Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

only a statue. Well, welcome everybody. I want to thank the people from the city for coming and joining us this morning. Gives us an opportunity to discuss things that uh maybe we can do together to make our community and our county better. So, we're starting off with the Highway 29 South reconstruction from 8th to 50th Avenue. And who was going to talk about that? Was Marty, were you going to give us just give us an update? I think we all pretty much know what it is, but yeah. I can hear you.

I think she's got a phone right there. I don't think it's working. Yeah, it is. Hello. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is. It is.

Thank Thank you, Commissioner Rap. Uh, good morning, council and commissioners. I'll just talk briefly and then uh if you have any detailed questions I can refer to you to our public works director Brian Navaro who knows a lot more than I do. But uh uh I I think some of you may be aware that we had a uh municipal consent hearing at our last council meeting um on April 13th. That's a required process uh that MDOT has for certain types of road construction projects. Um so that really was the the first step is to hold that hearing. Um the council took comments from the public and then um uh tabled any action on that uh until a future date. Um the way the timelines work with the state process uh as we talked about previously at the council meeting is the city uh in order to meet the timelines will need to take some sort of action either affirmative or um asking uh Mindot to make some adjustments uh by June 22nd. Um and then uh then there's a there's a process that we laid out in our council packet in the in the memo as to kind of how that how that works going forward. Um the uh the state and city staff have been working toward holding individual meetings with property owners along that corridor. Uh I think we're uh have just about hit all the property owners, but there are still some uh that are uh in the process of meeting with. Um that's kind of where things stand process-wise. Construction uh is still planned as it has been uh for the last several years since Mandot started talking about this project uh as a 2028 construction project. Uh and again it in generally speaking it's a full reconstruction from 8th to 18th and then

an overlay from 18th to 50th. If there are any other questions on the project, I'll I'll defer on the details to to Brian. Thank you. Marty, I got a question. I was at the city council meeting and you guys had tabled it. What is your next steps in the meantime? And what do you mean by tableabling and what you're going to do moving forward? Thank you, Commissioner Schmidt. So the our plan is to go through a detailed review um with the state and the council together at a future work session. I think we were talking about was it May 11th? Yeah.

Okay. Uh so we'll we'll kind of go through I mean we've seen um highle overviews and talked about it a few times over the last couple of years but the council would like to really delve into the details um uh at a kind of a roll the map over the table and look through it just to make sure I think and I won't speak for the council members but really want to understand the impacts as much as possible the changes the adjustments what that might mean ask mindoc questions So when we do make a when the council makes a decision as a as a city, they I think feel as well informed as they can. I hope you guys can all chime in as well. Thank you, Shane.

Anybody else got any questions on it? So, I just wanted to bring this up and and I know some of the businesses that would be affected if this gets done and uh if that new median causes any hardship on businesses. I mean, um what kind of considerations is the city going to be able to do to not impact them? I I mean like are are they thinking about taking out the driveways that say go to the coffee pot? Are those going to be eliminated? They'll still remain to

I don't think that's in the design. They leave both of them but there will be a change. The main thing uh is the direction of traffic being uh flown in and out. So, the biggest concern for the coffee pot and um Mike's in and out, as an example, is if you're heading from the so south going north, there's a median in the way and you can't turn left into that driveway. Yep. That's a problem for them.

Yep. Um, so there's a few of those pressure points or concerning points that I think the city council maybe is hoping that we can have a conversation with Mindot about and try to address those points to try to get some kind of compromise. Uh, ultimately I'm not sure how much leverage we have, but try to use what we can. Well, if they had to come in on Filillmore. Okay. So, if they would have to backtrack around Filillmore, then if they were say, you know, the uh the pizza ranch, I I don't think the pizza ranch wants that traffic coming through their driveway to get to there. So, I mean, would that be an option that that that could be done or would that not be possible?

I think it remains to be seen. You know, I think a lot of these points that and because I've had business people reach out to me, I'm sure others have too. A lot of these things seems these things seem just kind of common sense and logical, but I don't know that we've really had enough time to kind of get in depth with the logic that been, you know, their main thing is safety. I I hear you there. And there used to be a alley that was in the back of what was the old coffee pot. It's now a like a car rental. I mean, is there any anything that would leave that reopen that alley to access the coffee pot? I don't believe that's been brought up. if Brian wants to talk about that.

Yeah, if I may here, please. Um, Brian Yvaro, public works director Steve Alexandria. Thanks for having us. Uh, in regards to the coffee pot, I think there's two things other than the access controls. We did meet with them. We might make some modifications, but I think the other concern was access during construction is how I understood it. And that's something we're going to work with MINDOT of course to provide access to the maximum extent practical either through Filmore or what have you. But that that was I think the other concern I heard from that business owner. Okay. I I did see that house directly in back of the coffee pot has been taken down and Pizza Ranch bought that.

That's my understanding. I don't know that any of us really know unless someone speaks up what the plan is there. My my assumption is park a parking lot. But have you heard that? No. No. All right. Thank you. And whether or not he would allow access to the cop exactly to be seen, but hopefully they'd figure something neat really out there. And Jerry, we've talked to him on an overall plan on the intersection, but we've not had a chance to sit down with individual and that was our intent coming up here so we can look at each individual one and address kind of each individual block or pressure point. So, right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I comment on this.

I don't know how much time you guys spend in St. cloud. But every time I go to St. Cloud, they got the medians there. The people come out, they go down, make a left turn, a Uturn, and come back down the other street. And I think if that happens on Main Street, we're going to have a lot of issues and a lot of accidents of people who come down because they can't get there. They make a U-turn right on Main Street. And that's one thing I think they should take into consideration because you aren't going to stop the people from doing that. All right. Any other questions on the project? I'm I'm know I was at city council. The city's going to look into it and see if they can come up with some answers. So, we'll leave it in your hands. Thank you.

Thank you. Tim Ericson, you want to come up and talk about the roundabout at County Road 46 and Pioneer Road, please? And the mic is over there. Thank you. Look at that. We get along.

Um, so our roundabout project over at Pioneer and uh County Road 46. We're at about 90% plans right now. So we've got the layout is all set up. Um, we've gone through drainage. We think we've got drainage where it's going to work. We were we're at the point where um our our original contract with our consultant is to have final plans in June. We're on pace to have that. Um our next step with that, we'll take our plans. We're going to reach out and do some utility coordinating. Um talk with ALP, ALAD, um talk with whoever else is out there because if there needs to be some uh utilities that are moved, we're going to try to do it all at the same time. So much like what we did with uh County Road 46 last summer where ALP ALS had some quantities in our plan, it's all that under one contract, we work those out. So we'll we'll actually uh have just under a year to coordinate all of that with them because our intention is construction in 2027 and we'll be ready for it.

Yeah. While you're right away, uh I believe we do. We're we're looking at a couple of ideas that may or may not require a little bit more. Um but we can fit everything inside the existing right away. Tim, I got a question too. Are you going to be doing um some of the sidewalk at that time too or Yes. Are you going to go all the way from ALP down there or what's your plans when that I know you're working on it.

Yep. Yep. So, so for for the city's benefit, um we also have an active transportation grant that uh we acquired to make a 10-ft shared foot a shared uh use walking path from the tracks all the way over to the existing roundabout all the way north on McKay to where the pedestrian tunnel is at Woodland. Um that is scheduled for 2028. The thought is if we're going to be in this corridor anyway next summer, if we can construct some of that a year early and just get the reimbursement the following year, we're going to try to. So, we're going to get those uh those plans put together as well in with our roundabout depending on where the the funding comes in, what the costs come in at. We can always take those out and do it under the 2028 project. um or we can put them into this one as well and then essentially float the contract for lack of a better term and get the reimbursement in 28.

Any questions for Tim? Is that path going to be on the east side then going all the way to Woodland? My int we're we're looking at that right now. My intention is yes to put it on the east side from the existing roundabout to the the tunnel from the existing roundabout to the tunnel. We would put it on the my my intention is on the east side. We're looking at how we can do that because we do have room on the left side as well. We could put it on either. But so then at ALP that's on the north side. So how are you going to cross over when you get over there? The roundabout. What if they get stuck in there? The ped ramps in the roundabout.

Sorry. Anybody else got any questions for Tim on that? All right. Thank you, Tim. We'll move on. Um, farmers market and Big Oie Park drainage. I don't know who wants to speak on it. Jeff, I can speak on that.

Okay. Thank you. Um, you know, we my wife is uh the vendor at the Alexandria Farmers Market uh which is coming up uh pretty soon and um Bill Franzine was uh one of the customers. But we've been working together on what can we do to improve on uh the market area because every time when it rains it's like a mud and uh so what can we do to make it better and uh are we making any progress on that? Mr. Bill,

thank you. Jeff Brian, I'm going to divert this to you and he'll have all the details. Yes. Uh good morning again. Um yes, uh Bill Tennis, street department supervisor and myself met with a representative from the farmers market uh a few weeks ago. Uh there has been some ideas about doing some paving improvements there. In the past, uh, there was like a considerable area they wanted to pave, but as we went through the conversation a little bit more with this individual, um, we're looking to do maybe a 9 to 10 foot path. Um, and we're going to meet with this individual again, but basically offset from the Central Lakes Trail, um, some odd distance and building a constructing a ramp there too as well, uh, where it meets the parking lot exit.

Um, working on, like I said, the estimates and everything. either we might do it in-house or have to hire somebody up. Depends on the pricing for the asphalt paving and everything, but that's kind of where we're at with that right now. Okay. So, we're looking schedule-wise maybe something early summer here. Okay. So, all right. Thank you. And I just if I could uh as we know the drainage is not very good there as well. So this path is not may help with a little bit of drainage, but it's still going to be unless that entire area with some storm sewer is installed. It'll be this paving this path will be an improvement, but it's not going to correct all the drainage there as we're aware.

And Brian, my understanding is that they're going to change uh the curbing so that be more handicap accessible in that area. That is correct. And Jeff, I think there's also going to be some financial contribution from the farmers market. participate in this project. Yep. Thank you. It's tough to run the ADA and get the water out of there. Storm sewer that changing the curve, but plus you get half the water from the other half of the town. That's where it all goes on a good rain. All right, Mr. Chair, just you know, there was talk about it uh going to uh

uh the old Kmart uh shopping center.

