County Commissioner & Board of Adjustment - Regular Meeting

This conference will now be recorded. Okay. Call meeting order. Will everyone please join me in the pledge of 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. Before we go any further this morning, I welcome everyone. But we've got a new policy that we're starting today and I would like to read it. And what it is is guidelines for online meeting participants. For those of you that are online, to begin with, we would like you to identify yourself. Whether you plan to speak or not, you should identify yourself in the attendee pane using your real first and last name. Uh, no initials or my iPad. Keep your microphone muted. You must mute your microphone when not speaking. Speak only when recognized. You must speak only when recognized by the chair. For purposes of taking meeting minutes, all persons addressing the board are required to identify themselves using their first and last name and give their full address each time they speak. Use the raise hand button. It is easier to manage discussions when participants use the raise hand button. Use the raise hand button when you want to speak and wait for the chairman to recognize you and ask you to unmute. And we would also like you to turn on your camera. You should use your camera. Cameras are especially important to facilitate visual communication and engagement. The last is recording of meetings allowed. South Dakota codified codified law 12511 requires that any person recording a meeting through audio or video technology must make that fact obvious. So do so in a reasonable manner and not be disrupted. Mr. Chair, can I ask? I think says we're muted. My settings don't show that we

are muted. So I don't know. Um I'm going to run away again. Deb, can you hear us? So, everybody gets into that again in here anyway. Mr. I don't know. Okay. First order of business will be to approve the agenda. Is there any additions, Bruce? Uh, Mr. Chairman, I would just point out that at 8:15 you were scheduled to consider change order number seven for the uh public safety services center project, but that would also coincide with there's been a bill that's submitted as well. So, if you would include uh approval change order number seven as part of your approval of that bill uh otherwise I don't change. Okay. Would approve as amended sign up. Okay. A motion and a second for approval. All those in favor of the motion will say I. I carried. Do we have any conflicts today? Not here. Okay. We need to approve our regular meeting minutes and board of adjustment minutes from June 23rd. So move approval. Second. Okay. A motion and a second for approval. All those in favor of the motion will say I. Opposed. Motion carries. the bills. I've my questions have been answered. I'm good. Make a motion to pay the bills including change order number seven. Including that motion, Brandon, is it the chairman authorized change order? Yes. Second that. Okay. Motion approval. All those in favor of the motion says

nothing. Uh we also need to appoint a group for uh do the interviews for the veteran service officer. I would uh like to participate might I don't know I would suggest maybe maybe the full board I don't know you do that then um it gets a little difficult we'd have to have a meeting have an agenda and have an executive session in the past you've appointed the committee that then reports back to the county commission um I know for example Jesse of the BSO was interested in participating and he would also maybe offer that his his district representative person would also be available at the uh interview if you wanted to as well. Nobody else wants to volunte Mr. Alka, Mr. Ewing, Mr. Tistol. I always forget Jesse's last name. There you go. And uh additionally slash optionally the she call it Yeah. to the board, the interview board. Okay, we have a second. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor of the motion will say I. I. I. Opposed? Motion carried. Follow question. Mr. Chair, um, you have three applications. There was no deadline uh or to close it. Uh, when did you want to begin interviews? Anytime in particular or you want to think about it and get back to me? Well, no. probably should get something to be done with it, right? I don't think so. I'm tied up next week. So, what's the following week? Um, so next week you you meet um you meet

again on the 22nd of July. I know, but that theoretically be a longer meeting depending on how long your budget discussions go. Maybe the day before or the day after. The day before would work good for me. Okay. So 21st 21st here in this room um like 9:00 be fine. That work for you, sir. Who are you looking at? Jesse's not in here. Okay, I'll try to get this schedule about half an hour between interviews. Yeah. Any travel requests? I have none. Chairman Caser. All righty. Um, this is as of June 30th, 2025. Total amount of deposits in the banks is 25,945,968.88. Included in that balance is the bank balance of $24,852,85420. Money market 1,93,1468. Total amount of actual cash is $1,350. Total amount of checks and drafts and treasures possession at a three days is $88,857.99. And then the total amount of cash in treasures possession is $8,93344. Petty cash $2,725 for a total of 26,47,835. Move approval by auditor's account treasure second. Okay. Second. All those in favor of the motion. I posted. All right. Supplemental budget transfer Brenda.

Um this here is uh the um this for the sheriff's office. So, the sheriff's office had some damage to their port um transit vehicle and this is the payment of $5,45342 cents. I just made a motion authorizing me to supplement it into the sheriff's travel budget for second. Okay, there's a motion and second for approval. All those in favor of the motion will say I opposed. Motion carried second. Yes, it is. Oh, okay. County Convention registration 8th to 9th of September. Mr. Chairman, first announcement of that. So you can check your calendars. I don't have the registration out online. It's not there yet. So I have a proposed agenda. I don't know any more details other than what's presented there. I'll follow go for something to keep on top of your mind. Comprehensive property tax. I was just going to bring this to your attention, Mr. Chairman. Uh indeed on Thursday, July 17th, legislature, the members of the committee are set to have that task force meeting regarding property taxes. I think Commissioner Jennings is planning to testify. Uh they have now issued details about where it's at. It's at the Beck Ballroom at the School of Minds and starts at 9:00. Some of the participants include Senator Dybert uh and also Representative Odenbach from Lawrence County. If anybody's interested, if more than three of you plan to attend, uh, please let me know and I'll do a notice or won't be able to make it. All right. 8:15. Sheriff Dean's not here or Mr. Johnson, you nothing to report today. Nothing at all, huh? No, sir. Life's good? Pretty good. Anyone have any questions for Mr. Johnson?

Thank you. Only around the mud one of these days. Next time. Wait. Brian will be back next time. So, all right. Thank you. Thanks. Well, we can't do our public hearing yet. That's scheduled for 8:25. Mr. Chairman, Paul, can we do your your hike smart? Sure. Sure. Mr. chairman just introduced to your packages a proposed sort of press release um regarding hiking smart in South Dakota and all this was uh presented uh put together actually by someone in Pton County and we've all got the same problem we got a lot of hikers we got a lot of ATVers we got a lot of people that well for instance in June alone we went to Devil's Bathub five times And uh it's just getting more crowded more crowded and this is just something that between the five counties I mean that we're hoping to put in the paper posted places so people trying to get awareness what they should do. People hike up the devil's bathtub in flip flops and shorts and like I I've always said the majority of them get clear to the top and break their ankle and our search and rescue and spearfish go together because it takes so many personnel to carry them out. Most of the time they're over 300 lb. So it's quite a job. Takes a lot of manpower. Uh for instance, the last search we went on was all night uh on Friday night and uh half a day on Saturday. Luckily, unfortunately, the person came out in good shape, but uh it can turn bad quick. So, uh this is just just an awareness supported with a motion.

Yes, please. I don't have a good idea. to support. I go with a motion to support. All those in favor of the motion will say I opposed. Motion carried. Thank you. Thanks Paul. Would be a taskb. He's pretty quick. Well, I don't really have much either. So, I just have some project updates. I have no uh approach permits, nor do I have any utility permits. I have a couple approach permits pending, but I'm waiting for more information. So, um alls I have is some project reports and uh we are currently we are this week should be finished up with our just our routine chloride treatments of the of the roads. Um it's going pretty well. We did have a lot of delay from rain. We were not able to work yesterday either on that. So, uh but we do plan on being done with the majority of that by the end of the week. Um, we also got that Rough Lock Falls Road resurfaced and the chloride treatment done to that. Um, we are still waiting on our our the check from the game fishing parks. We haven't got payment. I did receive a phone call from them and we did slightly go over the $85,000 estimate. So, they're willing or pending to pay the the difference. They It's going to require probably another agreement or an amendment to the agreement. So, um, we're waiting to see if that that plays out. What roads do you have left to complete for Magwater? Uh, right now we're up in the the the hills right now. We're we're down in the

