthouse projects before um so he had some ideas on some different solutions so and I'm going to let him kind of explain all the different solutions what we really
wanted for you guys is to know um what your options were all the different options some of them I don't know if they're right or wrong it really depends on what you guys want to do what your long-term goals are um so he can explain the kind of the extent to all the different kind of
options to get rid of the window units that sound good just so you guys can make it you know we like to put out all the options out there so you know what they all are so you can hash through them all and make um just kind of make the best informed decision you can
it's not a big deal but you get east and the west for the courthouse moved up do I have them mixed up you get an A for the day not a big deal i can't even blame that one on Grant i
did that myself he did i definitely blame him did you ever figure out when the roof was in it it was in good shape when I went up there it wasn't cracking or I'm pretty done from disher
yeah we drove we started getting a little tiny flakes not too far outside there they sent Eric text see yeah sometimes it takes a while hi Bobby can you hear me there we are
morning morning guys so hey Eric i kind of um thanks for joining us this morning i kind of updated the commission on just um where we were at that um you would be presenting the options
of to get rid of the window air conditioners that are in their um windows right now sleeve style so if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself um and then go through the report with the group that'd be great sure hi guys
Eric Johnson uh with CMTA been with CMTA about 10 years now and worked on a number of projects with Bobby uh mechanical engineer uh worked on a couple of these older courouses where uh
we have to come up with unique solutions to to work around the historic buildings and lack of uh ceiling space and and and uh space to route piping or duct work whatever so they're they're challenging
but fun projects so Bobby had asked me to kind of look at your courthouse here and come up a few solutions uh did you want to jump right into this Bobby yep so uh right now you basically have uh
window shakers there there might be a couple is there a couple split systems or or not Bobby i couldn't There's two there's two yeah uh I last year the job just wrapped up the end of
last year i I worked on a project the Richland County Courthouse um in Wapton where they had a very very similar situation uh where they had couple split systems and
uh you know mostly no cooling in the building split systems couple places IT rooms and then a couple window units and then they also had the I'm assuming the same vintage of
uh brick heaters that you have for heating uh and and they were finding that you know I'm I'm suspecting maybe a little bit in your case that those units are undersized
um in in Wapton they were you know they were sized to or installed and sold as to be off peak heating where they they heat up during the night an off peak utility rate and then they uh disperse
the heat during during the day well in in Richland and maybe in your case they they just end up operating all the time and wasting electricity and you don't even get to utilize that off peak rate because they have to run during the day
as well and that's you know whoever size those um you know they didn't take in account 100-y old building with no insulation so that's kind of the the issue we've seen with these old buildings um you know
whether whether you get those complaints or not um you know just let me know cuz I you know what you want to do with the heating kind of determines you know what direction we go with cooling as well so
um you know the option number one that I put forward here is a uh variable refrigerant flow uh essentially uh there's different types of fan coils that you can you can get whether they're
mounted on the wall mounted on the floor mounted in the ceiling um I don't believe you have any drop ceilings so we you know probably looking at a a wall cassette type or a a floor set type unit and they
uh you you know you got to find a place to route refrigerant piping around the building and and then you have a central uh condensing you know essentially looks like a condensing unit set on the roof for the ground and you're able to
uh you know distribute the refrigerant piping around the building to all these these uh VRF cassettes and and cool each space you have to put a cassette in each in each room that you want to cool um but
it's a it's a unique solution that allows us to you know cool every space without having large piping routed everywhere you know and it's probably the least invasive um
solution though you know it's it's cooling only you can get them uh in in a heat pump type unit where they do both heating and cooling uh however you know air air source heat pumps only cool or
only heat so low um outside air temperature so once you get down to 10° 20° or so you don't you don't get any heating out of that type of unit you have to have some sort of supplemental
heat when you get really cold so that's the only issue you run into with the VRF type system but you know for for a courthouse like yours it's a you know it's a noninvasive solution to to get cooling
where you want it um we would have to look at some chase base you know each cassette has a has a condensate drain um you know as you're cooling you're you're producing condensate so we got to get that to a
drain somehow so we'd have to look at you know maybe coming up with some chases or tying into existing plumbing risers to to to route that condensate you know away in down to the