What wasn't there talk about that? if if there wasn't an alternative uh to avoid the mud. But the farmers market has been there in that location for over 20 years, I guess. You know, and uh I guess, you know, it's just uh looking at the customer base, you know, on a Saturday, a lot of people know this is where to go. And uh so um we like to stay there and uh what can we do to make some improvements on the ground and um so there you have it.

Okay. Thanks. All right. Any more questions on that? All right. We're going to move on to public storm shelter locations and Julie, our emergency manager, was going to discuss that this morning.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. and members of the city council and commissioners. So, this is something that I know we've all wanted for a long time and I'm excited that uh we are almost there. So, I just created a very quick draft of some messaging that we might hand out to those that we're trying to target for this sheltering. And and certainly many people in this room have worked on this. we've met at the RCC and uh with all of you for using our lower level entrance to the library uh for this. So the bottom line would be that the doors uh the the exterior doors that ultimately take you to the library would be open during a tornado warning. We have a Knox box, Jeff, that did arrive. So, we just need to coordinate uh getting the keys for that and and then we'd have electronic ability as well. And then the goal for that would be mainly residents living above businesses in or near downtown or residents and visitors nearby who have no other shelter. the Prime West Health Runstone Community Center. Uh again, we've talked with Vinnie and and Marty and others um working on getting keys right for opening that up only when the National Weather Service has declared a tornado warning. And like we talked about, it's open so much anyway. Uh and there's a lot of room in there. But the goal would really be for residents of nearby mobile home parks, RV parks, campgrounds, and resorts without adequate shelter. And then uh I did talk to Vinnie about having it for passengers on Rainbow Rider because Brenda has asked where could we pull over if there was a sudden severe storm or uh when it's open anyway. And so again, this is just a

draft, but it would be uh something that I'd like to hand out once we finalize it to these impacted folks, not um you know, we really hope that that the general public would be welcome, but that they pick a preparedness pal and if they don't have a basement, make some kind of plan. Um but we have quite a bit of room but probably not enough for the entire city that doesn't have shelter. So open for discussion on that.

Mr. Chair, I guess when the uh armory got sold uh in that was taken out of the equation as a public building. Is that did it cause any problems? I did speak um so that yeah um I did speak to the new owners and uh reception sounded encouraging but uh we don't have any sort of final agreement yet. So if we do get that then we'll I'll add it to this. So thank you. And it' be a good spot to try and hold on to. You can always get a Knox box there too. Right. And they had talked about the back access. So, yep. We're in active conversation. Julie,

yes. My understanding too is that the uh RCC is also deemed as a morg in relation to it. That's in the plan. Yes. If we have a mass casualty. Yep. And then the other thing I think of importance too is that we're working towards getting a generator for that facility in but it could be a triage center for a larger event and I think you been speaking with Vinnie Marty on that as well.

Yes. So, uh, it's it's a facility that I think could provide a number of opportunities. And so, and Jeff and I as well, um, and Chief Kent, right, would love to make more use of that should we ever need it. And that would be a county and city project, I would hope. I agree. Julie, what happens? Uh, so to get access in in an event, does have to physically go there to open the doors.

So, here uh we do have some folks that can electronically open them. Uh there's a couple of folks that have that ability for our doors, but then Jeff um with the Knox, the firefighters would come uh and open it. I have a card key. So, again, it would be uh who gets here first uh to open that up. And then with the RCC, Marty and Jeff chime in or or Scott. Um, you know, it's open a lot, but if it's two in the morning,

we also have the ability to open it electronically access keys as well. So we'll try to have kind of multiple redundancies in place to get that soon.

And not too often do we have a tornado warning that just pops up. It can happen, but often we're in an heightened alert. We are in a tornado watch. And so it will be rare if something just so suddenly occurs that we're we're scrambling. I mean, we should be able to do this in most instances with a little bit of a plan. So, is there a baseline risk level that triggers opening? So, right now we have it as when the National Weather Service declares a tornado warning

just so there's no confusion. Would I love to see that especially during the day in the if we have a high wind event probability, I think common sense will come into play. But for those folks, it's really when that tornado warning has been been issued. And hopefully I can help educate the RV campground uh owners uh and resort owners and and just get it in their head that that please tell your folks during the tornado watch or the common sense of an elevation by the National Weather Service, be ready to go. Um thankfully they were that Memorial Day. Most of the folks left early because they saw the elevated risk. So people are pretty aware, but the actual trigger will be that warning.

Hey Jeff, is there a Knox box at the RCC so you can get in there if you need it? Multiple ones. Okay, any other questions? All right, thanks Julie. You bet. We're going to move on to fire district EMS. Is that you, Bill? And Jeff, we're going to discuss that today. Well, I've been the one that's brought it right

brought it up and I guess uh Jeff has provided a lot of material which I think is very important in this and uh he's going to share that and you know my my personal over overall concern is is that we be proactive rather than reactive. We're on a volunteer basis with all these departments and as you well know it's easier to money than volunteers. So, um these people do a wonderful job. They need our support and uh I think Jeff can elaborate on what he's provided here.

Okay. Thank you, chair. Uh at the last meeting, you Man, this is loud. you did task me with getting some information on a creation of the fire district uh combining departments. Attached on your table is a two-page memo of pros and cons. Uh and then there's a hos alert. It's a new system we have on our fire trucks. Uh we have it on the first due 22, 28, 30, and 27. Uh it's just in its infancy. So we only have been getting a good run the last 3 months. Uh right now it shows our year-to- date time to scene is 4 1/2 minutes and uh average time is 5.6 this last month. Um what I what I did there is I can tell you this there's 30 fire districts in the state. uh Clo Breezy Point Peekquat Lakes. Uh I santi you know chair you had told me to contact them. I have a lot of emails. I have a lot of documents. I chose not to print them out for you all. Um so you have the pros and cons. I will tell you in January the Douglas County Chief's Association met for 2 hours and discussed this concept or this thought and idea. Uh there's 11 departments in the county. Uh at that point, I I can tell you there right now there is no county fire department that is in favor of a creation of a fire district. Uh some of the things that we ended up discussing are some possible pitfalls. Uh upfront costs. Uh when I spoke to Cloet, they didn't realize that it would cost $3 million to rebrand every And I know the chair and I talked the other day. Um, it could be done over time, but

it was a $3 billion cost to rebrand vinyl on every truck, all the signs on the stations, all the t-shirts, all your your your gear and so forth. Um, let's see. Uh, also when you look at the equipment, all these fire districts, and and this is where you take a $1.2 $2 million aerial and you literally just give it to this new district. You don't get paid for the equipment. All the participating departments, they donate every single piece of equipment to this new fire district. Um the fire stations are on a leased basis. Um granted, it's like a buck or something like that. It's very low lease or rent. But one of the other big things is since the city would no longer be providing a fire service and the county would not be providing a fire service, this fire board is through elected people that that are put on these fire boards. So, you really do lose your control. Um, some of the other things that I wasn't aware of or I didn't think of, you end up since it's a a new fire district in in charge of the fire service, uh, you actually create a small city HR, legal, tax collector, I guess, or something like that. Uh, fleet management who takes care of all this equipment and stuff. uh you end up because it's not a city personnel doing it and it's not county personnel doing it. It becomes its own little city to to do that through these 30. Now there is there is benefits to a district but what through my lens I guess what I would say is it's more for the first responders the medical calls and and it's 3 to one on all these

districts that are running medical calls which is which almost is dead mate to Douglas County. Uh for instance Carlos had 25 fire calls 75 medical calls. uh Freigha had three fire calls and they had over 60 medical calls. So I think you know it's more of more on the medical side uh that they're looking the good thing right now is uh in the House legislation there's bill 47 House bill 4723 which would allow or put first responders EMRs EMTs into the fire relief association. So they're looking at that. Uh and um also there's another bill in the house right now 4724 that will will allow the relief association the vesting you know how we have it at 20 years your 10 years or 60%. This would the bill would allow fire departments and reliefs to go to fully vested at 10 years. So those two bills are right now in in the house. Um, let me see what else. One of the big things that, and I don't know the answer, and I know one of the things the Douglas County Chiefs talked about, the relief pension is a big deal to these volunteers. Uh, they they all we all have the question and and do you does this district just pay everybody out at their current rate? You know, Alexander is at 10,000. Freight is at 1,800. you know, Garfield or Carish at 3,000. Um, where does that pension? Do you do you pay them out and say, "Okay, you start at zero again." Uh, cuz you might have a Wilmer situation like there was at one time. Um, that I don't know. Most of these go into a PAR, then they get converted to PAR, these reliefs. Um, and

most of these fire districts end up putting on more full-time people than volunteers. Um, now not a whole lot, but seven to 20 full-time firefighters are put on. Um, I I do know it it also depends. The service isn't really changing a whole lot. Uh, but it may increase the you know, everybody's having this tax for this fire district. Um, Peekquat Lakes wanted to do the same thing up by Breezy Point up there. It ended up costing all the citizens of Pekquat Lakes way more than starting their own fire department.

No. No. So, um type trying to get you guys information. So, I know a little bit about the relief association. Yes. And I was wondering how did they the proposals and I hadn't heard about that. So, I was wondering how they were funding that they're talking about changing it to a full vestment at 10 or instead of 20 and so on. Are they going to change the one and a half% fire protection?

I'm not sure what they're doing. I think it the 10-year vesting that's in the bill right now, that's been a year or so, I think. Um I think what was it? It would affect 440 relief associations. You can choose and and at

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Um I I know we had a meeting with the relief officers and trustees. We are still going to stay at the 10 and 20 for vesting. We're at this point, we're not moving to the 10. It allows your fire department to do that, but also that creates liabilities for that relief association because now you have like, oh gosh, in 20 years you have 10 years. Uh, it it it could be kind of a sticky wicket because you could have older guys saying, well, I was here 16 years, I'm going now, but I want the the full vestment and stuff like that. Doesn't that also hurt your volunteers are going to leave earlier?

