Board of Supervisor - Regular Meeting

but I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the equality for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We're still waiting on Emmett County. On Emmett County.

You're third late, third late. Too bad. Good morning, everyone. We'd like to welcome you here. We're going to be starting out today with a joint meeting with Clay, Dickinson, and Emmet Counties, Windridge District 61. As my colleagues have already explained it, I won't repeat. I believe, is Hamlet County with us?

Yep, they are. I'm going to... Hamlet County is here. Great, welcome.

It's going to start the ball here.

Thank you, John. All right.

Can everybody hear me? Okay, great. Okay. Well, I just want to first of all, good morning. I want to just kind of touch 10,000 foot level the process. with the drainage districts and the disasters that we've been pursuing grant funding for with FEMA. This has been essentially today's culmination of a two-year process for securing FEMA funds for the disaster of June 1.4. Those rainfall events damaged several drainage districts, opened ditches within Dickinson County and some both surrounding counties. Those widespread damages experienced here in the county resulted in a presidential disaster declaration for Dickinson. In Iowa, drainage districts are eligible for disaster recovery cost share funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Iowa Department of Homeland Security. The board has directed Beck Engineering to assess those ditches selected by the county engineer for possible damages and to assist the board in applying for the funds as needed. That process has been completed for a while now. We've been essentially waiting for FEMA's green light to proceed in securing those fundings. So today we are here for Joint Drainage District 61 and Joint Drainage District 61 Branch 61. Um, I will just before I go through a little bit of what we proposing to do for repairs. I do want to remind people that eligible projects, uh, with FEMA receive a cost share of 75% at the federal level, and then an additional 10% at the state level for construction costs and repairs engineering design. and administration for these projects. Um, the remaining 15% is, uh, will be, uh, divided among the landowners within the district in the same way that we would do an improvement project with the same schedule. I will start with joint drainage district 61. This is the vast majority of the damages that Dix County had received on this side of the county. Those damages stretch the main branch ditch from 210th Street all the way down to the Clay County line. There are 30 areas that we have identified that have been essentially damaged due to excessive flooding, excessive bank saturation, that sort of thing. We went through, identified, categorized all of those different areas. Different repairs will be posed at those different areas depending on the type of damage that we have seen. We've categorized the damages kind of as a shallow repair, which would be more just kind of top soil loss, vegetation loss. potentially exposing the bank to future damages. And then we've also seen some larger rotational bank failures throughout the main district, which would require a much more work to reconstruct those banks, several different washouts that are some instances 15 to 20 feet tall where we lost bank soil and those areas have been left exposed for for two years now several main culvert outlets have been blown out and washed out and you should have a kind of a copy of the preliminary construction plans there along with pictures of the different areas identifying the different damages those areas so that is the main Branch of 61. The other division would be drainage district 61, branch 61, which is primarily in Clay County. Four damage areas. and there that had experienced similar a little bit more shallow slide damage situations that are not so much the big rotational damages but again really important to get those banks re-established so that future future Storm events won't continue to erode the or compromise the ability of the ditch there and also preventing future maintenance requirements. So Branch 61 is about from 270th Street down to 290th Street in that area and have four damaged locations. Estimated project cost was in the engineering report there. John Potter, Joint drainage district 61 at an estimated. John Potter, Total estimated project cost of 1,197,196 thousand $225. for which potential funding assistance would be north of $1 million. And then again, as I explained, FEMA will be paying 75% of that, the state an additional 10% with the remaining project funds. And these are projected. We don't have bids yet, but based on estimates, just how about $195,000 remaining will be assessed to the landowners. Joint drainage district 61, branch 61, We estimated that total project at $62,478 with just over a little bit of $11,000 assessed to landowners there were projected funding assistance. There are a couple items that we had received work orders for in drainage district 61 working with Jeff and his office that we wanted to include in this project, but is not eligible for funding. We estimated the additional work at about $17,920. That'll be included in this project, but separate from the FEMA work. So we won't get any assistance with that particular piece. So right now we have received a confirmation from FEMA that we will be receiving the funding. Joint drainage district 61 and branch 61 have been obligated. The state has granted all an extension for CADD permanent work. So all this work is good up to the current deadline of December 24th, 2028. I'm hoping today to set a date for bid letting. And then approving that bid letting should the bids come in favorably. And then we're looking at a late, late fall construction with some potential to construct in the spring. The hope would be to have everything wrapped up for July so that when assessments go out, you guys can collect those in a timely manner. Any questions on any of that?

When will that be?

will a landowner know what his estimated assessment is isn't that a part of this process that is a part of this process so once we be able to collect bids have hard costs and then we get to the point where Um, there we would have kind of a more concrete idea based on the schedule of values that we have for the assessments. Um, but the, really the actual enrollment won't go until the project is closed. Um, that would include all the total dollars of crop damage that would be paid out. Um, any change orders that would happen during the project. The numbers that are in the engineering report are based on estimates. So FEMA will pay 75% of the actual work completed, not my estimated work. So, um, we'll, we'll have more hard dollars once we get a bid, but then the actual final dollar amount won't be known until the projects close out.

Will landowners get a notice of the estimated cost?

You should have received that as part of the engineering report today.

I've got this. It's just one page. It doesn't say how much I will be paying. Yep.

Yep.

And maybe that's something Jordan and I have is if you have a specific question to your land is to come into the auditor's office and I can put an estimated amount based off of the, uh, your assessment to that specific parcel. And then I can give you an estimate even based off of, let's say, um, the, that 195,000. Because there's a certain percent when we reclassified the district in 2019. So with it being a joint district with Clay, Dickinson, Emmett, and also a little bit of Palo Alto, then I can go in and see what percent of just that main joint 61 is and then do the percentage based off of that. And I can tell you what your assessment would be.

about do any of the board members in amma county have questions how will how will those banks be rebuilt can i ask the procedure on that yeah certainly um if you had a copy of the engineering documents um preliminary engineering documents we show a typical section there um and any one of those would be b.01

be what can we see excuse me can we see that or yeah you should project that up on the screen or no i think jordan should have it she can throw it on the screen i believe yeah just how you were showing us that a little bit ago yeah yeah i can pull it up yeah your question is more you've seen what's going to be done but you want to know how it's going to be done right right yeah

So MS on the phone, so we don't have access to your screen, but I have all the documents here that I'm putting up for our... Great.

So I'm looking at division three set B.01. Okay. I don't know what that means. Which area are you in? It would be the sports sheet.

And it shows some banks and some proposed area 12 area 13. well, that's not it. I know we're in the book. Yeah. Okay.

All right. That's that's that's 61, right? The main bitch. That's what I have up here.

I think so.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Oh, you know, my battery had to die on the phone. Yeah.

I don't read it. How are they going to pack it?

They can hear you.

