Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Call the Brown County Board of Commissioner meeting to order. Start the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. That folder there, did you see the claims, the new claims?

Did it just go away?

Okay. All right. Additions to the gender changes. Given... So...

I had to... Originally, we had to have the world with misunderstanding on part of the world. We talked about Dan Cartwright having it on the contract. Then we talked... It was removed. I'd like to put it back on the agenda because the contract is exactly the same contract we had last year. It's just going to be renewed with a different terms of service. Okay. A different time frame of service.

Les? Yes. You added time or it's less? Is it like two years or something?

No, right now it was a year to year and the dates that are proposed on here is the 4th of June to 2026, the 4th of June 2027.

Yearly?

Yes. I added that to the agenda so we'll cover that. First one, approval of minutes and claims.

We did make some, there was a language and grammar and some spelling errors that we made up here that Didn't quite make it there. I know Amber's diligently working, trying to become efficient at that. But I vote that we approve, or I vote. I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes and the claims.

I'll second. All right. Roll.

Ron.

Yes.

Tim.

Yes.

Kevin. Yes.

Yes. All right, first contract to approve, the Humane Society?

Yes, the Humane Society. So as Ron has pointed out in some of the pre-discussions here, the Humane Society has had a claim submitted for $70,000, $50,000 for the contract services, and $20,000 for the grant that's been existing for I don't know how many years for spay-neuter. So that's a total of $70,000. This particular contract only covers the $50,000. And then originally we wanted to move then towards invoicing because it requires that. The letter that we've been getting it seems to have been sufficient. Then we moved that and this contract also did not have a termination clause on it. So now there's a termination clause added to it and a prorated in the event that we terminate services other than a 12 month period. And the expectation is that we're going to move forward with yearly invoice or monthly invoices starting in 2027.

The only question I have is, do we have a number on how much the animal control officer costs per year? And how much the vehicle is?

I don't know about the vehicle. She's like 46, I'm not sure.

A year. Okay. She's a full-time employee. Then it says the shelter shall provide for use by the animal control officer. So there's a spot out there that they can work out of too. Record keeping, have they ever been audited?

Animal control? Yeah. I'm assuming it goes with the jail when they do the auditing there. When they do the jail? Okay. And the only place that she has access to is the actual remote access for dropping off dogs and canines and animals that they actually do. Well, this actually has got... horses and all kinds of weird stuff. She makes different arrangements and the Humane Society does have a paddock there where we have in the past actually kept a horse for a day or two. They don't have sustaining resources for that.

They do a fine job.

They really do. You want to make a motion? I'll make a motion that we proceed forward with this contract installing the new termination clause and the quarterly invoicing and the prorate on return of cancellation. And we'll look at this year doing a single payment for the $50,000 to them rather than the invoices. One more time, what was the $20,000 grant or something?

Spay and neuter. I'll second your motion. Roll call.

Tim.

Yes.

Kevin.

Yes.

Ron.

Yes.

Next item is a proposal on the contract route for the VSO Park Office So Ron is Before the meeting actually said that Austin actually provided a bid for the steam the seamless Steam of sanding standing seamless roof.

I put I had seen that I put it's 38,000 507 58. Yeah, I contacted all three of these people today and And there was some confusion here and there. Type over to I think they got it all corrected. But if I'm looking at this correctly, that would put the Austin at the highest. Yes. Next highest would be Brown County sheet metal and roofing at 29950. Yeah. And obviously there's one more the way you pronounce that. Artesian? Artisan. Artisan at 2255887. The only problem I see with all that is obviously the Austin is highest. The Brown County Sheep Medal, it's a little more explained. And the other two, Austin and Artesian, if I'm saying it correctly. Austin wanted 50% up front and the other company wanted 55% up front. That's kind of a problem for me. The Brown County Sheet Metal and Roofing don't ask for no money up front. And they make their own metal. They have a pretty good track record. Is this a contract that we gotta take the lowest bid?

