Board of County Commissioners Regular and Meetings - Regular Meeting

Well, good morning everybody. It's March 17th at 11:00 a.m. and this will begin our regular meeting of the Lake County Board of County Commissioners. Please silence or turn off all your cell phones and we will start with the pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. First, I will ask for a motion to approve the agenda for today.

I'll move to approve the agenda. Second that to a vote. I next we have community information items. Uh I have nothing today. Commissioner Elsa, do you have some community information items to share with us? Um no. Thank you.

Commissioner Lee. Yes. Um hectic 72 hours here for Lake County. Um saw a significant weather event. Most people probably know they experienced it firsthand. Uh, high winds causing damage and disruptions countywide. I wanted to give a huge shout out and thanks to Lake County staff and our local partners for um providing uh a space coordinating on emergency relief spaces for anyone who needed it at that time. um kind of unsung heroes there. We have people in the building who are wearing a lot of different hats right now making these things happen. So, thank you. Um I also wanted to thank our local law enforcement group and Sheriff Specman and our regional law enforcement partners for their work on a major operation this weekend. The work that they do to keep this community safe is extremely valuable. sometimes the uh just saying thanks um is something I don't hear enough of for those guys. So them being out there putting their own safety on the line to help this community out is extremely important to me. So I wanted to say thanks to those guys. Um that's really all I've got right now. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Lee. This is a reminder that all meeting recordings are available and the work sessions are recorded and available on the Lake County government YouTube channel and are transcribed and indexed for your convenience. Recordings can be watched at a time that's best for you. Subscribe and stay informed on county decisions. Uh we now have public comment. If anybody online or in the room would like

to make a public comment, please raise your hand and state your name. Good morning, Jane.

Hi, I'm Jane Harelson, 172 Rafferty Drive. The school district has made it clear that a unified decision between Lake County School District Board of Education, you, the board of commissioners, and city council is required before any largecale recreation renovation takes place at Lake County Intermediate School. And no decisions have been made. Um you all had that joint meeting last June, but um no decisions were made. As taxpayers, all of us will be responsible uh ultimately for that building and live with the consequences whether it's renovated, demolished. Can you hear me?

Yeah. Sorry. Excuse me.

Okay. whether it's renovated, demolished, sold, or left in place to decay, we're all going to have be responsible for it in the long run. And taxpayers have uh expressed over the last five years that they want a swimming pool. Five years of investigation and over $400,000 of taxpayer funded studies support that it's fiscally, environmentally, and socially more responsible to renovate what we have than to build a new public aquatic center. And as far as that feasibility study that was released about a year ago goes, a brickandmortar building with an Olympic size pool and diving well renovated with an expected 50-year lifespan presented in the Lake County audit by Asenza is a better use of taxpayer dollars than the fabricated steel building with four 20ard lap lanes, a leisure kids pool, and a 25- year lifespan that is presented in the OLC study. So, there's been a task force made up of the city administrator, the school superintendent, the county manager, and a representative from PB Swims. And it has accomplished in its first two meetings the decision to meet four times a year with the purpose of working toward restoring public access to swimming. Time is money. A full renovation of the aquatic center is now estimated to be uh 7 and a half million and that's just based on the numbers we got from the county a year ago with a 6% inflation rate added. I've heard um different AI estimations to be 20 to 34 million. So it's hard to say. uh PBS

Swims, we have the fidiciary duty to pursue every opportunity for funding that is presented. So, we're applying for congressional directed spending funding um through the USDA Rural Facilities Grant. It's due March 27th and we respectfully request that the board of county commissioners write a letter of support to the Senate Appropriations Committee on behalf of PB Swims in support of our mission to renovate Lake County Aquatic Center. We also respectfully request that the county commissioners make a commitment to the board of education that you will support the taxpayerdriven effort to renovate, operate, and maintain Lake County Aquatic Center within Lake County Intermediate School. I thank you for your time and I thank you for serving.

Thank you, Jane. Anybody else in the room or online like to make a comment? Just raise your hand and state your name. Okay, moving on. We have a new feature in our regular meeting agenda and that is updates from our county attorney and our county manager. Today we'll start with our county attorney, Mr. Matt Hobs.