Division three plans? That would be the estimate. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I thought those were like fabric sheets or something. It's going to be reliant on the . this only in although i'll do it

We've identified the areas based on essentially two different damage types that we saw when we were out. The shallow slide channel bank repair where essentially topsoil sloughed off, we lost vegetation, and now we have an exposed bank that is no longer stable. With that particular instance, we're going to excavate the slough material if it's there because it's been two years. Um, and then, uh, scarify the existing damages surface. And then if we need additional material, we can take that off the spoils bank from the top. Um, we're gonna fill and repack that top soil. Then we will hydro seed and hydro mulch all the disturbed areas, um, for when we follow that instance. Um, the other more serious damage would be the rotational slide damage channel bank. Um, We'll have to essentially excavate out. This is where we're seeing big, sheer vertical walls damage. We'll have to excavate out the material, stair-step the excavation where the vertical failures are, and then fill and compact the soil in several kind of six-inch layers, recompact all of that. This is a much more materials-based approach where we would use either the adjacent spoil banks and or the county has them It has a waste site that they've agreed to share with the city of Terrell at the wastewater lagoon has some additional material that we will be using to fix those banks. And then again, hydro seed and hydro mulch that does all the disturbed areas. The two that I listed are on B.01.

It's a main ditch, so everybody's going to get portion of the assessment. None of the work is truly in Emmet, is that true?

None of the work is in Emmet County.

What do you believe the success rate of replacing that soil on the banks is going to be? Mother Nature has an amazing ability to place soil. And when man does it, it doesn't seem to really taste all the same. I know that if it gets sodded up enough, that will definitely help. But the placement of the soil probably is going to lock the water behind the bank more so. And it will push loose much easier on it.

Yeah, there's some concern there. So part of the discussion with FEMA is we have the ability to do mitigation, which would be above and beyond repair. We decided that all the mitigation methods as part of this repair would essentially not match the characteristics of the drainage district. So we want a nice uniform channel so that water has the ability to flow the same through a repaired section versus an old section of ditch. Um, we had talked about rip rap at one point, but we felt like that changed the characteristics of the flow within the ditch. And then if we're not rip wrapping the whole entire main channel, which would be. beyond the scope of anything FEMA would be interested in. If we were just rip wrapping sections and pieces that essentially we would be putting more pressure on areas that didn't have rip wrap and or causing more washouts. When there's rip wrap, there's a different flow condition in a main ditch. So there's some some considerations there. So we felt like having the most uniform ditch possible um was the best outcome here also we are limited by our permits um with the army corps of engineers we cannot widen the ditch we're supposed to reconstruct it into its original condition and dimensions so we're also limited by the ability and our permit there okay

So I'm just looking up here quick, so I want to make sure that I can give you. So regardless of the work, mostly being in one county or another, it's going to be based off of what that percent that the county has in that district. So Clay County is going to pay 13% about.

there's a lot of parcels.

So.

Dickinson is going to pay about 70, a little less than 71%. Emmett will pay about 15%. And Palo Alto only pays 0.86%. We passed a resolution Karen DePauw, Back in 2019 and I did verify with Jordan and Carmen that they were that they would not need to be involved with any of the meetings with 61 we I just make them aware of what's going on so. Karen DePauw, that's what I have for percentages and that's for the main.

And that classification is on the internet.

Yep, that's on our website. If you go on to, for Dickinson, which you'll get all the other ones too. But if you go onto our main webpage and you hover over here on the right side to drainage and you scroll down, you can see anything with FEMA we have at the very top. And then if you scroll down to 61, you will see any of the corresponding meetings that we've had. and what you can do is you can just basically take your parcel and figure out what percent you're going to be at as far as if you put this total over here twice you know move your decimal over twice you can figure out what percent you're going to pay of that amount

Do any of the other counties have citizens that have questions?

Any questions? We didn't have any questions. What was the total for the whole entire, for the main ditch? I was trying to get that right.

195,000 for the, what will be the rate? So the total project is $1,196,225. So 15% of that is $195,413.75 along with an estimated repair cost of $17,920 for work that was for a tile blowout that'll be addressed. And again, those percentages were 13% for clay, about 71% for Dickinson, 15% for Emmett, and a little less than 1% for Palo Alto is what each county will owe for when we levy next July or June.

Jordan, we might have another question.

Yeah. Per acre cost in Clay County? Per acre cost in Clay County? Do you have anything there, Jordan?

Let's see here. Good question.

When it gets reclassified, each piece of land has a different percentage. Correct.

And our reclassification report for all the counties is on our website, and I'm sure it's on Clay and Emmett's, where you can go back to look at that reclassification report from 2019 to see what your amount would be.

We can probably find that for you.

I'm going to share my screen here quick. So this is for clay. So there's a total of 5,671, or let's see, hold on. 5,671 acres for clay?

It's like a per acre cost of $4.55.

Is that according to the benefit or would that be just an average?

That's a rough ballpark.

That's a rough average.

If you want to know your very specific dollar amount, I would ask you to go to the auditor's office, let them know what pieces and parcels you own.

Each parcel benefits differently, so it'll be a little bit different for each parcel.

Yeah, I like that asterisk to it. I think we sometimes do blanket stuff way too much.

And we can look that up here.

Thank you. Ballpark, but then they can help you in the auditor's office. I don't know if you heard all that. It was kind of hard to hear from here.

I have a question. If the whole project refers to District 61, what are the other branches that are affected by this discussion? Only listed branch 61. Is that the only one that's affected, or are there others?

We had several other drainage districts that were damaged during the flooding. Those were smaller damage amounts, under 1 million. FEMA is able to process those much quicker, so those actually have been approved, bid, and are in construction.

Can you tell me what those branch districts are? Because I received a letter And the land that I have affected is not in Branch 61, Division 61. So am I involved at all in this project that you're discussing?

What's your last name?

My last name is Rinke, R-E-I-N-K-E, H-L-B Farms. Let's see. It's in West Branch 399.

So what this is affecting is the main 61 which you would be associated with so when we reclassified in 2019 that just made it so that you're able to set the repairs closer to the perimeter on your ground. What this is doing, it's affecting the whole Joint 61 and Joint 61, Branch 61. Branch 399 West is included in the whole main, so every single person in 61 is affected by this. It's not affecting just a specific branch.

That was my assumption when I walked into the room, but after the discussion that there's mainly a two Branch 61,

Nope. So it's mainly in the room. It's mainly in the main open ditch.

There's only a very small part of the total project cost of $1.19 million. The first of the whole division.

That's the whole division. And then there's 62,000 of it in just the branch 61. So there's two parts of the district that are affected.

I guess I'm hoping to simplify this a little bit. The branch 399 that you live on drains to the main ditch. So you guys are ultimately responsible for that main ditch as well. So you guys would be given notice for this particular project.

That would have been a lot nicer to have explained in the letter sent to us rather than to say the way it is. That the whole District 61, which includes all branches, is involved in this discussion. Can I assume that?

Yeah.

Thank you.

So anytime the main open ditch is the one that's listed, it will always be that whole- The feeder branches to it, of which 399 West is.