This isn't the contract where we have to take the lowest bid, but there are significant differences between the other two bidders.

Yeah, well, let's just look at the other two bidders. This one was 55% up front. That's what the contract says, okay? You can state something different, but that's not what the contract says. This is really the only legitimate bid that I think we have.

Unless you're going to change the terms and send it back to them. And I have changed the terms on two contracts prior to this. One of them was actually Austin Construction saying that you will only get paid for materials in advance. Well, that's not what's in front of us, is it? No, it's not.

So we can only vote on the contracts in front of us, correct? Do you want to table it and give them a chance to get it all cleaned up and understanding? Because this goes back to what I call the meaning of the minds. Everybody on the same page. If you go back and you tell this guy that we're not paying him for the material up front, and he has to order custom-made material, that means it's got to come out of his pocket. Does he even have the money to pay out of his pocket? I don't know. You're assuming. At this point, I don't think it's a rush job here. I'll make a motion to table it until we can get them all on the same page. I think that's the fair thing to do.

I don't disagree with that, so I'll second that motion.

All right.

Thank you. Okay, roll.

Kevin.

Yes.

Ron.

Yes. Tim.

Yes.

Okay. Third contract, officer, the owner's technical rep, Dan's contract?

Yes. So again, it's a restatement of the same terms and conditions that was stated, except with a different time period. time period running from June 4th, 2026 and June 4th, 2027. Just to reiterate, the contract that was signed by us last year was put together by our attorney and those terms, this document has not changed other than the date that we signed the signatories as far as the signatory heading had vice president versus member and that had to change and then obviously the term of the contract. So I would like to proceed.

Well, the only issue I have with that is I spent hours this morning making sense of those three bids. And we had to have a guy rebid it at the last minute. And then we found out that there's been changes, that the material will only be paid when the material shows up on the job. This is stuff that I think Dan should have took care of.

Okay, do you disagree? I disagree, but that also means having feedback from the commissioners before that goes down. So I didn't give them the feedback necessary for that to happen. Did you? I just figured that out today. Okay. So I'm going to place the burden on the board of commissioners, not Dan Carter.

Okay. Well, I make a motion to table him too because of the communication. I think there's a meeting tomorrow. Now, it's not on the executive session. to discuss that, but we do need to have a conversation with him on how that happened. Now what happened? How it all got missed. Okay. I'll make a motion to table his contract. I mean, you guys are probably gonna vote for him in the end anyway, so I don't think a two week delay on his contract would be a problem with it.

I have a problem with it. Okay, that's good. Because it's the exact same contract that I put together last year. Go from the exact same file.

Are we taking public comment? No, not at this time. Why not? We're discussing this particular issue. Do you have anything you want to discuss, Tim?

Are you done, Kevin? At this point, no. Basically, like I said, the terms and conditions on that contract are, like I said, not changed except for the items were identified.

What do you have to say, Tim?

I'm fine with the contract, Kevin. I'll allow public comments, three minutes, sure. On this particular issue, thank you.

Absolutely, on this particular issue. Dan Cartwright is your OTR, and that means that you're considering still using a bot for the prosecutor's office, correct?

Okay, so what does that have to do, what does the bot have to do with this contract?

Well, if you don't use a bot, then you don't need Dan Cartwright, do you?

Oh, yes, we do.

For what? I mean, is he using something outside the OTR? Make me understand.

Basically, he is the project manager for all the projects that have been covered under the bond. updates that needed at the courthouse, his project manager. He's done the research and all that stuff with regards to the prosecutor's office. He's managed the Sycamore Valley siting replacement and all those things. And he's also managed the installation as a really law enforcement center. So what's the question?

So he's doing your jobs for you? I mean, can't you do these things?

No, I can't put that into my schedule.

No? Is there an employee of the county that can do that?

Just a second.

I'm just trying to understand.

