Board of Supervisor - Regular Meeting

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.

I would like to welcome you all here today. Our first item of business concerns the Veterans Plaza. Steve?

next to jeff you can be the display person so they're made real simple um morning um i'm here with working with the veterans plaza group um where i got there's a couple of us i got added in uh since i've gotten on there we've uh had some discussions we've learned that we've got to get uh got to put this project out for bid whether it's competitive business or full bidding um just recently with some questions i asked with john is um we're going to need to get some type of an agreement between us on how this is all going to work out so um currently um we've got the proposal that's been pushed around or sent around it was lots of people but the proposals was started with the sidewalk needing to get replaced because the bricks are falling apart with the veterans names in them And so this concept was put together. I don't know if you guys as a board, I couldn't find it, but I don't know if you guys, the board has actually even approved the new board with that or not. We've started raising money off, doing fundraising off of it, but it's on your property. Probably should be formally at some point approved by you as a board, I'm assuming. um and so as we're trying to move this thing forward there's i've been asking a lot of questions because i've i've got a book this thick from tom aarons who i replaced we've gone on done fundraising we've got about 87 000 raised on this project already Um, but I've got some questions on responsibilities and liabilities and that type of thing. And you guys got a timeline that you need to get the sidewalk fixed. And so we're just trying to, I'm just trying to get an understanding. I now know that we need an agreement together. Who's going to be responsible for what, how we're going to pay for this, those types of things. So. i guess kind of one of my first questions is i don't know if you guys actually formally i couldn't find it in the minutes if you've actually formally agreed to even do this and i don't know if you guys got a plan that you want to do this if we don't do this part of it those stones still the big memorial stones are out there still have to get moved to be able to do your sidewalk project is what i understand So the concept I, from what I've gathered, one of the concepts was, is that if we did this memorial, then you'd only have to pick them up, move them, put them down, they're done versus picking up, move them, put something underneath them, pick them back up and move them again. So at some point it'd probably be, it's up to you guys whether or not you want to do this or not, but. probably be a good idea at some point to have a little approval to actually say yes we're going to do this and then that will allow us to i don't know what comes first comes first but then we need to get an agreement about who's responsible for what um when i'm looking at um we've we've got a breakdown of costs and i made photocopies of them i don't know if you guys have seen these yet or not but these were estimates from 2004. So I went to put 10 copies there. I just figured out what 6% interest would be because it's been two years since we've done this. So we're looking at potentially $386,000. $115 with the 6% increase in it. Now, other things have gone up. Concrete prices have gone up higher than I think the 6%. There's some other things that have probably gone up higher than that. But this was kind of the initial breakdown. I don't know who did this. It was done before I got there. But there's things like the lighted boulders on the sidewalk. There's a split cost. I don't know why There's no bollards that are going into that veterans area. I don't know why that cost is split, but some of these do make sense. So I think we need to get agreement on if we're going to move forward with this, we need to get an agreement about who's paying for what. Like I said, we've got $87,000 there. The plan is, is that those The black markers that are out there right now will get moved. The big heavy ones will get moved. The names will get put on to granite markers on the site. All the names will get put on those. Right now it's at three quarters of an inch and worst case, that's 350 names per site. That gives us a total of 1400 names front and back. So right now there's between the names that are on the ground and the number that we keep getting numbers in there. But as of the last meeting, we're around 625 names total that need to go on those. So the markers that we got, if we put those markers up there, we put those granite markers up there, that gets us almost two front sides filled already. And the other thing that the monument people have been talking about is putting granite underneath of all of them. So in case a snow plow comes or snow blower or whatever comes in there, it's going to hit that granite at the bottom instead of hitting those big granite pieces up there. Instead of damaging those, we damage the base piece. So, um, that, and that's part of this overall project is to try to protect those, get them up. So sand doesn't hurt them. Hopefully machinery can't get them. Um, and then, so that price, cause we've been talking to monument companies, that's approximately somewhere between 90 and $100,000. Flagpoles, we're now missing a flagpole because of the Space Force being added. So replacing the flagpoles is another $40,000 added to it. And then putting the concrete footings that need to be underneath the monuments. And if you haven't looked at the monuments, they're kind of tipping different directions because I don't think there's any footings underneath of them. Um, that's about another $50,000 to do that part of it. Um, so in this bid, we were taking on part of the, uh, concrete work, uh, benches, um, lighting for the flight goals, which I'm assuming is the electrical for the flight goals as well. So, and they're shared for, uh, seeding and plantings and that kind of stuff in there as well, but. I guess the questions I got for you today is one, is this the concept you want to go with? And two, then who's going to work with us to put an agreement together? We've already got our two people, but we're going to need someone legal to do that. And then the other question I've got is when we're out, if we go out, we'll be out doing fundraising. Like some of the foundations that we've put in application and where they want recognition. So it needs some type of a sign or something to recognize some of the contributors to this project. So before we go out and do additional fundraising, I really wanted to make sure that we could put a sign up there saying recognizing those who contributed up to a certain amount on a plaque out there. So those are kind of my questions for you.