drain so that's option number one you know a budget cost of 750 you know I think that's a lot it's a better solution than trying to put split systems everywhere that you know you can
put three maybe four on a split system you know and you essentially have the same thing [Music] uh refrigerant piping a a unit hung on the wall and
uh several condensing units outside or on the roof but with the VRF system you can get a larger single condensing unit to set somewhere so that's the the benefit of going with the VRF system versus individual multiszone split split
systems um all that makes sense yeah yes y uh then then we wanted to look at an option um you know right now you don't have any ventilation in the building you
know as a as a public space and a public building you know per code you know we we should have some ventilation granted uh the walls are probably fairly leaky without much insulation so you're probably getting some leakage from
outside and some fresh air quote unquote but not not per code so Bobby and I talked about you know where could we you know put put a fresh air unit to get some ventilation in the building uh
in in Wapton we ended up you know building a steel structure on the roof to hide it and we set it up on the roof and and um we utilize some existing chases uh that were originally for natural
ventilation and and were able to dump the the fresh air down those and tap into those existing chases and and then provide some duct work in the space you know we'd have to maybe get creative to
uh build some sophets maybe to distribute the that fresh air and maybe we only look at uh dumping the fresh air into common spaces and putting some transfers into to offices and and
whatnot to to get that fresh air into those spaces to not be too invasive but it would probably be a good thing to look at adding ventilation um and getting some fresh air into the building with that you know that fresh
air unit we add energy recovery to it it could be um I I don't believe you have propane there uh natural gas you it'd have to be propane right yeah yeah so you know it would just be a propane fired rooftop unit or you know we could
set it on the ground somewhere and and duct it in as well it you know when you set a fresh air unit on the ground you end up having some outside duct work to get into the building so it looks kind of ugly so I prefer to set it on the roof if we do anything just you know
it's out of sight view um and then it would be a a DX with refrigerant again package type unit um and then like I said it would have a energy wheel energy core to uh recover some of the energy so you
know we we'd dump in say 2,000 3,000 CF CFM of outside air we'd all we'd have to take that out in relief air out of the building you know we could grab it from the bathrooms or any other rooms we want to exhaust and then we we exchange the
heat from the exhaust air with the fresh air um to you know recover that energy so with that option too you know it's a the cooling would stay the same with the VF VRF type cooling system we would just
you know plunk a a doz unit as we call them for the fresh air and and duct in the building and and look at some sophets you know so that that increases the budget about you know it's probably 300,000 or so to add that doaz unit and duct work and
and you know it's figuring to for some some steel support up on the roof and then as a kind of a hail mary um option option three you know would be
looking at just redoing both heating and cooling all together um you know with with option one and option two we're not touching the heating um however down the road if you decide oh we want to get rid
of the these brick heaters and and try and and do something different that's not electric maybe a boiler plant and hot water um you know you're kind of limited on what you can do
because you know our our cooling cassettes would be cooling only so then you're looking at uh you know h how do we heat the spaces if we get rid of these brick heaters um and either you're putting in individual heating units again in every
space um or you know you wouldn't want to rip out the VRF system so you're that's where I say you're you're limited on your what you can do with the heating system in the future if you go with option one or two so with option three
it would be okay let's look at this holistically um let's maybe look at getting rid of these brick heaters and and installing a boiler system and a chilled water system and and four pipe
fan coil units that would heat and cool um and you know the the only challenge there is it's more invasive we need to install a boiler plant now probably in the basement and and route hot and
chilled water around the building so we're looking at building chases and where can we set fan coils you know I we can get fan coils that have hot and chilled water in them that look similar to the brick heaters that you already
have so it wouldn't look any worse um they're just a little high harder to hide than say the VRF cassettes um you know so we we would work with Bobby to to route that that piping everywhere and then the same
recommendation there is to put a DOAZ unit in for fresh air um and again we'd need to look at where we can route all that duct work or where we route duct work to begin with and where we dump that fresh air so you know option three
is just comprehensive you know we replace everything and look at new heating and cooling system but you know the budget for that gets quite a bit more well that's that's high level yeah so um the other thing Eric we talked about um
we had asked if Jana could provide us the like the electrical cost but we Ben told us that she's been really busy very swamp with the um with um audits and stuff so when she would have the time to get that pulled together for us um what