Um, morning commissioners. Uh, a few things. Um, just give you a little bit of an update on sort of these land use complaints that we've been working with with uh, CPD. Um, three of them we filed in court. Um, Mr. Romer's case was first up last week. He had a return date on the summons. Uh we continued that about to a month out to give Mr. Rumor some time to present a plan to CPD of how he's going to bring his property into compliance. the the the other two are out e E hill uh regarding um some storage of camper campers and some other structures that are on those properties that don't have a a um primary key structure. So essentially people using property to store campers and other things which is a quite a theme down there I think. So, two of those are return dates this Thursday. I think we have return dates on summones on those in county court. Uh return date on the summons is nothing more. They need to file an answer and we kind of set another court date. Usually the hearing will get set. So, I expect the hearings to for those two cases to get set on Thursday. Um, another one I I kind of need a little bit of input from the board. Uh, 12355 South Highway 24. Um, kind of a nuisance property south of town. Uh, longstanding property. their house. It It was kind of on UP's property and half on their property.

And and they've approached us with a proposal to uh you know, essentially try to evate the nuisance as much as they can, but they they want to uh have time to do that and then essentially deed that property to the county. Um, you know, once the six months or something is up, before I go too far down that rabbit hole, if it's something you guys don't want to pursue, we won't do it. If it's something you're interested, uh, you know, we'll we'll start that process and obviously it'll come back for to the board for a formal agreement once we we get that get that far.

Could you elaborate on that? like the deeding the property the county is that is Union Pacific talking about their portion of or the the owners of the Yeah. Okay. Like what I think do you know which property I'm referring to? Yeah, I can think of a few down in that area that are um I know CPD has tried to work with for years about remedying some of the the junk vehicles and things like that. Um

sorry, are you saying that half of the house is on which property? UP. Yeah. And they had this early agreement with UP with a lease and UP terminated the lease and UP has

uh we've also been in touch with UP. They are going to tear the house down. It's a matter of time and UP has told them they need to remove all their stuff from the UP property that they want and get it back on their property. These folks no longer live here. They live down in San Louis, Colorado. Got they're older and just having a hard time getting what they want uh from this property. And and the property, it's this sliver of property in between the highway and the and the railroad

and it's really can't be used for anything. So, it's not it's it's it's a sliver. So, they can't build on it. They really can't do anything with it. Um, so they've proposed, you know, that they clean it up to the extent they can and essentially deed the property to the county because they know that it's basically unmarketable property that they're going to be stuck paying taxes on. Do they have a plan to clean it up and are they going to follow through with that or is that going to be left to us to clear it up? Well, I suspect it'll be left up to us. Yeah, it's been that way for a while.

Yeah, if I had to guess, they're going to get what they can and leave the rest to us. I mean, the option is, you know, if we don't go down that road is we'll probably be stuck cleaning it up anyway, right? And then filing we can file a lean on on the taxes and then Got it. Yeah. Hope somebody comes and pays. Essentially, I would suspect that property will go up for tax lean sale at some point. Yeah.

Whether anybody buys a lean or not, but if there's a, you know, whatever $10,000 cleanup bill on the property, it's unlikely though you're recovered, I guess. But the railroad has agreed to demo the house or the railroad has agreed to demo the house and clean that up and take it to the deal or just the knock it over. Yeah, they're going to clean it up. Yeah, that's a big job. Is there anything of value there that they're going to come get? They want six months to come get anything of value. I think I mean that's in the eye of the older probably somewhat. Right. There's some equipment there. Yeah. I I don't know what's there.

Yeah. They probably think there's things of value and probably other people would look at it and say, "This is all junk. It should just be used for scrap metal." Sounds like we don't have a choice really. It's unbuildable. Is there anything else we could use it for? It's two It's There are two different routes for it to get to us, sounds like. And there's a quicker, less expensive route for it to get to us is what I'm hearing. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I I think it's kind of the you're you're picking the least of the bad options for this property. It's not like there's a a great, you know, option in front of you. It's like what's the what's the least bad option?

Yeah. Probably just having them some agreement where at least they're going to make some progress and then Yeah. in all likelihood, I suspect there's going to be some junk left to I'm sure there's oil and all kinds of toxic stuff on there that would be left to you, Mr. Irwin. Probably as fast as the building.