Yeah.

Thank you. Are there any further requirements?

Yes, there are branches on these areas. Is there a question there?

Is that coming from Emmett's? No.

No. No. No. Emmett's good here. You guys are awesome.

Good to go. Move on. Okay. If there are no more questions. Oh, we got one in the back. Mr. Kelly.

Yeah. Patrick Kelly, Okoboji. I want to thank everybody who took the time to come here. This is a little bit beyond some of us, but I want to thank the county here and Jordan and your crew for taking the time so that we could see some of this stuff. Right. Cause if we sit back here and we can't see any of there, it's kind of pushes then, you know, we're, we're flying real blind in terms of like evaluated. So I just, I want to just thank the county for your efforts and, uh, transparency and engaging, you know, uh, the, this county and, and the farmers and the other people that are here took the time to come here. Thank you for coming. So we can have this stuff clarified. So as we go forward, everybody can kind of take a little pride in some ownership because we're certainly not out of the woods in terms of, you know, the type of flood issues that we're faced with over the next 5, 10, or 15 years. But anyway, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for, you know, letting everybody participate.

I would like to reiterate that, plus thank people who've looked into FEMA. Because at the previous meetings, that wasn't even discussed at all. So you're going to lay a $1.2 million project on the landowners. And now it appears that somebody has, wow, let's look into see what the government can help us with. I want to thank whoever inspired that thought. I think that's commendable from the individual landowners. And it's hard for me to believe that they all would thank you.

Hey, if there are no more comments or questions, I will close the public hearing.

Just for your discussion bill and clarification. I'm looking today to essentially set a bid letting for Thursday, August 27th at 2 PM, which we'll approve bids at the next supervisors meeting on September 1st.

What time was that?

August 27th at 2 p.m. Okay.

Thank you. I would like a motion that we approve the bid letting for Thursday, August 27th at 2 o'clock.

Thank you. Do you need approval of this proposal at all?

Okay, and include that approval of the report in the motion. Okay, we've got a motion.

Second. I'll second that. Who was that? I'll second that for a minute. Go ahead, Barry. Barry Anderson.

Yep.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. Do we have further discussion? Hearing none. Mr. Clark? Aye. Mr. Anderson? Aye. Levi? Aye. Mr. Dullard? Aye. Hill? Aye. And I am I. How are your boards?

Emmet County. Jeff is an aye. Lisa is an aye. Todd's an aye. John Ploos is an aye. And Tim Schumacher is an aye. So we're unanimous.

Very good. Clay? Clay County. Courtney?

Aye.

Randy? Aye. Clark? Aye. Allen? Aye. An aye from me. Clay County is all ayes.

Very good. We have now approved the report. And we've set the date of August 27th at 2 PM for the bid lighting on this project. Thank you all.

Do you want to set up a zoom for 9 AM on September 1st to approve the award? The bid.

Sure. Sure. Nine o'clock September 1st.

Yep. So we'll get a Zoom set up when it gets closer for Emmett and Clay.

Sounds good.

Good to hear.

Thank you all for your attendance. Thank you, everybody.

Have a good day. Have a good week, everybody.

You need to finish this up. I used to.

Okay, the next item on our agenda.

Hey, good morning.

Good morning.

Happy end of July already. It's crazy how fast the summer flies. We say it every year, but here we are staring August in the face. But appreciate you all giving a few minutes of time. Trevor actually just handed out. So we have two documents for you as far as an update with ILX Corridor. One Trevor just handed out. kind of a, it's a flyer on a upcoming leadership panel that we're going to be hosting. I'll talk about it in just a second. And the other thing that you were provided in advance of our presentation today is just kind of an overview email. I'm assuming you guys all got a chance to see that. Hopefully that expedites our updates a little bit. And if there's any questions, it certainly gives you an opportunity to maybe think about that in advance here today. So I just want to introduce our team, Trevor Smith and then Joanne Fallon. Both are great key members of our organization to help move things forward. So just a couple of updates. Again, I want to just touch base on the leadership flyer that we just handed out. This is part of coming out when we do our business retention expansion business, what Joanne does a good job of leading through our office. Again, we do about 119 visits throughout the four counties. We get a lot of suggestions on maybe things that we can provide value for our leaders. And one of them happens to be a leadership development how to lead teams successfully and so what we're going to be doing is hosting a panel discussion on wednesday august 26 and encourage you to to attend that if you have the availability but certainly i encourage you to share that out to your key stakeholders to attend that'll be on august 26 from 10 to 11 30 a.m we're going to host that at the spencer community theater uh in downtown spencer uh so our leadership panel which we're excited to announce this year will be brad beck who's the president ceo of beck engineering uh ryan craig who is the ceo of iowa lakes electric Brenda Tiefenthaler, who is the President and CEO of Spencer Hospital, and then Dr. Stacey Cole, who is the Superintendent at Storm Lake Public Schools. So we anticipate a very good discussion. I get the privilege to be able to moderate. And so we're going to have a conversation kind of preluding up to the actual event to kind of discuss what are our key points that we want to highlight during the hour and a half. So we anticipate that to be a great discussion. So I encourage you to attend that if it works out in your schedule. And then secondly, I want to touch base as we kind of transition, maybe into some more project-specific events. Roosevelt Machine and Tool, big project for Dickinson County, as you're all well aware of. We come in here, we appreciate 80% of community growth comes from within. Well, here's a prime example of that. Huge, huge expansion project. You know, they were looking up to 90,000 square feet somewhere. And they, like we reported before, they were looking outside of the region. The location of Spirit Lake accommodated about 40,000 square feet, so they were kind of landlocked for the facility here in Spirit Lake. But they were able to find a location in Milford, the old Oak Hill building, which was 90,000 square feet, which is what they needed to be able to help facilitate that. So our team jumped in to assist relatively quickly. connected them with the city of Milford to get local approvals on some things, but more importantly, connected them with Iowa Economic Development Authority for some assistance, both on a capital investment side and the job, new job creation piece of it, which they were approved. And so that process with IEDA was twofold. You have to have local support, uh to accompany an application down to ieda so the city of milford approved a resolution support to accompany the application and then that application goes down to ieda for review it's a two-phase project but their team ultimately reviewed it unanimously and that that project was approved um through the resolution of support uh about 1.3 million dollars in tax credits to support 19 million dollars in new capital investment for the for the expansion project But more importantly, also qualified for seventy eight, the creation of seventy eight new jobs at average qualifying wage, twenty five dollars and fifty four cents. So so good job creation, good wage threshold and new great capital investment for the city of Milford and Dickinson County. So we're we're excited about that. You probably saw the news yesterday. You're probably at the supervisor or the counter, the excuse me, the city of Milford City Council meeting last night where they did approve a final plan for a pretty significant housing development. over there with a private developer doug holtz holtz richter two-phase project can bring over 100 lots to the community around their new school project so it's exciting to see that and you know we've got companies like roseboom looking to grow and expand in our region you know housing development we talk about it all the time helps them make those decisions so kudos to support in helping create those housing opportunities locally as well so I want to transition a little bit. I'd like to bring Trevor up here. We talked about the last time we were here, two pretty big workforce initiative, workforce development initiatives that we're working through, one of them being Build My Future. And so, Trevor, if you want to touch base on those two real quick.

