Commissioners - Regular Meeting

I didn't see that email.

Because it was after the packet. Yeah, it was after the original packet, sorry. I can see if Tom can print it.

And I have, if you want, I can hand you the one I have here. Oh, no, it's okay. Okay.

I'll look at it on my thing.

Just because I had some really cool mock-up photos, so we can kind of get an idea of what that space is going to look like. Okay. okay all right well we'll get started this morning and we'll start with the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the plan of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all

We've got a county attorney here with us this morning, and we'll go ahead and get started with the presentation.

Thank you, ma'am. You should have, and I apologize that it came later part of last week, but you should have a packet with an agenda memo and then some photographs. of our proposed conference room. So over the last several years, we've remodeled the Pinnell building where in core services has moved down to the first floor and we took the whole top floor. joined the both sides together and I had not finished my conference room and so we've been working finally got to a point just in time where we were able to get stuff put together proposals for that space and so through working with our established vendors we've done all of our furniture with key office They've done our office furniture. They did the first floor court services furniture. So they were able to put together a couple different visual options for us to review. And so the attached is what I've elected to go with for that conference room space. This will give us finished conference room space. We've had One of the conference room tables from downstairs, the old court trustee's office we had, we moved up there. It's significantly smaller than the space that we need. And so that's why you'll see this proposal for all the new conference room. We already have the chairs. We don't need to buy chairs. We already bought conference chairs. on part of that initial project, but the table is just significantly smaller as well as there's no interactive computer or television screen or anything to use in there. So this incorporates multiple vendors. So Key has, it's not two separate quotes. It's two separate quotes in the sense of there's one and two, but all of that furniture, they're not like comparison prices. It's for all the different, cost of the furniture that's requested. And then estimated a TV stand and television. We anticipate going to Best Buy or another electronics type place with the work of Nextech. We've communicated with Trent to make sure that what we get is appropriate and we'll work with the computer equipment. And then the Nextech quote is there their proposed costs for putting a computer, again, staying within our contract because we use them for all of our IT services. And then you'll see, again, just some photographs of the anticipated space area. It's our space is a little more rectangular, just how the picture's printed, but getting a table that'll fit that full conference room of 10, and then the three chairs in the back that have the tables and that. So just making it a fully functioning conference room space to give us that area. I mean, utilize that area obviously for staffing meetings, trainings, and the like. So I just wanted to make sure, just update you all that it's kind of the direction we're going with everything. There are, like I said, three different vendors. I do anticipate finalizing this out of state asset forfeiture money. So there's no general fund or my county attorney fund impact. There's significant funds in the asset forfeiture. fund to cover the costs and expenses of this. It's not a normally budgeted item. However, it is law enforcement purposes to continue to finish out that project. The old conference table that's in there, we're actually going to move back into our file room area. We've been cleaning it out. And so that conference table will move back into that back area, which will also give us a second meeting space. My juvenile sync attorney's office is back in that area. So we'll give her room to meet and prep with witnesses. We tend to have more juvenile sync witnesses that we have to prep for those hearings. And so that'll give us a second prep space as well within the office. And so I just kind of wanted to bring that up, bring everybody up to speed with everything and answer any questions that you all might have. My anticipation is once we get this room all set up, then I would love to host you all down there to actually see the finished product of our space down there, because it's been really nice and it's been very accommodating. It's nice to have that space. And on the flip side, I'm also fully staffed now, so that's exciting.

That looks good. It's very, very good. I don't have any questions. I appreciate you coming in and letting us know. Because I would look forward to coming over and looking at it.

I did go with a little bit more modern look in that conference room just to brighten it up. We do have great floors throughout. Most of the offices, I believe they're all in that cherry darker wood. But I just wanted something that was a little bit brighter, a little bit more modern. feel in that front room. So that's, again, just kind of for the look purposes. That's what we did.

But I mean, I appreciate you using your money in there, but I appreciate that. I mean, that's exactly what those funds are for and to help offset our while helping law enforcement offset our budget of taxpayer money. So I appreciate that. I know you don't I mean, and I also appreciate you being transparent and showing the public what we're doing with that money. You don't have to ask us to do that. And I don't think people are aware of that. You know, that money is yours to use at your discretion. There are some parameters on there, but we're, you know, we don't have to come in here, but I also appreciate, and I think the public appreciates being able to see what you are using this money for. So I don't know if we have to do a, I mean, you are, remodeling a county building. So I do think you should do a thing saying agree to that. So my motion is to accept your proposal and we'll work with that.

I think we have to do that nonetheless.

All right. All right. I appreciate y'all very much. And oh, yeah, sorry. sorry thank you um and i think our furniture i can't anticipate in the next week or two the furniture will be in and so we're that we have a summer intern um who's been uh diligently sorting files and cleaning out the basement who's going to have to double time it upstairs to get that back room cleaned out but um we uh we appreciate it so looking forward to it thank you guys

I do would like to amend the agenda. Director Rose is gonna come in and request to be able to attend the Flint Hills Regional Leadership course. She has to have that done by I think it's 15. So I told her that just to come here and to address that. For the Flint Hills Leadership?

There's some other people that might be interested as well. So like for the scholarship purpose, don't approve all of it for one person until we know how many, because I think there might be at least three counting roads.

Yeah, and that's why I explained to her, you know, there's going to be travel with that, and that's why people need to come in to, you know, get that approved and also the availability of those scholarships.

They need to get on the agenda for next Monday because they have to have

There's two others that we're waiting to hear back from.

And then I'll probably bring it to let you know who it is that's requesting it. Because then I'll reach out to the director and let him know which ones are used in the solution.

I'll move on to the Commission review. I attended the Adabus budget session. They are very concerned not being able to meet their match for a grant that would enable them to build a structure here. and let them know that we have more than people who are patients and probably adjusting those. Hello, everyone.

Yeah, so just let me know . last week um of course they talked about the their budget using their budget and the

concerned about health insurance increase.

I think theirs was 8%. They did talk about the finance person, Lindsay, talked about the health of the Pawnee mental health structure and everything is in good standing. They also, they have a new multi-generational life center in Clay Center, and Pawnee will have a suite there. They're not going to close their other locations. I've still seen clients at the old old structure, but it is kind of nice having a presence there in the multi-life center. I thought that was a good idea too. It's going to house their senior center, a child care agency. They have youth and then they've got a gym in there. So I thought that was a nice idea for a small community to have something like that. They did have, they changed up their co-responder agreement with Riley County. They terminated it due to lack of use and then they're just going to utilize their mobile crisis response. So I don't think that we do have a co-response agreement. Do we have a funding mental health? I'm not aware of that. So they don't have this time. I just thought, well, it might be something we could get to.

And then

In our emails, we've got some information for a KMU data center large load summit that's going to be July 15th and 16th at the Docky State office building. It's for elected officials, city managers, administrators. It provides practical insights, real world examples, and balanced discussion to support decision making at the local level for a lot of this data center showing up in Kansas. I don't know if anyone's necessarily, I'll talk to Keith about it too, but I thought maybe that might be something that one of us might be interested in attending. It is two days of one whole day and then a half day. but it might be a good thing to attend if anyone was interested in attending. I might try to go, it depends on what is going on, but I think the deadline is coming up here shortly. I could go up and email it, but yeah, okay, see. And then Jeremy forwarded an email about the office of management and budget they're wanting to basically redo the federal grant rules and i don't know again betsy if that was related to you about that the proposal and some of the parameters that are going to be affecting the counties you did okay i didn't know that's something where you just follow up on or see if it's any impacts to us we just need to respond basically i guess is what you know and there's some sessions online but i guess that's something we could look at they want comments by july 13th but i guess anytime they're wanting to pull back the rains on insurance grants that we probably just need to oppose that so And basically, that is all I had. I worked down at the Freedom Fest a couple times. I saw Mr. Petty there. I think every time I was down there, whew, that was hot down there the first couple nights. And it got rained on. That first night, we had the storm. And the parade, I walked with State Treasurer Steven Johnson. and it got rained on, so I wasn't, and they postponed the veterans ceremony, I believe, because I had called up and asked, because then the rain was falling at that time, so I didn't go to that, because, so were you there, was there a, it was kind of scattered out so i drove by and i i just thought well anyway i feel bad for missing that but nonetheless i went to the park then last night as well there was um i don't know if attendance was down but there's still and always is a lot of a lot of people there so it's a good event again so and that's all that i had

Oh, I did want to congratulate Junction City on receiving that grant, the BUILD grant. A lot of people helped on that and some of the comprehensive information that was collected by the grant went into Regional Council. It was very imperative on the information put in that grant that was able to oh and i did i did want to add um of good discussion i think that i mean nothing has been put in some but um you know the conversation has been started and i hope that it gave people and I think move forward. I don't know if those three entities will be able to survive if they're separate. And so I would like to see us try to keep those together. But there definitely needs to be some change in oversight, accountability, financial responsibility, because those are taxpayer monies and we're responsible.

i i agree i think that the meeting did did go well and i i appreciate those in attendance from the public i think that's um that was the intent i think that anytime that i think that it's good i believe that we're as transparent as we we can be that that was kind of the intent of the meeting is to make sure the public knew what what we were doing what we're trying to do and then feel like that is for the betterment of the community. So we just need to keep going forward and making some good decisions that's going to impact those agencies. I'm glad that you brought that up. It seems like it was for everybody.