You're fine. Technically, I believe the $4 million loan. That's correct. Okay. That, I do believe that Dan is over that, that we've also added him to all these other little projects. And I'm glad you brought that up. Good question. Now, the money for the Veterans Roof, that's not coming out of the Bonds, no, it's not. And we have that money? That's correct. Okay, I'm fine with that. I don't know if that helped you or not.

I'm just wondering, because we didn't have Dan Cartwright before, so why do I need him now when I didn't need him with previous administrations?

They put it into the language.

So the original driver and start of that was with the bond that's covered the projects under that bond.

But I had bonds previously.

And that's correct.

So why do I need Dan Cartwright now when I didn't need him previously?

You'll have to ask the council that question, but I'm telling you that he's basically providing services from project management that the commissioner's office cannot manage. So council hired him, not you? No, the commissioners are responsible for this contract.

The previous commissioners, not I, but the previous commissioners and the county council put that into the terms that we would have to have, not necessarily Dan Cartwright, but we had to have an OTR to do those projects that was involved in the bond. The commissioners went further, the current commissioners went further, not I, but the current commissioners went forward and added more work to Dan. And that was capped at, all of his work combined was supposed to be capped at $40,000?

Capped, and not to exceed in the contract, $40,000. Okay.

Sure, the value, Dan, that's been invaluable for us is probably the first time I'm aware of in county history is we actually have a legitimate inventory of our buildings and grounds. We have a book to identify that. We actually... had a pretty good start on a preventative maintenance program for all those facilities. Dan brought them together. And we've also, given that information that we have, we've been able to reconcile those buildings and our equipment and our assets to what we're insuring. That reconciliation with the insurance, I'm not worried it's been done either. So Dan's been instrumental in one, the cattle asset inventory, prevent a maintenance plan to identify the feedback we're going to need to put together a capital improvement plan and budget to capture repairs and maintenance and replacements of buildings and grounds. And again, we reconcile that with the insurance policy, which ties back to the capital asset policy that we've been dinged on from the state board of accounts for years. And so we finally closed that loop. Dan was instrumental in making that happen. Was that worth the money? You betcha.

So he created your capital improvement plan?

He's provided the information we need to put the next step to put that plan together.

Is it done, the capital improvement plan? No.

No.

Okay.

These projects that you see, 1D2s, these are defined as the urgent list of requirements that need to be done, like the siting on the Sycamore Valley, like the move over to run.

So we're still not compliant then with SPOA?

Well, it's kind of been a moving target over the years. Me and Julie worked on it, and we come up with the buildings and everything under $50,000, over $50,000. We actually had that, okay? But the state didn't accept it because all of a sudden they needed the roads and bridges and all that. And then the number got lowered. We did just get that. So we've been chasing a rabbit.

Okay. Thanks a million. Thank you.

I don't see a need to table this contract. My motion is to proceed forward with the contract that I have before me here from June 4th, 2026 to June 4th, 2027 with Dan Cartwright. All right. Any second? I'll second.

Roll call?

All right.

Well, there might be a little You can't talk about what happens in the executive session, but the executive session set for tomorrow is to discuss the prosecutor office, okay? And his contract expires tomorrow.

So is that one of the reasons why you wouldn't take it? No, just basically he's being diligent about saying my contract ends tomorrow. Okay. And again, since we're not changing in the time. My vote is no. Okay. Roll call.

Tim?

Yes.

Kevin?

Yes.

All right. Next on the agenda, so we've got the Office of Community and Rural Affairs, the administration of the owner-occupied rehab grant 24-109. And we also have a professional service agreement, inspection and construction management services.