Yeah, thank you guys today. But yeah, so build my future was a hands on career learning experience that we held at the Clay County Regional Events Center in April. Some of you guys were able to attend. I know Steve Clark was there. So we had over 750 high school students from 15 different school districts from across the corridor region, including 250 right here in Dickinson County from 100 at Spirit Lake, 72 from Okoboji, 54 from Lake Park, and over 30 from Gretenshire Terrell. So great showing from Dickinson County. And it included hands-on career experiences with over 62 different businesses that included careers in electrician, plumbing, healthcare, manufacturing, utilities, law enforcement, and a whole list of other ones. It was an awesome event to be there to see all those students there, get a bunch of different new ideas for what they want to do with their careers, and then showcase all the different companies and opportunities that are available here locally. With Build My Future is an event that originally started in the Des Moines area. which is great. They bring in 8,000 students from all over, but then they try to recruit our kids from Northwest Iowa with the businesses down there. And so we wanted to do an event for the first time this year with Northwest Iowa businesses and our corridor students to showcase those opportunities and hopefully help recruit them uh back here in the long term and i think that event uh did a good job of doing that next year we anticipate having uh over a thousand students and uh even more businesses we already have a wait list started for that so very successful first year we hope to continue that because we think that's important work and then next for workforce initiatives we have our homegrown talent initiative which kind of stacks on top of that, where we take students that are graduated from a high school within the corridor region, went off to college, technical school, community college, and then we're recruited back here to work. And we provide grants for up to $6,000 paid over four years that can be utilized for student loan debt repayment, housing expenses, or ongoing childcare expenses, which are the three biggest barriers for young individuals and families looking to move back. We were able to provide four grants this year one in each of the four counties that we serve. And then Tyler Adams from Okoboji High School was the recipient this year for Dickinson County. And so we're really excited about that. And that grant program is funded exclusively through our workforce initiatives and not any contributions. So we hosted a golf outing down in Storm Lake last Friday, had over 80 golfers there, had over 100 last year to help keep supporting this and allowing us to do for grants per year. And we know it's a small thing to do these grants, but we think big picture about it in terms of being able to tell their stories, take these students, bring them into our schools, bring them into our Build My Future event and have them talk about their experience to the students and set the culture and set the way that they can come back in those different opportunities. And so that's what we did with those two different initiatives. Workforce is always going to be a big challenge here, especially in Northwest Iowa. We hear that through our business retention and expansion visits. So this is just two of the things that we've uploaded in the last two years to assist with workforce development.

Appreciate that, Trevor. Yeah, I want to continue on the workforce thing real quick and invite Joanne to come up to the podium real quickly. You know, we kind of rely on our partners with IDDA quite a bit, Iowa Workforce Development specifically. And so as we hear these issues, we talk about how do we address the workforce crisis or issue here in Dickinson County. You know, we try to provide opportunities for our employees to help, you know, provide a voice to them so they can tell what their issues are directly to our state representatives. So I'm going to have Joanne come up and just speak briefly that we hosted on June forty-five.

Thank you, Kurt. Um as you've noticed with the update today that we are really focused on workforce. Um in our business retention and expansion visits uh workforce is key to our current employers in the corridor region actually growing. So um We have a great partnership with Iowa Workforce at the state level and also at the local level. We had Georgia and Kathy Anderson came up from the state level and we had Aaron Mary. He is our local business consultant here in Spencer. that has our region here. All three of those were here on June 25th, where we met at Spencer Golf and Country Club. We had a meeting, probably 45 local employers attended that meeting, and it was a listening session for Iowa workforce. We had legislators that came. They know as well as we do that workforce is key to growing Iowa. So they were there. We had stakeholders and basically talked about the challenges, any roadblocks that maybe the employers are finding, talking about identifying emerging needs and exploring programs, opportunities that will benefit our employers in our region. So I really have to commend the employers. They really came with their questions and I do. I had lunch afterwards with Iowa Workforce and they were very impressed with our region and the questions that came out of that meeting. So I think we were the second one in the state of Iowa that they did. So any questions on that?

Can you identify or is it been identified what like the top three or four reasons these people want to choose a place to work in other words how do we compete with Des Moines you know when you talked about this thing ran in Des Moines now we're running it here we have a lot to offer in this corridor Dickinson County of course so these would be statewide programs so they wouldn't just be for the Des Moines area they would be that's my question is if I'm coming out of college And i'm looking for a job or the top three things i'm looking for i'm going to turn this so that's okay. The top three things for me to hear rather than there, so that we could prepare or help upgrade those things to draw those folks to the workforce.

yeah that's a great question Kim and that was part of the whole discussion I mean it was this was classified as a listening session which was unique because usually when the state comes in they tell you what they're going to offer you you like don't usually get an option this was truly a listening session which allowed our our uh you know our people in the room which consisted of business owners you know you know community college college reps legislators that Joanne said to kind of tell them what their needs are. And so the things that continue to rise to the top, again, we don't think we had a top three, but some of the preventative measures would be the daycare. We had a lot of discussion on daycare. We had a lot of discussion on even what it takes to be able to qualify to be even in a position. Sometimes there's so many qualifications that it takes for an entry-level position in some of our professions. preventative for anybody to even get in there. For example, daycare. A lot of times they'll need a master's degree to even be able to be a director of a daycare facility. Well, I think there's people that that would say that's probably preventative based on what you're going to get paid to be able to direct be a director of a daycare to even go into that profession. So figuring out ways to take the barriers out of that. Housing continues to be a huge driver and you know while we talk about a nice project going and there's a lot of good projects going on in Dixon County I feel like we're blessed up here but there's still preventative issues with cost of living the cost of development interest rates that deal with that so can there be different ways to help facilitate offsetting some of that for developers another thing with the daycare issue that we're talking about we're trying to help lead the charge a little bit I think There has to be a needle moved on the legislative side when it comes to daycare. Right now, all the assistance for daycare is being utilized to help communities and counties conduct studies. Well, we can do studies. We can tell you right now there's a big demand for daycare. We need daycare. We understand that, but we show that demand. Now, how do we help facilitate and assist our daycare providers? operate a facility whether that's operating in home or if they need to purchase and build a new daycare facility how do we operate how do we assist that in the construction phase and also the ongoing operations phase which are the two critical pieces for the ongoing part of that so while there's no probably top three I think what it reiterates for iWorkforce development the same issues that we talk about here every time we come in here Kim it continues to be hammered to them down at the state level and we're able to help collaborate with them on a one-to-one level to help facilitate that at a local level. So I hope that answers your question.

