County Commission - Special Meeting

830 who will call the meeting of the Brookings County Commission to order Thursday July 9th if all would please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance Item number three is approval of the agenda do I have motion of approval?

So moved. Second. Motion is second. Any comments?

Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed say nay. Motion carried. Number four is an invitation for a citizen to schedule time on the commission agenda for an item not listed. There's a five minute time limit for person, anyone wanting to speak. During this agenda item, a sign in prior to the start of the meeting. No commission action will be taken during this agenda item. Any requested action may be scheduled for a future meeting date. We do not have anybody signed in. Number five is regular business. Letter A is action to approve agreement 26-45, a rural and tribal assistance plot program grant agreement between Brookings County and Build America Bureau U.S. Department of Transportation. Do I have a motion to approve?

So moved.

Second. Motion is second. Comments? Wanna come up and talk for a second?

Good morning commissioners morning. Thanks for inviting me in this morning. I did run through the. The agreement that was sent, you know that was revised or in addition to the draft agreement that was provided by the rural and tribal assistance program grant administrators. You know a couple of things. To note, obviously, they have indicated in there the $1.6 million grant maximum. The period of performance date they indicated would start July 27th, I believe, of 2026 here, and then expire July 26th of 2029. I did read through some of the Code of Federal Regulations. requirements for you know if there were a need for an extension of that grant and that sort of stuff and they do typically allow extensions as necessary but obviously wouldn't be anything that you guys would need to be concerned with at this point in time but just kind of lays out the time frame in which you may be looking at for the period of performance OF THE ACTIVITIES THAT WOULD TAKE PLACE DURING THE GRANT. JUST TO NOTE ON THE APPLICATION THAT THE COUNTY SUBMITTED FOR THE GRANT DOLLARS, THE ACTIVITIES THAT WERE INCLUDED DID INCLUDE PLANNING, PRELIMINARY ENGINEERING, ENVIRONMENTAL, landowner and public engagement and strategic communications in an effort to bring the project to a point in which the county could move forward with an opportunity for requesting funding for a construction project in the future. and so of course want to make that known and noted that this grant will not bring construction forth this grant is for what they call planning preliminary design and engineering which encompasses the activities noted the actual activities and scope of services will be determined by the county commission or the county commission committee members that meet with the rural tribal assistance program managers and they will vet out and determine the actual scope and associated costs or fees with that scope of services so just because it's identified as 1.6 million and those were the activities that were involved in the application the formal scope that will be Associated with an actual contract will come from that progress or kickoff meeting with the program administrators themselves Be happy to take any questions that you guys have and answer them to the best of my ability Does anybody have any questions for willing?

I

I was just thinking for the public's value of knowledge, how exactly this grant came about to be, how did we know to apply some of that process?

Sure. No, that's a great question, Commissioner Post. Thank you for that. I guess the Brookings County engaged in an application for a BUILD grant, which is a federal grant program in the submitted an application through a rigorous process that included letters of support, a significant amount of information supplied for project description, project purpose, project need, and those items, and submitted that to the United States Department of Transportation. And that grant was unsuccessful at that point in time. And so there was a six month period where there was minimal progress on the next step. Commission Director Stephenson and myself did meet with the US Department of Transportation. They provided feedback. based off of that grant application and what future opportunities there may be and what activities the county commission could pursue in order to improve their chances for future grant success during that time i happened across this grant opportunity, the notice of funding opportunity from the USDOT and the Build America Bureau. This grant application was much less rigorous and we had already prepared much of the information that was necessary for it for the build grant that was previously submitted for and unsuccessful. And so I guess the Commission Committee of Commissioner Jensen, Commissioner VanderWaal, Commission Director Steffensen and myself collaborated and decided that it was a worthwhile opportunity to submit. It was a first-come, first-served opportunity. The grant portal opened at 1 p.m. on a day in, I can't remember, September something. AND THE COMMISSION COMMITTEE GAVE ME THE APPROVAL TO LOG ON TO THE PORTAL AND SUBMIT AS QUICKLY AS I COULD. SO I PREFILLED THE APPLICATION AND OPENED THE PORTAL AND COPYED AND PASTED EVERYTHING OVER AND SUBMITTED THE APPLICATION. And six months later, we were notified of the award. So I guess a group effort is what I would call it. And I'm grateful for the trust that the commission put in myself to be able to help support submitting that application.

Waylon, can you touch on how many were awarded in the United States and how many applicants there were?

Yes, I'm not going to get these numbers perfect verbatim here, but actually I might have them written down, but this will be close enough. I believe there is just about 800 applicants and 47, I think, or 47 applicants were awarded grants. and of those 47 roughly half of them were for rural projects and so about five percent of the applicants were awarded this grant for the rural projects i i think that's about what the numbers were commissioner vanderwallen jensen um maybe would have some insight on that too but yeah anybody else have any comments thank you for your work on that

I'd just like to thank Whalen and the banner staff for Finding this grant and also our commissioners isn't Stacy with working with Whalen and and there was a lot of paperwork involved Like we had some meetings. We had a required meeting that we had to sit through with the grant people and we sat through that and we qualified for the grant. This is an important step and it will satisfy FEMA issues and the Corps of Engineers issues due to the floodplain involved in the road process. Like Waylon said, it'll also put us a step up on future projects and if there's grants come available. And if not, we can use some of this information gathered to do some of the construction ourselves. Just reiterate, this is just a design phase. It's not a construction phase. And I'd just like to thank all the staff that worked on this. And this is a good thing to happen.

Yeah, I want to reiterate what Commissioner Jensen said. I was in a meeting yesterday and 214 and that came up again and and I believe this us being able to. secure this and is a huge step forward in our ultimate goal of giving access at the 130 to the Aurora residents and helping with growth on the eastern side of our state, or our county. I think it's gonna be a great step moving forward. Yes. Thank you very much for all your guys' work.

Do we have any other comments?

Hearing none, one other thing that I might know just you know one great thing about this grant is obviously it's 100% federal funded and so there's 0% local contribution which is significant for the county as well.

Yes, yeah, very much and also like to thank the people that for letters of support and initial grant that I think that that helped also so.

Yeah, we have a lot of community support for this, I believe. Any other comments, questions, concerns? Hearing none, call the roll, please.

VanderWaal.

Aye.

Post. Aye. Miller. Aye. Jensen. Aye. Hostler. Aye. Motion carries.

All right, thank you very much. Number six on the commission meeting agenda is adjournment. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Motion is second. Any comments? All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed say nay. Motion carried. We are adjourned. Thank you very much, everybody.