Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

It started here. Call the meeting to order.

Linnea, is there any additions to that?

Mr. Chair, there was one addition for public works and engineering contract for bridge safety inspections. We are starting with resolution 2658 today.

We're going to make a motion to approve the

Any other further discussion? Annay, please.

Rapp.

Yes.

Way.

Yeah.

Beyer.

Yes.

Schmidt.

Yes.

Kalina.

Yes.

Motion carries.

Okay, looking for any additions or corrections to the minutes. Chair, I'll make a motion to approve both sets of minutes. Draft minutes are on slide 21 and 27. I've done that.

Thanks, Charlie. Thanks, Jeff.

Any other discussion? The name, please.

Wade.

Jeff.

Meyer.

Yes.

Smith.

Yes.

Selena.

Yes.

Rapp.

Yes.

Wilson Carey.

Thank you.

Troy, you are up first today. Morning. Morning.

Feeling surrounded.

That's what it looks like.

I have a few items this morning.

I'll start with the donations. First donation is from a grand township. It's in the amount of $1,000. And to be designated to the dive team, the search and rescue dive team. So I'd ask the board to accept that donation.

I'll make a motion to approve resolution $2658,000 from the Graham Township.

Second. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Jerry. Any further discussion?

Renee, please.

Schmidt.

Yes.

Kalina.

Yes.

Rapp.

Yes.

Wade. Yes. Meyer. Yes. Motion carries.

All right, the second donation is in the amount of $1,400. It's from Roy and the Consums' Maiden Vault, and in memory of Michelle Brandt. Michelle was a county employee. She also worked for my office for years there, so it's from her parents. And they would like a designated Their word, safety vest, I assume that means plastic vest.

I'd ask for it to accept that donation. Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion to approve resolution 26-59, donation. I'll second that. Thanks, Charlie. The member of the discussion, April.

Helena.

Yes.

Rapp.

Yes.

Wade. Fire. Yes.

Yes.

Motion carries.

Thank you. Next item is budget proposal.

We all have the budget proposal, plus I always have done the next year attachment, I guess, of increases and decreases. So I this point, I've kind of opened it up to questions. There are some you've had a chance to look at it. There were axon as one of the larger increases for our squad and body-worn cameras. But honestly, the squad and body-worn cameras pay for themselves. Just the fact that Deputy's encounters with the public are all recorded and tells the truth of what happened at the scene.

So they've certainly been beneficial, but it is probably the large increase. So, Troy, does the county have any what they call block cameras that the city does?

We do not. We don't have access to the flock cameras. We can request the city look at the flock cameras for us if we're looking for a specific plate, but we actually don't have primary type access.

Do you know that when they take those pictures, are they taking pictures of the drivers and the people in the car as well? Well, it's...

you know, you're seeing an entire intersection. Most are set up at high traffic areas, and so you're getting a view of an entire intersection. But if they are able to read license plates, they've been very helpful with missing people, especially when we recently had a female go missing. She was found up in Cass County, we were able to track some of her movement. She had traveled quite a ways from home through the use of flock cameras in other jurisdictions. And so we knew she was up in the north of here, up in the Cass County area. So we were able to talk to sheriff's offices up in that area. into it. As it turns out, she was found by, say, civilians, not law enforcement. But law enforcement knew immediately what they were dealing with because we had informed them that she may be up in that area. The clock cameras are not being used for doing surveillance on people. Or citations? No, they're not locally used in citations um and that isn't it's not surveillance that the purpose is be able to track traffic spot stolen vehicles spot vehicles registered to people with warrants i i get it it's just that the people that contacted me are having a hard time separating that surveillance versus Well, I mean, drive down Broadway. There's a camera on every business on Broadway. You're under constant surveillance. We're under surveillance in this room. I mean, yes. Do I feel strongly about it? Simply because I know everywhere I go, I'm under surveillance. Fleet Farm, they have one of the best camera systems in town. Walmart, you name it. I hear you.

I hear so on most cameras are good enough. They can see the people driving them if they can get it zoomed in close.

We've got a camera system that's good enough for the image.

Yeah, the colored ones, it works. Yeah, they've been very useful. And it's more than one missing person. I mean, we have a different report, different person. We had no idea where that person was, but they appeared on the plot camera several times. within the city of Alexandria. So we knew that person was in all likelihood in this area. And within a few hours of us contacting different people because of locations, that person actually contacted us and told us they were not a missing person. So they had voluntarily gone missing. So as far as flock cameras, no, we don't have any. I don't have any in the budget, by the way, but I'm certainly not opposed to the use of them because I know that they're not used for just surveilling people. There are people who believe they are, but it's just not factual. There's also people who believe I have access to the flock cameras in their mind and they're not the belong to the city and we don't have primary access to them. But certainly we have requested access, them to access.