Brownsville area. We're the Galina area, Kuster Crossing. After that, it'll be all the roads that we just gravel, you know, everything that we're planning graveling for the remainder of this year, which would be kind of in that Elk Creek and Big Lead area. Those will get a chlorate treatment when we're done graveling them. Um, our paving project started on the Nemo Road. They've milled that. It's completely mil. Uh, now they're uh the actual paving should start uh this week is was the plan. I think they were planning on starting yesterday, but then it got pretty wet out there. So, um, that that will also uh if everything goes as, you know, as planned there, that'll be done by the rally. They also started on all of our crack sealing projects. They they started down there on the Whitewood service road. They got to move over to the to uh the Spearfish area after that. Um I'm not sure where they are. I haven't talked to anybody yet this week about that. So um we did receive our our uh surface transportation block grant money from the state uh in the amount of $363,656. Um, uh, we also got a check for $17,127 for some restitution for the guardrail. Thanks Bruce for that. He kind of spearheaded getting that pushed through the restitution department. So, um, everything else is going pretty well. Like I say, we're going to be starting our graveling here. Again, we we've got a couple roads already graveled, but um, we still have the remainder of on our list to do, which is about five roads. So everything's going well. Hill Street, the last word I got from Hill Street there, there was some uh they ran into some problems. So um mighty miss they uh I hate to say I told them so, but I told them so. I I thought two weeks was a

little quick for their uh they were pretty optimistic about having that done in their time frame. So, have you are you aware of the gravel trucks coming out of the Wyoming pit coming on on a homeake road? No, they've changed you changed that that intersection where it comes out the gravel pit in Wyoming used to come out and there's a big sweeping curve and then they went out and ended up at at Bula. Well, now they've done it. There's a sweeping curve going coming this way and they're coming into I was not aware of that. There is a lot of issues out on I90 in Wyoming where they don't let a lot of trucks come that way. They got they had some closure there, some narrow lanes. They're sending a lot of people down the West 14, but with that bridge and the condition of that bridge, we've kind of put a stop to that. So, my guess is that they're probably coming in on Homestake now. So, I saw one and it was it looked like I think it was a side dump. So, it wasn't like it didn't have the big train, but Sure. But when you you go across that cattle garden to Wyoming and you're surprised by a full gravel truck barrel m hour, their roads are very narrow. It wakes you up. They use the red hill roads a lot. I just never seen until this year where they actually widened out that curve coming out of that pit to right. Yeah, it was always pretty tight. Come to the east. I have not been out there for quite some time. Weren't they working on the overpass by VA? Yeah, that and the actual on the interstate itself that may be different weights in the two states causes us some grief on some of our It does. We get a lot of traffic on West 14 because the interstate in Wyoming has a lot of limitations there. Anything else for John? There were some people that were trying to change the

weight limit to 91,000 instead of 80. Did they get anything down on that? Not that I'm aware of. Okay. Okay. Thank you, John. Thank you guys. Enjoy the rest of your day. You as well. We're going to take five minute break till we get to our 8:25 public hearing time.

should be. Okay, we'll call the meeting back to order. It is 8:25. This is time to place for a public hearing on resolution for supplemental budget. Uh Brenda, we'll let you go ahead and present that and then we'll have the hearing. All right. Uh this is the time and place for supplemental budget for emergency management fund for emergency management search and rescue. Um they received a um $500 donation for the Mickelson Trail and also a $1,000 donation from Recreational Springs. They did a fundraiser and um gave the money to them and they're just asking to supplement this back into search and rescue budget so they can use it for Christmas party. Yep. So we'll move up here. Um so like you said, we had uh the Mickelson Trail and then uh Recreational Springs put on a fundraiser this year and um a number of local businesses actually participated in that which was which was nice. um like Spearfish Canyon Lodge and Trails Head Lodge. Um they did like a a mini golf event where people traveled around to the different businesses and then some money was raised for uh for search and rescue which was really nice. So um so but that was organized by Rex Springs. um we we interface with them a lot in the winter as they have a lot of um snowmobile tourism out at their at their spot there. So, what we were thinking is we'll be using that to make a purchase probably for some like personal protective equipment um that gets used in the winter months or or something related to the snowmobile season that we can kind of say like thank you guys for the donation. here's, you know, how we'll be giving back to

the community, helping you guys out with with that equipment. So, um, so that's the plan for that. Um, yeah. Any any questions about that or No, we'll uh it's a public hearing, so we'll open it up to the public. And, uh, did you have something to add? What was your name? Oh, yeah. I could have, uh, my name is Joe Lillow. I'm a volunteer with Lawrence County Search and Rescue. Okay, we'll open it up for a public hearing. There's anyone online or in the body of the room that would like to speak for or against this, you may. At this time, we would ask that you would stand and state your name and address for the record. Is there anyone in the room that would like to uh speak to this? Is there anyone online that would like to speak to this? Okay, seeing none, we'll close the public hearing and offer it to the board. Move to approve. Second. Okay, motion is second for approval. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor will say I. Opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. Okay, Brenda, you got a renewal. Beverage. Yes. All righty. So, this here is a renewal for the Wild Bills Campground and Resort on 385. Just a standard renewal. Um, just had um weren't able to get a hold of him to get him to bring it in. He did not get the application when we mailed it out. So, um, that's why it's a little late, but little housekeeping. Okay, it is a public hearing. Is there anyone in the body of the room or online that would like to speak to this? If so, you will please

state your name and address for the record. Anyone in the body of the room or online? Seeing none, we'll close the close the uh hearing and offer to the board. Motion to approve. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second for approval. All those in the motion say I oppose. Motion carries. Okay, Brenda, we got that's it, isn't it? Y is going to try to come early with a message for Lexi to invite her early. Amber's down here to do maybe some financ for a second while we transition. Yeah, we'll I'll mute the microphone for now.

call back to order and our first one is 202538 preliminary plat and final plat. Amber, you want to present? Y this is um subdivision off of Kirk City Road. Um they had divided this down the frontage lots. um quite a few years ago now and they had left a flagship to allow access in um and there's an existing house and garage on this one right or existing foundation not house the foundation the little place is it off Kirk City right it's off Kirk city road yeah kind of looks like that same I don't know looked out a year ago this is I don't think this one it's close but it's not that Um, and then they're just wanting to subdivide 16 acres and 6.97 acres for a family member. Um, and then they're going to go in and actually build on the foundation. They they haven't done anything besides a foundation. Um, this would be the last allowable lot in that like subdivision. There isn't there wouldn't be any acres left after this for for the number of lots. Yep. Yep. says here a fire plan in process. So it actually got done. We got it. We got it done. So the their fire plan um and then they would like to obviously like we've done in the past is when the work when the house gets built they'll have to do some work like right around the house but we don't have the house yet obviously. Mhm. chairman. Um, where's the access to lot 6BR-2? There's an

here. There's an easement across there. You look on the second page. There's I'm looking at the preliminary plat. I don't see an access ement anywhere on my copy that's on on the drive. [Music] I think we came across this. We did. And I don't We found it. Is it right here? Oh, you're looking. Yeah, I'm looking at it on the drive. The preliminary plat. There's I know she they talked about it. What are you looking for? The access is that right in that small triangle. There's two lots. They're cutting that into two pieces and there's no the plat does not show any any access to the second lot. They could drive on the one that's showing there and then go wherever they want. That's not legal access. It's not on the I'll I know they talked about it. I don't see down here. It's going to come off where that driveway I know where it is, which is fine. It's not on the plat. So, I'm not going to do until I see where it goes. The one that we saw, it's coming right off here. Okay. They're going to share that. What about the set back then for this for the septic system? We don't have a setback from a driveway on the septic system. Okay. There is no setback. Okay. You showed it to us the other day. I Yeah, I don't. Yep. I know. I We can just have them reprint. That would be fine because I know it's there. It's coming off that. They're They're using the existing driveway. They're going to share that driveway all the way in. How big is that access going to be? It can be up to 40 ft. It can be. But what is it? Is it 20 foot? Is it 25 ft? I think it was 20.

