County Commissioner & Board of Adjustment - Regular Meeting

This conference will now be recorded.

i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right we'll call this lawrence county commission meeting of september 1st in order

Do we have any changes or additions to the agenda?

Mr. Chairman, there is an amended agenda. You'll know that under general business, there's a section that's underlined. I'm going to have you reconsider the JJR grant from last time. I would note under the sheriff's time that we're not prepared yet to submit the two agreements referenced under there. So those will be continued until your next meeting. Otherwise, I don't know of any changes.

Approve the agenda as amended. Second. And moved by Tisdale, seconded by Ewing to approve the amended agenda. All those in favour, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Okay, motion carries. Any conflicts that we have to share today? Seeing none, we'll move on to regular minutes. We've all had a chance to read those over. Any corrections or additions? Motion to approve. Second. Moved by Tisdale, seconded by Comer to approve the minutes from August 25th. All those in favour, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Okay. I also had a chance to look over the bills. Motion to pay the bills. Second. Moved by Ewing, seconded by Comer, to pay the bills as presented, to approve the bills. All those in favour, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Okay. All those in favour, get some personnel requests when you get a chance.

I have three for the Sheriff's Office. To approve a step raise for Stone, Thurmond as a full-time permanent deputy to grade two at a base pay of $34.33, effective September 20th. And then a step raise for Marina, Cleveland, a full-time permanent sergeant one going to a grade three at a base pay of $37.53 per hour, effective September 20th also. And then Adrian Cheska, a step raise as a full-time permanent dispatcher one, grade two, at a base pay of 25.30 effective August 23rd.

Motion to approve the sheriff's request. Second. Moved by Tisdale, seconded by Colmer to approve the presented personnel request from the sheriff's office. All those in favour say aye. Aye. Any opposed nay. Motion carries. I believe we have a travel request.

Yes, this travel request is for a member vote to attend the 2026 Western Planners Conference in Sioux Falls from August 26th to the 28th.

Motion to approve the travel request. Second. Moved by Yuen, seconded by Kohmer to approve the travel request as presented. This is last week, apparently. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries.

Thank you.

We have a raffle. Mr. Chairman, through consideration, is a raffle request submitted by a bridge between us. Quite a bit of information included in your packets. I think it's relatively self-explanatory. It's like the date of the event is scheduled to be October 24th. I think up here at the lodge, I would note too that I think they've had contact with the state to sort of verify their programming that they're going to have for the event, and they're going to eliminate their 52-card drawing for some reason, so I just note that. But that's for normal consideration. Not object.

Move to not object. Second. And moved by Tisdale, seconded by Ewing, to not object to the raffle from a bridge between us. Any questions? All those in favour, say aye. Aye. Next up is the JJRI grant. We get to have Lexi here twice in a row. What a bonus.

Good morning. Well, I am back again today. We got notification late last week that the application as it was submitted would not be accepted. because I included 18-year-olds in my list of completions. In the past, I've always included them, and then I've just noted for them that they were 18, but this time they asked me to remove all 18-year-olds from the application since they're not eligible for reimbursement. So that was done. We're still sitting at a 93% successful completion rate. Have I answered any questions?

That changes the amount of the reimbursement, I assume?

No, it doesn't. Okay. No, because you're still, I've only ever been reimbursed for the juveniles that are in there. I've just always included all of my numbers for Lawrence County, including my kids that were 18 at the time of their offense. And they just want me to do things differently now.

Was it just to clear it up? Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

How do you want the motion to read?

just an amended to approve and authorize the chairman to sign the amended JJRI initiative program in 2018 court as the recipient. So moved.

Second. It's been moved by Flanagan, second by Comer to approve the amended JJRI grant application and authorize the chairman to sign. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay.

county health fair barb I see you're online did you want to say anything about the county health fair.

Comes up to the sheriff's report. Pat, did you have anything for us? Not in the report today. Hotel's still open, though. Still open. Going strong, too. All right, thank you for all your hard work. Thanks. All right, we have a request to forgive a county lien. Pam, if you're ready, we'll make sure to entertain.

So I will take this out. Just read it in case I get tongue-tied. Good morning, Commissioners, and thank you for allowing us to speak at your meeting. I'm Pam Hines. This is my husband, Les, and this is Sean Bournikoff. And he is the good person we are advocating for. So just a little history. It's that after Sean's mother passed away in 2018, his sister became his guardian. And that relationship was very difficult, not healthy. Sean was actively looking to separate himself from his sister for over a year because of the distress and mental anguish he was feeling due to the relationship. Sean's sister was both his guardian and his rep payee. And she was looking for conservatorship over Sean or even more control. And she scheduled a court date. This was very upsetting to Sean because her interactions were always very negative. and Sean was feeling unheard and unseen. At Sean's request, Northern Hills Training Center stepped in and worked with the state to become his rep payee and take care of his day-to-day finances. Sean's a part of the Northern Hills Training Center because he requires support to live in the Spearfish community. And then when Sean showed up at court with his sister, he did not have an attorney, so the judge appointed Amber Ritchie, and she did a great job representing Sean. Sean requested a new or different guardian and rejected the conservatorship his sister was fighting for. I had worked for Northern Hills Training Center in New Sean, and my husband and I both agreed then to become his guardian. So on March 23rd, 26th, legally he became his guardian. But the bill he received for this was $4,208, which is more than he can afford since he lives on Social Security for the disabled. and just a part-time job at the sheltered workshop. My job is to advocate for him. So I'm requesting that his bill be waived or forgiven. And the training center is currently paying $50 a month. And at this rate, it will take over eight months or seven years to pay off this bill. And as you can imagine, there are other items that are also going to be addressed like a new bridge for his teeth that will have an out-of-pocket expense. And I just put at the bottom there his SSI, and then he does get EBT. So he gets a total of about $1,500 a month. And then his monthly expenses. And when I talked to his rep payee yesterday, he had $4 in his account. So he was so glad today was September 1st. Hopefully some more money would come into the account. But that's our

I believe you also saw an email from Amber Ritchie about the case.

Oh, did you?

Okay.

I think the amount, Mr. Chairman, you're considering is $4,208.

I think they did make one payment of $50 already.

I don't know if they were done for, well, rarely. I think there's been one or two examples in my experience where you've done it. It's usually extraordinary. This is a very interesting circumstance, so I don't know of anything ever quite like this. For example, I remember one gal came in. She had gotten out of prison. She had been in prison for murdering her husband. and I think she came in and wanted her court-appointed to trade these for you. She didn't do that. That's years ago. So that's one example of a request like that in the past. It's a lot better. It's a lot younger. I'm sure a training center could use their 50 bucks a month. I know they're a big outfit, but if you do a whole bunch of them, it's going to add up.

No, Sean's paying for it. His money. The training center's not covering anything. They're just his rep payee.

I'll make a motion to forgive it. Circumstances are extraordinary, I think. I'll second it.

Do you have any seconded by Tisdale to forgive the entire amount, Commissioner Flanagan?

Somehow I missed Amber Ritchie's letter. She encouraged us. I'm going back through my emails and I don't see it in here. I think it's in the drive. But I would, based on her also recommendation to forgive it. It's there on the drive.

Mr. Chairman, we looked at the statute. We had never experienced that before where the court had appointed the public defender's office in such a case. And statutorily, it is allowed, I think, fairly clearly. So it was appropriate. It wasn't a stretch at all.

Further discussion? All those in favour, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Okay, we will forgive the lien. Thank you very much for coming out.

We want to say thank you. We want to say thank you.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for what you do.

And thank you.

Mr. Bay, would you like to ascend to the seat?

good morning we'll have a lot at this time you have a five-year plan uh reading at nine o'clock but for now i do have a request uh the permission to advertise a bid date of september the 22nd 26 uh to open proposals for the improvement of the home state road This would be the two narrow passes, approximately six-tenths of a mile west of the intersection of Hillsview Road. I did meet with the engineers yesterday. They're confident that they have their plan in place to submit. We are still waiting for a couple of easements. Hopefully we get those in place by the time this can go to a biddle.

So moved. Second. And moved by Flanagan, seconded by Tisdale to advertise for the bid opening for the 6.18 miles of Homestake Road. Is that enough time? It seems like a pretty short time if we don't have the plan fully put together yet. If the plan's fully put together, it's just the easiness.

