we get going at Dave shows and Dave shows so okay are you on shield yep I am all right we'll call the meeting to order good morning everybody uh we'll open it up for public comments there any public comments third and final time are there any public
comments hearing none we'll move on to line item three which is election of officers so for here we've just always done it same way we've always done it for a motion and a second for any offices and we should have a chair vice chair secretary treasure and an alternate and an alternate secretary
treasure yep so should be four positions open so open four nominations for uh chair keep it the same i have a nomination for Josh Elsing again you're doing such a fine job should we keep I'll take that as a
second from Bob so we got a motion for uh by Lynn and a second by Bob for Josh Heling to be chair all those in favor signify by saying I motion carries next would be vice chair
are you vice chair sure yep ar yeah i nominate second him as a vice chair again moving forward so we'll take it now or a motion by Ross a second by Bob to uh nominate Lyn Zabo as
vice chair all those in favor signify by saying I i motion appro motion approves all right uh next we need a secretary treasurer this is we need an alternate so we have two positions left currently it's Ross no no actually it's him and
you're the and James and James okay oh you're you're uh white your uh soil secretary for soil and water right yes yeah i knew you were on one of those anybody have any wants otherwise we could keep that the same as well but
run that for another year if you'd like anybody you okay with it i just need a motion and a second move second moved by Lynn second by Ross to keep Bob as the secretary treasur all those in favor signify saying I i motion
approved uh then we need a vi alternative uh for secretary treasure James are you interested or Ross or if the bank's okay with me your your signature is on your files i nominate James i nominate James
okay we got a motion by Ross do you have a second second second by Lynn all right uh motion by Ross second by uh Lynn to have James as the alternate secretary treasure all those in favor signify by saying I i motion approved okay on to
approval of minutes december 20th i believe there was anything in there needed to change i saw so any discussion on that i move to approve the minutes second bob second by James to approve the December 2024 uh meeting minutes all
those in favor sign I i i motion approves all right on to the new agenda is there I didn't see any amendments to that well the amendment was yesterday to add election of officers i looked at it yeah in the red we took that yeah so
that was no other additions okay any changes to the agenda you guys have move to approve second motion by Ross second by Bob to approve the agenda on to the consent items sheila
okay okay there's just uh just to give you a little bit of background um you know we had our expenses from the December meeting that were paid and then after the meeting it was brought to my attention that I had a little bit of
dyslexia and I inverted numbers and I was $900 short on the payment to Wabashaw SWCE so and that had to be done before the grant so so Josh signed it and I was the second
signature so we took care of that before the end of the year so that's what that check number is 3258 um and then as was approved at the um last meeting you know I didn't I
don't typically get the invoice for the 2025 premium for MCIT until um later after our meeting and it's due before the end of January so that was paid and that was actually a little bit less than our premium last year i think
it was like 1,550 last year so it was came at 1475 so I did a automatic um payment with the bank for that amount and uh so the only two uh checks for this
uh meeting would be for county of Winona uh for the sheriff position for my time 2,66165 and then also some expenditures that came up from the last local advisory team meeting and also I had to
mail 1099 so that's the 1713 and so all totaled including that $900 check in MCIT $5,578 and we do have an anticip I was going to say but yeah anticipated
deposit from the drinking water grant of almost 17,000 okay thank you any comments on the consent the only thing that's holding up that that uh check is probably the
reconciliation getting wrapped up okay that's part of it yes that that's what's hanging there is that's Yeah cuz that's a Is that reimbured money yes I believe it is isn't it because the Bowser grants they
pay 50% upfront and then when that 50% is spent then you get 40% the last 10% waits until everything is finalized so we're we're on that y and and this one is taking a little bit longer because um
uh the grant requires what's called a reconciliation where where a grants compliance person comes in kind of does an audit yeah but it's really money for us because we've paid it out already correct yeah so it's it's going back into our account that we don't have to
repay back out correct right that's what's nice is now this is this isn't exhausted funds it's actually it'll be an increase in what we have to go do more with that's what's needed the 50 and the 40 are kind of advanced payments but that last 10% is reimbursement yep
exactly so this will be money we get to have in future projects because technically it's out of our bank account okay um cool so any other discussion on that all right hear none we'll go into board reports approve the consent items oh
sorry yep i jumped over i already had it checked sorry so move motion by Bob you have a second second by Lynn to approve the consent items uh as read all those in favor signify by saying I i motion carries now on the boards lynn
you want or uh James you want to get us started um not a whole lot we just uh Oh got our our new officers set
up oh let's see well Cheryl's the chair and I'm not too sure who else oh two new board members paul's Yeah Paul's the vice chair and then uh the other two members are
the treasurer and I guess that's it um and uh other than that not a whole lot of action happening you have a new staff person on board it's nice to see you and Lynn still talking to each other but
Well that's true jenna left Wabashaw and went to work for Homestead okay i didn't have to bring that up far almost has like the giant vacuum you got to get you got to get past the pain man we wish we had your budget yeah um Yeah
and also a new uh USDA person I believe right pardon me a new federal USDA uh staff member i think there were two there were two at the meeting oh
well um we'll see if you have one next meeting because uh uh I heard yesterday USDA NRCS has lost nearly 50 people in the last couple weeks in Minnesota i think that's it all right
nice shred well behind the scenes we might even wait and see about hiring someone new for that position depending on what's going on now with the bonding and so forth we got to give it some second thought otherwise
we were pretty gunho on replacing them well on on the flip side there's some pretty qualified people that are probably looking for work right now with the possibility with the firings with NRCS yep
so anyway yeah I was I went to the WLAC meeting Bob too and I read that whole packet of stuff that we got and the only thing that really stuck out to me is you know they
got Bowser the structural practices must be designed to maintain the last 10 years and all that for magic practices but you know that's a good thing get good use out of the money spent but then I never see anything about consequences necessarily printed there so I just
wonder what's the real thing that can be done or could be done so that was just something that stuck out to me that I Do you want an answer to that if you don't Yes um it's it's in um it's a requirement that if an
S SWCD um cost shares a structural practice and it's not maintained for the life of the practice right that the landowner is due uh up to 150% payment back to the SWCD okay
it's the the board has a lot of discretion over zero to 150% depending on there's no mandate on that i don't believe it's it's discretionary to that because we've questioned that in some of the practices in the past i think
including I think including uh pits uh I think was one of them I thought would come up one time right or is it just like a like a manure like a manure pit wasn't it well they probably have a lifespan of more like 25 years like what happens if hey they put all this money
towards it and then they close down in five years you know using taxpayer money to do well a lot of these things how do you squeeze blood out of the stone yeah that's just it and it wasn't anything to go against the farmer right but it was reconciliation through the through the to the taxpayer to say "Hey you spent
all this money." It's usually a pretty well-known thing and then they go broke and then everybody runs around and says "Well we don't want to do that anymore because the last one we funded they would you know." Yeah so the board the SWCD board had does have a lot of discretion and it it they can have a
really good discussion and you know what what are the circumstances and that's what I always argued is that well doing nothing does nothing yeah and we have to just assume that they're going to do their best to stay in business you know
that was good discussion so I think that's pretty much it we have a new vice chair that was the only thing we changed about our officers so there's a potential now I can have an out
but that's all I have okay you want to touch on your conversation and coffee and conversation sorry you want to touch on the coffee and conversation oh I never went what's that oh I never went to the coffee and