Yeah. Well, the building up is going to take care of. So, now that that goes away, but certainly the, you know, the draft abatement agreement I've sort of drawn out, it deals with some the environmental liabilities and so the county wouldn't be taking those. you are primary the county's primary point of contact with the property owners. you know, since CPD is involved us at this point. Yeah, I think we're past sort of the voluntary compliance where they're taking the lead on it and I've sort of taken the lead on these sort of I think there's 10 or 13 cases where they've sort of handed off to me that they've tried to work with these property owners for for years and have really gotten nowhere. We're slowly uh starting to file those in court starting with these three and you know this one has voluntarily reached out and you know we'll continue moving the others forward. Um

I choose the least bad. Okay. If you want direction get a sense of where you guys are. You guys down. Um yeah. Okay. direct it. The least expensive. It's awful. Yeah.

The the states to rails people were here a while ago and that's sort of been on my back burner and you know at some point I just wanted to get a sense from you all if you wanted me to bring that something formal back to you to consider in terms of a resolution to designate that. Like I'm getting a couple. Okay. Um, you know, the other the other litigation update is on the Tansic Martinez case that the motion to dismiss has been filed in that case. Uh, we're not going to get a you know, the court doesn't have a timeline and they need to rule on those. So, it could be relatively quickly. It could be months. I I've seen courts sit on these motions. I haven't seen this court. I've definitely seen some courts that will sit on these motions for over a year.

So, it's uh could be a matter of weeks, it could be several months, it could be an extended period of time. I just don't don't have any ability to to tell you when the court's going to rule on that. That's where we're at on that. There's really nothing going on until the court rules on that motion. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Next up, we have county manager updates.

Yes. Um, so monthly we are asking departments to, you know, give us the updates for each one. I'm not going to read every single one of these or you've been here for quite some time. So, I'm going to hit the highlights and then just so you guys are aware, when we do quarterly updates for budget, um, which should be coming up at the end of April, uh, we'll have department directors presenting what they're working on, um, and just things that they're excited to share with you. Um, so you will be hearing from them, not just from me, but this at least gives you an idea of what we've been working on in the interim. Um, so tourism and economic development Um they recently collaborated with Fat Bike Worlds and Ski Jouring um to try to improve visitor information and help get the word out about these events. Um for skiuring um they worked closely with um organizers to advance enhance visitor communications which was important you know as we had so many people in town. Um they've expanded uh community use of the visitor center space. They host hosted an inerson planning meeting for the are the Rockies roll philanthropy dates group. Um and that event is scheduled October 29th and 30th. And then they have an upcoming climate and coffee event with C4. Um and they are trying to continue to use the visitors center as a welcoming community gathering space. Um they will be launching a tourism sentiment survey uh in the next um actually I think it might have gone out today. I've taken it three times.

Awesome. Um and it will be out for 30 days. So we would love everyone's feedback on that. It just helps us understand um the sentiment about tourism in Lake County, how we can do a better job on our end to make sure that we're um investing into marketing in the right areas that would help drive tourism, you know, to our our community. Uh and economic development um building better places. um work. Uh over the next few weeks, they are going to be sending out emails to all of us to get our feedback kind of on these final plan pieces as we start to try to wrap that project up. Um so we'll be getting some emails here and there that we're giving feedback to. um the airport and industrial park feasibility study has been completed uh and a staff to know was generated to get to the BOCC so we can start to collect a little more information and then come back with any viable options and say to you guys what what viable options would you want us to explore? Um, let's see. In public health, um, we've been closely monitoring a measles outbreak on the front range and are continuing continuing to, um, encourage people to get vaccinated. Um, as of 4:30 on Friday, Britney Person's team selected our prevention project um, for congressional funding, and we're in the process of collecting community support to turn in by Tuesday, the 17th. today. Um, other things that they're working on are working with the uh LCSD um about an upcoming educational campaign about safe firearm storage alongside uh free gun locks for the community uh to make sure that um children don't have access to those

items. Um I'll jump over to Pub Works uh on the road and bridge front. Uh we just want to say a big thank you to Michael's team for hauling snow to and from the avenue. Uh we worked really hard to make sure both days of skouring could happen, which a lot of people had to cancel their second day just because of the slush factor. Um so they worked really hard to move the snow and get detour set up. Um working on uh the crusher to be able to make road base for our gravel. um public works the landfill. We received an approval letter um from CDPHE on our engineering uh operations and design plan. So that was really helpful. Uh and glad that we received approval.