Your name, Ron? Robin. Robin Mullins. Huh? Robin. Robin. R-O-B-I-N, Robin. Okay. Yeah. Sorry, weird accent as well. Yeah. Where are you from? Well, from England originally, but I've been here for 23 years with my family. Don't get rid of it, though, do you? No, that's right. That's right. Sticks with you. That's awesome. Can you hear me okay? Yeah. Good. Good. Okay. So we're running the – we're administering the owner-occupied rehabilitation program. for Brown County. The stage we're at is we have had between 50 and 60 applicants. We have verified 16 homeowners so far and we need to start the home inspection program to basically for the inspector to write up work requests which then go out to bid for contractors and we'll have contracts signed in July, work starting in August. And then we'll have a couple of other rounds of people as well, making up to 30 to 35 homeowners that we can help with this. So at the moment we've been working on the verification of incomes and eligibility. We've been doing environmental reviews, which we need to submit to Oprah in Indianapolis. And yeah, we're now at the stage where we can start thinking about the contracting stage after we make the house inspections. So as I say, we've got 16 people validated at the moment. We are just about to reach out to another 15 people on the list, which will hopefully give us the final group of people. However, We always see a bit of a fallout rate as we get those verification packets in with some people who don't qualify. So we anticipate after that summing up how much money we've spent and round about the October time scale we'll decide whether we need to look for more applicants and more people to verify. We've got plenty of time to do that because if we do that out October, we can do verification in November, December, and then we can actually get some work done in quarter one, quarter two next year to finalise the programme by the end of June 27. So the two contracts that we're presenting, one is for our administration work as a certified Grant administrators required to do this program with OPRA. So that's the first contract our service is to do that, which consists of general administration and also the environmental review. I think you have the numbers there for 35,000 in total. Yeah.

Sir? Yes. Just a couple of easy, quick questions. Yeah, go ahead. Yes. If I'm looking at the numbers right on where you get to go talk to the people and everything, there's a $3,000, it says entire program down there, but you've got the fee schedule here, initial inspection, initial radon, final inspection, post-integration radon. Those fees are all at $150 each. Is that $3,000 on top of the $150 of each fee? And Julia, do you know where the money's coming from?

Do I?

Not at this moment.

It's coming out of the program. Out of the $500,000? I believe it's covered under that grant.

No, it is covered under it. This has been discussed in previous meetings. Okay, that's fine. Just locate the money. Then we had a matching grant, and that was split between the council and the foundation. May I ask one question?

I'm going up here. The source of funds for us requires a report by December 31st documenting those funds have been spent, which we can't wait until December 31st. When you were talking about November, December activity and then the next year, what are the odds that that 50,000 or so from us is not spent in time to include a December 31st report?

I'd say it might be close.

Yeah, actually, so at the end of the program, is in June 27, and if I'm correct in the administrative, so the contract you were looking at, Ron, is the inspection contract. The first contract is the administration services contract, which I believe does not finish until the middle of next year for some of that payment. I think so.

To his question, I don't think so. Is that what you understand?

I think I just heard, we assumed these funds would be long ago used, so I'm gonna have Alice follow up because she may have had conversations with you guys, but we'll have some issue to resolve a little bit now.

So we're looking at both of these contracts basically at the same time. So all of the ARA money, comes out because they want, you know, 5,000 payable notice of removal of environment conditions is received, so I don't think that's in there. But the 15,000, when it's signed, so that 15,000 and the other 15,000 and the other 5,000 at some point all come out of the 500,000?

Because there's a matching that had to happen and then the community foundation did the matching for us. So when we went through this grant process, we had to commit to a $50,000, $50,000, $55,000, I guess. About that. Commitment. $55,000. And the council basically said that their approval is they will take the burden of that money on and they will cover that. And if it comes to find out that the community foundation isn't able to do that, then that fund will come out of the matching funds that have been committed by the council. Is that $50,000 or $55,000, Joe? supposed to be $50,000. It was $50,500 where we got maimed because we didn't have the $500. Okay.

I knew there was five or something on there. Okay. So according to John, I don't think the $50,000 is going to happen, is it? It's not going to happen by December 31st, if I understand.

It's just our half of the match. If those funds could pay the first bills, then we were okay. Right. It's an expenditure, right?

As long as it's spent by December 31st.

Well, the report's due then, so you've got to have a little time to do it.