It's just the easiness, that's all. Okay. And it's not six you know it's not 0.618 miles of distance that's the one that's west of yep okay yep gotcha it's two two locations that they're they're like 200 yards total so or i'm sorry each um both on the north side of the road uh we're looking at the metzger property on the south side of the road for the the furthest east pass, and then on the north side of the road, the Linscoffs property. But because of the steep grade towards the bottom, it's a one-to-one slope. To achieve a three-to-one slope, we're looking at roughly 180 feet of easement into that goal. A fair amount of easement. But yeah, that's where we are right now. To go to bid or open bids on it for the 22nd, And we're also into a situation where it's kind of a little unique. We already know that the bidder's gonna bid a low amount. They're promising to pay for this. To meet all of the state standards to go through this bid opening and to try to keep other contractors from suffering, it would be a shame for somebody to come to this and give up another job to bid for this job knowing they're not going to get it. So our advertisement is just to satisfy the state. Just meeting the state requirements, sure.

Any further questions? All those in favour say aye. Aye. Any opposed nay? Okay, the bid opening will be September 22nd.

I would just like to say that we did start on the Elmore Road, a Grand Guard construction constructed the bypass. In fact, our crew is out there today. We're going to put a little cool right on that to keep the dust down for the people that live out there during this construction. They're certainly behind schedule, but they do still are confident that they'll have this ridge done before the end of the year. So we'll see. It is a cast in place deck, continuous poured deck. with abutment, so there's a, they're optimistic they're going to get it done, so we'll see. I mean, winter can strike pretty early out there in the Spearfish Canyon area, but they are making progress. I'll have more reports on that coming, so. But yeah, they did get the bypass built. They relocated the American Dipper. Everything's going well. And we did yesterday complete the Hanna bridge structures as far as the installation of all of those. They're all in place. The road's open. We got that down. My crew, our crew got it down to a fine. They did each one of those. Yesterday's was the hardest one they did, and they still did it in eight hours.

So they did a fantastic job.

They work great. They drive great. But our next step is to contact a paver, and we're going to get those paved. get that done before the snow also flies looks like the community's very happy with them yeah you know uh we got nothing but positive feedback on that i think everybody's pretty pleased with them that and and the actual installation portion they nobody was too inconvenienced we we gave everybody enough warning that lives there they all parked their cars on the you know the downhill side of the structure so they were able to we kept a walkway through there for them and don't think anybody was too inconvenienced and uh and now it's good you don't have to worry about garbage trucks falling through the bridges anymore they should be good for a long time i'm sure they appreciate that and other than the uh uh the five-year plan stuff i don't have anything else for you guys if you don't have anything for me here we have to wait a little bit for that yeah that's uh

Thank you, John. Thanks, John. I guess I should have asked if anybody had any questions for Mr. Bay. It's too late.

I'm out of here.

Don't be so easy to get along with, John. Got a little extra time here. Bruce just went to see if Jeff Keitel could get filming.

Well, Amber can come do some of those C&P reviews. That'd be Jeff. We're gonna have plenty of time here. I finally got an update on my Wells Fargo letter situation.

I did not hear anything from them, but I got help from CoreLogic. Yesterday, we were going back and forth for quite a while, and we finally, Paula finally let me know that Wells Fargo said that they sent the letters out in error, that they should have never gone out. And I told them, well, is Wells Fargo gonna send letters out? They will not approve letters to go out if they were in error. They said they don't have time or whatever. So I have 46 people that I have gotten phone calls for that I will call and let them know. And then CoreLogic, who is the third party that does a fantastic job that was working, you know, contracted by Wells Fargo, they're going to try to contact any of the people that they can on their end so that there is no problems at all. I told Paula, she's from CoreLogic, my contact, that I was going to update our webpage and put out there that it was an error. And she goes, ooh. Let me check with Wells Fargo. And I said, well, I'll be politically correct. Let me have what they wanted. And this is what Wells Fargo wanted me to say. If you have recently received a letter from your mortgage company regarding Lawrence County special assessments, note the special assessments is included in your county bill and no action is needed. If you have an escrow account, these will continue to be paid by your mortgage company. I said I'd put that in there, but mortgage company is going out and Wells Fargo is going out. because I don't want to put mortgage company, and if anybody that has a loan sees that, then they start calling me.

Ironically, I did have a couple people that called in. No, they come and saw me.

Yeah. So as of yesterday afternoon, it went on our webpage that the letters were sent in error. We also have it on our phones, messages, if anybody calls on that, that they can disregard the letters. But if they did get a refund, they should check directly with Wells Fargo because I have no control over that. Because I guess they were cleaning up some of their escrow and some of the money still needs to go back on that.

Yes. Will you use that sort of as your script when you call those 40-some people back?

Yeah, I'll add, yes. That's what I'm going to tell them if their letters were sitting there. And if they have any questions, I'll just say, like I've been telling everybody, we We have to give out taxes. I would never deny anybody the right for taxes. And I, you know, up until two years ago, Wells Fargo got my taxes monthly. They would get a thing, and then they hired CoreLogic to take care of it, and CoreLogic every month. Matter of fact, I should be getting an email form today requesting my files. And so they have all updated ones in case something gets paid off or something like that. Bless you. I will say CoreLogic was fantastic. Awesome, they really have to work on this and get to the bottom of it, because I could not get anybody to answer.

So did Wells Fargo indicate how many of these letters went out, so we have some idea what percentage of the 46 people represented?

I have no idea, because I have no idea who has escrows, but the last time that I had an escrow payment just strictly from Wells Fargo, was around 600,000. So I just kind of figured, you know, that's for a half. You know, if somebody's, you know, what the average taxes are. So I'm guessing probably around 300 people just in Lawrence County.

I'm just curious about why because there's another X percentage that haven't said anything yet.

Or don't pay attention and just pitch it, you know.

Like me. If I got something from Ellis Fargo, I'd probably throw it away.

Yeah. So hopefully... This is taken care of.

Commissioner Kisdelski, it'll be interesting. They don't have time to fix their . I wonder if they'll have time to reprimand us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Go ahead, Bruce. Deb, you said something that reminded me about paying property taxes online. I think you talked about it with the commissioning company. So is it Beacon? Is that what it was?

Well, I was looking at one credit card company that we could go on and they could pay online. But then Brett also mentioned that we can get Beacon, which at least they can just go and see what their taxes are. And Brett's been working really hard on that. And Greg has been helping. Brett just called me yesterday and talked. It sounds like Beacon can get our property taxes online for people to look at. I think Brett said, and she's going to come down and talk to you guys probably in a meeting or two. It's going to be like $4,400, a one-time fee. to get it all set up to get the property taxes on there. And she was asking if I had some money to help. And I'm trying to squeak out $2,000 out of my budget. I hope I can, but this is something that really should be on Beacon. It'll cut down phone calls for my office and EQ. I mean, Director of Equalization has already, once they got Beacon, has cut down a lot of phone calls for them with people just looking at property descriptions. And this will help escrow companies, lenders, and stuff to be able to go on and look and see what the taxes are.

So the Beacon is the GIS program. It's online.

They just can't pay on it, but they can go and see what their base taxes are.

Pick on the parcel and find it inside.

And see everything there. So I think it's a good thing. I know there's still, I think, a few little tweaks to get out. But we're moving in the right direction to try to get out of the dark ages.

Let's drop it. Will Beacon be in addition to that other vendor you talked about, or does Beacon replace that?

If I go with Beacon, then I won't go with the other. We'll just put those and see if this works for now, because they can still go through Forte and pay. The other vendor I was looking at was going to host our taxes online, and then they could pay taxes through them, through us. The only thing is I would have had to do some changes, possibly with credit card company at the counter and Forte is working really good. I mean, we use about 6 million through them a year.

So with Beacon, I could get online and see what my property taxes owed is, but then I would go to Forte to pay. So it's a two-step process. Is that fair? And the other vendor would have been done both of them, but you accomplish the same thing by having them.