Did you want to say Crystal?

Yeah, because I was looking at Crystal, actually, mixed on the agenda. I'm sorry. That's all right. I've been calling her Crystal. I know, I know.

You probably feel even longer. Oh and I'd like to welcome Jessica as our new deputy clerk. Thank you. Thank you, Lorena. I haven't seen you for a while.

Oh, I'm good.

I'm good.

It's good to see all of you. We have another email from Mr. . You know, I did not respond because I don't know how to respond. Well, I told him, I'm sorry, he's still going through this. What would he like the commission to do?

And he responded to me this morning and said he wants us to take the conditional use permit away from not only the chicken owner, but the people who are allowing the chickens to go through your dairy yard to get into this.

so he has moving trucks outside of himself i don't know well it's unfortunate but you know on that one we do have an ordinance in place and if it's still happening i'm not sure why the response cases have been written up and sent over to the county attorney i mean it's not something you're wrestling for Well, I mean, you put a resolution in place, and if it's not being followed, that would aggravate me, too. Oh, yeah. I wouldn't like chickens in my yard, number one, just to have chickens in my yard. But also, I know that it aggravates your dogs. And, you know, for just to have your dogs barking and racing around the thing is aggravating, too. So I guess if Sheriff's not coming in today, I'm going to. talk to him about that because I don't agree with there's nothing they can do. It seems like there's something that can be done, but I'm not sure what it is. Hi, Rose.

Hello. Good morning, Rose.

You know, actually, Rose, if you want to go ahead and come forward, Crystal obviously isn't here yet, but you're welcome to go ahead. Good morning. I've got this for you guys. That is the schedule for the home health leadership program.

Now you can see like the deadlines and the different dates that the program is happening.

And then these are the new very tiny maps that Mandy made.

So I'm gonna bring those back too, in case you haven't seen those yet. Thank you.

So I am formally asking for approval to go to the Flint Hills Regional Leadership Program since there are multiple dates where I would be out in different communities. Wanted to make sure that that was good to go to. I think it'd be great for relationship building in the region, learn a lot of really great skills and resources and things. So that's why I like to go to that. Yeah, I mentioned them because they're on a timeline. And we were told that there's also several other employees that are wanting to apply. And so I do not have a problem for you going forward with that. We need to wait, though. I mean you need to go through the process and apply but then there's also scholarship available like specific and so what we do if there's multiple um employees that are approved to go to the class then they split that up so you know like a hundred dollars off of your thing so um but I do not have a problem yeah no that's why I'm wonderful that you are and I fully recommend that you attend

those to get out amongst, I know that you've been out amongst some of them, but to continue that relationship building. So I think it's wonderful. So yeah, however it falls into place, I think we want to make sure you go forward with it and then maybe Tammy will get with you or you might

And if you have any questions, Jamie just graduated, Jamie in finance. So, and she's very, she's involved in the group, the committee, like for this next class. So she would be great to talk to you. So yeah, I would, you can go ahead and apply.

All right, I will apply and I'll let you know when I've officially submitted that so you know what's in there. And then I'll reach out to her for some feedback.

All right. Thanks. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Asher here from . Good morning. Good morning. Hi. How are you? Not good. Don't ask. A couple of things .

Thank you. Thank you.

I did want to ask, because it's coming up here on this new teacher's breakfast, do all of us attend that?

They usually ask the chair to speak. Have they not asked you to speak yet?

Usually they'll ask me to speak, and then, yeah, we can all go.

It would seem like it would be nice.

Yeah, it is nice to go.

Well, it is Wednesday, July 29th, 7 a.m. in the morning. That is early. 7 a.m. is very early for me. It is breakfast time. That's why I work with my teacher. That's for sure. I did hear that, yeah, that they had 95 rooms at the Sinesta this past weekend, so that's good. And there was a band and whatever, so that was good. My family personally had eight rooms in town.

Did you see those kids people running around there? I don't know. No, they were at the Sinesta. Well, and a couple of them.

okay hr director crystal crystal malcho's hr director special projects hope everybody had a good fourth weekend a little worried there on saturday when the storms rolled through lomego but turned out to be an okay evening and we really enjoyed ourselves a couple items um first i have some out of office notifications i'd let you know that i'd be out this Wednesday afternoon for interviews with the KAC. I'll also be out that morning for FMLA purposes. I also have a request to make. We had to rearrange the date for the employee training day, which is normally the Friday before Columbus Day, as that won't work based on our current schedules. We are looking at a Monday in September. I've worked with the treasurer's office to make sure that it's least disruptive to their end of the month times. So we are looking at September 21st for that date. As it's a normal commission day, I'm requesting that either you change and have an evening meeting that day or maybe have the commission meeting on Tuesday that week so that all of us can attend the training day at the senior center. And the senior center is available and they reserve the rooms for us that day.

And that's a full day?

Full day. Same as in the past, we'll provide speakers, breakout sessions, have lunch. Because it's a full-time day. Morning is up and the late afternoon is work.

Well, I've stopped by the training day. Are you going to be the only one presenting that day?

It doesn't matter to me if we want to change it to Tuesday, but I'm good either way.

so for now i just need to know that it's okay that we have a training game that day on when you guys get closer you can decide whether to have it monday night or tuesday yeah that work yeah that's good all right thank you um this week is the uh employee task force it'll be here in the commission room as uh emergency management's got some inventory that arrived and they're going to be using their conference room for that um I know that we've had a little mix up on which commissioners attending due to absences and stuff. So to be honest, I have no idea who's supposed to attend this Wednesday.

She attended last time because somebody else wasn't. Right.

Okay. But again, it's her turn. Yeah. So we can get back on track. All right. So Trish will be there. What day is it? Wednesday the 8th, 8 a.m. here in the commission room. Okay. And then last but not least, I'm doing this on behalf of another employee who's a little nervous about speaking in front of groups, but I'm just providing this as an initial information setting and if you guys authorize it, then she will come in and provide more information. She gave me a memo to share. The purpose of this memorandum is to request that the Board of County Commissioners consider allowing Amanda Miles to provide a brief informational presentation regarding the Drunk Driving Prevention Program and opportunities to increase community awareness of impaired driving prevention. The Drunk Driving Prevention Program, also called DDPP, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing impaired driving through education, public awareness, and volunteer-based safe ride services. The program's mission is to help prevent impaired driving by encouraging responsible decisions before someone gets behind the wheel after consuming alcohol. As part of its services, DDPP provides confidential volunteer-based rides home for eligible military personnel and Department of Defense ID card holders who have been drinking and need a safe way home. When possible, a trained volunteer drives the individual home in their own vehicle, while a second volunteer follows to transport the DDPP driver back after the ride. This service helps reduce impaired driving while allowing the individual's vehicle to be safely returned home with them. Confidentiality and participant privacy are fundamental principles of the program. The Fort Riley chapter is preparing to launch operations and is focused on serving military personnel and eligible DOD ID card holders through education, outreach, volunteer engagement, and safe transportation resources. The chapter is actively seeking partnerships with community organizations, local businesses, and public agencies to expand awareness and encourage responsible choices before impaired driving occurs. This request is not for the County or the Board of County Commissioners to manage oversee or operate ddpp it is an opportunity to introduce the program explain its mission discuss volunteer opportunities and explore ways the county can help increase public awareness and connect eligible military members and dod id card holders with available resources an informational presentation will allow the board to learn about ddpp's mission ask questions and better understand of collaborative community partnerships can contribute to preventing impaired driving and improving public safety. Thank you for your time and consideration of this request. So basically, since we're right next to Fort Riley, a lot of that could happen here in Gary County. And Amanda would just like an opportunity to provide more information to the commission about how Gary County can partner with Fort Riley in this program.

Would they want the sheriff's department involved in that? Would they want, I mean, yeah.

Yeah. And we would invite anybody and everybody, the sheriff's office. We can invite JCPD, Milford, Granby Plaza, et cetera. I'll work with her then and get with Courtney and get her put on the calendar. You're okay with it too?

Yeah.

May Street reached out about a letter of support to continue to for them to apply for grants and how important it is to support our downtown and our historic buildings. And so I have a letter of support and I would like for you guys to review and . preserving the courthouse and those kind of things. And then I know we talked briefly about the chickens. Has that area been officially been notified that we passed this and that they have a requirement to make sure their chickens are I don't think that people have received a letter. Have you received anything?

Yeah, I know a warning letter went out about chickens being out.

Yeah. Well, I think we need to give the expectations that they need to be housed, not just right. Well, that's what I thought. You know, so yeah, I think that that needs to be So they know the expectations. They're not just running around in the yard with no fence over to where they can't get out. They need to be housed.

I'm in the middle of Mr. Ricker and then a family that has chickens too. And both, I mean, Steve has his behind a privacy fence, so his is more confined in my area. But my neighbors to the other side, I don't think they've gotten notice of any of this because they just let theirs free range. And I don't think that they would if they knew that they weren't supposed to. And I live, like I said, on that street and I was on that permit too. I don't have chickens yet, but I want to in the future. and we haven't gotten anything.