well the board has heard it i want to hear their questions steve and i have been going to these meetings i think mr anderson brings up some little points uh again we all got an email i believe from john i guess it's starting to boil down to me How confident are we to fund these graves? Firstly, I'm pretty positive they can do it. Fourthly, I'm biased. I have a deep love for veterans. But I'm not sure everybody shares that emotion

I guess for me, um, I know that Steve and bill, you've been going to these meetings and I've been hearing mixed things coming back out of those meetings. First of all, leadership with VA group, how all that boils down and works. there have been a lot of challenges. And I guess for me, I just want to make sure that this is the direction that they're happy with and we're happy with and going forward and what that's going to look like, right? Because again, it's on the property of the counties, but who's responsible for what? And I'm in the same boat, Steve. I want to know all that as well. And so for me, I haven't been any farther along than what comes back from those meetings. And so your guys' opinions are important, I think, to the three of us who have maybe not been as involved in those meetings as you have. Do I believe in the Veterans Association? Of course. I mean, that's a given. And if we have an agreement, they're going to have to hold up to that agreement anyway. So that part I'm not as concerned about. I guess I'm concerned about where are we going forward and can we get this started? Are we confident enough to do that? And for me, I need to hear from you two about where that goes. That's, that's me in general. Right. Okay.

I think I kind of feel the same way. Uh, uh, I really think that our veterans need to keep being recognized throughout as time goes on. Uh, too many people tend to ignore them. And I think we need to keep that at the forefront of, of, you know, and having it here at the courthouse, I think is a really a really great way to do that uh you know every cemetery has its own veterans markers and so on but I think something that that is here in the county to recognize the the people especially from this county that served and and uh the ones that some came back some didn't you know but I think that's important to keep in people's minds uh I'm kind of like Kim I just want to know You know, if you guys are confident in the VA being able to raise the money through grants and stuff, then I have no problem with it.

I think if it's going to be on the property, though, like maintenance and upkeep and insurance, I mean, it makes sense for the county to oversee that. I guess, in my opinion, same with... responsibility and oversight of the projects but you know the initial cost and and the changes um yeah I can see where that would be something we need to get hammered out right away you know so when it comes to liability the county has that now right so that would just continue on

You know, as far as maintenance, I really don't think there will be a whole lot of maintenance once it's up. I mean, what maintenance have we had on the ones we have now? So I guess now, let's ask Steve, what exactly are we asking for today?

Oh, I guess the first thing is, is if you to do this but um it also type goes into your timeline like i said we've been fundraising for the flyers have been out for a while we just started applying for grants last i think last fall and so that's where that 87 000 comes from we've got uh 4 500 a grant or 45 000 in grants um We got $5,000 from the cities right now, two of them. And we've got a couple of banks that donated money as well. So that's what gets us to $87,000 in just basically one year of fundraising. So I don't feel like going out and raising any more money until you guys have said, yes, this is what we're going to do. And we hit the timeline. I think so. It's always a fundraising question. Can you go out and raise the money? And is there enough people that are willing to help us out to get that done? You know, just those items I listed, the movement of the memorials, adding of the memorial, put the faces under them, put the concrete, the footings under them, and replacing the flags, that's $290,000 from what we've gone out and got estimates for. You know, the, the movement of those existing monuments, what we've learned is you just don't have somebody slide underneath it with a wall and pick them up. The monument companies actually have some of the monument companies actually have liability insurance. So they pick that up and move it breaks. They, they repair it, they replace it. You know, I don't want to see somebody go underneath it with a set of forks and hit the granite and crack it. And then we've got a crack in Memorial forever, or there's an argument of who's going to replace the big So the question comes in is, so going off of this, my number, the estimate that we got, my number for just the parts that we've looked at is exceeding what kind of shows here with the shared thing has never been broken down. So I don't know who's doing what in the shared. And that I think comes when, You have somebody actually design this thing. And we're going to need plans and specifications, even if we go out for competitive bids otherwise. Someone's going to give you six inches of concrete, someone's going to bid four inches of concrete, someone's going to put standard rebar in there, and somebody's going to put fiberglass rebar in there. So that's the reason why we need to have the plans and specs done. And that's another question. I don't know who's paying for that. We paid $10,000 to get that drawing and get this estimate. the foundation did so to get us to that point um but we've heard that i haven't seen this but in the meetings it keeps coming up that it's going to be 90 000 to do the plans and specs for this and i scratched my head at that thinking that's a lot of money on a 600 000 projects um So I also think that if you're going to do the plans and specs, you should probably put that out for bid too just to make sure that we're getting a good bid or a good price on the design of that. We started down that process, but then we realized we had to come back and get an agreement to figure out what we're going to do. So that's a long question to Bill. I think the first question is we're dedicated to do this. Is the county, does the county want this? So that's the first question I think. And then the second question is that we got to get an agreement together and break that down between the two groups and who's going to put the agreement together. So those are the two major asks. And then the other one is whether people are going to be doing donations to us. Is it right if we put a sign next to this saying who donated money to us?