Well, I vote to deny this plaid until I get to see these. If you don't know what it is, then I don't know what it is. I can't vote for it. raise your hand. Excuse me. Hello. I'm sorry. This is My name is Kelly Towns and I'm here with my husband Dean Towns and um we are the original the owners of the entire and wanting to have this subdivided for my brother. The we have an easement for the driveway and my brother will access it by continuing straight forward where that driveway curl curves up. he'll go straight through and we are willing to do what we need to do to make sure that's considered a legal access. I think it's just that usually and I know I saw something from Brad that showed um how wide is the easement all the way back and then you just show that on the plat but it's not on there. Okay. So I don't know what your easement agreement is with with the neighbor or with the new lot owner. Yeah, he's got the existing drive will be access to the lots, but there's no dimension. There's no anything on there, which that's not legally binding. He was he was he's not do you remember was it a 20 foot easement? I What was it, dear? I believe so. Yes. I I'm pretty sure. And I think he went up and recorded it afterwards cuz Brad was at the liber was at the meeting with their limiting. So I I I guess I would ask if you guys are comfortable with it to not deny it because I know it's there and just we can make sure that they return it and add the easement document to it. Include that in the Yeah. I'm pretty certain it was 20 ft. I take it until the time hits 9:15 when I was supposed to do this and

see if Brad shows up. Yeah. I don't know. Well, I think either way it's going to have to go on the plat though is what Brandon It will. I mean, it's got to show on there, which I'm fine with. We've done it before where you just had me reprint and add the on it. I just see if there were other other documents with this. That would be a reflector of the next motion if we include that. Right now you have a motion to deny. A motion a second to deny. Oh, okay. Any further discussion? Um all those fa we're going to do a roll call. All those in favor of the motion will say I name Ian. I still got to say I and you name okay. So there can be two. So according to SDCL7-8 it ask automatically gets continued till the next meeting I think title. Can we continue it till later on in the meeting if we get clarification from the can and be brought back up by the by the technically are we considered the prevailing party or is there a prevailing party in this instance? I would get too bogged down in that I think. Yeah, if you can do that otherwise it to Kelly if you can have Brad or somebody email me the actual width of that easement or the document that you have in place. They will re they will look at this again today if you can get that to me. So, we need to know what the easement's going to look like and where it's going to be located. Okay, I'll call him right now. Okay, that sounds good. And he can email

it to me or if needed, he can call my cell phone and and I can pick up. Okay. And I'm I apologize. What's your name so I know who? Amber. Amber. Okay, I'll call him right now. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. Let's go on to the 2025-39 preliminary and final of uh Wilson Randle and Mary Living Trust. This one was this one's just combining two lots. So it'll be I think it was 36 and 37 and now it'll be 3781. And there is a house basically that sits right in the middle of the lot. So they're just combining them for yard space. Yeah, they just bought a lot this side of that's what I'm looking at here. Motion to approve. Second motion to and second to approve the preliminary and the final plan. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion will say I. I opposed. Motion carried. Okay. 2542. Yep. And this one is just Dancing Sky edition. Two lots up there and then they're extending the road um the public rideway through it. And this is the one um they talked to you guys about this. This big track here is where the gravel pit sits. So, they just wanted to do kind of an ending there cuz it goes into the gravel pit. Um, if they if there would ever be you can cross the gravel pit and come out on this side if you needed to, but they just wanted a better way so people didn't have to go down in the gravel pit and turn around and come back out.

Um, and then it keeps going up this way. These were all on existing access. Okay. Is it final? Yeah. What is Hold on. Oh, there we go. I'm just trying to break the code on what all we're looking at there. So you've got two lots above and then they're platting the um gravel pit lot I guess you would want to call it the gravel pit and then this is just a leftover the remainder of golden eagle golden eagle cuz they take it out there's a little chunk down here that stayed with the gravel pit. Okay, that's what Yep. So it's kind of just redoing those lot lines to approve the preliminary and final plaque. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve the preliminary and the final. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion will say I. Opposed? Motion carried. On the plat previous, the Wilson plat you guys didn't approve the final. I think you did both. We did them both. Okay. I I heard Rick say I thought I heard him say both. Okay. We're finished with that. possibly come back to this first one later. What Lexi and I see that Lexi, would you like to come forward and Sure. And thank you for coming early. We're kind of running a little early here today. That's okay. You know, it'll probably be to your benefit because I've only had one cup of coffee, so I might speak a little slower for you. No, no, just uh not quite as um awake as

I should be even though I've been up since 5:30. Um so I'm here today to present on the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Initiative uh fund. So each year we keep track of all of our youth who go through diversion and for those that successfully complete that are under the age of 18. We are eligible for reimbursement at a rate of up to $750 per child. That money goes directly back to the counties and uh and then you guys determine where you want it to go from there. So uh I got all of our paperwork done. Actually, what you guys have in your packet is not the uh correct uh correct number. I apologize. I thought my staff had everything in and uh turns out we were missing a couple. So, it's Oh, it is. Okay. Okay. Um so, we actually had uh 121 total youth from Lawrence County who participated in our programming um over this last fiscal year. and 97 of them have completed. 21 of or um several of them have not yet completed. Uh we only actually had three kids fail. So, uh we're pretty excited about that. Um 97% success rate. Of those kids, uh about 50% of them were for substance related offenses. That's anything from a minor to possession of a controlled substance, which is typically some type of marijuana derivative. Uh and uh we had of those um substance offenses, 40% of them were for uh some kind of a marijuana related offense. So all I'm asking for today is that if you guys see fit to please sign this so we can send it into the state and hopefully get reimburse some money for you guys. Okay.

Move to approve signature. Second. Okay. I have a motion and a second for approval. For Brenda, I was just wondering if you wanted to add that you would designate the the funds to the Lawrence County report as a reception of the grant funds. You have done that historically in the past. Was that in your motion? That would have been my motion. Yes. Okay. We have a motion and amended. Yes, that is sorry the packet here. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion will say I. I. Perfect. Thank you guys. If you could send me the Excel Excel spreadsheet like that form. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for coming early, sir. No problem. Yep, that's fine. So they will be 20 ft wide. So um and then they don't I'm Mark Tasen. So Brad just said he didn't get I'm the closure manager for uh Homestake in South Dakota and um I'll be giving the annual CUP uh reports for both Homestake and Richmond Hill today. Starting with the Richmond Hill line. Um we have a total of uh 262 total released acres. Um 75 remaining affected acres. most of which are used for water treatment. Um, unrelaimed acres is 71.37. That's part of that 75 acres. Sure. Can we have a quick motion to recess? Um, oh yeah, we got a recess. Sorry. Y measures and rejourn motion in a second to do so. All those

in favor of the motion will say I opposed motion. No problem. Did you want me to start over or you'd be good? No. Okay. Um total remaining affected acres of 75.13 of which 71.37 are used for water treatment and um reclaimed affected acres of 3.76. uh there were no complaints in received in 2024 and no technical revisions submitted or approved uh in 2024. So activities um as I'm sure all of you know we entered into an option agreement with Dakota Gold in 2021 to acquire the Richmond Hill and Homestay Properties. Um there were requests to extend those options and um they were extended in December and um now they have until December 31st, 2028 to exercise one or both of those uh water management and treatment um for the leech pads and ponds. U biological water treatment plant operations are used for selenium treatment. We operated the WA water treatment plant NRO discharging about 14.44 million gallons in 2024 and operated the biological water treatment plant independently over the winter months to discharge another 3.41 million gallons. Uh there are um as of the March there were about 17.4 million gallons of water stored in the treatment ponds and we're fairly close to that today. uh leech pad effluent averaged um approximately 26.7 gallons per minute in 2024 and um they were very close to the same average as 2023.