I don't think that's going to happen. So it might be on the council to pay for it.

Yes, but they've already basically allocated and basically appropriated. That's fine. Any other questions?

We can obviously invoice at a time that

I think it's like I said, we need to have John confirm with Alan's sister what that part of it is. But as far as I'm concerned, the dollars are already committed on behalf of the council, whether the community foundation is paying for that or not. That's fine. All right.

Good. Do you want to vote on both of them at the same time? I'm going to make a motion. Did you say yes, Kevin?

I said we can, yes.

Vote on both. We'll make a motion.

We'll make a motion. Hang on. You make a motion, Kevin. We'll motion that we go through and proceed with the OOR contracts presented as they stated with the service. Okay. I second. Roll call.

Tim?

Yes.

Kevin?

Yes. Ron?

Yes.

And John, if you can let us get, if you can get back with us with your conversation with Alice and let us know and then we can raise that issue with the, raise your issue and concern up with the council. Okay.

All right. Next order of business. Just a heads up on our meetings for June 17th. We've got a couple things on the agenda. The commissioner meeting resolution for the Helensburg and Frank County RSD and they're working through their questions and issues. And then June 17th, We'll bring this up to vote for this bill, operate, transfer to the Prosecution Office. That'll be on the agenda for the 17th. To be determined, we had amendments for the draft comprehensive plan. We had two joint meetings with the Area Plan Commission. They proposed, we didn't approve, as you're well aware, we didn't approve the comp plan that they developed. We suggested improvements. We identified an amendment prototype that we could start in Van Buren provide that community engagement from the different townships. So they agreed on our concept for those amendments. So now it's just a question of when it comes to the RFP, how you want to do that. Both the APC and the commissioners have to approve any changes to any new or revised comprehensive plan. It takes the APC as well as the commissioners. And so when it comes to the RFP, we're looking at an RFP just for amendments to provide the community engagement at the townships. And so the prototype would start with Van Buren. So we can write a specific RFP just for that. There's two options. The commissioners under the professional services contracts, we can contract for that. And again, the APC as well as the commissioners need to work together and be involved in that. But we can develop an RFP using professional services. And four, the APC can do the RFP and they can They can bid that out. That's what you want to do. So that's something we'll tee up for the next meeting. Let me know which way we want to go with this thing. Do we want to leave it here? Do we want the APC to do it? Do we want to bid it? Do we want to contract it? There's all kinds of options. So we discussed that in the past two APC meetings. So we'll tee that up for June 17th. And the money? pay for it? Don't know what that cost would be yet. Don't know what the budget would be, but as soon as we come up with that, we'll identify the funding. Over a budget $60,000 for the development of a comprehensive plan, we spent about $37,000 I believe on the current version. So we're not going to need $60,000 obviously because it's A good chunk of it has already been done. We're just looking for November. Again, the community engagement by the townships is what we're looking at. We prototype for Van Buren, see how it goes, and then replicate that throughout the county.

A lot of that was for the town, wasn't it? Pardon me? Part of that was in town? No. 37 and 5? No, it was not.

$10,000 was paid for by the APC, and then the foundation kicked in $27,000 for that. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. So we've got 10,000 accounting put in, $10,000. That's it. Tee that up for June 17th. Just give me a heads up. Think that through and which way you want to go on that one. What else? The Indian Hill funding, they sent a rough concept to break that down into two phases. So I went back and asked for additional detail, and they're working on that one. Again, we want to phase it in, start with a pedestrian opening, and then branch out and include the vehicles. So do one before the other just to get going on this thing.

Now, Julian, I believe it was the last commissioner meeting that we were going to ask the county council for the SOC FAC money to be transferred to the 8000 line. And I don't think there was any movement from the county council on that. Am I correct?

No.

No. There's been no movement. Okay. We have an idea.

We have an idea to not apply to any funding requirement for this particular thing that we're going to ask the council to fund. They can choose to use whatever fund they think is appropriate to fund our report and our request. So that's to be determined.