I went with this group for a year and a half, watched them go left, then go right, then come back to the middle, then go left again. So it's been all over the place. And I feel like now we're finally heading in a good direction. They're more solid than it's ever been. They're finally concentrating more heavily on fundraising and so forth, so on. As a veteran myself, originally from Polk County, I want my name on that memorial. This is home. This is where the heart's at. And I think these guys are along lines. They're going to raise the money or whatever. We just need to define who's going to do what and get it down in concrete writing and then start moving forward.

Uh, actually right now we have some liability with the way the, the concrete has changed and stuff out there. I see this could possibly decrease that by, by improving the sidewalks and having things more level. And, you know, there's always a possibility, but, uh, you know, would be decreased the probability of accidents by improving that.

Right. We definitely got to get something done with this hot around that towers. It's horrible. It's not just the pavers. It's the flux in the bricks. I see one week you go out there and you see them popping up in the next week. They're safe. That's we as a county got to move on that sidewalk. So if this is part of it, we don't want to damage our new sidewalks. Then we need to see what we're going to do there.

They've been talking about any drainage under that area. Yes. Okay. That's always a concern in this area is when the ground gets saturated and freezes and thaws and heaves and stuff.

Well, the kind of dirt that was put under it. Right. Yes, that's being addressed. Okay. That is being addressed. I guess the... It makes sense to me that we would bid out the concrete all at once. You know, if it were one process. And then separate how much of that would be veterans, how much would be cow them. The question is, How comfortable or how far would this board go if the veterans didn't have the money at this time to cover that concrete?

And I'll just add to what Bill's saying. The problem that we got is that this spec or this estimate doesn't split out. It's just as concrete. So it doesn't split out what kind of creates going to be the sidewalk in front of the Memorial versus a sidewalk that's from the intersection up to the courthouse. The other thing that's in here too, is there's, if you see in the picture, there's actually colored concrete. So that. i don't know that we need that as our group says we don't need it if you guys want a colored concrete you can have it it doesn't add that much to it but we decided that we don't need colored concrete so from what i'm hearing i think all of us agree we've got fixed sidewalk correct and we want to go forward i believe with this project my concern is who's doing what

And so prior to us saying, yes, let's go forward. I think we need to have some idea of what those costs are. Because if I look at the sheet that Steve gave us right now, the county would be responsible. And these are rough figures. These are rough for about 350,000. And the VA then would be responsible for about 375,000. If I'm understanding this correctly, right?

Right.

And those are very rough figures and we haven't had any of this concretely done. And so I guess what I would prefer to see rather than just say, yeah, let's go forward, is we do determine where are we at with this? I think we owe that to the folks that are gonna pay for it, right? And so what do we do to move forward with that? I think all five of us, and I'm not speaking for you four, but I think we all agree we wanna go forward with this. Number one, we have to do something with the sidewalk or that tower is gonna come down at some point. It won't be in my last four months here, but it's probably gonna come down at some point. And then it's just, we're hearing that. And so we need to repair those things for the future. And I think a Memorial like this is more, I think it's very important for our veterans more so than ever. And so I think we would want to go forward, but before we go forward, we have to say, what is our part of that going forward? And I know that's what he's asking today. So how do we get to that? Because a lot of these shared items, how do we break that down? So they know that they're going to have to raise 375, $400,000. get this project done there at 87. That's a challenge. Do I think they can do it? Sure. If the right person comes along, it can get done. Does that make sense or am I just throwing stuff out there? But I think that's what we, in my opinion, we have to have this a little bit more identified as what is the county's responsibility here. We can't just, I know you want to just do the cement and we could start that way. We could say, let's do the cement project. We have to do the cycle. We do. It has to be done. We do. And if that's what we want to go forward with, that'd be a great start. But we've got to help them fundraise with where do we go from there. And maybe that's an interim period we can do the cement or the sidewalk and then in the interim determine what is this shared amount? What are the rest of the costs?

One of the things about the sidewalk is We've got to move the monuments. So not only do we have to do the cement work, we've got to get the bases or whatever we need and move the monuments because you only want to do that one time. Right. So that's going to have to be considered as part of the sidewalk project.