Well, the way that I understood Troy to say that those letters had been sent out, and you had said you still hadn't gotten any at that time. I still have. So I'm not sure why letters haven't been sent on our expectations on the conditional use.

So, like, I just don't know. As far as the conditional use, it has conditions.

Yeah. Well, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if that's how many people live there.

But I know I don't think my neighbors

to the other side of me, not Mr. Ripper. Well, they don't know. I think there needs to be an official notice that this is a conditionally used permit.

This is the conditions that we have approved this on.

So I could get his frustration in. Yeah. I would write a shot if those chickens are not killed by wildlife.

I mean, I live in town and there's coyotes and wildcats in my backyard.

Counselor gonna check with it those letters. I'll check my location. Thank you Yeah, I would be probably as upset about it as mr. Berkowitz actually yeah I'll be right So why is the sheriff's office unable to do that

I think they've written up cases and sent over.

That's what the conversation was as well as they needed something. They had teeth and didn't do anything. And they supposedly got that, so I'm not sure if anybody can respond to it. Correct.

And it's only going to keep escalating.

Especially as hot as it is, having to skimp around. Did you say you had stitches in your paper too? And he was gonna put you out in the pasture. Yeah, that's what Steve gets hard on because he's got released under the conditions that he stayed inside. The light can't be too bright, so it annoys him.

Yeah, so does he.

Oh, my. I'm glad to be home. Wow. Because he had to lay flat, you know, 24 hours.

Steve? Yeah.

How old is he? 37, baby.

But he said that the doctor told him that because of his age and his health, you know, it had a lot of bearing on him.

You know, he seemed like he had a death. I mean, I didn't think so. Yeah. Yeah, he started having, like, stroke-like. That's scary.

That was the first thing I think.

Yeah, he did say it in May. It was the day after that in the...

You know, he had to grab for a rope. He had that flooding down there. And the air conditioning went out. So they mentioned, you know, community distress.

They have triggered that to happen.

But a lot of times they said the brain, they watch it. They don't do anything unless you have symptoms. And then, of course, they have triggered whatever. Yeah, I think he was able to get a burger down, Gladys and his team. Are you ready?

I am. Good morning, commissioners. Tammy Robinson, finance director. I have the monthly financial reports for June to present this morning. So the first document that you can see up on the screens is the treasurer's duplicate statement and voucher sheet. This is what they use to balance the cash in the treasurer's office. and at the bottom the total is the 41 million 790 370 and 27 cents and then the finance office is within cic on their balancing this fund status report is on the gl side so on page nine you can also see that total of the 41 million 790 370 27 and then lastly we have the comp of cash report which is the cash side inside cic again that reflects the 41 790 370 27 cents as of the 6 30 date so we have balanced the month of june and we are good to move into july This next one is the facility cash flow analysis. You can see up in the top right-hand corner, we're 50% into the year. And under the month of June, we did receive a Johnson Control reimbursement for $1,732, and we spent $63,100. On the bottom left-hand side, the cash reconciliation box shows you our beginning and uncovered cash, what we received in revenue for the year, and the expenditures. throughout this year, as well as the remaining approved project on that CA, the courthouse boiler room door, which I believe Jeremy just had some bids that he opened up previously, so we should be working on that soon. And when you take those factors into consideration, you can see we have unencumbered cash available for additional maintenance projects of $473,037. We spent 35.38% of the budget, which is reflected on that bottom right-hand side. And we've collected all of the revenue that we've expected. Are there any questions on the building cash flow?

So the $250,000 there on the right-hand side, that is what we took out of the budget and put in.

Right. That's what comes from the general fund as a transfer in.

Yep.

Anything else? The next one we have is the CIP cash flow analysis. Again, 50% into the year. And under the month of June, we have $199,100 in revenue, which includes $6,673 in interest income and that $192,427 that we received back in those tax credits. We've spent $10,545 as of the end of June. and for the total year to date 313 812 and again on that bottom left hand side the cash reconciliation box reflects the beginning cash our revenue our expenditures any remaining approved projects that haven't been spent and when we take those reserve funds out from the box right under there we have just over 2.6 million available for additional projects at this point in time On the right hand bottom side, we spent 9.82% of our budget and we've collected the full amount of our revenue at this point. The second page reflects the projects that have been approved. The ones in blue are the ones that have been completed. And clear over to the right hand side, it does reflect whether we came in under or above what the original estimated approved amount was. Are there any questions on the CIP? Okay. The next one we have is sales tax. Again, 50% into the year. And as of June, we have collected 65.39% in the general fund on that sales tax from what we had budgeted. And on the hospital dedicated tax, 53.83%. When you compare it to 2025, we have received 68,262 more than 2025 in the general fund and 33,420 more in the hospital tax. ACORN is one that is ended. However, I did reach out to the state and ask them why we were still receiving those dollars. And they did state that if you had something prior to September of 2024, and they are just now collecting, that we'll still see those small collections. So in this case, those were August 2024. So just so that's clear. And that's when we still see.

When does it end?

September. Anything as of September 2024, it's done. So that's August 24. So we should really not be seeing much of anything at all now going forward, but since we're in August in these collections. Any other questions on sales tax? Okay, this next one is the quarterly payroll reports. We are 48.148% into the year, and that's based on the number of pay periods, 13 out of 27. And the ones that are notated in blue are exceeding that 48.148%. None of them are by very much. And if you have any questions on those specifically, I can answer. I'd be more than happy to do that at this time. I would note on the Board of County Commission why you guys are just a little bit over is because at the beginning of the year you had to commissioner paychecks on that one. So you won't see that often, but on an election year, it could potentially happen. Okay, then the last one is the, expenditure and revenue reports again 50 into the year and the ones in blue have exceeded that 50 you can see the library and economic development are highlighted in that blue and we've talked about this in the past and that's due to the timing of the distributions and so as we get to the end of the year you'll see those coming out but they line up with when the distributions go out and the revenue is in there. Any questions on any of those for the expenditures? Second page had nothing highlighted in blue. The next page gives you the general fund by department. You can see the district court and GIS planning is over that 50% mark. We've talked about GIS planning, and so they have a pretty big amount. When you look at this by month, GIS in January, they have come out, which is a relatively large amount. And then in April, they pay that mapping cost. So beyond those two months and those two bigger expenditures, you can see they're pretty steady at that 18.5 mark. So as we get to the end of the year, you should see that even out. And on the district court in February and March, a large part of those expenditures were to reimburse the court trustees for IT costs. So again, as we go through the end of the year, those will start to even out. But do recognize that they do pay some judicial district costs in there, and they do get reimbursements from the other counties. And so that offsets those expenditures if they are high.

Are there any questions on any of those?

OK. And then these last two pages are your revenue. And that's just more for informational to let you see where we're at from what we budgeted to what we've actually collected. If you do have any questions on those, I'd be happy to answer them. Or if you want to review additionally and come in and visit with me later, I'm happy to do that as well. Okay, one other thing. I heard you guys talking about those OMB grants that NACO had sent information out on. I had forwarded that on to department heads and to Betsy. So they actually had some webinars last week and I watched those. I watched them twice because I wanted additional information because different people asked questions. And so a couple of the things that I think are really important that we need to think about, and it might be how you want to formulate your letter to give that input to NACo, but you're right. They are giving the discretion of the federal government the ability to just stop those grants midway. So if it's a four-year grant and they decide in year two that they no longer want to fund it, it just ends. So if it concerns a position, a personnel position, you just have to make sure that if you're hiring someone for that, that they understand very clearly that that could end at any time and there's nothing that we can do about it. That one, I don't like that at all. I think that is wrong, but the worst part of this that I can see that they talked about is sub awardees. So if you have a sub awardee that gets that award under Gary County, then that puts the onus on Gary County to make sure that they meet every requirement of that grant. So if we're going to let someone sign up under Gary County, we have to be willing to do that oversight. We're now required to do it. Now what I'm not clear on is whether we have to report that on our CFO or not, but if we have to oversee it, I believe that we'll have to end up showing it as grant money, which will also make it subject to single audit. So say we don't have a single audit and then we oversee somebody's grant, it will now get put on there and it might push us over, which means now we have to pay for a single audit. So it's going to increase our costs if we have that happen. And then also, we're going to have to have someone available that can do all of that oversight. And I don't think that we should have to hire another person to do that. I think it's going to create a bigger burden on us. So that is an issue. Just to give a really good example of this, which is not the case here, but something like this could happen. RCPD does not have the ability to tap into grants in Riley County. They tap into those grants under Riley County, not RCPD. So all of those grants that they now get, Riley County will be required for all of that oversight period.

So is that something, so basically you're going to have to be the administrators.

Exactly.

But that could also mean that we can get administrative fees to cover some of this.