You you may have some of that. We have seen like and and I'll just take Alec fire. So during your guys's tenure, the average year of service I did the numbers was 13 almost 14 years of service cuz you know you got the onesie twzies and then you got the like you guys the 25 26 years. Um going now as of a year ago that has dropped to nine and basically about 10 years. Yeah. So you see that coming but it you that's going to be uh the way it is. So uh currently we have a full department and we have six on a waiting list. So So um

I see your advertising again. We that's our strategic because we're doing it every year now in April. So we're just going to keep putting people. So we're not like oh let's wait two three years and try. We are trying to keep our manpower. Sometimes you see it, you think you're short, but that makes sense. Yeah. No, it's a it's a strategic advertising recruiting.

Jeff, do they understand that a lot of them don't? They're not losing their fire department. The district just strengthens. I mean, we end up with paid people that can make runs. Uh I'm talking about the Evansvilles or the BR. I mean, like you said, the there's nobody in favor of the district right now, our area. Not at this time. The other but the medical like you said at the first responders is the most important part of their world. Yeah. It's not even the fires but and which is the most important but it's the same. And if we could get them on an equal playing field with the reliefs and get them into the relief, I think there's a good way to

fix that. And the other thing we have is mutual aid contracts. Yes. We're all set up between each fire department. So if they need help, they can call in Alec or whomever they need at that moment.

We usually we got called in the last I don't know twice already to FA. Um you're right. The one thing I think that the county departments are ahead of all the fire departments are combining their first responders and already doing some type of relief ahead of this. Uh there's one department that isn't yet. There's still two separate identities. Um, but they're making strides to that. So, my knee-jerk thing would if you are looking at a district, I would look more on a first responder medical district versus fire because it's still going to be the same response and coverage. If that makes sense. Mr. Chair, could I just make a comment?

Yeah.

Um, kind of echoing what Jeff said, we this this legislation um with the vesting is interesting to follow. I just got a notification on it yesterday. Um it is uh you know we talk about the liability for the fire relief associations if you go to 10. Well that trickle downs to cities because you as you guys know there's a required uh contribution that cities have to make if relief associations financial levels that are at a certain place. So if that becomes a mandate or something like that, uh there will be concerns about not only the solveny of relief associations having to go to 10, but also what cities would have to chip in in order to get there. Um and then the other thing I would just add is, you know, Jeff has done a great job of kind of talking to the fire departments. We've chatted about it. Um I reached out to some cities our size to kind of get their perspectives on this as well. you know, the Bumijis, the Brainers, the Fergus Falls, um the usual cities we look at, and one observation that I would have about the fire districts, and Jeeoff kind of touched on this, is the ones that exist, sometimes there's a there's a key driver that got them started. Maybe it was a medical response issue. Um maybe there's an issue where there's a feeling where there's inequity between two cities that are sharing or one's paying for more or townships. So I as we go forward I think it's really important to be vigilant and have these conversations

because as council member Franzine noted I mean things can change quickly um and you know we look at as we talk about our model and uh all volunteer department you know if you if we end up needing to go to a different kind of model um you know Biji has I think seven or eight or nine full-time staff you're talking about quadrupling the budget for the fire department as it stands and I mean that's A that's a big number to look at in the future. We're not we're not there, but those are we need to be aware of those options, how to best serve the county um and to kind of stay on top of this and and monitor it, look at what the trends are. Um I think the cities that I talked to said there are benefits as well and Jeff laid these out as well that can be had with a fire district. You know, certainly if you have a taxing district that kind of spreads the financial impact, but as Jeff said, the administrative things that have to happen in the background, we're confident we can still fight the fires and provide the protection. I think places that have gone to a district, but it's how do you deal with HR issues when they come up, who's handling those kind of administrative things in the background, and those are just things you have to figure out and be cognizant of as you as you move forward. So, thank you. the pension relief part of that. They're still using that. It's time to rewrite some of that. They're still they some of them have on that, you know, in Minnesota other than that formula has been around since about 78, you know. So, damn near 50 years now. The way, you know, um take a little bit of Gus Welch, a little bit of the old formula, and I think we can

come up with a better way to do it. and and you still do it instead of run money, but in in similar situations, people making 300 400 a year shouldn't be on the same basis with somebody making 20s. Mr. Chair, go ahead. Bill,

I just you mentioned trigger. What? Somebody mentioned the trigger. Trigger really is what's happened out in the carless. you know, they have a need. They put it forth. They got their figures back. There was going to be an assessment made to that those people out there. It was huge. This isn't the only one that's I mean, there's going to be more to it. Um, the protection is very necessary. The equipment is very necessary and I'm sure they're required to have and maintain certain levels of equipment in each of these places. And in looking at that is, you know, ALEC has got good equipment and ALEC either sells our equipment to a department within our area or it goes outside of our area. And the reciprocal part of it is that it can go to Leaf Valley or some of these places without enduring that cost. The HR component to it, I question who's there HR person in Leaf Valley? Who's there Leaf? who who's it in in VA? I don't know. Are they coming to the county for that? You know, those services. So, I guess the big thing that I see right now is is that this conversation is excellent and going forward and uncovering some of these things. I mean, we can all find, you know, when we talk to other departments in other areas, yeah, this isn't the way we thought it was. This isn't good. But we're learning. We're understanding. And that's the purpose behind it. And I I want because this obviously will go out to the medias and by no means I want to say this isn't being pressured. This is more about a conversation. I understand it's a brotherhood. It's very territorial and they want to keep their their grounds. But knowledge is key in this. And Jeff, again, thank you for

preparing this. And I think Marty is you said let's keep going down this path because whether it's us involved but it might be the next group of people coming forward at least we have some conversation excuse me that's happened. So thank you.

My comment to you Bill is I just wanted to say is that where part of the issue is going to come in is these are all cityowned fire departments. So, if you're going to get involved, other than Leaf Alley, which is a going to be more of a township, or they're going to have their own identity. So, that if that's ever going to happen, you're going to have to get the cities involved. And a lot of them have their own HR, their own people that are administrating and overseeing their fire departments. I think the conversation's still great. I'm not going to take that away from him. I think it's still good always to have it. It's just something we talk about. Maybe it don't happen next year. Maybe it happens 20 years from now, but at least we got our feet forward. we're getting our feet wet. We can start looking into it. It It can be a win-win. But the one thing about the Douglas County Fire Departments, they got their stuff together. They they do a good job. They all know what they're doing. I mean, I served for 20ome years as well and talked to them, sat on the chiefs. Um they all kind of want their own identity and doing their own thing. But I still think it's a great conversation piece. And Jeeoff, I got one more question. So if they decide you can go 10 years to be fully vested, you can decline not to do that.

At this point, the relief associations can opt. Really? Yes. So why are to me that don't make even sense why they're even dealing with it down there. Then why don't they just let you guys decide if you want to go one way or the other? I I I'm not. I mean, do you want Paul control your life? Okay. Shane, I can if you want me, I can dive deep. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. We don't want to be here all day. Sorry, Jen. Mr. Chair. Yeah. So, Mr. Carol, just one more question on Carlos. Is there been any talk at all between LA and Carlos as far as making some kind of emerge uh for uh uh for fire responding? No.

No. Okay. Thanks. All right. We're good. Cannabis update. So, Marty, what we're looking for there, I would assume it's you or Mike is just we just want to know where we're at. How many have you given out what you're doing? I'm going to defer to our in-house cannabis expert, Mike Weber. I kind of figured that's where you're going. Why is he an expert? I don't know. That got my attention. Yeah. So, we're going to refer this to Brian Yo for

We appreciate Brian's uh involvement in almost everything. Uh so the uh presently we have two cannabis retailers that are open in the city of Alexandria. Uh we have uh another three that have that are seeking registration. Uh they've they gotten pre-approval for their license from the state office of cannabis management. Uh they have to go through the registration process with the city and then get their actual license, their actual license approval after their buildings are uh have been modified, their security systems are in place. Uh th those kinds of things. uh we've issued uh a handful of conditional use permits for cultivation or for packaging and manufacturing in the city. Those are not retail locations. Those are more on the industrial we'll call it the industrial side of of the cannabis world. So it did if if you have a specific question I'm happy to try and answer it, but those are kind of at the high level. We've got two that are in operation, another two or three that are in the in the hopper, so to speak. Uh I will say that th those two or three have not progressed much beyond submitting the actual application for registration with the city. Are

they waiting on construction? Is that what you're saying or

Yeah. So we have three people who have to sign off on each of these cannabis registrations. One's the fire chief, one is the building official, and one is me. Uh we have a zoning piece, we have a fire piece, and a and a building code piece. Uh the three that are still in the process have have yet to submit any building plans. So we haven't even had a plan to review much less inspections to do. Uh those building plans will incorporate this the state required and the city required closed circuit uh television system which every every one of the retailers has to have designed and uh installed to to the OCM specifications. That's the zoning piece that I sign off on. So and Mike Schmidt as the building official can't sign off until the work is uh is permitted, inspected, and uh final inspected. Get our four and we're good.

Anybody any questions? Yeah. Appreciate it. You're welcome. Are the three that are in the court or are they adult? Yes. Yep. Retail sales. Retail sales. Three. Three adult use cannabis retail sales.

Just for the benefit of of the group. Um so slightly different. The county will not register a sales business until they have a perfected license from the state. So, we've got a little right now. I don't think there's any sort of race going on, but um you know, if the city is a registration and they don't have a perfected license and someone forward has a perfected license and registers, great. They can get a registration from the county. If the city, you know, those other two of those other get registered and have a perfected license from the state, then that's it. There's only four registrations to see and then we're done providing registrations in the county.