Correct. That's where I was going. So same thing. getting at because we've been sitting on meetings is we they're going to have to be bring a crane on site so if we get a little bit smaller crane if we can shut down the highway for one lane on the highway for a day or two that's all dependent on the d.o.t whether it allows to do that or not or we can get a little bit more expensive one they can go from hill avenue but it's got to be a bigger crane because it's such a far reach to go out grab those big big blocks are out there so working around that tower was was that original construction was that a county project

you know i've been looking at that for some time now and yes it is uh in order to get the bond issue passed for this courthouse they included the tower and the veterans memorial so it's been paid for by the count is that correct beth yes it is and then

the when this project came up the veterans group said we'll help we'll help redo this and get it so that when it's all done because the concern was is what's going to happen in those the names on those bricks and we didn't want to just put on a piece of papers hung up in the tower type deal so we wanted a permanent and so that's where this granite slabs came to put the names on those so that permanent and then down the road we still got room to add more names as as time goes on we did talk with the the way they have it laid out that if we ever needed to add another monument to the ends of those for another 1400 names that the way it's laid out it would be able to be done but i assume by then there's probably going to be changes to something out there so I'm hoping that if we do this, we go this route, it's permanent. It's there at least through my lifetime. And I'm hoping that we don't have to add a whole bunch of additional names onto it.

Does it make any difference, Steve, that if the county does a concrete project separately from an agreement with the veterans people, what kind of grants would be available? I, meaning that if the county just does it on their own for the sidewalk, then does that shut down grant money over that cost of that? I don't think so.

Um, we just take that out as the, as part of the profit cost, I think is how we would end up doing that. So, um, And I guess just to clarify, John, so what we've put in our grants for the concrete is just the little piece that would be by the boomerang. We didn't do the whole sidewalk. We just did that little loop. That's how we've estimated that cost out.

So I'm trying to figure out if we can just do that part without doing the 20 80 agreement and not lose any funding that way. I don't think it depends on how quickly you want to do that and then have a separate 20 80 agreement with veterans people about the rest of the concrete and the memorial, or you want to do it all in one project that can be done as well. I don't, I don't, I would be willing to put together some sort of agreement for you to work off of, but I'm not, I'm not sure about what the specific project plans are, which are going to have to be included in there somehow. So do we have, do we have, are we at a final place?

We don't even have plans and specs on this. This is all we've got is the concept and a rough estimate. That's it. That, I mean, that. That brings up the question of is where do we, who pays for the, for the plants and specs on this? Right now it's, like I said, like $90,000 is the number that's been kind of thrown out there and I haven't seen that. do we need to go out and get bids on that to find out who's going to give us a better bid on it or it's your majority of this is your project i mean it's your sidewalk it's your ada compliance and your safety and your liability because it's on your property but i don't know who if you've got someone that you want to use or if you want to put it out for business and figure out a better way of doing it i don't know I just think $90,000 to put a sidewalk and hill on seems to be a little high.

Well, I know Lisa has been working with Diamond Concrete on this. So she has some facts and figures. But again, due to the price, it's going to have to be let out for a bit.

yeah and then an engineer or a landscapers or whoever but in this case it looks like an engineer is going to have to be hired to do it under that statute i mean you can't just go to diamond concrete and say how much is it going to be right you got to have you got to have plans with specs and i don't know if you two are close enough together to know exactly what that is i if if we're

I think we're the the problem that we got is we don't know what's first the chicken or the egg here like there's there's so many things that need to happen and what needs to happen first so it sounds like if maybe what we need to do is go back put a proposal together on this cost and break that out a little bit, get the shared cost, get everything kind of broken down to that level, bring that back to you all for consideration. Then we can put a 2080 agreement together with that. And then while we're in that discussion, we can figure out if who's gonna pay for this, plans and specs, if that's the route.

Some of what's slowing down their progress in fundraising is,

people want to see an end they want to see the finished product it's not going to give you the money until like sure until i see something done and steve at one point the veterans and i and i don't know if anyone else was involved we went through this list and said this is yours it's ours except for the shared things there's no breakdown on the shared things

Okay. So that's what I think we've got to look at is, is that a 50 50 share? Kind of, like I said, the, the one that sticks out to me is the lighted bollards. There's no lighted bollards in the veterans thing, but that's a shared cost. And that's I think total is over $50,000 on a shared cost for, I don't know. Is that us or is that 50% ours or is that 10% ours or what those percentages are? So. That's one of the things I think we need to break down is what that shared cost is. And like I said, not knowing, I mean, we can estimate what that arch is and how wide that sidewalk is in there to figure out the concrete cost. We kind of already roughly estimated that. But without specific plans and specs, it's really hard to pull those numbers on what's what. I guess in concept, are you guys good with this? If we can come up with an agreement and get everything going, but that way I'm fine. Yeah. Okay.