conversation no but just highlight what you guys are doing with that well staff they talked about grazing on this last one but I didn't go cuz Well what's tonight it was in the morning tonight at 6:30 to 8 really at the
Legion i thought it was at the Legion but no once a month oh okay you know you don't What's that you know more than I do because I thought it was like yesterday the email just came yesterday or something but no I just highlight you know is this
a Wabash County thing swcd is posting a coffee and conversation open to the public i I think I'm clueless but I've been spending all my time in my head in cattle waters all the bloods in your head no I just I like soaking and sticking to
the store i have to dump hot water to get it open i've been there so I get it not probably as much as you i better be done so Ross tell us about kettle waters so that was coffee and conversation you call it
or what do you call it well that's what they did call it yep and that's what it is um they've had once a month it's at the SWCD office it has been tonight it's in plain view at the Legion um just trying
to move it different spots um kind of a good idea you know I think it started out last summer last fall um talk about cover crops you know there's a topic but I've not attended either but I've been told it's kind of open
conversation whatever topic comes up can be discussed i went to the one was really good but I don't know if I should go to the grazing one cuz I all I know is chasing cattle under the
underpass rubbing their bellies in the mud back in the 60s and then we were done pasturing so nothing good to say about it and I guess I'm just I'm trying to learn more so this is a S SWCD effort it has it's
not of Wabasha County correct it's through the S SWCD i just was trying to highlight maybe Len would mention you know what SWCD no to help no it's good and I'm you know so final question would be compensation or you know how do you
compensate your uh your manager who's in attendance your staff your manager normally are they volunteering normally it's been in the mornings correct i mean during business hours business hours okay normally I don't know but like tonight you said 6:30 not sure yeah i
don't know how they're uh you know compensating these off sites okay i'm just curious it's a new person that Yeah pali or whatever that kind of took the lead on it seems really interesting
well good sounds like a good idea good for you i guess all I have the main thing I had we had a gentleman come to our meeting uh he was a finalist for the Winona County feed lot officer his name was Brian Berie i didn't quite catch the last name but I
did hear that they are offering to him so So it's not official he's not officially hired he's I did hear there's a start date in March march 11 i can't confirm anything because I wasn't at the last
week so you think it's March 11th and and we both know his name is Brian mhm yes we got progress team effort we can do this so he I I was very uh we the board was very impressed
that he came to our meeting and sat in on it and I want to say he has a GIS background hydrogeeology uh Winona State University alumni employed for a few years at St mary's University anything else on him his background i
think that sounds pretty good but yeah he had a match uh at Winona State um water resources management was his degree which is the same that I did when I went to Winona State so does Winona
County just get one feed that officer or she left she got snagged by the MPCA and uh so so the last two have been snagged snagged by the MPCA so correct actually no three the la all three three in a row three in a row have been hired
u the MPCA so we need to figure out a way how to stop that but uh neither here nor there uh so the only thing I will I I I had a a feed lot producer communicate with me
regarding this topic and I thought and I've been ruminating on his ideas and uh his concern the person seems very energetic and qualified and that's uh very positive the the concern is the
person has zero interaction and experience with agriculture with production agriculture with farms there is zero none so the producer is very concerned uh you know uh hopefully everything's great and whatever but
isn't there a way and and the the person shared this with me uh Lewon uh board of education needed to hire a a coach uh this was 5 years ago and they created a
uh kind of an advisory board because it was a very controversial thing and whatever so they invited two three parents to be on the board or there was they asked for people to volunteer and there was three three people that could not vote but could at least give a voice
to the decision of who is selected so the understanding of this person who approached me is the people who uh made the decision are uh the current interim feline officer his name is
Aaron Doug Doug Doug Noart no Doug Doug Cesler there we go yeah he's he's the department chair or so he was one of them and there was there was like two or three county people who made this decision and maybe this is accurate
maybe it's not so the point was isn't there a way that the county in in a hiring decision that's going to affect all of our producers that were losing 8 to 10% per year that they could have a voice and that they could have they don't they they don't need a vote but
they need a voice so that's the point of me bringing that up i know that when Carly was hired she didn't have an egg background either but she was a quick learn i mean she she learned Carly understood agriculture
right and she came from agriculture and she was married to agriculture and I will preface this after she came i will preface this but I don't know if maybe Brian does know about agriculture the producer gave me the impression that Brian does not does anybody know Brian enough to say he knows anything about
maybe he was raised on a farm i don't know but that the point is valid that these people are you know we're we're uh kind of struggling out here and it would be nice if we could have a voice i think one of the most Can I jump in here Russ
yes go ahead i think one of the biggest things that I see coming from a coming from the farm growing up and the disconnect I see all throughout agriculture this can happen internally in co-ops and other aggra related businesses is the disconnect between
understanding the dynamics of a farm and looking at a farm holistically from outside and until you it's kind of like everything else I can I can watch a brick layer lay bricks but until I go lay bricks and I've been there I don't understand it Right so the it it changes the dynamics when you've been part of it
to be able to relate and I think that's what Ross is alluding to is that it's so simple if it's black and white we're following a spreadsheet versus understanding the internals of the spreadsheet and the dynamics it takes to actually farm so that's what scares me
and I can 100% appreciate what Ross is trying to say and um some phone calls okay so go ahead if I like to brainstorm um what
if um part of that person's onboarding is uh he gets invited to some farms to spend part of a day uh on a dairy farm working with a with a producer not not looking at potential
issues but just learning more it was discussed at the S SWCD meeting but he would following Amanda Amanda more so a job shadowing a farmer and that's a good suggestion you're talking Amanda Gentry yes soil and water
staff member that she she's currently actually trying to work with producers on uh developing manure management plans but I mean and not that part of it but the site visit portion you could take the familiar face Amanda and introduce Amanda has a really good reputation with
producers and she's been there for 12 years or more than that um she maybe but she she see I've been on this board for eight years on nine years did she
come right about the time I got she came here after I did so after Yeah it's re really close to since I sat on board to a decade so she's she's known throughout the community and she's you know been a a good voice and advocate for egg so that would be a good suggestion Dave i
think I think so too i think as as a minimal approach that Yeah to Sheila's point Andy Corona Bush is our chair and he made the open offer to Brian and said "I have a farm me Andy I have a farm ross Graden has a farm uh Bill Roamp
used to have you know we can we could give you uh some tours or whatnot so he did extend the invitation but I think maybe uh encouragement of uh making that happen would be positive yeah one of the things I I used to do when I worked for
NRCS if I had a trainee um I would ask one of the SWCD board members can so and so update your conservation plan you know so that was a just a good training experience for them
to to work with one of the board members look at their farm um and update their their conservation plan it's a a low stress way you you you have a kind of a an advocate that you're
working with not not uh a potential adversary yeah yeah well I I know I found it's not quite the same but the the field days that have been sponsored have been real
informative for me as a fun yeah that that's always my worry is you get people that you know you can walk somebody through a factory and then you can run the factory they're two different things you know and until you understand what it's like to be on
the runway side not just walking through it you know and and that's some of these positions to me are heavily guarded as uh it's I don't care what your degree on the wall says can you relate you know
and I I think in the agriculture world that's even in our world when we step onto farms or we're working with a lot of aggra retailers it's how do you relate to what they're going through to figure out how to solve a problem rather than just pinpointing and saying "Well you're at fault for this this and that."