Precipitation was 33.95 in in 23 6.2 in in 2024. So, Spruce Gulch is the reclaimed site of the wastist rock disposal facility and we do water treatment there uh for uh for pH adjustment and and ARD. Um and so we use pH adjustment and sodium hydroxide as needed. And this nearby South Gulch waters pump to Spruce Gulch treatment pond for treatment. Monitoring activities. The 2024 backfill monitoring capping system continues to indicate that the cap is functioning to and better than design expectations and the leech cap uh leech pad capping system continues to perform well limiting infiltration. Sitewide water quality monitoring um the site water quality is generally stable or improving. Cleopatra Creek water quality monitoring confirms there are no impacts from the Richmond Hill mine and monitoring is continued in site performance criteria uh were developed in in consultation with the DAR and approved by the board of minerals environment to ensure continued protection of the environment during postclosure. Our plans are simply to continue water treatment and continue our monitoring activities up there for this year. That's it for Richmond Hill. Any questions for you? Not okay. Okay. So, for uh the Homestake mine, um our year-end employee employment for Homestake and Richmond Hill combined was 10 FTEES plus two part-time contract employees. And our contributions were about $13,500 for the year.

um reclamation has been completed at the waist rock facilities. As of the end of 2024, we have 555 acres released and about 87 remaining acres um affected. Um and the the reclamation is complete on all the areas and it's it's maturing nicely and uh should be ready for release within the next couple of years. I would there were no complaints received in 2024 and no technical revisions to the permit uh submitted in 2024 activities. Um same thing same thing with the uh option agreement with Dakota Gold. Um ends in December 31st 20 to 2028, excuse me. Um we had some slope repairs at the East West Rock facility. These are minor repairs of erosion reels. Um usually um these uh um recover naturally. Um occasionally we'll have one that does not. And so we had a couple couple of them this last year in 2024 that we repaired. They they were in East Ravine, Gayville Gulch, and Blacktail Gulch. So basically, um, the ones in East Ravine, uh, we on the 5,000 bench, we went in and, uh, res-sloped that, uh, as far as we could reach, then hydro mulched and seated it. Uh, we used a hydro blanket, which is a, um, a product that's been used in the past by the Forest Service, uh, for um, uh, post burn treatments. Uh, and it's worked out very nicely. And we've got a nice nice green um area there that's recover recovering very very well.

We used uh um our normal seed mix for grasses and um uh added birch, pine and and uh aspen seed. Um blacktail gulch. Um, again, another uh another area that we decided while we were there, we'd go ahead and do some repairs on that one. And uh same thing, we had very very good results out of that. 2024 monitoring uh continues to show the surface water around the home stake mine remains excellent, meets all water quality standards. uh Deadwood Creek monitoring. Uh the Blackell Water Treatment Plant treats water emanating from the toes of the saw pit and East Waist Rock facilities. The water treatment plant system removes selenium and total dissolved solids uh prior to discharging to Deadwood Creek. And uh the water treatment plant discharge consistently meets all of our permitted effluent limits and the water quality standards for the creek. Our instream selenium and TDS levels are well below the surface water quality standards and have been since the water treatment plant began in 2006. For geotechnical monitoring, Homestake employs multiple displacement monitoring techniques. These include survey monitoring and and monuments and prisms um with a robotic total station and GPS methods. Uh we have pisometers um to measure water levels in the um waste rock facility, make sure they're not increasing or or pressuring up. Inclinometers to measure any movements at depth, visual inspections and um insar monitoring which is a satellite monitoring. So our open cut prisms and survey

monuments. Um the baseline current survey is performed in South Dakota state plane coordinates using robotic total station instruments and uh new new trend line movements were um developed in 2023 and and um readings indicate no significant monitoring from prior monitoring. What is um geotechnical u monitoring of the open cut east block. Um this is the area that failed and a number of years ago and um this area is contained within the pit boundary on home state controlled property. Measures don't indicate any new area of instability or significant UPS slope enlargement. Uh and for the remaining crest, there's no indications of any recent movements that would represent a potential for uh substantial slope failures. Has a question. Go ahead, Mark. Do you care if anything happens internally in the pit? Is is your concern if the edge starts to move back and the pit gets wider? Um certainly anything at the crest would be the biggest concern. Um but we do watch any kind of failures within the pit as well. Um and to see what effects that could have on the overall pit. Um usually what we see are very small bench scale type uh movements within the pit. We do monitor and record those and and keep an eye on it. It's it's part of the overall evaluation. It could be difficult to get in there and do any remedial work. it. Yeah, that would um in remedial work in the pit. Um I'm not sure, you know, if there would be a case where we would need to do that, but it would it would pose some challenges for sure. Um the long baseline nutrino facility excavation, uh disposal of rock started

in May of 21, was completed in May of 24. They were permitted for 875,000 tons of material and um ended up u mining about uh 820,000 tons to get their their caverns. Uh the pile is approximately 560 ft vertical and the prisms in the pit on either side of the pile show that things are stable. Um east waist rock facility survey monuments. Um again um new trend line movement rates uh were developed in 2023 and the new um uh monitoring um newest monitoring shows no significant movement from prior monitoring uh no significant buildup of water levels in the waist facility. Inclinometers have indicated no significant changes since previous monitoring. Visual inspections show no significant areas of instability and the insar monitoring um shows that the dump is behaving as expected with no significant issues. Home state projects for 25 um we will be replacing the sawit emergency pond pipeline. Um, it's a pipeline that runs from the base of the saw pit waste rock facility in central city or just above central city back up to the emergency pond that's on top. And that's that's used um generally during and after huge storms like we had in 2013 where we need to pump uh we need to hold water for a while to get everything through the treatment plant properly. So we pump it up to um an 11 million gallon pond on top of the waist rock facility and then we can gravity feed that back down and through the pipeline network back to our uh feed pond and uh that pipeline is at the point now where it needs to be

replaced just maintenance type um project. Um, we're going to continue our water treatment agreement with the South Dakota Science and Tech Authority to treat our water at Grizzly Gulch and continue water treatment. That's everything for that one. Any questions for Appreciate it. Yep. You bet. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Yep. Yes. Or to recess his county commission to adjourn as motion to adjourn this board of adjustment and go back to second it. All those in favor of the motion will say I I opposed. Motion carries. Yep. Give me a second. Okay. Take a 2 minute break. We're on mute. Okay, we're back online. You want to start us out? We did have the first reading and the public hearing of which we closed at the last meeting and this is the second reading at this point. Yeah, it it's just second reading. I don't have anything to add to it. um A1 to A2 was the zoning request. If you remember, originally he started with rural residential and then after the

planning and zoning meeting he opted to switch it to A2. So you can do that because it's it's actually less dense than rural residential. Um and so that was the request basically just A1 to A2 in that area. It's kind of in that borderline. It does fall within the um planning jurisdiction still. So even with the new mapping, it is still going to go to Spearfish for any platting, but the changes only starts with us. Okay. Mr. Would you mind bringing up the GIS and showing who were neighbors of touching this property? While you're doing that, uh, Mr. Wman did come out and visit with me, which I appreciated. Uh, and after he left, I had a couple neighbors come up and and uh weren't in favor of it. And I said to both of them, I said, "You should have been to one of the public hearings to, you know, at least get it all on record." But they didn't get it done. But I just thought I better bring that up. Thank you for exposing those conversations. Pardon? Thank you for disclosing those conversations. Yeah. I also talked with Mr. Wordman. He called me and we would to to ask if if I had any questions on on the proposal. So, it's touching A2 up in the northeast corner. Yes. Touches A2 here. This one. And you know, the rest of them are still A1. Um trying to see [Music] It might not let me do names. Okay. On we should have onx one on this. I can do I can say names Amber if you

need me to. Yeah, I just it won't let me because it's not So to the north is Clinkpens. Um east is Ny Dutch. same name in sorry for the record. Ryan Wartman, 258 Evans Lane Spurfish. Thank you. Um to the east is is Deb Ny. I believe I'm pronouncing your last name. Might be nameing. Um the northeast there is uh Riley Fremont. He was the most recent reszone out in that area. And then to the south is Holat. Um and then um oh one I know the best in the southeast corner there. I'm drawing a blank right now, but um Cornella Cornella, thank you. Cornella and then Hegle is to the west. Um northwest corner. That's He as well. Yep. All said okay I make approve the res have a motion for approval. Do we have a second? I'll I will second that and I'll just add that that that area is along the interstate which the access is better than a lot. The general character of that area is large lot residential with of course a big block of with westview a big block of suburban residential and I think that's probably a good way to keep that ranchet style where you can have horses or you can do that kind of thing but not go into the the high density stuff. So I think it's a pretty appropriate for for that particular area. Mr. Sure. If I I' I've mentioned this to some um Eric Nie was sending up paperwork to be reviewed for and I don't know if this makes a difference to