Any other questions? Thank you. Next on the agenda, we were going to talk about dog lease issues in the county and city parks. That's one of the things I had put on there because I got a phone call from somebody out at Brophie Park and um he just about wiped out on his bike and if something happened he was he was pretty adamant about all the dogs that are run around on the trail on the county parks wherever it may be and including the city down by Big Oie on all those trails that there is a lot of people that are out there and their dogs are not leashed and if they are leashed they let them go out on a 20ft leash and they can't control them and bikes have ran into them. So we've been talking with Dave about getting a a compliance officer and part of that is thing was about having somebody around to start watching it. my conversation with the Bill and him and I were talking one day about this and maybe there's something we can work together with the city and county to start implementing something on dogs that are not on a leash. So, David, if you can give us an update where we're at with that with the compliance officer. Yeah, at this point, uh, we've got two job descriptions that our, uh, HR person, Lee Casmmer, has put together, one of them, and I have one, and we just have to reconcile those. Um, and then in terms of those responsibilities, we've got to get with Brad Bon because there's some park responsibilities there. Um, and I think there could be some alignment on that. We'd have to have a discussion with the city about how that would work. Um, obviously the staff person that we're hiring is not a law enforcement person. Um, so I think it

would be uh I think we would call them a compliance enforcement person. But certainly they could do some uh oversight of these parks and uh if we are you know just informing people that's one thing. If we're looking to hand out citations, then that might take it to a different level that we'll have to have some conversations with Scott if that's something we're doing with the city or uh obviously the uh county attorney or sheriff's office. So, um that those are possibilities. It it just helps having that staff person be able to be out there and spend that time to do that.

Um it it is a difficult issue though. Um you have to see the dog, you have to find out who it belongs to. Um, it's a little different if the person is in the park walking their I say walking, letting their dog loose, but is present. Then we could probably get that figured out pretty quickly. But well, as long as Brad's here, Brad, you can tell us what the rules are in our parks, please.

Yeah. So, they're supposed to be uh on leash dogs. We don't have a dog park in the county. And um to be a dog park, it have to an off leash dog park. have to be fully fenced um to legally call it a dog park. Um so unless you're going to chain link fence a big area, it's on leash. Um we've been fighting the 11 years I've been here. Nothing. We've used a bullhorn at Brophie cuz you can see a long ways. So we will watch people get out of the car with their dog on a leash, walk up in the hills and undo the leash on the dog and let the dog run. and we've bullhorned people like to shame them to put the dog back on the leash like we see you put your dog back on the leash. Um it those same people will come back in next week and do it again. And unless you have somebody there at all at some point we just have to go do our jobs and it's I don't know what to do. I mean outside of having I know the sheriff's department has a lot better things to do than write tickets for people who have their dogs off leash, but that might be what it takes to change people's opinion on it. Well, my response back to David is is then we got to put teeth in it.

So whether you get a citation and they get fined, we got to we got to do something because it's gotten bad. And especially with the bikers out there, they're doing those mountain bikes and they're they got dogs running on the trails while they're trying to mountain bike. Yeah, Broofphy and Kensington. Kensington's almost worse cuz there's trees and you can't see what's coming around the corner and people do the same thing there. But Brophy is there's just a lot more people there, so a lot more incidents. The one nice thing is you you have vision there, but you can see it. It's like slow motion coming to a crash. Brad or Brad Bill.

So Shane, are you We're talking about dogs now on leash, but is this compliance person also as we learned last week, we have no no compliance in our VRBOS. We have no really compliance in our land permits uh going out. There's nobody following up. Just make sure that know you got a permit for 50 ft of whatever. So, are you thinking more of a broader

correct? That's what he'll do. That's what he's putting the job description together for. It'll be on VBOS's, um land permit issues, some other things that we've been talking about. He hasn't got it all quite together. I haven't seen it yet. No, it it it'll cover a variety of of zoning compliance issues. We have been having conversations with Horizon Public Health, who does the VBO registrations, trying to get a better handle on what their responsibilities would be and what the zoning department's responsibilities would be. Um, and then there's a myriad of other issues that take a tremendous amount of time to get compliance. And we could have this staff person do it rather than some of our other staff people that are working on things like septic systems and feed lots and new construction and so on.

And the same thing what Dave was saying is we got if we're going to put something together and put teeth in it, then we got to start making ordinances that allow us to do that. Is that what you were saying? Well, the the ordinances exist. I think there's a few things that need to be changed in terms of the ability to um to enact enforcement. Okay.

Uh when you're in violation of our ordinance, it's a misdemeanor. I don't know that that serves us well to start taking everybody to court because the court system is slow and expensive on our part. Um I think we need to do a little more uh investigating in terms of abatement. I know the city can do abatements. There is a process involved there but you you can probably move a little faster with abatement than you can through

uh standard court system. In the end really um compliance ultimately is about trying to uh convince people that they need to follow the rules. many people a simple letter and and as Brad pointed out a little bit of shaming and they follow the rules and they step in line. There's other people where you're going to spend a lot of time trying to get them to comply and those are the ones that that really just take all of our time. So,

well, my thing is too is I want to get going on this dog thing because I've got people who called and said they won't even go on the trail anymore. It's gotten that bad out there. It's it's a freeforall for dogs to do whatever they want to do out there. then let the dog owners I should say. So I'd like to get that speeded up.

Chairman, um just one other note just quantify the problem that's out there. Um Commissioner Rap and I attended a summit last Friday out at Arowwood uh that Mikey Sportsman and and MinFish put on and they had representation from the DNR. But um even they said when it comes to aquatic vegetation, they're handing out permits and nobody's following up with it and it's it's significant. So it's not just in our county, it's it's throughout the state and and they're having the same problem. So

I think we're heading in the right direction. We're try and move with it. Okay. Anything else on that subject? Tim, you got the floor again. Talk about McKay and 46 roadwork update. And as long as you're doing that, let's talk about the bridge replacement on Highway 29 as well. All right, I'm going to come up front because I like uh Thank you.

I like talking face to face with you guys. So, I think last time I talked with the city council about a month and a half ago, I was there, we talked about a shared use path that's going in on McKay from the Central Lakes Trail all the way north um going up just shy of uh State Highway 29. Um you'll see in the board packet later this morning, we're going to get um authorization to advertise for bids for that project. Um would be opening bids midmay. Um, and depending on how that all goes, construction would be scheduled probably July, August. There will be a completion date on that. It's late August. I I'm I want to say the 28th, so I will say the 28th. Um, I'm not positive on that, but I believe it's the 28th. We want it done before.

Okay. Shane wrote it in pen, so it's going to be the 28th. Um, our our intention is for that to be done before school starts. We we want to be done with that whole project. Um when they come through and do that, the southbound lane will actually be all blocked off as a construction zone. So southbound is going to be detourred into the center turn lane. Um there will be breaks in all of our uh our cones, our traffic control, all that so that we can still get people where they need to go. It it's going to be tight, but it's uh we're talking two months, and when all is said and done, we're have a pretty good um end result. Um anything else on that project that want to get any questions on that?

Touch on. Okay. The the bridge since you had asked about that as well. Um that is the uh currently the box culvert that's between Lake Geneva Lakeoo on trunk highway 29. Um as a quick background, the lake association had talked with uh Representative Mary Franson. she got money coming to the county to replace that. Um really we're making that box cover culvert where right now you you struggle with clearance as you're trying to go from the Geneva side to the Lamadoo side. Um we're going to replace that with a actual bridge. Um our our initial plans because that money needs to be spent. I think I told the county board um I thought we had to have that at least under contract by the end of fiscal year 2027 for the state. Um, I I thought we had to have it under contract by essentially July 1. We actually have to have the funds spent by December 31, 2027. So, we knew it was 27. It needed to be done. We were always aiming for for 2026 for construction just because there's a slew of state approvals that have to happen with this. They're the eventual owner of this bridge. Um, we are behind in our process and I'm going to uh I can throw blame all over the place, but it was going through that state process. So, where we're at right now, there is a chance that we can have final plans uh by the end of May. If we do have those final plans by the end of May and we have all our approvals to go forward, we'll try to build this thing August, September, October of 2026. Um, but May is coming pretty quick, so there's a very good chance that we end up building this in construction year 2027. Um, again, those funds don't need to be spent until the end of the year. So, we we don't risk losing those funds is the

important part. Um, with that project, our official detour, as you're coming southbound on Highway 29, um, we'll get them at Carlos Corners. We're going to take them in on County Road 46, bring them all the way in um where for or excuse me, not 46.

Yeah, you would have caught me. Uh County Road 42 will bring them all the way around where they come back in on Highway 29 is at the Holiday Station. So, we're using the old trunk highway 29 as our detour. Um local traffic will not use that. They're going to find their way around anywhere else. Um, but we're at least uh we're at least planning if we can at least get the trucks out of the local roads and at least following this, it's it's better than nothing. We'll have some take Geneva Road. I would imagine some will take Well, they'll do that once because then they're where Geneva Road is going to hit McKay. They're going to have a fun time trying to get on McKay.

Birch, just like school. Yeah. So, that that's where we're at with that project. Um, we just had a meeting yesterday afternoon. So, we're we're coordinating getting our final approvals when those are already through our mind district. We'll also have to coordinate getting those through the state bridge office. Um, you'll think you'll get somebody to bid on it this late yet. My understanding is that there's not a lot of bridge work out there right now. Okay. Well, that's good. And if and so if that actually is correct, we could have somebody bidding on it yet. Um if if I was betting we're probably building this in 2027 at this point. All right. Anybody got any question? We're

still going to push for Yeah, just a comment, Mr. Chair. I I think too once uh that if that road closes or 29 that at Jim and Judy's uh intersection there, they'll take five over to 34 and come down 34. They may. I I can I just make that happen. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Correct. Thanks. Douglas County Fairgrounds flat. Who's speaking on that? Is that you? It's me again. Go for it.

This is like building the ark. We've been we we've been working on this with the fair board, the county, and the city for a long time. And it came to my understanding is now through the approval, we've got everything worked through the fair board. And that was the longest piece. And all of a sudden, the county raises their hand and says, Hey, wait a minute. So, what what do we w what's our wishes over here from the county?