Yeah, because we don't have firm numbers on the proposal yet.

That's correct. We don't. Okay. Pumpkin Ridge Road had a Interesting, NDOT headquarters, they approved the stage one plan for the Pumpkin Ridge Road. I mean, we briefed that plan at several of our means. They had deviations to what they generally typically do. They had to brief that plan to the NDOT headquarters. They initially questioned that nine foot lane, but when we explained what our requirement was and what we wanted to do, the headquarters accepted that state one plan. So that's good news. Again, our intent all along was a minimal footprint that we needed to get the road funded and approved. And again, any new rideways, We only request them the right way we need to maintain the road. So kind of got that on the bottom of the agenda if you want a little more clarity, but that's kind of where we're at.

Can we back up just a hair to the amendment of the Music Center Admin Agreement, Remove Legal Ambiguity. How did you pronounce that, Kevin? Ambiguity. Okay. Council determines distribution of excess revenue. And I remember, is it Deanna?

Deanna.

Deanna.

Deanna.

Deanna. At our last meeting, when they passed that for the commissioners to negotiate that, they made, are you requested?

I personally said yes.

You personally requested and the other two commissioners decided that it was okay for Kevin to negotiate. That has nothing to do with my seat on the board, but with that, if there's negotiations going on, that kind of I don't know. What do you think about all that, Kevin? Are you going to have the meetings in public and here now?

I just had a public meeting. I went to the Grand Canyon Music Center Operations Board meeting at the last session. Was that televised? Because that was one of the issues. Yeah, but this is an engagement to bring things forward. So they've shared with me things that they'd like to see happen, and I haven't been able to reach out to the other impacted groups on this. But we're going to have public meetings on that. My plan, just like it's always been with the resolution, is to have a public meeting to have those conversations and we can get that to come together. Because if I wasn't mistaken, that was what Mr. Clark insisted on. That's correct. Okay. And not just him, myself as well.

Thanks, sir. Okay, same girl.

Girl.

Sorry, I was trying to get through without coughing with these allergies. So, doing good at the county, we're out mowing. We had the Kubota tractor go down a week and a half ago. Injector went out of it, injector rails. It's back up mowing today, so we're back out there trying to mow. Just continuing to work through. Learning the budget.

So can I ask you a question? Absolutely. I want to raise that because if I'm not mistaken, we actually conducted an investigation. We did. And the damage that was caused to the tractor was due to vandalism.

It appeared to be vandalism. There was enough water in the tank that as soon as they took the lid off of the gas tank, water was up in the neck of it. So it wasn't like just some fluid in the system. But we had it analyzed. It came back as water, an extensive amount of water. So we... reached out, tried to do an insurance claim, but our deductible is $10,000. The cost of the repair was $5,600 something.

So having the equipment parked inside the fence area is almost a must then, right?

We are ordering locking caps for all of our gas systems.

Yeah, because sometimes you need the mowing equipment stuff sitting out in places.

Correct.

Correct. In this particular instance, it was at a location that was not secure.

One quick thing while it's on my brain. I talked to a couple guys at the highway the other day, just before I got to my house, up on Oak Ridge, and they said something about a tree that fell on the road. And I think they've already went down there and took care of it. It was just so close on the road, and who knows when it was, in the middle of the night or whatever. But it looked like people was driving down through there and rubbing their tires. If they met somebody right there, they'd get too close and rub it. If I'm not mistaken, when I drove by today and looked, it looked like they probably, I said, if you can get at least 12 inches off the road, it'd be good.

Do you have an approximate address?

Let me see. My last house on that road is 6622. It's south of there, over the hill and south of there. Before you get to Nellie Sissons or Dunaway, going up to the cemetery. I think they've taken care of it.

Sometimes we have a lot of good Samaritans, too, that will cut up trees before we get there. And then it's, you know.

I was just seeing them yesterday, and I think they...

I think they went down there and took care of it.