So yeah I I value that more so than the actual degree so and I'll just Thank you you're welcome and I'll just say it one more time we need to give Brian the benefit of the doubt and and hopefully everything's you know going to be extremely positive but but just the concern was raised and so I sharing the
concern that's what we're doing here um the other thing that we discussed at the meeting uh I believe we're going to let's see March 4th is a week from Tuesday so we're going to be seeing Dave in St paul a week from Tuesday right no you won't be at the MA WSD thing in St
paul is this the legislative day yes no no okay so Andy be talking to legislators he he Well then I I misunderstood Andy he made it sound like there would be some Bowser representation at the at the
gap well it's possible that like maybe our assistant director Justin Hansen but you will not be there we have a legislative liaison um uh I'm having a senior moment thinking of her name well regardless it's it's
Andrea Fish okay so it's the S SWCD event like the day at the capital or whatever so the afternoon is like a social and and kind of a hey everybody uh let's you know kind of get our ideas together are we all on the same page and then day two
is the visit the one-on-one with the legislators so I don't I'm not This is my first go around it's good they're good so I don't know what it's called is it called day at the capital is the other SWC send representatives kind of what it's called but yeah you guys will watch we're going to
be gone okay there we go we'll see you there we won't see Dave but we'll see you there then so yeah and there's like a free roaming session I think there's a few that one time in the afternoon and then you could talk to whoever you like social hour setting and then the next
day is the one-on-one with the legislators to put forth your priorities and requests and uh I think the the topic on the cheat sheet I guess or talking point sheet or whatever you want to call it was uh funding is threatening to be cut just like everyone so we need
to advocate for this level of funding in order to maintain our level of performance so that's kind of just sharing the conversation from our board that's kind of what we're going to be sent to discuss i'll touch on that when it's my turn so that's March 4th March
5th and then Sheila uh I left my meeting yeah no no i'm just saying Sheila can you can remind me you were at the meeting this this last meeting in Winona County Soil and Water am I forgetting anything or were those are the main topics that we Yep yep just just an
opportunity to talk with the legislators and express but at the meeting were there other items in addition to that um no not really i mean just kind of a review of what's coming up and going on and um we did not elect officers did we no
that was January see I don't know where I am what day it is so it's all good yeah that's I didn't make it to your last meeting either so February is a bad time cuz we're usually running all around it's hard for me to get to meetings so good job of taking notes and keeping track of things much
better than me though i admire that well thank you Bob appreciate that i don't have too much um we just approved the wage comp study um got negotiations with the unions this year not looking forward to the results of
that but it's probably long overdue been there done that much other than that not a lot going on um a couple things I want to touch on what Ross just talked about with the T with the uh funding so when I used to go
to those and the senators and or legislative officials that were there and including the day before I was one of the I'm going to say multiple people that believed in this concept there's been a in the SWCEs for a number of years there's been a push for taxing
authority and there's still talk about it and it's kind of it's the left side pushing for that um I I I believe that it's not first of all feasible to do that and of course at moments notice oh my gosh why would you want that i think
it would be the demise of the SWCD in in Minnesota because um unfortunately there's people that will vote to tax you right out of your house and home and um if you get the wrong people onto those types of boards uh the accountability is
very low for taxing authority because it's not a recognized group you know the officials are the constituents are not looking at a taxing authority board and saying well wait a minute why can these people raise my taxes and they have some sort of saying that hey we elected
officials to come in and do this we don't need two sets of boards to look at and I think ultimately you would start to see the shutdown of SWCEs because it would run I believe would run rampant every time they want another project they just raise tax raise tax and it would get out of control very very
quickly in certain counties would bring a lot of light negative there'd be nothing really positive that would come out of it and because I do believe in the SWCDs and the good that they do and what yet needs to be run very tight shift um I believe that taxing authority
would absolutely destroy the SWCDs and it would push local controlled projects into a state bound situation because they dissolve that and it was it's just one more push to bigger government because I think in certain cases um it would be erroneous increases in taxes
and so I've always been an advocate to leave it the way it is work at the state funding level federal funding level local funding level and let each county decide that based on their needs and that is the way it's worked for this long we've managed to keep all of them going in the state and going to taxing
authority I think would uh in a short amount of time destroy the SWC uh because of the tax increases so I've been an advocate going to these every year i'm one of them that stands up and says "Please don't do it." And I get a lot of evil looks when they say it
because again the taxpayers and I just feel that that's the best way to do it it's not the popular opinion at those meetings but I'm not there to be the popular person so so I have one other thing especially since Dave is here and
this this came up at the last meeting and and I can't remember everything but it this just popped in my head so we're talking about just a brief conversation of the board uh regarding I believe it starts in January the Minnesota Family Medical Leave Act is that accurate
that's right thank you for bringing that up are we all familiar with that so ba basically my understanding is that an employee uh an employer that has one or more employees must be part of this so it's comparable to workman's comp
insurance where the employer pays into a pool a premium and then the employees take out of the pool when they have a life event or a qualifying life event to use their terms so just uh I'll speak in
generic terms so if the board has an we have four employees right now so if one of our employees we'll say is in charge of grant writing and the employee that's in charge of the grant writing has a qualifying medical event and can take up
to 6 months off uh and receive 100% full pay in their world so good for them but now we as a board have to get this work done for the grant so sure we can try to hire someone short term good luck finding qualified
candidates but anyway so my qu our the conversation and my question today is what will Bowser do in in in light of okay we have an employee this is we'll just say a January 15th deadline is coming up the employee says January 3rd
hey board I have a qualifying life event i'm taking the next 6 months off we'll see you in six months the board cannot fire the person the board has to hire a new person and pay both full well the board would just continue to pay the premiums it doesn't matter but the
question is hey Bowser are you going to grant us some leeway because our employee had a qualifying life event and is not going to perform the work are you going to grant back off on your deadline or um you know what what option do we
have as a board as that if that were to happen as a state mandated thing to all small businesses this is the fastest way to destroy small businesses big businesses can absorb this small businesses can't it is just ludicrous so what he's saying and I'm going to concur
back to this is what is the state doing for us as all these small places and I and I want to get to that just that that exact question I'm putting on my uh uh SWCD hat on our board you know the board is concerned what are we going to do we
got a deadline we got an employee that just left here we sit the work's not getting done is Bowser going to grant some leeway or you know and and you've got hard deadlines so how is this going to work we do have deadlines that are that are mandated but we also have
leeway with that and you know we we did that uh last year with with Winona SWCD for quite a while um so yes and we'll look at every situation we haven't had one of those yet because the this law
just kind of kicked in uh but I I understand your hypothetical and and at some point that hypothetical is going to be real yeah so yeah we we have uh quite a bit of flexibility in terms of
granting extensions and what what we are required to do is uh send a report to the state legislature annually on the performance of our grantees in terms of grants management
and that's where that February 1st reporting deadline kind of kicks in but we can grant extensions uh for situations so that grantee isn't necessarily part of the report that goes
to the legislature so I hope that answers your question wisher county last night had their township officers meeting and it's it was discussed there with you
know township employees nobody's really full-time but yet they're anybody earning a a paycheck the way I understand it pays into it and can take the time well they're trying to get the
townships exempt um I mean it's going to be a mess i agree with you it is just it it's crazy it's asite i just think the people voting for this stuff don't understand this is the fast track business they just can't get it small
business can't absorb this stuff they just can't but they just don't get it this is This is why the big companies keep expanding because the little guys just can't compete in this world we can't do it but they just they see it for what it is like oh it's such a big thing for a person and then it's all
anti- corporation it's like this is what drives it they can absorb it we can't i can't afford to hire somebody else temporary then I got to go pay them unemployment i mean you can't do it you know and then you wonder why the little businesses fail 90% of them fail 90% of
them fail and they go pass laws like this that's just going to keep pushing the small guy out the big guys can and the big guys are the ones promoting us going "Heck yes heck yeah make her you know just county employees i mean
how they're forcing they're forcing employers to take on the risk and responsibility of everybody's life at what point are you accountable for yourself and what happens in your own life it's just I'm sorry that's the cord in my back as a small business owner
going I I can't how how like it keeps me up at night like how are you going to do this so no point thank you and Amen you're you're and you're I think you're spot on uh this is this is a death spiral to small businesses instead of losing 90% we're going to lose 95 why