And their prices, their credit card fees were a little more higher than what I can offer right now. And I know on the Beacon part, if I understand it right, you go on right now and you pay a monthly fee or a daily fee to go look at director of equalizations information and stuff, but we're gonna get it so the property taxes are free to look at. I don't think we should be charging for somebody to go look for property taxes. So that part's going there. And then the other good thing is when I give my statistics that we did last month on stuff, I said I was gonna mail out 22 letters of delinquent taxes. I mailed out those 22 letters and it come to $228,068.91. And so far we have collected 147,327.07 out of that. So that went really good. And then I have another really delinquent property, about 240,000 and they're working with the bank. So hopefully within the next month, we'll get that taken care of. So we're getting our delinquency down again.

Deb, what'd you get, was it 49 vehicle titles over the weekend?

Yesterday I had to check in 44 titles and get them. I was here till six last night, finally getting them in. And then out of those 44, unfortunately five of them have to go back because they didn't do the paperwork right. That's the frustrating thing is they send all this stuff in. They don't sign the titles, they don't have all the, some of the stuff we can call and they can email. When they don't sign the titles, we don't have signed power of attorneys or something, we send them back certified because I want to be able to track those titles. So we've got five of them I've got to send back today because they didn't do the proper.

And you log all those in and track everything so if a customer calls, you can tell them when you got it. We have too many coming in.

I have them on an Excel spreadsheet that we put in by name, date, and vehicle, and if they're missing anything, and then if it's in the Work by the date or if it's in the bank file or the home file. Yeah. I can just imagine what it's going to be like next Tuesday. How many we're going to have. Well, because we're on Saturday and then Monday and then we'll get a big stack on Tuesday. Monday's always the big one. Yesterday was a really big one.

Thank you for going above and beyond what you really need to be there and making 46 phone calls.

That's my project today is to get that done because I'm back and forth with CoreLogic before we finally got everything straightened out yesterday and stuff. I didn't have time to call everybody, but I'll start calling them today and let them know. And if you guys get calls or if they have any questions and want to ask, have more specifics on it. But it sounds like everything should be just back the way it was and that the letter should have been out.

that I have on my desk too that I need to call too.

Okay, thank you. All right, see you guys.

Thank you, Deb.

We're bringing Jeff down, we gotta switch the Board of Adjustment. Yeah. You wanna do the Senate Bill 96 resolution? Seems right. Sure. Okay, we'll jump ahead on the agenda here, and we passed the ordinance creating a county sales tax last meeting, but we did not decide when to offer relief. So the two choices are we can offer relief on the 2027 payable taxes using an estimated return we would gain from our county sales tax, or we could collect the full amount of the sales tax and offer relief in 2028.

yes i would i would just start i'd like a motion to do half the estimated receipts 2027. so the estimated receipts are using six six million is that what i'm going to use what the most recent we get at the end of the year okay so you know or whenever the reporting time happens to be so then you would you would apply half of that then property after the estimate I think that's a conservative number. I don't think it's inappropriate. I think it's responsible. We're getting that relief out sooner than later. But we're also not being, without being too optimistic, I think it's a good conservative method, a good way to go.

If we went with that plan, then the following year we would catch up the other half with the full amount. That's a discussion for the board at that time.

What's your experience is? Yeah, I think that everything would go into the property tax relief fund. So I don't know that that's a choice. But we have to issue all of the receipts from the property tax relief fund.

Well, so then it'd be realized. I mean, we're collecting it. We need to do what we're supposed to be doing with it.

Yeah, you've heard me voice that I wanted to collect it for the first year and then pay. But I'm comfortable with this conservative route in the case. That was a motion. Yeah, it's sitting out there.

I'll second it then. Okay, and then move further discussion. Yes. Moved by Flanagan, seconded by Tisdale to issue half of the amount of estimated revenue from the county sales tax as relief in 2027. Credit to the Taxes for 2027 pay award. I think my only question is, who's making the call on estimating? I don't know if the Department of Revenue is going to estimate those, continue to do that or not. And it's my understanding that they keep track of what the city's sending to them, but they have no idea exactly the exact dollar amount the county's sending. Correct, they do not collect that data.

So then the following year, we would use the half we didn't use, theoretically.

And then half of the following year, so to pay it off, we'd always have a half as a buffer.

I'm not sure. I imagine there's going to be some tweaking by the legislature to figure out how that is put together. I think the only entity we have to determine the estimated revenue is going to be the Department of Revenue, the only official one. But again, I suspect there's going to have to be something down the road legislatively that either allows the county specifically to design an ordinance that's appropriate for the county, or they're going to have to figure out how to do a blanket one statewide through legislation. But we're not at a point where we know those answers still. So we're still best guessing what we can do. Mayor Redekopal.

I'm speaking out loud. So I don't know if we know what the estimate is. Maybe we could get something, maybe not. But alternatively, would you consider stating a specific amount? I'm just going to throw out a random amount of a million dollars to start off with. And you could always amend that next year as revenues came in. Does that make sense? You would apply a million dollars as is collected to property tax relief to start off with. Maybe that's too low. it comes in better, you could always apply more next year or in a relative time frame? Yes. Why a specific number instead of a percentage? Because we don't know what the percentage is. Of what? I don't know.

50% of the total is going to be 50%. I don't know if we're going to get that. Is there a problem? So the Department of Revenue came up with their estimated revenue for sales tax when they were working on the debt. I contacted the Department of Revenue, July maybe it was, just to see if there was an updated number because I suspected that that was the 2024 number that they were working on when they did the 25 number when they were doing the 26 legislative session. I tried to get an updated number and she told me that it was six million, just a little over six million. The old number was a little below six million. I got the feeling that they weren't really tracking that, that they were just throwing So that's my concern about the motion is that I don't know that we're going to get an official number. Nor do I have a lot of confidence in that number strictly because they do track the municipalities, but they don't track the number outside of the counties. And the way that they arrived at that estimate for the number outside the counties was that you got this whole pool of money that they collect for sales tax for the state. and they knew what the municipalities were, so they subtracted out all the municipalities and that left a smaller pile of money that they just divided on a per capita basis for the state and applied those in each county on a per capita basis. So obviously some counties generate a lot more sales tax outside of the municipalities than others, so I don't know how accurate that number's going to be.

Now that we've had this discussion, I'm with entertained any of the motion or I guess I'd be more comfortable waiting till 2028 to disperse any funds.

Yeah the motion is to utilize, to give half of that new estimate. The motion was to do 50% of the most recent estimate by the end of the

Right now, the current estimate was 6.0 something for the Department of Revenue. Based on what you said, I suspect if that number is Lawrence County, and based on other counties, I suspect that that number would be higher than that. Because I think there's a lot more revenue generated outside city limits than most counties. So I'm very comfortable with my motion as I said it. even if it's the only one we get, but you know by the end of the year there's gonna be a lot of heat on Department of Revenue to give this a number. Give us the number, then we know what it is. Because whether or not Senate Bill intended to do that, that's what they've done is forced Department of Revenue to make something. Yes.

So just thinking about time frames here, the Treasurer's Office tries to get those tax notices out in February. When would they need that data? That's one question. The other question is, is our software going to be capable of issuing that as a credit in February of 27?

We send the tax notices out in January, so it's going to have to be before then. It's going to have to be started on immediately to have that ready to go. Put that on there. And is that going to be possible? Is that a great question? That would be a great question.

a question to him. $6,094,000. It's underneath your cursor.

$6,094,000. And this data was from when? Does it have a date?

It says on the top.

It says county sales tax estimate updated with pay 25. Yeah, so that's 25 days. And that's what we've been given all along.

So that number is the most current that we have. And if that ends at the end of the year, that's the most current we have, then it's half that number. That's what my motion says.

We'll include that in that motion so it's very clear that the estimate is $6,094,000. Half of that would be $3,000,000. I think we need to have a number in that. So an estimated $3,000,000 would be applied.

Yeah, my only concern with this, I'm not concerned about the amount. I am concerned about our capability to get that listed on the tax notices without coordinating with our IT department.

I believe the discussion when we first heard this was the treasurer and IT and the auditor were all prepared to do whichever, whatever direction they decided to go. Maybe over speaking, but I believe that's what I wanted to know.

That's true, although we didn't talk about Does that make sense?

This is a little bit different? It could be. I don't think we actually talked about the time frame. That's all that concerns me.

It is a proprietary system and a great design, so I think pretty confident he can, but I haven't asked if this throws any kind of a wrench. I suspect not. I think you'll probably tell us that you can do it.

Another state item, traumatics.

Morning, Amber.

Morning.

How are you?

I'm here.

Good.