So from a grant writing perspective and having done several different types of grants, as far as if you bundle this whole thing as, as one project, separate out what you guys are doing specifically for the county but have it included as part of the project and then whatever your cost sharing too is what you're putting into it like let's say you split the engineering and project management together that's something the county you can have as a contribution from the county and grant reviewers love that stuff I mean it would look really good if you present the project as a whole you're talking 600 000 and and then say hey um 300 000 of this is for improvements around the courthouse that'll prove the veterans memorial and the county's taking care of that part plus their cost sharing on these other items and then this is our share and then you're looking at like and they'll they'll look at that very favorably if you just do that and cost effective is one project probably better too Um, this $90,000, I just ran an estimate that if you're going $600,000, that's pretty typical at $90,000. That's 15%, which when, um, for people that are writing grants, when you're estimating engineering costs, that's a number I typically use. They say anywhere from, um, 18 to 20% typically. That's what you should factor when you're writing a grant, but I typically use 15%, which is exactly what 90,000 is. So. That's standard.

So I think I appreciate the discussion because I don't think I didn't feel comfortable where we were at. So I think what we can do is go back and get these numbers narrowed down, bring that back to present to you all. If everybody is in favor of that, then we can get an agreement together. to move that forward then that helps us get our fundraiser going fundraising going in full speed and hopefully we can get this done i'd really like to see potential construction in the spring so that you can get your sidewalk done we can get everything done probably hopeful trying to get it down very memorial day but we can get done by the fourth of the year so okay that sounds like a pretty good plan right um

Make sure you get leads and all that.

Yep.

We will. Thank you all for your time. Thank you. Appreciate you. Next on the agenda is approval of grass buffer damage reimbursement, drainage district, and MOV repairs. Anyone here to speak to that?

This is the email I sent you from Colin. So as part of the DD-1 made open ditch repairs completed by B&B Farm Drainage, there was approximately half an acre of grass buffer damaged. All the work was done on land owned by Laird and Arlen's Foo, and Colin had mailed them a letter on June 29th asking if they were okay with $200 for damage reimbursement. He told him if he did not receive his response by July 31st, he would assume that amount is acceptable and he has not received a response to date. So he's assuming they're okay with that amount. And so he's recommending that Arlington and Laird Spoo be reimbursed $200 for grass buffer damages that occurred during the main open ditch repairs completed by B&B Farm Change.

We move we pay

Mr. Clark is moving. I'll second. Kim has seconded. Further discussion? Harry Munn? Aye. Mr. Dillard? Aye. Levi? Aye. Item number four is the appointment of reclassification commissioners for DD number six.

Melvin Wernimont and Greg Feldman.

Motion to approve. Mr. Clark has seconded further discussion. Yes, there is none. Mr. Clark? Aye. Levi? Aye. Mr. Dullard? Aye. Item number five is trails. Aaron?

Morning. um we have gotten through uh primarily the audit process with the dot on clay county connection phase one so next step is to approve the statement of completion of final acceptance of work and the final payment to beck excavating your nine thousand that comes up next but first of all the statement of completion files

Make a motion to approve the statement of completion. Levi has moved. I'll second. Kim has seconded. Further discussion? As there is none, Levi? Aye. Kim? Aye. Mr. Clark? Aye. Mr. Dollar? Aye. And Bill is aye.

The next item would be approval of the final payment in the amount of $9,311.24 along with the Change order number two, which accounts mostly for as-built quantities. There were a few additional things that had come up with some very wet soils, unstable soils that we had to dig out and bring in better materials, increase costs a little bit.

Motion to approve. I'll second. Mr. Dollard seconds. Further discussion? That's your last one, Jim. Mr. Dullard? Aye. Mr. Clark? Aye. Levi? Aye. And Biltz?

Aye. Have a seat, chairs.

Okay.

Thank you.

We're going to have a bid lighting on the next two miles next month, and then we'll roll into, we're looking at probably February for the last month. Those two will roll right into each other next summer, and they'll work out really well for us here. Great job. Thank you.

All right. Item number six is the approval of the board meeting minutes from August 11th. The motion to approve the August 11th minutes. Levi has moved. Second. Seconded by Mr. Clark. Further discussion? If there is none, Levi, Mr. Clark. Aye. Mr. Dillard. Aye. Kim. Aye. And Bill DeSantis. Item number seven is the approval of claims. Did anyone see anything amiss on that? Motion to approve the claims. Levi moves. I'll second. Kim seconds. Discussion? Did anyone get taken aback by the $18,700 paid to the Dickinson County treasurer? I thought we don't pay property tax. Oh, yes, we do if it's a drainage district. Mm-hmm. So, if there's no further discussion, Levi? Aye. Kim? Aye. Mr. Dillard? Aye. Mr. Clark? Aye. And Bill?