It does. And I agree with you. I think those things are imperative. But, you know, we often hear, oh, I want to be in a place that's safe. I want to be in a place that's got all the hunting and fishing and boating. Those are great things. But you're right. I think daycare right now for a lot of folks is like a mortgage payment. And that's tough. And so how can you maybe work and do that? And housing, what's affordable housing? When I hear about these jobs at 25 an hour, that's 50 grand a year. Can they buy a home at 600,000 here? Those are the challenges and how can we but we need help from other places than just here. Those are the challenges, Curt, and we've talked about it for a long time. I just wish we could come up with a solution.

It continues to be kept to continue to advocate for our story here. And I think that's what you guys do a good job of that. I think our office, we make that a priority about legislative advocacy that we're in the years of our workforce development partners, IEDA specifically, great relationships with them so they understand what those concerns are. And it's no different here, as you know, Kim, than what it is across the state of Iowa. Rural growth is difficult in a lot of ways, but we've talked about it here. We're blessed with the quality of life to be able to help recruit, but what can we do to take those barriers out to make it affordable to be here? So that's where we'll continue to hammer on.

Appreciate your work.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for the question. Do you have an average what daycare is per child in Dickinson County or in the corridor?

i don't have those numbers with me leave i don't know if that's the numbers we actually have i mean it's going to vary across i mean you could get an average number that would be i don't know if that daycare study that we did with with spencer recently yeah i'll have something close to that for spencer with the study but i would anticipate anywhere i've seen between uh for an infant uh maybe 800 for in home per month to 1200 per month uh per kid per kid so you have two kids you're looking at probably two thousand dollars if you go to a center in home you might be able to get a few more deals but you know those aren't regulated those aren't you know under the same standard of a daycare facility so that's the challenge that we're seeing and then parents have to make the decision to stay home or go in the workforce and now we're losing qualified workforce members productive people in the workforce and then that hurts it too we just had this conversation in the office i think was you and i about what somebody was paying for daycare for a couple of kids you remember that oh yeah yeah was that so alyssa we mentioned that again just without naming anything and then Yeah, I mean, that one was, well, then in other parts of the state, they're paying closer to 1,800 bucks a month for one kid. So one child, 1,600 to 1,800 bucks in the Des Moines area, and then larger cities. And that's for, you know, just a normal average center, not anything premium. So it's becoming a bigger issue.

It is.

So the City of Lake Park, as you know, is currently undergoing a daycare study. They contracted with First Children's Finance and received a grant through IEDA to help formulate a study, which is going to show a demand. It's going to go back to what we just said. Now it's going to be, okay, here's the demand. What are you going to do? How are you going to construct something? How are you going to facilitate anything? So City of Storm Lake had just done one. City of Spencer Hill facilitated one last year. So it's City of Storm Lake. Yeah. So anyway, it's a challenge. Keep fighting. Keep fighting. Just keep doing the good work. it's a good question i'm going to close out just because it is a big deal okoboji entrepreneurial institute is the week of august 9 through 14. it's our 20th anniversary this year which is pretty cool so in total we've had over 500 alumni now graduate from oei uh so 20th anniversary we're gonna actually as part of this this year gonna have an alumni weekend um leading into it so august 7 through 9 we're gonna host about 50 alumni at peace harbor which would be cool, kind of our welcome kickoff ceremony to help welcome back alumni, but then also welcome in the 32 students that will be participating in the 20th year this year. Most of all the events will be held in Arnold's Park and at the Okoboji Bible Conference, which we're excited about. So we'll have students from Iowa, Iowa State, UNI, Iowa Lakes, Community College, Buena Vista, and Dort. we'll be staying with host families. And so my wife and I had an opportunity last year to host two, we're gonna host two students again this year too. And it's cool to bring them in and kind of showcase all the good things that Iowa great lakes. But the goal ultimately is, you know, these are high level entrepreneurial institute, our entrepreneurial educated students. Our ultimate goal is to get them exposed to the area and bring their creativity back here at some point. So either start a business, or to maybe even purchase a business that's maybe looking to sell so we're excited about that and that'll be the week of august 9 through 14. so with that that's our update happening answer any questions just want to say thank you for your continued partnership and support and continuing to do the good work along with you so

And how can they improve?

Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, that's a great question. So it's evolving. I think if a business has not looked into AI at this point, they're probably going to be behind a little bit because it's going to impact everybody in some way. And it's going to impact everybody at a different level. I mean, talk about economic development. How does it affect us? um it changes the way we do things but i think it's a tool that we can use now to look at you know be able to research properties quicker from you know what's the utility uh load here or what's uh what's the anchor price here and we can kind of execute some of that just high level information relatively quickly But it's evolving, Bill, to be honest with you. And we try to educate our businesses too. It's a conversation we get when we go into our BRE business about how AI is going to impact us. And the simple answer is it's going to, but we don't know to what effect yet. So it's ever evolving rapidly. And data centers continue to be a big conversation in that as far as the capacity of supporting AI. And so in data center conversation, as we all know, is a conversation that's rapidly evolving and that we have to keep our eyes on. And so it's, have I said evolving enough yet? It's rapidly evolving though at this point, so yeah. something to think about a hundred percent and we'll continue to as we you know get information that's preluded to us or opportunities for businesses to be engaged whether it's you know a workforce or excuse me a listening session our workshop we'll make sure that we bring uh those opportunities to the table in fact i think we hosted ai workshop with about a year ago that we did last year last year and so um I think they classified it as a tsunami. AI tsunami, knowing, hey, it's coming. And once it's here, it's going to hit you. And so every piece of information we get coming up to that part is important. So good question. Thank you. Thank you very much. Guys, have a good meeting. You too.

Okay. Next up is the approval of joint 61 branch 3 99 West pay estimate for tree of removal to Kevin, Kevin jobs. And I believe that amount is $2,915. And it's recommended by that. We pay that by Colin Klinger. Okay. Mr. Clark moves. I'll second. In seconds, further discussion? Hearing none, Mr. Clark? Aye. Hill? Aye. Levi? Aye. Mr. Dullard? Aye. And Bill was audited. Item number six is the approval of expansion tanks for the chiller in the courthouse. Lisa?

