County Commission - Regular Meeting

call the meeting to order. Tuesday, February 3rd at 2026. And we'll start with the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Item three on the agenda is approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved motion and a second uh I believe we have some adjustments uh under A1 uh or under our 10:00 meeting uh in drainage under A1 for public comment and then also uh executive session SDCL125-2 parenthesis one for personnel. Is there any others?

Those are the two that I have. All right. So, with those with those amendments, should probably have a a motion with with an amendment. So, I'm looking for a motion with for the amendments. So, moved. Second. So, all in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. All right. And then we have to do the main motion. Main motion. So, and we already have motion on that. So, voice vote on the uh main motion. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. Oppos? Say.

All right. Motion carried. Number four, recognition of employee anniversaries. Commissioner Jensen. [snorts] Good morning. Um have some certificate of appreciation for uh some years of service. Uh first person uh Dave Ber, would you please come up? A certificate appreciates and presented to Dave Bitler on the 3rd day of February 2026 by the Brookings County Commission in in recognition of 10 years of dedicated exceptional service in the Brookings County Sheriff's Office. Congratulations, Dave. [applause] The next person, Melanie, please come up. This is a certificate of appreciation is presented to Melanie Kent on the 3rd day of February, 2026 by the Brookings County Commission in recognition of 10 years of dedicated exceptional service in the Brookings County Community Health. Congratulations. [applause] The next one is Shelley Larson. The certificate of appreciation is presented to Shelley Larson on this 3rd day of February, 2026 by the Brookings County Commission in recognition of 15 years of dedicated exceptional service

in the Brookings County Sheriff's Office. Thank you. [applause]

And the last one this morning is uh Kristen Witchie. Would you please come forward? The certificate of appreciation is presented to Kristen Witchie on the 3rd day of February 2026 by the Brookings County Commission in recognition of 20 years of dedicated exceptional service in the Brookings County Commission Department. Congratulations. [applause] All right. Thank you all. Next on the agenda, item number five, invitation for a citizen to schedule time on the commission agenda for an item not listed. There's a fiveminute time limit per person. Anyone wanting to speak during this agenda item must sign in prior to the me start of the meeting. No commission action will be taken during the agenda item. Any requested action item may be scheduled for a f future meeting date. And we do not have anybody signed in. So number six, consent agenda items including the minutes, travel and education requests, personnel action items, notices, cellular cellular authorizations, human services report. Do I have a motion to approve?

So moved. Second. Motion in a second. Any comments? Hearing none. Call the role, please. Vanderwal. Hi. Post. Hi. Miller. Hi. Jensen. Hi. Hustler. I. Motion carries. Number seven, routine business. Uh, approval of the claims. Do I have a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Motion in a second. Second. Any comments? Hearing none. Call the RO, please. Post. Hi. Miller. Hi. Jensen. Hi. Vanderwal. Hi. Hustler. Hi. Motion carries. All right. Letter B. Department head reports. Brian Highway.

Morning. Brian. Uh, last week we opened up bids on Tuesday and we'll be discussing that here later in the meeting. Um, other than that, we've been cutting some trees, uh, moving a little snow this morning, but, uh, been pretty quiet out at the highway department. Um, aside from that, we're going to be looking at bid openings for our projectbased uh projects here for 2026 on March, sorry, March 3rd.

All right. at 2 p.m. 2:30.

That's all I got. That's all. Thanks. Thank you much. Jump to the OC. Joe,

morning commissioners. Morning.

Morning. So, this is kind of going to be a little bit of review of last year since we're at the beginning of here, 2026. Uh, we'll start with attendance here. Uh, archery range, we had just over a,000 uh, of our archers that just come in during business hours, that's down 8% from 2024. Gun range, uh, nearly 2500. That's down 16% from 2024. events. We were up to 13,000 uh this last year and that's up 11% from 2024. Uh and then our community ed classes which we added this year. We had 315 with 12 classes in 2025. Uh archery tends has tended to trend down for the past, you know, four or five years. Gun range went up a lot uh during CO and postco. Um I wonder if we're kind of seeing it a little bit come back down to earth. Um, but we're going to hopefully boost those numbers up this year with some more community education programs that we're going to put out, get some more people involved um, in the shooting sports here. Uh, total attendance was up for 3% from last year. We had a couple events since the last time we met. Um, most noteworthy is our Joad Open shoot. That's 292 attendees. Um, that's a large archery event. Uh we also the OAC hosted a hunt safe class on January 5th that was for um Ramona Rutland schools. Uh they were opening a trap league and they needed all their students who wanted to participate to be huntsafe certified. So they reached out to me. Being a huntsafe instructor I was able to certify them. So that was pretty cool to get those kids what they needed to participate in trap since there weren't any hunts safe courses coming up uh before. The OAC is going to be more involved in the huntsafe program for Brookings County going forward uh here as well too. So that's something to look forward to. Maintenance, mostly plumbing issues. Uh

we've had a lot of toilet issues. I I think it's just a lot of our stems were installed at the same time for a lot of our toilets. So a few of them have been going out and we've been getting those repaired. Um women's bathroom just got fixed after I submitted this report, so we're good on that one. Concourse floors need to be stripped and waxed. We actually just scheduled that for the 3-day weekend that we have coming up here on the 15th. So, one thing important thing to note about that is on February 15th, nobody will have access to the building from 8:00 p.m. until 8:00 a.m. the next day on the 16th, uh, which is a holiday for us county employees. So, uh, should be a perfect opportunity to get that done because not a lot of people should be coming in the building. And we'll post about that on our website as well on our Facebook and send out emails. So, just so we know about that. Uh we'll talk about this a little bit later in the meeting. Train needs to update our um our controller to be able to maintain uh remote access, but we'll we'll cover that here a little bit later. Uh some of the upcoming things we have going on, Aermates are back regularly. They're a remote control airplane uh club. They're pretty fun. They come in and fly around. They got some pretty cool contraptions. Uh GFP interns are teaching a lot of classes, mostly archery and BB gun. uh and they they've been doing pretty well. So, we're really happy to see them putting on as many classes as we can fit in our schedule this spring. This is something I'm really excited about. We're going to do a community booklet of classes. Um it's going to focus on outdoor ed. So, it's going to be fishing, archery, South Dakota animals, camping, and firearm basics. One that we've gotten a lot of requests for is um a lot of people have come in wondering if we do just like a like a community firearm basics or safety basics. So, we'd be looking at a 2-hour course. It would not replace the state hunt safe curriculum, but for people who maybe don't want to commit to the 3 days to come in and learn about basic fire safe firearm safety and handling, and then we'd also do some 22

shooting during that course. So, we're really looking forward uh to that one. So, hopefully the community keeps eyes out for that. So, that'll be put put on our website or Facebook um and probably put it in the shop or two. So, we're pretty excited about that. Midwest Maidens, which is now Brookings Area Roller Derby, are back regularly. Uh it's really fun having them back in. They bring a lot of people in the facility. A lot of people get excited about coming to watch them. So, that's something we're really glad to have back. And our gun league is full swing. Uh we just had it last night. We are now up to 44 participants and with 21 being in our women's league. So, we had a couple that signed up a couple weeks in. So, that's that's really good. um quite a bit higher than we were last year, especially for the women's. Uh Grace Point homeschool co-op is coming in. Again, this is part of kind of our education initiative. Um we're going to do an educational program for them in March. We're going to do uh archery. We're going to learn about some animals. So, it's going to be a good time. And then our annual running shoot will be on March 20th to the 22nd. I'm sure most of you guys are familiar, but that is a huge, huge event for us. brings a ton of archers into our facility. I want to say we were near 400 over the three days uh last year. So, uh we're really looking forward to that. Hopefully weather holds out. That weekend for whatever reason always tends to be bad for weather, but hopefully this this year will be better. Uh and then in other I attended Shot Show was now two weeks ago. Uh it was really really informative. Uh a bit overwhelming but got in contact with a lot of people in the industry. um got a lot of good information, a lot of people that I'm following back up with, um most importantly, which I mentioned to Commissioner Millan or Miller at the beginning, uh we enrolled in it's a nonprofit called the Range Network and really all it is is it puts us on the map with all the other community ranges and it's completely free to be a part of and they offer education seminars every month for range managers. So, that was a

really beneficial uh group to speak with. You guys have any questions for me? I was wondering Joe, could you touch a little bit on the 4H shooting sports and then the trout extravaganzas that you volunteered for?

Yeah, so 48 shooting sports is going full swing. Um, everything seems to be running really smooth. I would have to check with the instructors of how many. I want to say they're hovering 120 students, which is down a little bit from last year, but from all accounts that seems to be okay. We aged out a few and um things like that, but everything seems to be going really smooth with the 4 shooting sports shroud extravaganza. I have a meeting with them tonight. Um we are going to set the dates, the official date. It's looking like it's going to be that third weekend in May, but um we're really excited to be a part of that going forward because that's a huge community outreach and education event. Uh so that will be solidified after tonight, that date. Um, but so far we have a great group in the community that's helping us put that on. The Optimus Club is still helping out with the insurance and things like that. Uh, and then we have also a couple local businesses, Austram Excavating. Um, so we're we're really really excited to work together with some of the partners in the community to put that event on again this year. I think people are going to really enjoy that for the community. If you um are looking to volunteer on that weekend, we'll be posting a signup sheet. We really, really need volunteers to make this happen. So, if you know anybody who's passionate about helping kids fish or even just handing out snacks and waters to volunteers, anything like that, um we will really be looking for volunteers. So, keep an eye out for that signup sheet coming out here in the next few weeks to a month.

That was the third weekend in May probably. We're going to solidify the the date. Um but that's that's probably what we're looking at because it usually runs along with the free park pass, free fishing weekend and stuff that the state of South Dakota runs, right? Yep. Yep. All right. Anything else for Joel? Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good numbers.

Good morning. Morning. Morning.

Just a quick overview of the detention center. You probably noticed that we got an increase in inmates since the last time uh the commission meeting and US Marshall Service brought in 15 this last week. So we have a total of 24 US Marshall Service inmates. Otherwise uh we have 22 of uh that are Brookings County inmates that have have been uh are either pre-trial or have their sentence. Uh so we have the room. So we we took on more marshall service. Uh [clears throat] 24/7 continues to stay busy. Got 35 coming in twice a day for PBT, six on remote, uh nine on scram, 23 on UA. So that keeps us busy. Uh civil process again keeps us busy. uh the month of uh January we uh had 158 civil papers come in and that's not including uh 126 distress warrants came to our office too. So we got 309 uh papers in for the month. I see that retired Sebring's in the back and I'm sure he doesn't miss the distress warrants. So anyway, uh also uh calls for service for the for the month uh up to we had a four so far uh to date we had uh 427 calls for service. So uh the deputies continue to stay busy. I still have three in the academy that'll graduate in March. So it'll be nice to get them back. So anyway, if you have any questions,

any questions? Two meetings ago, there was some talk about doing a tour of the jail. I don't know, did that happen? I still haven't. Last week, we did it last week. Okay. Well, yeah. Well, at some point I'd like I've not not seen the jail yet. So, there you go. Um, thank you. All right. Thanks. Thanks, Sheriff. Finance. All right. County development. Bob.

Good morning. Morning. Morning, Bob.

We've got a civil air patrol scheduled for Saturday. If the government shutdown doesn't uh put a damper on it, they haven't notified me yet. They probably won't notify me until Friday if it's still a goal. But uh [snorts] they did mention when they set this up that if if the government had a shutdown that the exercise may very well be cancelled. The home show is this Friday in the afternoon and then Saturday I will be bringing in one of my uh employees to help with that. If I'm if I'm out at the Silver Air Patrol exercise, I'll have to have an employee on Saturday over at the home show managing our booth for us. Uh our PPC pod that we meet next Thursday, February 12th on on January 26. Last week, I went to Vogga's fire department training meeting and assisted them by giving them some hazardous materials on on the procedures that happen when I get called out to a hazmat incident. And then they had some real good training on how to identify hazmat incidents and and how they they respond to them. Uh I was on funeral from 27 to 29. Had to go to Chicago. my mother-in-law passed away. Later, we've got a drainage meeting and I will have my county development end of year report at the next meeting. Any questions?

Anything for Bob? Thank you. Thanks, Bob. Bob. All right, we do have a nine and a 10. So, we'll move on to number nine, regular business. Letter A, action to approve resolution 26-6, a resolution for Brookings County Bridge Inspection Program for use with SD DOT retainer contracts. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion and a second. Comments.

This is just an annual practice now that we have switched our inspection cycle to uh the east and west side of the interstate basically. So, we do our inspections annually. Um, and this is just a continuation of that. All right. Any other comments? Hearing none. Call the role, please. Miller. Hi. Jensen. Hi. Vanderwal. Hi. Post. Hi. Hustler. Hi. Motion carries. Letter B. Action to approve agreement 26-9, a combined election agreement between Brookings County and the Brookings School District. Do I have a motion to approve? So move second. Motion a second. Comments.

This would be a result of the meetings we had concerning um combination or not combining for elections within the county. Um this is just what we came up with and the school has signed on the agreement. So this is just for you guys to sign and they'll be holding theirs in June, their elections in June. Bricking school is June. The city is going to go in November. Okay. Any other comments? Hearing none. Call the role, please. Jensen. I. Vanderwal. Hi. Post. Hi. Miller. Hi. Hustler. Hi. Motion carries.

Letter C. Action to approve agree abatement 26-01. An abatement application made by Kenneth Feedler for parcel number 36025-01400-001-00 in the amount of $27.75. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second.