are they voting for it because they want the they want the bill of my employee one of our our our farm employee one of our best people been there 13 years uh we're trying to have a family we've got two kids already we're going to wait and have the next child in 2026 so we can take off twice and then
and then what do you do they're doing it and they're gleeful they're happy and they're going to vote for the people who vote for that and that's what it's all about and it's just the people that they don't get it because they're not there's no skin in the game for them they can just receive the benefit yes so that's the challenge anyway that's off topic
sorry no it's not off topic it affects all these it affects the SWC is its own board it's it's funded by its own system it's a real thing they've got I mean they can't afford to hire another person what's that look like on I know it lose
all the you don't just lose the the person filling the position you lose Amanda you lose her 10 years of experience you lose her relationship with the land land owners and and producers and now now you bring in a temporary person with doesn't know anybody they're going to of course
expect the man is full wage to be hired and so now you it's just it buys votes it buys votes that's what it does but it's at the expense of small business small communities small organizations and I think to your point Josh would be
it speeds up vertical integration 100% 100% and that's what everybody's supposed to nobody wants uh five Elon Musks in the world they want all these small businesses to succeed but we're five Elon Musk five that's right so this is a problem it's big business
and how people can't see through that i just I do know why because it's what's in it for me but ultimately it's it's it's a hindrance sorry all right board reports for me all right so I go back to taxation um I've been an advocate for no taxing authority as counterintuitive as
that seems but I think it'd be the demise of SWCD um I was not at our last board meeting because again I was both both the board meetings SWCD and that I was on vacation um so but uh a couple of things that I know are coming up uh we we're seeing some talk about the dog
count stuff again um we're dealing with some different projects around the county uh had a remodel le the last meeting it was at was a 4 to1 vote um I voted in favor of it uh Commissioner Ward did not and and I understand why she just doesn't want her
name to stat anything um although she does agree with my point why I voted for for it but it was to move forward on pre-esign of the LEC um the only reason that was is because the county and this is what I even explained to Mr ward in a separate conversation the taxes that we
paid collectively went up to the state and got redistributed back down to the city the only way I can recoup any value out of that as a county constituent not a city Winona constituent is to say "Hey as a county constituent I get a free
look as to what it might cost to go build an LEC with no commitment and zero cost." So it was the only way I could come up with as a taxpayer to actually try to recoup some of the cost that we paid in a project that we may or may not benefit from and because it was a free
look now I do not like hey leverage this government entity to this government entity because to me it's like it's a way to double tax you um but in this situation it was the only way that I said hey we had do have a problem we can use funds that we already paid in
indirectly to try to see if there's a a solution for this so we're not obligated as as as a county in uh to move forward with the project and there's no financial obligation and there's no way to give that tax money back it's the cities they can do what they want but we
are asking that we have more documentation uh as to what and how those tax those tax dollars are used so I I decided it's a free opportunity for us to say is this a feasible thing to look at maybe moving together because
there was no cost to us um and then also we're looking at remodeling um and so we did allocate some dollars out of a reserve fund that we had to actually get us some hard numbers on what the remodel cost and we know there's going to be a commitment to having to somebody come in
and do all the specs and everything else so we allocated up to $100,000 to do that out of a $750,000 budget in reserve um to decide hey this to the $5 million project um I thought that's a very low cost to get some hard hard numbers to
that so uh right now we have speculative numbers and um I just I'm not comfortable with those because that's how you know project cost so that's our next big thing on the agenda we've been dealing with um we go from there yeah sorry about the cord in my back but my
family medical leave thing i just It's so counterintuitive i It's unbelievable all right uh so that's what I have so anything else on the board reports none oh I'll say one more thing um in the egg in the egg industry right now it's uh we just did a meeting over
in Wells we've done shows in we were just down at the National Machinery Show in Louisville we've been all over the country doing shows and uh it's good to hear just having discussions yesterday we did one like I said over in Wells on the flat country heavy soil that nitrogen management and fertilizer
management is still in play um that room was packed yesterday in fact we were out of tables um and just the common consensus of how can we do a better job and manure isn't a bad thing and how can we get more out of our manure a lot of a lot of big hog farmers um over there
feed lots um you know hey we're we're putting manure on for nitrogen our peas and caves are going up what can we do how can we treat our manure different um so a lot of really good questions being asked in the countryside about a lot of things that we do and educate and teach
people um you know hey you don't have to put on as much as you think whatever you know etc so it's good to see that there's a continuence of education before regulation which everybody knows been coin phrase for years um so I'm just that makes me happy so that's a positive
so all right board discussion and action items on the number eight financial update she Okay uh so right now um at the end of December we had 114,122 dollars uh for uh after we took
out funding for um uh what was preauthorized or prepaid and then also in at the end of January that didn't change much 115,936 um and of course we're still waiting on the payment from the uh
whitewater drinking water grant okay any discussion on that we do not need a motion for that not a proposal well Yeah we would to accept
well the finances are the finances yes what's done is done right right so we should Okay whitewater drinking water protection oh go ahead we have a letter to sign with Peterson Company for the audit for 2024 so we just need to accept
the letter no we've already we've already approved it yeah this is just the manage or the letter that needs my signature and your signature yeah right but there's nothing and then Yeah we'll do that okay can I ask how much the audit was
lot cheaper miss Schaefer was it it keeps going up 700 no I think I want to say 23 or 2400 i know somewhere that's okay kind of peterson tends to be the cheapest he's been doing it for years
every year it goes up $100 and it seems like 5,000 no it's not 5,000 it's I was thinking that I thought it was 22 yeah it doesn't say it in the proposal letter which was previously had that but this is just
saying we understand that this is what will consist of an audit that does say 5,000 once page four under the provisions of engagement screen timing and fees off
of some of our projects that does not look right cuz it was 2,000 something you said 5 well I guess but that's a typo i had 5,000 in my head but I I think it's been 5,000 to the S SWCDs
that's kind of the number I have in my head from the district audits maybe we better hold on signing until I confirm yeah so they're saying there's $5,000 and you're saying "Well the letter says
$5,000 but I know that's not what the quote was." No it's 26 dave's got documentation that it was 5,000 it's in the letter it's in the letter so I think that's that's a typo which page 15
our fee for these services would be 5,000 for the audit so let's not sign that to Yeah let's let's uh find out first it's not supposed to be cuz the they they must have changed it you know sometimes you
know they didn't copy and paste or they didn't copy past on you guys thank you hopefully we can so let's not sign it till and I'll catch you at a board meeting or something to do that yeah that's fine next
Tuesday i did have one thing at the end I wanted to bring up i should have brought it up with the last so okay white water drinking water protection grant update okay in the packets is the uh e-link report that I submitted when the grant
was completed so that's this the page that starts off with this table so basically it it just shows you know how much was total budgeted spent and remaining balance and um how how how the
expenditures went for the entire grant which started in 2020 um so so that is all said and done and now we are in the reconciliation um typically for the Bowser grants after
you spent 50% you do a reconciliation and that didn't happen because the person that was was in training so she wanted to delay it until a later point so that's where we are
right now is doing it now um just to kind of show you give you an example this is the list um of contracts you know
it's many pages um but anyway this is what I have copied for her to review if she shows up in person i also have it scanned so I can email it but it won't
be in one email so this is um copies of all the documentation needed for any contracts so cover crop contracts uh septic system upgrades um these are educational expenses
um and yeah cover crops yeah so that these are all the cover crops and all but four of the covered crop contracts were on the list to request to leave all of the septic systems were
there were just four of them um and I think there's a couple of invoices what's not here are the and I will finish that up today are the invoices received from SWCDs for technical
service for cover crops and then also uh my documentation for my time um so um we will have this will be in more than one email um but anyway that's kind of where we are at so they're
withholding that last 10% until they review these funds well like you said that's our money now so that's good yeah y Okay uh local advisory team grant update okay uh January 15th we had a meeting in Elgen and the meeting for
Alura was scheduled for the 6th of February but it got postponed another month till March 6th um so that'll be from 10 to 12 at the Alura Community Building there and uh so it got delayed because there was
some there was a glitch that had to be resolved with the modeling uh for that DWISMA and so I think it's taken care of so we're going to have that meeting on March 6th and so that's and then um 10
a.m 10 yeah am 10 a.m yep and then um also our the grant that the Whitewater has ends at the end of June so I've been talking with Don Bernal about uh redoing that grant um I'm not sure
what the extension amount in time would be to help finish up uh these meetings so there's that uh Don did say that a number of uh farmers that are have land in the DWISMAS have really been getting