I guess you got me again. Um, so as we looked through the preliminary plat, and I know for me personally, the first time I saw the preliminary plat is when it ended up in the board packet. Um, and we kind of saw road names, all the other fun stuff. I know the the I express to the county commissioners, are you aware that we've got the road that will be the really the access to our new green space, our new campus, our new whatever our future plans. Um the road named towards that being named after the former city administrator is are they aware of that and are they good with that? Um as as we started talking a little bit, it it was kind of no, we don't know how comfortable we are with that. Um, as I've been thinking, and I think only a few of the commissioners heard me say this because I thought of this this morning. Um, if our issue is the road name, well, the the county is going to build the road and the county is going to maintain the road, which means it's going to have a county road number anyway. Um, if for the platting purposes we keep the name that's on the plat, but for addressing purposes we address it off the county road, does that not solve our issues with what our address ends up being? And I don't know that we need an answer now, but I I think that might be some way to resolve.

Never looked at any of that before. No disrespect. I mean, by any means, but it's I think Web's put them in there. I would imagine 20 years ago. How many years ago? 30.

No, I I mean Yeah, because we've changed that. I mean, we vacated some roads and stuff since then. And all this is why and when that was brought up to me and what did you know? Because remember I was sitting on this thing 13 14 years ago and I had you know then when we got together and got some of this stuff all taken care of so we could sell the land buy the land and do all this stuff we vacated some things that I didn't even think about road names or go ahead oh they want to hear you Mike yeah I'm not tossing this gets me in trouble

uh I think Tim's suggestion is an excellent one. Uh today if if this road is going to function as a county road, you're going to give it a county road number, county stated highway number probably. Uh and if we have signs very similar to what we have on uh counter road uh 82 or road 46 or those also have street names. So counter road 82 is Third Avenue, signed all over the place as Third Avenue and 46 is signed as McKay when it's running north and south and as 34th when it's running east and west. And so if uh the uh this platted street is winds up with an address, pick whatever your number is going to be, number 10, kind of road 10. Um the uh and has a street sign name that's that uh refers to it as Tatty Drive or Tatty Lane. Uh I think that satisfies everybody.

Any more questions? So we're good. We haven't shook on it yet, but we're good here. Shame. I'm just looking at you and Charlie. I didn't know we even had names. That's couldn't remember. You know, I mean, it was so long ago. And again, and that's the beauty of this group meeting twice a year. Maybe it should be three times a year, but these are things that are going on within our district, our county, and the importance of it. So with the LGC committee, the LGCC committee at least we do meet about 10 times to 11 times a year and that yeah we get into a match.

Yep. At least we do see each other a little more often. All right, I'm going to move to close this because we have our regular meeting after this. But I appreciate y'all coming early if we can get done and uh thank you for coming. Thank you for the information. and we're going to take about a 5m minute break and start our county commissioner meeting. Thank you. Thank you.

We planned Tim and I wasn't informed. Well, you were you were talking really good. Oh, yeah. All right. You got the computer on with me? Was that last still? Uh on was that on? All right. I'd like to call the meeting back in session. We did have it going. At this time, I'd like to approve the agenda. Len.

Uh Mr. Chair, there's only one addition onformational item, the 2025 Department of Human Services fiscal reporting performance. We're starting with uh resolution 2641 today. Motion to approve. I'll second. Thanks, Jerry. Thanks, Jeff. Any other comments? Len, please. Rap. Yes. Weey, yes. Meyer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Helina, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. At this time, I need to get the minutes approved. Any additions or corrections to the minutes?

I get a motion, please. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Charlie. Len, please. We Meyer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Kina, yes. Rap. Yes. Motion carries. Mr. Chair, go ahead. Len, are the monitors aren't turned on? Oh, no. It's up there. Thank you. We good? Well, we can read off the paper, I guess, if the monitors aren't going to work.

Right. Well, we'll keep moving. I'm sure she can get working on them. But I received this email from the Department of Human Services, and it was addressed to the chair, Mr. Shane Schmidt, Douglas County Board of Commissioners. and I'd like to read it. Dear Commissioner Schmidt, it is my pleasure to commend you and your staff for perfect performance in meeting the Department of Human Services financial reporting requirements for calendar year 2025. All key quarterly and fiscal reports for programs your county participates in were submitted to our financial operation division on or before the reported deadline in perfect order. This effort required submission of 32 major reports and covering four calendar quarters for 2025 in your count. If your county participates in local submission of this report may require the collection of multiple local partners for consolidation and submission to DHS. I know this accomplishment requires planning and efficient operation and teamwork with your county human service department. The results The result is timely revenue for your county and compliance with federal reporting for us at the state. Please con congratulate your staff and their superb effort. Sincerely, Sheen Sheena Gandhi, Commissioner. So, thank you. Very good job. I would say

you need to give him a round of applause. I agree. I didn't think you were expecting to hear that today, were you, Tabitha? No. And Jill, that was really nice of him. I just got it the other day. So, I talked to Lee and we we need to compliment our staff whenever we can. So, thank you very much. All right. At this time, Vicky Dolan, you auditor, auditor, treasur.

All right. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Members, I've got before you a couple items. First is a gambling permit. This is a resolution allowing the USA Clay Target League to uh perform a raffle at the Alexandria Shooting Park on June 23rd of this year. I will make that motion for resolution 2641 gambling permit to the USA Clay Target League Inc. Raffle auction action. I'll second. Thanks Jerry. Thanks Tim. Any discussion? Len please. Kina. Yes. Rap. Yes. Weey. Yes. Meyer. Yes. Schmidt. Yes. Motion carries.

And then the next item I have is a consumption and display permit out at Country Blossom Farm. Uh they will be hosting a private event later this year for which they are requesting to obtain this consumption and display permit from the state so that they can legally display and serve other forms of alcohol for a private family wedding. Uh that'll be on their premises. Currently under their farm winery license. they can only possess and serve their farm farm produced intoxicating beverages. So, they're just seeking to have other kinds of alcohol for this one private family event of a member of their own family, the people that own the the vineyard. So,

Mr. Chair, just a question. They to serve themselves or to Yes. to provide it for their guests at this wedding and provide for the guests and they don't qualify they don't qualify it for a one-day temporary license because they're not a charitable event. Yeah. But they have so they have to buy the full year consumption and display but they only are obtaining it for this one time family event. They're willing they want to do that for the one time. Okay. But now with this permit, they if they wanted, they could serve other days. Con

they could only have consumption and display. So meaning other people could bring their beverages. They they would it's like a setup license. Okay. They can't sell other alcohols. No. Okay. Well, I'll make a motion to approve the consumption and display permit for a private event at Country Blossom Farm. I'll second that. Thanks Tim. Thanks Jerry. Any further discussion? Len, please. Rap. Yes. We Yes. Meer. Yep. Schmidt. Yes. Kina, yes. Motion carries. It's all Thank you.

At this time, I'd like to call up Missy Becker with West Central Minnesota Communities Action. I should say Missy Becker Cook. Good morning, Chairman Schmidt and members. I have with me Joe Ni House. He's the affordable housing director at West Central Community Action. So, I'm back to talk about affordable housing and um had a quick presentation a month ago, but um had a great meeting um in the last month with uh Lee Johnson and with Sheriff Overerson, which I greatly appreciate the partnership with Douglas County. So, the issue I have two things I want to talk about. The first issue is the increase um to the cost of the crew members staying at the jail. So that increases our uh cost uh $25 per inmate per day. And if you remember a year ago, I came and asked to split it with the commissioners with the with the county and which was approved. So that's what I'm asking again today. And I understand that it's it costs more. Everything costs more. food costs more, lights, electricity, heat, it all costs more. So, um so that that was my first ask, I guess. And then the second um item I was going to just talk about an idea that we've done in Grant County with affordable housing and a partnership with the county. So, we've we've built to date 75 homes in Douglas County. Um, and you know, we've we've uh remodeled courthouse and this building and many others in the county as well, and we very much appreciate the partnership.

Any questions for me, Mr. Chair? I I do have one little question. Do Do you recall what the square footage cost of those houses ended up being? Oh, not offhand. I don't. I can We could give you an example, though. We just had uh we have a house for sale Miltona in the new development when you come into town on the right and that house appraised for ina 375,000 and we're going to be able to sell it for approximately approximately 220 to 230,000. Okay. What was the square footage on that? 1547.

1547. So, we've brought in um just under $800,000 in subsidy to Douglas County in the form of, you know, then this community land trust home. The subsidy stays with the house for, you know, for going forward to keep it affordable. It's about 226 square foot. Did you bring that off the appraisal value? I was just curious what cost. Yeah, but it was appraisal or do you use the cost? I use the Okay. Yeah. And the cost is because we're bringing in subsidy from Minnesota. Correct. Yeah.

Mr. Chair, I visited with Missy here last week. We talked about this at some length. Um they do a tremendous amount of good in the entire county. Um I did talk with Sheriff Warerson in respect for his budget and everything else is how he reminded me. Um cuz I believe we should give this organization probably the discount because of all the work they do in our county at the $75 rate, the $25 a day. It'll affect Troy's budget. He told me up to $55,000. As long as we understand what we're doing with him and he we don't use that against him, he's okay. So, I would make that a motion.

So, then the county would pick up the difference. Well, we're not picking it up, but we're not help him with his budget. I mean, well, yeah. I just figure he can be 55 under his normal budget. That's all. No, we already had that conversation. Yes. In respect to his budget, we won't hold that against Troy by any means. We'll hold it against Missy. I'll second that. Any further discussion on that? Good. Len, please. Weey, yes. Meyer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Kina, yes. Rap, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you.

Missy, I got a question for you. I was talking to the mayor of Garfield and they have some property and they want to do some stuff. Have they talked with you or is anybody? Not at this time. I talked to him yesterday and I he said Nicole was working on that. Fern Holtz, maybe you want to talk to her because they've got some land and they want to put in some low income houses. They want to donate it to do that. Sure. So, you want to check into that price is right for the land. Yeah. Yep.