anybody or not, but for a road district as well along that shared road there. Um so there will be public access that's privately funded to be maintained there. Um the neighbor myself and the neighbors are all working on that in that area. Handful of us are. So that will be coming. I don't know. I don't know the process for that exactly, but Eric, I know it very well. Okay. Any further discussion of Commissioner Lee? Well, I don't live right next to it, but uh we have land just not very far away from there. And I think it should be left in agriculture and that has been in agriculture and our family for 141 years there. And I would just soon see that area left in agriculture. And then Yeah. Any further discussion from the board? Well, we came up with A2 as a buffer to break down from high density to A2 to agriculture and I think it's a good spot for that. And I disagree with you there. I don't think Okay. Um, we do have a a motion and a second for approval. U, we're going to do a roll call vote on this. Um, all those in favor of the approval motion will say I. This I sleep no. I So this will be close to the next meeting brought up again the next meeting because we're short in person. Do you see how 8:18? Yeah. uh says it has to be deferred until the next meeting when the full commission should be here for 78. So it'll be second, right? Yeah. Is that right? July 22nd. Do you will have a schedule time, right, Bruce? We

won't know. I don't know. I'll let you know. Okay. It just gets rescheduled until Eric can 7:18. Okay. 818. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Brandon. We can't do your next hearing yet. I do have an answer on that plaque if you guys want to know. We do. Let's Let's take care of that. So, Brad texted me. I don't know. Kelly is back on. Brad emailed me, sorry, and said, "The existing plat submission to the county for the Kelly Thompson plat does not have a current access easement for the newly created 6BR2. There was an original plat 2008 5164 that showed a 40 foot wide access and utility easement. It was set to be vacated this plat. And then we are installing a 20 foot wide access and utility easement at the location of the current travel gravel driveway. If this is conditionally approved with that access added, we will reprint the myar with legal access to the new lot across 6BR1 to lot 6BR2. So they want to replace the 40 foot down to a 20 foot because when we looked at the original plat, there was an original easement when it was that they bought. Well, it sounds like there's an existing plat out there that he's not referring to. Is that correct? Yes, because they were taking it off, so he didn't put it on there. It didn't. So did that go through planning and zoning to get vacated? It doesn't have to. So we we can just vacate plats without notice. They're not vacating the plat. Didn't you say there was an existing plat? There's an existing plat that's still there. This is a replat. The 40ft access goes away. They're replacing it with the 20. Does it reference that replat? Does the legal description reference the plat the original the plat whatever plat is currently in place? Is the legal description okay? There is a plat in existence that shows two lots there. Is that correct?

No, there's not. It's one lot which has a 40ft access to one lot. Now they're taking two lots to the easement will go all the way to the new lot. Okay. 6BR2. Yep. Is it Is it 40 foot or 20 foot? It's they're going to 20 ft. All the way to the lot. I will make a motion to approve the preliminary only after that document is filed and it is shown on the preliminary plot. Yep. Okay. I have a motion and a second. Everyone understand this on the all those in favor of the motion will say I I I opposed. I read passes and then I will approve the preliminary once the conditions of the final have been met and the fire plan is done or we hold the building permit until the fire plan is done or something else. There's got to be something. Yes. You just said, "No, I said once the conditions of the primary plat have been met." I'll second it for further discussion. Any further discussion? Chairman, this is K. Final plan should be done before the approval is done. They should have all that stuff done before they I know it says they don't have to, but they should have the fire plan done before before the rest of us approve. Chairman, this is Kelly Townsend. Um 1203 Cook City Road. Uh the fire according to the um fire distribution plan for replatting is complete. There's just a couple trees be prior to building that we have to remove before we can get a building permit.

Okay. And I'll do that. I'll just put before the issuance of the board. So if you look at the staff recommendation, it says staff recommends approval of a preliminary plan is submitted. You guys have changed that with adding the access which is fine. Staff recommends approval of the final plat as well citing that the mitigation process will be taken care of as the site for the building occurs which we have done in the past. Okay. I will add that terminology in addition to the condition. Yes, I will approve the final plat once the conditions of the preliminary plat have been met and following the additional recommendation of the planning zoning board or the planning of staff. Y of staff seconded it. So um further discussion seeing none all those in favor of the motion will say I. I opposed. Motion carried. All [Music] right, we still got time. U gentleman from Black Hills Power here. If you want to come forward, gentlemen, and we've got one more public hearing at 9:30, but we've got a little over 15 minutes. You can let Y'll work. if you can introduce yourself and name address for the record. Okay. Uh my name is Michael Pogani. I'm the general manager of electric operations for Black Hills Energy uh in Rapid City. Thank you. And with me, John Kaiser. Uh John is our community affairs manager uh for Black Hills, also from Rapid. You have the floor. Thank you. Um we're going to try to get it online here.

All right. First of all, just like to say thank you for the commission and the public to have the opportunity to speak about our our wildfire prevention efforts. Um, you know, we we've uh been on this journey for a number of years. the uh the topic we're going to talk about today is a little bit newer, but um Black Hills has been, you know, serving the communities in the Black Hills for over 140 years with power. Um um you know, growing up here, uh been a you know, a customer of Black Hills, uh we take serving customers very seriously and uh wildfire is one of those areas and topics that uh um is very impactful to uh communities that we serve. And so I just wanted to take a few minutes of your time to kind of walk through some of the things that we're doing and then also introduce uh the concept uh that's that's called a public safety power shut off which is the proactive deenergization of lines in the event that uh the environmental conditions are too severe to maintain our system. Uh with that, I did want to take one moment before we go to the next slide. Um and just kind of uh supplement some of the things. You know, we obviously reliability is incredibly important to us. Um our teams work very hard across the Black Hills um maintaining our systems um inspecting our facilities and and maintaining our vegetation to reduce wildfire risk. One of the things I wanted to call out today, this is the national level. Um, and what this slide shows you is um it's it's kind of noisy with with the with the the lines and the graphs and the dots, but really what it shows you is from 1983, for the last 40 years, uh, what we've seen is a decline in the number of fires that occurred in the in the United States, what we have seen is an increase in the number of acres that have been burned. And so we're seeing a

more severe uh situation with fires as far as burning larger numbers of acres um even though we are all of us are engaged in fire prevention efforts to reduce fires from happening. So I just kind of wanted to put that on the national front of kind of what we're seeing um in the country. And then if you go to the next slide, we're going to jump to Lawrence County. So um why does this matter? Uh this information is uh publicly available uh on the wildfirerrisisk.org web page and you can pull up any county in the country. Um as we all know, anybody that's lived in the Black Hills for a period of time, you know, we love the Black Hills. Uh they uh do have high fire risk though. And if you look at this map uh with regards to uh Lawrence County, when you compare Lawrence County to other counties in the country, uh 81% higher potential fire risk for for Lawrence County than compared to other counties in the country. And so as we think about the fires as as we see what's what's occurred um across the US and even into Canada, this is why we're we're engaging in and investing our efforts in reducing wildfire risk. Chris, you said 81% higher risk locally than nationwide. And we could probably get to this, but why is that? It has to do with a couple different factors. Um, obviously we have the fuel source and the the fuel loads in the in the Black Hills with the trees in the forest. Um, topography also plays into that. Another thing, uh, you know, we have very good fire suppression efforts in the Black Hills. We have great firefighters and volunteer firefighters, but also it's it's a little more difficult to fight a fire in the hills than it, you know, in other flatlands. And so those are the some of the factors that play into how they assess risk for for wildfire. Thanks for the question, though. Um why don't we jump into the next slide?