on to the nitrogen management financial assistance program so it's $5,000 a year that's available to try different things uh in your land in the Disma including cover crops delayed cover crop termination demonstration sites manure
management nitrate reduction perennial crop pre-plant nitrogen testing precision egg and small grains so they need to add nitrogen fixators to that category pre-plant nitrogen test that's not
okay so we need nitrogen what is it fixators something beyond soybeans or alalfa no like integrated nitrogen fixators meaning like live bacteria or enzyme functions that can create nitrogen through atmospherical processes
basically utilizing nitr utilizing the free nitrogen we have we're breathing right now so yeah and it's called integrated nitrogen fixator you could call it that nitrogen fixation nitrogen fixation there you go bacterial nitrogen fixation is what you call them
okay they're very very powerful tools okay all right i will let her know that that is missing that was probably like yesterday that was probably one of the biggest talking points yesterday was how can we use these things what's the
nitrogen cut back look like you know how effective are they you know how much can I go what could I do so even the manure guys you know that are chasing nitrogen with their manure but relative scared of the P and K levels getting up or P or whatever you know that's what they're
looking at saying hey can I be pulling back and selling to the neighbor or spreading it out more and they're looking at those types of products because not every acre can get covered with a motor cream or crop or whatever you know so they're they're very powerful tools okay okay cool all right so anyway
that's that's where things are at with the local advisory team i did get a call so I indate yes i have not had a chance since getting back the board meeting that you missed uh uh Kimberly
Bin Kmers sounds great and then um Matt Gallow he's he's a Yeah and so Kimberly and Matt came to the board meeting and presented to the county board and then they met with me afterwards so that's
what I have i put Yep at your places the um the handouts that she gave me I asked her for and um but basically um they wanted to remotely present to
the board and I said it's kind of hard to hear but anyway uh but the handouts are pretty self-explanatory but basically the spongy moth formerly known as the gypsy moth um and so Minnesota is
kind of on the edge of of its advancement from Wisconsin and uh so basically what they will be doing and they wanted to make sure that this board knew because um if you move on in
one of the handouts there is a map um showing their spray areas and uh two of them two of the blocks of land will be in the white water area and so in the event that that they're going to be
spraying they want all elected officials and people who need to know know that um that that's what it is um and that they're spraying uh what they are spraying is organic so it will not impact organic growers it basically
confuses uh the male moths so that they don't can't find the females that they can't reproduce and therefore address the expansion of of them and uh so it's not harmful to humans pets birds and bees
um they she did tell me Kimberly did say that because of budget cut cuts they did have to really cut down on the number of acres that they're plann to be spraying they had 170,000 acres plan and it got
cut and she says that was the cut down version that they submitted and then they had to cut down to 100,000 acres so um such a tough one because you know you see a kid sees a little caterpillar oh look at that
yeah and that's what's hard because you can't distinguish what's beneficial and what's not yep so they anticipate that it'll be somewhere towards the end of June um it'll depend on temperature and you know monitoring and they can fly
here if you see this caterpillar step yeah yeah yeah so anyway there um but she did offer and I could I will be emailing her after this meeting uh if anybody wants to be on their notification list saying "Hey we're going to be spring tomorrow." Um I can
certainly put the whole entire board on that list so that just so that if anybody's calling wondering you know what it's about mhm and it's helicopter application or Nope small planes
okay okay agency reports it's just you there's nobody behind you um I guess two two updates um grant related updates um I probably
talked to you in the past about a regional conservation partnership program or RCPP that that Bowser applied for a couple years ago with the USDA NRCS for um soil health practices
um we have an agreement now with NRCS and we actually just put out what's called a request for interest to SWCD so we've um requested $25 million in federal funds which to date we've heard
are still coming um uh and then we are partnering that with $21 million of state funds um half of which really has already gone out um um
like a year ago we put out a request for proposals for SWCDs called soil health capacity or soil health staffing grants so I think like 50 SWCDs have hired additional staff
um to work on soil health practices with those funds and then we also um delivered uh soil health delivery grants a year ago which can be used really for anything used for cost share funds
technical time um training supplies and equipment as long as it's not a drill or or a seating device um so the what we have out currently until the end of the month um is called
a request for interest to S SWCDs and I think it's 70 SWCDs are eligible any any county with at least 30% agriculture uh landbased is eligible for one of these
grants and the base grant initial grant will be $180,000 um 150 of that which can go to financial assistance to producers uh that's the federal money and then the remaining
30,000 can go to provide reimbursement to SWCD staff for their technical time it doesn't have to they a district could use all 180,000 for financial assistance to land owners if they want to
the $30,000 of state money that's part of that packet can uh finally they're regulating what goes to administrative time because I've seen things that are 90% administrative and 10% boots on the ground and that is so frustrating oh
yeah um yeah so they have latitude um because really because SWCDs they do have other funding sources that they can use for the technical time so it's it's going to give them flexibility on how they want to use that money and then
once um they've um encumbered or allocated 80% of that first base grant of $180,000 then they will be eligible to apply for
$120,000 grant with similar sideboards 20,000 can be staff time 100,000 for financial assistance or you can use all 120 and then those additional grants will be allocated on a monthly basis so
if if an S SWCD has a really active soil health program they could conceivably be requesting $120,000 every month until that funding is gone so this is a um program that's
set to go for four years um so we'll we'll kind of see how that how that rolls out and again we've not heard um from NRCS that uh that funding is going to get pulled back but we
haven't heard that it's not going to get pulled back either so uh I think didn't this come up at our last meeting it probably came up at your SWC board meeting and that it's sounding familiar that that our manager was conversing about it and they're excited
about it y good um the any questions on the soil health um so the other um uh grant request for proposal that just went out within the past week um we also
applied for a an RCPP for water storage practices and that is uh $21 million in federal funds um we don't have a signed agreement yet with NRCS it's been the
proposal's been approved but we're still in negotiations on the details with NRCS so while we wait to get those negotiations completed we did put out an RFP for I believe $2 million of just the
state money that we will be using as match for that federal money and so that can be used for um any practice that's going to retain more uh runoff and water on the landscape could be um water and
sediment control basins could be terraces could be side inlet structures could be bigger you know um uh dams as well uh so we do have some watershed districts
that were um also sponsors of that proposal uh one of which is the Cedar River Watershed District out uh Austin area and they committed some of their funds as match
towards this RCPP also so um and that that particular watershed district has uh put in a number of fairly large um uh water storage dams that there's not a permanent pool it's a temporary
pool it'll pull runoff for uh 48 to about 48 hours um so they've they've got a pretty good history of working with producers in that wershed um for projects like that so thank you
perfect okay uh anything else i guess the one other thing and I don't know where this is going to go but there is a bill um from some I'm sorry I don't remember
the particular legislators in Southeast maybe Sheila might be aware of it where they're they're proposing to be uh use state funds to support rehabbing old
structures old ponds uh uh cleaning out the pool area i've pushed for that for years i think was one of the It's a Republican bill i know that yeah and that's what's neat is I think there's just been so much traction with this on
what I would say would be the alternate side from what I've seen sitting on these boards for so long and to me it's what I'm seeing is a common sense approach from that side like why are we we're paying to put them in but can is there you know is there relevance to
keeping them up I've argued that for years there's we we were asked to comment on it um I think the I don't I don't think I'm stepping out of school by saying this the
the issues I think that that we raise as a state agency is um why why the geography of just these counties in southeast when there's
practices all around the state that have been put in for years that maybe need to be rehabbed uh and then the other issue I don't know if it's an issue the other question I guess that that we raising is
um you know when when a landowner puts these practices in they're committing to do operation and maintenance so with that where does operation and maintenance end and assistance to do it
over begin so that's that's it's always been the argument and I think there's my opinion on these two challenges are one there's sometimes a generational change you know dad put it in and now
here I have to take care of it and I may or may not have it's very similar to the argument I make you buy a piece of property the septic tank goes by and now you're asking me to pay for it i'm already paying for my septic tank and you want me to pay for yours that's no different than the front door goes bad all right the house the roof goes bad i
I shouldn't have to pay for your roof so it's an occupational or it's a hazard of buying something well on the flip side but the flip side is that also for the best of everybody when it comes to erosion control and everything else that
hey it's typically cheaper to clean out than it is to start completely and that was that was a good location for that dam 30 years ago it's still a good location for that dam the the other thing that we want to make sure is that
if if um if we're going to commit state dollars to this that it has to be done to some quality criteria it's not just it's not just bringing a skid steer in and cleaning it out it's it's got to