So I got a bid from Crane regarding our, with the heating and the cooling side, we have expansion tanks to relieve the pressure of the system when the systems shut down. Last year, we did a overhaul or last spring, the spring before last, we did a complete overhaul of our chiller to avoid having to replace a new one. And with that, I kind of call this place a little bit of a Pandora's box. You open one thing and you find different things that haven't been done or affect other things that probably should have been done years ago. We've been getting some alarms when the system shuts down, which shuts the chiller down and needs just mainly a reset at some points, but trying to figure out why that was doing that. Train came down, they did, they replaced a pressure switch. They checked the pumps. We found out that we were low on glycol and water in the system. And some of that's from evaporative. Sometimes some of that's for repairing pipes and stuff where they put the glycol and water back in the system, but obviously they're gonna have a little bit of, less so we did add some more water to that but they are under the impression that we need a bigger pressure tank right now we have a 30 gallon pressure tank and they are advising with the size of our system an 84 gallon tank so of course i ask the questions of okay why all of a sudden do we need this and why um and they give me lots of different answers the biggest one several years ago before me we had the ice tanks added to our system and when we added those they didn't take an account that we should have had a bigger pressure tank so this one they thought was even a little lower at the beginning when we started but now is 30 to 84 so quite significantly lower i did call um another plumber in the area um and he advised with our curita guy to get the size of our system separately and see what his thoughts were on this and he agreed to that an 84 gallon is what our with the measurements of our system and whatnot um i didn't get a bid from them just because i have trained doing other things in this area and they've been the one doing all of the all of the maintenance on this typical thing. So I did get this bid from them. And that includes all material and labor for that, which is gonna be a tough one because it's behind, it's located behind our sprinkler system, the main one down in the boiler room. So, but they're confident that they would be able to do that. This is going to not only help our systems run more efficiently, it's also going to save on our equipment because with the pressure, if it doesn't have anywhere to go, it's going to find other places to go. And even if I don't see it, it's putting stress on the system. So I feel like we, for the long run and for the maintenance of all of the equipment down there and the chiller side, we need to get that added on there.

What are your thoughts, Paul? That was going to be worse. I did too. I did too. Good job building it up.

They had asked at one point if we could go cheaper without an ASME tank as I did my research with a dwelling. building that we needed the ASME. So that's a little added expense on that. But it would keep us compliant. What's the total amount, Lise? $6,344. You publicly should tell them what it is. Oh, sorry. That includes all the piping and handling of the glycol. So they're going to have to remove the glycol out of the system, put it back in, and all of the labor.

Well, I think it's probably like anything else. When you expand a system, what was originally there isn't necessarily always sized right for any expansion. And when we added the cellars, it probably overloaded the system.

Definitely bigger the system like that.

You need a bigger tank for expansion because it holds more total gallons and the percentage needed for above that. difference so and don't forget this facility is 20 years old yeah at least you know

So Chris Halverson does all of our chemicals through the cooling tower and knows our system size throughout all of the pipes and whatnot. And so both Trane and one of our local plumbers contacted him with the size of the system and they both came up with the exact same that we're, because sometimes I find these things and these issues and I'm like, are you kidding? This has been this long and how are we just finding out? But we're really trying to do a lot of preventative and just kind of figuring out why things are doing what they're doing, so.

I'll make a motion to approve the expansion tanks for the chiller in the courthouse in the amount of $6,340. In this move, do I hear a second?

I'll second. Levi will second it. Further discussion? Yes, there is none. Kim? Aye. Levi? Aye. thank you thank you guys have a good day you too okay next up is the approval of the july 14th board meeting did anyone find anything amiss motion to approve the july 14 board minutes i'll second levi moves mr dullard seconds further discussion

Hearing none, Levi? Aye. Mr. Dillard? Aye.

Mr. Clark?

Aye.

Kim? Aye. And Bill is aye. Item number eight is the approval of claims.

Motion to approve the claims listed on July 28th, 2026.

Okay, Levi moves. Second. further discussion.

Mary Nunn, Levi. Aye. Kim. Aye. Mr. Dullard. Aye. Mr. Clark.

Aye. And Bill is aye. Item number nine, County Engineer.

Good morning, Joe. Good morning, Joe. I just have one item on request that came to me from the city of Milford's police department. It's making a recommendation to close the speed limit along 213th Avenue from 220th Street to 225th Street. This challenges the speed limit of 25 miles an hour. speed limit from 25 miles an hour would be established from the milford city limits along 225th street 6th street to 213th avenue this is basically a south route for the school traffic uh currently right now there is no posted speed limit on 213th adjacent to the milford west pit i'd like to have your approval to get these signs both not the one that goes along the gravel pit yeah This goes from the four-way stop that we have now south and you can use 6th Street and get back around to the high school.

I spoke to Chief Breivik a couple of weeks ago. He was just concerned that while we're adjusting the speeds around the elementary that get people used to the that road is heavily trafficked with between the middle school and the and what will be the elementary. So just be people used to it this fall.

I think with our trucks coming in and out to end the extra school traffic, I think it's a good idea to go 25, based on my evaluation. And what is it now? It's not posted at all.

So be it not being posted, it would legally be 60 mile an hour?

Yeah, that's not good. Yep. Going north, south are stop signs at both ends, so.

I'll make a motion to approve the speed limit changes and composting them to 25 miles an hour along 213th Avenue from 220th Street to 225th Street.

I'll second. Levi is moved. Mr. Clark is affected. Further discussion? Hearing none, Levi? Aye. Mr. Clark? Aye. Mr. Dollars? Aye. Kim? Aye. And Bill is gone. Thank you for all I have today. Okay. We are now down to general discussion board and committee reports.

Yeah. And hunger coalition meeting all of our pantries continue to be busy. I encourage folks that if you're looking for a place to help, help those that are food insecure in Dickinson County, because we have a number of them, um, either donate to a pantry. get involved and volunteer, but please, we need your help. The Lake Park Pantry continues to see a large number of families that come through there in Milford. In the Milford one now, it also includes Terrell as well as Superior. So we've expanded out and we're trying to reach as many folks as we can. Upper Des Moines steadily sees at least 100 families a week that come through there. Good News Pantry, Spirit Life Pantry, all of them are busy. um we are seeing first lutheran now is a kind of a come and go type of pantry that one also is very busy i want to thank the iowa great lakes realtors they did a christmas in july this is just an idea of groups that can get together and make a difference for for folks that are in need the donations included cleaning supplies kitchen items paper products a lot of the things that typically are not provided for folks so All those are important things. Things are going well. I think, again, we're busy. Just a lot of things that are happening. They're supporting the dinner date that happens. I know the Methodist Church is doing that. Some others are starting to want to do that as well. We're looking at every avenue we can from gardens to markets to everything that can be possibly done to help with that. So lots going on there. I attended the Sherwood Forest ribbon cutting. Holy cow, is that a cool park. I know it took a while to get there and there were some hurdles to get there, but it was well attended for the opening. I've had my grandkids, my wife and I, we bike there. It's a terrific park. It really is. If you want to walk there, bike there, take your kids to go down the slides. It's just a really a lot of fun, a great addition to our county. So thanks to Lee Sorenson and his diligence as well as the conservation board for continuing to get that through. But it's a really cool park. There are a lot of people that go there all the time. Um, we had some complaints about some County, uh, and dirt roads. So I got together with our County engineer and a shop foreman from Lake park, and we drove out and rode those roads. And again, I think we're all in agreeance of how things should be handled and what should be done. So I thank Jeff and I thank Ben from Lake park, uh, for doing that. I'm going to continue to promote the County Wellness Challenge if you have not done yet. So please get online and finish your self-assessment. Takes five minutes. Very simple. You actually are incentivized to do that. So please, all employees do that. But more importantly, please schedule your physician physical as soon as you can. I set up the thing about two weeks ago. I'm going to get it done in a week. Please get those physicals done because we need to reach our goal. And once again, save 5% on our health insurance premiums. All I have, sir. All right. Very good.