Well, it doesn't make any sense. It's a little dark. Oh, so this is all grass land and it's like got the higher fire risk and the stuff up forest service stuff on the edge of the canyon. Looks like somebody just splotched a bunch of red and orange colors on a page and didn't again grass around St. An is not going to burn the same as the stuff down by the canyon up this cream colored rim up here. Yeah. No, I I agree. And I and we've also done some very similar um wildfire risk assessments, some risk modeling and and some fire modeling scenarios with a a consultant that does this. And uh what we've seen is, you know, we we do see um elevated fire risk in the areas on the eastern flank of the Black Hills. Um you know, I'm not going to debate the the characteristics here. I guess I just wanted to point out that, you know, as I think we can all recognize that there are elevated fire concerns in the Black Hills and the propensity for fire starts is is there. So the next slide is actually Yeah. So we're going to we're going to watch a little video here. Um we pause it for a second just to kind of tee up kind of tee up the the video here. Um this is uh something we put together really public facing. It's on our website. The other thing I wanted to call out is a lot of this information uh has gone live on our website. So we our blackhillsenergy.com um slashps uh website has uh this public facing information and as we roll out our program um there will be more maps and information out there for the public as well. So with that we'll if you tee up the video

So, so you're going to shut the power off on the whole county if you shut it off. It didn't just be one area to another area. No, we So, um, as part of our system design, um, we have the ability to selection and and differentiate, uh, areas that might be impacted versus those areas that might not be impacted. So, we have switches and rec-losing devices that we can utilize to isolate sections. If and when we ever have a public safety power shut off, it don't think of it as the whole Black Hills going dark. That's um we have the ability to section and reclose. Um one of the things we're doing, and I'll speak to that right now, is um in addition to National Weather Service weather stations, uh we are installing our own weather equipment as well. So, we will have real-time information for weather across the Black Hills. That information will then be used to minimize or eliminate areas from consideration if a power shut off would be necessary. So, um ideally the impact would be uh as minimal as we can make it um in the event that the criteria is met. Um so, let's talk a little bit about that. Um, again, a public safety power shut off is a selective and proactive measure. And and I want to stress this, this is this is a last resort scenario. This is not something that when we've spent 140 years keeping the lights on, this is not something that we approach lightly. Um, you might ask, when are we going to do this? Um, so we're not the first. Um, you know, if if you look across the United States, um, 15 states or greater than 15 states already have legislation regarding uh, wildfire uh, litigation and wild and public safety

power shut offs. Our industry uh, uses two indicators for conditions that would exist that might require a power shut off. Those include wind gust speeds and low relative humidity. Um now the you know the industry as a whole um and and what we have adopted for a criteria for gusts is 45 to 55 mph gusts accompanied with a low relative humidity. We do have generally relative low humidity in in the Black Hills. But um what I wanted to talk about though was the history. So over the last several years, we've been doing um more in-depth weather monitoring. Um every morning our crews before they go out in the field, we actually start with a weather forecast. So our crews are aware of they have situational awareness of weather conditions, whether it's blizzards, whether it's uh high winds, hail, or wildfire. And we actually get a forecast uh specifically for our service territory. Um, and as we look back, people the one of the questions that have been asked and we've been meeting with emergency responders and others is how many times would this have occurred in the past? We want to know how significant this is. And so we we look back six years, we have very good weather data back the last six years. And as we look back um meeting those criteria that we've established, we have seen years where we've had zero events across our entire territory, north to south. Um we've also had one year we had one event and and a year that we had two events. So the most extreme year we had two shut off two potential criteria that would met a shut off criteria in the last six years. If I may, what was the average length of the shut off or the duration of it if you know? Yep. So on those events that we reviewed

over the last six years, um the weather the weather event lasted two to three hours on average. The most extreme one was 7 hours. Along those lines, do you have a policy where you would not have an outage uh last longer than say seven or eight hours before you would turn power back on for a period of time? And maybe that doesn't make sense and then go off again or what last long as it needed to. Yeah. So, we are going to proactively deenergize those areas that meet that criteria until that that weather condition is absolved and until it resolves itself. Ideally though um so we have and I'll talk about that on the last slide here as we as we go through that process we let's say we get to a point where we deenergize power before we can re-energize the power we have to inspect all of those lines that were shut off and the reason is is all of our electronic systems see our system in real time and when we shut the power off we lose visibility to our system Um, we're going to have scouts in the areas. We're going to have those types of things mobile. Um, but we have to make sure that we patrol all lines prior to re-energizing. I had the advantage of seeing on an earlier presentation. And so I think what that means is you either have to physically inspect them or maybe it's drones or whatever it is, but combination of that, but every the scope of it, every line in that sector that's affected has to be inspected in some fashion before power gets turned back on. Correct. Correct. make sense. How large of an area were these shed offs? Um, I don't that that's a great question and and I can follow up with you on that. I don't have the granularity of the area of impact of each of these events. That is something that we've asked for and I can if it we we can

certainly circle back on that and uh and and get you what information that we have available on that. Okay. Um, just to your point about patrols too, it's uh, you know, it's it's foot patrols, it's aerial patrols. So, we have contracts with helicopters and and and aircraft to be able to fly. We fly our lines today. Um, and so those would be things that we would do. Um, and I would just tell you if and when that occurs, it's going to be an all hands- on deck. Everybody that's qualified to patrol and inspect, they're going to be patrolling and inspecting. And the shut offs would be selective areas. Is it fair that the areas can be quite modular and can be reduced down into their lowest affected area if that makes sense or is it always going to be can we look at a map and say it's going to be zone A is off B is off or a combination all the above or can it be a smaller subset of that? Yeah, so all of the above it it it the idea is and and I would tell you from an investment perspective we are investing more optionality into our system with more switches and reclosing devices as we go forward. The goal is we want to get the areas down as small as we can. Um, so, um, why don't we just jump into the next slide and I'll kind of walk through what that looks like. So, this kind of gives you a a level of what it would look like if we had a power shut off situation. So, like I said, uh, we monitor weather real time. I before I came up here this morning, I looked at the weather forecast for the Black Hills and I kind of had a lay of the land. Um, we watch weather five days out. That's what we do right now. And you know, uh, anybody that knows weather forecast, five days is a little bit can be a little bit questionable, but we're watching five days out to 3 days in in the case of a scenario where we might be meeting criteria. We are typically going to be in that monitoring period from 5 days out. Um, let's say we receive, and I don't want to go into too much detail because I want to kind of keep this into the time slot that we're at, but certainly we'll

welcome questions. Am I okay? Okay. So, um, we receive, you know, daily, like I said, daily forecasts. Um, if and when our criteria was going to be met, we would we would receive a notification from our our our meteorologist that says on day three or four, there's a potential for what we would call a level five day, which is a PSPS day. Um, so we would be watching that. Um, when we get to that 72-hour mark, if that weather condition is still persisting in that area, at that point, we are going to stand up our incident command structure um, and being ready, we're going to start our notifications to offices, emergency management, and sheriffs and law enforcement. So, that's 72 hours out of a potential event. Um, while we're doing this, uh, to the question about the areas, we are going to be continually monitoring on a 12-h hour period what those areas look like, the areas of potential concern. And we'll be, you know, as as we've learned with other weather, usually what we get from the National Weather Service is they give you a forecast for a broad area and then as it gets closer to the event, that area gets smaller and smaller and then you get kind of honed in on where it's going to be. That's the same thing we're going to do with this. Um so so let's say we're in that watch or that that monitoring period. Um we're at 72 hours. We've made our notifications to law enforcement and emergency management saying there's a potential um be be prepared at that 48 hour mark. So let's say we jump ahead one more day. We're continually doing our monitoring in an IC structure. Every 12-h hour period we have operational periods. um at 48 hours we say yes, it's still a potential. That's when we would begin public notification to all customers. So um that would be that would be media, that would be through our text messaging, that would be

through our automated calls. Um our outage map on our website would be stood up with with potential areas of information. Um, and so then we're in that watch period and and really we are going to be in that watch period until 4 hours before we believe that event could occur. So 4 hours before a potential shut off is when we make the decision either go or no go. Um so when we kind of hit that 4 hour period, you know, t-minus 4 hours before the event, um we will ultimately make a decision either to continue, cancel the event or extend it out because the the weather has not materialized. Um so we hit zero. So we hit the the time. Um we we still determine that the event is necessary. We would deenergize power at at t minus0. And then it's really watching that weather continuously. Um waiting for that weather period to pass at this, you know, we're going to be staging crews. We're going to have people in the field. We're going to have um if needed be, depending on the area, we're going to be bringing crews in from outside to help us uh with the restoration efforts. Um we will then do our patrols when that weather has passed and then ultimately re-energize um once it's safe to do so. So, is this strictly just for wildfire or could you possibly do this for a a winter blizzard event? Um, you know, in a general sense, this would be strictly for wildfire. From a wither a winter weather standpoint, I mean, we have operational practices that today we do the same thing. We if we watch the weather two days out, 3 days out, a blizzard's coming. We're staging crews. We're getting ready. This is this is one additional preparedness measure specifically focused on wildfire, but we have the same practices in place for for No. No, we would not.