we could do is we we could have Eric run you guys a quick calculation to see what the payback might be if you converted from energy to propane and made a switch so the other thing is if you want to look at these projects sometimes it's like a pendulum you know you you had
this pro you had this building that had a boiler in it and now you get rid of the boiler and then you go to all electrical and now now you're talking about getting rid of electrical now going back to boiler it kind of seems like you know we just see this happen a lot um with
buildings so you're not the only courthouse there's a there were actually 13 courouses built just like this in North Dakota very similar and and I was just gonna highlight you know Ottertale I believe you're served by Ottertale right
they they I believe they came up with the brick heaters you know it was the same thing in Watton that Ottertale sold them on these brick heaters that you know was supposed to be off peak electric and you know they were undersized and then never heated
properly so they were just spending through the roof on electricity bills and so they granted you don't have natural gas they when they switched to natural gas boilers they you know that cost dropped significantly for them so
you know it wouldn't necessarily pay for the project but longterm you would have lowered utility bills um so that's that's one thing to consider um also that you know system or option number
three is is probably more of a a 35 to 40year solution for the for the courthouse whereas option one and two are you know more of a 20ear solution so 20 years from now you're looking at well
you know we got to replace this equipment just because it's not it's not manufactured to to go that 40 year lifespan like 20 years was 52 gram a year pretty good man
[Music] you're saying for the upfront cost so we just wanted to put together those options so you knew all the different types of systems out there and and then it'll give you guys some time to review it maybe visit with people you know what
kind of systems they have don't have what they like what they don't like um like Eric said they just did a we just did a conversion from the electric like you guys have um to a full system at Richland County you can visit with them get some feedback once their system
is up and running if if they like it don't like it what it's saving they would be a good one to visit with um right now we're working with CMTA um we're doing the Stzman County Courthouse but we're do we're doing the courthouse that's um owned by the state historical
society and we are doing an HVAC upgrade in that project right now we're hoping to get that out for bid at sometime in June um we're presenting options to them too they have a budget and um unfortunately their budget probably isn't going to meet what they would like
to do either so um so we just wanted you guys to kind of know what your options were so you could decide what where the best place is to go there's no right or wrong decision it's just you know funds
available your existing conditions it's always nice to bring fresh air into a building true it just it helps a lot you don't realize how much it helps till you till you have fresh air so so if you have any more questions for
us just let us know but like I said Erin could run a calculation for you if you wanted us to get that to you at a at a later date we could definitely you know at least provide that information of what the cost savings would be per year or an estimate remember when they put in
the electric units you know electricity was cheap now you know so sometimes you have to you know you put in something and then things change so you you just make the best decision based on the information provided at the time what's what's apply
roughly yeah per month like 2 3,000 bucks I think i don't know it'd be good to compare those it would just be nice to see what it is and it just helps make a better informed
decision and those I mean in in general to just add cooling you're going to spend spend more to cool the building obviously but you know long term you know I'm thinking about the heat you know heating with electricity
is expensive you know there's there's no way around it very expensive so the cooling in my mind you know a chilled water system is going to be more efficient than um you know a VRF system you have a little bit better control
um you know so long-term energy costs are probably you know cheaper with the chilled water system uh versus the VRF system but you know the big one would be changing the heating the only advantage to the the full
system is we're we'll be following a lot of the same you know where the piping's running and um yeah I think did they demo all the existing steam piping or is there still some exposed there's
recently took most of that out yeah yeah you did but I I believe originally it would have just been exposed in the corners of rooms you know so whether we want to hide chills and hot water piping or or leave it exposed like that you know that's
kind of up to you guys um obviously looks nicer not having it exposed but I would usually a combination in some areas you would like to get it hid and in some areas it doesn't matter yeah
yeah all right so and then we've previously talked about the exterior masonry part of it so we were just we were hired to give you guys some ideas and options of how
to best spend your money to take care of the exterior of the building so do you have any more questions or comments or where you want to go from here i don't have any questions a little bit yeah let's just a little bit sounds
perfect you know thanks Eric yep thanks Eric thank you yeah any questions let Bobby know or um reach out to me and and I'll try and help answer them certainly all right thanks Eric yep thanks everyone