Motion second. Comments hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. I. opposed. Motion carries. Letter D, action to approve a late application for the assessment freeze for elderly and disabled for parcel number 06980-11 050- 062-00 in the amount of $22.66. Do I have a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Second.

Motion a second. Any comments? This application was received late by the finance office. State law allows that individual to ask the commission to approve of their late application. Any other comments? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. I. I.

Post say nay. Motion carried. Letter E. Action to approve change order number one for project structure and approach grading SN06-280-7 correction-172 PCN08 F4 a decrease of $41,368. Do I have a motion to approve? So move second. Motion in a second. comments.

Both these change orders that you guys are going to be considering here today are uh basically estimated quantities that were in the plans and actual install planted [snorts] installed material that was used to to build the structure. Um as you can see in the change order, if you look on the second page, a lot of this has to do with erosion control. Um, and that is a little hard to estimate because you don't know how much that's going to sink down into the into the mud basically. So, a lot of it's erosion control based and and uh [snorts] that's the reason for both the change orders. It's just cleaning up the actual estimated quantities from the installed quantities on both these change orders.

These are the two structures that were completed this summer. Correct. Correct. Any other comments, questions? All right, hearing none. Call the role, please. Vanderwal, I. Post. Hi. Miller. Hi. Jensen. Hi. Hustler. Hi. Motion carries. Letter F. Action to approve change order number one for project structure and approach grading. SN06-320-118 PCN08X0 a decrease of $7,69186 cents. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Do I have a second? Second.

Motion in a second. Comments. Same as last. Any other comments? Hearing none. Call the role, please. Post. Hi. Miller. Hi. Jensen. Hi. Vanderwal. Hi. Hustler. Hi. Motion carries. Letter G, action to approve the pricing acceptance for the Tracer SC plus upgrade from train for the Brookings County Outdoor Adventure Center in the amount of $7,950. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion in a second. Joe, comments?

Yes. So what this is is our control panel which allows um train to be able to remote view and um diagnose problems. There was a piece of legislation that passed in late 2025 which no longer allowed train to have access to our remote um a remote controller there. So they're no longer able to give us the service in which they have been providing since it was installed 10 years ago. uh which mostly can uh is able for them. It helps them diagnose problems and also when they come up and do their quarterly inspections allows their technicians to come with the equipment to be able to fix the problems when they come. Uh this is a cyber security piece of legislation. So the the software that was installed in this previous model was flagged as not secure. So now we're no longer allowed to like I can't use my phone and control any of the spaces in the uh building and train as a company isn't allowed to see what is going on with our HVAC system anymore due to this being completely closed out. So what this is is a new controller uh that would essentially allow for a continu continuation of our previous service. Um the way they explained it to me is it's a computer. Um, our previous computer uh has not been in production for 8 years and they continued to service it passed. They would have continued to service it in perpetuity had this p piece of legislation not come down the pipe. So, this should be a long-term staple for the facility. This is their current production model. So, they're they they think they're going to continue to install this for a while. And even if they don't, they will continue to service it after the fact. Now the the cost effect uh for us if we weren't to install this is well we would need a new contract with train also anytime there was any sort of issue even if it's so much as flipping a switch they'll have

to send a technician up to Brookings from Sou Falls so we might not get service right away when it could be something that could be fixed remotely in just a couple minutes which we wouldn't be charged for and for to dispatch text to Brookings from Sou Falls we'd be looking at a $600 bill if That's where if they were to just come and basically flip a switch and then head back. Um, so any questions about that? Joe, is this a one-time cost or is there an annual?

So, the install of this, so long as there's not a different piece of cyber security legislation that comes down and this would need to be replaced again or something unforeseen like it was to break, which ours didn't break. Our previous one never broke in 10 years. This this should be a onetime cost and they'll continue to service it through the lifetime of the equipment. The reason it's not covered under our pre or our current contract is because it doesn't cover the install of new equipment, which which this is. So, what's the overall health of the HVAC system out there? I mean, we're not looking at having to replace the whole works like we are in this building.

No, the the HVAC system is working really well. Um, that's one I'm glad you asked that question. One reason this is very important for them to be able to remote view in is that they're able to track the usage and health of our HVAC system over time. Whereas, if this isn't in place, the text will only be able to come and see a snapshot in time when they do their quarterly assessment of our HVAC system. So, this helps with being able to diagnose problems before they become an expensive fix because they're able to see usage and see if pieces of equipment are becoming worn out prior to it actually breaking. So, uh, this also mitigates cost in that respect as well.

And if there's any issues with our HVAC system or something like this, this is a piece that can be reinstalled in a new system or something like that, it's not something that we'll have to redo then. So, yes. So, this is their current control model. So, if if anything were need to be required, this would be what would be installed anyways. Okay. Yeah, Commissioner Post, we in the past in the past we have replaced some compressors in some units out there. Uh um I'm not sure on exact dates, but there is a lot of that stuff has been gone through and it's all up working good now. I just didn't want to put lipstick on a pig and then have to replace the whole works three years down the road.

Yeah. The way this was explained to me is that this this is just basically to provide us a continuation of their current service uh more than anything else. So it's working well. We want it to keep working well and this this ensures that. So all right, any other comments? So I'd look for a roll call vote. Miller I. Jensen. Hi. Vanderwal. Hi. Post. Hi. Hustler. Hi. Motion carries. Thank you.

All right, it is nine o'clock, so we'll move to our nine o'clock scheduled agenda item. Todd Keys, executive director of First District of Local Governments for his annual presentation. Morning, Todd. Good morning.

I'm gonna talk off of this one here. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was a nice drive this morning coming down. It's been a good year, good good winter for driving anyway, mostly. Um, again, my name is Todd Kay. I'm the executive director of the First District Association of Local Governments in Watertown. And every year I like to come out and spend a little time talking to our county commission membership that uh belong to the district, giving them a little bit background of who we are, things that we do uh in the area, and then answer any questions that you might have about uh the first district. So uh the first district is one of six regional planning and development districts located throughout the state. We have sister offices in Sou Falls, Aberdine, Yankton Pier, and Rapid City. Uh next slide, please. U we've been around since 1971. Uh we're not government, but we're creatures of government. Uh we were created by Governor Frank Ferrar. He established the boundaries of the district. Uh Roberts County was not part of the original uh district boundaries, but in 2020 they left the Northeast Council of Governments and joined the first district. Um we represent 11 counties and 76 municipalities in [laughter] northeast South Dakota. And our mission today is very much similar to what it was when we came into being. We're here to provide technical assistance to uh county and city government and local economic development organizations to improve the quality of life for the residents. Next slide, please. As far as how we are governed, we have a 35 member governing body that meets twice a year. Uh they establish our budgets. They approve our work plan for the upcoming year and on an annual basis they uh hire the first district director. Uh, currently Kelly Vanderwal is the county commissioner rep from Brookings County. Mike Bartley is your atlarge member and Mike is currently the chair of our organization. We are in the process of

uh finding a municipal representative. How that usually works is if we don't have one, we send letters out to the communities asking does anybody want to be really not a highpaying job. Um, but if we don't find if we do find more than one, then we have an election amongst them. As far next slide, as far as how we are funded, we have several streams of income that come into our organization. Right now, counties and municipalities with more than 100 individuals residing there uh pay dues into our organization, which currently this year is about 25% of our operating revenues. We use those dues to uh match and leverage other state and federal funding opportunities. Uh currently about 14% of our operating income comes from the state. That's uh some grants and it's also some contract work that we do for various departments uh within state government. We see we receive about a $70,000 grant every year from the federal government to do economic development work. And that's a a onetoone grant. So we use dues to leverage that $70,000 to do economic development work. But a lion share of what we do uh is fee for service work which is about a little over half of our our income streams. and we're able to provide services to our membership at rates less than what they would find in the private sector. That's just due to the power of the collective. Next slide, please. As far as uh our staff, we currently have nine individuals working uh in the office with about 140 odd years of experience. There's three of us are getting a little long in the tooth at the top. I'll be 33 years in in May. And uh people ask how much longer. I said, "Oh, it could be tomorrow. It could be a couple years from now yet. I still have a kid in law school. I'm waiting to get move on from that. But um very seasoned staff providing a wide variety of services. Next slide, please. And some of those things that we do do uh are in

the areas of application packaging. Very um we it's been a breadandbut thing for us for many many years. We write grant applications, loan applications for community and economic development projects. Um, and those are things that we do at no cost to our membership. Uh, it's just something that we do. If those projects do get funded on the back end, we usually get a little bit of payment to administer all those free dollars that come from the federal and state government, but those are generally rolled into the pricing of the of the grants or or the loans. uh planning and research. We we write a lot of zoning regulations, nuisance policies, studies, research, um base based statistical analysis. If it's got the term book report study, we've probably done something like that over the years. Um our technical and financial specialties in the office, we assist with tax increment financing research. Uh GIS is a very important thing. We have four people that work in our office solely in GIS and that's managing uh state and regional and and local databases and web hosting that information. And then we're out there shleing all the different state and federal programs out there that have a an impact to our communities and our counties. Next, please. A lot of things that we do u that are hard to quantify a return on investment. So, we just generally lots of times talk about the uh state and federal dollars that we've been able to assist our membership acquire for their various needs over the last year. And in 2025, um we were able to help our communities and counties obtain about $27 million in grant dollars and loan dollars um into our area. Of those of that 27 million, about 21 million was just in in grant dollars. So, for every dollar's worth of dues paid in 2025, there's about a $63 return on investment with federal and state dollars coming into the area. Since I've been the director, u we've

been able to obtain about $324 million in grants to our uh members over the over that period of time, which is about a $70 return on on investment. Um, next slide, please. In Brookings County alone this last year uh there was about 4.5 million in grants and loans. Of that 4.52.6 was grants. So we just take a look on grant return on investment this last year was about $37 for every dollar's worth of dues. Um about 72.5 million back to Brookings County and the cities over the last 16 17 odd years for about a $73 return on investment. So, it's not that we have those dollars in our in our closet, but we know the closets where those monies are, and we act just as the conduit between the state and federal funders and our communities and counties that are reinvesting in themselves to enhance the quality of life and and take care of their infrastructure. And that's what we we do a lot of um on the handout, which is everything that I talked about off here is actually in a written format. Uh this year I've done the last page or two talks about some of the different projects that we've been working in Brookings County over the last uh last year. Uh we maintain some data sets at the state level that can be used by Brookings County GIS. We uh Luke Muller in our office is generally attending monthly county planning commission meetings either virtually or in person. Um, and we're on on call with Richard and and and Bob all the time talking about different planning and zoning issues. Um, we developed the hazard mitigation plan in 2025 uh where we helped Brookings County received the grant for $6,000. We developed uh the predesaster mitigation plan uh that was started back in 23. That was finished. That's a an important document that allows uh local units of

government to apply for federal funding for disaster mitigation projects. and that was finally finished up here just this last year. Um we finished up administering that community development block grant for the Brookings Behavioral Health and Wellness Center. We assisted the um the county in obtaining that grant back in 23. And then in Aurora and Brookings and Elton and Vulga and White, there's all kinds of water and sewer improvement projects. We've helped them put together their financing packages and then it's been assisting those administration of those projects. Currently, we're we're helping um our membership with about a half a billion dollars worth of water and sewer projects that are going on um since about the last since 2022 uh due to u the federal ARPA monies that came in over those that same period of time. So, a lot of projects that are going on. We'll start seeing some of those projects start to sunset here in 26 and 27. um Sinai um received a community access grant application uh for $193,800 that we helped with this last year. Um as well as uh working in when White receiving some funding on a a water and sewer project. And so those are just some of the things that we've been involved with over the course of the last year in Brookings County. Um we enjoy working for Brookings County and all the entities in Brookings. um they've been great supporters of our organization over the 50 plus years that we've been around and definitely the last 33 that I've been here and uh we enjoy that special working relationship and looking forward to another good year of of working together and I'm here to answer any questions that you might have about the district.

Todd, I just want to say thanks. you're doing a great job and your team and you're able to help uh all of our communities grow and flourish and and uh much appreciated. Thank you. I I would second that. The last year that I've been involved with, I've really learned a lot about your district and the value that you bring to this. So, appreciate it, Todd. Dave and I went to high school together. He's just being nice [laughter] and your humility. All right. Thank you very much.

Well, um and then just one quick sidebar. Um I know most of you have been probably tracking the uh legislative session. There are some important bills that are going to be coming up here in the next couple weeks. Um I know the property tax stuff that you guys are following, but I've been following some of the um planning and zoning bills that are going to be coming up. There are a few that you'll probably be getting contact from the county commissioners association to uh get a background and get a position on. Um there are a few bills that are dangerously close to changing um how we approach uh our relationship with townships. and townships currently don't have zoning in this state, but there's a few bills that are almost creating a de facto township zoning that's going to be conflicted and it'll it'll go to litigation, I'm sure, before it's all said and done. But the way they're being written, um, we're going to be needing some help to at least put a put a position together from the county's perspective that this maybe not in the best interest at this time, uh, as written. There could be [clears throat] some things that we could do to to engage townships more in our decision-making process, but um what's being mandated through u the proposed legislation is not going to be, I believe, in the county's best interest. So, we'll keep you in in the in in the loop on that. What's going on there? Other than that, that's all I got.

All right. Also, on that, Todd, there's some change on the TIF bills. That's it's there's so many TIFF bills going on right now. There's been half of them have been withdrawn in the last week by some prime sponsors, but there's still a few that are out there. Uh I've been following those at arms length um offering opinions just on how I think they would impact counties and cities in our area, but have not been totally engaged with them as as much as the planning and zoning legislation. I was on a Zoom call last week and they were talking about some drast that how it would drastically change how tiffs are used and there's if they're even implemented.