They probably did, but I'll double check.

Well, I know that we've been having some issues like a similar problem on Salt Creek Trail where SCI cleared a tree because of power.

Yes.

And we weren't involved in that because it was involved with power, so it had exactly the same problem except it was hanging at the edge of the road.

That's correct.

There's another one up where you go up Helmsburg Road to go to Helmsburg School. I mean, you come off Rower Road and you go up that one to go to Helmsburg School. A great big tree has fell. and there's a power line hanging down the Hythe truck that's 13, six foot and clear. Someone's tied one of those fluorescent jackets to it. But it's still hanging down. I don't know why the power company's not come out.

If it's not impeding the road work, it's hard to get power or phone lines out there to actually take care of the properties. And the phone lines are even worse because there's not very many people into the landline anymore.

A box truck goes up to there, they're going to rip the plumb out if they don't see it.

Again, that's power, so hopefully they'll get out there soon. We're moving forward with paving. We just finished up Granville Barns, so now we'll be assessing and moving on to other things. Granville Barns is really nice.

There's got to be a countywide celebration on Granville Barns. You're right. Man, that's been talked about for years that I recall, so I'm glad that finally got paved. Anything else, Sandra?

No, I'm good. Thank you.

Okay. I'm sure you have comments on the highway.

Yeah, Sherry Mitchell. I sent you an email a couple of weeks ago about a gentleman that lives on Richardson Road, which is a gravel road at the end of West Robertson Road, and he's offered to pay for it. He wants to pave it. Can we do that? How do we do something like that?

Richardson Road?

Yes.

Is that the end of Robertson Road?

I think it's actually already been done. I know, but you do know where it is.

The road that she's talking about hasn't already been done. I believe the commissioners actually left. Wagler's paid part of the road where they live, or their business is, back over off of, what's that road, Sandra? Homestead. Is that what you call it? That's the one that's in the corner. But I think that Wagler's actually paid for it, so it's been done in the past. It would bring the road up to par.

It's a gravel county road. It's about a quarter of a mile long. The guy that bought Wanda Jones' house wants to pay to pave that quarter mile of gravel road, you guys are grading it at least two or three times a year, you do put gravel on it almost every single year, and he's willing to pay the entire bill.

So my take on the process from this is it just needs to basically come forth, it has to be an agenda item on the commission to put a petition together, and then that'll begin the discussions as to what that is, because again, It's a matter of he's working on a county asset in that way.

He doesn't need to hire anyone. He just wants to give you the money to pay for it. So whoever Sandra would hire to do that job is fighting dandy with him. This man paid cash for his house, just saying.

So he just needs to basically make it come forward in this meeting like this to me and make a petition to say, I have this stretch of road, identify this, I'm willing to go forth. And then we can take it in and do it like any other agreement that we have to where Like the Community Foundation helps fund an aspect of that. I don't have a problem with that, if that's where it's at.

Do you think there's any other neighbors on that road that would object?

No. Why would they do that? I don't know my road name. Yeah, no, I don't know of anything. You want Mr. Melvin to write a letter, you called it a petition.

Just basically a petition.

A petition saying that, hey, I will pay for this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then we can start the discussion.

That sounds good to me. Thank you very much for your help.

Again, did I speak out of turn for the rest of the board? No, no, that's how we do it.

We go through the process. I don't have a problem with it. But like I said, I just don't want to go too far and then find out there's one neighbor on the road that doesn't want to pay it.

Thank you.

And then accepting a donation like that's an ordinance kind of thing. We've got that down pat, I think, by now. It has to go through the interest.

It's not an appropriate fund to put it in. It's not as easy as just taking a check.

Are you going to have anything for us?

No, sir.

No. Thank you for filling in for Teresa. I mean, you kind of watched.

No problem.

And we'll keep you busy and provide new things you're going to wear out, but you can't rally to the cost. So I appreciate all your help this week.