Got more kids feeding kids, huh? That's a good thing. Yeah. That's a good thing.

We have a granddaughter being a little bit overly...

I'd rather have that.

Oh, I don't know.

We are still alive.

I can pass on what the parents said. Well, that's fine. Make sure you're aware. They're going to hear this. Mr. Chairman, I think I restated the proposition to Greg, but maybe somebody else would want to say it and make sure I frame the issue correctly.

Okay, yeah, we're just making sure that if we were to offer property tax relief credit on the tax notices that are going out in January of 2027, that we would have the software capability to do that. That's a rather short timeframe. We have worked out the mechanics of that, how that would actually be implemented in software. Without going into a lot of detail, basically, you know, we figure out the exact amounts per parcel and then offsetting entry would be put into the apportionment table for each property record that reduces the amount of tax on the appropriate line item. And then we would also be able to use that to identify on the tax notice that this count was applied because that's required by the law too. So I feel confident that we're going to go for this. So would you be just reducing the amount of total tax or would you be listing a credit, a line item credit? Well, it would be a credit. It would be a line item that would be a negative amount in the amount of the credit. That would be on the apportionment record. So we pull that back off. And we also use that record to be able to determine when we're on the back end of it through the accounting system, how that will all be combined. So I feel confident that we can achieve that. Okay, thank you for that. Any further questions?

Maybe send me something I'm trying to get at.

Just unshare your screen and then they can't see it. Then you can get it open. There you go.

Then you can have it open. So this would be an example. Yes. It's much simpler.

The school part is broken up separately too, isn't it? The application for 245? Or is it just?

Yeah, so the school part of it would be, when you go to the general fund, general fund is that has the .669 levy if that's what they're using. This one's a little bit different. General fund, right? There. So that levy would be .669.

There.

But it's four now. That's what it would be there if it's on.

So did you figure out half of what our estimate is. The county sales tax estimate was a little over $6 million. What was the half? Just so we can state that in the motion. Just a little over $3 million? Yeah.

I mean, the number was right there. It was, yeah.

I was just wondering if we had to go ahead. 094-433 or something.

Just wanted to include that in the motion. That's not in the motion. It's in the explanation.

$3,047,172 to be exact.

I mean, I was more comfortable with waiting for the actual, but I think this is a good alternative.

It starts going forward. Yeah. The pain that the people on the one side that are going to feel are going to feel it right away. The squeaky ones on the other side are going to also see something. Yeah. but we still, we have reserves in there. I think it's an easy, I don't think there's anything to really think too much about. We're gonna generate, our county has not generated much less, if any less, sales tax since 25, and I don't foresee it shutting off anytime soon.

And discussion? Kate? So the motion is that we will offer property tax relief to owner-occupied starting in 2027 taxes, which would be the 26 payable taxes in 2027. The amount will be approximately 3.147 million to be divided equally among all of the evaluation of the owner-occupied. All those in favour, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Okay, motion carries. He really wants to change my motion over and over.

Did I not get that right? I didn't put a number in it. You added the number to it. But that would be the number if that's the most current estimate.

I'm sorry, I thought I said half of the estimate, which was 3.147. That is what I thought. Let's see. Oh, Jasmine's here, okay. Can we leave her enough time to do that? I don't think it will take very long.

We need to be Board of Adjustment for that, don't we?

Yes, please. Yes.

Let's move to recess. Yes.

Does the County Commission convene as Board of Adjustment? Second. Then moved by Flanagan, seconded by Tisdale to recess as County Commission and convene as Board of Adjustment. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from last meeting to approve the minutes from the August 25th Board of Adjustment minutes. All those in favour, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, nay. Okay, motion carries. We are joined by, should we have those in the packet? I think we got them printed beforehand.

Yes, I think we looked at them beforehand.

Thank you for joining us again.

Yeah, thank you for having me. Are we doing the catchment project first or you want the drain? Which we can kind of talk about.

Yeah, I'll probably just talk about it together. They're very much related. Just real quick, I'm going to give a quick explanation.

So how these work, we did receive two different technical revisions, we'll call them. One is for the false bottom lower sump drain tile installation and one is for the ball spotted creek catchment project. So how it works when we get these, the state expects me to have some sort of response to them. So normally what we've done is if Bruce and I are comfortable with it, we'll go ahead and do it like the drain tile one. We were pretty comfortable with it. We would have probably just done it, but because they had the other ones, we decided to just put them both on the agenda. And then that way, once we're done with this, we usually take the minutes and I will respond to the state so they have it in their record that So that's kind of why you see two different things. But we'll respond together with the minutes when we go through the process. So that's kind of just the general process today. Thank you.

So I'll kind of give you guys a little bit of background. But I was here last year. We talked about the selenium treatment plant that we put in. It's very successful. It's doing a good job. We have realized since we started treating, there's a portion of water that we aren't catching. So we would like to try to catch that for further treatment. And that's essentially what both projects are supposed to do. So the first page of the handout just kind of gives you an overview, just kind of gets you a little bit sorted, but kind of, you can see our false bottom treatment center up above the dam face. And then we've got an upper sump, which is our main catchment. and then we had dug a lower sump in an effort to catch more water. And that's right near the pump house. So essentially what happens is the lower sump catches water, sends it to the upper sump. The upper sump sends it back down to the pump house. The pump house pumps up. We do have a holding pond, which you can't see here. The holding pond, the holding pond, gravity feeds to the treatment facility, and then we gravity feed and send it back to the creek after it's treated. So that's how it works now. But we've realized within the creek itself, there is a portion of creek upstream that we feel flowing that we're unable to catch. And so what we'd like to do is two things. So for one, we would like to install drain tile along the length of our lower sump, just sort of spread it out to try to catch some of that underground water that's flowing through. So what that would do is it would catch that underground water, funnel it to the sump and treat it from there. And then the second thing that we wanted to do is actually put a catchment in the creek. So the in-creek catchment is a little bit more highly regulated, to be perfectly honest. We're working with the Army Corps of Engineers. And with both projects, we're working with the Danner, the mines group of the Danner, but also the Surface Water Division, Water Rights Division, and Groundwater, actually. I've been working with all of those groups and we're working through it. And essentially this is kind of the plan to catch more of that water to be able to treat it. Any questions?

Yeah, this is all at the toe of the historic Ball Mountain Mountains facility.

Yeah, the selenium actually comes from historical tailings from Ball Mountain. Thank you, Tim. And so, you know, we inherited that property pretty many years ago. And so now we're just trying to clean it up, and make it right.

So the catchment pond is in the creek?

It is in the creek, yeah.

So the creek's just going to flow in and allow the metals to settle out is essentially what you're trying to do?

Well, actually, it's going to funnel the water into one area, and then it's going to get pumped up to the treatment facility. So you're pumping it all out of the catchment. Yep. And so it's designed. It's not huge. I want to say it's about 40 by 80. So it's not huge. That area is fairly small footprint anyway. But what it's designed to do is sort of dig that metal out to allow all of the water to funnel in there. And then we've got sort of a wall built in. I guess it's sheet pilings is what it's called. And so they'll drill sheet pilings in to create that wall. And so the water can funnel upstream of it. And then from there, we'll catch it with it.

We did double check this area. It's not actually in the floodplain. It's not a named floodplain area. So even though there's water there, so they don't have to go through anything with our floodplain development process. It's not a named floodplain. Is it not a live stream then? Is it always live? I mean, I would say sometimes.

It used to be seasonal and right now we're seeing it pretty consistently. Right now we're pumping up about I think going through the bottom, the plane is at the bottom towards the end, and I think we're getting like 10 to 15 gallons a minute. It's pretty low flow right now.

At least you just had to look back, and I think this is all within the permit area as well, right? It is.

It's all within the permit boundary. We did have one discussion with the Porter Service, I guess, and we did get a letter, and I think that should have been in your stuff. The Forest Service basically has said they don't ever sign the waivers, like the 500-foot buffer waivers. We've never had them sign them, and they kind of said, well, we don't really want to start now. But they recognized it. They know that it's within their 500-foot of the Forest Service boundary, and they were fine with it. So we did double-check with them just to make sure, because we have to prove that we made contact. And we did.

Even when I noticed. Yep.

And we actually, he did kind of send an email. It basically said, we prefer not to sign it. I was like, okay, I'll just put that on the record.