A few of the bills out there potentially have the impact of really gutting tiff to a usable way and um being somebody that's been involved with economic development for as many years. We only have a couple wrenches in the toolbox to even use to be an active player in promotion of economic development and tiffs are one of them. they have been used in the wrong way in some places, but Brookings County is not an example of of any of those. There are there are some counties and municipalities that have played fast and loose and that's probably why there's some push back on TIFF right now, but we do we do a pretty good job here. Thank you. Great.

Thank you. Just uh let me know if you have a question. Thanks. [clears throat] All right, moving on to letter H, approval of the 2026 highway bids. We will do each emotion separately. So, moving to number one, action to award the bid for 3/4 in crushed gravel on the items listed from Bose Construction, Brooking, South Dakota, and Steiniger Construction in Totten, Minnesota. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion in a second. Comments.

So, just to kind of bring the commission up to light here again, uh, and inform everybody why we do our annual bids. Um, we do our annual bids to set them in place in case we would have an emergency or we do want to purchase material from them. um we may not may or may not purchase material from each individual contractor, but if we do need to utilize their services, we do have them in place in case we do have to uh put this in front of FEMA if we do have an event. Um but this also allows us for purchases of materials for our annual projects and and things like that. Right. Any other comments on this one?

We do have gravel in inventory, correct? Currently, we do have gravel in inventory, and I gave that to you guys the first meeting in in January. Um, I would anticipate that we may buy some gravel this year. Um, just based on projects that we do have planned, but uh, as of right now, we do have an inventory. But there again, uh, we may or may not put gravel in each of these pits that were uh, bid by each contractor. Um, but we do have the bid in place knowing what we're going to pay. Any other comments? Call the role, please. Jensen, I. Vanderwal, hi. Post. Hi. Miller. Hi. Hustler.

I. Motion carries. Number two. Action award bid for number 250 crush quartz rip wrap class A. Number 150 erosion stone crush quartz 1 in by four crushed quartz class A crush quartz ballast number four 3/4 in P rockck and icing sand on all items listed from LG Everest Sou Falls South Dakota do I have a motion to approve motion approve second motion a second comments hearing none call the role please Vanderwal I post I Miller I Jensen Hi, Hustler. Hi. Motion carries.

Number three, action to award the bid for HR class asphalt on all items listed from Bose Construction, Brooking, South Dakota, and Dunik Princeburg, Minnesota, Watertown. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion in a second. Any com comments? Hearing none. Call the role, please. Post. I. Miller. I. Jensen. Hi, Vanderwal. Hi, Hustler. Hi. Motion carries. Number four, action to award the bid for asphalt patching on all items listed from Bose Constructions, Brookings, South Dakota. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion in a second. Any comments?

Hearing none. Call the role, please. Miller, I. Jensen, hi. Vanderwal, hi. Post. Hi. Hustler. Hi. Motion carries. Number five, action to award the bid for road oil CRS2-P emulsion and CSS1H dash 3:1 emulsion MC-70 asphalt on all items listed from Jebro Inc. out of Sous City, Iowa. Do I have a motion to approve? Move to approve. Second. Motion and a second. Any comments? Hearing none. Call the role, please. Jensen. Hi. Vanderwal. Hi. Miller. Hi. Post. Hi. Hustler. Hi.

Motion carries. Number six. Action to award the bid for fold in forum PVC- UV cip [snorts] on all items listed from Subsurface Inc. out of Morehead, Minnesota. Do I have a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Second. Motion in a second. Do I have any comments? Hearing none. Call the role, please. Vanderwal. Hi. Post. Hi. Miller. Hi. Jensen. Hi. Hustler. Hi. Motion carries. All right. Number seven. Action to award bid for aggregate base stabilizer on all items listed from Team Laboratory Chemical Corp. out of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. Do I have a motion to approve? So move. Second.

Second. Motion and a second. Any comments? Hearing none. Call the role, please. Post. I. Miller. I Jensen. Hi, Vanderwal. Hi, Hustler. Hi. Motion carries. Number eight, action to award the bid for equipment rentals on all items listed from equipment share Sou Falls, South Dakota, Holloway Construction out of Parker, South Dakota, and Meyer Services out of VGA, South Dakota. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion a second. Comments. Hearing none. Call the role, please. Miller. I. Johnson. Hi, Vanderwal. Hi, Post. Hi, Hustler. Hi.

Motion carries. All right, moving on. Letter I. Again, action to do a motion separately for highway purchases. Action to number one, action to approve agreement 26-10, an agreement with Bose Construction, Inc. of Brooking, South Dakota for 3/4 gravel. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion and a second. Any comments hearing? None. Call the role, please. Jensen, I. Vanderwal. Hi. Post. Hi. Miller. Hi. Hustler. I. Motion carries.

Number two. Action to approve agreement 26-11, an agreement with stabilizer crushing of Taton, Minnesota for 3/4 crush gravel. Do I have a motion to approve? Motion approve. Second. Motion second. Comments hearing none all in call the role please. Vanderwal. Hi, Post. Hi, Miller. Hi, Jensen. Hi, Hustler. Hi. Motion carries.

Number three, action to approve agreement 26-12, an agreement with LG Everest of Brookings, South Dakota for natural cover aggregate. Number 250, crushed quartz rip wrap class A. Number 150 erosion stone crushed quartz 1 in by number four crushed quartzite quartzite class A crushed quartzite ballast number four 3/4 pock and icing sand. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion in a second. Any comments? Call the role, please. Post. Miller. Hi. Jensen. Hi. Vanderwal. Hi. Hustler. Hi. Motion carries.

Number four. Action to approve agreement number 26-13, an agreement with Bose Construction of Brooking, South Dakota for HR class asphalt. Do I motion to approve? So move second. Motion a second. Comments. Hearing none. Call the role, please. Miller. I Jensen. Hi. Vanderwal. Hi. Post. Hi. Hustler. Hi. Motion carries. Number five. Action to approve agreement 26-14. in an agreement with Dunik Pit Princburg, Minnesota on Watertown for HR class asphalt. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion and a second. Any comments? Hearing none. Call the role, please. Jensen.

Hi. Vanderwal. Hi. Post. Hi. Miller. Hi. Hustler. I. Motion carries. Number six. Action to approve agreement 26-15, an agreement with Bose Construction, Inc. out of Brookings, South Dakota for asphalt patching. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion a second. Any comments? Hearing none. Call the role, please. Vanderwal. Hi. Post. Hi. Miller. Hi. Jensen. Hi. Hustler. Hi. Motion carries. Number seven. Action to approve agreement 26-16. An agreement from Jebro Inc. out of Sou Falls, Sous City, Iowa for CRS2-P emulsion, CSS1H-3:1 emulsion, and MC-70 asphalt. Do I have a motion to approve?

Move to approve. Second. Motion a second. Comments. Hearing none. Call the role, please. Post. I. Miller. Hi. Jensen. Hi. Vanderwal. Hi. Hustler. Hi. Motion carries. Number eight. Action to approve agreement 26-1617 an agreement with subsurface inc of Morhead Minnesota for fold and form PVC dash/ UV cip do I have a motion to approve so move second motion and a second any comments hearing none call the role please Miller I Jensen hi Vanderwal hi postler hi motion carries

number nine An action to approve agreement 26-18, an agreement with Team Laboratory Chemical Corp. out of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota for aggregate base stabilizer. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion and a second. Comments. Hearing none. Call the RO, please. Jensen. I. Vanderwal. Hi. Post. Hi. Miller. Hi. Hustler. Hi. Motion carries. All right. Now we're done with that. And

uh Brian, can how much percent increase over all materials? Is it a huge increase overall or I can provide that to you guys? I I do have the bids that were awarded on February 18th of 2025 uh available. Um kind of the ones that I look at uh mostly are the road oils or the asphalt products. And from last year just on the CRS2P emulsion, we're down about $40 a ton. Uh Jabro with the 3S CSS1H3:1 we're down $70 and uh Jabro with the MC70 is down just about $30. So uh overall asphalt products um are reflected on both with the FOB and and the patching. Uh the difference from last year to this year with those products is down.

How about road materials, gravel and like Everest bids? That's pretty much maintaining the same. Um there's a little increase on the uh as far as erosion control uh materials, which is the crush quartz, uh rip wrap. Um that is up a little bit, just $2, but uh there again, I'm sure their production costs reflect that. Um, but that is available uh from the February uh 18th, 2025. Or if you guys would like, I can send out uh the bid tab sheet from last year to Stacy to distribute to all you. Okay, that's fine. Thanks. Any other comments?

All right, moving on. Letter J. Action to approve the updated Brookings County strategic plan. Do I have a motion to approve? Motion second. Motion a second. Comments. At the meeting two weeks ago, we went through some proposed changes um with the strategic plan. I've updated the plan to reflect those changes. And now here is the uh change plan in front of you ready for approval.

All right. Any other comments, concerns? I think as we went through this, we've made some good changes and it look to me it looks good overall. I think it's great to review these um every so often so that we can yeah prioritize ourselves. Yes, it is good to review these every few years. All right, any other comments hearing? None. All in favor signify by saying I. I

oppose saying nay. Motion carries. Letter K, annual annual review of South Dakota Open Meeting Laws per South Dakota's codified law 1-25. It just be noted uh in the minutes. We This was attached our to our packet and I believe we do this every year about this time. It started last year, was it? Correct. Yes. So that was passed last year.

Yeah. This has to be done annually. Um and we'll the South Dakota Attorney General puts out this information that um the board is to review. So we'll keep an eye on that for any changes, but otherwise this is just to be it noted in the minutes that uh you reviewed um this pamphlet that was included in your packet. Okay. All right. Moving on. Number 10, commission department director report.

In June, um it's the 11th through the 14th, the uh Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, the traveling wall will be here in Brookings. Um it'll be out at the Fishbach Soccer Complex. Um, there will be a welcome home ceremony at 900 a.m. on Thursday, June 11th. And I've been visiting with Brookings Park and Rec Director Kristen Zimmerman. Um, they would like a commission representative to say a few words at that uh at that ceremony on June 11th, but we have some time there for that. The other thing, too, is um Kristen just recently sent out kind of a volunteer signup. Um, so they need volunteers doing v various things 24 hours a day while that memorial is out at the park. So, um, there's some volunteer opportunities there. Um, I can I can share that volunteer sign up with you all as well, but just know that they are looking for, um, a number of volunteers and it's 4hour shifts and and whatnot. So, um, kind of keep that in mind here as we get closer to June. Um, Brookings Dual Rural Water is coming up on Tuesday, April 14th. The Mcnite Hall in White. I don't have a time on that just yet, but I'm guessing information will be will be coming out soon. Um, this Thursday is the mental health first aid training 8 to 5 out of the Dakota Nature Park. You have to register through United Way if you are interested in taking part of that. Um, a couple one other kind of thing that's not on the on my report, but this Saturday, February 7th, is the first legislative coffee. It's here in the chambers at 9:00. It'll be from 9 to 10. Um, the second one will be February 21st, so a couple weeks, a

couple Saturdays after that. Again, I believe 9 to 10 here in this room. Um, February 16th, offices will be closed for the President's Day holiday. Then on the 18th, there is the 2026 Stronger Together um building assets for Brookings, a day for suicide prevention 8 to1. That's out at the Dakota Bank Center. And again, that's registration through United Way. And then towards the end of the month, um, on February 26th, we have the towns and townships annual meeting. Uh that starts at 10:00 am out at the BC OAC. And then um I have my 2025 year end report that we can go through here. the commissioners. Uh that has not changed from last last year to this year except for the chair and the vice chair. So that's noted. Our county departments and again we've had um has pretty much stayed the same here now um for about a year. So that's good. Just noting the electeds, the appointeds, and then a couple of those state employees that are department heads. the number of employees by department. Um you can see I've listed them out as uh the number of full-time staff, the number of part-time staff. Again, this was at um year end 2025. And then this is that FTE or full-time equivalent report. It's just kind of a four-year look back. So that's not necessar it's this is like how many full-time if and so like a part-time

person um would be considered a.5. So that's why you see some of those kind of crazy numbers in there. But um looks like we had some change at the OAC and at the sheriff's department. um as well as um over the years the uh over the look back years um I don't have the the finance office didn't didn't change. I don't know why that number is not in there. They haven't changed. I think they're back probably down to eight in 2025 because they go up to nine during election years because they have their temps. So that would wouldn't have been a change. they change back and forth. So, general fund expenses, this shows what was spent by department in the general fund um in 2025. So, you can see that the majority of our SP expense in the general fund is the the sheriff's office and the county jail, which is to be expected. Um the commission is a little bit skewed because we did the CDBG grant for Brookings Behavioral Health and Wellness came out of the commission budget. So that was basically though just money in money out. But it does show up as an expense when we we sent that out. That's why that one is as high as it is. But otherwise um can see what departments um where we're kind of spending our money. I think the one that does stand out and I know um Dan is aware of that is that judicial budget um just over a million dollars last year. This report um had shows what the beginning budget was and again this is just in the general fund what the beginning budget was for 2025. what uh what departments received

contingency transfers in the next column. Um what uh departments received budget supplements or budget adjustments um in that that next column. And then so then the total budget that that they ended with um there in that fourth column. And then at the last column it shows what how much of that budget was unspent at year end. And then down along the bottom you can see we have total revenue, total expense and then of course your revenue minus expense was is the amount that you roll into fund balance. So um that builds up your reserves. So about 2.3 just over 2.3 million there. Non-mandated funding expenditures. So, these entities um apply to receive county funding each year. Um and that goes through the the budget hearing process. So, you can see there what we're um we're spending on Brookings Behavioral Health and Wellness is the most at 250,000. The fire department association 1466. Of course, that gets spread out amongst all of the fire departments in the county. Um so you can see what we spend on non-mandated entities and again this is out of the general fund and then we move into our other county funds. So um Broaden Bridge fund of course is our biggest one and this is expenditures for 2025 and then the rest of the individual funds you can see there along the bottom that are are um significantly less. So

it kind of makes road stand out but um yeah those are all of the other funds not including the general fund. Daisy, yes. Could you explain to me what E91 funds are? There's significant money we spend there.