You could do that if you have somebody that has the time to do it. Sure. No, no, I know. And then the other thing you have to remember is if they don't do something that they're required to do, that affects our federal funding going forward. So, so those are the the main things that i want to point out that we really need to be cognizant of and determine before we ever let somebody sign up under gary county how willing we are to oversee and manage those grandfathers which see this was one of the things when you had the arbor funds and that was one of the reasons and i was at riley county when we did this but that was one of the reasons we didn't just hand out money because that made us responsible responsible for that oversight so instead We did grant funding through the small business management program, and they had to sign that they would do these specific things in order for them to get that money. But it stopped us from having to oversee so much of that. And now they're making it on all grant funding, which I think is not a good idea.

So does that affect the federal exchange dollars? No.

federal fund exchange dollars those are originally federal dollars but they become state funding when we change them for that 90 cents on the dollar so it takes away all those federal requirements which is why we do it because now we don't have those federal requirements to use those dollars but we lose 10 cents on the dollar by doing that well it used to be we'd lose 25 Yeah, they went back, probably got a lot of complaints on that. And I'm assuming they'll get, I hope they get enough complaints on this that it can also be reversed. But we definitely want to respond to that and point out how much additional administrative responsibility as well as if it would push us into a single audit, that's another $5,000, $6,000 in cost to our audit.

What is the threshold anymore on the assembly line?

Well, that just changed, I think, last year. So I think it's $750,000. It went up extremely high. It used to be $250,000. So I don't think the auditors enjoy this a lot. They had a lot of them with that ARPA money. They couldn't keep up with it. All right, that's all I have for now. And then we have a budget work session at two o'clock. Thank you, Tammy.

Even me.

Keith, did you have anything for review and update you want me to add?

No, just to add

Did you guys happen to see the article that was put out about the top 10 counties in Kansas that had the most growth? Between 24 and 25. Top 10. And Gary County was number four. Wow. Yeah. It was what? Gary County had an increase of 879 people in our population, which is 2.5% of our population increase. And that truly, that percentage per capita is the highest in the state of growth. Johnson County, Sedgwick County, Wyandotte County, Gary County, Shawnee County, Miami County, Butler County, McPherson, in Bourbon and Ottawa County, Allen County were the top 10. Was that sent to all of us? No, it was on KSNT. So I thought that was good news, and there were people, of course, saying that that's not true. But really, if you go to the west side of the city, there are tons of new houses there, dozens of new houses. And then Troy has reported that our housing not only housing, but remodels are up in the county. So I think that's good news for Gary County. They got that from the census. I have 1138 appropriation resolution that I'd like to, I know I brought it up before about people who are asking for monies. Yeah, appropriations, they've been over, I don't know how many, how did we, Betsy and I talked about it because if they, I mean, people sometimes are late on their taxes, but if they have been delinquent, they should not be eligible to receive taxpayer money. I just put delinquent. Yeah. So you have to be a certain, you have to be past a certain amount of time. You know, sometimes people pay like a month late.

We're not sure. Yeah.

But if they're delinquent where they've been publish that your taxes are late. They should not be eligible for appropriations. If you can't pay your taxes, you shouldn't be able to receive tax money. So anyway, that's what that was all about. I talked about it before and we just never did it okay.

Good morning Dave and Cece, how are you all?

Doing well, how are you guys?

Recovering. Oh my goodness.

So I've been on the phone this morning with a mechanic trying to get somebody to come fix the bed. Yeah. Yeah.

Just to request permission to attend that fun fields leadership class. Oh. Yeah, like Jamie did.

Yeah. Imagine you gave a blessing to that.

Is the map thing new?

That's the new map that Mandy just made, so she just thought we'd want one of those. I'm all in the cold. I'm too. It's a little chilly in here. You know it's cold if I'm cold. I just, yeah. storm on thursday or whatever that was on the third second third friday night yeah well i asked a couple times uh which are called nate and actually bob story and i said you know mike's got phone alert that heavy thunderstorms are you know coming this way do is there any protocols that whatever you know we're waiting for emergency management i was going to ask gary and I told Nate, I said, well, just being a woman, I'm going to start putting away the stuff on this table because I'm not going to scramble when this dorm goes. And so sure enough, they were about five minutes and it just started blowing. Everybody was running. The beer tent was all disarray. And the one gal, one of the vendors, left. We were leaving. Her whole side on the west side blew everything off of her stuff and broke. And she had those little clay pots that she painted. It just was a pile, right? Yeah, all of them were broken files. Yeah, that was too bad. She was gone yesterday. I don't think she was.

Did you guys go to the parade? Yeah, we did.

Yeah.

Dave Baker asked if I'd walk with Steve and John. I was thankful it wasn't hot. It was actually not too bad until it started raining. Did they stop the parade? I was going to say, yeah, where were you in the parade? Towards the end. What time did you get done?

We were moving fast, I can tell you that. I don't know what time we moved up. It was fast. We were running at the end. There wasn't very many people on the parade route. Especially after lightning hit.

Was there lightning? Yes. That's why my family left when they saw lightning.

Okay, well that's what, yeah.

That was one of the fireworks of the day.

Yeah. I told Doreen, I said, well, at least we're one thing good, the first in, first out. Yeah.

But they did have a good crowd.

Yeah, I thought so, huh? Yeah. I don't think it was any less than I've seen in the past.

My grandkids are lucky.

Did they, yeah? I don't know what to do to change the volume.

I'll be glad when our new system is up and ready.

Yeah.

Oh, people are saying we can't hear. So you guys need to yell.

Come on now. They can't hear any of us or?

They said it's very low. Some people. I just asked somebody else who just picked me and they said they can hear.

So is all your family gone now? Yes. I'm not getting all that stuff out. Well, we're going to have it here now. So then I ended up having to hurry up and get everything out. Steve got out and Beth was like, oh, let's have it over at our house. Okay, so then I scrambled. Yeah, we had like 35 people and eight dogs. Oh, wow. Eight dogs? Yes.

I don't know why we turned into a dog family.

It happened fast. Do they, are they all housed inside? Yes. Oh, God. Yeah, I don't know. You have to like dogs to be able to. I do like dogs.

There aren't that many. Yeah. My dog doesn't shed.

Yeah, my dog doesn't either. My neighbors, they come, their dog, every now and then, and all of Mabel's hair flies over in my yard. Did you get a haircut today?

Did you get rid of your rabbits?

No, actually, when I was going, The other day, I saw three little baby rabbits when I was weed eating. They're in the backyard now. I thought they were done having babies, but I saw them dead. I still got birds on the front porch, some little birds, some little finches on the front porch. Yeah, they're supposed to be here tomorrow.

Yeah. Hopefully we'll get that next Monday.

Fingers crossed.

good morning Gary morning sorry I texted you the other night it was just I didn't see it till about midnight when I got home I was sitting there at you know the information tent and they said we're waiting to be notified or whatever you know we had stuff spread all over and I thought well if you say that probably should have done that

Because I put it all in there. Yeah, I was communicating with Wankus and with Boxville Bree.

Well, I didn't realize, yeah, that that was going on.

So I wouldn't even. But we had that. We had a deal out of the other deal going on. Yeah, I apologize for even texting you. It's crazy.

I don't normally do that. It's all right. Okay.

Well.

Ready? It's not here, but I can hear you.

Go ahead.

Gary Burgess, Gary County Emergency Management Director, and also Gary County Fire Chief. Year to date on fires, this is at the end of June 79. Same period last year, 67. So we're still about 25% increase over last year on fire calls. The month of June, we ran on nine calls, our guys did, which included, we sent, I think, about 10 to 12 people down for the juvenile search from that first weekend of the month and stuff. In fact, we ran the accountability. Anybody coming in signed in with us, and we put them in the search groups. We worked on two accidents and two vehicle fires, and everything else was just normal grass fires and stuff. Good news. Thursday, we had seven pallets of air packs come in. All that stuff came in. The guys unboxed the stuff off the pallets. We got serial numbers off of it, got it separated into three different agencies, Grandview Plaza, Milford, and then Gary County. uh, fell fire should be here this week or next week to look at everything, make sure they're all in good working shape, certified that they are good. And then we'll start getting them out to everybody and get everybody trained. So, so the conference room is stacked with equipment right now. So, uh, very, very, very glad, but yeah, we had several guys that came down and helped Kurt and I, uh, move stuff around and stuff. Uh, as you know, we were busy with freedom fest. Every morning, weather service called me and gave me an update what the weather was and anything coming in within 20 minutes. I'd get another phone call and say, here's what's coming on. And that was relayed to the organizers. And what they did with the information was up to them, how they told the people and especially would have been Friday night. They canceled everything. And then during the parade on Saturday, we had one lightning strike. There was none. within 30 miles of here when that parade started. The one that hit, hit in the wood area by John Montgomery's old place up there at Fifth and Eisenhower. And I was two blocks away. And so I called Bob right away and they, they shut down the parade for anybody that was walking or on horses. And everybody else pretty well scattered anyway, but it was... What about Friday though?

Wasn't there lightning? How close was the lightning on Friday?

it looked out that that was once we had the thunderstorm warning so uh the deal was anything that was within 10 miles of junction city they would shut down the stuff down in the park and stuff to 10 miles is usually a safety zone that's what football teams outdoor sports uses about a 10 mile radius so uh so We were busy on that. And then, of course, we helped with the Freedom Run. And then we had a vehicle in the parade. And then we put a truck over on standby over to assist with the fireworks. And we only had one firework call, which was Friday night out on Spring Valley Road. So that was our only fire call we had.