No. Maybe you've already mentioned this or you're going to come to it, but I wanted to ask before I forgot. Is there a date that this is proposed to be implemented andor does it have to go through the public utilities commission in any way for any kind of approval? So, it does not have to go through the public utilities commission for any kind of approval. Um, we are I would say, you know, our our goal is to have the the plan and the framework in place by midsummer. Well, we're kind of here in midsummer. I would say we are, you know, in in the point where we're close to being ready to go forward with this. So um so that's I mean yeah I mean it you know the commission um basically under the emergency provisions in state law we have the ability to deenergize power if an emergency condition exists reference text messaging. So, if I'm a person, I'm an elderly person and I have a medical device, do I have to opt into those text messages or or am I going to automatically get a call? Uh, great question. So, there's two there's two or three ways to go about that. Um, the first way is if you're a Black Hills Energy customer and you have a cell phone number on your record, you're automatically enrolled into the text message notifications. And that includes all outages today and potential public safety power shut off messages. The other thing that I would say if you have a customer that has medically sensitive concerns, we can if they call in, they can note that in their account and we can also place them in a in a bucket so that we understand that there there's a medical, you know, we can't get into a lot of the the health things. What can we do to help them? It just it's an awareness for us and it's information that potentially could be shared with emergency responders in the event of an outage. I mean, uh, you could possibly force people that cannot afford to have a

backup generator here just to satisfy their stay alive. I mean, I have I have trouble with that. Well, I and I appreciate I appreciate your comment. Um, you know, I think the the challenge that we've been faced with in some ways is, you know, our power has been so reliable, right? Um, the lights do stay on all the time. I mean, for the most part. And that uh, you know, for me, I mean, I live in the hills. Um, and I I we have to do we all have to do what we can do to to be prepared for for events that occur. Um, you know, we are working with uh local um nonprofits and others to develop opportunities to see if we can support those affected groups during these outages and we're working on some plans there. Well, I just I can see why the PC doesn't step into this. They don't take responsibility. You want power left on a storm burns down the forest. People sue the utility company. Oh, I understand. It all comes kind of makes sense to me. I mean, I'm trying to like frame this and it could be you could have a lightning strike if power could go out for a period of time without any kind of advanced notice just like this weekend. Just think some kind of context. Um, I'm sorry. I'll a couple of a couple of comments too. Um, one thing I wanted to say, you know, one of the the things that that is referenced, um, the National Weather Service issues a, you know, red flag warning. That's something that comes out that everybody kind of hears about. What I want to make sure people understand is if a red flag warning happens, that does not mean we're doing a PSPs. Those are two separate things. Our criteria is more severe than the National Weather Service criteria. Um, so that's one thing um,

that I wanted to point out. That's something that was a cause of confusion for folks that every time they see a red flag warning that we might be shutting off power and that is not the case. So go ahead. You mentioned law contact with law enforcement. So that's obvious. So county would be concerned about uh our jail building. We have backup generators so we should be covered. So you would specifically up to them and I'm sure you've reached out to the hospitals and so forth as well and make sure that they're properly provisioned to accommodate whatever kind of an outage might occur. Yep. Yeah. We've had we've had a couple meetings with Monument and are working um actually on all fronts. We've been having meetings with tourism. We've been have meetings with a number of affected stakeholder groups um on what we can do to to keep the power on. You know, ultimately our goal is going to be and how we operate during an emergency scenario. We are going to be working to try to keep everything on as much as we can. Um obviously understanding that critical infrastructure and resources are are dependent upon our power. We a whole whole other host of information that we're building is we've got a critical infrastructure map and and critical customer map that we're working off of to help prioritize restoration efforts. So there's there's a lot of efforts are going on this. So, so if you had a portable uh I I'll tell why it wouldn't be uh affected by your shutting the power off. If you had a portable generator, it if a if a homeowner had a portable generator, um they could certainly mitigate an an outage from happening. Yeah. So, like if you had a standby generator at your house that was power powered by fuel or diesel or natural gas or propane um with a proper um uh double throw transfer switch, you could certainly keep the power on at your house. Yes.

So, I have to have an an alternate transfer for power. Uh yeah, to ensure that that generator if the generator is connected to your fuse panel to ensure that that generator does not back feed the grid with power. And there are devices there are devices out there that plug into your um into your electric meter that allow you to connect a generator. They have that auto throw transfer switch built into them. Um they're they're fairly um affordable um about the price of a generator, a good generator. So, um there are options other than putting a standby generator in someone's house. So, question. Yes. I as the chairman um would you add the chairman of the board to the list of folks that gets notified in you know uh as if this is going to be effective if that makes sense. Sure. Um we can share it. Yeah. And if I don't if you want to add me as well, but um John, do you know so when we do our 72-hour we're going to have going to be emergency managers, it's going to be county sheriffs. Do you know was the county commission? So what we're trying what we're currently working on and what we should get more information on today of course is um our first is emergency managers you know and identifying if they have a a better way of communicating to all of you you know because every every community might have a different way of communicating notices from you guys all the time that just started happening and so we our our main goal with that that monitoring phase is you're going to be hearing directly from the public affairs people. I mean, it's going to be the customers that are going to be impacted will be getting notifications through kind of an automated system. Um, hey folks, you know, heads up, this might be coming your way, but individuals that are running running communities. Um,

you're going to be hearing directly from me and and my team. And so we're identifying the best way to do that, starting with our EMS and figuring out if it's easier to contact the EM and let them know what's happening and then they have a better way of reaching out to you guys or if you guys need to hear from us. And those are some of the things that we're currently working on right now and we hope to have better clarity on. But certainly we want to we can add you to a list and just and we well the way I'm already being notified I'm sure it'll be different. This will be different. This won't be an automated message from from you'll be you'll be getting a call from my cell phone. That would be that would be the communication level we'd want to be at at that monitoring phase to let you guys running these communities know kind of what's happening. Sir, I think we got your name, but can you repeat your name for us first? John Kaiser. Okay. K A I S E R. We got Thank you. Yes, sir. Um, one other one other thing that's been brought up in meetings and I wanted to kind of call it out based on that history. We talked a little bit about the history that we've occurred. One of the concerns was initially that these shut offs might occur at the hottest extreme period of the summer. And as we look back at those events uh that those events that we had over the last six years, those events typically occurred on the shoulder months. So either March, April or August, September, October. And really what that as we've dove into that data, what we found is that's when we have, you know, we have a fuel load that's dry that has grown and dried and is is available for for ignition. And so one of the concerns was are we going to shut off the power in the middle of August? And at least we we we don't have any indicator of future performance, but what we do know from the past is the past events have occurred during those shoulder months. And so I just I wanted to make sure that I call that out today. Any more any further questions for this film? I mean, I understand where you're at and

why you're doing it. I'm not happy about it, but uh it's life, I guess. I appreciate appreciate the comments and appreciate the concern and um we'll we'll keep communicating. This is, you know, this is part of the beginning and we'll keep moving forward. So, thank you all. Appreciate for the time. Thank you. You gonna take it up, Bruce? I think John Ferson is here. This is our public hearing regarding Yeah. annics and expansion of of property in the powerhouse pass. uh as a precursor to this as required by statute 745A-41 subsection 7 uh a map uh and other information has been available in the auditor's office for the requisite period of time which is uh no less than than 20 days. So that's been there and uh and I'll defer to John in a second, but I think the information that he's provided it it covers the considerations that US county commissioners um are compelled to go through. One secondary if I may and and so he would say that it's reasonably calculated to answer those those considerations. Uh as stated in statute, he has provided a proposed set of findings back proposed order. they are in draft form and so ultimately today if you decide after the public hearing to approve it would be subject to uh a final draft being done and authorize the chairman to sign at the appropriate time and place again I'm not presumptuous uh but with that that background I defer to John thank you uh of course my name is John Fredericks and I do represent Powderhouse Pass uh not BH development but um the area that we're talking about is uh up around the um old President's