Can we pause for a second? Yep. What's the timeline on that? Do you think we're going to get it up this summer? The No, the Perfect. Yeah. What do you think, Michael? No, the crusher. Um, we've been working on it for a while. We have crushed some asphalt already. Um, we started crushing gravel and we popped the plate off of the crusher. I believe it's back up and running. They just have not had a chance to run it yet because of the weather. Okay. Welcome. So, you think this summer that'll be running for us and we'll be able to get it locally? That's awesome, Michael. Congratulations.

Thanks, Candace. Um CSU extension uh will be hosting student interns over the summer. Um the intern uh will collaborate with the uh Rocky's Rock Adventure Summer Camp and help with other uh natural resources uh education projects in Lake County. Um the application just closed and they're going to be reviewing those uh and screening candidates to select one. Um, other items are that CSU is continuing the planter box project with C4 for another summer, which I think that was really uh popular last year. Uh, it provides free raised planter boxes to local residents uh and provides gardening classes to teach them um how to uh garden and grow their own food. water and natural resources uh is planning for what we think will be a very dry year unless an El Nino swoops in and saves us. The next few weeks look particularly crispy. Um so we are currently working on our water lease with the Mount Massive Golf Club. Um if they are unable to procure water for 2026 from another source, we're trying to get those items figured out. Um worki is continuing on the development of Parkville Waters right to 88CW19 which would enable irrigation of the golf course and potentially free up a a significant portion of Lake County's agument agumented water u for use in Lake County water projects enterprise.

Can we pause that for a second since the golf course meeting is tomorrow? What just happened? Where are we getting water from potentially and how is that going to free up our aug water and because I want to be able to know what I'm talking about tomorrow. Sure. Yeah. And I'll be there tomorrow as well. Okay, good.

Um, so the golf course, you know, as far as me and my engineers understand it, they don't have another source of water, but last we heard in the end of February, they were pursuing an alternate source of water. I'd be curious to see if they can find that. Yeah. So in lie of that, we're just preparing to proceed as normal, you know, with when they understand that there's not many other sources of water at the golf course. There are two water decrees that allow you to irrigate the golf course. One of which is our a plan. The other is Parkville's 88 CW19. That's the one I've been talking about developing where we have to rehabilitate the dilap ditch. Yeah. But we also have to put in a diversion and measurement structure on Empire Gulch.

Yeah. which is where the water gets transferred from. So that's that's a separate development of the water, right? That then when we can use parkill's water to irrigate part of the golf course, all that water we use to irrigate the golf course gets freed back up to us, which could be potentially like 50% of our total water that we have. But but that would be but so not has anything changed because my impression is that we would get that work done in Empire this fall. So it wouldn't actually be able to free up any of the odd water from part any of the part the water for this summer.

Correct. Yeah. So we're pursuing the lease kind of like we've discussed where it's just it's essentially modeled on prior years trying to get them what they need with the understanding that they could have less water. Okay. Um but at the same time we're also pursuing development of this other water right that's you know probably two years work away but we need to start now on that. So, just to be clear, nothing has changed since the last. Correct. Nothing has changed. There's no more water T3980. That's what we're really I'm I'm really focused on. You know, it benefits them and it benefits the county and in part it's a benefit, too. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks, Bryce.

Thanks, Candace. Can I ask one quick water question while we're on the subject? Um, are you going to be Lake County's seat at the table for the 2026 Arkansas River Basin Water Forum? I mean, I'm the representative of the basin. The the round table now, and that round table is kind of what what's on the forum. Okay. The forum's not going to have any decision-m bodies. I would recommend all of you to go, though. It's in Saloer this year. It's usually in La Hunter, PBLO.

Um, and it's just it's great. gets everyone that works in and cares about the Arkansas River in our basin. And so the education sessions are incredibly informative. You know, we're going to have a big drought focus this year. And there's also a focus that's really important, I think, systemwide on protecting the historic farming lands lower in the valley that are the big targets for buy and drive in the cities right now. Okay. Uh, April 21st, 5 to 9:00 p.m. That's at the Salida esteemed plant. Yeah. You're talking about the local leaders dinner. Yep. Yeah. That's a good one to go to. I recommend it.

And it's just great for networking as well. You be able to ask other people at your position how they're handling these issues. Thanks. That's all I have. Great.