E911 is our dispatch center. So, um we the county is responsible for a third of the co cost for the dispatch center here in town. Um we have the E911 board that oversees um oversees that. This fund in particular gets those sir charge dollars in. So basically it's money in money out um with those with the search charge. So we collect the money, we turn around and pay that right back to the city for the dispatch center. That dispatch center is located where? At the Brookings Police Department. So, all calls go there.

Yes. And then they dispatch from there to the sheriff's office. Yes. Sheriff, uh, fire, EMS. Yep. All fire department. Yep. All fire departments, law enforcement throughout the county. Yeah. So we we have a couple we have its own fund where there th those search charge dollars but also in the general fund there is an amount as well that we pay a third kind of our one-third cost to to help make up the expenses for that E911 budget as a whole and that comes out of the general fund and that's just money that we just cut a check to the city that for those four dispatch expenses as well. So thank you.

Yeah. So, kind of similar to what that other um that very large spreadsheet showed for the general fund, this is it. This is kind of the same information for all of our other funds. So, beginning budget, any budget supplements, uh any contingency, um and and budget supplements also include like general fund transfers. So, for highway, it looks like a large amount. It is a large amount, but that's a general fund transfer. So then uh total budget ending for all of those different funds, what was unspent at year end, and then I did total revenue, total expense in each of those individual funds, and then an amount that rolled into fund balance. If you see a negative, that meant that their fund balance or their reserves went down a little bit. Um, and I know I'm we're we're working on that for E911 and domestic abuse specifically. We're trying to get those to zero out. So, we're kind of working on those. So, a negative amount there doesn't um doesn't bother me. Um rural access infrastructure, uh that one that 228 doesn't that's doesn't bother me either because that money just needs to go down because as we spend it, it is going to eventually hopefully we'll be able to spend it all. We shouldn't be um rolling money into the fund balance there. Hopefully, we're going to be spending that money down. So, um I don't really have any concerns with any of that. So, revenue we I just looked at general fund and road and bridge fund our two largest funds. It shows um where we get our revenue from revenue from for each of those funds. So, uh, clearly in the general fund, it's taxes, property taxes. Um, and then the in the road and bridge fund, it's the those transfers in intergovernmental. Um, a lot of that is money from the state for different

projects and, um, some taxes, some wheel tax dollars, things of of that nature. and then all of those other funds. Um this shows what where all of those other funds get their revenue. So um whether it's license permits, transfers, miscellaneous, goods and services, um intergovernmental or taxes there as well. So just a revenue recap for all of our funds. um we start with a revenue budget, what we anticipate that we're going to get in for revenue. Then the next is the actual revenue that we received and then that that difference. So if it's in the positive, we received more revenue than we were anticipating. That's it's not a bad thing. Or if it's if it's less, then we did not receive as much revenue as we were anticipating. So unassigned fund balance at year end. This just shows the last four years for the general fund um is in that turquoise. The middle is the road bridge and then um the dark green is the county building fund and showing that um where we're where we're working on building up our building up those fund balances from 2022. I think we're in pretty good shape compared to where we were in 2022 where we've been good about getting those built back up and general fund. This just looks at our revenue, expense, fund balance, assets, liabilities, and show you shows you a three-year look back with the general fund. So, you can see where revenue we always are, uh, you know, just a little

increase each year. Expenses are really staying pretty darn good, close to even um over the last three years. Uh fund balance grew a little bit more this year. Assets continue to grow at a fairly steady and then we don't have any liabilities at the end there. And then the same thing for the road and bridge fund revenue expense. you know those those those dips in um like last year where you see revenue expense is it's going to be based on the number of projects that we do as well. If we do less projects, it's less expense and it's also less revenue coming into the state paying us for um some of those projects, those big big grant projects. Fund balance, we've been good at continuing that to grow. Assets have stayed pretty close to the same. And then the last fund to look at uh similarly is the county building fund. Um you can see where revenue has gone actually down in that fund. expenditures have stayed fairly uh fairly similar. We've been able to grow that fund balance and assets have maintained as well. And then some um kind of neat pictures of of projects. Uh um the highway superintendent Brian took off uh helped me with some of this with this information, getting me some of these pictures. Um this is 08 F4. You can read about that there. This was just um8 miles north 6 milesi east of Aurora over Maderi Creek and you show some of the work as it's being done in the completed project 08F3 5 miles south and 06 miles east of Aurora. This is over a tributary to the Big Sue.

And then 08xo 3.2 miles north and 8 miles east of Bushnull over a creek there and the finished pro the finished project. And then 214th um our county road 16A that we did. Um you can see what we did that chip seal there and kind of where this road is from Aurora over to 34th Avenue. Um this was the finished product here. Um and got that done uh last year. Samra Avenue project the first two phases of that were complete here this year. um adding curb and gutter, adding that you can see um on the right is the west side of that road, adding that multi-use path over there. Phase three will be done um this coming summer. And then just uh some other information on other highway projects that we did last year. um the chip seal project that we did that the highway did, which county roads we did cost um and then also surfacing projects that we did. Then we did purchase the former Beta building that's now home to our weeden pest department. Um it's out at our highway grounds. We did a nice um epoxy floor in in the back. Um have a nice table out there. Um looking pretty good. Now, this was uh the courthouse parking lot. We also did a project this project last

summer. Um it came in significantly under under what we had budgeted the bid did. Um, I think we had budgeted like 160,000. The total project was just over 104,000. Turned out very, very nice. And that's it. There you are. Any question other questions that you have for me on this that I can go over in any more detail? I just say good job. Thank you. Yes. Excellent. Excellent presentation, Stacy. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, moving on. States Attorney's Office report.

So, every year we compile the statistics for criminal convictions here in Brookings County. Uh for the general public, we'll post this to the county website, I think, under the state's attorney's tab. Um but last year being pretty consistent uh to the four previous years. Um obviously felony drugs continues to be the primary felony offense uh here in Brookings County driven largely by uh methamphetamine. One thing that um I continue to work very aggressively with our law enforcement agencies uh sheriff's office, Brookings Police Department, DCI is to target uh drug dealers uh here in Brookings County. um specifically those that are dealing drugs or possessing with the intent to distribute those drugs in drug-free zones. And so kind of in the middle part of that um slide before you now, you see the number of the distribution convictions being slightly higher than what we've had in the last uh four previous years. Um I you know when you look at these statistics I I would just tell everyone that it isn't so much that we have more drug dealing in Brookings County compared to previous years. It's it's more about sort of collectively as law enforcement agencies trying to focus our efforts to try to identify those individuals. Uh trying to get confidential informants uh to work with us to target those dealers. Um and so what you see here from last year is sort of a a result of those efforts. Um felony DUIs obviously continue to be a problem um here in Brookings County. Uh I don't think we're uh unique in that regard. I think unfortunately drinking and driving is an ongoing issue here in South Dakota. I was just in front of the legislature yesterday uh trying to propose

legislation to improve our enforcement ability. You know, a lot of people don't realize that South Dakota is actually the worst in the entire country on a per capita basis when it comes to drunk driving. Um and the bill that I had before the legislature yesterday was to try to improve some of the loopholes that can be exploited, especially on the rural enforcement side of it. Uh, I had the state's attorney from Lemon, South Dakota, uh, talking about how when you're arrested out in rural, um, North Central South Dakota, sometimes it can take up to, you know, two hours to get that person to a hospital to withdraw their blood. And in that time, they obviously have a lot of time to sober up, which impacts the result of the blood alcohol, which then impacts our ability to prosecute that case. Um, what I was advocating for is what a lot of the other states around the country, including many of our bordering states, have is a presumption of 08 within two hours of of driving. We already have a presumption of 08, but just expanding that presumption period to within two hours of the stop would help a lot of the individuals. Say for example, if you're arrested for DUI in Elkton, um, Bruce, Sinai, White, some of those rural corners of our county, it takes a while for the highway patrol sheriff's deputy to get that person to the hospital to withdraw their blood. And in that time, that BAC is dropping. Uh, which is a major issue because it is um involves extrapolation. But if you can't do extrapolation properly, you're not you're not able to prosecute that case. So that's kind of what we were um before the legislature yesterday. Um it's kind of a technical issue. Um it's pretty into the weeds. Um and unfortunately they they voted it down. And so yet we have another example of our legislature not taking drunk driving seriously, which is very unfortunate. I was very

disappointed with the outcome yesterday, but we'll keep working on it. Um, we had the attorney general's office there. We had the sheriff's association, the state's attorney's association, the chief of police association. Um, all there telling the legislature what this problem is. And then to still be denied is, um, very unfortunate, but like I said, we'll keep working on it. So, if we go down to the uh the next slide, [snorts] uh, this is the class one misdemeanor conviction. Um, without belaboring the point, again, DUIs are obviously our number one um, misdemeanor here in Brookings County. Um, and then you see all the other crimes there. Um, kind of run-of-the-mill there. Uh, nothing jumps out too much that's concerning or different from from previous years. Um, if we go down to the next one. Yeah. class two misdemeanors. Um, you know, these are mostly traffic offenses. Uh, you do have the shoplifting cases. Um, Walmart continues to be the primary victim of shoplifting here in Brookings County. It has been for many years. Um, and so a lot of the shoplifting that takes place is primarily happening there. Um, and we I think do a good job of helping Walmart out and trying to catch those shoplifterss and and hold them accountable for that. Um, go down to the next. I think we have the Yeah. So, this is specific to domestic violence. Um, you'll see there that, uh, the simple assaults, aggravated assaults, um, abuse or cruelty to a minor, uh, some of those domestic related. Um, so domestic violence in South Dakota is just defined as those that are in a romantic relationship or reside together. So you

can have like um either father, son, mother, daughter, vice versa, or you can have how I think more in the more traditional sense um spousal, boyfriend, girlfriend. That's how we define domestic violence. And so when you see these types of convictions, it arises out of um those type of familiar relationships. You scroll down. Yeah, this is just a DUI comparison. Previous years um you know during COVID we actually saw like a 25% increase in the amount of DUIs and then unfortunately that 25% has sort of sustained itself um here in Brookings County. Um and that's I think consistent across the state as well. And so, uh, we don't have the 2019 2020 numbers up here, but you would see a pretty significant uptick kind of beginning in 2020. So, for whatever reason, more people just drinking and driving, getting into [snorts] our juvenile um, statistics here. Again, we'll put this on the website so people can can dive into it. Um the diversion program continues to be uh a primary way of dealing with some of our juvenile offenses. Um we do have situations where juveniles will come into court, but by and large um the diversion program that we partner with the Boys and Girls Club, but also the position that the county funds over there, our juvenile diversion coordinator um does a lot of uh work with that. Amber Collers um helps us out a lot uh with sort of the organization and the follow through and the programming that takes place for some of our juveniles that uh are referred to the diversion program. Um but terms of last year as it compares to other years, not too much difference there. So

then we have uh which one's this? Yeah, still juvenile abuse and neglect. Um, these are cases where child protection will remove children uh based on allegations of abuse and neglect. So, we work a lot with our local department of social services office here with those case managers under child protection uh to work those cases through the court system. you know, the emphasis in those cases is to try to reunify the children with the parents, but sometimes that reunification isn't always possible uh based on sort of how the parent um reacts to some of the programming um or a lot of the risks that resulted in the child being removed in the first place um are still present and aren't rehabilitated or fixed, which results in termination of parental rights hearing. And so our office um myself or one of my deputies uh proceeds with that termination action um asking the court to terminate parental rights. I would say that that is very rare. For the most part, a lot of the removals are successfully reunited with the parents. Um it just takes a lot of time and work with uh the department to facilitate that. Um so that's a lot of what goes on with the abuse and neglect. Teen court's another diversion program. um teen court and our diversion program. The only real difference between those two is the the funding can be a little bit separate. Teen court receives some uh state funding. Um and it's not in funded necessarily entirely by the county. Um but teen court is more aimed at sort of the minor um maybe less serious offenses than compared to our diversion program. So that's kind of a a little bit difference between those two. Um and then sometimes with teen court the the children are a little bit younger too maybe early teens rather

than diversion would be mid to late teens. So I think is that it [snorts] more diversion referrals success rates. Yeah. Our IVC commitments. Sheriff's office does a great job. I know Dave uh works really hard as well as Marty and his staff. uh to uh facilitate a lot of the involuntary commitments. It's a very uh difficult part I think of the sheriff's job and a big part of the jail function is to deal with what I would describe as an probably an increase in the amount of mental health issues that we as a county face. But again, I mean, I think it's a probably a state and nationwide trend. we're starting to see more and more individuals come into our jails, but also the criminal justice system that struggle with uh mental illness. And so I think a lot of times maybe some of those correction officers and sheriff deputies feel like they're mental health professionals rather than being a deputy. Um, and I know that's uh it requires a lot of teamwork between the jail, Brookings Behavioral Health, the hospital, HSC, which is the human services center down in Yankton, a Vera Behavioral Health down in Sou Falls, the transportation. Um, so just how those IVC's work if if the public isn't aware. So, the there's a petition process that requires the petitioner uh to fill out what they describe or or deem as um mental health issues. And then there's a QMHP, which is the qualified mental health expert that reviews that um and makes a recommendation. And then we have a mental health board uh that determines whether that person um should be involuntarily detained and committed for mental health. And then the sheriff's office sort of processes all of that. So

sometimes it requires middle of the night paperwork and um detainers and commitment processes that the jail does working with all those other partners to get that person sent to a vera behavioral to be rehabilitated and then put back. Did Dave did I miss anything? But that's that's sort of the gist of it, isn't it? Okay. Um so yeah um you see the the numbers here in the last several years of what that that all involves. Um so that's it. Um happy to take any questions but like I said we'll put this information up on the website. So

all right many questions for Dan. Thank you Dan. It's very informative. Uh kind of interesting to see how the trends and stuff are are moving. All right, we can move on to some commissioner reports before our scheduled 10 o'clock. Uh so commissioner reports and discussion items. Uh M. Commissioner Vanderwal.