They're required by federal law to process selenium, and that's a relatively new 20 years. I think they changed by a factor of 10, the tolerance on selenium, because about the time they built the one in Gayville or down there by Central City, that plant, They're just trying to collect more water to handle what's a naturally occurring substance on this sort of ground is to collect that. So I don't see any issue at all. They're trying to improve on what they're doing. The design changes. Do we need a motion? Is there an accept? I'll make the motion to accept the report.

Usually you just, yeah, you accept the report and then that I will send the notice and the minutes to the DNR for the technical revision. That's normally what you guys have, I think, similar. You found it, right?

To support the technical revision on the fault bottom for some drain tile installation and then also the revision on the fault bottom creek catchment coverage.

That was my motion.

I'll second. We've been moved by Ewing, seconded by Comer to accept the report for the fault bottom catchment and also the Drain tile. Any other questions or discussion? All those in favour, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Okay, motion carries. Thank you. Thank you.

I will get it sent as soon as we get the minutes. It's all probably tomorrow sometime.

Okay, thank you.

You always have to be done by the next day.

We have a public hearing at nine o'clock.

Do you want me to go in this way, or do you want me to go this way?

We might as well just, let's go back into the County Commission and we'll take a five-minute break. I'll move to recess as the Board of Adjustment reconvenes County Commission. Second. I move by applying again, seconded by Chisdale, to recess as Board of Adjustment, reconvene as County Commission. All those in favour, say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Okay, we'll take a four-minute break and pick back up at nine o'clock.

And then you saw your note for maybe

Right.

She said make sure you add it to Thursday's packet.

Okay.

That's what it was from. I already lost it. Okay.

Well, wherever you put it, it was Thursday. Thank you.

All right, we will come back to order. And this is the time and place for a public meeting concerning the five-year county highway and bridge plan. Mr. Hay, would you like to fill us in on what we're doing?

Okay, well, state requirement that we have to submit a five-year road and bridge plan. be eligible for any grants namely the big grant for bridge improvement a couple of the requirements for the five-year plan is that we have you know the county has to implement a wheel tax which we have and also adopt the five-year road and bridge improvement plan this plan is Exactly what it says. It's merely a plan. It's not a written in stone. It's not a requirement. It's a tool. And it is also a tool to put in order what structures or what projects we're going to do in a time frame. If we're going to get any kind of funding through the state or federal government, we have to have this in place. And it also has to be adopted. by the commission. We'll be putting, once we're done here, we'll put it together into their format, the information provided. We have signatures of people attended, the five-year plan, and any kind of input that any people in the public want to submit. We have to have that turned in to the state by October the 15th. We also are required to notify our our township people, which we have in attendance today. And you note that they were also present. With that being said, they are excited. We'll go through the five-year plan. Again, I want to clarify that when you see these dollar amounts listed, these are estimates for projects. As the further out in the five years filled, those estimates are going to become less accurate. It's a little hard to determine the cost of things five years down the road. All of these numbers are, I'll tell you right now, they're on the high end, and then there's a percentage added for every year going into the five years. To start with, in 2027, on our five-year plan, we have the asphalt mill and overlay the last section of the Nemo Road. We also have roughly 10 miles of chip seal. We have a little more chip seal in 27 than we normally have, but we also are trying to get caught back up. We had that problem. We took some chip seal off for budget reasons, and then we, if you remember, our chip seal people didn't show up last year. So we're gonna try to get back on track with our chip seal And then again, this provided the budget allows. This is not a budget. This is just to help us with our budget. So if it's on this list, doesn't necessarily mean we have to do it because the budget still dictates what we're going to do in the coming year. We also have route and crack seal 3.63 miles of the Nemo Road to get ahead of a chip seal. Route and crack seal one mile of the Crook City Road. to go in line with the section that we just routing crack sealed and that will get that whole road ready to chip seal. As always, we have on here to gravel 20.5 miles of road, fluoride 120 miles of road, striping 85 miles of road, and the replacement and repairs of culverts and small bridges. We also have on here, and this is what the state's more interested in, and that would be our bridge construction. For 27, we have grants in place for the two Nemo structures, and those will be constructed in 2027. We also have on here the bridge on the Whitewood Service Road. That's a local federal grant that's in place. I believe that bridge, again, it got delayed again. We're now hoping that in November it goes to a bid letting. So I guess we'll see. And also on our 27th plan would be applied for a construction grant for the West Highway 14. In 28, we have an asphalt mill and overlay, and this would be for the section of road that on the Nemo Road that we left out because of base stabilization issues. So that's on there to be taken care of in 2028 if needed. We are also that, Roughly 14 miles of chip seal. I'm sorry, 18 miles of chip seal for 28. Route and crack seal another section of the Nemo Road and get it ready for chip seal. Route and crack seal 4.58 miles of the St. Onge Road and have it ready for a chip seal. Again, the graveling of 20.5 miles of road. Floor riding of 121 miles of road. Striping of 85 miles of pavement. Replacing them. a pair of small structures and then to build a new bridge on West 14 pending the grant, if we get a grant in place. The replacement of small structure, this would be a part of the RAFE program. In 2029, that RAFE program sunsets and we have to either use the money for a project that qualifies or we have to give the money back to the state. I believe Our last amount we had was $117,000 in that fund, I believe. It's a little bit more than that. A little bit more than that. But it's right in that area. We are eligible to use that fund on county secondary roads only for small structures only. We don't have very many that qualify, but we have a couple, and we have identified these two projects, and that would be a culvert on the Kirk Road, that would be on the The Louie's end of the Kirk Road, we have a small structure there that's pretty narrow and the bottom is also rusting out. We also have down on the Boulder Creek Road, we have a low water crossing where there's some cracking and some delamination of the concrete approach. So those would be the two projects we've identified that qualify for the Rafe Fund, and that is in our 2028. giving us a little time if we have to move them to 29, we could still use those funds. And then also on 28, we would like to apply for a grant, the PE grant for the camp comfort structure. Now we'll note that we are in our bridge inventory, we're down to only eight structures that are in poor condition and four of them are currently in the process of being replaced. That would be the two Nemo Bridges, the Elmore Bridge, and the Whitewood Service Road Bridge. They're both federal, Elmore and Whitewood Service Road are local federal highway. Those are in place. The work just hasn't been done yet. Those four bridges are funded, they're in the program, and that will get us down to four bridges that are in poor condition, which are reflected in this five-year plan. 2029 we have an asphalt mill overlay of the upper valley road asphalt mill and overlay of west highway 14 for the one mile within city limits. chip seal 4.58 miles of saying on chip seal 3.63 miles road route crack seal another section of the nemo road route crack seal 3.58 miles of acorn Ridge again re gravel 20.5 miles. gravel road, mag chloride, 121.5 miles of gravel road, striping of 85 miles of pavement, the replacement and repairs of small bridges and structures, and then apply for the PE grant for 41, 239, 259, which is the last of our box beam bridges, and that's down by the benchmark road on the Nemo Road. Some of these bridges are also pending our inspection that was conducted this year. We don't have that yet. We don't have the results. And also apply for a big construction grant on that Camp Comfort one that we, the previous year, that was a grant application. So that takes us to 2020-30. And again, we're getting a little further out. So things are starting to change. You'll notice the dollar amounts get less and less and the projects become less and less. Chip seal 3.63 miles of the Nemo Road. Chip seal and fog seal 3.58 miles of the A-Camp or Ridge Road. Route and track seal 3.63 miles of the Nemo Road. Route track seal another section of 4.8 miles of the Benaca Canyon. Free gravel 20 miles of gravel road. Mag chloride 121 miles of gravel road. Striping 85 miles of pavement. Replacing repair culverts and small bridges. Preservation of the The deck on the yellow creek road, this is a bridge that is actually one of our bridges that's in poor condition, but it does not meet any requirement for a grant. It's in too poor a shape and too old to qualify for a preservation grant, but it's not low posted and it's not in bad enough condition to warrant a replacement. So it's in the middle right now. Again, we'll see how our bridge inspections come in this year. We did in-house last year. We did kind of our poor man's overlay. We did our own preservation on it. So far it's been holding up well. I'm kind of excited to see how that turns out with the inspection to see what they thought of it, but I'll let you know. But it is also on our plan to do some sort of preservation on that bridge. It's a lot of traffic. It's a lot of heavy traffic and If we can get that repaired before it fails or before it gets to a point where it needs replaced, I think that would be a win for everybody in the county. So it is in our five-year plan. So if funding does change and becomes eligible, it will be ready. We also have in 30 to build and construct the bridge on the Camp Comfort pending the grant that we applied for the previous year, and apply for a construction grant for that box beam bridge on the Nemo. And that takes us down to 2031, and that is to pave 1.5 miles of the Maitland Road from Christensen Drive to Forest Park, pave 1.44 miles of Hill Street and North Titton Road, pave 1.6 miles of McGuigan Road. Chip seal 3.63 miles of the Neiman Road. Chip seal and bog seal 4.8 miles of the Monaco Canyon Road. Round and crack seal 9.5 miles of road. We don't have the roads identified at this time, so it'll be just on our pavement condition list is how those will fall out in the future. Re-gravel 20.5 miles of road. Magloriate 125 or 121.5 miles of gravel road. pavement mark 85 miles of pavement, replace and repair culverts on small bridges, and build new bridge 41, 239, 259 on the new road, pending a big replacement plan. And that is the end of the five-year plan. I have also included for your review our gravel plan. We have changed quite a little on our gravel plan to the point where our 10-year gravel plan is I would say not as necessary. We are now to the point our gravel roads are in a condition where we can do these on a as needed basis. I think we're to the point where we don't have to do four inch lifts on our gravel roads. We have some roads that are going to always require a four inch lift because the amount of traffic and the amount of snow plowing they get. But a lot of our gravel roads are to the point where we're going to be able to do two inch lifts and really reduce the amount of gravel. So in our five year plan where we list that 20 miles that's going to be there's going to be a lot of adjustments to that coming a lot of savings in our gravel program i do have though our tenure our dead our tenure gravel plan just it's a good tool to have to we know when they were last graveled we can keep an assessment of their condition and then we'll go forward back but from now on we're doing our gravel more on a needed basis as opposed to just it's their turn