meet current you know technical standards and specs when it's done the second thing that I argue to that is you know when we talk about locationwise I grew up in Nobles County on a wildlife in fact we sold our
wildlife to the feeasants forever and it now belongs to the state they donated it to the state and the very land I grew up on even though they had the governor opener there you know it was a farm and a licensed wildlife so I've done this my whole life and the challenges there
versus the challenges here this is a lot more unique so to argue that southeast Minnesota doesn't have some pretty unique challenges versus the flatlanders and that's our issue is that we have a lot of challenges here compared and so you know the argument I would say is that we're in a pretty diverse location
for the percentage of agriculture land we have versus if I were to go up by Duth or Deep River Falls or some place like that that's not going to have the same challenge well there's you know there's a lot of a lot of these old ponds that are in the whitewater watershed so I just wanted to mention 100% lind I just had a question i I
thought a lot about this too cuz we went to see Duskowski a couple years ago and he had already had the idea of this legislation but so I always bring up well for cleaning these ponds out what's up above i mean I don't know everybody's
situation but I know some places in particular where maybe it was a big pasture field when the pond was put in and it was remedyed from maybe the mistakes in the 20s and then it was better but then somehow with the cost of land or price of the crops then it got
to be tilled so that it has a free flow of sediment again and so I wonder if there's any way we could put some kind of language in there to well prevent that from so there there is in um a lot
of the practices a requirement that the watershed that's contributing runoff to that project has to be treated to tea so there has to be adequate land treatment so that the practice can be maintained
and can actually do its job the issue that we saw years ago when I first brought this up because there's never really been funding for the pond cleanouts was documentation it's very similar to the wells we're running around playing and everything else but until we actually started
requiring people to put wells into code and documenting that happening what's the case in Reno County 3% fail that's virtually none but before that there was no requirement there was no documentation even know what the requirement was and you go back in the records and there was no very little
documentation to how these projects were being done we know they exist but we can't open up the files and be like this was the requirements to do all this and yeah there had to be certain amount of grass waterway now there is there's a pile of it and even the mandated water coming in there's a lot more boxes and
things to check so the documentation is part of the problem um and that we don't have any you can't look back 40 50 60 years ago and say here's the requirements we don't have those documents they don't exist so but now with the digitalization we can have that versus let's pull the file door
open and look for Larry somebody you know 70 years ago we put this bond in for so again I think things are changing and I argue I've argued that point that hey we're going to be able to hold land owners a little more accountable if they're going to ask for taxpayer funded
scenarios And it's a benefit for everybody the landowner wins the taxpayer wins and but again we got to have these kind of standards if you're going to ask for taxpayer help so I've made it I I just think it's a phenomenal thing if we can lessen the cost of these projects and not have to start over and
yeah like you said we're going to have to have some sort of accountability as to how they get you know so it's a good thing so that's good i hope I hope it keeps moving forward so I think it's a way to use a taxpayer dollar better i appreciate the fact that um we were asked to you know
to comment back on it good any other discussion on that okay hearing none we are in the I I have one thing I wanted to bring up i forgot to bring it up earlier so one of the things I've been working with county to do this but and and I realize maybe I'm in a little bit of a unique situation
but I'm trying to I notice and the more I get involved in the government side especially in the county side of just time management and we spent a lot of time with a little meeting here and a little meeting here and a meeting this week and a meeting that week so you take a look at my I'm just going to use this as an example i had to make a decision
when I left town it left me with one week open to try to get out because of all the different meetings so I chose to leave last week because I had to miss well week kind of two weeks but I had to miss a county board meeting and miss SWC meeting and one other meeting or I had to miss this week which I chair the road
bridge committee for Rona County and chair this board so it's like the lesser of the evils to try to get away and every week there's constant meetings being scheduled making it very difficult to travel travel for work have a life outside of all this etc etc so I did challenge commissioner excuse me
administrator Holty to say "Hey can we start making these meetings fall in you know current weeks that we already have other weeks we team seem to have meetings every week all week all month making it very difficult why aren't we trying to schedule these offshore
meetings off-site meetings you know on the same day as another meeting or at least the same week as another meeting making it easier for people?" And really the comment was we can you know there's no reason not to my question with this meeting board meeting is it falls
outside of it's another week where we have to schedule meetings so our road bridge committee meeting concurred they said yeah there's no reason let's actually schedule it the same day as a board meeting so that you don't have to drive down multiple times and get paid a perm you know it's like it's it's I
don't even charge the county for my mileage and do that for all for free and even though we could um and so I just said at the sake of being efficient with their time and meetings can we start scheduling these meetings at least as a minimum close to a day of another
meeting or the same day as another meeting or at the far end at least in the same week as other meetings are happening so I'm just asking the board do do and we've done this we used to meet monthly you know we realized that probably wasn't necessary with this board um you know I even challenge it to going every three months obviously you
guys know that not because I don't enjoy this actually my favorite part of these meetings is hearing what all the other counties and estate cities are doing so I enjoy that um it's really how we learn and know what's going on but I do look at this conflicting time schedules that we have to try to manage you know our
lives outside of this so I'm just like curious i know our board meetings or county board meetings are the second and the fourth Tuesdays of every month um is that with the other county commissioner are there normal first and third first and third
no I know but do you know what what your guys's who but what would be I I think Homemstead County is the same these days i don't know yeah well my question is is is there is there a way that we could
streamline this so we're not dumping all the way through but the problem is if we change it it's going to fall opposite of what you are i don't know if that makes a difference cuz size over view of the whole thing
but I know in December when we had this meeting the afternoon of having our soil and water meeting that worked pretty slick i thought just get a couple things done in one day that's what I'm looking for even in one week or something
that's something to look at yeah because it just gets to be difficult to try to make it all work and and I'm not asking accommodate my schedule but how do you is is can we come up with is there some way we could be scheduling this meeting better that would work for every You're looking for a sweet spot looking for a
sweet spot yeah and we've just always done it this way and there's for no reason other than I think we've just always done it this way it's kind of what it's always been and I just want to bring up too looking at the schedule we currently have the third Thursday you know every other month uh an Schwarle
pointed out that the June meetings this year happens to be on the Junth holiday and then I know the October meeting conflicts with the MEA weekend we got some things going on here so
anyway so those are two things I know on the current schedule that are too many holidays too many holidays i don't know where they keep coming up with these things so anyway I got to head out thank you i I fully hear you Josh my I got stuck
with a lot of committees when I was elected and this week has been pure hell yeah it's a rigomear and I'm trying to figure out can we schedule something in somewhere somehow that works i get it i you know whatever works for the rest of
the Does this does this work or is there something better for you or is it a horse piece for you it's a horse piece tuesday was our board meeting wednesday morning was three rivers this morning is this this afternoon I've got labor management and
shop it just Yeah this third week of the month just sounds to me like you could use one less on this week yeah right well and I'd be willing to switch it to this the same schedule as the other one if that helps you out because my suggestion would be
if we could move and so then we even look at the time of the day we look at the guy that's farman we look at farmers we look at farmers we look at me uh does would at 1:30 work better you know would something after lunch work better versus trying to get here by 8:30 in the
morning which I know can be difficult for some guys i'm just open to any discussion is there a better way i just started realizing this a while back going "Oh my gosh the juggling the schedule." And then I started asking at the Road Bridge Committee meeting is there anybody would this work better for if we changed it up i'm asking on this
committee would because there's no set time for this and we always see everybody's kind of getting in right at the last second you know um and and I think that would probably happen but sometimes afternoons are easier than mornings you know so I I I'm just open
for anything I guess so as a farmer in the winter early morning is more difficult but in the summer it's going to be better because we wait for the hay to dry up and then okay the hay is dry starting at noon afternoon I can't come so there's that that's kind of what the
root river SWCD does they have it in the morning part of the year and then they switch to an afternoon meeting well so it stay in the morning but what happens if we moved it to say the fourth Tuesday of the month i know that would help me
left it in the morning if you're okay with that if we moved it to the fourth it would take one more off from your third and you're saying just to clarify you said Tuesday but did you mean Thursday the fourth Thursday of the month no I'd like to switch it to a Tuesday okay the the Thursdays the four Thursdays are conflicting with so he'd