Well, the press is here. They got it straight now. Do they care?

It's just giving it out to the public. So, no, there's none in the budget. The cameras we utilize are body-worn and squad cameras. We've had squad cameras since the late 1980s. So if somebody has an issue with them, they're 46 years too late, or 40 years too late. And the body cameras are, like I say, they're a very helpful tool, especially when it comes to compliance on deputies. might surprise you, but people don't always tell us the truth.

So the cameras tell the truth.

All right, what else?

Budget-wise, I mean,

It'll breeze through medical care. That's an increase, but that's an annual increase through contracted medical care for the jail. There's some, you've seen the list, I think there's a list of increases and decreases, and I can certainly answer questions regarding any of them.

Any questions?

You know, the only question I got is like on the boating end of it, boating safety, has there been any changes on that as far as any problems?

As far as patrol on the lakes? Yeah. We haven't seen any dramatic changes. Lakes, of course, are busy in the summertime.

So yeah, it hasn't been anything notable. All right. That's too easy.

I mean, you're supposed to stump the chump here. Yeah. Yeah, otherwise I have nothing. Budget or salary requests, obviously I'm retiring at the beginning of next year. So if you want to increase my salary for a couple of days, you can do that. it would be a very very short salary when is your last day yeah you were what what's your last day you're talking about the um i think it's january 4th yeah yeah yeah all right we haven't figured it out monday okay yeah or first monday in 2027 january okay

Coming soon.

And a retirement party on January 8th. Elvis Presley's birthday. There you go. Nobody sleeps. Get your hair dyed then.

Thanks, George. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to call up Mary Skilling. Is she recorded?

Good morning.

Good morning.

items today the first item um i am required to present a yearly compliance report as a part of my budget presentation and this dates in 2025 the recorder's office processed 8 533 documents and we were 100 compliant with statutory turnaround time we submit that report we need to act on this

I'LL MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE THE COMPLIANCE REFORCE FOR THE RECORDER.

SECOND. THANK YOU. ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION? THE NAME, PLEASE.

MEYER.

YES.

SCHMIDT.

YES.

SCALINA.

YES.

RAPT.

YES.

WAVE.

YES.

OKAY. AND THEN NEXT FOR MY BUDGET REPORT, MY BUDGET IS LARGELY STABLE, PRETTY MUCH EXACTLY THE SAME AS LAST YEAR. BEST MAJORITY OF OUR INCREASE IS JUST FROM It is myself and I still have four deputy recorders as well. The Recorder Technology Fund and the Land Records Modernization, those are special accounts that are set aside for special projects as statute outlines. And those are all stable as well. I did budget for one indexing project I'm looking at for this coming year. It takes some of our available real estate documents. We have images out there from 1973 through 1992 where the images are there, but it's not searchable by name or legal description. And so that would be a good use of those funds from the Recorder Technology Fund. And so I'm working on gathering that together and put that in the budget as a proposed cost for next year. And land records modernization is stable. That's what we paid Esri, Pictometry, and some GIS initiatives out of.

That's just what you got tied in with the recorder equipment replacement stuff.

Yeah, recorder equipment replacement. Yep.

That's the only increase you really have.

Right. And those two accounts, we actually kind of zero them out. They don't affect Olivia at all. So yeah, that's really my only increase.

All right. Any questions for Mary? Thank you.

Looks good.

And then my salary request. I am requesting a salary of $90,000. My current salary is $86,000. I did submit some comparable salaries as well. The closest being like Cook County. Again, eight years in office. The Polk County Recorder's salary is currently $99,208, and Stevens County Close By is $106,558. This is my 19th year with Douglas County, and I'm currently in my eighth year as County Recorder. I appreciate your consideration.

Thank you. Thanks. Next up.