I know, yeah, just one question before we go, Mr. Alka. There was some minimum maintenance roads on here. Yep. And so those are just kind of as needed, I assume. Absolutely as needed. Yep, Mr. Alka.

John, I think you're working with South Dakota State and they're looking at your gravel. You're an example of coming in and getting your gravel roads. Is that right? That's correct. And are they impressed with how your roads are?

Well, they're using the Maitland Road. They're They're doing a gravel quality study on that. They came and take core samples twice now. South Dakota State University with the South Dakota Department of Transportation, they're trying to come up with a quarry gravel specification for road surfacing, which doesn't exist. And they're using our roads because we have such an abundance of quarry gravel, and we exclusively use quarry, nearly, exclusively used quarry gravel. And yeah, they are impressed. That road has been holding up well. They've done several tests, neurometer testing, core samples, and ride quality testing. We'll see how that plays out. It's a two-year test, a two-year study. Didn't you say part of that's because of the chloride, magnesium chloride? Our case, for sure, our extensive use of chloride is something that they're very interested in. Not many counties in the state use chloride to the extent we do. I know it gets a lot of negative and positive feedback, but the inconveniences are certainly outweighed by the performance of those roads.

Can I just ask one question just to follow up on quarry gravel? Could you explain what quarry gravel is versus other kinds of gravel?

So quarry gravel is, you have gravel pits, alluvial type gravel, glacial type gravel. That's just dug up, screened, on occasion crushed to get it to a size determined. And it's mixed with the natural binder that's in that type of soil. Quarry gravel is a, It's ledge rock that is drilled, blasted, and crushed. And the crushed refines are what become the binder in those materials. They both have their different uses, but as far as a road surfacing, borie gravel is not normally used. It's been considered over the years a softer type material. It is also considered a type of material that It doesn't have binders, so it's just loose gravel, loose rock you see on the road. Well, Lawrence County has found a way to make quarried gravel work for surface material. It does require the use of chloride, but it takes a cementation process and it becomes a hard surface that stays in place. I believe some of the majority of our limestone quarried gravel is harder than a lot in the This study that the state is doing and that South Dakota State University is doing is taking into account, it's working with granite materials, quartzite materials, and limestone. So I think it's in the eastern, northeastern part of the state they're using, I believe it's the quartzite in the south, eastern part of the state they're using the, I guess the granite. We're the test for the limestone.

commissioner flanagan i was just going to go back to the the way and you know five-year plan has worked it's it's i wouldn't say it's exactly a wish list but that's kind of what it is when people start seeing stuff which has come up in the past paving of maitland paving and paving those bits that's an ideal we'd like to get to that but it might be 2031 it might be

2039 it might be it just depends on how things in front of it could be sooner could be later that's the further down that list the less well accurate that is i don't know is that true that is true just for clarification and transparency i moved those two projects to the end of the list they have they've been up further and they we just move them back it all depends on funding just because it's on this list like you just described it as a wish list does not mean it gets to it happens it's on the list and it's on the list for the reason that if if funding becomes available through the state and if we try to get a grant from any of these projects it has to be on this list so for the majority it's bridges that's their main focus but if there is any paving type of grants available any kind of safety streets for all type grants which is a federal grant you have to have it in some sort of a five-year plan or master transportation plan some of these came from our master transportation plan that we just did a couple years ago so it has to be in our our our plan or it or it's not eligible it can be updated at any time but if there's anything in there that you'd like to add or delete it's simple just tell me and we'll do it at this time if it's not in this plan We're not eligible for that for the programs.

Okay, Commissioner Comer. I think this is great information, particularly when you start talking about the tons that are required to do this type of work and the costs associated with that. I was wondering, those tonnages, you're not including the tonnage of gravel that's going into the pavement projects or anything like that. That's just gravel. Yeah, that's just gravel. So I mean, if I was to look at that again, I think that would be an important one so people understand the amount of material that goes into

31 the miles that are going out for pavement repavement or whatever sure that's material needs big county great job okay do you have a question no comment okay i have also included our five-year uh equipment plan based on roughly a four hundred thousand dollar per year uh budget for equipment and we have changed a little bit of that I know for 27 for our budget, we moved a truck up because we had recently lost a truck in an accident. Excuse me. And then we also switched around a mini excavator with a loaner. We don't own a mini excavator at this time, but we see the value in owning a mini excavator. We've been renting excavators a lot lately. A mini would be a little bit smaller than what we've been renting, but I believe it would be very beneficial for us to own. the rest of our five-year equipment plan and see what's there. Our equipment's good, but it's best to keep proactive and keep our equipment and stay on the warranty programs. I don't have anything else in this five-year plan. It's pretty dry material, but it's necessary to present it. I would be looking for a motion to have Chairman, sign this. If you guys have anything you would like to change, I can certainly wait and change it. If you'd like something changed and then review it, or if you're fine with the way it is, this is how I will submit it to the state.

Would you like, Chairman, to sign? I'll second. I'll second. Everybody. Motion and Comer seconded to approve the five year plan as presented and authorize insurance. Any other questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries. Thank you, John. Thank you. We're probably just going to have to take another recess here for a few minutes. We have a public hearing at 9.30 that we have to be on time for. All right, it is 9.30. We'll come back to order. It is 9.30 in time. This is the time and place for a public hearing for the 2027 budget. Do you have any presentation?

I can just say that I did receive the centrally assessed property from the state. I have entered it, the values from the centrally assessed property overall went down $1,034,915. And the fire protection district went down $510,687. So that budget that I published in the paper had a mill of 2.833 entering in this preliminarily. moved it to 2.834. So that was the difference by the decrease of the essentially assessed property. So other than that, that is all I have to report. Everything else stays the same.

Okay. Being this is a public hearing, we invite any public comment that you have. If you would like to make a comment on the budget, then we just ask that you stand and state your name and address so we can capture it in minutes. Anybody in the gallery here? Is anybody online that would have to make a comment on the 2027 budget? Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Notice that we had no comments again. Interesting that we know the budget is what really affects the property taxes, but we've not had any concerns about the whole process as we come.

Yes. So the idea would be to take no action today other than public hearing and then present it to you at your next meeting, I think on the 22nd, for ultimate approval. Thank you all very much.