so yeah it was just easy to bring Eric on board to do a quick report because he just did one and I'm working with him on another project that's very similar so it just seemed to be right place at the right time right yeah that's right all right well if you
guys don't have any more questions or comments we'll let you guys digest and figure out where you want to go from here um construction costs are um you know
achieve they are high i don't see them changing we keep thinking they're going to come down for this or that after CO and we we have not seen any of that then when we do see material costs kind of come down a little bit the labor
costs go up and so we do not none of us have a crystal ball anymore it's an everchanging cost issue so if you have any more questions or comments I'm going to head out let you guys move on thanks for your time
appreciate it yeah I think it would be uh you know good for us to just now we got a lot of that information i mean where where do you where did we start do you
do we you know the building in general is on top of my mind true and we got to take care of the stone the stone i don't know if it becomes a safety hazard um whether it's only we can do one side every couple years or how that's got to
work i I it's probably going to depend upon a funding b if we can get grants to help out with some of that um this is a considerable giant project here
yes i mean to do it all it probably be about three million bucks absolutely i mean that's I agree i think we need to take care of the exterior before we Maybe we can run something out with the air conditioners just extend it out or do something to
get the water on the building got to be something we can put on there to because it to me it's extended out a little bit to do it all that's kind of on a table yeah we can't do that there's there's no there's no way we're going to be able to do that and and I mean we the problem is
we get cobbling things together and and it's an old building and I mean there's that the problem is with that that's one price but like you said it they start getting in here and they'll be like oh man there it goes up another 50 grand well even if we got a 50% grant or 80%
grant there that's still significant money spent i mean just in just flat out alone what is it it's half a million or if we did the total thing it was like 800,000 that was the building or was it 400 yeah
it's 400 400 and like 40 for the cocking around the windows and stuff like a million bucks repoint three repoint complete masonary cleaning 3 to 400,000 deteriorated stone miscellaneous brick replacement 300 to 400,000 so
about a million about a million dollars probably just to fix the outside of the port hooks did we check on grants or is there anything we can there's stuff here and there that comes out but you're waiting on grant cycles um a lot of the stuff
through the state is uh right now after legislative session a lot of that stuff really honestly doesn't come out until like June July anyways uh some of it comes out now there's some stuff like parks and wreck has some stuff out now that's specifically parks and w though so there it's different times of the
year um I guess the suggestion I would make and this kind of leads into the RFQ process is um maybe maybe an idea is formalizing uh an agreement with an architectural service with an architect architectural
company um having them draft some plans together having them draft some ideas um coming back to you guys very similar to what we do with interstate right with the road side of things um going through that process that's again that's up to
you guys there's obviously costs associated with that i don't know what those costs are um they're always based off of a percentage of what the actual project is um you're look I would say for right now you're looking at least 75 to 100,000 for architect is my idea i
don't know that for sure yeah I think she gave us some kind of percentage of the Yeah it's a percentage of the project so I mean that that's an idea that leads into the RFQ um if that's something that you guys have plans to be available if their grant comes out you submit them they're
all detailed you have an idea you have an idea you know but that's also 100,000 out of your pocket right now he was talking about that if somebody wants to come up they
had some questions for for which pretty number no I think well he was on and he's not anymore and then you may want to come up here for all
them on the [Music] Well I could go up there but I don't know what questions I can answer i'm going on the recommendations of the water port yeah yeah we want to uh for sure want that ditch restored
you know and a burn put back to stop the water from sitting down that's for the handsome buyers one none that one the way it sounds yeah well that's what they I think the state ruling was that was required but I
don't think we're going to move ahead with it is what I heard last right sounds like it changed though sounds like it changed they do want to know sounds like it oh so reading through them basically that that thing that come back from the state
was they put put it back up on the waterboard to make some decisions so did he get permission from the land owners no that is I don't know that is not done it wasn't done yet none of that was done it was just that and we're not our
caller until that's done y that's what we reading yeah so nothing's nothing's really changed on our side that's my thoughts what was your thoughts that's what was agreed upon yep and he came back to me and said that
um he tried to get us to pay for the culbert after our meeting here that day i said "No we're not paying for Colbert was in bad shape to begin with." That's true about the same size same size same height same size same height