Aye.

Item number eight, approval of drainage claims. And we have Three of those. The first one is IFC for drainage district 19 in the amount of $1,630.02. Motion to approve. Kim moves. I'll second. Mr. Dullard seconds. Further discussions? Hearing none, Kim?

Aye.

Mr. Dullard?

Aye.

The second one is to the Emmet County auditor for publication for $130.60. That was drainage district 61, branch 61. Motion to approve. Mr. Clark moves. I'll second. Mr. Dullard seconds. Further discussion? Hearing none. Mr. Clark? Aye. Mr. Dollar? Aye. Levi? Aye. Kim? Aye. And Bill, it's aye. And the final one is for Dickinson County News for any amount of $95.76. Motion to approve. Mr. Clark moves. I'll second. Levi seconds. Further discussion? and build a site. County engineer, Mr. Rhodes. Good morning, Board. Good morning.

Good morning, Ian. Pointing out three items. The first is approved request for repairs on DD25, lateral 48-9-14. We direct county forces to complete the repair, which I'm estimating to be less than $2,000.

Motion to approve.

Mr. Clark moves. I'll second.

Kim seconds. Further discussion? Hearing none, Mr. Clark? Aye. Kim? Aye. Mr. Dullard? Aye. Levi? Aye. And Bill is aye.

Thank you, board. The second item is approved request repairs on DD 46, main tile, and direct county forest repair. The time that's made will be less than $2,000.

I'll make a motion to approve. Mr. Dullard moves. Second. Mr. Clark seconds. Further discussion? Hearing none, Mr. Dullard? Aye. Mr. Clark? Aye. Levi? Aye. Kim? Aye. And Bill, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Board. The last time I have today is approved VDCOM communications permit request construction utilities on county highway right away 165th street and 255th street for 250th avenue south 250th avenue which is an entire route of creative sites i'll make that motion mr dillard moves i'll say it lead by seconds further discussion

As there was none, Mr. Dullard. Aye. Levi. Aye. Mr. Clark. Aye. Kim. Aye. And Billis.

Thank you, Board. That concludes my agenda for today.

Thanks, Jeff. Item number 10 is general discussion and board and committee reports.

Kim. At a Hunger Coalition meeting, the Hunger Coalition donation to the pantries for August is dish soap and laundry soap. Those are items that typically are not delivered by the food pantries of Iowa, so that's a big plus for the need that is out there. Lake Park Pantry served 48 families. Milford Pantry served 108 families, which includes 45 families in Terrell and 20 in Superior. Good News Church served 88 families. Spirit Life served 76 families, which includes serving one week for Upper Des Moines because they did that shutdown for one week a few times this last year. Upper Des Moines continues to serve around 94 families weekly, and the other pantries are busy. So as you can see, we continue to have a need for security of food here in Dickinson County, so we want to continue to bring that to the forefront. Had a department head safety meeting. Luckily, no major incidences and no loss of time for our employees. All of our training requirements have been met. Our departments are really doing a great job of staying on top of the activity that's going on, communicating and keeping everybody safe. We had a wellness meeting this morning. For those of you, I hope you're all signed up. We have a wellness luncheon tomorrow at noon from 11.30 to 1.30. Please attend that. Again, for the last seven years, we've met our goal of folks filling out their self-assessment online and then getting a physical from their physician. If we do that, if 80% of our employees do that, we receive a 5% reduction on our insurance premiums for healthcare. Huge deal. I mean, we're talking around $70,000 to $80,000 a year savings. And it really makes a big difference, not only to our employees, but their families. that we're able to keep great insurance at a lower cost. So I encourage you all, please come tomorrow. And more importantly, please sign up if you've not. Call your physician to get an appointment made, because we're about, what I'm hearing, about five weeks out to get in to see your physician for a physical. This program ends October 31. And we're doing OK, but we're not anywhere near where we need to be yet for us to reach this. So I'm hoping we can make it . Great accomplishment. Other than that, also HIPAA training, I was reminded this morning also, HIPAA training online takes about 15 minutes is all. It's not bad at all. You take a little test at the end. This is a requirement for folks that are in our position. So all departments have been asked to complete this HIPAA because we do deal with a lot of sensitive things that we need to understand and respect. So please get that HIPAA training done. That's all I have. that lunch in tomorrow? Yes.

There is three signups. Yes. So just one of the three?

Yeah, just come to one. Yeah. 1130 to 130. If you come any time in there, you're going to get the spiel. Sounds good. Thanks. No problem coming to all of them, is it?