Mr. Delbert. Yes, sir. On the 14th, I attended the Hunger Coalition. And on the 20th, we took over the first day of handling the closure of Upper Des Moines. And so in the morning, we unloaded the products that are provided. And then in the evening, we did a distribution on the 21st. It's a repeat, uh, same thing. We unload in the morning, whatever products are brought to us. And then we, uh, distribute those in the evening. Uh, our two day total for that was 37 households and 72 people. And it's, I think the heat lately has played in a lot into it. And I'm sure that's what affected us and our church pantry. Uh, uh, also on the 20th, uh, Mr. Clark, Levi, and I attended the Planning and Zoning Commission. And then the 25th was our church food pantry where we continued distribution. And we pick up new people. We have a pretty steady crowd of older folks, but we also pick up some new people from doing the distribution with Upper Des Moines. Our pantry, it was down a little bit, but it was very, very hot day and it just strung out. Plus also we had the pioneer days going on right around the same time. And that's all I have.

Okay.

How do you advertise for these food distribution?

All the pantries put it out. And then since Upper Des Moines, a lot of these people, uh hit upper Des Moines opportunity weekly in there and we have flyers posted we have it's on uh fake book and and out in the community so that's the main way we distribute it all right very good Mr Clark

Matt, we approve the bills and discuss the upcoming grant sessions, approve the grant forms for this year, and approve the schedule for accepting applications. We'll start receiving applications starting through August 3rd. They must be turned in by the 1st of October this fall. Uh, the commission will then meet on the 15th for, to discuss the applications, uh, and, and rank them. Well, we'll, we each get a, uh, application form and a ranking form, and we have to rank the individuals, uh, on the, uh, 22nd, we have to report the rankings back to the coordinator. Uh, November 2nd to the sixth, the somewhere in there, the water quality commission and the DNR will meet and discuss how much each is going to put toward the funding of each project. It's always interesting to observe how they decide who's going to fund what and at what level, you know, but it's all based on the, uh, how much we think it's going to improve water quality in the area. On November 12th, we'll make a definite decision on funding those applications, and that will determine the amount spent for the next fiscal year. On the 17th, I attended the YES Board Reading in Cherokee. Everything was pretty normal down there. We did vote to approve or to allow Emmet County to return as a participating member with the Northwest Iowa YES Center. They had been being served by Central Iowa. There were some problems down in the Central Iowa region, so they have come back in, so to speak, come back into the fold. But Emmet County's, you know, a good organization and it'll benefit them and us uh carroll county sheriff is donating a 2018 ford explorer to the yes center's transportation it's complete with cage and everything so that saves them a lot of money evidently there was a style change and the the old cage won't transfer into a new one so they just gave it to the yes center uh One of the interesting things was how much transportation is becoming necessary. Last month alone, transportation income was $32,900 just out of the Cherokee Youth Center. And they haul people all over the state. They get requests from out of state, and they can't go out of state, but they get requests from them. That's become a big deal. Average client count was still up there, 10 and a quarter per day for the month. And that was all there. On the 20th, I met with, at 8.30 in the morning, I met with Lucas Straw from the DNR and Jeff Klosted from Hemet County Supervisors. And DNR did a presentation on the plans to drain down 12 Mile Lake and let it dry out and let all the natural water filtering plants grow up around the edges. I don't know how far they want them to grow in, but they've done this on a large number of lakes around the area where they have the ability to let them draw down and let those come back after the floods we have. A lot of that stuff gets pushed out, drowned out, and they're trying to reestablish it now. That will affect DD61 in Dickinson and Emmett. I've called Colin and talked to him about it on how much effect, because they are actually gonna put another pipe in with intake out into the lake further so they can drain it down further. So it's going to affect DD61. He's looking into whether or not we should annex the lake into DD61, whether it's, you know, and how much, what the benefit would be to them and then how much they'd have to pay toward maintenance and so on on DD61. DNR is not like the net, fish game and wildlife DNR pays their share of the drainage district. So he's looking into that for us. Uh, following that at 10 o'clock, I was at the ribbon cutting for Sherwin forest park. Like Kim says that just, uh, it's a amazing place.

It is.

It really is. I think in two years, when, when all the vegetation is well established and it really gets going. be a lot better. Along that line, the Conservation Board has received a letter concerning the drainage, again, of the Sherwood Park area and how it affects people in the Summer Circle area. And I don't know if they've talked to John about that.

They're sharing the communication with me and, uh, yeah, we've been talking about it.

Okay. I, you know, it's just interesting, you know, a lot of con a lot of concern about drainage in the county. And it's a big thing. This guy's afraid we're going to, we take too much. It's not going to have a little babbling Brook in the backyard. So, you know, you try, but you can't please everybody all the time. Then, also on the 20th, I attended the P&Z meeting. They approved the rezoning of parcel 02-333-00026, and it will now come forward to supervisors for final approval. They also approved an amendment to Article 23, the landscaping section, and they discussed the A1 bulk regulations and requiring the size of a uh a lot in the rural area to be 10 acres and that's what it says in there and uh so they're gonna you know there's a lot of counties that have moved that way down you know there's a lot of people that want to buy a corner on the blacktop out there but they only want two three acres to build a house on and stuff and if i remember correctly i think the 10 acres was put in there for they said if you had 10 acres or more, you could be legally considered a farm. And I think that's why they put the 10 acres in there. Well, but we have nothing in our planning and zoning that says they can be down to a smaller area. So it's just going to be an adjustment in the planning and zoning regulations, but it was interesting to listen to them. So after that, I attended the REAP assembly on the 23rd. Bill and Levi were also there. It's the biannual meeting. They meet every two years. Had six pretty interesting presentations. You know, just on local projects in Clay, Dickinson, and Enema County. I thought they did a really nice job. REAP is, the money is funded up to $20 million level. That's what the legislature has said it's available, but they've never funded it higher than $12 million. And it's also up for the next tax increase. If they increase the sales tax in Iowa, REAP will get another three-eighths of a cent off all that. But here again, that all always up to the legislature on what they do. So, uh, we just hope they don't take it away from us and cut funding down to, down to almost nothing. Uh, one of the things that, that has been raised, I've been listening to on the radio. It's kind of interesting. I really didn't do this, but, you know, or go to anything. And I'm sure you've all heard of the e-bike and e-scooter and all this kind of controversy. And to me, it's really interesting. All of a sudden, people are asking for a countywide zoning that's all the same on this, you know, on this particular issue. They don't seem to want it on zoning as a whole, which I think is Every municipality wants to maintain their authority on zoning, except they want it countywide on this. So it'll be interesting to see the direction this takes in the future and what they do on it. I know it's become a very, very big safety concern. I've seen some kids going down the bike trail on these electric scooters 20 miles an hour.