so I I'm I'm just having a hard time where to start with this i'm having a hard time spending 75 grand all just just to spend it and then then we have we have the paperwork and then we're just get Ben up there and give
them some flex seal and they fix in no time dropped you down there you go well we can't defer repairs forever that's that is very true that's kind of what's happened is it's been deferred for almost 100 years right
y not going to get cheaper no i'm just glad you guys are talking we're starting to figure it out myself they give you enough did you talk to architects about costwise or they said it's everybody said it's percentage of the total project so depending on what you're looking that changes a lot of
things we could go down and look at one side of the courthouse or two sides of the courthouse do two sides and then see what that pro see what that total project cost see what you know talk back with Bobby what that was what their fee would be or you
maybe just look at one side maybe that's all we can afford so maybe maybe and do it in phases if you go through the okay so if you go through the RFQ process for engine for the architect um again that's very
similar to how we do for those of you guys that are on it with that's how we do the road stuff anyways the road construction stuff um maybe Those are questions that we can get that we can ask in that process when we're doing the interviews um and that's you're not
you're not being held that committee whoever's formed to do that you're not being held to that committee's recommendations that's truly a recommendation so if you guys come back and say you know what we don't want to go with it at all then we don't go with it at that point you know or we can depending on what those questions are we
can make some of those decisions there too so we can start we can at least start that RFP process RFQ sorry I that would be my recommendation i know it's I know it's I know there's a cost to that obviously um if you decide to accept it but I think
that process at least gets you in the right direction um and and at the very at the end of it maybe it gets you a decent set of plans moving forward and there is funding in that um there is money in that building fund to to be able to pay for how much
we 200 yeah 200 I think that makes 200 yeah 150 from 2020 300 from 24 I'll make a motion
here second by no one all in favor I post motion carried I'll take care of it let's get let's get the wheels rolling on that I'm willing to invest in the
courthouse absolutely Yeah it we need to protect the outside before we take care of all the inside things in my opinion I agree period i mean yeah the window air conditioners are a problem but they've been in for how many years true years to
get to the point of Yeah we're there's got to be something we can extend to it might not take care of all but it could probably get the majority of it yeah I got a text why she wants one or two of us up there do you want to recess or got through
everything public health and treasure updates sat just said there's nothing really to update so are you going to skip past public health uh there has been a lot of change for the legislators in this
session and this can talk about a few grants that heard other bills done i'll need a motion app to approve the bills i'll second that motion m to approve the bills all in favor I
moved motion carried you guys had talked about um the uh cleaning around the courthouse um so we let public health handle it they've been doing I think a great job they're going to come back to you guys with just
some uh hours like what they've done and how much how long it's been taken type of thing now that they I think they're in a good schedule okay you guys had said you want to revisit it this if you're cool with it we'll just continue great
unless you have drastic changes you want to make no no i got some quotes from a guy from Bowling here in Bag from Jameson Brothers sure i'll bring that next meeting i mean they come to town anyway and we
don't need to own a mower anymore right no I know they we had them clean up last fall the year before they do a good job on schedule yep and they do like the spraying and stuff like that yes yes which I think we should do that really
keep nice and ch I've got everything checked off our list except public health true have a meeting now or you want to wait till it has done i don't know i can go out there see what's going
on i'll just leave this meeting go to that one okay good luck hello oh I'm going to try to be really quick because I was on another um grant update meeting so um as you guys have
probably heard a big chunk of our funding was pulled from us just last week um and so two of those grants total to about 55,000 and then we also have a 10%
opioid response deduction and our tobacco grant will also be cut by about 10% um and so on the 2025 the shorter spreadsheet the increasing immunization
rate and the COVID funding grants are the ones that got pulled from us so you can see from those reimbursement amounts that those really carry us through our immunization season and you can see on the other spreadsheet the same thing um
for lack of a better term they're pretty heavy hitters for us in terms of funding um and that the this spreadsheet with the yellow highlighting on there that's all of 2024 so if you guys ever wanted to kind of see where we land with our
grants I have our total income our expenses and then where we land in terms of that for the month um so we're kind of at a hard point right now
because it was always known that public health was a little too much for one person so we got two people and I feel like because of that Ashton and I have really worked hard to make it a twoperson department you know we've
expanded we're doing more um but now our funding has been really kind of pulled out from under us how much total was the 55,000 55,000 that was remaining on those two grants that
got a 10% decrease in our um state opioid response funding and also a 10% decrease in our tobacco grant what are those two totals um our tobacco grant is usually around 40,000 a year
and our sore grant is I think I was awarded 53,000 for the year and that's a three-year contract so that 10% decrease on the sore contract was in September so we'll get that amount through September and
then that 10% decrease comes in that's two years old yep and then the other concern that has been circulating with public health admins is I don't know how much you guys know about the VFC program
the vaccine for children and Steel County Public Health is part of the VFC program through the state and also VFA vaccines for adults so any uninsured child or adult or underinsured so if anyone has insurance that does not cover
vaccines we actually are able to administer those for free um they are worried that the funding for that program could also be pulled um which is essentially very alarming to us
because now um one of public health's biggest concerns is measles and Steel County even though we're like in the top 10 rates in the state we still are not at the 95% rate that we need for measles
vaccination um so we are working on our response to that which is again where this COVID funding comes in it's for any communicable disease so that's been cut increasing immunization rates is really what gave us the freedom to do all those
after hours clinics um the walk-in clinics and stuff like that so um in in terms of how Ashton and I feel about it we want to continue to grow and want to continue to serve people the way
we have been and I think we're able to but it would probably mean in the future asking a little bit more from the county in terms of funding um and I can assume that there will be more changes coming down the pipeline so I
haven't got super specific on what we'd be asking for i'm hoping by budget time we can be more specific um but just wanted to be transparent about what we're seeing um and we are a little bit panicked we're a
little bit nervous because um in times such as this historically needs rise they don't fall people need us more not less so um just kind of a funny situation to be
in at this stage to be worried about measles in 2025 um but yeah if you guys have any questions so far no it's uh good to know this in
advance and we'll figure out a way to make it work somehow but um yeah we'll keep doing what you're doing though you're doing a good job so you'll keep them so as we go through so that you could be a shortfall
on your 25 budget then if if these grants correct you will you will be we will be because Yeah you're you're probably going to be short
good amount good thing is 2024 landed us pretty well yeah yeah um yeah the the the remainder of 2025 will be pretty tough I think so the tobacco one you probably be like 4,000 short and what was the second one
sure 300 bucks short what's that 55K again that that was for the was the two the immunization and the COVID funding yep that's in one year again short 55 we're looking at Yeah
that's adding up pretty quick about a time you'd be that p yeah we got we got the we got the notification on March 25th that as of March 24th it was no longer available at home yeah so
um the all all of the public health administrators are submitting testimony a lot of them are down in Bismar to try and increase our state aid funding um which as of right now um did not make
the governor's budget so there would be no change on it um we use state aid to basically support our support our to support our home health program which is only 2700 every
3 months so Steel County could absolutely use an increase in state aid so if you ever see that kind of come up or anything um supporting that would be huge so yeah this is a big blow for us we felt like we were getting to a really
good spot feeling really confident and then this came so come uh 26 budgets that'll give us a good outlook there but when you are they talking more grant you know in
so our our big the biggest budget or the biggest grant that we have is our substance abuse prevention we get 62,500 a year for that one that was part
of the cut but the state was able to fill in where they cut that for this year or through 2027 um but if things keep going the way they are I think we can assume we will continue to have this
forecast of things being cold that's going to probably translate to how that office is going to look i mean that's we'll have to we'll have to see how it how it turns
out here i mean possibly it can be cut more out of there it's going to be that's going to be interesting the good thing is we're building insuranceances now so that will be an in income that the county hasn't seen from
public health in I don't know how many years so I don't know what those figures look like yet of course I'll bring those to you once I know okay so that is the upside is we have something else going for us okay
but yeah it's a it's a bummer to put it quite simply there was a time here a couple years ago was just lots of grants lots of stuff and and now it's it's on the opposite side of that too so it's just a cycle of
government well thanks for your update on that keep us updated on that so we kind of we know yeah I will get any more of those like that send them out email if you don't mind okay all righty thank you thank you
well I believe you've covered everything on our agenda looking for a motion to adjourn the meeting i'll make that motion motion by Greger i'll second by Golan in favor I I
opposed Beginning of birth