I would love to have you come to all. Good. Good. After our meeting on the 11th, I had a webinar on the recycle measurement. The main focus was on trying to collect the tonnage and materials being sent to recyclers and what they're getting out in the recycle. Currently, they have no consistent way to monitor this, and people in the chain are reluctant to disclose some of their info because they don't want to give away who they're getting materials from and who they're sending the materials to. After that webinar, I immediately had another webinar with the NACO webinar on data centers. I took away things that other people may not have. I took away three things from that. First, that Virginia has the most data centers in the entire nation. Second, that there are 450 nationwide moratoriums so far against data centers. Lastly, that the people in the webinar seemed to come across as very pro data centers. And I think that's why, I mean, I just saw my first set of commercials yesterday on the positiveness of data centers. But as we learned when we went to the conference in Des Moines, the ISAC conference, There's a lot of things that you have to consider and they don't mention a lot of that in the commercial. The thing that they addressed on the commercial that I saw was water usage and how their one data center didn't use all that water. Then they had a rebuttal guidance and they do use a lot of water. After that, as Kim mentioned, I attended the Hunger Coalition and just to say that The soap and the dish soap and the laundry detergent went over very, very well. It was, I mean, people come in. It was one of the things that they pointed out the last two weeks that we've had food pantry at the church. On the 12th, I attended the VFW meeting. The main points of this meeting were the improvement of their facility and talks that they're having with Spirit Lake. Spirit Lake wants them to keep the traditional storefront you know for the buildings they they uh for those of you that don't know that the gfw owns their building but they also rent out the other part to uh hobbies then i attended the conservation board meetings uh my main takeaways which i'll uh start going with i ask lee to put me on his list when he sends out his data because i would like to attend those meetings so i can be a better alternate in case something comes up for mr clark or whoever takes over that position and they uh my main takeaways was that the the oxbow project mr clark has talked to us about in the past has now reached a 60 completion point uh they discussed the use of more motorized vehicles that's anything with a throttle in uh on conservation property which includes that they've had a lot of issues with it using them on uh sherwood forest project uh they also went over uh There was a person who wanted to donate some 3D hunting targets, archery targets to a location. They were discussing a place where they might possibly put those around somewhere where it'd be safe and somewhere where it'd be also challenging to anybody that had that. So they were discussing places that they might want to do that. And lastly, one of the things that they discussed was their bench donation policy on somebody wants to donate a bench and someone's on or along the trails and they needed to go over their policy for that. And then they also had two easements, which you should have all got me emailed this morning on removing those two easements. And I believe in our next meeting, one of our upcoming meetings, we will be voting on those two easements. On the 13th, I attended the county safety meeting with Kim. I thought it was a very good meeting and a very productive meeting. And like I said, shout out to our employees who are overlooking that. They're doing an excellent job as far as I can tell. On the 17th, I attended the planning and zoning commission. One of the issues... that's going to come before the board I believe until September 8th is is an issue that's going to involve duty 45 and so it's going to be very interesting the one thing that's a landowner if he follows through and is in agreement to that he's going to help things out because he's going to build a retention Ponder they've asked him as one of the conditions to build a retention pond to to gather some of the water that may or may not be causing it. His contention was that a lot of the water problems and issues they're having is from drainage on the opposite side of the road. On the 19th through the 21st, Levi and I and several other county personnel attended the ISAC conference, and it was an educating meeting. I'm sure Levi will have a lot more to say about it than I do. And then on the 22nd, I assisted at Church Food Pantry and our numbers were up a little bit this week. And it was, like I said, they were very appreciative of the soap and stuff that was Mr. Clark.

Well, I was a little incapacitated for a few days, so I didn't do much this last couple of weeks, except I did spend some time on the computer and I got caught up on my HIPAA training and my wellness and all that kind of stuff. And it doesn't take very long, but it was something to occupy my time with. One of the things I did take note of is uh John Sandy's Judge John Sandy's award that was uh in the in the paper this last week uh really you know doing an excellent job of course we all knew he would have but would but it's uh it's really fun to read about things like that so that's a receive that fellowship and that honor is uh it's a pretty big deal for a local kid so

but we're happy to have you back, Steve. Well, thank you. I'm just glad to be here. I bet you are. So, Levi.