Well, I just want to go back and revisit Ron's comment on a couple of things. Hang on. Don't walk. With regards to trees in the road, in the sense where this is a public quorum, I would sit there and say, if you have an issue where you have something that you believe is in the interest, like a tree that's been during the storms or those kinds of things are hanging out, reach out to the highway department. Because they manage, Trent Shutters does a very good job of managing the day-to-day, we've got this issue, there's a branch hanging out, there's mowing hanging out, there's cohorts and demand's gone. Right. I can't commend him enough. He's gone on a, I called him on a Friday and he says, I am on my way to look at this. And he went out and investigated Darby Road and a couple, something else I had to look at.

We have a call log and we've actually updated that so it's shareable and live feed. So when we get a call on a tree, he can look it up before he leaves to the next spot and he knows where to send the guys.

Like I said, I did talk to the highway department. I just didn't call Sandra. And is that chain of command what you want? It needs to go to Sandra and not Trent? It just needs to go into the highway department.

Again, and I'm not saying stop calling Trent. I'm just saying, just go to the highway department.

We do want to document it.

Well, it's a public meeting.

Catching the guys where they're at was fine.

Highway superintendent sitting right there, I mean, it was... Basically, I was telling her I thought it was already taken care of.

Yeah, it is. But I'm just saying for the public, don't feel like there's outreach to highway department. For example, I had breakfast.

It almost sounded like a praise, Kevin. I was saying I thought they already took care of it. It is. Are we not to praise the highway department?

Are we not to praise the highway department?

No, you can praise the highway department. I'm just saying, I'm making it clear to understand that they do a very good job, and that it doesn't, I mean, I have countless people that come to me and say, hey, this, this, this, this, and I do just like any other citizen. I pick up the phone, I call the highway department and say, Here, again, like the road on Salt Creek, or the tree hanging out on Salt Creek. Here's this. He did it. It's taken care of.

I do the same thing. When I get inquiries from the public on the roads, I always send it to Sandra's way. That's the highway department. That's how it works. And then she schedules it and gets back to them, and I appreciate that. Because I never get any follow-ups after I send it to you, and I appreciate that. So they feel like they've got the service, they've got the response, and thank you. Thank you for all that. And again, thanks for the support. Any comments? Any public comments?

Off topic. The Brown County Health Department, there is no way for us to see their agendas. I talked to Theresa last week before she went on vacation. She was supposed no agendas, no minutes, no recordings, nothing. Is there any way that the executive branch can move them back into this room so that we can get this all recorded and the public has access to public health information?

It's a decision of the health board. The health board reports to the state of India.

You can't suggest to them? Sure we can suggest. Yeah. I mean, does it do any good to have public health meetings that is in the dark? I mean...

to have some decisions and health board is made. And it's not in the dark, it's just being held in their building.

Yeah, but there's no agendas, no minutes, and no recordings. It's in the dark.

Phil Moyer, IT. Real quick, I just want to chime in. Conversations between the manager of the health department and the IT department have happened to work on getting them so they can display to the YouTube channel just like we do in this room. So it's Some people are working on, there's some technical issues because they are having the meetings in their building. They want to continue having the meetings in their building. So we just gotta work through some things. And I will also throw out there are kind of some other issues in the office with staffing, things moving around a little bit, and things like that. So they've been a little short-handed to get things accomplished on their side. On our side in the IT department, kind of the same thing. We're working through other issues with them. So getting their meetings on YouTube has not been the highest priority for them from a technical standpoint. But it is something that I would like to have done, and I think Eric would agree with me, that we would like to have that up and running by the end of the year.

So in six months?

That would be, yeah.

Do you know if there's a huge expense for that just out of time?

expense for like recurring it's just technical challenges for the initial setup so you can put cameras in and microphones and that kind of thing they have certain things and again it's working with their setup and again some other various issues because they're in a different room than this one, things like that thank you a lot thanks Bill any other comments?

sorry Legal? Any comments?

No comment.

Okay. Okay. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn.