Planning Commission / Board of Adjustment - Regular Meeting

We'll start our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. 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.

Good morning, all.

Good morning.

All right, first item on our agenda would be agenda approval. Looks like we have a couple additional items.

Yes, Mr. Chair. The power of attorney for paperwork for Heritage Living Center for tax purposes and the approval of the joint powers agreement for Minnesota BCA were added.

Under administrator?

Yes.

I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

Amended agenda?

I'll second. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Any public input this morning? State your name and address.

Good morning, county commissioners. My name is Christina Hill. I am a resident of Straight River Township. My address is 12391 Blue Spruce Road, Menaga 56464. You may remember me, although it's been about three years since I've last had the honor to speak with you at a Hubbard County Commissioner's meeting. I'm here today as a Minnesota resident, a resident of Hubbard County, and a representative of concerned members of our community. I'm here to show my support to you commissioners elected officials in your work to honorably continue your duties to administer secure, accessible, verified voting elections. I'm here to be reassured by each County commissioner that our elections will continue to be held in a secure, accessible and fair manner. I'm here. to hear that you stand with our local elected officials and strictly follow Minnesota election laws. I'm here to know that you are commissioners in a clear voice, um, stand against election misinformation and unlawful interference, whether that be by local individuals or federal groups. Thank you for your time for your public service and your continued dedication to making sure every eligible local voter and vote is fairly counted.

And good morning. I'm Denise Ristinen. I live at 10233 U.S. 71 in Menaga, Straight River Township. So, Tom, we're both of yours.

Oh, okay. I'm sorry I won't represent you next year, but it's retirement time.

Well, the new person will be theirs. So I'm an election judge for Hubbard County. I've been done several cycles of being an election judge. When I walk in that door as an election judge, I take an oath and I leave my political views outside the door. My oath is to make sure that everyone who is eligible to vote has the freedom to vote and every vote is counted. So a couple things I just want you to be aware of that happened the last time. And I think it speaks to what Christina referred to as what's going on with the perception of many voters. So I had one person, well, I actually had two people come up to me and say strange things. One person said, asked me how many illegals have voted. And I said none, and they never have. And that person, you know, took the ballot and walked off. Shortly after that, I had another person say, how many illegal immigrants have you let vote? And I said, none. They never have, and I won't let them. And then the person said, well, how many of those communist Democrats have you let vote? To that I had no response. But the purpose of sharing that information with you is to let you know that what's being said at the federal level, what's being said through social media, what's being said through news or wherever is resonating with people in the back roads of our County and just to kind of make you aware that there is a thread going through there I'm not afraid as a judge because I know you have my back and I have your back and I have the back of every one of these voters back here I will make sure that the election integrity is held I will make sure that everyone that has the freedom to vote will vote and be allowed to vote, and I will make sure that every vote is counted. As an election judge, I know that if we are off by one vote, we are in for a hell of a long night until we can find that one vote, and I know that's how you guys all feel too, so when you do your counting, you make sure that every vote is counted for. So I just want to thank you for what you do, that you have your back, and I want to let you know that I have your back as an election judge too, and I have the back of every one of these voters here. And we have one more person that would like to speak.

Good morning, county board members. My name is Jenny Redlin, and I come from Hubbard County, of course, as a resident Nevis, and I'm from Crow Wing Lake Township, 13770 Blackberry Drive. I'm here today because we've been seeing real threats to voting rights, especially from the federal government, and I'm concerned that many people have become confused, confused by this interference, and I'm wondering if this will cause them not to cast their votes this election. I want to thank you, though, for what you've done to protect our voting rights here in Hubbard County by upholding Minnesota state election laws and that every lawful vote is counted. And thank you for all you do for our county of Hubbard County.

Thank you. Thank you. Anything else?

All right. Anybody have any? All right. Thank you. All right, on to consent agenda.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second?

I'll second.

You're second? Okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. County employee recognition. Good morning.

For county employee recognition today in environmental services, Jack Bovee GIS supervisor is recognized for five years of service on September 13th. In human services, Lauren Cunningham is an intern in human services, began the temporary position on September 2nd. Katherine Hensel, eligibility worker, is recognized for 10 years of service on September 12th. In property records, Tammy Coons, Property Record Specialist II is recognized for five years of service on September 13th. Missy Buck, Property Record Specialist II is recognized for service from November 24th, 2008 to September 15th, 2026. In solid waste, Jacob Roiger, solid waste operator, began the full-time position on September 14th. And Wayne Warrington, solid waste operator, began the part-time position on September 8th. And in highway, Alfred Opsal, maintenance two, is recognized for service from March 7th, 2005 until September 18th, 2026. Thank you, Mike.

Highway. Highway.

Three items today the first one is to approve a final payment for our SP 0 2 9 6 4 5 0 1 5 Which was the Casa 45 bridge replacement that was constructed and completed last year the contractor was Garrett Hansen contracting incorporated and the final payment will be nine thousand eight hundred and ninety five dollars and forty four cents and

I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second and just have a question. Everything went well?

Yes, it did. It did. Very, very well. A concrete precast beam bridge, and yeah, it looks good and very much needed. That bridge was on the deficient list.

Thank you. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries.

All right, and the second item is to approve a quote for paving the approach on CASA 32 that connects into Highway 71. This approach has been in place for a long time and it's showing its life. And then also MnDOT recently replaced the culvert under the approach and it's just left as gravel right now. So out of our maintenance budget, we got two quotes. Knife River was the low quote out of Bemidji for $37,230. And they would be able to construct early October to pave that area.

So this is a gravel road, correct?

It's a gravel road with a bituminous approach up to the highway.

Typically, since it was paved to begin with, when... Men that put a new culvert in there, wouldn't it just be in kind to replace the pavement under their obligation?

Not necessarily. MnDOT puts the initial approaches in when they do the roads, but then they become the owner, the county, then maintains the approaches on their roads.

Even though it's in there right away.

Yep, and we negotiated with them, and that's where they actually replaced the pipe for us. So they took that load, I guess, off, and then we'll do the paving of it. And this one is longer than typical, than a typical approach. And you want them paved usually because that's where people excel and decelerate and that's where the washboarding and the rutting is most severe.

Do you know how long it is? I mean, I'm thinking about like County 118 that I live on. So coming to Highway 71, there's a bit of it is tarred, but is it 30 feet maybe?

Yeah, this one, I want to say it's around 220 feet. There is a logging business that's right on the corner, the southwest corner, that has a lot of trucking activity and movement. So I would assume that when they initially paved it, that's why it's so long. is because that turning movement out of that business was causing more issues on the gravel road.

Of course, I think about 118, that would be nice to have a 200 and some odd for approach.

Yeah, it would. A lot of roads. Our plan for next year is to evaluate the approaches on the state highways and see.

Thank you. I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second.

Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries.

And the last item is another contract final, and this one is for SP029070014. This was the construction of the center left turn lane at 4 and 40 intersection. It was completed by Gladen Construction last year, and the final payment will be $6,017.97. I guess I have it. Question has been a year since the project was completed why the delay in the final payment with the things they had to come back and adjust or fix or is it just that We finally got around to wrapping every all Every contract has a stipulation in there that 70% turf has to be established So with this project being fine or finished later in the fall, there's no growing season left so we wait for the next summer year round to see if that turf will establish and and then once we get to the 70% is when we can start doing the final process. Also, because it's a federal project, there's a lot more paperwork to do. We have to wait for OCR clearance, make sure that they get all their tax documentation into the state, and then they send an approval for us to final the project, too.

Okay, thank you. I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second.

Any other discussion? All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, same sign. Motion carries.

All right, that's all I have. No, thank you. Thank you.

Any project updates or anything?

Briefly, not much has changed since last meeting, but the 38 bridge is underway. They removed the bridge. They're unloading the timbers. As of yesterday, they were delivered. And once they're here, it's kind of like Lincoln Logs, and they can start putting them together and... Hopefully be on schedule with that At 30 because authority is paved they're working on striping and signing this week and it should be completed I would say either end a week or early next week. We'll pull the detour off and There will be a change in the traffic movement on that road right now currently at County Road 94, which is the county line with Cass. 30 was the stop condition and then 94 was the through movement. We've discussed with Cass and we're gonna swap that where 30 will be the through movement on pavement and then 94 will be a stop. So we'll put out a notice before we open the road for that. And then the Straight River Bridge is delayed and behind. We're working with the contractor on that, but it's still going.

Just a question about 30 and where it hits the cast line. Are you going to put up an advanced warning sign seeing change in traffic pattern to warn people that, hey, something's different up ahead.

Yeah, and we'll put the advance signing on 94.2 for the stop ahead, not just the stop sign, so we'll kind of swap the traffic.

That was going to be my question, where you change stopping from one direction to the other. I was wondering if you're going to have the flashing stop signs or whatever.

No, not at this time at this location. 94 doesn't have a high traffic volume on it in general, and Those signs are upwards of $3,000 apiece, so we didn't include them in this project. But if we do another H-SIP project, we could look at it if there's been issues at the intersection.

Yeah, and that's, I'm not familiar with the intersection, so I didn't know how busy it was, but I came to question. I've seen that before, you know, where it's always been a stop sign this way, and then all of a sudden there's no stop sign, but people are supposed to stop this way, but it hasn't been a stop before.

No, the major traffic movement is the east-west through 30 into Cass. And it'll take some notification and some changes. Thank you. Thank you.

Did you just put up a blinking light at 71 and 40, or have I just not noticed it all summer until it was darker out this morning?

There has been blinking stop signs there. That was a project we did last year, yeah.

Okay, I just forgot then.

Yeah, yeah, they're very nice when it is dark. You can see those pretty far away, the blinks, and yeah, I do really like them. Yeah, yeah, that's all I have. Thank you.

Natural resources. Hey, good morning.

Got a bunch of stuff for you today. First, it's not on the agenda, but just Greg Hensel, the park supervisor, wanted me to ask if you guys think it's okay for the Potato Lake Association to put a sign at our access just explaining invasives and concerns about the lake. Would that be all right with you all?

I think it would be great. As long as it meets any requirements that we might have as far as signage goes. Okay. It's the same as what's at other... I don't see why it would be a problem.

I guess it's a little kiosk that just has maybe some pictures and how to clean your boat.

Probably have, yes, I'll review the language or whatever they're putting out. Yeah. If it concerns about the lake, I mean, you know.

Oh, yeah, for sure. Make sure that it's appropriate. We'll make sure the lake association shares with us before they do anything.

I wouldn't have a problem with that as long as Eric would use it. Okay. Good idea.

Sure, thanks. Anyways, the first thing I got on here is One of the easement so there's three different easements on the agenda for us today Seems like the fall always we're always pretty busy with dealing with easements because people Either want to have legal access to their property or they're selling their hunting property and mortgage Institutions are involved. So The first one here is a 33-foot easement request from Ronald and Alice Voyack to cross TFL land in section 12 of Lake Hattie Township, creating legal access to their private property. I believe they have buyers lined up that would like to purchase their property, and they need a mortgage, which needs the legal access to the property. The easement would be a 33-foot wide easement, 1,599.53 feet in length, and consists of 1.21 acres. It does follow an existing trail that they've used I believe the Voyack family has owned that property for a very long time, so they will be following their same path back to their property. We don't see any issues from our department. I've talked to the survey department. They certified the survey. It seems to be correct. We would ask to approve this easement and then approving the resolution and the easement document.

Just a quick question.

Yeah.

We discovered four or five years ago that the easement had to go with the land, not necessarily the property owners. Legally, it follows the land. Anybody else recall that?

Yeah, I thought so too.

So my whole point, there's no problem with doing this, but in the end, legally, I think it has to follow the land. So if that's the case, we probably should be writing our easements to follow the land.

Like the property line?

No, you have a new owner coming in here. If the easement follows the land, it's irrelevant who the owner is, as long as the land's there.

Yeah, so it's not exclusive. That's what they are. Yep, yep, so this is not exclusive. It does say not exclusive. Yep. Yep. Yep. I, sorry. I didn't understand what you're saying at first, but yes, all our easements are now non-exclusive. So they follow, follow the land if it keeps selling, but Voyax did not, they didn't have anything yet. So this is their, the first time there's been an easement there. So, yeah. Yep. Yep.

It also means that somebody else can use it too. I mean, they can't trespass on the BoJack's land, but they can certainly use that road going in.

It stays public land, and the easement grantee cannot block off to the public. So, yes, it does stay public land, and it just gives the rights to the landowner just to have a legal access to their property. Yep.

They'll pay any damages and whatnot?

Yep, so if they do have to cut any timber, they would have to pay us for that timber.

There's no environmental concerns or lands or anything like that?

No, no wetlands nearby, anything like that.

How wide is the path right now?

It's about 33 feet. Yeah, they've brought farm equipment down it before. And I'm actually really surprised there hasn't been an easement there in the past. But if they haven't ever had a mortgage institution involved, they probably didn't need to have it.

Yeah. I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries.

All right, thank you. So the next agenda item is an easement that was prior to the non-exclusive. So this easement actually states that any transfer, if the easement is conveyed to the owner or any transference of this easement will require county board approval. So this is probably prior than, that's why I don't, I'd rather have it be non-exclusive so it just transfers with the property. So the past owners of this property are selling their land and they need to legally transfer their easement to Jennifer Platt Javier Jimenez. This easement's located in, I believe, yeah, just south of La Porte in Lake Port Township. It's a 33-foot wide easement, 75.18 feet long, so it's not a very long easement at all, .06 acres. that Archie and Jana Wolf owned it prior and they received the easement in 2020. Yeah, and so by this easement, we would have to transfer it and have your approval. Yeah, I got us across this very thin piece of tax forfeited property. Yeah, so we would just need, Need approval on the new easement documents signed with their name on it.

I'll move to approve. I can second that. Any other discussion? All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, same sign.

Motion carries. Thank you. All right, for the third agenda item, our fourth timber auction of the year will be on October 5th, 2026. There's 13 tracks of timber on the auction consisting of 9,940 cores and 10,000 board feet. And the appraised value of this timber is $167,720.25. And it will be bid up and sold to the highest bidder. And it will be the final timber auction of 2026. Hopefully, I think markets are getting better. We're seeing a lot of wood moving and sales opening. Yeah, I'm hoping to see some good bid up numbers on this one. We just need approval to sell the 13 tracks to the highest bidder. And there was no land issues, no line issues. Should be should be pretty good.

I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second.

Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye.

Thank you.

Opposed? Approved.

Thank you. Last item for today is to review and approve two easements on tax forfeited lands requested by Minnesota DOT for Highway 200 road improvements. This would also be near La Porte, south of La Porte, and inside of La Porte City. So the first easement is a temporary easement located north of the intersection of County Road 31 and State Highway 200. It's right along State Highway 200. They just need a little bit of area to move their equipment around in a couple troublesome spots. I believe that easement, that temporary easement, would be .16 acres. it would cease on December 1st, 2028. They valued that easement at $500, which I would accept that for 0.16 acres and it being temporary. and then The second easement is it's considered a drainage easement onto a small tax forfeited lot and Laporte There's already a drain there from the city. So I'm guessing they're they're just connecting their drain from the State Highway 200 into the existing drain That's point zero one acres and And they also valued that at $500 which I would I would accept that as a Valley from Minnesota DOT So we we would need approval to to accept both the temporary easement and the drainage permanent easement both valued at $500 each You said the drainage easement is permanent yeah, so it actually slow for anything I Yeah, it would be permanent. It actually goes mostly through the neighbor's property, and it touches the TFL property just on the edge. But the TFL property is pretty swampy already.

I was going to ask, we have no intention of selling that TFL property.

No, no. Yeah, it would be not an issue on our end. Okay, great. Thank you.

I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second. Any other discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries.

All right, thank you. This is an update at Deep Lake. They're pouring concrete for the picnic shelter, so we'll be seeing that in the next couple weeks, hopefully being constructed.

Doing it now? What's that? They're doing it now?

Yeah, they started pouring the concrete at the end of last week in the footings.

Is there any time for me to go down and put my initials in?

Might have to carve them now.

Should have been there on Friday.

Yeah. Darn. All right, thank you. Have a good day.

Thank you.

Sheriff. Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

The only item I have today would be requesting approval of a renewal for the law enforcement services agreement between Hubbard County and the City of Nevis. This has been a long-standing agreement that we've had and this would be good for three additional years. As you will see, you'll see the amounts listed in the actual agreement each reflect a 5% annual increase from the year before. And the services agreement that we have with them has been going very well. And they've reviewed it. They've approved it. And now I'm here to get your approval and answer any questions if you have any.

Corey, when I read through this, it talked about animal control isn't covered under this. Is that then covered under your department, just countywide?

It would be both. The city of Nevis does have their own city ordinance on animals, which we do deal with as well.

So sometimes, you know, when you have that panel come forth, does the city of Nevis bring that to you, or do they handle all of that themselves?

No. If there was an appeal, and we did have one appeal that happened in the city of Nevis, and that fell under the county's appeal procedure, yes.

Okay, thank you.

And if there's any fees, you know, incorporated for, you know, boarding animals, that falls under the city to pay that. Okay. Yeah.

Do you guys have anything else?

All right. I'll move to approve.

Second. I'll second.

Any other discussion? Did they have any concerns, Gordy?

Nope, nope, nothing.

All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries.

All right, that's all I have, unless anybody has anything for me.

I have one thing for you, and you can get back to me because I'm just springing this on you.

Sure.

But there was transfer of prisoners under this month's bills, and then there was a bill for Douglas County Jail for meds. Can you just explain that, or do you want to get back to me on that?

The Douglas County bill, I will have to check with my jail administrator to see exactly what that was.

Okay, I was wondering if we transferred somebody there, and we still have to cover events?

We do, yep. All of our people do not go to Becker County. We have brought some down to Alexandria to Douglas County, so I'm assuming that's reflective on medication for that individual person.

And then do we have to cover that medication for as long as they're in a different county jail because they're from our county? Yes. That's what I thought.

Yep. What happens when we have inmates, it's no different than if somebody has inmates with us. We cover, we provide basic medical needs with whatever our on nursing or doctors can provide. If they're required to go to a medical facility, maybe they need to go to the ER, for example, or the dentist or whatever it may be, then the originating county is responsible for that. So that's what happens, yes.

OK. That's a good enough explanation for me. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Thank you.

HR.

Good morning. I'm just here this morning to talk through the health insurance and dental insurance renewal, seeking approval to move forward with Medica through MHC, the Northwest Service Co-op. They have given us a 39.9% renewal increase. If we make the suggested changes of removing these three Essentia choice plans, they will drop it 2%, so would save us a little bit there. The reason we're looking at kind of doing the changes to those essential choice plans, we have right now currently eight different plans that employees can choose from. By removing those three plans and moving some of that risk around, we are actually setting ourselves up to right size for the future, so we're hoping that that will make a difference. Our claims also led to part of our renewal this year and why it was so high. We're running pretty high on our actual claims versus our expected claims for the year. So that was a huge part of our renewal increase. We did examine other options. There were a couple other options that required four and five year commitments. The benefits committee, when we met, made the determination. We didn't think that that was the best option for us right now. We're hoping to renew at this point, remove those plans and get things kind of right sized and spread that risk appropriately across those groups and work on some information related to preventative care and how we can help improve our claims experience so that next year we would hopefully see a more favorable renewal related to our health claims.

I have a question. You said there was nine plans through Essentia Choice right now?

There's eight different plans. There's four. They all have the same deductible, so there's four that are on the Passport Network, and then there are four that are on the Essentia Choice Network. What we would be looking to do is remove those three lowest deductible levels of the Essentia Choice, the narrower network plans.

I was just wondering what's remaining if we move these three out of there. What are the remaining options for deductible?

Yeah, we would still have, so the IRS minimum will have to move to a 1750 for the lowest deductible. So there will be the 1750, 3500, 5500, and a 7050 that will remain for the passport, and then the 7050 that will remain for the Essentia choice. They're all the same that yep, it's all in the same Medica through Northwest service co-op is who who our plans are through so it's all the same so we would see that renewal across there is a It's the network, really.

It's the name of the network, and then we have a preferred network, which is a broader network. And we had a situation where we offered too many plans, and people were self-selecting based on, we're selecting the things that benefited them the most, but they damaged the overall plan. And so the committee, after reviewing this, made this recommendation that we eliminate three of the eight plans and just have five going forward.

With the passport plan they can use Sanford then?

Correct. Yep.

Which is expanding in the area.

Correct. Yep. So I met with Mary beforehand and this is information just for the public because I happen to find insurance companies and how this is unsustainable interesting and so I've been reading and listening. Currently, the United States spends 7% more than any other country in the world for health. And our outcomes, we rank 77th in the world for outcomes from that. So I took the plans that Mary gave me this morning, and this is at the 39.9%. And these are with all the plans, not taking out three. But in a single coverage, because we have the current policy of Hubbard County is to cover 50% in the employee covers the other 50%. This is gonna cost the employee and the county anywhere in a single plan from $148 to $214 per month. And on a family plan it's gonna cost $311 to $449 per month. Those figures are 50% so it's gonna cost the county that much and it's gonna cost the employee that much. This is not sustainable. So I'm going to use this as an example. This is no medical advice. I'm not endorsing anything. This is just an example of why insurance rates continue to climb. It is not recommended that women get mammograms from the age of 40 to I think it's 70. I'm not sure how high it goes. But they lowered it 10 years. They just lowered it 10 years. But they don't have any data to support that that actually saves a lot of lives. They just lowered it. So women will go in now for mammograms because it's covered as preventative, but the insurance company will be billed and will pay for that. That's just a small sample of why our insurance rates just continue to go up and up and up.

I'll add to that, because I'm not endorsing anything either, but a private doctor I worked with had told me I'd go to visit the private doctor, and just a typical office visit was 200-some dollars. And I asked him, well, what could you do that for for cash? And he said, 90 bucks. So tell me, where's the money going? Where's the difference going? And for what benefit?

And I get this, I mean, we're talking about things that we don't have a lot of control over. However, we do have control over what we choose to do. And so Mary has assured me that one of their things this next year is to educate on preventative, because some of these services that we're accessing are not necessarily benefiting us, but because they're covered by insurance and a doctor is saying, yeah, you can get this done. So I'm encouraging everyone, no matter what insurance you have, is to start questioning what you need. And then what can you do in your life to make yourself healthier? Because we cannot keep doing this as a county. Or can businesses or people, I feel bad. I mean, think of a person to cover their health insurance, possibly will take home $500 less a month just to cover their health insurance. And Mary did give me the rates, and there was one company that they got a quote from that wanted 62% increase.

And it just appears that no matter what they try to do to fix it, they can't fix it. It obviously needs to break.

Yeah, and it just really would be really hard for the county, I think, for us to lock into a four- or a five-year commitment and have no rate guarantees with some of these other companies until our claims experience is running a little bit more favorably. I think it could potentially lead us right to the same spot that we're in today.

That being said, employees really need to... be aware that every decision they make, including where they fill their pharmaceutical, makes a difference on our rates. And so I'll make a motion to approve this, or to approve, but if we come back next year with a 39% increase for it.

What's our solution? That's the problem.

Well, I do think, I agree with Mary. Education is something. Yep.

Yeah, we will focus a lot on that this year and helping employees understand how to be smart consumers with their health plans. I mean, ultimately, am I here to tell anybody not to use emergency services or anything like that? No, I'm not. But we will focus on efforts to help them understand what that impact means.

So just curious, have you figured out what this will do to our budget?

It has been factored into the budget. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, no, but we have already factored it in. So when you're looking at budget, you will have those numbers in there.

Jeff, do you know the difference? I'm just curious between last year and this year. 26 and 27 just for premium? Do you have any idea?

The premium differential was $1.33 million, so it is $660,000. It has been added into the materials that we'll be reviewing at the end of the meeting. Thank you.

Yeah, just one other point too, you know, the small and medium-sized private businesses, they won't be able to afford this, and when they can't afford it anymore, the whole system collapses. I just don't know when that is, but it can't be far away. You can't do it. They can't keep hitting you with 30%, 40%, even 20% increase. 10% is absurd. Yep.

Well, it is an industry, the health care industry. It's not like Dr. Welby, those of you who remember the old TV show, home visits and everything. But sort of an employee obviously could opt out of insurance and get their own private insurance, but we don't provide any dollars for them.

They do receive dollars if there is a wave of coverage, yep. They have money that goes into Aviva that can be used post-employment.

And I know that that can affect rates also because if you have somebody who's healthy and never uses their health insurance, would opt to try to find a cheaper plan. And then that, of course, the sicker people stay on the plan, it increases costs and it's a vicious cycle.

It really is, yes. You are 100% right. We do need the healthy bodies, you know, young kids, different things like that on the plan as well. That's what's going to help offset some of those costs.

Like Char said, there's not a whole lot we can do with what healthcare is costing.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yep.

Well, there was a second, right? I mean, first. Okay, I'll second.

Any other discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye, reluctantly. Opposed? Motion carries.

All right, thank you.

We don't have a choice at the moment.

Hey, I'll be kinder to you.

I'm just excited to be here. Something positive to talk about.

Yes, you do.

Morning, commissioners. Mark Smith from the Department of Corrections.

Carrie Wittenberger. I'm the Treatment Corps Coordinator.

I'm Catherine Lorsbach. I'm your seated judge.

Morning. So we're just here to give you guys a quick update on the DWI court. Do you guys want me to run through this? So right now, we have six current participants. We're up. We doubled in size recently. We're also six months into the program. And things are going extremely well. The capacity is going to be around 20. Just so you guys know, all the participants must be Hubbard County residents to be in the program. The program's 18 months in length. There's five phases in the program, so people get more supervision right away, and then we tailor that off or step it down as they show progress in the program. Um, we're going to highlight here just in phases one and two, the participants are tested a minimum of three times per week, and that's between probation and law enforcement. We have a, I'm super happy with the collaboration and the partnership with law enforcement. It's been a lot of education and a lot of, I don't want to say battles, but fun, fun conversations between all of us to get everybody on the right page. And we're already hearing from law enforcement. I just want to, I'm going to ad lib a couple of things here. We're already hearing good things from law enforcement about them seeing people who have been suffering with addiction for 20, 30 years, some of our participants, and the turnaround that they're seeing and how they cannot believe that this is the same person. I just want to highlight that. That's the cool part about this program. All the tests are random. They're observed by either law enforcement or a probation office. The participants are also required to attend DWI court and to meet with probation. And that's kind of a couple times a week when they start, and then we step it down the longer they're in the program. Do you have any questions about DWI court?

I have comments.

That'd be excellent.

Thank you so much for taking this on. We've been trying for years. And this, I mean, this speaks for itself about how successful it is. And I know it's time consuming, but it's all about mentorship and changing how a person thinks and then giving them support. Just think you're keeping these people not only out of jail, but working. Hopefully family structures are being rebuilt. I, I just applaud this a hundred percent. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm going to break a little bit about our participants. Um, we have gone six months. We just celebrated our six month, uh, anniversary and all of our participants have managed to reach this point in their phases with no sanctions, which is unheard of. Uh, we have a really excellent team. The team works well together. It's very collaborative. Um, And each facet of that team between probation and treatment providers and law enforcement and all of the different justice partners are really each pulling their weight. And so we have a truly excellent team that has been able to support our participants in such a meaningful way that we've managed to go this long without any sanctions. Sanctions can be for any number of things, for small things, for big things, but we've had none. And that's completely unheard of on any DUI court, any drug court that I've participated in. So I'm really proud of all of our participants and all of our treatment team. Typical when you start the DWI court to have success early and then no No, it's it's it's very Unique to this court that we have had such motivated participants to make it this long without sanctions and I think it's really a testament to how good our treatment providers and how good the support from the team has been that they've been able to to accomplish this because it is a Sobriety is a journey and sometimes the beginning of that can be really rocky and we see that a lot when people are starting with the courts that will have a couple of bumps in the road and then they'll settle into it but all of our participants have been really highly motivated and all of our team members have been really willing to go the extra mile to support them. So it's been incredible to watch. I'm very lucky.

I like this because it forces a commitment versus just out on their own trying to do it. A little nudge here. This forces a long-term commitment to the program.

It does. And we talked a little bit about it when we were starting the program because I think there is some level of buy-in and some level of, well, these people are just getting a slap on the wrist. But actually, in the long term, it's a higher level of accountability for all of our participants. They're having to see me every other week. They're having to see probation and law enforcement several times a week. Those are random tests, so it's not like they have the opportunity to use, get clean, and then test on a schedule. It's great. And a lot of our participants have built relationships with their law enforcement officer who tests them, which I think is not something that any of them would have ever said that they're looking forward to seeing their deputy to test them because they're going to test negative. And they have these personal relationships that are rippling out into their families and into their community. And it really is a positive impact. And so I'm very grateful that you guys approved this. It's been, I think, a real change.

Well we're grateful to finally get it done because I know 10 years ago your predecessor was trying to get this done and we've been trying for quite a long time and I remember reading one of the Minnesota Judicial Watch reports on how can reduce recidivism by 30% and if you read the whole thing you found out it's definitely worth the effort.

It is, and it ultimately saves quite a bit of money for our taxpayers because they're not paying for that incarceration, which is expensive. You're seeing those health care premiums go up. We're seeing that translate into jail costs and to health care costs in jails and things like that as well. And so if we're acting holistically and helping people maintain their sobriety and stay out of custody, we're saving quite a bit of money.

Plus there's savings in human services somehow as families, as they're being rebuilt or even see healthy behavior change. We get to watch that.

A lot of commitment to doing it right. I mean, because you can obviously put it in place in... you know, take shortcuts and it's not going to be as effective. But you appear to be really dotting your I's and crossing your T's and making sure the right people are involved in the right programs.

Thanks to Carrie.

Yeah, we have an excellent coordinator.

This is my eighth court that I'm working with and my grant manager was so excited when we finally got to open one in Hubbard. He came up from the cities. to make sure that he got to be there for that first hearing. And so he's been very proud of this program. And our first three participants, they have all already gotten their driver's license back and they've all gained employment, full-time employment. So that's two huge boxes that they've already ticked off. Two of them are just in phase two and the third one is in phase three. And so for them to do that, it's really excellent.

And statistically, we're trying to figure out how to compile information when they come into the program with all the services that they're involved in and the money that is going out to the county to support this person versus when they graduate and they're living alone and they have a vehicle and they're paying taxes.

Oh, that'd be wonderful to be able to have that. Yeah, and the sense of pride that they're succeeding.

Amazing.

And you don't want a comparison to what's the cost of failure? I mean, what's that costing us?

If Corey was here, he could tell you. So any other questions or comments? I mean we're super excited about the program and if you would ask me six and a half months ago about the three participants we were screening I would not imagine that we had been sitting here saying that they haven't had any sanctions. These were not easy Sandbagging like we're not these were hardcore people in addiction that have lifelong stories in this county So I mean it's it's amazing that the program is doing this well And I hope I hope it continues and I think it will if you had businesses reach out to you in reference to the to the program that you're offering to try to

Find them or help those people with employment or anything or is this something we can foster and promote?

I think that's something we definitely could foster and promote we've had some individuals reach out as far as volunteer opportunities and The program's still growing and we're trying to figure out how to structure that in because I think some of that will be towards the end of the program And keeping you know, the a connections been huge and I don't know. Do you guys have other thoughts on that stuff?

I did have somebody reach out to me yesterday about becoming a new team member, and they would be a Native American liaison through Leech Lake Tribal. He is working with... for other courts, so he's had experience since 2008, and he was really excited to just be that extra resource and be available. It's through the Leech Lake Men's Outpatient Center. Services and so that was really excited that they reached out to us Because we do try to build our team and make sure that we have a well-rounded team for all the different resources that our participants need So that one we're working on getting added to our team One of our treatment providers had in the beginning she reached out to a couple of Places locally in town and they donated some journals to us so at the beginning of each participant starting we give them a journal and a pen and They have to keep that with them all the time. They're supposed to get signatures Each time they go to AA or NA Treatment Or group anytime they meet with probation and then they're supposed to bring it to the courtroom too. And so that's one thing that we want to keep up with our current and our future participants. We also have I think seven participants or potential participants that have been sent applications and know about the program and we're just waiting for them to reach out and decide if they would like to join it as well. So we're getting our public defender's office and our defense counsels involved in this too so that they know that this program is available to their clients. Thank you.

Do you, you yourself, do you work in North Dakota at all or just Minnesota?

Just Minnesota.

Okay, there's a car dealership in Grand Forks that works, are you familiar with them at all? They specifically help people that have been addicted to alcohol for bringing them on to staff and then training them for mechanical work. So if you wanted to do a little research, I can't remember for sure. I think it's Rydell, but don't quote me on that. But that would be, maybe they could be helpful in figuring out how to partner with some people in the areas that you serve.

Yeah, I'll definitely look into that. Thank you.

I just want to say thank you. I know this is going to grow. And I'm just excited to be here at this time, at the beginning, and see where it goes. Thank you all.

Thank you guys. You let this happen, so we're very grateful.

So speaking of the incentives, the reason we're also here today is to ask if you as commissioners would approve a $3,000 donation or annual support. I don't know how to phrase it. And the money's needed because the program's funded through a grant, but it pays for Todd, my probation agent's position, his salary and fringe. So there's no cost to the county for that. It also provides some additional money for mileage when he's out seeing people and for some testing supplies. But kind of going back to the beginning as we continue to add participants and people are getting tested three times a week those costs add up The stuff that the grant won't pay for is the good stuff that we use to incentivize, like writing in your journal, getting all your meetings in that week. Then the participants are eligible for a drawing. And they're small, little incentive prizes, but just like, hey, good job. Thank you for doing that type stuff. And then at graduations, we like to have a cake or something to say, Thank you for all your hard work. So as part of that, we're just asking if the county would support a $3,000 annual donation. The money will also be used for if we have leftover money and we need staff that need to go to training or like Carrie brought up the journal books. There's just things like this that the grant doesn't provide for. So we're hoping the county would be able to support us in that request.

Well, I wish I could throw a new bathroom in for you for $3,000, but since I can, I'll just make a motion to approve the $3,000. I'll second that.

Thank you.

Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Thank you.

I just have one other question, too. As far as coming back for updates, if we start to gather some of this information, you know, is this a yearly update type thing or six months or...

Oh, six months, I think would be wonderful. Yeah, maybe to start. If you have concrete numbers that you want to share.

Okay. We'll always have something to share.

Okay. Yeah, maybe six months from now and six months again, and then we probably could go annual, I would guess.

That sounds great.

Sounds great. Thank you guys again for your support.

Yeah, hopefully we'll have a graduation before then, so. There'll be invitations for everybody for that. Oh, that'd be wonderful. Our participant has indicated that she wants everyone to be there and wants everyone to know about it.

And she wants an article.

And she wants an article in the paper.

Which is amazing because she's really doing well.

Thank you, guys. Thank you. You're welcome. We should get them on the rotation for the media at some point, Jeff, because that would be good to talk about the success so far. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a great idea. Maybe at our year anniversary.

Do we want to do that? Thank you.

Oh Nothing just have to pass the preliminary levy So I gave you some handouts that had the updated levy summary Which shows a reduction of the levy request to increase of 9.9%. Um, and I got that by cutting, uh, human services levy by $200,000 by taking, uh, Sheriff August wouldn't agree with me, but I still put it in there that we, um, took credit for the vacant positions within law enforcement. There's about $125,000 that we reduced that by. And the balance is in the general fund. Um, There's one more move we could make that I haven't done yet, and that would be we have at our capital projects next year, we have $730,000 scheduled for paving at the highway and the courthouse parking areas. The fact that we get to the point of 9.9 with the requests needed, the additional... costs for health insurance and come to a point where I believe we're gonna be able to float this budget. We're showing a use of fund balance of 1.6 out of the general fund. It never turns out to be that way, right? And that includes the $730,000 for the paving areas. The other pages in here, The last page in the handout that I gave you shows the 10-year history of general fund fund balances. If we use half of that $1.3 million, we're fine. We're still above our goals for the fund balance policy. The other item that I have shows this one with the blue lines on it. Shows the tax capacity and the impact of that in 2027 with a 9.9% increase because of the increase in our net tax capacity. Our tax rate actually drops by 2.5%. And you can see the trend from 2021 at 41 to 2027 to 27.9. We've been trending that way primarily because of growth in the county. And the growth from 26 to 27 is primarily in our utility assessments, which we've discussed previously. But one interesting thing under here, under the third section on that page, we can see that agricultural is 12.6% of our tax capacity five percent of our taxes which calculates to a tax rate of about four-tenths um... that uh... interesting enough residential uh... is at one point oh three and seasonal rec is at point eight eight crossed that threshold where people are getting a tax discount on their second home and that is that is something the legislature should take a look at because that that was Set in motion in 1999 when they passed that change and added the state general sales tax and people stopped paying on local school levies if they have a second home. I just talked with Superintendent Bagstad and he's going to be here in October to talk to you. apparently an aid program where schools can get some of that aid for seasonal properties. He's gonna be here on October 6th to talk about that. This is just kind of information only. You can see at the very bottom, you can see that in 2020 we had 38.9% seasonal, now we're at 35% seasonal. That's one of the top three in the state as far as the number of seasonal properties we have versus residential. That's just background information. The other piece of background information in there is a side-by-side comparison, and I apologize, this is small. It should be on a bigger piece of paper. Between the Minnesota county-wide summary budget and Hubbard County summary budget, And just a couple of things to highlight. Statewide property taxes make up 39.9% of all county budgets. They make up 32.8% of ours. Human services funding is 32.2% of statewide county budgets, and it's 21% of ours. So the good news is we are still benefiting from above average state categorical and general support and pass-through dollars. The bad news is that some of the things are changing legislatively.

And you said a lot of our tax capacity increased because of utilities?

For this year, of a 20% increase, I think that's about 17.5% or 18% of the increase points for this year. And again, we discussed how that's good news and bad news, right? Yeah.

And that's my concern then is say even if in a year or two, but hopefully it won't be a year or two when Enbridge deal goes through. As we all know, they're looking for some relief, if you want to call it that. And then that could really screw up our numbers. And assuming that would mean then we'd have to have a big increase to cover whatever they.

We don't actually have any numbers on the projection on that. But yes, it is something we're watching closely. Yeah.

So I'm just asking this. We don't need to discuss this today. And I understand if we delay the paving costs go up. But our target originally was $2 million for human services. Would it be better off to take the paving dollars and try to shore up human services? Just something to think about we can talk about later.

So if you took the 730K out as you presented it here, what would that bring the levy down to?

I wouldn't propose dropping the levy. I'd just propose not using fund balance. $730,000 is what's projected for those two projects. Andrea gave me an estimate of 12% increase if we push the paving off another year. So honestly, the way this is working out is, Even after adding the 650 for that and getting us under 10%, I have great confidence that we can deliver this budget next year at this rate. And I had a long conversation with Mike over in Human Services about that. He's not in favor of taking that $200,000, but I said I really think we need to do that. And their budget is still showing Instead of $260,000 towards fund balance, they've shown about $60,000 towards fund balance. We are rounding the corner. I anticipate that even with what we know about the 28, that we're going to be down under a 10% increase for human services next year, but that's going to continue to be a driver because the costs of law enforcement and human services are both going up about 10% a year, and the rest of us just have to kind of figure out how to do with less. but it won't be 40%.

Well, I know that there was discussions weeks ago about a 7%, which I wasn't happy with the 7%. I know we've gotten good at raising taxes, but I think there's got to be a combination of tax increases and cuts, just like at the federal level. grant me a couple minutes here, where they're $40 trillion in debt, receiving $5 trillion a year in revenue and spending $7 trillion. So they've got to cut $2 trillion in spending and raise taxes to try to knock down some of that deficit, that old debt. Otherwise, our kids, grandkids, great-grandkids and on are going to be saddled with that debt. And like I say, here in Hubbard County, I don't know where we make more cuts, but I guess that's where I'm more in favor of instead of trying to just keep raising taxes. But I know it's a necessary evil, too, and it's not an easy job.

Yeah. Last night I attended the community open house at the Nevis School, and they're bringing forward another bond referendum on the ballot this fall. which will be if everything's all totaled up between the mandatory levy that the board passed, the school board passed already of an, I believe it was a 8.1%, 8.1%. million to do deferred maintenance like the HVAC system and leaks in the roofs and to fix all those things and then they're proposing a 17 million or 17 and a half million dollar building improvement levy as well so that tax impact for the average home I don't remember what the dollar amount they use three hundred and some thousand dollars that was going to be $500 a year, over $500 a year impact to those properties. So it's a huge picture. I mean, Park Rapids is struggling, the school district as well. So, I mean, it's not just our levy that impacts taxpayers. It's school levies as well, and it's going to – it's tough. A lot of the people in my district, I know they – They've mentioned that increases need to stop at such high rates, but we also need to conduct business that we have to take care of. We can't ignore what our state mandates. We can't just ignore those and not do state programs that we are, by law or statute, supposed to do. enact and maintain.

So what ends up happening is unfortunately you end up cutting programs that are generally pretty popular that you're not mandated to do. So that would be the challenge of looking at any cuts is what and where and how much. And when you look while our levy is going up if the new tax capacity holds true And your assessed value on your property didn't change. Your county taxes are actually going down, even at this levy amount.

A big chunk this year.

Yeah, you're going to get, you know, 3%, potentially 3% less if this new tax capacity holds, even though our levy's increasing. So that's the benefit of the nature of Hubbard County. If we were sitting in Clearwater or Wadena County, it would be not so much fun. It's not fun as it is. but it would be that much harder. So do you start to cut programs that people like? And their county taxes aren't going up even though our levy's going up. That's the debate.

I don't think we have the fraud in Hubbard County like we have at the state level. So we can't bank on trying to rip that out and have savings.

Yeah, and unfortunately, as we're seeing in social services, these costs are being shifted to us and we have no choice but to pay because nobody in St. Paul is interested in changing how they provide programs or regulate or giving any authority to the counties to how they run their programs. So it makes it difficult. And then looking ahead to 2028, it appears it gets worse. So... I don't know what the right way to attack it. I'm just grateful we have a growing amount of tax capacity to help us with this problem.

I'm wondering if this increase in tax capacity, is that primarily due to more houses being built and more business being built? Or is it like cost of forest land going up so high to where someone can't afford to keep it anymore? And they're the ones that are getting a large amount of this levy that we would be passing here.

This year's 17%. Where is that tax capacity coming from? 17% is coming from utilities of the 20%. And we always get 2% to 3% of new construction and remodeling and increased value in home ownership and business ownership.

I would be concerned about an increased tax capacity coming from existing properties that people already own and get to the point where they can't own them anymore.

That was my concern, was it just increased property values? But Jeff said $1,700. Over 17% is from utilities. So that makes me feel better there because we've all seen the property values go up over the last few years. So it makes our tax capacity look better, but we're actually not growing at all. We're just, everybody's property values.

There's also significant remodeling going on though too. People are improving their properties and that's part of that assessment increase for many of them too.

And now we know of businesses that are expanding and coming to Hubbard County and stuff like that. So I know there is growth. The 17% I'm concerned with the utilities because if that doesn't go favorably.

Yeah. And that's a good point because I don't expect our tax rate to stay at 27%. 9% for very long. Expect new tax capacity to continue to grow that rapidly.

I just heard from a couple of people who own just pure forest land, and they said it's reaching a point where they can't own it anymore.

The problem with that is... The formula is set by the state and we are just merely enforcing what the state is telling us in how to figure out what the property is worth. I agree with you, Tom, but unless there's something changed at the state level, I don't know how to fix that. I just want to remind the public that the levy that we set today cannot be increased above what we set, but it can be decreased to any amount. Is that a motion then? I'll make that a motion.

To approve the preliminary levy at 9.9? 9.9.

Commissioner, is that also to set the date of the TNT meeting on that first Thursday?

Second.

I'll second.

For discussion purposes, Ted, I love your 7%, but I'm not prepared to approve 7% today because I have no documentation about where we could take that. And that might put our general fund or something else in.

I think the only thing that would make a big difference is staff cuts. And we might not be there this year, but we'll be there probably next year.

The biggest elective program that we have in this county is our law enforcement center. There is no statutory requirement to provide any patrol services. There's no statutory requirement to operate a jail. So the $12 million we spend on that, about $8 million is elective. But nobody's saying to do away with that. It's just, if you want to know what we don't have, what we're not mandated to provide, that's it. That's the big one.

It's been the driver of the last few years.

It has.

Several years ago, we set the preliminary levy a little bit lower than what Jeff proposed, and it forced some cuts.

Yeah, I did think about that.

And that's kind of where I'm at now. Maybe it's a little lower than what he's requesting to force some cuts.

I have one comment about what Jeff said about the jail, just so the public understands. We're still, statutorily, we would have to pay for a resident of Hubbard County, if we did not have our jail, we would have to pay to have them housed somewhere else.

I have no dollars comparing anything.

But even if we cut services in some portion, we still have to pay. Just like in human services, when a resident has to receive treatment outside of our county, we have to pay.

I'm not advocating for this, but if you wanted to cut, I mean, there's obvious places you cut. You could cut the library. You could cut extension. But those are popular programs that are growing, and I don't know that that's, in the current situation, a necessary thing for us to have to be doing. I mean, you've got to be careful when you start cutting because when you start cutting, you can do more damage than you can do good. You might solve a temporary problem, but you may create a larger problem for yourself later.

Plus, those are healthy things. They're healthy. They're encouraging people to do many things with their life that are positive.

You think of 4-H and the things that are involved in that. Those are the last things you want to cut are things that are a positive influence.

They're kind of small potatoes and wouldn't make much of a dent.

Yeah, your only other place, like you said, is you got to start going after staff and how tough can you go? And then you might be able to get by with that temporarily, but then if people are overworked or overburdened to the point where they look for employment elsewhere, now you've created another problem for yourself and you end up hiring back, but you've lost valuable staff in the meantime.

I think of my regular job and other business owners that I've talked with at the county. Other businesses where they cut their hours because they can't find people to work. And so we seem to do well here. keeping employment numbers up. And like I say, there's a lot of businesses, not only, like I say, in Hubbard County, but I'm sure across the United States that can't find people to work, and they have to adjust to make it work.

And the frustrating part to me is, too, is, you know, you have two drivers of the budget, public safety and HHS. And a lot of the HHS problems, you can point straight to St. Paul And they're making their problem our problem now. And it's like they need to clean up their mess down there and figure it the heck out.

People keep voting them in though.

Mm-hmm. And it would be very frustrating when all of a sudden those issues that are squarely on those areas become problems for every other department. It's not right. And we advocate strongly with our legislative leaders to make change. And until that change is made, I don't know how we're not going to be looking at 7%, 8%, 9%, 10% levy increases until they figure it out. For me, I don't know what the rules are, but is there a way that we can't comment? Can I comment at the end of this discussion? We can visit afterwards if you want.

Can I put myself on the agenda for the next meeting?

You could. Public comment, yeah.

And I will take you up on that offer. You're my county commissioner, so I'd like to talk to you after.

Yeah, sure can. So we have a motion, we have a second. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. All right so the plan is set and then we can continue to have discussions on if you guys really want to look at areas where we can cut and shave that more we should be having those discussions and directing Jeff to where we think we I'm not sure. You're looking for an across the board thing? What are you looking for?

Across the board doesn't work. What I can give you is a list of things that are not mandated, and you can tell me which ones you don't want. But if you just say reduce it to 7% and don't tell me which programs to cut, I don't know what to do with that. It has to be tied to programs or services. AMC is coming out with a list of mandated programs that you guys should have right after the legislative conference. It would be a good point for conversation. All the mandated programs are either the popular ones or the ones that intercept people before they actually need expensive auto home placement and mental health issues. So there aren't really good choices.

So let's start with that, a list of the non-mandated programs.

Well, they're going to come out with the mandated ones, and we'll have to cross-reference that, but... You should be getting that information and having that conversation at the legislative conference this week.

That help? Okay, what else we got?

A couple of really things that would have been on consent if we would have had them in time to do them. This first one is a consent form that is... asking for approval for them to have power of attorney to be able to access the tax documents that they're submitting. So they're trying to work through a tax issue where they need to do an amended payroll form. So again, just very simple. The only thing they're going to have access to is to be able to update the information in this 2848 form. So this is Marnie and she's with Vivi. representing our management firm for the Heritage Living Center.

I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second.

Is this where this person has been doing it for a few years already?

Yes.

This is to go in and amend a form, and they IRS won't talk to them because they're not us, and we don't know enough to talk to them because they'd take on the management for us, so it's simply just signing a form so the IRS says that she can talk on our behalf related to heritage.

Thank you.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries.

And this was forwarded sheriff's office and county attorney, county attorney's office, just continuing an existing joint powers agreement.

I don't need a motion. I'll move to approve.

I'll second.

Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Same sign. Motion carries.

The only other two comments I have is that the owner of Right Way Farms, the... Put it up here. who had set up the growing process up in northern part of the county has said that he is up there up and running and he knew there was interest in coming up and touring the facility. So if there's interest in doing that.

That was up by La Porte as I recall. Yeah. Yeah. 39.

So if there's interest in that we can have a conversation about this afterward and try to get it scheduled I don't know if we send it if you go onesies or twosies or if we if we're gonna do it as a field trip Then we'd have to post it right so he just contacted Murray and said that that was the case And then with the addition of the $3,000 for courts, I'll make that addition to the IFS form and send you a full detail I will send it electronically. If you want a paper copy, let me know, and I'll have that available in the office. Otherwise, that would be all I have.

Okay. Committee reports. Who wants to start?

I can start.

Okay.

I only had one. It was the ambulance service district over in Walker. The biggest news to come out of that was the budget's decreased, not increased. So that's unusual, but it is down. So that was a welcome to hear that. And then we also decided, we voted to mirror the Cass County's investments or fund balance policy so that it is the same as what they have so if we have excess funds it goes into a policy or into an account and it can be used for capital improvements later on because there are some things that they have on the radar that may need to be fixed and or replaced and that would be the counties or the the district's obligation since we technically own the building. So I was just trying to get you the number. I can't remember how many thousand dollars the budget went down.

Doesn't that jump out at me?

I wanna say it was like 20 to $30,000 their budget went down.

Will that then lower the property owner's levy? That'll lower the levy.

Yep, for next year, for 2027, that'll lower the levy. Yep.

That part of it.

For that district, yes. And then we're going to have our truth in taxation for this ambulance service district on December 1st in Walker.

Right after the county one?

Right after their county board of truth in taxation. All right. And then they just gave us some numbers, the first, second quarter reports. There were... 69 calls that there were no transports, so they're basically free of charge calls. So, I mean, you don't know what they're for. It could be a lift assist. It could be just a minor call that the ambulance was dispatched to, but the person didn't need transport to any facility for any medical attention or anything that was necessary. Other than that, unless, Tom, you can think of anything.

You covered the things I was going to do.

Their compliance, their on-time compliance was improving. There were some good numbers. 30 minutes, it was 100% response. in 30-minute response, and then it went to 20-minute was 82%, and 10-minute is 42%. These are Hubbard County numbers, and if you're leaving Walker, it can take you 10 minutes just to get the Hubbard County to provide a service so I can see them not making it there in 10 minutes. So that's kind of self-explanatory. Yeah, that's it.