Okay. Thank you. On uh two weeks ago uh after the commission meeting, we did tour the jail. It was very informative. Thank you, uh, Sheriff Stanwick and his team and, uh, Assistant Sheriff Ber for your, uh, tour of that facility. Um, and then on January 27, on Tuesday afternoon, I attended the bid opening here, uh, with the highway department superintendent and after that meeting, I met with several of the department heads to go over a few things. And that's my report. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Post. Yeah, for my report, yeah, I also attended the jail tour. It was very interesting. I had been in there since it was brand new, basically, I believe. So, it was good to see how that's working and functioning and the new food service that they have as well. Um, and then yesterday we had a weed board meeting. That's concludes my report. All right, Commissioner Miller.

All right. Thank you. I uh was out of state for one of those weeks, but last week on the 28th, I attended the legislative Zoom and there was a lot of really good information on that that um I think we need to pay attention and watch. Data centers being one of them and how that they're proposing as in so many different areas. Um I find that fascinating. Um interesting. They talked about the governor's budget where there's he's proposing 0% increase to state employees and 0% to the schools. That might get some attention. Um, see where that's at. They also talked about a bill that's um referencing tiffs and trying to drastically change [snorts] tiffs. Good information again along with that. and uh Paul Berzino got on and shared some numbers of what is happening with tiffs in Brookings County. Like 458 homes have been built through that tiff program. That's a big number. That creates a lot of homes. And so wherever you're standing on that tiff thing, um you know, and a thousand jobs have been brought to town because of the use of that tip. So anyway, that's that's my report.

All right. And I believe we are close to our 10:00 uh schedule 10 o'clock item. So do we need to make a motion to um you would just declare the commission in recess and

Yeah. So, I'm going to declare uh Brookings County Board of Commissioners in recess and we have convened at zero at 1000 as the Brookings County Drainage Board. Uh number one on the agenda is the letter A is discussion of the Maderi Township Big Sue River diversion channel dyke reestablishment project. Good morning. Drainage board commissioner commission acting as a drainage board. The um Maderi, we call it the Maderi Township Dyke or diversion project. There's several different names for it. It first come to our attention in 2011. chairman at the time, Allan Greg and um I believe it was the core of engineers and der at the time and um possibly someone from East Dakota Water Development District went out to this site and took a look at the at the area and then we we contacted the core of engineers to see if anything could be done about it. I sent a letter 2012 to the core of engineers. And then fast forward to 2019, Maderi Township met and during their annual annual meeting on looks like March 9th, 2029 uh 2019, they had a meeting and they recommended that the um [snorts] send that the Maderi Township Board of Supervisors would send a signed statement to the Brookings County Commission resisting requesting for assistance to return the river levels, meaning the Big Sue River levels to the same state that they were on in January 1, 2009. Looks like about 17 members of the

Midair Township attended that meeting or or signed that that uh request. So at that time we started working on the project and we contracted with banners associate and since 2019 December 22 they sent us a summary report and can you bring that report up ma'am? Yes, ma'am. Yep. If you could go to page three. [sighs] Well, right. We can stop right there. Right here is what we're looking at. You can see where the 2011 channel was down there. It talks about the U unnamed tributary. And um go go to the next one. It would tell us a history. Sometime in the 1960s, it was estimated that a dyke was put in between 215th and 216th. And from um 1960 to 1990s the water was at times um diverted the the story is that hay bells and and various things was used to unblock it. Now if you if you go to the next set of slide next slide. Nope. The same the same. Just to the next slide. There we go. down a little bit more. Right here is what it looked like in 1999. And I don't have a pointer.

If you if you look at the black and white slide and you see the long driveway, look between the long driveway and the township road and you can see there's basically nothing there. Now bring come back up to the top just nice and slow. A little more right there. And here's the same image now. And you can see the difference that um where the arrow is is where we believe that there was a dyke. And the reason I say there was a dyke back in about Mr. Ralph Brihan built a house there, new house since I started working in 2003, and he requested a building permit. So me and the highway superintendent at the time, Ted Edgar Broton, drove out to the place and took a look at the site and about where the arrow is up near the river, we found these square blocks that was that was man-made. It wasn't it wasn't natural natural rocks. So, and that's what Mr. Egger broughten pointed out to me that that was some kind of some kind of system. He didn't know when it was put in, but it was some sort of dyke. And of course, Mr. Brihan ended up putting his house far away from that area. So, his his house is not near where the area was was modified in the past. So, and if you want to go Yep, there you go. To the next page. And here you can see it just just keeps getting bigger. This is it in 2002. And then this is 2002 zoomed in. You can see the um upper part how it's starting to to curve off. And you can see the silty of

the Big Sue River there. [clears throat] Keep going please. And in 2009 you can see where the you know while we was looking at this people was saying well there might be an old car through out there or something. So, we went out and we took a look. Mr. Hbert allowed us on this property and we we didn't find any obstructions forcing this at at at that time. And then a little bit more. Let's see what we got. Once again, 2022, we still got the channel. The channel's not getting any better. And um so we we contracted a banners associate. This is what what we had them look at. We we've had different contracts. They've been doing they did a report for us. They did in case we did put a put a dyke in a maintenance manual and they um we we we kept going in phases. And right now the last phase is we authorized funding for an environmental assessment of the area. Not the construction. No one's no one the drainage board hasn't authorized me to construct a damn there. What the drainage board did earlier last year was authorize an environmental impact study and letters were sent out from our contractor who we'll be able to speak later if you have questions of them and then that's what brought us here today. Letters were sent out to some land owners on the environmental assessment and to the to the drainage board and there were some questions brought up and um that's what we're here for. Any qu? Well, I guess we can proceed however you would like, sir. Either public comment or have the engineers speak first. What would you prefer?

Yeah, let's uh Does anybody have any questions or anything for Bob at this point? Uh let's have the engineer come up and visit quick.

This both microphones are live.

Okay, great. All right. Um, good morning. My name is Kelly Busher. I'm with the project manager on this and I'm with Banner Associates and I have Kent Johnson here with me who's introduce yourself. He's also with Banner. So, he's been doing the hydrarology work and um I've been leading the environmental review assessment portion. So, what um where we're at with the process right now is there is a wetland easement that the Natural Resources Conservation Service, NRCS, has on Mr. Hubard's land and and that easement states that there can be no construction or change of the land um under that easement. So before before any construction can occur, the NRCS would have to agree to lift that restriction on the easement and allow construction to occur. And since that would be a federal action from a federal agency, they also require an environmental review before they would allow that to occur. So um what what we're working on right now for the county is doing that environmental review. And those letters that Mr. Hill referenced are an important first step in that scoping process. We sent out letters to a list of interested parties that we had put together um notifying them that we are looking at this that we're doing an environmental review and we're inviting their comments and concerns to come forward and that's the step we're at right now is that scoping process. We've received those letters. Those have been shared with the county as well as um the NRCS and we've shared them with the core of engineers since there would be a federal permit from the core needed if you went forward as well. So that's where we're at in the process right now. How many letters went out and and kind of what radius of the area did you guys send letters to?

Um I I'd have to look at my computer to get you the exact number, but I want to say there was around 30 I believe that went out. Um what as far as land owners around there, we had looked at we had put together a letter a list of land owners that were downstream. And during that scoping process, I did receive a letter from only the upstream land owners that I had not sent a a comment letter to, but it did provide some feedback. And so that will be included as part of the record. We also sent it to um the county commission. We sent it to um the conservation district, sent it to um your local legislators. Um so like I said, we tried to put together a list of people that we thought would be interested, stakeholders, and that's who we sent it to. I have a question on to back up a bit. The motivation to do this to put it in is to accomp to simplify this. What is trying to be accomplished here?

Land owners in Maderi Township approached the drainage board that they was losing acreage that they could not farm anymore. They used to be able to farm it in the 70s and the 80s, but now once once this tributary started opening up more and there are times when water flows high that there's more water running to the west than there is to the main main thing and they're just losing farm production land is what is what in my opinion started Madary Township's concern.

Okay. And this was a man-made thing back in the 60s that somebody somebody diverted it or or what? Well, that's subject to to We don't know.

Yeah, we don't know on that one. We do know that it would it was it it did allow some people that had had land to the south wanted water to water their their cattle or something. So they would allow more water out and then when they had too much water they would they would stop it. And we're talking probably 1990s 80s or 90s before before my time. So but that's what when when Banners did did their big scoping study back in 2021 and 2022. They spoke to a lot of lot of old-timers, I guess a good way of phrasing it. people that had been there for for years to to see why why it was was being used that way.

Bob, could you cover the bridge the uh concerns with the bridge to the west?

Yeah, we we do have two bridges. There's the Big Sue River Bridge which was just reconstructed and then there was a bridge to the west, the smaller bridge. The smaller bridge when it was engineered was not engineered for the flow that we're getting now. It was engineered for a much smaller flow actually just regular seasonal drainage. It I don't believe it was even. And I mentioned Ted Egger broughten earlier. Well, when I first started the drainage back in 2003, he took me out there and showed me how it was even scouring back then. And that's 20 24 years ago that because of the the additional flow coming to the west that it was causing problems with the county bridge. And during the study from from Banners Associate, they determined that if we don't do something with the drainage, it's it's going to cause us when we do start replacing bridges to the south to develop larger bridges, which is obviously more more cost

because the percentage of flow underneath the west bridge at one time was at 70%, correct?

I want to say it was definitely 60% or more. I I guess I don't know the exact number, but and those studies when we say we had studies done, those studies was through the East Dakota Water Development District. They would they they've always assisted us on water sources in in Brookings County and and they may not go out and do the study, but they would contact the appropriate state entity that would go out and measure the water for us. And as I've been researching this and and my understanding on this, again, I'm one year into this. Some of you guys have been in this for years and years, but by redirecting the water to the main big sue bridge that's designed to take that water and the bridges downstream from that so that they flow better through those. If it continues to go on the west bridge, it's again that bridge will have to be address distress addressed and possibly replacing some bridges downstream from that. So, um it's just simply trying to get the water back to where it was and where the bridges are designed. Is is that a correct statement?

That's right. Yes. But also at flood stage, it will continue to

That's that's right. Yes. Good uh good to point that out. Um putting this dyke back into place will redirect those lower flows, you know, within the bank flows and once it's above the bank, you know, that'll spread out and major flood stage will go through both bridges. Will replacing uh or uh redirecting it back through the the normal channel um will that increase the flooding through the normal channel at all or um what's the what's the what's the idea behind that or what is the forecast I guess you should say um is it going to cause more issues across the the the normal channel that flows now versus what it does what's what's the project.

Yes, I I think uh it's reasonable to say that if you're maintaining flows in that big S River channel, it'll continue to, you know, there'll be regular flow going down there and you'll have, you know, uh typical river environment going down that that path. But if it's allowed to continue uh going through the alternate diversion path, you know, it'll you the the stream will use both paths and there'll be less flow in the the main the main channel essentially.

I don't know if that answered the question. Well, so replacing or or uh doing doing the diversion or the the dyke uh reestablishment, it's not going to completely eliminate water getting away from from the big sue at that area and focusing it all down in the event of a flood. No, in the event of a flood, it's going to use both paths. Okay. It'll over top the bank and just go as it usually would. Okay. Kent, one question. I have it. The the bridge, the Sue River Bridge on 216 that was new in in what year again? It was just not that long ago. Oh, probably 20

or two, I want to say. I don't know. It wasn't that long ago. Within last five years, I suppose. Mhm. What's the span or the length of that bridge? Maybe 225 ft, I'd assume. And then the west bridge that we're referring to, that's is that a third of the of that size or maybe even only a fourth? No, I think that's over 100 feet yet. Maybe 125 ft or something. I don't sorry I don't have those numbers right in front of me. But it's less than it's half. Yeah, potentially. Yes.

Okay. When the when the new bridge was replaced on the river um is initially uh designed um for the river flow and then in the mid design they recreated they added I believe it was 30 some feet to that bridge additional um flow underneath that bridge to accommodate the flow and that's when the new bridge was built that was an additional 30 ft was added to it and extra rip wrap also. So it was

yeah that uh extending the bridge this the state of uh DOT um changed the or the uh design methodology for rip wrap design and um in in that change it necessit necessitated us to uh lengthen that bridge to accommodate those design changes. So by redirecting it to that main bridge, that new bridge will reduce the chance of a low-level flooding because so much more water can flow through there. It'll reduce the low-level flooding um down the diversion channel. Yes. Yeah.