Moving on. Finance. Um they are working on or we have been working on a five-year proformup budget for Lake County. Uh now that we, you know, got 26 wrapped up, we're looking at 27 budget and a 5-year projection. Um especially now that we're utilizing our accounting software, you know, to fully really model um payroll, health, life, dental, vision, which we have done separately in a spreadsheet before. We've only just started using software to do that, but now we're able to actually take that module that allows us to really look at what is our staff cost and project it out over the next 5 years if we keep people in the same seat, which is really one of our biggest, you know, drivers. That's everyone's biggest driver is payroll and benefits. And so really to be able to strategically look at that from a 5-year outlook, knowing everybody that's with us might not always be, you know, here they could leave. And then we would reimagine some of those positions or, you know, ask ourselves, you know, what serves the the need of the community the best. But we are getting that work done right now. Um we are also uh just about to start our um 2025 audit um but have a little bit of a lag time between the last audit ending and this one starting. So pretty much in in March by the end of March we quit posting any entries back to the prior year and anything forward to the next year. We have a 60-day window where if we receive an invoice that should that was for the prior year, we post it back. Um, and we do that for up to 60 days and then we start to wrap up the year and get our books in a row to hand off to the auditor. And so that process is happening right now. We have a little

bit of a lull between the end of March um before we really start to do that work of like getting, you know, any adjustments the auditors gave us from last year's audit in place uh before we hand the books off. Um, and while we're in that lull, we are automating our accounts payable. Um, so we're going to be working with Tyler to implement uh automated accounts payable. So just what that means right now, one person gets every invoice and they enter the invoice. They have to get approvals. It's a very manual process. And Tyler has AP automation. So the invoices received can just be scanned and it creates the the payable entry instead of one person finding the right vendor, entering the amount, going back and checking the date. It's all very manual. So that will take payroll or not payroll but accounts payable from being this very lengthy manual process to being scanning the documents the packets created the person checks the packet and they route it to a director for approval and the director can approve it right then and there uh or change if something isn't coded to the right account they can change it right then and there and it's routed back it will really really increase our processing time for accounts payable so that Yankee who Because accounts payable can focus on other reporting tasks that we've never even gotten to because we've done it very many. That would be a huge love.

Wait, pause. Audit is about to start. Congratulations accountable. This is huge, Candace. Well done. Yeah. Hopefully we just try to get this one done. I'm ready to just do one a year. Yeah. I don't want to prefy that. I think that's a huge change in our culture and our systems. I'm just really grateful and really proud of your team.

Yeah, they are crushing over there and we're all excited to just do one audit and then have breathing room before the next one. So, it'll be exciting for us this year. Building department, um they're working on the Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code. Um the public hearing and resolution for that is scheduled for 3:30. Um the building department of the city of Leadville and uh Leadville Lake County Fire uh department have drafted an administrative plan for the up our department too. Sorry, I left ours out. This is their update, so I don't think they mentioned themselves. Um we've drafted an administrative plan for the upcoming enforcement of the code, which is really important given the fire season that we're in. Um the board of review is recommending the 2024 eye codes. uh the board is meeting weekly to ensure the state mandatory adoption by the 30th of June and then in April uh we'll be getting public engagement and then June 16th will be the public hearing for those uh cloud permit uh Josh has been really working alongside uh Ann's team uh to get the building department trained get the cloud permit set up correctly with the correct correct mapping software which apparently was missing and they didn't recognize that not having the correct mapping software wasn't allowing it to be implemented. Um but we are working to try to get that uh rolled out towards the end of the month. In planning the rural lodging and event moratorum it is in place currently and we are working to get that wrapped up within six months. Um and uh went through a six-month plan of like how are we going to get it done? what's the timeline, what has to be done each month to get there uh with Josh and I so we can make sure that we have that wrapped up by the end of that six month time period uh and we can all be moving that

forward. Really excited. We're interviewing for a planner which they desperately need. Um and are uh wrapping those up in the next uh next week to move to second rounds enforcement. We have 11 pending cases which I think Matt has been looped into uh to a lot of those and has really helped our team you know with noticing and making sure we keep keep ourselves covered as we do that. Um we were awarded um a grant for the housing action plan which we're really excited for because we had to have one anyway. So now we actually have money to put towards it. We got 18 houses currently set, 15 houses under contract. Um, six final homes are going to be set on the 24th unless you know any weather comes up, but it looks really nice. Actually, we got lucky at least that we could keep that moving along. And then last but not least, our county manager office updates. I just wanted to update you guys on work that we've been doing uh in our CLT, which is our county leadership team meetings. We're working on uh culture, mission, and vision work. Uh in the upcoming CLTs, we've been working with directors to identify areas that we need to uh improve training on instead of rolling out processes with no training and then people are frustrated when they don't understand what's required or what's needed. Um other things that we've been doing are um each trying to work on priorities with departments uh and really say hey here are our strategic priorities that we're working towards um without focus. It's really hard to actually get anything done if you're working on 100 things versus if you do six move to the next six um trying to work on those items. And then um just want to give an update uh on the pool task force which we heard about earlier