I'll go next. At the Prime West meeting, this would be an example I would challenge our county staff. Prime West gave an example. We approved an editing software for $430,000 a year for something that covers Prime West, but it saved $3 million in the year. overall costs, is there anything in the county that the department heads could find that could save time through a software, even though it costs us money, but in the long run it would save us a lot of dollars? I have no idea, but that was pretty impressive. Prime West has discontinued the GLP-1 drugs. That was a cost of $1,400 per month. Members can still get the drug, and the pharmaceutical companies are giving it for $50 a month. So when I look at how much our county costs are going up for health care, do we need to explore stuff like this? And how do you do that with what an insurance company says it's going to cover? The enrollment rate in July was 76,141 people and we are on, when we go to single plan in January, that will increase. Then yesterday I had a health equity for Prime West and it covered non-citizen adults that'll be changing for qualification for MA. They will be non-citizen adult 21 year or older. This is who will be covered and then the work requirements. Those who are not pregnant have green card holders satisfying a five year waiting period or meet the exception to the five year waiting period. Cuban or Haitian entrants or people who are citizens of different islands. Then the work requirements would be people 21 to 64 who do not live with their children under age of 19 are not pregnant and are not American Indian or Alaskan Native. The American Indian and the Alaskan Native are exempt from work requirements. The work requirements will include school volunteering, work programs, or exemptions to keep their MA coverage. Currently, they don't know how the work requirements are going to be reported, whether the person's supposed to report them, whether they'll have to have proof of the work or not. And Minnesota has opted to supply the least amount of information required by the federal government. And then the state of Minnesota on August 14th submitted a waiver for MA coverage to the federal to cover health coverage for Native Americans, which would include sweat lodges, talking circles, smudging ceremonies, and other services identified by participating facilities because that has to do with their health belief. And I think that is all I had. I will say, the one takeaway from the meeting on Monday was the stuff that's mandated they have to do, it's still not defined how it needs to be reported. That's what I have.

First, I had the opportunity to meet with some other officials, Congresswoman Fischbach, and issues we brought up, one was CMS's COVID protocol still required at nursing homes. They're not required at hospitals or anywhere else, but CMS just hasn't gotten around to changing things for nursing homes, and it's costing us a lot of money and time. So they're working on trying to get somebody at CMS to address that, get back to reality here. And we had a long discussion at the airport regarding the airport runway. That's coming up in like early 2033, 2034 for repaving. And based on the fact that the usage has dropped because Wanilak was not up and operating, 3M flights were not coming in as often, the FAA's grant, they want to narrow and shrink the runway and as we discussed many, I think we discussed this before here maybe, this kind of like might be cutting our nose off to spite our face because Billions just bought it, they just had their first week up there. The first tenant was 3M and so these planes are going to start coming back in again, not necessarily all from 3M but that property's going to get used more often so we had the discussion And she agreed that it's kind of ludicrous. I think it's whatever FAA's cookie cutter process is, they're kind of sticking to it. So she was going to put together a letter, her and get together with Stauber and do a joint letter that we maintain what we have. Think that would be wiser plus it would be more expensive to narrow the runway They'd have to change the runway lights reinstall run It would be more expensive probably to narrow it than just to maintain what we have so we just got to get them He's got to get them to move a little bit here That'll be a few years off before that's required so maybe the the numbers will improve with increased flights for right

Yeah, exactly. I thought 3M would be a customer of theirs. They just didn't want to own it anymore.

Well, and our problem here, too, is in the winter, we need a wider runway, because we don't have de-icing equipment and de-icing ability for the runway. So you need it a little wider, because planes, when they land, do slip some, just like automobiles do. And on a narrower runway, you've got to have a clean runway for bigger planes to come and land up off into the grass, and somebody's going to have an accident.

So much room for error.

Yeah. So they're working on that and we got time on our side there. We'll keep working on that. And then advocated for concerns for HLDC, the county EDA and the HRA also with her staff also. So it's a pretty good meeting. And the only other thing I have as a reminder, hopefully you'll be around Tuesday because I won't be able to make the heritage meeting. So that's all I have.

Well, I had the ambulance but Steve already covered that quite well. The only other one I had was the personnel committee of the Kitchikami Regional Library and I told you last meeting that we had 14 candidates apply and we whittled it down to five for a full board to consider. We wanted to go down to three or four but from the members of the committee, We did the scoring. Everyone did their own individual scoring. It came out to where the five of them were all fairly close to each other. We had a good list of candidates that we five and who full board will meet September 30th. It probably would take all day interviewing the five and then discussion on which one to choose. That's all I got.

Let's see. I had the Austin incinerator Let's see, Hubbard County's mixed solid waste is pretty much on par with last year, 3,789 tons. Recycling tonnage is down just a little bit. Let's see, steam sales are down. And I know I've said this before, that the incinerator looks at three ways of making money, money on recyclables, money on steam sales, and then, of course, the tipping fees. And with recycling prices going down, aluminum is the only one that's holding steady, and that's kind of carrying us. Steam sales were down, so they'll probably be looking at a tipping fee increase. We're currently paying $92 a ton, and they're looking at $100 per ton for next year. Let's see. We had some discussion on the waste packaging law, or I don't know why it has the initials of EPR. I know it's... That's the law where they'll be charging packaging people who actually put products in packages. I don't think it's going to be a silver bullet and bring costs down very much at all. And I believe we'll be starting to see some dollars from that in 2029. So that's still three years out. Let's see PET plastics, they're not selling The room Steve knows the room that you walked in there As you go up this before you go up the stairs to the right that was solid PET plastic bundles They're not selling because it's we've got basically have to pay to get rid of it Aluminum though, they figured they had about 140 thousand dollars in aluminum. They're just waiting to sell some of that and Let's see what else I got on my notes here. Talk about the solid waste permits. We've got some that are going to be coming due. The last five-year air permit took us 15 years to get, so the numbers don't match up. You need a permit in a couple years, and it's going to take you 15 years to get it. It just doesn't make any sense. But that's our state government working. And let's see. Yeah, aluminum. I guess just to touch on the price for aluminum was $2,120 a ton. And then I also had... Let me just look the notes here. Also had the one watershed one plan for the Mississippi River Headwaters watershed We went over Reviewed the financial status we're still working on the off of the 2024 grant we're trying to spend that down I Believe we only have about eighty two thousand dollars left in that Hubbard County did dip into the 2026 uh... grant a little bit but that money they talked about shifting that to the twenty twenty four grand to try to get that money spent down we had a presentation from on the watershed qualities for the area. I actually saw this at the Mississippi Headwaters Board, and I did comment on that for that meeting. They did talk about lakes in Hubbard County. Schoolcraft Lake is one of those lakes is passed, but it's on the verge of being vulnerable, which is one of those you kind of question. I've questioned before, too, that it's a lot of nothing around it, not developed and stuff like that, but yet it's getting close to being vulnerable, that grade. And let's see, along with Grace Lake and Lake Itasca, ARE ALL THREE LAKES THAT ARE CLOSE TO BEING CONSIDERED VULNERABLE. WE ASKED ABOUT WHETHER IT WAS WATER DEPTHS HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH SOME OF THAT. THEY SAID NOT REALLY. LET'S SEE. ALSO REVIEWED THE 2022 GRANT ASSURANCE MEASURES. We put 70% towards our high priority projects. We also had an additional, besides the money that we get for the one watershed plans, we also had an additional $400,000 in additional grants that we received. Let's see. And they talked about measurables. We had kind of set ourselves some lofty goals, like 2,400 acres to be protected, and we only reached 1,600. But we are doing very well, though, in a lot of the areas and seeing a lot of improvements. In Hubbard County, a lot of the money that's being spent is on shoreland restoration. And there again, when the Hubbard County Soil and Water Conservation District spoke, that's basically what they spoke a lot about was the shoreline restorations that they've been doing in Hubbard County and the outreach that they do and the possible easements that are in the pipeline and may or may not be approved. And I believe that's all I've got.

Coming up, meeting-wise, we have the Fall Policy Conference, Wednesday and Friday, September 16th and 18th in Bemidji, and township meeting September 21st at Henreda Township. If there's no other business, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Mr. Chair, is there a department head meeting?

There should be.

The last Tuesday. September is the month with five Tuesdays in this month. This is the month that I could make it because the fourth Tuesday I already got SWCD.

So it's the 29th? 29th, yeah. You want to take it then?

Yeah, yeah. It's perfect for me this month.

I've got myself down for October. Good.

All right. Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved.

Second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, same sign.