Until it reaches the, you know, banks and then it's you get a catastrophic one. There's not, like you said, water just levels and goes everywhere. So,

yes. And I would say, you know, typically bank full flow is is uh thought of as like a two-year event. So every, you know, couple years it's going to be outside the banks. In this area might be different. you know, the Big Sue River. I lean on the folks who live there to to tell you how much it's out outside the banks, but uh in general, hydraulics, hydrarology, uh you know, we typically assume the two-year event is at at the top of the bank, the river banks. By by reconstructing this dyke, will it raise the and I hate to say normal because nothing's normal, the typical level of the river, will that raise at all daytoday or anything barring any of the big rains, snow runoffs and and things like that. Will it raise the level of the of the river if if this dyke is replaced?

Well, yes. I if you're maintaining that flow in the big river, that water level is going to be higher until it hits the bank and then it's going to go, you know, other place, you know, down the diversion and outside the banks. Um, but yes, I think uh installing this the dyke would maintain a higher level in the main channel up to that bank elevation. any idea how much or how how how higher how much higher that would be? How much water that will divert back into the main channel off the top of my head. I I don't remember the the exact stream flow number. I I would say, you know, 300 cfs, which is just a number to you, but

um yeah, in East Dakota when they were doing their measurements, uh depends on when they're doing them, of course, you know, like if you have low flows, uh you might get more going down the Big Sue River, but then at a certain point you might see like I believe we were having um 70% going down the the diversion And so I mean then you only have 30 going down the Big Sue River. So it just depends on what time of year you're measuring it. But um I I would say if you did have that dyke in place, you're then forcing 100% of that flow uh down the Big Su River until it hits that bank elevation where it's going to uh hit, you know, start using the diversion as well. So then down river, um, since it's hasn't had as much flow as it should have, what kind of issues are down river that will prevent the water from getting south? And I say south, just downstream. Um, and what kind of mitigation things can be done to help move that water out? Is it been silted in? Is trees reed? What kind of stuff? I mean, of course, we only have our our jurisdiction here in Brookings County, but like going down through, you know, Moody and Lake and and however it goes down. Has have we looked outside of this 2-m stretch to see what can else can be done to get the water out?

Um, it it recombines um with the Big Sue River after it's gone by the uh Lake Campbell outlet stream. like you said, two two or three miles south. Um, and are are you asking like for the main channel now that it has more flow, what we what do we do to mitigate that increase in flow or are you talking like the the diversion, what do we need to do to get that flow back into the main channel? Sorry. kind of well kind of just what you know of course when when the water levels are low we have reads we have all sorts of things that grow up on the on the banks that trees that will slow the flow of water. What kind of have we looked south there to see what types of things maybe need to be fixed south of there to help the water get out now that we're possibly planning on putting more water through the natural natural track?

I I haven't uh looked at any of that type of uh of this project. Okay. Do we have a bridge rating on that west bridge as far as how close it is to being I mean what kind of condition it's in? Is it in good shape? Is it 25 years left, 50 years left? 5 years left.

That's what I was hoping Brian would have been here. um or the bridge uh inspector, but uh um the the added flow is adding taking years away from that bridge because of the head walls being uh undermined. Uh I don't have a date, but there's concerns there of the head walls on that west bridge. [clears throat] All right. Any other questions or I get I don't know. We gonna have a time for questions after we have public testimony also. Y might be. Okay. All right. Could uh

Jake Gilbertson, I see you're here. Would do you have any uh thing you'd like to add uh to this with the East Dakota water? sit behind the post. [snorts] [laughter] Commissioners Jake Gilbertson with the East Dakota Water Development District. Um, as Bob has said, this has been a situation that's been going on for quite a while. kind of the big change was after the 2011 high flow events when the diversion channel, the alternate channel, the western channel, whatever you want to call it, kind of became the main flow. Uh when we were first made aware of it, uh in 2011, it was just more of a question. Hey, it looks like the rivers change. Would we come out and have a look at it? At the time, we had access to um the equipment necessary to measure stream flow uh to get a handle on what looked like a big change. And so, uh what I had staff do is um go to the first bridge north, which I think is 215. Um I haven't got all the city all the [laughter] east west road north of the one we're talking about. Um and uh we took a a measurement of what is would basically be all the river flow at the time and then went a mile south to 216 where the two splits uh were present. And we measured the flow of water in the west bridge and the the main bridge. And what we found at that time has been alluded to is at that point roughly twothirds of the flow of the river what we were seeing at the north side pre- diversion uh was now running through that western opening

where historically 90 95 100% of the flow would have gone through the eastern or the main river bridge. um subsequent visits to the sites um over the last going on 15 years now have typically found very similar situations. The flow rate the volume total volume of flow may vary with the season but in general there's of there's a lot more flow going down the that western bank and that with various consequences. Um, one thing I would note, there's some questions about, you know, what would happen, uh, and will there be more or additional flooding in the main channel because of the change. Um, I I would look at this or reference what what you're going to be doing is restoring things to the pre201 conditions. And now if your only experience living on the river um on the main channel has been in the last 5 years then yes things are going to change. If you have been there for 20 or 30 or 40 years things are simply going to go back to the way they were before 2011. Um and while certainly there might have been some minor channel modification due to vegetation the big channel is still there waiting to accept the water that it handled over the last millennia or what have you. So,

okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Now, we did add uh add um number one under a for public comment. uh we would ask uh if there's anybody that would like to come speak uh to approach the microphone uh state your name and address and we'll try to limit uh any question or any comments uh to about 5 minutes so we can get through everybody in a timely manner. So I would open it up to public comment uh whoever would like to come up and and ask questions or or make comment My name is Sean Lesnar. Um, my wife Kathy and I, we live just literally right there, probably um few hundred yards south of the uh the proposed dyke. Um, I own [snorts] land and a house just downstream right on the main channel and then the where the actual diversion channel goes. I own that land also. own land to the north. Um, I'm not sure how I'm going to contain this in five minutes, but I just want to first address a couple of the notes when you guys were talking. Um, this is a whole another side note, but just a comment. You know, Bob said that the landowner, they were he was approached by land owners that were experiencing flooding down the river, etc. And um, so so that's an initial concern. I'm concerned obviously that there's going to be a lot more flooding on my land. So, and there's been several meetings and I I feel left out. I wasn't invited um contacted, whatever the term you want to use, myself and several others. Um I've got people texting me right now questioning me why they didn't get letters about this, etc. So, we can leave that. I want to address a couple things. Um

I don't remember who said it but said that it'll reduce um will will the lowle flooding be reduced? I mean it's definitely when you I mean there's comments of 60 70% of water in that new channel going back into the river. It's going to cause way more flooding. I mean I live there been there 25 years. I've seen how that river changes. the the simple geology of a or graphics of a the river, if you look at a map north of it, is fairly straight. Soon as it gets to about that diversion, it's a winding, meandering mess. There's a a spot probably a few hundred yards down there, it actually almost loops to the north. And so you put all that pressure on the river, it's going to jump out of there. Um, I built and chose to live on that river. I'm not here complaining about the flooding. I deal with it every single year. spent $25,000 fixing my driveway. But when you take whatever number you want to use, double amount of the water, put it back in there. I was been looking at lots of maps, and some of them might be only a year or two old, but if you go on to any aerial map and look at it above that river, you can't hardly see any sandbar. We were just somebody was referencing trees and stuff in there. There's tons of sand bars below on the main channel, which means there's going to be causing problems. the um this whole thing is referenced as a farmerade dyke back in the 50s or 60s. A simple research says there's several of them, lots of them documented and undocumented. So when you put that pressure back into that river system, I believe it's going to backflow and create more problems somewhere else. And I just want to know what I'm here today for is what you know what where are those identified? I mean it seems to me they haven't done any studies downstream and and know what that's going to be. I I I I know exactly um every time it rains where the water's going to come when we get a three or 4 inch rain. Now, I've been down there 25

years. Never used to be that way. Um I I know it's a nobody wants to talk about it, but I personally believe and I know there's been studies on drain tiling and all the extra water that's been pumped in that river over the last x amount of years. And so, um my land was flooded last May, June, and July. I've pastured and and had cattle in that land for 25 years. There's only been twice in the summer that I haven't been able to hay and pasture. And one of them was last year. And there wasn't an excessive amount of rain last year. That rain came in my opinion from up those big storms up in Gary. They had all those rains that comes all through those streams over by White comes through and it comes through the Maderi Creek right by the bowling alley. And I know they did some cleanup work there and some other cleanout. I've spoke to others on what cleanout does um to some of these channels. It just creates more water in there. Am I complaining about that? No. I understand they got to clean their streams, but now every time it rains it in the last 5 to 10 years, that river I mean never used to move on a two or three inch rain. Now every time I can the river is 40 yards from my house window. I can see it every single day. And so every time it rains that I can watch that river go up and down. So there and and that's the main channel which arguably is getting 30 40% of the the water you're talking about. In in summary, I'm questioning why we're doing this because I don't believe the amount of money that that's going to go right around there. In normal times that that that diversion channel that we're talking about, I mean, it never leaves that bank except for when it's flooding. You can get a 3-in rain and it floods in the main channel. I can see it come out. I got little streams and creeks. It all comes out and it's never comes out of the other one. It stays in there. It's deep. It's narrow. It's straight. The one by my place is meandering, twists and turns. Lots of little streams and creeks that come out

of there. I believe you fix that thing. As was stated earlier, all the floods, it's just going to go and go right back into there. Using the terms that 60 70% of the water goes through there. I don't know where they come up with those terms. three years ago or two years ago, two summers, you could have drove by there, there was no water. There was water standing under the bridge, but if you look to the south about 50, 60 yards, it was not flowing. That this this thing you're talking about wasn't even flowing. And and you hear reports 60 70. Now, there's times it probably is that the water's going through, but it wasn't even flowing. But I believe you invest that money, it's just going to break out around it. [snorts] And that land is so flat down there, it's just going to go around it, go out in the hay fields around it, and find its way right back in there. So, I don't know what we're doing. Um, the the only argument that I could see is if you're telling me in in standard water flows times, it's it's degrading that bridge right now because when it floods, I I believe that's not going there's nothing's going to change. Nothing's going to change. Um, you could drive by there right now. There's I mean, that that channel's deep, but it's ice there right now. But I mean, it's just I I don't see any damage or anything occurring. I I mean, I live there. My kids have canoeed it, fished out of it. I I know what that river does and it changes all the time anyhow. So, if you fix it, it's just going to it's going to change somewhere else. And then and then what are we prepared to Are you prepared for that? Um because in summary, that water when it floods out, I watch it every year. all the county gravel roads to the north that run east and west. The water goes out in the field, it jumps the county roads, jumps the county roads, jumps the county roads till it hits that si oil road, I call it. And it's it's like a dam. It's super deep there. My driveway is about a quarter mile long. So I watch it back fill. It hits that because the only place it can release that highway is through the two bridges that we're referencing. And it backflows and backflows and backflows and backflows.

And I watched it go all the way north a mile all the way up and it just keeps doing that. And right now you're talking about essentially trying to plug one of the holes on a on a there's two relief valves and you're trying to plug one and yeah you're not really plugging the hole because if it floods it's you're saying it's going to go through that thing but um it's just going to create more pressure and I want to know you know why are we spending all that money when the I mean it's not what's it going to do I guess. Sorry it's probably 10 minutes. It's all right, Sean. Any questions? All right. Thank you very much. You bet. Thanks, Sean.

Anybody else? Good morning. My name is Rob Hexum. Uh we're a land owner south of where this is and we're not asking to plug it up completely. We're asking to put it back to normal levels where it was back in 2019 because like you said all the water does flow down through there so we never get that ground dried out. We've got just about 300 acres that are completely unusable now because of all the diversion water that goes over the roads, fills up, backs up because nothing goes down the river channel. So that's our wish with the replacing that dyke is put the flow the flow back where it should be. So, and with all of that from a township standpoint, we end up fixing 468th Avenue every year because it flows over the road. We end up fixing 217 because water flows over the road and washes it out. And it was that way this summer, most of the summer for some reason. And yeah, we didn't get the rains here, but north of us, they sure did. And so we never got any relief. So from a township standpoint, that's where we're at. From a landowner standpoint, that's where I'm at. So, if we could get it back to even

close to normal, we know it's going to flood in a major event, it's going to wash over that dyke, but when it doesn't flood, we don't need all that water running through there. So, thank you. Thank you, Rob. Hi guys. Hello.

I've been here longer than most of them. I didn't know how to do what to do what listening to the conversation here. Could you state your name, sir? No. What's that? Could you state your name for us, sir? I thought I gave it. Oh, no. Norris Patrick from Oaklake Township. Been on the township board over 50 years. Lived on the same place. Moved on there in 1940. Thank you.