so it's a it's a big concern and I'm sure something will be done so in the future okay thank you Steve uh a few weeks ago the 14th I went to the ivory Lake Sanitation District board meeting um trustee meetings and then on the 17th I participated in the trails fundraiser that was my first fundraiser as a elected official that was very well attended. I was impressed with the amount of people, live music, and everyone was there and having a good time. It was very warm, and I tried to hang out inside a little bit more often than outside just to enjoy the air conditioning. J. Sam Hurley, And the twentieth I went to the planning and zoning in addition to what Mr Clark and shared they also talked a little bit about the definitions that are being used and and I thought it was a I think we all got that email. J. Sam Hurley, I thought it was a good idea to. to hammer down some legitimate definitions that we're all familiar with. And that way we can eliminate some confusion. On the 21st, I had my Zoom meeting with the Northwest Early Childhood Association that is now recalling what was formerly ECI. The 22nd, I sat in on the ISAC property tax webinar. Very good information to, again, just remind me on a lot of that stuff. I did snag the presentation from Lucas as well, just for further research. That evening, I had a Board of Health meeting. on the 23rd, as Mr. Larkin said, I went to the REAP meeting as well. And again, that was important for me to sit in on because Erin does such a great job of getting that grant money for the trail system. And so to have an idea, and experience all that's involved with that. Last night, I went to the city council meeting in Milford, as Kurt had mentioned, with the the approval of the new development going to be started there. And then later today, another sanitation district meeting, I will hopefully sit it on.

It is very good for my part. Well, I missed two meetings. I love these workmen. that will tell you, well, I'll be there Wednesday or Thursday. I thought, great, Wednesday, that frees up my Thursday. No, didn't happen that way. Got another call, well, picked up another job, so I'll be there Thursday. So I did miss my rides meeting, which was probably good for my mental health. I did have the, E911 and emergency management. Mike Eric told us how their budgets are limited by the state to 3%. And that started a whole big discussion about the legislators and the amount of money they're not letting us have. Also went to the Sherwood Forest. It was hot, but a lot of people are excited about it, and that's a good thing. Like you said, Lee's done a wonderful job on that. Also went to the reed meeting. I went to the very first one, and after going to this one, I remembered why I hadn't been going. you're in with a bunch of conservationists that are voting on things to help conservation. And so when they brought up about getting rid of having to have the amount of money they get approved, they wanted to negate that. that they'll just automatically get the money. And I thought, well, kind of all right if you have to prove you need it, but you're outnumbered at those things. So I kept quiet. And that's pretty much what I did last week. Do any of our participants have anything? Yes, Mr. Kelly.

Yeah, Patrick Kelly, Okoboji. I live right near the inn, where the inn used to be. And I know there's a lot of people that like the project. I've knocked the inn out of the picture. It's very disruptive to Okoboji, I can tell you. And I'm very concerned about what's happening there with the water flow off of that park. And I'm wondering, and maybe somebody here knows, maybe they don't know, but is that water get treated before it gets dumped into Okoboji or what's going on with that? Because we have a whole bunch of issues going on around here about what's happening with water flows and where is the water going? Is it going to West Lake? Is it going to Spirit Lake? Is it going to the Little Sioux? What's happening? Now, I told you all before, I lost four brothers and sisters to cancer. They all grew up around here and they all drank water around here. And I'm not laying that cancer toll on the water. I was born at night, not last night. There are some issues, serious issues up here. with respect to what happens with the water and with what happens with the drainage off the farms. And it's impacting not just down there in Okoboji, but it's also impacting up there in Triboji. If you drive up there and take a look, see, or if you talk to anybody that's lived up there for a while and they've experienced some of the issues that the summer circle people have experienced and there's been some serious backup flooding you know around Okoboji and further north and I'm just concerned where's it all going does somebody know is that water that's coming off of Sherwood Forest does that get treated before it goes in Okoboji or is it just draining right into the lake so I have that question and uh somebody could at some point answer that it's going to take a lot of scientific study around here over the next few years to to get things where they need to be and i can tell you there's a lot of us that live uh right near the end that are paying close attention to what's happening and i'm not here to i got my own emotional attitudes because i worked at the end and hung out there and grew up around there. And I knew dozens of people that worked there for all that time. And, and I, and it's gone, but not forgotten. So I just hope that going forward, uh, we remember the, uh, beautiful lakes that we have here and we make sure that we're preserving them. Cause that's kind of our, uh, you know, that that's going to be some of our heritage over there. And it's not just Westlake. It's a lot of lakes and a lot of rivers. So anyway, but I really want to thank everybody for what you do because many of you are public servants and you make the difference. And what kind of place we're going to have going forward is going to depend on the people that are elected to office as well as those that do the electing. So I want to thank all of you, you know, for what you do. do particularly the supervisors and and the the people that work for the county you know it's very important work and i know uh sometimes it's uh it's it's got to be tough to deal with because i know we've had some political changes and stuff and uh we've all got our different points of view and there's going to be a heck of a lot more political change going forward And the people that are coming into office after these elections, I've really got it cut up for them. And those of you that have been serving, I know, Bill, you've been on this board for a long time. I want to personally thank all of you that have served on this board because you probably had to put up with a lot of unnecessary abuse. I hope I haven't contributed much of that. But I do want to thank you all for what you've done. what you put up with because it's difficult stuff. And the science on the stuff is not clear. And so that makes it even more complicated. So, but anyway, and I really appreciate people that come here. Some of the people come to every session. I don't come to them all, but again, thank you employees and electeds of Dickinson County.

thank you mr clark do you have anything to say about the drainage well you know they've gone through a couple different drainage plans up there jeff's been in on that uh they do not you know that drainage water does not get treated no it just it runs you know it runs just like it did back in the uh The 50s, 60s, and 70s when the new inn was there and that small golf course was there, you know, what comes off goes, you know, there's surface runoff, some of it gets absorbed into the ground. There's no treatment or anything for it. The biggest thing they have to watch out for is they can't redirect the water. It has to naturally drain. And, you know, we ran into that problem a little bit when they started Sherwood park, because one of the houses they put up when the new end was tore down and when those lots were for sale, that guy changed the drainage because it didn't fit his plan of his house, you know, and, and then he had to adapt to that. So the drainage really, uh, should be by the time this is all completed, it should be as good as, or better with all the, the restorative prairie they're planting and all the trees and stuff, it should filter the water through that area better than it originally did when it was a manicured par-3 golf course up there.

I have one other thing. Lower guard bridge is open. I didn't say that.

I'm still waiting for my thank you note. You'll be waiting. If there is nothing else, I would take a motion to adjourn. I'll make that motion. Mr. Gollard, move. I'll say it. Levi, seconds. Further discussions? Hearing none. Mr. Dullard? Aye. Levi? Aye. Mr. Clark? Aye. Kim? Aye.