today. Um we have been meeting quarterly. Our last meeting um there was a discussion of the letter request uh that came up earlier and I believe Jane is going to talk with the school district at as of the last meeting. The school district hadn't been asked about uh the use of their facility for that application. uh that is going to go out and in the last meeting that's where the idea that we need a collective consensus from all three partners before sending letters out is really important and I believe that Jane is going to go speak at the next board of education um meeting. I think it'd be really important for us before sending any letters out to understand that the board of education is on board with their building being used and that came up in the last meeting. So that meeting is coming up and I think it would be pretty essential to understand where they are at before we do a letter of support and that did come up in that last meeting.

Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. So I just wanted to flag that. Yeah, is coming up. I think it's on the 23rd. I'm pretty certain. I don't see it on the calendar. Yeah, just so to be clear, the board of education is I know Jane is going to be speaking with them or actually maybe she's not. I think it's just on their agenda for the 23rd. Uh Kate flagged it for me. I'll get information out to you about when the meeting is, but um in our last pool task force, it did come up that they hadn't been asked about the use of of the building.

So, I think it'd be essential to know that that is clarified before we write a letter of support to apply for money for that specific space. Yeah, you know, our pool task force um the focus right now is figuring out what is the best use of the funds that have been collected to provide swimming, right,

access to the community, not necessarily to figure out if that building is is the answer. I think the goal of the whole task force is to figure out what are viable options that provide access to swimming for the community, right? Um, so you know, we've met twice and we are trying to be really intentional to provide options that really are are feasible, feasible and also can be achieved. So that's really the goal of that task force.

Well, it's due on the 27th. Like we'd have to discuss even after hearing the board of education if we'd want to do that. Yeah. That's a tight window that meeting and due date. Yeah. And I'm not feeling very

I'm not feeling very like impelled personally. I think there's a lot. It's a complicated funding stream. We've had a lot of conversations about it. We even talked as a community and this was never on the table. It was not like the fees. It was on the table. That's not fair. As a group, we did not keep it on the table. As a group, we said, "Hey, we need to see how we can use the funds that were that are being collected to actually get people swimming and hence the task force as opposed to Yeah, I think

yeah, we have get a pool at any we have to get a pool of this. It's going to be important for us to dive deeper into that. Um, I will follow up about uh whether one or all of us should be at that board of education meeting. And

Kate just flagged it for me. I think we would just be there, you know, to listen. I don't think we're being asked to speak. So, I pulled it up because I just want to make sure I got the right info. So 3:23 uh 5:30 uh Lauren uh who has been uh facilitating the pool task force meeting, she is going to be doing an update for the board of education. Um and uh it sounds like um Jane will be in public comment asking maybe the same thing she's asked us today

was flagged, but really it was more that Lauren is doing the full task force update. And I think that would be important for us to hear. She may want to come and do one for us. I'm not sure, but I do think at least it would be good for us to listen in even to hear what the school board is saying so we understand where they are at, especially in lie of a request for a letter. Totally. So, we would at least know where where are they at. Yeah. And that's all I have. Thank you, Candace.

All right. Uh, I'm going to take a quick minute here to point out to anyone watching in the room or anyone who's watching this later that it's just dipping your toes into the massive lake of alert that the leadership team here at Lake County is working on. So, I would like to again say thank you to staff here for everything that they're doing for this county. It's the amount of tasks being accomplished in this building are way more than anyone most folks will realize from the outside looking in. So, thank you Candace. I just want to say thanks directors. I am doing the work.

Yeah, whole group.

Okay. Shall we move on? Number three on the agenda today is a public hearing regarding ordinance 26-01. This ordinance amends ordinance 24-2 concerning the regulation of tobacco product retail sales and requiring a license to sell cigarettes, tobacco products, and nicotine products. So, this is a public hearing and I think agenda item number three would be opening up to public comment then this. Yeah, you just open up public comment. If there is none, move on to item number four.