We'll also add that we are doing this today, on the first Tuesday of September, to comply with state statute for public hearings, which is why we had to move the meeting to a different time. All right, with that, we can move back into Board of Adjustment. Motion to recess as County Commission and reconvene as Board of Adjustment. Second. Moved by Flanagan, seconded by Tisdale to recess as County Commission and reconvene as Board of Adjustment. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Okay. Jeff, are you setting this up?

I am. Okay. Good morning. We're going to do the annual review for CUP 498, which is the Larson Coal Pit. I have Bill and Brian from Kroll here to answer any questions or whatever you might have. As you're aware, we've had a couple of complaints. We had one on the 3rd of August. It was kind of, the wind came up and they couldn't get it shut down. I sent you all the information in response to Kroll and how that worked. We had another one later in the month. It was more of a question, wanted to know how, how the trucks were weighing because they noticed they weren't used to the scale at the time. And so once we found out they were doing a bucket weighing, that seemed to answer the question and took care of that. We did get two more complaints yesterday. This is from Sunday, and I sent those to you. When that sudden burst of wind came up at 2.45, it was National Weather Service measured at a 52 miles an hour downtown square fish. Of course, the wind blew real fast and real hard, didn't last long. I did forward to them guys and I forward to you guys for that. Other than that, we believe they're following all the conditions. One of the conditions, the final ones, is that for the first year, they're allowed to do 150,000K. The commission has the option to raise that if they wish up to 250K, according to the conditions. With that, I'll turn it over to Bill and Brian.

Brian Marshall, I'm from 685 Denver Valley Road, Sunnys, Wyoming. I'm here to answer any questions or concerns that you have. We ceased operations at the pit on last Thursday. We wanted a drone fly. We knew we were getting close, so we flew with a drone. And we took the tonnages that we had run across the scale and come up with around 141,000 for under 150,000. So we just thought, well, that'd be a good stopping point. So on Friday, we pulled the starport cores, pulled the conveyors out. The dust complaints come from basically really quick wind events. They were running. first time they were running in front must come through kick a bunch of dust off of the come off the crusher also in off the large base course pile and when you're running that crusher you can't just turn the key off that's the cycle or all our crushers are plugged up with the block takes a long time to clean them out you have to clean them up by hand and it's dangerous so it takes a while to those crushers clean and then they shut off i was notified honestly by one of your commissioners said it's getting dusty here so i called the foreman and he said we shut off he said we just it's got a cycle so then they went and got water and watered the pile and did what they could if you look at our reports i'm putting in a wage report for the men and we work four tens uh that's what we've worked forever there's some comments on facebook that it's taken us longer to i think i told them it's going to take two to three months since we're taking this to over three once again we're running four tans and we look at our time about 25 percent of our run time is stopped because of environmental events because it's windy so we effectively shut down that is shown on on our that we send from you to the government. So we've hauled a little over, yeah, right. So we've hauled over 400,000 gallons of water, the best suppression out there. We have put calcium chloride on the haul roads. We've put seismographs, we had a contract lasting plastic company that does it. They put seismographs out, and the only readings that you get are within 2,000 feet of the blast. You get out to around 3,000 feet, it doesn't even trigger the seismographs you can't get. We did, MSHAW is requiring us, it is MSHAW that requires us to do the sampling. Bill's the smart one of the two of us, he's the environmental coordinator. MCHA started requiring us to do surveys on the silica exposure from the crushing operations. And it shows in here that there is no silica in the dust at this point. So it's highlighted in your packets. So if you hear comments, it's an independent agency that reports to them that we have to give the report to MCHA so it is legit. So dust is

Brian, did I understand that Friday, this last Friday when you shut down, that you guys had watered the big pile before you left, and you did try to suppress it with water?

Yeah, and it evaporates, and we aren't working through Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Last Friday, we did. So Saturday and Sunday, there's no one at the pit. And next year, you know, now I invite you guys to come out and see it, but we've got a pit there now that's established. It's on one side is 40 feet deep, the other side is 30 feet, and it's probably about an acre in size, maybe a little bit longer, a little bit bigger. But our intention is next time to put the base course and or the defined pile in the hole because that stuff is what blows. The rock doesn't blow. But this year, we're starting from scratch and had to go somewhere.

Brian, you mentioned that air sampling report. I didn't have it up. Is this what you were referring to? Yes.

And if you go down here, it's highlighted. And this is kind of a nice note that all your limestone pits, I would expect probably . I know that was a big thing at the previous hearings. So all the neighbors can people a little easier, but it's not going to harm them. Obesity. Yeah, no opacity. The state was out there and when we were running for... Were they out there for eight hours, Bill? Yes. Yeah. So they were watching us run and we were underneath the limits of the 10% opacity.

Well, you said it takes a while to cycle through the crushing equipment. How long does it take the cycle through when you shut it?

I would say, honestly, 15 to 20 minutes. Yeah, because you've got a big hop of the spool and it just slowly feeds. And then it goes from one crusher to the next crusher to the next crusher. And each point, you know, it takes a long time for that last rock to get there.

I was up there the day that sheer wind, that's what I'd call it, up there. I was raking hay and my hay disappeared and I i think you and i did visit but i went over there and i thought it was about 10 minutes it took to unload everything and shut down and uh i do own the property right next to it and i haven't had any dust on my place so i think all in all you guys have done an excellent job one of the first jobs i had up at

up at Homestake was sitting in the head frame. And I can tell you what, when those things shut off and you got to clean it by hand, it is the most miserable thing you can do, whether it's 20 below in the wintertime or it's 90 degrees in the summertime. It's not fun.

That stuff can freeze in the pocket. You might have to blast it out then. Yeah.

And you know, when you break the rock tree that the jaw doesn't swing in and

That's the view from a gentleman from, I think, the Cedarberry subdivision. See, that's the view. We were out there yesterday. West? Yeah, yeah.

And which file do you propose to have down in the pit next year? The big white one. The base course, right, Brian? Yeah, the base course, the big one that you see. That's the only one I've ever seen any dust above the pit itself.

And we had nowhere else to put it. So if it's on it, it's probably the worst spot in the whole pit.

If you put it in a hole, then it won't work. Yes, Chair. And there would be enough space there even if we raised the limits of...

Just to note, this is one of the subdivision roads in the vicinity there. We were driving on it, going the speed limit, and that's how dusty that was. I tried to get out, and it was much dustier, but it's the only time I could get out. So the roads are, the point is the roads are dusty, too. It's been very dry. It has. That's not the county rule. Any other questions for Mr. Marshall?

Okay, thank you for your time.

Unless you want to change the tonnage. Well, Mr. Chairman, I thought we already established that when we set all this up that the following year they'd go to 250. I thought that was already established.

Yes and no. It says maximum of 150K tons mined in the first year with no significant issues. And then we'll be allowed to increase to 250 tons the second year and thereafter subject to all the conditions there.

So as long as you prove it as a favorable review. There's no significant issues. So that's correct. Depends on how we interpret the significant issues.

We've not had any formal written complaints. We've had three, four. Signed by people? Yes. Yeah, I was unaware of that.

If I may, the first one was a significant wind event. The next one was from a week or two ago, questioning whether the scale was being used. And then there was the two over the weekend. So I think there's four total. That's this past weekend. Yes.

But how do you deal for both of those wind events where, I mean, they just come up. Nobody can plan for that.

Did the dust reach the road? I think that's the question that I have. Did the dust stay on the Larson property or did it exceed the boundaries?

The first wind, I was up there. The dust did not reach the road. And as far as I know, it was all right there on the Larson property that I'm aware of. I didn't get any over on my side. I was busy chasing hay.

I don't have one of the complaints from this weekend available right at hand, but I think the complaint was it was on the road, I think, wasn't it?

I think I can pull it up, but I don't have it right away. I think my Amazon package was in the neighbor's house. That's 300 feet from my driveway where it was sitting. It just, everything just disappeared.

Mr. Chairman, when we were out there, I think, and as Brian confirmed, they did try to water, I think, on Friday before they left, but it's dry and windy. 24% humidity, that water's not going to stay out there. And we have followed up on every complaint, and they've been very responsive each and every time.

Mr. Plank? Yes, my opinion would be to leave it again for another year, but the board... I guess we kind of led them to believe that the following year would be 250. That's what I recall.

And by then putting the road base in the pit next year is going to alleviate a lot of problems that people seem to think that's there. I know you got your road base going in the pit.