And now I know why you guys have been dragging your feet. We put in a new bridge up there. It affected me big time. And I can't get a hold of Brian. You notice he left early so I wouldn't so he wouldn't be here when I was here. I've been to his office probably six times in a new building here and six time out on Western Avenue in the last two years and he won't get hold of me. [clears throat] They put in this new bridge on Highway 44 and I've Larry has called me on it. I've talked to Larry. [clears throat] The rest of you guys never got no phone call because you don't have no telephone number in the phone book. And I think that's bad. when we can't get a hold of you guys because you don't want to put your name in phone book. But that's not what this we put in the new new bridge and when they started digging I told Brian I said I will not sign the contract. I will not sign that contract because the new bridge did not come in and go straight across the road like the old one did. They put it at an angle so they could shoot all the water out in my fields. I got the land on the north side of the bridge and on the south side of the bridge. The one on the north side of the bridge is split that 20 acres in half. The the gullies that deep running across the field. The south side we never got the hay up because the water never went down. That's why I wouldn't sign the contract. He said that he has the contract in his counsel and his colleagues. He sat there that day. He looked for 15 minutes and couldn't find the contract because I know I never signed it. He never found the contract. Well, he said, "I'm coming out in the morning and I'm just over the hill where I

live." He'll [clears throat] stop by in the morning. That's two years ago, guys. He still ain't been there because he can't find the contract. because that bridge is set at an angle to shoot the water out in the fields so it wouldn't go down on these guys. I found that out today. You don't want the water on Brookings. You want it to stay up in the hills. And I think that's wrong because I shouldn't have to give my land up for somebody that just moved in and made a bad choice as to where to put the house. Like I say, we lived there since 1940 [clears throat] and we come up with something like this. And the guys that come down, there was [clears throat] a previous contractor that come and seen me about putting this bridge in. He had all the numbers because this bridge was going to be put in 14 years ago. Well, then they decided to put in a band-aid instead. So, he never fixed the bridge. Now, this last year, they decided to fix the bridge. [clears throat] And he told me, "I lost two acres of land. I wanted to pay paid for that land because we've had four land sales up there in the last two years. So, I know what the land's worth, but no, I didn't get nothing for the land. Didn't get nothing for anything. I never got a dime out of that bridge." He hauls some dirt down off the top of the hills over on this side to use for fill on the bridge. And he took my black dirt from the scene here and hauled it back up on top to cover the clay scar in the top of this hill if you follow what I mean. So we got black dirt back on the other guy's pasture again.

[clears throat] Norris Norris, is this in reference to our Maderi drainage that we're discussing right now? I I guess so because they're complaining about our water is coming down the click. If if if you would reach out to telling me I shouldn't be here today. Well, I'm just saying that the public comment is for our Maderi Township uh the Madary Township drainage dyke um in reference down there. And we could visit about this uh at another time and possibly do uh schedule this for another meeting. Time two years ago and I still can't get you guys tracked down. I paid $24,000 taxes the other day.

Yeah. [snorts] Yeah. Where we at, guys? Where we at? So, we can schedule this for another time. Norris, if you can reach out for us and we can we can visit. Two years ago and now pretty soon you're going to say that's too old. We can't look at it no more. So we appreciate your time. I'm sorry guys, but you got this thing in a mess. We got to start talking to the taxpayers, not to the guys that move in an acreage or somewhere and complain about it. You guys know I'm talking what what I'm talking about too. Thank you. I've known you for long enough.

Thank you for your time, Norris. And same I know post and you a couple times but I won't come back. You made getting in here very hard. You didn't have no registration. You didn't have nobody to greet you and know how you're supposed to do something. In the paper you said show up at 9:00 and walk in. That's what the paper said. Sorry guys, but think about it. You know what I'm talking about, too.

Is there anybody else uh for public comment on the Maderi uh drainage dyke project? Okay. Hearing none. Bob, do you have any comments on any of the stuff that we heard? Sean, I think there's Is there somebody else? Oh, is there Oh, yep. Good morning. Morning.

Scott Sebring. I live out there. Uh, everybody knows, I guess, where I live on the corner. First of all, I didn't get a letter. Wasn't notified of anything. Uh, Dr. Edgars back there. Didn't get a letter. Wasn't notified of anything. Um, you know, I feel for for Rob. I mean, I don't want obviously anybody to to flood or lose property or whatever, but I mean, I can show you pictures of of what [snorts] it looks like when it floods right there. um any any normal year uh everything comes to the east. Uh and and I don't know how this cannot make it worse for everybody to the east. I know it sounds like we're all kind of looking out for our own, but we have to. um you know that everything comes across the substation to the west of my place is going to is going to flood. Uh the the little ditch all the way around that substation fills it comes from the west on Sean's property comes right across the the township road floods me and moves east. Uh I've even seen it come from the north uh on my property that that's in to the north of my uh house where my pasture is it that was a lake and I can show you that. Um, I don't know. I I'm not sure where how who who picked the the letters to send out to to property owners right there,

but um I I would think that were essential. U Dr. Edgar's properties, he lives right on the river, right to the south, west of me, across the road. Um, but there's definitely a a lack of communication for sure. Um, but like I said, I don't I don't want, you know, I feel for for the land owners to the south and and west also. Uh, and don't want them to to lose their property or crops or whatever. But, um, you know, I think we need to to look at this a little further and and try to figure out a a better solution than dumping more water in when as we exist right now, uh, we all flood to the east. Thank you.

Thanks, Scott.

[snorts]

Good morning, commissioners. Morning.

My name is David Edgars. I live at 2169 469 Avenue. Um, I do live on the river. and I love it on the river. I moved out there in 2005 and um we've had several floods since that period of time and uh I was not aware of the dyke and stuff and I always wondered why it was, you know, flooding to the west. I thought it maybe was just a normal diversion in the in the river when it would get so high that it would actually split. Okay. Um so I know about flooding to the west. I'm I I've seen that a lot. But I also have had flooding to the east across my neighbors Scots and even farther on east from them. Um I had a picture in the Brookings uh register, an aerial picture. I I can get the data have it in on my phone. took a picture of that and it was in the Brookings register and I looked at that I gosh that really looks familiar you know but it was an arrow view and here um the picture shows that I have a moat around all of my prop property I felt like I had a castle with a moat around my house you know so um so I I I know where that floods and when they they um put the new bridge in and stuff. There had been a channel

along along the um Si Road that had been cut out and it flooded into my property. And I always thought, you know, if they would if they could fix that so that it would stay in the main channel, go down the channel more, it would be a better deal. But, you know, it didn't bother me that much. But um um three three years ago I had to do some uh um bank stabilization. I lost 8 ft of bank uh coming towards my house. I had to put in 250 tons of uh uh rock and um to the tune of about $12,000 a 225 foot piece around that north curve of mine and and that fine I decided to build there. I'm going to take responsibility for that. But they also said as it is that that will continue to change over time and I've seen that change since we moved out there in 2004. Now, [clears throat] I hate the fact that it is flooding my neighbors to the west. And if the diversion ban diversion uh whatever you want to call that, um worked for a period of time u and obviously it got worse. Um, I can't see where that's not going to where that's not going to improve any of the flooding on down river. There's got to be a different kind of a bottleneck either north or south on that river

because [clears throat] we had flooding even this year. It wasn't a lot. But if that is taking most of that to the west, then how come it is still flooding to the east? So no matter what's going to happen, and they were talking about that no matter if even if that river gets to up to the bank and goes over it, yeah, we're going to be flooding everywhere. So, the diversion dam, I'm just gonna use that. Um, I don't know if it's been I wish I knew what the flood plane levels were way back when, like in 2019 and stuff. Um, I can't I can't say how much I mean there is sediment, you know, I walk across that when it's when it's low in the summertime and, you know, I'm walking in a foot and a half of just mud, you know, and many times it's not very deep at all. I mean, I can walk across it sometimes, but when it does flood, it floods consistently both directions. And even with putting in the new bridge and stuff, um I don't think it's going to create um you know, I'm an a hydraologist and all that stuff, but I I don't think it's going to change the flooding pattern uh to the west, but it's going to be changing the flooding pattern to the east even more so because now if you're going to [clears throat] be diverting more back to the mainstream that's going to fill up a lot faster. And when it gets to flood plane level,

it's going to continue to rise even more. So, um I I'm it's never going to hurt me because I'm up when we built we built two feet above flood plane. But I do see what that's happening to my neighbors to the west, you know. Um Tom Stenberg, good friend of mine, uh you know, he lost a quarter of that land because of the flatting flooding and um he used to hay that all the time. So the the overall condition is getting significantly worse and I don't know why it's why it's why that is happening but what's preventing if that was working before what's preventing that water from getting out of there out of the way and getting farther on down? Um [clears throat] um Dan Billet, they tore out some of the shelter bed along there. And you can't imagine the amount of debris in the river that they removed just so that they could clean up around where their past where their hayfields suffer at. Um, so and there's sand bars on that bridge just to the south of my place heading down towards the golf course that [clears throat] that river is full of debris. And that's and that creates a real bottleneck happening there, too. So, I don't know what it cost to to to get rid of all that debris and and clean the clean the river up so that it would have a more easy flow going on down

river. Um maybe the diversion dam needs to be replaced but or built back up, but it would have to be to a level that would never allow it to go over what it would be whether where the level would be greater than what the top of the flood plane on the Big Sue River would be. If you want to try to divert the GL water down into the Big Su River, fine. But once it reached the level of flood plane, it better not be any higher that because that's when it's if it's going to create a a more diversion that way to the east, it's going to complicate that picture completely. If you can keep it so that it would [clears throat] be a normal level when it flooded and not be above that level so that it's forcing it to keep going into that that would be probably an acceptable way of doing it. Sure, it's still going to be flooding to the to the east, but it also would not be creating more pressure going to the west. So, and cleaning the debris out of the river so it has a more of a chance to get down river farther. You know, it's just we're just pushing that condition farther and farther farther south. But, um, yeah, I've I've seen the I I see I've seen what happens there. And I and I and I had no idea about this. Absolutely no idea. Nobody ever contacted me. That was a little bit disappointing. And anyway,

I think there's something there that we can do to come up with a decent compromise that can benefit everybody to the east and to the west. But we just need to have a little bit better communication and look at alternate ways of of of solving a problem. You know, it's when we speak and when we communicate, I think we're going to come up with a better resolution that's going to be satisfactory or at least have a better compromise between [snorts] everybody involved. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Aan. I'm back again. Rob Hexom. I wanted to address a couple things that were said and that have not been said yet. Mr. Lesnar had mentioned the tiling. I can't disagree with you. I mean, there has been a pile of tiling put in the country. moves water faster. Yeah, I'm a farmer and I've got some tile, but if you look at all the acres that have been tiled, pushed water to the riverbed faster, that's part of it. The other part of that is this city right here and all the roads, blacktop and parking lots that have it put in. So, that water all has to drain right down to the river. So that fills up our riverbed faster because nobody wants water in the city. They want it gone immediately. Nobody ever holds it, lets it out easy. It all want they all want it out of their backyard right away. And then we're running out of lots to build in. So, we keep hauling fill dirt in, filling in all the low ground that would hold water, but now it's got h houses. So, those are also a couple issues that need to be addressed. That's all I got.

Thank you, Rob. Hello, I'm Ralph Baron. I live pretty close to this proposed dyke fixture. I just wanted to make sure that you guys were able to read my letter because most of my concerns are in that letter. So, I don't need to elaborate on my concerns. Um, no one would be happier than my wife if you guys could figure this deal out. She goes to work at 4:30 every morning and has to drive through 4 inches of water most of the summer. With that being said, that dyke was broke before I moved there 20 years ago. Bob Hill knows that. He went out and saw it. So, this 20 I don't know where this 2019 stuff keeps coming up. But anyway, there was more flow over there the year I bought my place than there was in the main channel. So, like I say in my letter, I'm mostly concerned about if you plug this hole, like everyone else has talked about, what are what's the consequences? you know, I have the luxury of driving through that as my driveway floods um because the water equalizes right now. It doesn't wash my driveway out. I haven't added a load of gravel to my driveway in eight years. Um I understand I see what happens to the road west of me. You know, it's terrible. It's it's trying to go there and it bust that road out. You know, all summer it was last year. Uh, I don't have the luxury of having that happen to my driveway if we change something. I get it. Not many people in here are worried about my

driveway, but I'm more worried about my home getting to my home, my kids driving through there. Um, I feel bad for every one of us. I feel bad for all the land owners that have lost land. Uh, I've adapted. I just wanted to let you know that I'm happier taking this into consideration and you can read my letter uh if you haven't. Most of my concerns are in there. Thank you. Thank you, Ralph.

Anybody else for public comment? Bob, I want to thank everyone for coming today and and providing their public input. What uh we have to do is schedule another meeting in the future. And um there's going to come a time we're going to have to decide do we keep going forward or do we not go forward? And uh if if we're not going to go forward, we don't have to keep spending money on on this particular project. You know, I my office I I I watch my my money as much as I can. We've been working on this since 2019. Yes, the issue has been much longer than that, but physically I I've been on on the with the engineering firm. So, I am going to request that we have another meeting in the future. You've got some documentation in front of you. I would encourage the public to send any comments to either my my county office, county development office, or to the county commission at at their at their office. And um we will put it on the agenda when we're going to meet as a drainage board again just like we did this time. And um I want to request a decision at that time. Bob, with what we what we uh did on last year, last August or whatever, have we received all of the reports and stuff? Um,

not yet. The environmental assessment still going on. Okay. They the snow hit us right when we right after we approved that they was going to do like an archeological thing and and that got nailed. If you don't mind, I'll bring banners back up and they can discuss how far along they are. Yeah, that'd be great. Um, just wait till she's done. Okay,

Mr. Chair, members of the commission, Kelly Busher again from Banner Associates. Um, as far as where we're at, um, Mr. Hill referenced that we need to do an archaeological study. That's required by the NRCS as part of that review of the easement and lifting of the requirements, that federal decision. So, we do have to do an archaeological study and with the the federal government shutdown and then the weather, we've not been able to get that completed yet, but it's scheduled for this spring if we keep moving forward. Um, we did the initial scoping letters that we've talked about and we've started working on the review, but in in light of the questions that have come up and planning for this meeting, we have we've paused that just simply we don't want to keep working on on this if you're not sure you're going to go forward. We're not trying to spend your money um unwisely either. So we if you want us to keep moving forward, we're going to keep moving forward with what we've been asked to do with this environmental review. If you want us to put a pause on that, we can do that, too. So that's that's where we're at. We still need to write the report. Um we should be able to get that within a I would think within a couple of months get a draft to the the county, but we will pause on that if that's what you want from us. And and if I could, I would like to to speak to the the question with the letters. We tried to make a good faith effort to identify people that we thought needed to receive these scoping letters. There was zero attempt on our part to exclude anybody. We we certainly did not mean to do that. And I' I've been taking notes this whole time. I'm going to make sure that um my summary and if you have minutes from this meeting that are included in that environmental review as well, the things that were brought up today, I'll certainly make sure that's part of our scoping process. what we've uh approved uh in the past that continues for the environmental study in the NRCS. So you guys will continue to work on that from what we've already approved. Correct.