Park uh across from what is now the gateway into Powder House Pass. They uh acquired the some of the property um last year, I believe it was, and u they've decided that they want to include some of those or be included in House Pass. There is another small section down to the southeast which was um leased from the Lee Deadwood Sanitary District for the last 10 15 years u with an option to purchase. The sanitary district wanted to get rid of it. So they we they purchased it from them and they then had subdivided that. There is lot W2 which is where the treatment plant is for the water that server is uh powderhouse pass. The balance of that which is of 11 point some acres is then going to be uh be developed into housing and stuff. the um um the Black Hills uh well both Black Hills properties and BH Development uh petitioner requested that this property be brought in the county or the board of supervisors uh passed a resolution authorizing the filing of this petition. Uh as Mr. outcast pointed out I believe that it reaches a has fulfilled all the requirements of SDCL 25841 and so I guess we would ask for your approval if you have any questions of course I'm ready able to answer before I go any further though I would like to introduce Ken Wentz Ken Wentz who is the district manager now for Powderhouse Pass so Bruce John I think I saw I don't know Maybe if you said it, but there's two tracks or two lots involved here. One is a little over 11 acres and one is just a

shy of an acre. Is that right? So, right around 12 acres. Am I right on that? Uh from the sanitary district. Yeah. Yes, that would be correct. I did I had parcels. Correct. I pardon. Three in total. Three maps here. Yeah. There there's a total total of about 45 acres. Okay. Yeah. the the property purchased from the sanitary district was 12.7. Well, this is a public hearing, so we'll open up for the public hearing and allow anyone in the body of the room or online to participate for or against this proposal. And I would ask that you would please state your name and address for the record. Is there anyone in the room that would like to speak to this? Anyone online? Not any will close the public hearing an offer to the board. It sounds like you've crossed all your tees and dotted all your eyes. I think and I think it's important I I do want to state that uh the property that was purchased across the highway to be added in here is going to require that there be services infrastructure. um developed and constructed over there that is going to be uh at the cost the developer is going to pay for that and because I know that had been a concern but they it's it's it's on the shoulders of the developer not powderhouse pass has he talked to John Bay the superintendent of highways you started going across the road not at this junct I'm just referring to the land is located across there any plans for the state the statements there? Any any further questions or anything or discussion?

Mr. Mr. Alet, have you reviewed the documents? Are you comfortable with them? I am. Yes. And so 725A-44 has the seven factors. So the motion would make a motion to approve it. We find that they complied with with those seven factors. Um I think reflected in the findings of fact inclusions of law order. Uh and then 7 uh 25A- uh 45 says that upon the conclusion of a hearing like this, if you determine that all those requirements I just referenced are satisfied, you may enter an order granting the expansion of the district setting forth the finance improvements. Okay. And I'll make a motion based on staff's examination of the documents, examination, review of the documents that we approve with the language Mr. Ala use. the annexation Mr. Chairman to include that the chairman has been authorized to sign the findings of that but would be able to sign the proposal order. Yeah. All right. We do. Okay. We have a motion in a second. Further discussion. None. All those in favor of the motion will say I motion car. Thank you. And I'll get those to you today or tomorrow. They'll be updating those, right? Okay. Thank you. Well, I believe Y we have covered our agenda. We're down to items from the public. Do we have anyone in the in the room or online in the public that would like to address the board at this time? Okay. Seeing none, is there any items from the commissioners that anyone wants to share with? Yeah, I uh we sent this picture out to

everybody, right? I just I wanted to talk about that. I thought that was some areas that uh the county should be concerned, but probably the the most concerned would be on Highway 85 going to Belfoose there. That's really really good land and the uh Belfush has control of water there for city purposes and there's good quality land on both sides. I don't think it should be uh put in the city at any for any reason. That's not that the line going up through already is in the city. It's been annexed. This thin narrow line is already in the city. Oh, I know that. Oh, so but this isn't and and that's been taken, has it? Or is that Well, it's that new map is your current That's your current map. This is or isn't that current map? It is your current map. That's what you guys adopted when you did the ETJ when you signed that new ETJ back on March 25th of 2025. Well, that that uh s line just includes a highway and quarter of a mile off to the uh correct south, but uh to the east to the east. Yeah, I'm sorry. But the rest of the the dotted line includes the uh good agriculture line is probably some of the best in the state. It's always been under the they shrunk down the boundary recently. This is the shrunk down boundary from where it was. It was three miles south. They've done a lot of work to bring this down on the east side of that solid line. They're not allowing septic tanks because all the jet, which is not the best ground to throw on, but and down

below to the west is yeah, there's a large area that's includes the Boo's water supply. That's no septic designated now. So, it's a major improvement from where we were. We're way too large in the past, but they've got it really whittleled down. I We've already approved this map. Well, I know we have, but I don't think we should have. Oh, if I may, Richard. So, I think there's two things going on here, and Amber will correct me if I'm wrong. So, statutoily, the city of Spearfish municipality has the right to go out three miles for their um uh Yeah. planning juris for platting. Yeah. Thank you. And so and then there's the the second thing is is that we have this agreement with the city of Spurfish for the ETJ area for things like what building permits and flood plane and things like that. So there's two things going on. And so those areas used to not match up. And so now what's happened is and what this map reflects is the boundary of those two areas now matches up and it it's shrunk in. So Spearfish is not trying to exercise its plotting jurisdiction to the extent it used to and they're also not doing those inspections like they used to either. So the areas have contracted as as Commissioner Tisdale reflected. Um and and but now they match. So it's a lot easier for the public to understand where they have to go to to transact business. Does that make sense? Well, kind of. Yeah. But I I don't agree that they I think they should have uh squeezed it down more yet. I think they're still too wide at three miles. And and that's what I'm point that's what I'm pointing out that they are and that uh this is perner doubles the size of spirish and they got land inside the side there. the Math and Smile land and land next to it, but it must be 80 or 100 acres or more and

they shouldn't have to go out into these prime agriculture lands. And when you have a uh the public uh can talk about those things, that's one of the things they bring up is the fact that agriculture land ought to be protected more. I think what interesting is that he remembers discussions during the last comp plan discussion where he thinks that folks are saying that eggland should be preserved and I think uh I don't put words in his mouth he would say that the current comp plan does not reflect uh reflect that like the folks had indicated it should make sense everybody I mean is that what you're saying you say that yeah okay that that's probably one of the reasons I recommended having uh commissioners from certain areas around there. you represent agriculture a little better than just have everybody talk about city and and that for the way the city can do and that and a lot of these people work and control the land and my opinion is spirit has gone way overboard on this and that they they don't need to gobble up that much land and That may might have been more, but it didn't less enough. You You guys had messed it up years ago, Richard. It's better now. Andrew's worked hard to make this all better, and you just keep bringing it up and bringing it up. It doesn't help. No, it doesn't. But I agree. Yeah, I still agree with what I say. Well, that's okay. All right. Well, just Well, I do it. You know, I I I too am an egg advocate and uh have a little displeasure in some of the boundaries, but that 85 is kind of that's kind of been done for a long time. Mhm.

Yeah. But it was just solid line. Yeah. 85. I think they went a little too far west of town, but that's my op personal opinion. So, um but we did approve it. Mhm. Anything else from the board? Okay, seeing none, I would entertain a motion to make just sent me. Frank sent us the