Did that burn very much on Spring Valley Road?

Dammit. Probably about three or four acres. It was spotty the way it was going and stuff. I haven't looked to see what it looks like, but city and county both went on that. In fact, I was in the area watching that when they toned everybody out on it. So I got on scene pretty fast on that one. So station four, if you've been by there, all the concrete's poured. They started putting the north wall up this morning. got four or five guys out there working on it so i think this afternoon they're really gonna have it looking good and stuff uh we ordered the uh roofing color this morning on that so it's come along good and stuff and our benefactor that gave us the money to help do part of it uh i talked to him yesterday and he was real pleased with how it's coming along he's been by the look at it too so uh our 2022 afg grant the one that uh we got uh stuff three years ago we still had some money left over the last of that money was finally reimbursed this last week to us and a little bit over twelve thousand five hundred dollars so that went back into our operating account uh we had four firework stands that applied and gave us some money. Only three of them set up, one of them couldn't find somebody to run their stand. So, according to our deal, they do not get their money back, according to the resolution, how I read it, because it wasn't anything we did. So there's another $2,000. Plus Betsy and I worked on sending letters out to three people that violated our burning regulations several months ago. We received a little bit over $2,200 back on that already. I appreciate Betsy helping me on that, recouping some costs and stuff. So that EMPG money, our 2025 money that you guys signed the application for a month ago, we already received that. That's already back in the account. So I haven't heard anything if we're going to get 2026 application this year. I think they're still talking about it. It's federal money, so don't know for sure. Right now, we have two different federal presidential declarations that the state's looking at to see if there's enough damage across the state to apply for them. The first period was June 4th through June the 15th. The county and the cities have already submitted their paperwork to me and that's already been submitted to the state. This is, we got that one. Then we had the second round of storms and that goes from June the 18th through June the 30th and all that paperwork for any damages reported back to me by Thursday. So I can turn it in by Friday. It's due to the state by Friday. So I've been a little busy down there, but we're doing good and I'm just glad that the fourth went like it did. The rain kind of helped and kept their fire calls down and stuff.

Yeah, getting the rain ahead, that does help. Yeah.

Any questions you guys have on anything?

You got the USDA grant link that I sent you. Yeah. They are really concentrating on trying to get rural monies, you know, for rural activities. So if there's anything there,

see that's the one we applied for two years ago for the three stations including station four station five station six so i will look at that again and maybe we can go for five with the new administration it they've cut out a lot of the red tape okay okay we'll see how much but they say that they're and they're all called I'll call the new contact that's in Hays. I can't remember what her name is, but yeah, the one guy we haven't worked with in the past, retired or moved on. So I will get ahold of her and hopefully submit to try to get that. Would that help with the radio tower project?

I'm not sure. That might be something to look at, but I know I gave them the information on the fire stations and then Coral Canyon with the sewer stuff out there, because those are two things that I think, you know.

We've got a, we still are in the running for the Moran's office for the end, for the radio equipment for the repeater. but the antenna was a no-go. We're working on rent space. KCOM has that antenna that's up by the Granby Plaza water tower. I met with Scott Fisher last week and see how much it would cost to rent space off of that, part of Wednesday's meeting. But the nice thing is that he's got room in that building for the equipment. It's got a battery backup system with a generator. The antenna is there. It's in good shape. And it would be a microwave relay back and forth to the other tower. So it would not be fiber optics involved in that. And it's tall enough. Yeah, that would be about the same height as what we were talking. Plus, that's a little bit further east to help cover the eastern part of Gary County. It was still, when we did that test, it was still covered downtown. So that's one thing we'll be discussing at our 911 meeting on Wednesday.

How often does that board that still is intact then?

is that the same the 9-1-1 funds that we talked about the number one we're still in attack and there's i think it's going to switch over to an advisory group once once the agreement's signed i guess between the city and the county they're still they're still in the working that's why i hope they refinance that variable loan they have that was absolutely ridiculous and we hadn't heard anything from uh whatever i've been told yeah

Someone said they thought that that would happen, but I haven't had to proceed.

Supposedly, Britain's been working on an agreement. They've been pushing them to try to get one done so everybody knows what's going on. We're just sitting there spinning our wheels right now. If anybody wants to come over and see the new air pack, stop by. I'll show you what the boxes look like.

Yeah See you in 15

Yeah.

Thank you.

Courtney, how often do they do redistricting on the commission districts?

It's recommended that you look at it every three years.

and we did it three years ago.

It was right when I started. So yeah, it might have been.

What is this year?

26.

I think we did it in 23.

Yeah, I think we did it before the November election. It is quite a lot of work, so I don't think it's something that you should do not show offly, I guess is the word I would use. I think it takes a lot of work.

So what we did last time, Kathy, was like your position didn't have any out in the unincorporated part of the county. And Keith didn't have, he had all of what Fort Riley is. So then we changed it to where we each had a little bit of Fort Riley. And then you also got both city and county unincorporated parts of the county. Just so I think it's more fair.

And I think we had three options that we had for a long time, so the public could come in and view it.

I just don't sometimes like the split the way that it is. I never have. But, you know. How come? Well, yeah, it doesn't go by party affiliations, but there's just some different, you know, makeups of it. the city and the county and rural areas.

Well, by law, it has to be as equal. Population-wise, it has to be equal. Population-wise, it has to be as equal as possible in your three options. I remember when Betsy and Troy and I had all those maps laid out on GSI our giant GIS floor and we were looking and we came to those three options and then presented it to the board and they were up here for a while the public could come in you guys could look at it and then originally you voted on it yeah yeah I was in one two and three again you know I said I said I myself just want to look at

at the three options that were available last time you don't want to necessarily brought up because like your position didn't have any out in the county none it was all city and i think that it should be a mixture of both i would too yeah and then keith only keith on half of his his uh

And you can tell by the districts, the voter turnout and stuff. And I understand, again, with political affiliation, but the numbers, yeah, you can't. Right, and it's not based on the political party. I know, that's why I say it. Population, yeah. But as you know, that it is.

Yeah, I can email him and see if he still has that. might even still have it actually yeah i know it's a lot of work i remember since we get this influx

So that census thing has come out, or usually it's in July that we did that.

I don't know if it was the most recent one, because it said the 24 or 25. So I don't know if they based that on, because it came out this weekend, that article.

Yes, we use that population stuff for several reports, or they use it, not me. Jeremy, I think we've got Mr. Asher back. You guys are welcome to come. Did you guys have a good fourth, and did you guys get rained on a lot in the parade? Yes, unfortunately, that was not very fun. Thank you.

I don't remember that it ever started raining in the middle of the parade.

Yeah, I don't either.

they don't have any shorts instead of tv or anything oh they they like if you want to wear shorts you can i mean but they're pretty much come down your knees uh good morning commission jeremy myers public works administrator caitlyn ross i'm an administrative services manager

Here to give our bi-weekly update. First thing we had is a courthouse boiler room, double door project bid opening. Seal bids were sent out on 5-27-26 to eight different contractors. Seal bid was posted on county website and Facebook post was created as well. And a reminder email was sent out on 6-24-2026. we heard from two contractors that they were not interested in bidding at this time one of them was due to complexity of the project itself the other was due to the timeline they were unable to meet the timeline to get that back to us so we did receive no bids for that project nothing to open on that one so we will reach out to all of these contractors and work with them and kind of find out why they weren't interested in those sorts of things could be those are some things we'll dig into see if we need to revamp some of the rfp packet a little bit it was pretty straightforward on what is needed so there wouldn't be a lot to change there but We will work with them. I know one of the contractors that we spoke with, they would be interested if the deadline was extended, but we'll just redo the whole process and hopefully they can meet that next timeline. They did have about 30 days to submit. So whether they kind of forgot about it on their part or what it would have been.

Are those doors any different? I know they've been there forever. Would that entail a little bit different complexity of the job?