Okay. Does anybody online or in the room have public comments regarding uh ordinance 2601, the new tobacco amended ordinance? Smith has their hand up. Go ahead online, Bill Smith.

They have to unmute themselves. You're muted. Sometimes that's helpful. Mr. Smith, can you hear us? Because we cannot hear you. If you're talking, Bill, we cannot hear you. And maybe look for your mute button on your computer.

Their hand is back down. So maybe they decided not to speak. Bill, we're going to assume that you raised your hand in error and we're going to move on. But we do want to hear from you if you uh if you have a comment, but we can't we can't hear you now. So, I think we're going to move on. Feel free to write us an email or contact us directly. Okay. Well, that concludes the public hearing portion of the tobacco ordinance. And that takes us to number four to to discussion and consideration of ordinance 2601, an ordinance to amend ordinance 24-2 concerning the regulation of tobacco product retail sales. and it requires a license to sell cigarettes, tobacco products, and nicotine products. This will be led by Atlanta Maderos of our public health and she is the deputy deputy director.

Hi everyone. Um I'm happy to go through all of the changes again if that feels like something we want to do if that's necessary. Not necessary. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I actually read it and it was in the paper. I was like, it's a good read. The power was out. There was no internet. It's a great read.

Um, yeah. So, we're asking for this ordinance to be passed just to make things smoother for staff as well as retailers. Um, obviously it's a brand new program, so there needs to be some changes um for everyone involved. And this would really help us um going forward. hopefully the last revision to ever be made to it. Okay.

I would like to make a motion um to approve amending ordinance 24-2 by approving ordinance 26-1 concerning the regulation of tobacco product retail sales and requiring a license to sell cigarettes, tobacco products, and nicotine products. seconded to Did you discuss it before we go to a vote? I did. Okay. To a vote. I I I Good job working on that. Like a lot of work. So, thank you very much.

It was a lot of work just reading it. Thank you for reading it. Thanks everyone. Thanks to Matt Okay. Number five, discussion and consideration is an amendment to a professional services agreement with Brown and Caldwell Incorporated to continue consulting water engineering services for the Lake County Water and Natural Resources Department for 2026. This will be led by Bryce Olrich, water and natural resources director.

Yeah, thanks board. This is just to to renew the engineering contract we have with Brown and KA. So they do the bulk of our, you know, water resources work and we've been with them since 2014, 2024. I have nothing but good things to say about it. They go above and beyond and they've really shown a passion for Lake County, what we got going on. So um this wasn't in my budget for this year. I will move to approve the amendment to the PSA with Ron Caldwell Inc. to continue consulting water engineering services for the Lake County Water and Natural Resources Department for 2020. I'll second that. To a vote. I

I

I. Thank you, Bryce. Keep up the good work. Next, we have a discussion and consideration of the renewal of the master services agreement with Kimley Horn to continue engineering services for Lake County Public Works. This will be led by our public works director, Michael Irwin. Good afternoon and thank you. Um so this is basically to extend the existing um MSA that we have with them for the next 5 years. the um public works uses them to for the bridge engineering that we're doing. So, we've done two of those, actually three of those so far cuz one was not in the grant, one of one we ourselves. Um we have at least three more to do. Um and other projects that they have been doing or working on are the black and

Dutch Henry. Um yes, I know for a response back from them on what we need to do with what we found out with the um wetlands down there to be able to put in the pipes. So, we need to kind of keep them around even though the airport doesn't want to use them anymore. Even though what the airport does not want to use them anymore. Okay. Um they've been very good, you know, with the bridges and everything. Very responsive. So,

for me, yeah. Um, any further discussion on that? No. All right. I would like to make a motion to approve the renewal of the master services agreement with Kim Leornne to continue engineering services for Lake County Public Works. Seconded. To a vote. I I I. Thank you, Michael. Thanks, Michael. I'll move to approve the consent agenda. I will second that to a vote. I I I.

That concludes our meeting. Uh this is a reminder that all packet materials for agenda agenda items are available upon request. To subscribe to email or text notifications, please visit our Lake County website. Thank you all for coming. This concludes our meeting. It is 11:50. Thank you, staff. Grateful. Make it sure.