On the 11th, I sat on the same webinar that Mr. Dullard had mentioned about the NACO data centers. A couple of things that jumped out to me just from that I found interesting is that 67% of the global population are online, and that works out to be about 5.4 billion people. And that residential growth is faster than commercial, so all of us are driving the need for these data centers with our devices. The cloud, business apps, generated AI, entertainment and gaming, streaming services, all our devices being connected. virtual reality, e-commerce, machine learning. I mean, it's just, I guess I just didn't think the scope of everything that like, even I do with my online business and how much like all the different, like I'll update one program on my phone, one program on my computer at work, one program on my laptop at home. It's just like, oh man, they're all connected. So like, it just didn't, it did a good job of, I think maybe showing the scope of, The last thing that the U.S. and China combined have 70% of the global data center capacity. And I thought, wow, that's pretty crazy. So that meeting was on the 11th. I also went to the sanitation trustee meeting later that afternoon, and they were just talking about some local projects, development projects. They had some on site projects they're working on. They had some remodeling going on with their driveway. They had some concrete issues that they were working through with some different contractors and just some on site employee things that they were talking about. On the 14th, I had a trails meeting. That fundraiser that the trails team had just over 200 in July had over 200 attendees and raised just shy of $92,000 profit. So I thought that was a good turnout and good return on investment. The July count for usage on the trails was just under 90,000. And for 2026, we are approaching 296,000 people using our trails. So again, just goes to show what a resource that has been and continues to be and will only grow, I'm sure. On the 18th, before Mr. Della and I left for Des Moines, we had or I had a Northwest Early Childhood Association meeting and just Justin Delacruz, M.D. : continued monthly type stuff with that committee. Um! We were at the Isac then for Wednesday, Thursday, and first half of Friday last week. Justin Delacruz, M.D. : I have a breakdown. If you want to hear it Justin Delacruz, M.D. : happy to share you Justin Delacruz, M.D. : that first day, Wednesday. They they started off with a. They had a a speaker by the name of Eddie Davenport. He is a stuntman, Hollywood stuntman. He was involved in a lot of big-time movies that I've never seen. I'm not a Marvel guy or a comics guy, but he was in all of those movies as a stuntman. He had all kinds of stories just about his his big thing was overcoming fear and as somebody that um you know doing all kinds of crazy stunts with high risk of injury um just dealing with fear um and then dealing with getting out of your comfort zone and so uh as as leaders elected leaders there's there's a lot of that that applied i definitely related to i speak to a lot of my clients about getting out of their comfort zone as well from the training and wellness aspect and so i took a lot from it i thought it was a great He spoke for 45, 50 minutes. I thought he did a great job. Later on that afternoon, we had a couple of different breakout sessions. First one, developing a growth mindset. And then the second one was creating a culture of excellence and civility. I thought very timely. They did mention, though, that anything that you see on Facebook is accurate. speaking of civility. But just to keep in mind that culture that if we're going to move forward, I'm not just talking about Dixon County, just in general, if we're going to move forward as a society, we got to do better as a whole, both sides, every side, whatever you're talking about. So civility was kind of the key takeaway there. On day two or Thursday, We started off with an ISAC business meeting, talking about legislative updates, NACO and ISAC memberships, things like that. We went in then into AI for the public servant. Then we finished with data center development panel. Mr. Elliott had mentioned that there was four people on that panel. I was talking about some things that we need to consider. as you're writing your ordinances and just making sure that you know, if a city's bringing in, if, like, for example, the City of Spare Lake was going to bring in a data center, how that's going to affect our county roads, as an example, with construction and things like that. So we just needed to kind of broaden our horizons with that. And then Friday morning, we had three different people on a panel leading through disaster with FEMA, Veteran Affairs, and USDA Rural Development. And so that was the

a quick breakdown of our isaac convention for three days last week um and then i plan to attend the courthouse wellness lunch tomorrow and then uh stop by the packaging picnic tomorrow night okay excellent you had a good week yep uh for my part i attended the spirit lake protective association annual meeting heard an update on what we're doing north of the border As you know, the drainage area for Great Lakes area goes up into Minnesota. And so two of our members, Joel Ullman and John Smeltzer, are keeping tabs on that. And they've got a project out there that came in third for the state to fund. But now whether that will mean anything when they get to the final, I don't know. But they've got a farm up there that people want to donate. Also, you and I met with Mr. Klingbeil to discuss the drainage at the Okoboji Harbor. And basically, once they get the boards out, We're going to see what happens, how good that works. They've also spun and cast that tile that goes through there. I was to go to the right, but apparently a lot of people wanted to go to the ISAC convention. And so we're going to be holding that this Thursday. And as you know, a lot of schools started yesterday. And I thought I should give you one person's feeling about school starting. Mr. Green is the teacher.

He's the best. It's so fun and I love it. And my school has been like really fun. I liked it really much. And I love my friends. I love you both.

So that obviously that was my granddaughter. She went into third grade and I'm hoping every student. We know Mr. Green's the best. I'm hoping every student in Dickinson County had that kind of experience and continues to have it all year. Is there anything from our If not, I would take a motion to adjourn. I'll make that motion. Mr. Dullard-Moorer? Second. Mr. Clark seconds. Further discussion?

Don't forget, we're back to every week.

Oh, thank you, you little blue bird of happiness. If there is no discussion, Mr. Dullard? Aye. Mr. Clark? Aye. Levi? Aye. Kim? Aye. Kim Billis? Aye. We are officially adjourned.