Okay. Talk to Nicole. We talked to Nicole. The other thing I just wanted to bring up, no no decision or anything, but I just wanted to put it in kind of put it in your heads to think about it in the future is something we did with Grant County is Grant County awarded um $100,000 for down payment assistance for new affordable houses. And when we first were going to look at this, we were going to try and buy um houses that needed some rehab work, use the crew to do the rehab rehab work, and then resell them and put them in the community land trust. Well, Joe and I had several appointments to go look at houses, and they were always sold by the time we got there because the county had some stipulations that they had to be on the market for 30 days. So, so that didn't work. So, they asked about new affordable houses. So, we're working on our second one in Ashb. The first one was built in Elbow Lake and in the in the situation in in Elbow Lake. So, we brought like almost $100,000 subsidy from Minnesota housing and then we topped it off with another $50,000 down payment assistance from the county. And I mean that that made that house I mean I think her loan she had some down money too but

payment assistance but I think overall her mortgage was about $115,000. Yeah. And it was beautiful slab ongrade three bed two bath house. And you know it's just they used ARPA dollars so they had extra money to do that and which was great. But if it's ever something that you know you would think about pursuing or wanting more information or anything, we'd be happy to. Even 25,000 down payment assistance would be an amazing contribution, you know. So, if you get hit up with some more money and you're looking for ways, we'd be happy to partner that price at the jail up where it belongs.

Just a thought. I just wanted to bring it up and and tell you what we were doing over in Grant. So, well, maybe the financial committee can look into that. Yeah. Anything else I can answer or Thanks again. We appreciate it. Thank you. Jake Turner, Veteran Services. I hear you. Hello. Good morning, J. Good morning. How's it going everybody?

Um, so today I've come before you just to kind of talk about what we the numbers we've seen the last year. Uh, and then compare those two numbers in 2024 just to kind of give you guys an idea of what we're doing at the office. So, um, for the sake of time, I'll make it pretty quick. I won't go over every number, but if you have questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Um, so total expenditure from the VA, and these are all numbers reported by the VA. Um, and they're reported about 6 months shy. So, uh, they're not it's not encompassing all of 2025, but it does give us a good indication of where we're at. So, total expenditure is 45 million. Uh, 19 of that is from comp and pen. So, that's the money the VA is actually paying out to veterans and their spouses. Um, and then there's a couple other categories. The other biggest one would be medical care. So, the VA in 2025 fiscal year paid out $25 million in medical care. Um, which is a $5 million increase from 2024. Um, the other thing to keep note of here is in 2025 or 2024, Comp and Pen was also $19 million. So, the number actually went down a little bit, about $157,000, which means that veterans are passing away. Uh, especially if you take that number in light of the $5 million increase for medical care. So, um, and we're expecting a pretty big drop in veteran population in our area because most of the veterans in our area are Vietnam era veterans. So, uh I expect those numbers to keep increasing in their like ways. So, uh the next slide would be the interactions that we had. Those are in 2025. Uh the big ones to keep in mind here are the office visits, the phone

calls, the electronic communications, and then of course the van writers. I figured you guys want to know uh how many rides we gave out in 2025. So, office visits. Um, Len, can you go to the next slide for him? Um, office visits is 1276. It's actually a a a minus of 328. So, we had less office visits in 2025 than we did in 2024. Uh, but we had more phone calls. We had 405 more phone calls. So, we had 2,605 uh compared to 2215. And then we also had more electronic communications. So, they went up about 86. But what that is showing me is that veterans are getting more and more electronically focused. Uh, in fact, I can I can count off the number of times in the past week that I've sent forms to get digital signatures instead of having veterans come into the office. Uh, which is is helping uh with office flow. Uh, and then last but not least would be the van riders. As you can see, it's 125. And this kind of correlates back to the medical care uh or the the money that the VA is paying out for medical care is we had an increase in van riders. Not substantially, but we had 23 more rides in 2025 than we did in 2024. So, any questions?

Mr. Chair, I just have a question. Jake, up there uh on facts. Do you still use fax machines? Uh, it's an it's a digital fax. Oh, it's through it's uh Brent set it up. It's through the the email. So, okay. It's not an actual fax machine. All right. I I do have one more question and that is regarding the Broadway project that they're going to be talking about putting that median in. Is that uh do you see any effect on the Veterans Park with that being done? I don't know to be honest.

Why don't you just make sure check with that? Make sure that there's nothing affecting the Veterans Park because if you Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Chair. Yeah, they they're not putting the median in front of Veterans Park. They did make if you read the one story in the paper or online or whatever about that stretch between 8th and 9inth isn't going to have the media. Okay. And they're keeping the parallel parking. That's good. They can let and they can on street park there. Okay. And I will say they made that exception for Okay. And I was going to say just a reminder too, we just handle the admin side of the park. The city handles the physical side of the park.

Yeah. But I I I just think the veterans have got something to say about that. Oh, I'm I'm 100% sure they will. So, thank you. But yeah, apparently nothing's changing, so that's a plus. Great. All right. Thanks, Jake. Any questions for Jake? Sounds good. Good. Have a good one, guys. Appreciate it. Rodney Nab, facilities director.

Morning, Rod. Good morning.

I'm looking for approval to have a new boiler installed in public works. We currently have two and they are a maintenance nightmare and very unreliable. They always seem to fail at the worst time. You know, it's 10 below and we would like to install a 1 million BTU condensing boiler. It's much more efficient and would be reliable. And then we can use parts from the other one to keep the other one going for a few years hopefully. How old is this one that's in there? What did we say? 2010, wasn't it?

2009. Nine. Nine or 10. Not very old is what we talked about the other day. We Rod and I had a visit on Boiler. Yeah. Because there's two of them in there. And in case one would go down, we figured we'd have an extra one. Yeah. You know, I'm telling you, then you shouldn't have bought it in the first place. You got to buy two to make sure one runs. I've already got a problem. I don't know. This is coming out of Tim's budget. Yeah. No, it's coming out of mine, but it's Rod. I'll make a motion that we go ahead and purchase one new boiler. I guess I'll second that.

Thanks, Charlie. Thanks, Tim. Any further discussion? Yeah, Mr. Chair. Um, we only have one proposal. Are we supposed to have at least three proposals? So, we went through source well, which is a government program that John Controls. Jill, can you help me out too? It's It's basically a procurement program for government agencies. So, if you go through source, well, you only have to get one one bid. That's all. Go ahead, Jill.

Yeah. So, this is fairly new to us, but any county, city, I think municipality can join Sourcewell. So, basically, in a nutshell, Sourcewell did an RFP that was published. A variety of vendors applied and submitted proposals and then source well went through and rated those proposals and Johnson Controls was rated number one on the RFP that was done. So basically it it's it's very similar to the state bid procurement list that the state of Minnesota does. Um, it takes the leg work out of us having to

go and get bids from three different vendors if we use the vendor that uh was rated. Isn't that the same where we have we can go through state to buy vehicles as well? That's kind of how it's set up. It's a really good question, but it's a good question. And I did just for a clarification too, we did run a question by our auditors regarding this if this covered us for audit purposes and they said it did because I wanted to make sure that's the first thing you asked. I know that. Thank you. Anyone else got any other questions? Good question. Len, please. Schmidt, yes.

Kina, yes. Rap, yes. We Meyer, yes. Motion carries. There you go. Thank you. Thank you, Tim. Public works director.

Thank you guys. You know, with all the meetings we have over in public works, maybe it'll warm up in the back room because it is pretty cold there in the winter.

My understanding it is because of that running at 25% capacity. Um, so last Wednesday we opened bids for some maintenance contracts. Um, first one we looked at is our liquid chloride. So this is our dust control. We did get two bidters put in. Our low bid was Crow River Construction. Um, they actually did our our uh application the last two years. They've done a fantastic job. So I'd make that recommendation that we award our liquid chloride bid to Crow River Construction. I'll make a motion to approve the liquid chloride bid.

A second. Thanks, Jeff. Any questions? I got a question. How does this compare to last year as far as price? Um, our price last, as this is actually quite a bit higher. Our price last year, I believe, was a$155. That's what I thought. It was crap about 25 cents a gallon difference. Yes,

that's all I got. Okay, good. Call for the question. Kina, yes. Rap. Reluctant. Yes. We

Meyer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Motion carries. Um, thank you. The next one was our 2026 striping. Um, usually we only have one bidder on this one. We lucked out. We had three. Um, Camco actually did our HIPP striping, our district-wide contract last summer. They did a great job with that. They were great to work with. Um, so I'll make that recommendation. We award this to Camco. So, move. I'll second it. Thanks, Charlie. Thanks, Tim. Any questions? Len, please. Rap, yes. Weey, yes. Meyer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Kina,

yes. Motion carries. Uh, next item that I have is to approve advertising for bids. This is for SP 021 0900005. This is the trail on County Road 46 that we talked about a little bit earlier this morning. Um, if awarded or if approved, excuse me, we would set the bid opening date as Monday, May 18th, so that we can get this put to your uh May 19th board meeting. Make a motion we advertise for bids for the path on MacB.

Thanks, Charlie. Thanks, Jeff. Any questions? Monet, please. Weey, yes. Meyer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Kina, yes. Rap, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Next item that we have, I'm going to have Brad come on up and and answer any questions for you. Um, we're just looking for the approval to continue to run that trio treats at LaDu Beach. I think uh it's been three years.

Yep. This is be her third year. Um, in the packet, we included just a statement from her. Um she's they're not making any real money there, but it's something for her and her kids to do for a summer job. And they uh they're going to be open every day in June and July. They do pretty well. Um August it completely falls off a cliff. So she'll be open on the weekends unless the weekends are kind of cold and rainy, then she probably won't be open. Just people are aware. I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second it, but I got a question. Does she run out of a vehicle or does she run out of the out of the concession stand there? Concession stand. Okay. Yeah. So, it used to be the lifeguard concession stands. She's taking that over and running. So, she's got freezers and stuff that she supplies.

Yep. She supplies. She brings in freezers. She's got a freezer and then a fridge that she brings in and then um sells packaged goods basically. Ice cream, pop, candy. Okay. We don't charge her any rent. Yep. We charge her uh a hundred bucks a month. Oh, yep. So, we get $300 out of and we she has her financials. She submits every year if you guys want to take a look at it. But no, that's fine. It's more electricity than anything. It's still convenient to have someone out there. Yep.