Well, we certainly can if that's what you want us to do. Absolutely. Well, if I may, Chairman, we we approved of funding, but they've only spent up to a certain amount at this time. Okay. If if we want to do a pause, we can do a pause. we'll still have to pay whatever outstanding stuff they've done, but then we wouldn't we wouldn't incur any more bills after that. Well, if we've approved it up to a certain amount and we're still and they're still haven't completed up to that certain amount. I think we still need to keep continue studying it and and receive the reports that we've we've asked for and and have you guys do the work that we've already asked you to do.

And and certainly doing that does not mean you build it. So, uh, it it's scoping what kind of environmental impacts there could be from this action and it's supposed to be part of your decision-m. So, yeah. Well, my for my two cents that that would certainly be appropriate for us to continue. You you're not obligated to build it. Well, I feel that we need I mean all the information as much information as we can to make that informed decision is what we need. Absolutely.

And along with that, Bob, what you mentioned having another meeting which I think is a brilliant idea. Um, let me back up just a minute and address some of the frustration that was mentioned by many people about communication. What's happened so far is somebody brought it to us. We have an issue with this bridge. We need to figure out what to do. So, we do studies to research that. and we couldn't didn't [snorts] do I'm sorry for the frustration and communication but until we had a big picture of what we need to deal with like um you know what what are the concerns now is when we bring you in. I'm sorry you feel frustrated that you weren't part of that research part of it but um and and that and that's valid. So anyway, Bob, what would you anticipate a meeting time? probably going to going to probably end up being three months as long as we continue to you should have some sort of project

within three months. I would think this is January, April. I'm basically out of the office. So, probably the the first meeting in May. We may not have the cultural review yet done by that time, but we certainly can keep moving forward with [clears throat] the environmental portion. Have a draft. Do we need that information to be able to let the land owners and the other preference to bring them up to speed with what we've got? Is that I I guess I'm not exactly sure what you're doing, but can is there a value of doing it sooner

with the cultural review? They need the ground can't be frozen. So [snorts] that that's where we're in a little bit of a pause on that. We need to make sure that they can dig some holes. are looking for arrowheads, evidence of um past activity that would be culturally or historically significant. Um th this is something that's required on any federal action. So that that's why we're having to do that step is going that cultural review is going to be very localized to where this dyke this structure would be built. And that would that part would not affect the other land owners other than their cultural interest in what's found. the the environmental review that we're that we're doing is going to look at endangered species. We'll be looking at um wetlands, water quality effects, land effects, noise, um disturbance to species and vegetation, change in land use, all those kind of things are what we look at with the environmental review and I think that would certainly be of interest to the land owners. What confidence do we have that a thousand foot dyke in the middle of a basically three mile wide river basin is going to work? It's going to accomplish any of our goals and not just create more.

I'm going to phone a friend and ask Kent Johnson to come back here, [laughter] please. That's why I left this chair. It's It's not a thousand foot dyke. I guess it would, you know, start with um it's just plugging the gap that has formed uh that diversion channel right now. That's the figure I had seen somewhere somewhere along the way. But yeah, sure. Sure. Um I'm not saying it's going to solve all the problems. It will to a certain level again till it hits that flood plane elevation and it spreads out. Um yeah, what stops it from washing it out 50 feet upstream or downstream?

That's a good question. I mean, when I look through and I've doing done some farming and haying and stuff in that area and that entire area is old river bottoms, old channels, old oxbow, that river has been pretty much everywhere in a threemile span all through that bottom. And I guess I I think we're trying to play God here a little bit of the river's going to go here and the deer are going to cross where we put the sign on the highway. It's it's we we build a bridge, but we hope it ends up going there by building the road higher, but that's that's pretty much all we've accomplished is we've created more problems. That river is going to [snorts] go where it is. And yeah, when everybody's upset about the river, it's 2 miles wide and nothing we did changed anything.

I appreciate that comment. Yeah, we can't control what's going to happen in the future with this whole river system. you may get another 1969 flood here and kind of changes the course of everything. We don't know. Um and you know, as far as plugging this the gap in the levy or the bank, um we're pretty confident that will stay in place because we're of the the of how we're building it. But I don't I don't I didn't do any investigations, you know, soils, uh, borings or anything like that to see what the condition of the existing bank lines are. I I mean, I can't we don't have time or money to do that. I mean,

I guess that's what I'm saying. Once everything is saturated, that it's going to cut a channel once it gets through the saw, it'll cut through all that muck in that whole area. I mean, I farm some of that kind of stuff where it's organic matter is about 10% and it just floats once it gets a certain amount of wet and it runs. So, yep. What we've been asked to do was look at the option of replacing that struct, you know, that that dyke across there. That's what we were asked to do and that's kind of where we're at right now. Yeah. In in looking at that as the the option.

Okay. Um Bob, you can help me with this a little bit. This has been project been working on for many years. Um we got a lot of different people here that are new new land owners. There's some older land owners here that have been involved with this. Um we did hold a open house. You remember the date of that open house? Mr. Gilbertson

August. Mr. Gilbertson allow uh he facilitated a meeting. I want to say that was February 2019 held at the Brookings Outdoor Adventure Center meeting room and um Yep. Mr. Gilbertson facilitated the the discussion on it and discussion was held to determine the concerns with the new river flow with the majority of the water flowing to the to the west. bridges are not able to handle the increased flow, wetlands easements, flooding on Madair Township roads and farmland and pasture lost due to flooding was the main and that was advertised in it was advertised in the Brookings Register.

Okay. On um that's 22nd day of February 2019, right? Um, also there's land owners that weren't um didn't receive a letter about the meetings and stuff. The letters that were sent out were sent out to people that had NRCS easements within the flood deal. That's that's why not that's why not everyone got a letter. Uh, apologize for that. But that's exactly what happened. There was I believe almost 30 letters sent out. I look back on my records that most recently there was over 50. Yeah, alto together. We also included some statements.

I just wanted to clarify that that we didn't exclude anybody for any reason or anything. We tried to get the we had the open house and such uh Kent Johnson elevations. Uh at the open house, it kind of explains on the on the diversion dyke. Uh after so much water is in there, it's going to breach the dyke and we're going to have flooding the same way we have flooding every year out there. Um I also agree with Mr. Sebring and and uh and Mr. Edgars, there is more water coming from the east coming coming from the north. Uh and all that has to go down through that same area. It's I don't disagree with that at all either. Um we're just trying to remedy a situation that uh we we've been pursuing and hopefully it would work. Um, I've been on uh this uh committee. Uh, one of the most beneficial parts was actually um, Commissioner Vanderwal, myself and Bob and, uh, some people from NRCS went out to the actual site and visited the actual site. Once you see the actual site, you realize what we're doing here. U, the elevations and such. it it was very beneficial going out there. Um I don't know if another open house would be the way to handle this if you have a presentation like Kent D gave before with your computer with the with the the elevations on the flooding and share all that information at one time. That's that's what I have

and I believe that meeting was held in August of 24 when when we did those presentation of the elevation. So that wasn't another that open house. No, Kelly,

I just wanted to echo those thoughts what Commissioner Jensen said, but yes, I remember being at that meeting in August of 2024. I can't remember how many people were there, but it was a it was a good crowd. It was at least 30 or 40 people. Kent, I believe you were there as well, Bob and Kelly as well. So, this isn't, you know, something we're going to get fixed overnight here. I came on this commission in 2023 and you know it's been going on from from that. Um we're going to do the best job we can. You know, are we going to get everything right? Probably not. But we're going to, you know, I'm going to listen and we're going to do our best to to do what we can with this situation. I think we need to continue with the environmental review and then the culture of we've came this far. We need to continue that forward to to understand where we're at. But if we need one more open house, Commissioner Jensen suggested, I I'm good with that as well.

You know, I will uh I will uh piggyback on that. Uh Commissioner Vanderwal, I think it is uh the most information we can get and get it out to the public and and have the most public input. Uh more information always better and open open lines of communication. That is the biggest thing that I see. um so that you know so that we can we can make sure we can do the best we can with the information provided. So could would the first part of May pending the availability of the engineering firm be all right with the commission to have an open house probably at the BCOAC? Then we'd have time to publish it in a newspaper and invite send individual letters of the people we know and but also run a run a newspaper advertisement or two to let people know like in the town and country shop or and let people know that it's happening

and without any calendars or anything like that in front of me. I I would assume I mean it's far enough out that we could probably plan something like that. I don't know. Typically a meeting like this would be at at 5 or 6 o'clock in evening due to get people to Yeah, we can put a tenative on on that first part of May and and see what comes up. I'll work I'll work with the the engineering firm to see if they and the BCOAC I need to talk to to them anyway and and try to get a date that that the facilities available. You bet. You do any other commissioners have anything? Is is there a way that we're going to be able to expand the group of people that are notified of these upcoming hearings?

Well, those letters went out from banner. So, what would what would the you know, is there is there I know I'd asked earlier about a radius of of individuals. I didn't know it was listed to easement holders, but this notification we can we can do and we can get the addresses that we've got from our beacon database and and do a radius of this dyke of so many miles downream. Mhm. I think that would be good. Yep. you know, book and just everybody. Yeah.

If you're in this audience today or you're listening to this, you know, by all means, get your addresses to Bob. I'm going to speak for you, but to Bob's office and you can get on that mailing list.

All right. Anybody else? Thank you very much. Uh, I guess action when we proceed with the project that we've taken care of B. So, at this time, we'll adjourn as the Brookings County Drainage Board and reconvene as the Brookings County Board of Commissioners. And I believe we pick up where we left off with, uh, with Commissioner Reports and Commissioner Jensen. uh on the 20th uh toured the jail. Uh staff did a great job of giving us a tour and then uh Marty was so inclined to let us have dinner over there. Uh we sampled some of the jail food. Uh it was pretty good. Uh I I really enjoyed the macaroni salad, but it was a good good tour and thanks for getting that done for us. Uh appreciate it. on the 26 at a OAC advisory board meeting. Joe did covered most of everything I was going to talk about out at the outdoor venture center. And then that that evening I attended my first hospital board meeting get kind of settled in there and the very first thing on the agenda was uh a presentation by uh Karen Weber. She's been there uh 40 plus years and she gave us a a tour and something she had been working on. um recently and she partnered with uh Emily's Hope uh distribution box out at the emergency room there in the at the hospital. Um there's a actually it's a newspaper dispensary box in the entryway and uh um nlloxxalone or whatever it uh is an opioid uh uh basically a nasal application if you happen to OD on opioids and uh the the recommendation is that if if you're opiid user to to have

one and also if you are uh taking a prescription opioid it'd be nice just to have one in your home. If you'd happen to forget you taken a prescription and uh happened to overdose, you would uh be able to administer this or somebody could uh administer it to you. It was uh very interesting and uh uh one of the projects she's working on and uh it was interesting. There was uh 38 dispensary boxes throughout the state as of now and it's increasing as uh the awareness comes due. But that concludes my report. All right, and that leaves me. So, of course, most everybody had left, but I want to thank everybody for their public comment and attend and uh uh attending our meeting today. Uh helping us out with the drainage board. Uh that public input is very important. Um for my report, of course, after the after the meeting, uh attended that jail jail tour as well. um from having experience in the jail, not as a resident, but working for the sheriff's office, that is a huge up uh uh change. And yes, it is uh I know it was very very much needed. And uh we want to thank uh uh Assistant Sheriff Bitler and Sheriff Stanwick for letting us come and and uh poke around in their business for a little bit. Uh on the 22nd uh we had uh I attended a Brookings Regional Growth Alliance uh we had a search committee meeting uh that afternoon and then a board meeting uh for the growth alliance uh that afternoon after that uh search committee meeting. Uh we are actually uh doing second interviews for the growth alliance uh for CEOs uh uh this week. So they the CEOs will be in town Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. So, um we are moving forward on that. Uh hopefully

to have somebody selected and if they like Brookings enough to to move forward and uh and help lead our our new organization with the chamber and and economic development and visit so to help promote our regional area. Um I always like to say that 28th uh of course the Brookings Day in the capital was uh was cancelled but I did attend that uh Zoom legislative update on that Wednesday afternoon um on oh I guess that was the 28th but uh we had uh that legislative legislative update on the 28th. uh attended the BCOAC uh meeting on the 26th and then then on the 29th had the Brookings Regional Growth Alliance Investment Finance Committee meeting. Um and then on the 30th uh I attended the Research Park board meeting uh with some new things and and some exciting uh companies taking a look at uh the research park and and Brookings uh county in general. And that is my report. Uh moving on to number 13. Uh we're going to be moving into executive session uh in accordance with SDCL 1252 uh subsection 1 for personnel. Do I have a motion to enter in executive session?

So moved. Second. Motion second. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. We are in exec.