It is because of the equipment on the back side of that door. There's not a lot of room to work. And then that upper portion of it is not the replaced portion. Moving on, Kansas tax credit funds received as a reminder from the courthouse limestone project we applied and were approved for the Kansas rehabilitation tax credit program. This program acknowledges completion of each project meets the secretary of the interior standards for rehabilitation and therefore gave us eligibility to receive a state income tax credit equal to 40% of the qualifying expense. with the assistance of the finance department we received 192 426 dollars and 82 cents and that has been deposited back into the cip fund and we will continue to use this program as applicable to recruit monies back to the county an update from our last meeting we did receive approval from the state tax credit program for the courthouse lighting project this project can officially begin now and we will be going through all the same steps once project is completed to ideally get monies back from those project as well so that was helpful there and there's some numbers up there kind of shows you know all the refunds and how it all panned out on that and that's good job on that Yeah that helps. Next is KDEM meeting on June 30. Public Works staff and KDEM met to have the preliminary damage assessment meeting for project 4-15 June 2026. This event included the heavy rainfall and extreme winds we received during that time frame. We have claimed damages regarding categories of debris, roads, buildings, and parks and rec. And we are actively working on all information requested from KDEM for them to submit the initial findings. And we will keep tracking all the associated costs and wait for the declaration to be made by the governor's office, which I think I seen something on the news that the president had accepted that. So it looks like it's gonna. roll through i haven't gotten any official emails on that but that is word on the street so to speak what was the date and again uh 4 4-15 june 2026 so that covered the dates of june 4th through june 15th that's it Innovative Technology Summit. Kaelin and I will be attending KDOT's Innovative Technology Summit on Wednesday, August 19th in Lawrence. This free summit showcases innovative transportation technologies, research projects, and real-world application funding through KDOT Innovative Technologies Program. We did apply for this grant at the end of last year, but we're denied funding. So we're hopeful that attending this summit will allow us to be more successful in our grant applications in the future. Hopefully get some good stuff out of that. Clothing benefit approval. Public works staff are interested in utilizing the logo clothing allotment again this year. We will ensure each employee stays under the $100 limit. Once all items are ordered, the list will be sent to HR for the taxable fringe benefit calculations on that. And those are just some of the items that were picked out as part of that. I know the guys really like the hoodies. The guys and gals like the hoodies. New staff, we're excited to announce the hiring of the road and bridge assistant supervisor, Wayne Carter. He did start this morning, so Thomas is getting him familiar with Gary County and all of those roads and everything that comes along with that. There's several little things that he has to go through, flagger certifications and those things to get into the ropes and get to work with things. And then last but not least is our second quarter project presentation with the month of June bringing us the amounts of rainfall we received. We had to be flexible and rearrange some projects we had scheduled. We could not start our chip sealing operations, but are at the point now where we have this rescheduled to complete this month. We've got some oil ordered for tomorrow, so hopefully we can get that down

chances of rain here later on this week but we're going to start getting the windows we can to get this done and get it down so okay so first one they worked on replacing all of the ceiling tiles at the 4-h center um they got the h-back system worked on first and then after that was all completed um got new ceiling tiles put in to kind of see the beginning, some stains from water and such on all the ceiling tiles. And then really hard to see differences, but they did replace all of the ceiling tiles.

So good visual.

And we were actually in that building to see the updates there.

A lot cleaner, a lot wider tiles. The other ones were pretty yellowy and old. It looks a lot better.

Bar Road, we had that fire station culvert extension, which I know was brought up before. So just some pictures of that I was working on that. We had another culvert entrance on Mockingbird through request of petition that was approved. There's the after. noxious weed, had their chemicals delivered. And as of today, their chemical sales are $42,053.17. So pretty good year for our chemical sales so far. It was all nice and stocked up, now it's back to being a little empty. Also at the 4-H, they had a storage shed that we had to fix the drainage on. so that the water was not going into the building.

And Kathy, you may have remembered that from that joint meeting up there where they were getting water into that storage area there. So we installed a drain there to divert the water away.

When they came for this, the senior center came for their complimented you guys. Good.

Yeah. Much good work up there. And this is a while back now, but we did participate in the Touch a Truck event.

Got a good picture with Willie there. And then having to point that out for all those gaming fans.

And then across the street, we kind of see this picture a lot, but I do have one photo from before when the property was posted for sale. So I've got a good aerial view of what it looked like before. We'll use it as we progress through and clean it up to get a good before and after, hopefully.

You're not going to take those buildings down, are you?

We are not at this point, the bigger one. Yes. The one on the corner, we're still kind of thinking about that. And I think my plan is to kind of get some costs on what it would take to put a roof on that. Cause it does need a roof inside of it yet. yeah uh yeah the inside is actually not as bad as you think it would be yeah it's full of stuff but i mean structurally um it's not like it's leaked and ruined everything in there so it's actually not too bad of shape once we get it cleaned out we'll invite you down to look in there if you'd like building or something for something other than public works you know not you know to intertwine the two or make it some sort of a gary county right right yeah so we'll we'll get it cleaned out we'll gather some costs on what it might take to make it usable again and bring that to commission would it be considered history or historical structures it could probably go on there due to the date that it was constructed so that might be something was the gas station or was it co-op it was a co-op yeah and that used to be actually behind it is kind of where they had their scale and that type of stuff so yeah we will definitely include commission on any yeah any decisions that are made on the structures down there is there anything in there that's worth salvaging to sell on there could be there could be yeah there's a lot of i think antique type items throughout both of those buildings there so i know a couple other buildings i was in down there and there were a ton of those yes are those vehicles behind there somewhere yeah those are all yeah all abandoned with the lot so Those were all taken to Hess and Sons Salvage.

You must have had them pretty well hidden or you would have found them.

My uncle worked down there for probably 45 years.

We're getting lots of stories of people that worked across the street and they're giving us some interesting history lessons on this. It's nice to hear and cool to hear all those stories to go with it.

it had to have been a major operation back in the day just all of the things that were entailed with it was pretty big that's why i appreciate the fact that you take some of that in consideration for you yeah yeah well i had chips down in here but the month with all the rain we've got a good test running um but like you said we'll start it back up this month

So ideally we'll get some more pictures and then most of the rest of the slideshow is all the storm cleanup efforts. So this is from Zimbrum. This picture you see here, this is not everything, but it's kind of picked out some of the bigger ones maybe. This is the bridge in Old Forty by the Kansas Falls Quarry.

It's amazing the amount of debris that comes down with the high water. You would think that it would flush itself out and not happen time and time again, but it just continues to bring stuff down.

It's kind of during and then there's the after of getting this one cleaned up. Where was this one in? This one is Lower McDowell by Florence.

THIS IS ACTUALLY THE BRIDGE THAT WE HAD APPLIED FOR REPLACEMENT AND DIDN'T GET PICKED THIS YEAR.

THIS IS ROOP'S RANCH, THE BRIDGE ON ROOP'S RANCH. OFFICE BUILDING, YOU MAY HAVE SEEN THE TREE THAT WAS DOWN HERE. I'VE GOT SOME PICTURES OF THAT ONE.

And you can see there on the right-hand side, that's a bridge on old 18 that the wing wall was taken out on it. So we've got quite a bit of work to do to get that back in shape, but we'll be working with KDEM and FEMA and hopefully get that included on that project. That's on old 18 there. Yeah, just lots of stuff comes down. Of course, it gets caught.

to try to stay ahead of it yeah tree down there we got cleaned up brooks ranch bridge before and then everything that they got cleaned up and then old highway 13. a little bit of red damage And then Quarry Road, we had that sinkhole on June 23rd. And then just another picture of that. But it is all fixed and running now. So that took a lot of our second quarter, but it took a lot of our third quarter of cleaning up and doing the extra math still too.

It's too bad, Kaylin, that you can't include part of that road being fixed up. I don't know if you guys are getting complaints other you know with not storm related about road conditions seemed like it's been a little bit about a month ago that somebody was saying something about the conditions of the roads weren't like they used to be blah blah blah but you know I don't think that they realize all again part of that your video if you could share that that'd be nice just yeah people know that you guys are

our processes for care of our gravel roads and as far as that goes our asphalt roads nothing has changed within the public works department we're just getting hammered by rainstorms and those sorts of things and it just just takes a lot of effect on Yes, there's a terrible amount of ditch work that does need to be in the county. We've identified that. We just need to get a plan to how we're going to go about tackling it because it is about countywide, not something that just created here over the past year or so. It's something that's taken take a long time to do it is yeah yeah we definitely definitely are aiming to get started on some of the stitching this fall and in turn that will help with getting the water off of the side of the roads you know we went through big turnovers here in the past and new operators and stuff and you know they tend to want to drag the shoulder a little bit tighter than a well-seasoned operator and then they create a lip there water can't get off then you start seeing that erosion right down the shoulder of the road rather than the water getting to the ditch where it needs to be so we're working with them on it as well as a plan to kind of get things and county you know they've had that big big to do about that all that debris and brush you know that it flooded some areas and I don't think we're ever in the position because I think we click people you know that's horrible to think yeah yeah let that go to that extent we we check our our bridges and culverts and those things every year to make sure that we don't have debris piled up in them because I don't want it to get to a point where it tops the road or takes the structure out so we have to keep those cleaned out annually SEE HOW QUICKLY IT BUILDS UP. IT JUST TAKES ONE BIG RAIN AND FLUSHES ALL THE CREEKS OUT AND PUTS IT IN. NOT A LOT THIS UPDATE, BUT DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING FOR PUBLIC WORKS? I ALSO TALKED TO GARY ABOUT THOSE USDA GRANTS AND THE EPA ONE FOR WATER.

They're really wanting to concentrate on small rural communities, so this might be a good time to do that.

Yeah, we're diving into it. I figured you would. Keep it on our radar.

But we need any help with that, too. Okay.

I know you guys do a good job of writing those. Right, right. No, we always like to find somebody to check them out. Yeah. Okay, good. Thank you. Thank you.

I don't know if you want me to talk about it or you want me to talk about it. Let me start. If you want to start.

I kind of touched on this earlier about the appropriation resolution.