What was the other product going in the pit possibly? So there's a, there's down over the hill next to the trees, there's a, it's a pressure fine pile.

And it's finer than that actually. So yeah, we can get it in the pit too.

We wouldn't have a problem increasing it maybe to 200 if we're guaranteed that that pile will be down in the pit.

Does this picture help everyone to depict for one of these what's going on? Maybe you understand it. Is it that one?

I have a picture of our drone flight that we had.

Do you know if it was in one of these packets? This is what I have.

It was with the sales chart, production number on it. Probably behind it. There it is. The production report, a different file from that one. It's on the back, it's after that one, which are scrolls.

It's not this one for me, so we'll look at it.

Yeah. Yep. The production report one. Which one is it?

It's the Marsden Production Report 2026 PDF.

It has the sales activity from location as the first thing. It's not in that.

Well, I'm going to go back here to the beginning.

It's in the drive. It's right here, Bruce.

Okay. Let me get it. Okay. I got to go to a different spot.

Sorry.

What was it?

It says here. It's after the blast of information.

So when it says, it's large in production. There it is. Yeah. That's the picture.

I'm sorry. I don't know if that helps. Maybe another one. I don't understand. That's the drum play. Is that there from Friday or this weekend? Yeah. Want me to show you what pile it is?

Yeah, can you just kind of explain the picture? Okay. So this is the cut we're doing. Okay. This is daylighted in the draw.

Rainwater.

But this right here is like 40 feet deep here all the way through here. This is 30 feet. So this pile is the pile that is the pile that's being naughty to us right now. It's really windy. It's on that moment. This we would put over here up against the berm because it's just base course. So in the hole. So we turn all this around. This will all be gone. We're currently, this is a shot that is all ready to go. So we're progressing like this. So we turn everything around like this. Put this in the hole and put our clean rock, this stuff that doesn't move. That's how we do it.

county road goes up and across the top, right?

Yeah, it'd be up here. So Brian, do you move that pile actually in there or does that pile get sold and then as you crush more, it stays in the pit? Yeah, this would get sold.

I'm not moving in here. I don't have enough room. I've got to get rid of these piles. So everybody understands. Yeah, and then once they're gone, then I'll come back in here and then reset my whole everything. base course in the hole. And maybe this, which one is, I think it's this one. Oh, that's one of these smaller piles. I think it's your littlest one, isn't it? Yeah, it might be that one. That's the three eights. Might be that one there. That one would also go in there. It would be fitted in there. But right now it's kind of covered because this pile here is huge.

This pile here is really, really small. You don't get any dust off of those back there. It kind of screens it.

That's the bad one.

That's the bad one.

And this was always the plan, wasn't it? To move into the hole. Yeah. That's what I thought. That's the way I always portrayed it. You know, once we get there, then I can set this inside this hole. And then as we press this way, this gets reclaimed. And we just press the corner side. You're always keeping the pile in the hole from here.

That becomes your backfill material.

Yeah. How long do you anticipate taking to get the big pile hauled out of there?

It's all on sale.

Hopefully tomorrow, but it's probably going to be mid-summer.

Early summer. Maybe you'll be crushing by then.

No.

No, I don't have enough room to crush until that's out.

Until that's out of there.

Yeah. I just don't have enough room.

Okay.

Do you have another comment, Mr. O'Brien?

That was my question, Dr. O'Brien. So, Brian, we have like one person out there monitoring the site and selling it. Is that what happens from now on?

Yeah, so out of that, we have one motor operator.

We're going to hire a guy just to run motor there. And then we have the scale. You'll see guys come across the scale, and it's all automated now. So when they come across, they'll tear in. They'll get their tear away. We remotely do that with the secretary and sign the answer. She'll give you the truck number.

airman they'll go back there with the loader operator get loaded come back around the camera with the drill and Sundance will print out their ticket and they don't have to get out of their truck that's that's why everybody's excited that steel rock now the scale wasn't working before but it's going to be working or you said it was the bucket but it's working now yeah It takes a lot to get that system hooked up. I saw them using it yesterday. Yeah, it's pretty neat. So I'll save this for later.

Do you want to address the tonnage now or wait? Brian, when do you need to know if you have extra capacity? Is it premature to do it now? I suppose you'd like to know that or can that wait?

I'm going to go ahead and make a motion that we allow them to go to the 250,000 ton that the state allows and what we allow in our permits for next year.

I'll second. And moved by Young, seconded by Comer to increase the limit of the amount of gravel that Pearl can take out of Larson Pit to 250,000. Any further or any more discussion on this? I think we're a little ahead.

Personal opinion.

Further discussion? We should probably do a roll call vote on this.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. So motion passes three to two. So we will raise those limits to 250,000 and create the report. Is that it for annual review then? Am I reading this correctly? Yeah, that's right. So you can recess as recess the Board of Adjustment to come back with a comment or question. So moved. Second. Then moved by Flanagan, seconded by Chisdale will recess in Board of Adjustment and reconvene at the County Commission. All in favour say aye.

Aye.

Opposed nay. Do we have anything left in the agenda? Just items from the public and items from the Commissioners.

Yep.

We will move into items from the public then. If there's anybody that would like to stand and give us any comments, you just ask that you stand and give us your name and address and make your comments.

I'm Doug Markworth, 1912 Cowboy Lane, Spiritfish. I would ask respectfully that you guys consider putting the comments to the beginning of the meeting. See the agenda. It has a really bad look, like you're going to do what you're going to do without any input from here. And I know it's been said in the past, well, we're accessible. But we know that people show up, they say things, and certain times there was no time the week before to know all the information. So I don't see the problem with putting the comments in the beginning. I know the city council does it. You guys already, I assume, are going to stick to the pattern of not having discussion about what people say, which is insulting enough. And I've gone around the city with that, to act like we can come and say something we won't even. acknowledge or address it. But I would ask you guys to consider the comments at the beginning of the meeting for the public.

Thank you for your comment. Anybody else? Anybody online? Mrs. Merchant has her hand up. Is she able to? I think so.

I don't have her muted.

Did she list any comments? Do we have written comments or not? I'm raising my hand. Are you able to do a public comment, Ms. Merchant?

I think she should be able to as far as I can tell.

I know last time she had trouble getting the computer to work, so she had to call in. She can certainly do that now, can't she now? Anybody else? Why don't we move into items from the commission and if Mrs. Merchant can get her and figure out how to get in to us, we can come back to her.

She wants to email me.

Yeah, you could email too, Mr. Martin. Try that. Anybody or anything from the commission?

Yeah, I know the city has moved their comments to the front of the meeting, and I think that our planning and zoning for the city, we're moving them up. I don't have an issue with that. I don't think it does any harm.

I don't know if it does any harm either. I've got an email address that seems to be full of comments from people, either Bruce Forwards or my phone rings, but it can go either way, I guess. Usually at the end of it, when it turns into a, complaint session about something. And ahead of time, I'm sure maybe there'll be some more constructive discussion, not discussion, but comments. I don't know. I agree with you. I agree with you.

At the beginning of the meeting, my construction, something they've thought about instead of just a big session afterwards.

So, yeah, I guess I don't have a problem with us moving it either. You know, if the public thinks that would be a better plan, then That's what we're here for.

Right after general business then?

Chairman to decide how the meeting goes.

But I don't look at it. It does make it could be challenging with public hearings, scheduling around those.

You did it right after the general meeting and public. General business, I'm sorry. Right after that, in case somebody's late, they might make it, make their comments before we get into other things.

Yeah, we're always waiting for the time to get by anyway, so yes. Let's see if we deal with one or another, it might work out better.

And leave, if I may, Mr. Chairman, leave items from the commissioners to the end of the meeting?

I think so, yeah.

She's a presenter and she controls. She's a presenter and she takes control. I can try and she she controls everything.

She has something else to show you. No, she's in charge, right?

I believe so. Are we muting her or is she muting herself? I'm not muting her. I can unmute her. Not anymore, probably. Nope, probably. I think she's in the bedroom. I don't think the wheels are off. Can you get back to being a presenter or not? I'm going to try. Hopefully she'll let you.

Well, I don't think we're going to get this done.

So I'm sorry, Ms. Merchant. We tried to figure out what the issue is, but we'll have to continue to work on that. I think it must be on your end, though, because other people were able to utilize it. If there's no other comments, I think we can entertain a motion to adjourn. Again, .