When the when the city moved city park out there 30ome years ago, they built a nice concession stand. I think even Vers ran it for a few years or Viking Coke or whatever it was called. That concession stand still stands. That's that little block building over there and stuff. But she's got to bring her equipment in there because there's not any equipment. Yeah, it's not set up for that. But yeah, she covers her cost of our electricity. It's nice to have eyes down there, too. We've had some vandalism issues earlier when um cuz it's blocked from the highway. Always going to have vandalism. Yep. So you can't see. So it's nice having her there because she kind of keeps people She's the mom down there. It helps. So she she can lock it up then when

Yeah. She locks it. She locks the keys. She has keys for her area. locks it up each time. Okay. Okay. Any other discussion? Jerry and Tim did that. Thank you. Len, please. Meer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Kina, yes. Rap. Yes. We motion carries. Thank you. Next item. We're looking for a resolution to support art in Brophy Park. And Brad, do you want to talk to him a little bit about this?

Yep. So, uh, last year we had Art in the Park, um, through the legacy amendment. They we were one of the pilot places in the state of Minnesota to do this program. Um and we got a mural up in Brophie Park, that mosaic mural that went inside the bathrooms and then we got the

the arbor over the mountain bike trail entrance and then we there was public art classes too that people took the art they created home. Um this would just be a continuation of that. So last year was us and then Granite Falls were the pilot program and they're moving the pilot programs around the state to three different locations, but uh we were asked to if we wanted to we could fill out a grant to try to do it again to provide the program again at Brophie Park. So this is what this is uh no match from the county. It would just be um we'd put in for $25,000 about to pay the artists and materials to come into Brophy Park and run programming during the day. I'll make a motion to approve resolution 2642 supporting art in Brophy Park.

Second. Is that resolution 43? 42 is correct. 42. 42 is correct. Okay. Thank you. Just confirming. Any other questions? Thank you, gentlemen. Len, please. Schmidt, yes. Kina, yes. Rap. Yes. Weey. Yes. Meyer. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you, Brad. Thanks, Brad. So, the next item that we have is to approve an access easement agreement um between Lake Christina and Lake Anka. And so, Pat was actually uh let's see, they've they've contacted you through the the attorneys and um that's kind of why it's here for us now.

Yeah, Vicki and I have been working on this. Um, we want to make sure they have access to a township road which is about a half mile or 3/4 mile south. Um, there is existing easement up to the property. They had two judgments to get those easements. They're only 12 ft wide for the road. So, it's and it's it's kind of a hodgepodge of of easements through all those properties. So, but they needed access through this uh county or or I'm not sure if it's county or state property, but county will sign off on it as an for an easement for those two properties. So,

yeah, it is tax forfeit land. So, when you look into the easement agreement, one of the first things in there, so it's the state's tax forfeit land. The county gets to administer it for the state on behalf of the state. So, that's why this is coming to the county board for an easement. It's tax forfeited to us, isn't it? Or is it? So it still got is it inside the marsh land? It is well you can see I know where Christie back in between the two. Yeah. So okay. So it is basically state then it is tax forfeit.

Okay. Normally when it's tax forfeit it goes to the count. Yeah. Not to the state. That's what Vickiy's doing back there. Sorry, Vicki. She left. Not back there. She's not back there. She ran away at the right time. She knew this was coming. She's the one that could answer that question from Well, that's fine. Whatever. I'm just saying it works down to us. Like I said, I can see it's quite convoluted in the first place. I can see why you've been at it a long time. Yeah. So, Mr. Chair, I got a question for Tim. That green section there that goes across the state land, that's their only access to them two properties. That's what the easement is. Yes. Access those two properties. Correct.

So they will be responsible for building that road then that is in the Yep. Yes. Okay. So I was just going to ask you Pat on that road. Why don't you run it along the property line instead of going diagonal across? Uh that's basically where they're where they have the roads ready. Oh, it's already there. Yeah, they have they probably have a prescriptive easement there already, but they're trying to clean it up. So Okay. Um, Mr. Chair, I guess I think Vicki left to find out if that lake was named after the old singer Paul Anka. We shouldn't laugh at that.

You'd have to be older to get that one. Board's wishes. I'll make a motion to approve the access easement agreement for Lake Christina Lake Inca. I'll second that. further discussion and we can do that on for the in behalf of the state. That's our understanding. We can Okay, that's very good. Is it going to pass the audit inspection? Len, please. Kina, yes. Rap. Yes. We Yes. Meer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Pat.

Okay. Thank you. Um, next item that I have is to approve hiring an additional seasonal employee. So, our budget does typically every summer have uh space for one seasonal engineering technician. We usually don't get any applicants. This year we had two. Um, as we have worked between the engineering side of things, the survey side of things, I'd like to bring them both on. Um, so I talked with HR. Um, we've talked a little bit with Jill and finance and figured out Can we do this? Um, we do have a slot set up for this additional space, this additional employee. It would just be for this year. So, next year's budget, I'm still going to have one seasonal technician and hope we can fill it.

Mr. Chair, these both of these would end up in engineering. Then it'll be between engineering and survey. Survey. I think it's great we have the interest. I'll make that motion that we do it. I'll second. Nice to see after what we've gone through the last few years. It's nice to get him involved. So, I'll second it. Thank you. Just got a motion by Charlie, second by me. Any other further discussion? Len, please. Rap. Yes. We Yes. Meer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Kina, yes.

Motion carries. Thank you very much. Um, next item is to approve the Summerr Sounds by Brophy 2026 schedule and permit. Uh, who do we have back here yet? I didn't know if you guys were leaving me. He's coming back up. He's coming back up in today. There you go. Yeah, they uh pretty straightforward. I mean, we've done this a couple years now. Um they've gone through the uh emergency management plan with Julie and uh permitting and we were waiting to clean up the Julie. We're waiting for the sheriff's posy.

Sheriff's figured out got we would have brought it a little earlier but we're waiting on a few of those details to get so we could put it in their emergency management plan. Makes sense. The one change this year from last year is they'll be coming um they're going to move it up a week. So it'll start the Tuesday after the 4th of July and it'll run the four Tuesdays in July. We've always the last three years it's ended the first week in August, but it's going to move up one week this year. So that'll be the one change that you'll see from um previous years. Yeah. starts 714 218

board. I'll make the motion to approve summer sounds by broy 2026 schedule permit. Second. Thanks Tim. Thanks Jerry. Any discussion? We yes. Meer abstain. Schmidt. Yes. Kina. Yes. Rap. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Brad.

Thank you, guys. Um, last item that I have for the board is uh to approve our drainage and egg annual report. And so, I've got Shane coming up here. He's going to read the whole thing cover to cover. Yeah. No, he's going to touch on just a couple of projects that he has going on um to make sure that you guys are all aware of that and then uh we'll ask for approval to sign.

Yeah. So, I'll just I'll keep it short. Uh couple things in here that I just want to update you guys on is that Lake Oikas outlet modification project. Um so we did receive a a CPL grant from the state. Um so the total of that was 390,150 and then um the Lake OA Lake Association added funds of 43,350. So the total project cost of 433,500. Um, so there'd be no additional funding needed from the drainage authority for that project and, uh, Houston engineering is in charge of that project and doing the engineering and the design. Um they're still um doing a little bit of surveying out there and so everything right now is preliminary, but um on page 12 of that report, I just attached a little um picture of kind of you can kind of see the general um plan that they have for what they're proposing um rock arch rapids and replacing them dams that's on the west side of that uh box culvert there. And that's just to allow for fish fish passage and and um uh stabilizing the lake levels. So, um, just want you to be aware that we did receive that. They're not anticipating the start of the project, possibly fall 26, if not fall 26, 2027. So,

they don't they don't plan on getting this one done. They're not sure. Is Houston done? What's that? Is Houston Engineering? Yes. Yep. They should be done. Yep. They're the ones that make Yeah. They just weren't sure when the start date would be. It would either be 2026 or 2027. Yep. Yep. really help.

So then just the other update I had for you was we also received a county egg egg inspector grant as well. Um that amount awarded was 10,300. Um and basically the all that's doing is just reimbursing us for uh some of the eligible expenses. Um inspection, reinspection noxious weeds, public private lands, enforcement of the noxious weed laws. um training and assisting local weed inspectors, attending meetings, hosting meetings for local weed inspectors, um development of noxious weed programs, and there's a few other things on there too, but um basically we just um submit our receipts or um time sheets and they reimburse us for the costs.

Yeah, those details Shane was reading off are on page 25. So yeah, were the two updates I had for you. If there's any other questions, I'd be hap happy to answer them. Um, if not, just looking for approval for the report. I'll make a motion to approve the report. Second. Thanks, Charlie. Thanks, Jerry. Any further discussion? Len, please. Meyer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Kina, yes. Rap, yes. We Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We get a signature on page two on one of your hard copies. I I put two hard copies up there for you. Mr. Chair, I got a question. Uh last meeting we had, we decided on abandonment of that section of ditch. Have you done anything on that? Yes. So, I spoke with John Cole yesterday and kind of the short answer is um the drainage authority can petition for abandonment as long as we are a benefiting owner on the dish system. Okay. And we believe because of the roads, right, we are a benefited land owner. So we don't have to have a hearing on that. Well, you would still need the hearing. It's we can do the petition the petition because we are a beneficiary.

Okay. So we can go forward with um putting together the petition to the drainage authority. We'll still need that public hearing. We'll have to follow that process. Okay. But but we can do it. Okay. Yep. So the petition would have to come from the drainage authority, but we'd still have to go through the the same process. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.

David Rush, Land and Resource. Good morning. All right. Uh, I only have four things. That's okay. that I'm hoping are not complicated. Us too. Uh the first one is uh landscaper excavator license. A single license. We recommend approval of that license. I make a motion to approve the uh license for landscaper. Second.

Thanks Jeff. Thanks Jerry. Any discussion? Len, please. Schmidt. Yes. Kina. Yes. Rap. Yes. Weey. Yes. Meer. Uh. Yes. Motion carries. Come back.