I think that, you know, especially people who are inquiring about getting appropriations that are truly taxpayer money and not only the appropriations, but also I know they already do it for people who have permits, you know, that want to build stuff if they're behind other taxes. when we give appropriations, we should expect financial responsibility. And if you're not paying your taxes, I don't think you should be eligible to get taxed.

No, I couldn't agree more. That makes sense.

Should we include CBB funds as well, not just ? Yeah, okay.

And the registered agent, how does that, who registered as what?

I mean, a registered agent with the Secretary of State.

Because we've had problems with NRP and taxes, you know, because, you know, it may say John And then, you know, an appraiser or whatever goes. And they've got John Henry LLC and Bob Jones, you know, and whatever underneath there. So just... So you're saying... Do you want it as your board? Whatever is it you're going to be able to hit the nail on the head because I know we're probably getting... You talk about making like... Like just sort of bend it through your brain. Yes, exactly. Yes, so that we're...

that whatever meaning like so we get going to Texas you're in our fees and it was under different names are different yes yes they find ways to get around all that they care for sure yeah I'd like to see that and also the CBB funds because I mean those are tax funds as well and we should all be responsible for those the same way that we are property tax

So is this something that we could also include accounts payable? So if we have a vendor that does work for us?

Yeah, and it's been statutory for a number of years, and it's never been enforced. It's never been enforced, yes.

I mean, I'm happy to work with Sherry to make sure that we know the listing of ones that we need to look closely or watch for.

Yeah, I think we should add that as well.

or something like this oh yeah I think I mean I talked about it and we just I just do think it needs to be a resolution so that you know it's in writing that we can show that this any time that there's delinquencies or whatever and the county is kind of to pay out and they've got Lincoln Texas needs to yeah they should yeah yeah

Did I hear you say something about economic development? As far as what do you mean? Whatever. I mean, if somebody...

It's on their list of this, Pat? Maybe. She's got the three listed. At River Agents, EDC, and EDC. Oh, okay. So we're going to have to do EDC. Is there something on the agenda?

Oh, no, no, no, no. I meant include that in the resolution. Are you talking about with NRP?

I think that would be economic development. You can't be eligible for tax abatement if you're not up on your taxes. And just like if you are behind and you shouldn't get a permit to build another house if you're not paying taxes on the house that you already have. I think that's in the NRP now. I think it is too. I'm pretty sure it is. I didn't know if we wanted it all inclusive on the resolution, but yeah.

That's a good idea that you brought up. I was looking at that thing and I wasn't about it.

So do we want to add that?

Yes, I'm adding the CVB. I almost feel like Tammy would that should be a separate resolution because that's not really an appropriation okay okay so we can address that in a different way a different okay i don't think it makes sense to put it in this one okay um so i can we go ahead and and accept that this resolution with the addition of cbb appropriations yes i'm going to send it right now okay the clerk's office

Well, then I make a motion that we accept Gary County's Resolution 0706-2026. Second?

It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Motion carried. Thanks for bringing that up. Any more questions? Yeah, I think we need to address that.

I know that that came up at our joint city-county chamber meeting that there were two county and one city representatives terms were up six months ago and we were not advised and so that needs to be addressed. I think that there's a lot of uncertainty and obvious transition. Not sure how we're going to go about that. Like I did mention earlier in my review and update that I do feel that we need to try to keep the structure that we have now with more oversight, more oversight over the direction EVC goes, the finances, the expenditures, the travel. I do feel that that needs to be monitored more. You know, I think that we, and I'm just as guilty as, you know, when you are a county representative or a board, you should be aligned with what the county wants as a board member. and that has never been done. We have not had, we should have been meeting with our representatives yearly to say this is what we want to look at and we haven't done that. I think going forward that that needs to be done. I think at this time I would like, and I think Kathy brought it up at the meeting too, having two county employees temporarily be assigned to that board until we figure out where we're going on the transition. Betsy's name was brought up, and it was immediately questioned as possibly being a conflict, which I totally see, and I don't want that. But I also feel it needs to be somebody that understands what it is to be a board member and the oversight that we need, especially financially. Tammy, we have already talked, I talked to Tammy and she is willing to serve. But then I also thought instead of Betsy to have our Register of Deeds, Jackie. I think she would be a good representative for the county during this transition. And I have spoken to her and she is willing to serve. So I'll listen to what you guys have to say.

Yeah. Or Sherry, if she was, you know, kind of been to some of that too, or has, you know, some background in that. I don't know, probably more so than Jackie, but just because she's been around longer, but that gives us an interim position, and I think I would be, I wouldn't have a problem with Jackie or, you know, I mean, the clerk, if you were.

No one talked to me about it, so.

i think it's good to have somebody with financial knowledge on that period i will say in our chamber board meetings when this all kind of blew up and it was agreed that not just this board but previous sports just weren't paying attention and didn't know the role and so it's not like I think everything needs to change. There needs to be way more oversight.

And the environment only needs to be different such that anybody sitting around the table should feel comfortable with asking questions about what's going on. And for that bump to go on is just incredible to me. I still can't absorb a lot of what has transpired, but I'm happy that we are where we are, and hopefully we can get some people on that board that are, can meet more well and, you know, have those people in place that we can feel comfortable about asking questions and also, like you said, if it's board education, because I'll admit, I'm not an economic development necessary person, but you can still look at a report. If you get all the information.

I do not think that we are getting all the information. And I wrote some notes. In August of 2023, we wrote the EDC a letter saying that we wanted details of all the travel and how much it was costing, return on investment. We've never, ever gotten that. In June 18th of 2024, we had a budget session. They were argumentative about showing us expenditures. I even brought up at that time, that I didn't feel that the Chamber knew that they were the governing board over all of those and that I wanted budget or I wanted board education on that and I was told that that was not needed. There's just been a lot of questions and I do feel that Tammy and Jackie would be the best ones at this time to sit on there as temporary I know they did Mayor Butler at a 90-day. I don't want to put a time limit on it because we don't know how long it's going to take for this transition. It might be 30 days. It might be a little more than 90 days. I don't know. So I would just say until we get it done with our transition.

Well, when this restructure takes place, there's going to have to be something in there that resets the clock on the appointments.

Oh, yeah. Even on the chamber board, on the MAC board, I just think that all needs to be redone.

I think the chamber board should be shrunk down. I think there's too many people on there.

And that would have to be... Well, it is because it's consuming the other... Yeah, that's why it's so big. It's because you have four people per meeting. Right. Because you want to have input, you know, and then there's a lot more things to do with those meetings.

I don't know.

So these appointments would take place immediately, is that what we're thinking? Correct. I don't have a problem with the two suggested from now temporarily, yeah.

Well then my motion is to replace the two vacancies with Tammy and Jackie. Second. Seconded.

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Motion carried.

Speaking of Jackie, she's up next. And this is for the EDC board? Yes.

And the city's gonna do their one vacancy

They already did after our joint meeting. They had a special meeting and Terry was nominated and appointed. To fill that in.

The 2002, the 8-19-2002 resolution, there was a 12-19-2012 resolution state that if the the there's a termination of the current master agreement that the old joint economic board will resurface and it will continue to function as they did prior to going under the changes um that's where the nine members now you're

The old joint was 11 members.

And it'll go back to the 11-member board. So it would revert back to the old 11-member board, economic development committee. And we've given our notice, and the city's given their notice of termination. So if you guys would like to repeal the 2002 and 2012 resolutions, we can do that. I have been discussing with city legal what we're doing to replace them with since there's not a formalized new structure that's been agreed upon by any entity my suggestion was that we have a transitional economic board and that transitional economic development board will be the chair of the county commission, the mayor, and the president of the chamber board. So if you guys want to get input and if you want to rescind those, I have a resolution to rescind those today and then we need to decide what we would like to replace those with.

I think we should rescind it and then we have until the end of the year to replace it because the master agreement is still in place until December 31 of 2026. I think we should replace it as well.

Do we need a motion for that? Yep. So moved. Second. Seconded. All those in favor say aye. Aye.

Do you guys like the idea of that transitional board? I do. I think we need to have something in place with the structure and having elected officials on there, especially with travel. I want them to have oversight on travel, expenditures, because that whole thing needs to be revamped. There are no financial policies on what you can and can't spend money on right now. I'm shocked. with them being in charge of over $300,000 of taxpayer money that we have no oversight over that, none.

So I've started a graph of what I'm calling the transitional economic board at the first meeting, the first order of business that says that you guys, whoever is the chairman and the president will determine if they're going to and utilize the county economic policy or the city economic policy, but they have to adopt the one that made it. Yes, I agree. Motion for that as well. So those were made, well, I have a motion for the rescission to terminate those.

I made the motion and you seconded it, so we need to go through it.

No, so you're saying we need to do these separately. Well, so today, I think that we need to repeal 8-19-2002 and 12-19-2012.

And then hopefully by next week, we will replace them with

some sort of transitional board. But this, by repealing them today, we're saying the old joint board will not resurface upon termination. That was my motion. Did you get the dates of those resolutions? It is resolution 8-19-2002 and 12-19-2015.

Okay. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor, aye. Aye. okay are we done with all that now we'll just put that on the agenda for next week hi jackie hi good morning jackie you are up next so you can start with I was on vacation time too. So I said, Oh, church is calling me. I better. So I just was trying to, you know, find an alternative.