Chad Larson, county attorney.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I prepared budget proposals for three departments, the coroner's office, the law library, as well as the county attorney's office. So I'll start with the coroner's office, which really should be renamed the medical examiner's office because we haven't had a coroner in a couple of days now. Yeah, we continue to contract with Midwest Medical Examiner's Office out of Anoka County for our autopsies. as well as Lind and Anderson Funeral Homes for Transportation to Anoka. We pay a flat fee for transportation for those services on an alternating basis between those providers. Budgeting for the number of deaths requiring postmortems is difficult to predict in any given year. In the first five months of 2026, we spent just over $36,000, so I budgeted $70,000. of 2027. Based upon those numbers, that's the best guess I can provide. Moving to the law library, all counties are statutorily required to maintain a law library for the use of residents who wish to conduct their own legal research. As more and more people are using AI in an attempt to conduct pro se litigation, the use of the law library has really gone down. We used to contract with folks over at the tech school to sit for certain hours in the law library and kind of correct people's materials they needed. But it just wasn't getting the traffic that would sustain the cost of that involved. And the law library is really self-sustainable. It's funded by those who are convicted of crimes here in Douglas County. Their sentence usually includes a fine, a surcharge, and then a law library fee. Occasionally the judges will waive the law library fee depending on him conceding that nature. The fund balance is carried over from year to year. I believe its current balance is approximately $140,000 right now. I'm on the law library board with Commissioner Kalina, the judges, and the city attorney, and we may consider reducing the current law library fee given the current balance. And since we're losing Commissioner Kalina, we're going to have to recruit one of you to enter the exciting world of law libraries. I can't wait.

We used to have subscriptions to books.

We couldn't get rid of enough books. People aren't using the computer that we have in there. The copiers are sitting in a locked room right now. Nobody has a key. We do have a team. The court administration does too. We have access to a paper bleeder for those who still use that. Finally, as to my budget, there really haven't been any dramatic changes to my budget aside from the usual annual increases and subscription fees for case management software and client storage. As Troy mentioned, we also use Axon, which is the body camera recordings. So, those get uploaded to the cloud and then we have software that integrates our case management system with Axon. And so we're talking hundreds of thousands of hours of recorded data, which takes up an enormous amount of cloud space for that. So we have that to integrate those recordings Exxon fees, as Troy mentioned, keep increasing, but we don't really have an alternate vendor that provides the same quality of product that we need and we have to use and we're required to disclose to the defense as discovery all of our recordings. So those fees continue to increase. Probably the most notable change in my budget is the absence of Alamir's contribution to my salary. in 2027 due to the conversion of the health system to a 501c3 so i did not put that into my budget for 2027 but that should come as no surprise to this board we're currently fully staffed at this time seven attorneys six legal assistants and one investigator still payroll continues to be my largest expense associated non-discretionary related increases, health care costs, things of that nature. I've also included $10,000 for 2027 to cover tax appeals in the event that we're going to have to hire outside counsel. We did hire recently a new attorney, and she will be assigned to handle tax appeals very shortly. Right now, I'm continuing to do that as I can. And finally, to my salary request, I'm not asking for anything above and beyond any percentage increase that the docketing guys calling employees may be granted. That's all I have.

Mr. Chair.

Yes.

Tax attorney, is that the one for the dark stores with spacing?

That was one we used a few years ago. Extremely expensive. We tried to make a point with that particular. We tried to make a point. And it didn't work. We just ended up spending a lot of money, and they just paid us the next year. Not the same attorney. No, no, I know it's not the same person, but this is what we're doing. We have one case that we're currently doing that with.

Done chat? All done. Thank you. Anybody got any questions for chat? All right, thank you. We'll move on to Vicki Doley, auditor chair. Good morning.

Good morning, Vicki. All right, Mr. Chair, I've got two items here. One is, first of all, I'm being informational. The PAC was A couple of meetings ago, we had Divot Prairie Roundabout, which is a nonprofit historical reenactment organization. They did hold a 50-day event, July 30th through August 2nd, called the Home City Township. They had applied originally for a temporary liquor license, but then ended up pulling that out because they couldn't get liability or it wasn't feasible for them to do so. So they pulled the application. So just to make sure that makes it into the minutes at that time. sent off to the state so that is void yeah yeah and going forward you know as you've noticed i've brought often brought for timely timeliness sake efficiency's sake to try to get these applications into the state on time to give them time to react oftentimes i bring apps to that aren't we're waiting for a county attorney or sheriff or like liquor liability or all those things. I'm not going to, from this point on, if the applicant doesn't have their liquor liability proof, to me, that's going to be an incomplete application until they get that.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

Then that's going to happen again. Something that we do with providers on the food application for a specialty event is if they don't get it 30 days ahead, then they increase it by 15% of fee. Sure. Even coming forward. So I, It's not like they're going to pull off a four-day event in 12 days. So they had time.

Yep, yep. There was a couple of them back in July that we really struggled with getting to a public reliability.

Well, if it's really in place, then you know that. It's not where it needs to be because they could easily have been in there in April because they knew everybody would do it. Because it's still got to go to the state for us. Yep. And they often want 30 days. They do, too. Yeah.