So, the next two items I have for you are low potency hemp edible sales registration. These uh you can take them together individually, your choice. They are for two uh municipal on and off sale liquor stores. This would be um Millerville and Miltona. Uh they've met all of the requirements that we had in uh our ordinance and uh properly completed the registration applications. So they simply need your approval and then they will be registered for low potency hemp edible sales.

So Dave, I got a question. Do they have to set this up separate inside the store or they can just put it behind the counter just like anything else and sell it over the counter? So, just to clarify again, this is low potency, so it's under considerably less regulation. Correct.

Um, it's just like when you would walk into their liquor store, there'll be beer, there'll be liquor, there'll be THC beverages, or there'll be beer, there'll be liquor, there'll be gummies. There are certain requirements that they have to meet, but anybody entering that store and purchasing has to be 21. Um, they have some other requirements, but it's not the same sort of standards as the adult recreational cannabis where it has to be completely separate from tobacco and liquor sales and everything else. So, with that being said, they both have off sale and on sale. They can go either or on this or it has to be sold inhouse. I believe they both have on and off sale. No, I know they do. Yeah.

Yeah. So, they're they would be registered and since they also have liquor licenses, they can serve low potency hemp edibles in their on sale. Mr. Chair, are they changing the name to Miltona Sky High Liquor Store? No, I believe the names are as listed. All right. Interville is closer to the peak from that, but Mr. Uh Dave. Yeah, I know. Is this being registered now with you or with Horizon?

It is. It is the registration process that we set up. So there is an MA with give us their permission because these are two munisies. Why are they going through us? Great question. Okay. Which was a great question for them too. Yeah.

Because they um went and got licensed by the state. We were notified and then I sent both of them a letter saying, "Please register." Um Millerville contacted me and said, "I don't understand." And I said, "You delegated your registration authority to Douglas County and therefore you now fall under our jurisdiction even though it is a cityrun liquor store and on sale facility. They they picked that up pretty quickly and so followed through with their registration. So yes, they had delegated the authority. They caused this to happen. Yes. Yeah. They did it to themselves.

Correct. You could have not had to worry about that. Correct.

So, I'm looking for a motion to approve the registrations for City of Millerville and City of Miltona Municipal Liquor Stores. I'll make a motion to approve.

We got a second. I'll second it. Thanks, Charlie. Thanks, Tim. Any further discussion? Yeah, Mr. Chair, I got a question. I mean, if if this is a municipal city, then I mean, uh, why do we have to put our vote on it? As I just explained, uh, Mr. Chair,

we allowed in our ordinance that municipalities, townships, they could all delegate their registration authority to the county and the cities of Millerville and Miltona. Uh, city of Nelson just did it a month ago. Um, Kensington has done it. Uh, Brandon, I don't remember if Evansville, but anyway, they have all delegated their authority to us to register uh, retail sales establishments within their jurisdiction. It just so happens that the first registrations that we've received from these two jurisdictions were the municipal liquor store. So they gave us the authority and then did something that required that we act on it.

Any more questions? Len, please. Kina, yes. Rap, yes. We Meyer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. All right. The next item I have for you is the final plat of Legacy Landing. This is a one lot plat in Carass Township. Uh it's just south of Carlos Corners. You'll probably be familiar with it. It is uh a mini storage facility on a larger uh parcel. The uh owner is seeking to subdivide it and I think he intends to sell that business with this property. They met all of the requirements that we have for a plat as well as uh the requirements that we placed on the preliminary plat. So we recommend approval of the final plat for recording.

Mr. Chair, uh if I could ask Dave, is that what kind of of is it going to be on-site sewers? It is um it is located within the sewer district. So it is their authority whether or not any wastewater generating facility would connect. We did uh the county did grant a variance for them not to have to provide a connection to this lot through the platting process because currently there are no wastewater generating facilities on the property. If in the future they build an office and put a bathroom in it, then it'll be up to ALASD whether or not they have to connect. That makes sense. I'll make a motion to approve the final plot for a legacy landing.

A second. Any further discussion? Len, please. Rap, yes. Weey, yes. Meyer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Kina, yes. Motion carries.

Excellent. Thank you. Uh, the last item I have for you is the final plat of Chain View Estates. This is a 51 lot subdivision located in Carlos Township off of County Road 11. uh they are proceeding through the infrastructure development process. The road ditches um sewer infrastructure has all been installed. They are uh needing to complete some earth moving final grading as well as put the final wear coat on the road that will become a township road. um they have submitted to us a set of declarations. Within the declarations, they're meeting uh all of the requirements that we had on the preliminary plat. And then uh in addition, in order to move the final plat, they are seeking to enter into a development contract with the county uh so that we can ensure that the remaining work is completed. and uh they've provided us financial security to uh guarantee that that work will be done and that we can hold on to for a period of time for a warranty on that work. So there would be two steps that I'm looking for here. The first is an approval of the final plat for recording and the second would be and you can take them in whatever order you want. The second would be to agree to enter into the development contract with the developer and probably you should do the development contract first, I suppose, and then approve the final plat. Happy to answer any questions that you have about the

Yeah, Mr. Chair, did does it spell out where they have to uh do have uh something to deal with uh softener discharge, water softener discharge? Yes. In the uh common interest community declarations, there's a section in there that uh requires that they either have to have an on-site uh softener backwash or use a no salt system uh in the the homes or waste uh water using facilities in the development. Thank you.

David, I got another question. Are they only having one road going into this development? Um, Mr. Chair, if you look uh if we go back to the the plat, there's actually a through road, which is something we often don't get to have here in Douglas County, but you can see the north south road connects to uh comes off of 11 at the south and then connects to an existing township road to the north. There is the culde-sac that heads to the northwest.

Got that. Um, we did hear from the neighboring property owner to the west during the public hearing and he uh at some point is likely to develop his property and would seek to come into that northwest corner with a road or might come in somewhere on the west side there. You can see about oh halfway down that north south road there actually is a 66 foot wide uh extension of that outlot B. So if that outlot B gets developed in the future, we would then require that that road go to the west property line. Is that culdesac big enough now to get trucks turning around so we're not backing into driveways? and

that culde-sac meets the county's road standards for a a culde-sac on a township road. In other words, no. In other words, no. The standards are the standards. Um, as I think township agreed to do this with the roads. I think it's 120 foot diameter. Yeah, I don't know what it is offhand, but uh yes, the township has no issues with these roads. Uh we'll get a final acceptance from them when the wear code is put on. I don't know if our oh our engineer has left the building. Um yeah, the engineers signed off on these roads. So they either meet the county standard for council road or they don't. So

but as you and you know what business I'm in besides garbage trucks, we have UPS trucks, FedEx trucks. They all go in there school buses and they go in there then they back in people's driveway. that guy calls and says, "You back in my driveway again, I'm going to sue you." So, what we're creating is a monster that I think we need to take a look at.

So, Mr. Chair, that I I can't disagree with you on that. Um, that would be something that we'd need to take up when the county engineer revises those road standards. What most townships have been doing is is rather than creating a the culde-sac, they do a hammerhead turnaround. Um that seems to work a lot better. Yeah, I agree. Mr. Chair, one more thing. You were saying that a neighbor uh would develop his property. How many acres is that involved?

I don't know his acreage offh hand, but that's, you know, not something related to this. Just wanted to make you aware because the chair had asked about connecting roads. Don't know when or if that's going to happen. And then he'd probably go out to 34, County Road 34. Correct. It would be about a half mile to 34 from that west property line. All right. So again, I need a approval to enter into the developer agreement and then uh if you see fit to approve the final plat for recording.

So Mr. Mr. Chair, just to be clear here, that concern you had about that turnaround, is is that something that we can still double check and make sure it's adequate for the trucks and services that go down that road? Well, I think at this point, our standard is already there and they met it. I think we need to talk to our engineer and talk about maybe reooking at making it bigger or whatever we need to do. Correct. That is correct. At this point, it would be disingenuous for the county to change the standard that they're requiring when the road's been constructed. Next week, Jerry, you and I are meeting with Tim, so let's bring that up. Yep. I'll make a note.

I can't read the the fine print there, but there's there if it says a diameter there in the cult. I I Yes, it does. Uh but I can't read it because that would be a half of what the diameter is. So it's I think he's got the on the preliminary plat the surveyor is showing 60 ft would be the It would be 120. Yeah. Diameter cuz this is showing half of the diameter on there. So it' be 120 foot diameter. But again, these aren't the engineering plans that were submitted to us and approved by the county engineer before they started construction. 60 ft. Yeah. I couldn't read it.

It's 60. All right. Thank you, Board.

We need to make a I'll I'll make a motion to approve the Chain View Estates and de Developer contract. That's 161,952. Correct. A second. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Jeff. Any further discussion? Len, please. Meer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Kina, yes. Rap. Yes. We Yes. Motion carries.

And now, Mr. Chair, I I need I'll make a motion to approve the final plat for Chain View Estates. Second. Thanks, Charlie. Any questions? Len, please. Weey, yes. Meyer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Kina, yes. Rap, yes. Motion carries. And that is all I have. Thank you, gentlemen. See you in a little bit. Yeah, I'm not going anywhere.

Jill, finance director. Good morning. Um, I just have one item today. Just looking for a motion to approve bills totaling 1,461,56741.

I'll make a motion to pay the bills. Second. Thanks, Jerry. Thanks, Jeff. Any discussion? Go ahead. Len Meyer, yes. Schmidt, yes. Kina, yes. Rap, yes. Weey, yes. Motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you. At this time, I'm going to open up the floor for items from the floor. Any items from the floor? Are there any items from the floor? We'll ask one more time. Any items from the floor? Hearing none at this time, we'd like to move into a closed session. The meeting will be closed as permitted by section 13D.05 subdivision 3A to evaluate the performance of the following non-elected department heads. And Mr. Chair, if we could get a motion. I need a motion to go into close session.

So move. Thanks, Jerry. I'll second. Thanks. Tim Len, please. Kina, yes. Rap, yes. We Yes. Meer, yes.