like to switch it to a Tuesday soil and waters you guys are fourth Tuesday Thursday soil and waters fourth Thursday and if we did it to a Tuesday you could combine two meetings into one week you take one week off from your busy
schedule right and and has it been discussed before could it move to a quarterly or or it still needs to be bimonthly We discussed it and we wanted to you know Steve Jacob is actually the one that kind of pushed and I could see it too that you know the
agendas are getting light trying to do it once a month um there you know and we went to twice and it's worked very well with the exception of like what we've done you know if something comes up I'm at the board meeting I come down and sign it is probably the advantage we have being a chair from Woodland County
that I can sign off on things going down to board meetings versus when you guys would have to try to drive and get together what are the rules for something that's time sensitive as far as electronic communication or something like that if that came up i not sure
yeah sorry i don't I I don't know the answer to that um you know I I definitely can tell we've got a little more context you know moving into a bimonthly situation could it go to a quarterly absolutely i think it could it would just make it a little harder on the timing of financial payments that's
what we've kind of deemed was part of why we did what we did um and so the the compromise to that right now is saying is there can we find better scheduling so that again it gets the complexity of life coming into play
well the other option would be similar to what the TSA does i mean they only meet twice a year but they have an executive committee that does the financial things that need to be done when they need to be done right and I think they that joint powers board
already pre-approved those is that how that works that you know that I think part of what I see on here is that we don't have any major projects um you know we don't have any major oversight projects i would say
probably local advisory side is probably our biggest thing going on and I've you know this isn't just efficiency is is you know do we feel that we can operate and still do the justice of this board meeting and then fill in the blank x
amount of times per year is it is it six is it four is it two is it three you know how does that look like um I think we can identify a time frame as well as how many times to meet um and this is something that should be reviewed I
think almost yearly anyway and I've tried to bring it up just my question is with Bowzer's push to one watershed one clams you know way waterhed was way
[Music] before would it be beneficial to dissolve white water and to move more with more water in the plane i Yeah no I it's been brought up before it has I I
don't know it just Well you got to go back to the beginning of this board and it really it was intent was because there were so many issues in this watershed yeah and there really wasn't an oversight in SWCDs although they were active really in that era there there
wasn't the communication that there was today sure and so the intent was hey for all of us to get on the same page in such a valuable area that encompassed three different counties how can we do that and that was the intent of this board was to try to everybody get on the same page the crazy part is is that
we've kind of solved a lot of the major problems and now we're kind of down to just these specifics here and specifics there which encompasses back to can this board operate by just simply the SWCDs of the three counties all conversing
together in a fashion that I believe it happens I've even seen it since I've gotten on these boards almost a decade ago to now I've sat on this board every year just the communication like you said that's my favorite part of the board is always the communication aspect but now you got everybody's kind of talking to everybody and that really
never used to happen like it used to and I I think Sheila was a big part of that coordination and you know everybody knows her and and so that's good it's been discussed many times as to the need for this i think just the same as so many other boards that sit in in these
different watersheds i think what do we call them 30 some boards or some crazy thing there was so uh I I don't disagree with that and it was part of my push to say can this board still facilitate and operate but maybe cut the batiums and
the cost out and the time and still do the good deeds and what needs to happen and we might find out I mean I remember saying this four years ago we might find out in 5 years that we don't need to even exist because we're able to accomplish what this board is accomplishing through the SWC i think
one of the talking points I had to go against that talking point of myself was we do have the opportunity to write for separate grants versus from the SWCD is that I think that's what I had brought up meaning the Whitewater board can
write its own set of grants yes outside of what the SWCD so it's a way for us to pull more money into the area but then I said is the need to administer that once a month twice a month once a quarter twice a year or a year so does that make sense and that was the benefit of
keeping so even you know should we dissolve and go with one watershed the one watershed doesn't have the authority to to write for special grants they the one watershed one plan the
windlac they can have grants but right now the root river SWCD is the fiscal on behalf of the windlac but other entities within you know like for example Wabasha SWCD can write a grant and administer it
for the windlac area because they're a partner in the windlac so there's that can't you know it's it's just the way Windlac is organized they did not want a joint powers board but we have a joint powers agreement that the fiscal will handle
those pieces um so you you can do that but I know there is right now with the wind lack in place there is a redundancy but when you mention grants um because there's more and more funding each year
for um when for one watershed one plan each funding cycle there's less money available in the pot to be awarded for these competitive grants so we you know so it'll reach a point where that amount
is very small and be very competitive um so that's kind of unless it's somewhere else you're getting money but right now the main stay is are those Bowser grants the MPCA money um they
they you know we've had grants the 319 grants but that be the feds had us had the state change their 319 program so now they're only doing the focus small
watersheds and they've already been selected for you know throughout the state and so those are I think up to 20 years focusing on one watershed to make it good and um so so we don't have the
319 money anymore either so that's that's kind of the rub you know it's getting harder to find funding for Yes these boards like this and because of that unfortunately it also takes away the need for these types of boards and
it gets to that point where it's like how do you can we do this a different way and more efficiently yep it it is getting harder and harder and that's even on the fiscal so what stopped it the last time I don't remember who was I know you were on the board a couple
years ago a couple years ago were you um was you know we just looked at needing okay we're going to stop it at twice a month because we need to understand the fiscal aspect when doing side checks and I think we've done you've done a phenomenal job at working through that and
asking for forgiveness when we can't do things like what we did and said there's a benefit to me being the chair i I not because I need to be the chair i don't need another job but you know being able to come down and sign things or whatever so it's just fortunate that you're one
of the know that smooths things out um but I I I I concur with what you say i've been challenging but I challenge all these boards we do you know the road bridge we you know if there's nothing on we might not need for six months you
know um so it just depends on um you know what that looks like so I I don't I I guess I'm not ready to dissolve the board but I definitely would like to look at maybe we need to go to a quarterly meeting is that possible what
do you think Sheila and I'd like to change the date i'd like to get some dates that work timing the dates that work better i think it definitely could work quarterly the the one challenge is you know if there would be a grant opportunity coming up usually they have
an RFP that's released and then 30 days later it closes you know so it's very possible you're stuck in and that could happen on a buy one oh of course of course so in a in an instance like that is there an option to do a Zoom meeting
emergency meeting or I suppose I mean we need we would need approval to write the grant right well unless and and I have done this in the past where I go ahead and do a grant and hopefully hopefully they'll they'll take it you know well so
the question I I propose is this can we create the authority as a board to preemptively grant grant writing we can always deny
Mhm if we get the grant exactly that's right and as long as we say it's within the scope of what of the objectives the objective of this board that is preemptively allowed and we do it on a yearly basis we we we that's part of our
January meeting where we grant the permission for that grant writing if it's within the scope of what we do and we review that once a year i think on an audit that would pass a 100 times over
yep any argument to that says no that's pretty efficient well and you know if that was a joke if a grant opportunity comes along and you question whether you should I mean just Well you could always call the chair
call or email yeah what do you think see I think we could do that and I I just think of the for the sake of the accountability of the taxpayer and what we're doing i don't want to lose you as a positional agent because you're
excellent at what you do and in grant writing and organizational skills but I just question the need to have to meet as frequent and quite honestly when we do meet I think we'll have more substance to these meetings and uh not that this is bad but you know
we'll definitely be able and through communications and emails and things like that I think we could really make things work well so So what I'm kind of hear and I'm going to sum this up a little bit is we potentially could move this to a quarterly meeting i think we could move the date i would I would like
to see the date if if it's okay with everybody else and please tell me this is wrong it sounds like Bob would like to free up it the third week i wouldn't mind moving it to the fourth week on a Tuesday morning at same time because that would help and you're in the
morning would you have a problem with moving it to the fourth Tuesday of the month in the morning nothing really matters we don't have milks anymore i'm very flexible that would free up a day would you mind Bob no that's fine james does it matter
to you probably not so so the only potential is we don't have dates and he doesn't count and I don't know what their board schedule is i don't know i know they meet on Tuesdays yeah
but I just don't know what time let's look it up real quick internet in the morning yeah I don't either um yeah we better find that out do we have internet anybody have internet do they have internet i don't think I do on my phone i remember Steve