I do think that I could see where they say it's a conflict with Betsy. So yeah.

Jackie Reisinger, Register of Deeds. I am here for my quarterly report for April 2026 to June 2026. I will jump right into the numbers of everything and the document counts and then go over a few other things. So for the second quarter of 2026, we collected $80,655 in file fees. $2,607 and 4 cents and copies. That's kind of a weird one. We never have 4 cents, but that was an accounting thing with the check. Um, the rod tech fund, we collected $12,202. The heritage trust fund. We collected $6,101. The clerk tech fund. We collected $3,050 and 50 cents. And then the treasurer's tech fund. We also collected $3,050 and 50 cents. So all of that combined, the total collected for the second quarter was $107,666.04. And then the amount to the general fund, which is the file fees and the copy money collected, was $83,262.04. I do want to point out at this time with the financial part of it that we started e-recording in June. We went live with that and I kind of discussed with Tammy, I wanted whatever was e-recorded on the last day to also be counted as far as the money for that month and that quarter. We did not actually see the money in the bank until the next morning. So it's always the next morning that it hits, but I did count it for this time and I'm going to continue moving forward doing that just so that I keep it all. I'm not carrying anything over. And that also part of that is that the document count that is including those e-recorded documents. So I wanted the financials to also reflect what the document counts were reflecting as well. So we, our total collected is up $9,289.54 from the first quarter of 2026. The total to the general fund was up $5,413.54 from the first quarter. And then As you all know, I like to look back at the same time last year. So the total collected is up $3,461.04 from the second quarter of 2025. With the documents, we recorded 290 deeds, 276 mortgages, 301 releases, which are usually mortgage releases. Um, assignments again with mortgages 77, that's them selling the mortgage to another lender. And then they assign it. And that document is reported in our office. Um, two plaques, two surveys, and then anything that doesn't fall into any of my categories is miscellaneous. And that was 163. So our total documents for the second quarter were 1,111 and. I like to give you guys how many pages that is in our quarter. So I can't say that that's how many pages we touched at this point because we e-record. So the amount of pages we put eyes on in the second quarter was 6,223. With the SBQs, that was 195. So that's valid sales for the county in the second quarter. We were up 146 documents from the first quarter of this year. And then we were up 25 documents compared to the second quarter of 2025. And then our SBQs were up 29 from the first quarter of this year, but down 29 from the second quarter of last year when I looked back. So I had to double check and make sure because it was the same number. So that is the financials and the document stats for the second quarter. Any questions about any of that?

No, very good.

Okay. Yes, thank you. And then I did just want to give a couple of updates. Our property fraud alert, which we put into place May of 2025. As of this morning, we have 380 subscribers. We do continue to get people in. I wouldn't say daily, but every couple of days asking if there is something like that. And I always say, well, I'm glad you asked. Let me help you get set up if you'd like to right now or give them more information. And then some people already know about it, were told by their neighbors or saw it somewhere. And so we help them get set up or give them that information. We have been putting that out in the county newsletter. When I first started, when we first started doing it, I did go on the radio about it and put stuff on JC Post. So it's kind of a matter of just getting the word out there and having people know it's free. It's, you know. Costs nothing to them. We always tell them it's paid for out of our tech fund. It's just a notification system. But we can't make people sign up for it. People who have are appreciative. Yes. And I like it that it's not something that they keep bugging you. I signed up and I think I was the first person that signed up and I did the text. I got one text that said, hey, you've signed up for it. And I always tell people that's it. But then we get people that come in and say they got the notifications and so we know it's working. It's just a matter of you know, the right people signing up. Um, as I said a little bit earlier, we did go live with e-recording on June 8th. So that has been a fun learning curve, but I actually like it. Um, I was a little worried. I was a little bit more worried about the accounting side of it, as far as the money, how many days after it would trail and, but it's very quick. It's the next day that we get the money. So it's just been more a matter of figuring that out. in our office side of how that works for us. And then working with the treasurer's office. I know people are appreciative about that too.

Cause I know people had asked for years about that.

So yeah, when I was running, they, that was the main question that anybody would ask. And, um, so yeah, I see its benefit. I see, I was nervous about doing it just because of more of the, um, liability thing about us being liable of, something isn't an original but that was squashed pretty early on in the process of looking into it it's just we they sign agreements saying that there's so many originals so you can't really question it at that point but it's so far so good um my office is fully staffed and we're hoping to keep it that way we've kind of had a little bit of bad luck with that but i have um courtney knox who was previously in the appraiser's office and she is working in my office now. So.

Oh really? When did that start?

Um, she started on the 29th of June.

Oh wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, and then I am starting my CPM course next week. So yes, Travis and I will be starting that. Good. Yeah. It's exciting. Any other questions for me?

No, I thought maybe you were coming in here to turn us down on your appointment. Oh,

No, I did ask some questions though, because I told Trish, like, I'm not, it's not that I'm not interested, but I have, you know, gotten myself agreed to stuff and then thought maybe I should have asked a couple of questions before I just did that.

Um, but I would suggest that maybe you and Kathy and Tammy and Betsy just sit down because there has been some preliminary discussions on where we're going to go, right. Possible ways to go just to get you caught up on that.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah, that'd be great, Kathy, if you want to try to set something up and we were all doing well, that'd be great. I'd rather go in there with that knowledge than just kind of like, okay, I don't know what's going on. I've done that too. It's not fun. So, yeah. Well, thank you.

I appreciate your willingness. We'll get with you whenever that seems available.

Okay. Yeah. Just let me know. Send me an email or stop by. I'll be there. Okay. All right. Thank you.

I have minutes from June 15th and June 22nd that still need to be approved. And it looks like if there were corrections that had made those already sent them out.

I think we approved them.

I mean, not approved them, but I said there wasn't anything.

I don't have anything. She's been doing great. Two compliments from the board for her first board meeting too.

Keith, I see if you had corrections on any minutes. OK.

So I just need a motion to approve the 15th and the 22nd. I have minutes whenever you guys want to do that.

So moved.

Second. Seconded. All those in favor? All right. I do not have any change orders. Thank you. Hmm. Keith, I don't know if you saw that. I was looking at my note here, and I did talk about that data center, Kansas Municipal Utilities data center summit that they're having at the Docking State Office building July 15th and 16th. If any of us are interested in going, I might.

It's just kind of leading up to my surgery.

When is your surgery? 22nd. 22nd?

That's what this phone call was just.

That's what I was getting the phone call. Steve, I was checking. Oh, really? Someone know? All right, will you be better than you went in?

Yeah, I know.

How long is your recovery? Is this what you're doing?

Yeah, just at her near replacement.

Are you guys here for a public comment?

Yeah, I would love to.

Okay, well we could go ahead then Dave with you if you want to go ahead and public comment. I think you're next.

good afternoon commissioners thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak today first i want to thank each and every one of you for serving service to gary county i know the job is not easy and i appreciate the time and effort you dedicate on behalf of the community for the record my name is david schneider i live at 8624 quarry road milford and i'm a candidate for gary county commission district one Well, I know all three of you personally. I wanted to take the opportunity and introduce myself to the citizens of Gary County. For the first 18 years of my career, I worked in the banking and finance industry, including managing multiple branches and overseeing large teams. That experience gave me a strong foundation in budgeting, financial management, and making tough financial decisions. I currently own and operate a small business here in the area as well. And I've gone door to door and spoken to hundreds of residents across the county. And one issue, surprisingly, I bet, that comes up time and time again is property taxes. It's by far and away the most important thing that everybody's talking about and it's on everybody's mind. It's the single biggest concern I hear from voters every single day. And I understand you. will face difficult budgeting decisions in the days and weeks ahead, including today. Those choices are never easy, and I respectfully urge you to keep the burden on our taxpayers front and center. Many families and seniors, as you're well aware, in your county are feeling the real pressure. Do your best to hold the line on property taxes. It's a tough burden. You guys have some tough decisions to make. And wherever possible, provide some relief, if possible. It would mean a great deal to the people we all serve, including those taxpayers. If elected, my background in finance and budgeting would allow me to hit the ground running as a member of your team and help them make prudent, responsible decisions on behalf of Gary County taxpayers. Again, thanks for letting me introduce myself formally to the county and for the opportunity to speak today.

I'd like to have you look at our history.

over the last five years of our yeah i'd say it's pretty impressive no no question i don't think people understand though because when they get their tax bill they think it's all from gary county working with the state government as long as i have i understand the dynamics between the county and the state yes and i think my experience especially working with the state legislature makes me in a unique position to understand that mandates tell us yeah thank you without a question I think we need to do a hard look at our wants and needs the needs are obviously there unfunded mandates that are directed to us from the state I need to be pushing back wherever possible on the state level and I think I have a unique position or experience level

yes we do have our our work cut out for us this uh you know it's so much easier now with the information we're able to get from our finance director i mean yeah my first uh budget the only thing we had from the department heads were three c's salary and um uh contractual and that was a nightmare i could imagine yeah thanks again guys thank you thank you

Is there anything else to come before the board? Hearing none, then we will go ahead and adjourn until 2 o'clock.