Jacob how much money the county spent to get internet i mean I'm going to run out front let's see if they can look it up because if that's if that's that way there's definitely more the negative uh to less meetings is less
no that's true maybe we need to go back month maybe we should i think monthly all in favor of monthly i don't No worries josh we're going back monthly just so we can get the treats oh yeah well no i want
the turtles turtles every Yeah december i do those i think that's the end of the year i'm going to make some for my stepfather for his 90th birthday well that's awesome
okay public meetings oh this is when they will be broadcast so it doesn't tell us when they'll be commissioner agenda review is February looks like we have Wi-Fi so commissioner agenda review is February
27th i don't know what date that is board of Commissioners March 6th at 11:00 a.m this is Homestead yeah and then March 18th at 6:00 p.m
i got no service i'm surprised I can get cuz I didn't do you have service rout yes there it came so you have to go in and accept accept the wife okay it says something well you have to click on accept the terms and then So now I
suddenly have it okay so what day of the week is March 6th i think a calendar it's got to be a Thursday march 6 is a Thursday okay and then March 18th
is a Tuesday and that's the third Tuesday and it says 6:00 p.m so I'm guessing it looks like they they're on the first and third 1 and 3 yeah so they would be have an opening on
the fourth Tuesday assuming they don't have any committees to Right again I don't I have no idea what you know one thing I'm kind of glad that Wabasha County keeps the same committees where
almost they rotate them all they rotate them all yeah and it's like to me it makes more sense to have some consistency on those committees mhm yeah so it looks like
11:00 a.m on the first Thursday and 6:00 p.m on the on the first Thursday and then the 3 Tuesday 6 p.m at least that's what it is for March
doesn't say if it's a longevity in a position i think it's good cuz like when I go to the soil and water convention I mean there's people that come and sit right down with me comfortably you know and start a conversation cuz you seen them a few years before well and
having in my personal opinion it's valuable more meetings more frequently to get these ideas that's a very good idea the coffee and conversation you know and just to know what everybody else is up to so if you have less meetings we'll have less of that communication so there's a balance
but but quarterly might be sufficient mhm have to take better notes i will that's too bad although Lyn I am impressed that you read the binder that I made i I skimmed through it they were pretty
quick yeah so you did do that and what was Josh's wish leaving in the morning uh-huh yes t the 4th Tuesday at 8:30 a.m that's what I heard him say okay we just got to figure out which
it's February i was actually thinking but I guess people don't like the afternoon and not that much we can we can shift gears if need be but that's the maybe it'll rain that day no there's never going to be a perfect
time so I I was just thinking like the fourth Thursday in the afternoon that way like have well I have two meetings you're allowed to miss one in the morning one in the afternoon well if you have to I mean sure I have ready for
far related things if it comes up it's very odd six in the six the next one is March 6 and then it's March 18th which is Thursday evening which is a meetings consistently in the summer especially I would agree so it looks
like they're evening and they're not so it would work to move it to a Tuesday morning that's personal same as you though the 18th is a Tuesday but it's in the evening right yeah so it' work to move it in the morning you know it'd be the
same thing for um commissioner uh send you I I think that's send you so it'd be the same thing for him where you have now instead of multiple meetings multiple days he could do it all in one day provided they don't have committee meetings yeah I looked up the whole schedule and it looks clean yeah I don't
know either I don't either what all their committees if you look at look at their meeting schedule it looks correct I mean you can go through here and yeah look at but I mean a couple years ago Josh I brought that up I'm on the highway committee I'm on Oh it just gets to be so many personnel committee it's
like can we have these meetings same day at the board meeting oh sure yeah yeah it just It's always just kind of in the way it is so you challenge it like is there a better way to do this so I So I started seven down there instead of eight you know that's exactly
That's what we did at the road bridge we're scheduled it after a board meeting now and everybody's fine with it actually commissioner work yeah this is great now we don't have to drive down twice so this one I don't mind it's a short draft but um so let me ask you so with the consensus of the board today do
we feel a need could we make a move to go to court anybody's thoughts on that i would be in favor of that i would too and you know checks need to be signed i I can run down or whatever we'll make it
work make it work yeah i' I'd be in favor see one whack or you know any discussion from well makes a difference to me and things do seem somewhat light a lot of times but we do have other conversation too but maybe
one more month is worth it to cut the cost a little bit or whatever so yep James uh I don't feel strongly one way or the other well I'll make the motion to move to a quarterly meeting can we'll make one and And I'd like to make a
motion for the time too we can do that if you want to do one at a time okay let's make a motion so we have a motion on the table to move to a quarterly meeting do we have a second i second second by Lyn all those in favor sign by saying I i okay motion approved
i would like to make a motion to move the meeting to the second T excuse me fourth Tuesday of the month at the same time 8:30 at in the same location but since you're chair you can't make a motion so I'll do it well I
can if nobody else can make a motion so no I don't isn't that parliamentary procedure the chair is not allowed i tried not to but leave it as Leave it as Josh you make Ross made the motion he said he would so I'll second that okay we got a motion by
Ross second by uh Bob to move the meeting to the fourth Tuesday of the month at the same time 8:30 at Whitewater location okay which month now May well it's going to be quarterly so we would go from February to March to
April to May correct right but then that doesn't get you on the quarterly schedule for the year for the year well I want December right probably yep we'll want one year end I would assume yep actually we want one
Actually we want one January new officers I suppose or whichever one's the first one but technically we want one in January what's more important though the end of the year or the January well if it's in January you potentially
would have a conflict with knowing who's going to be on your board because they have their meeting on the fourth Thursday January it does but if we're after everybody's if we go to the end we'd
actually be okay oh that's Yeah we'd be fine but the fourth Thursday might come after the fourth Tuesday okay so she's saying that they'll have their board meeting on the Thursday to to declare their delegate for this right
so then if that's You don't know no you usually do you there would be a meeting before that because Jan if our meetings at the end of the month there's going to be at least one like this year we actually had three meetings scheduled in January we had the first available Tuesday after the first but what about the S SWCDs that meet monthly at the end
of the month with January meeting the last year's rep just have to come you know yeah i think it's a little bit Yeah it's no different but it's no different than it's no different than what we have
now because we just wouldn't have had a meeting in January and then the new person would have came on the next one so okay yeah it's just going to fall concurrent to however that cycle works so well okay so let's just say this if you leave it at the current schedule
actually it solves itself because you'd have it in November january February March right or February if it's February two months yeah february so we'd actually end up having a meeting right now just the same as we had one in December before which is after everybody else's
which is after everybody's changed and it would actually work so if we actually kept it on its cycle that would solve the year- end problem it would also solve the problem in December when the county board Winona County Board alternate their meetings so that actually solves that problem too
okay so kept it right out of the schedule so so we'd be a quarterly structure but not a true quarterly not a true quarterly with every year well then so then do we call it every 3 months starting February or you know I don't quarterly is still quarterly meaning
every third you know third month so we could actually call it every third month there i think I like that better that solves the conflicts of the elections yeah so that actually lines up with the windlac schedule actually yep
february May August November see they're doing it too see we can do it they're doing it we had it in March and then we had it the last meeting of the year was December and it always conflicted with the um SWCD convention and the AMC thing
and so we didn't December well you're still not getting out of turtles though okay my item and you know like I say year end if there's checks to sign I can run down we'll make it work
so we have a motion in a second to change it to the fourth Tuesday of the month in the morning same time same location okay all in favor signify by saying and just to clarify meeting every third and I'll put that in put your motion August and November it's staying
on the current every Yeah we write it in as meeting every third month did you have something else yeah I'll admit I'm a little leerary about getting that specific without everyone here but that's we can if we need to be fluid and
change it we can always change it at the next meeting so I think we just set the precedent now and if something needs to happen so so that would put our next date so all those in favor signify by saying I I
oppos all oppose motion carries okay so the next meeting is when when's Memorial Day the day mhm probably what the day after Memorial Day day after is that what it is yeah day after
Memorial Day okay so we need to put in May 27th whitewater joint power board oh come on spanish i'm teaching myself Spanish so part of that is I type try to type in
and then my keyboard changes on me martes may we should hold that meeting in Spanish you could oh okay [Laughter] okay
august 25th six 06 right tuesday August 26th and November 25th which is the Tuesday two days before Thanksgiving
what was that date two day the 25th yes two days before Thanksgiving right and the nice thing is is if this doesn't work we can always change it back okay we got a quorum so doesn't work for someone maybe they need a different
employment probably trying to help but Okay um I guess motion to adjurnn so move second motion by Bob second by Ross to adjurnn all those in favor signify by saying I i i motion