THE NEXT ITEM IS A RESOLUTION FOR A GAMBLING PERMIT. ALAMARE HEALTH FOUNDATION OR DOUGLAS COUNTY HEALTH CARE FOUNDATION IS DOING BUSINESS AS ALAMARE HEALTH. THEY'RE PERFORMING A RAFFLE OUT AT CARLISLE CREEK ON DECEMBER 5TH. SO PUT THAT INTO US VERY TIMELY.

I'LL MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE RESOLUTION 2660 FOR THE GAMBLING PERMIT FOR ALAMARE HEALTH. I'LL SECOND. THANKS, JERRY. THANKS, TIM, FOR THE DISCUSSION. The neighbors, Schmidt, yes, Selena, yes, rap.

Yeah, wait, yeah, fire. Yes, motion carried.

Then the next resolution. This is a kind of an annual or should say some. Bi-annual election resolution for which if there were to be recounts, we have a joint powers agreement with the state that will perform our County portion of the recount here in Douglas County. This would be like for statewide. So they have a century under joint powers agreement for both the primary and the general election. They'll pay us a whopping four cents a ballot to do so.

I'll make a motion to approve resolution 2661 Minnesota election recount joint powers agreement.

I'll second. Thanks Charlie for the discussion.

I need to think.

Helena.

Yes.

Rapp.

Yes.

Wade.

Yeah.

Meyer. Yes. Smith. Yes. Motion carries.

All right. I'm moving into my budget proposal. Not a whole lot of line item changes other than we have a couple of election items I got to bring up. One being I'm going to be replacing our tabulators. They're reaching the end of life next year. years here. So before the next presidential election, I'd like to get those replaced. We have been setting aside funds annually in our budget for this. So it's coming out of capital projects to pay for that to the tune of about $260,000 or just under. So that's a big item, but nothing that we weren't anticipating. So we set aside funds for that. The other item that will affect elections is I've got it in the preliminary budget. to plan for the potential of a special U.S. Senate election next year. There's no potential for that. Amy Klobuchar, her term isn't up until 2030 or 2031. She'd be on the ballot in 2030. However, she's a candidate for governor this year for the DFL political party. So there's a likely, you know, there's potential there that she could be elected governor. If so, then there would have to be a special election in 2027 to build her spot. She'd appoint until the election occurs. Well, yeah, until January.

She would take over January 4th. She could appoint somebody for that year.

Until the election is held in November of 2027, and that person would take the position.

That's what you meant.

Yeah, that's why the increase in all those elections. Right. Yeah, otherwise this budget would look really good this year except for that. So, yeah, that's why you're not seeing the decrease in my budget that we normally would see in an off year. But we'll find out. We'll know by December. The election will have been held by then. We'll know the results and be able to tell if we establish our final budget if we can reduce that or not. We can always reduce it. We just can't increase it at that point.

Thank you.

And then for salary requests, I'm going to stick with the standard 3% increase.

Question, how busy has the early voting been going?

Pick it up. I think the fact that we put a notice of orders, a full page requirement by statute, we put a full page notice in last Friday.

That's next Tuesday, right?

Yeah, next Tuesday is the primary. So yeah, we had 60 some people yesterday. Yeah. And they're loving the flow of how it's working. They really are appreciating it. So thank you on behalf of the voters for allowing us to use that space.

We get to be nice and cozy in here.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yep.

Anything else? Next up, Dave Rush, Land and Resource. Good morning again.

One item for you this morning. So this is the Long Creek Watershed Collaborative fiscal agreement agent fiscal agreement for year 2027. So Todd County has been the fiscal agent for this grant, new grant year in fiscal year 2027. So we need to reaffirm that they continue to be the fiscal agent for that grant. So whatever the board's wishes are, Mr. Chair, is that every year? I think it is, whatever the grant agreement is with the state. So this looks like it's for fiscal year 26-27.

Oh, everyone in the state fiscal? Yeah. So this would be essentially updating that with a new grant period. Mr. Chair, does that, Dave, does that have anything to do with the One Watershed, One Plan?

It directly has to do with One Watershed, One Plan. So this would be, those grants come to one entity in that watershed and they handle all the financial stuff. In the Sauk River, they just switched that.

I think it was Stearns County and now it's Stearns Soil and Waters, the fiscal agent for that one.

for the solid waste site, same thing. I'll make a motion.

Second. Mr. Charlie. Thanks Jeff. For the discussion.

May I please?

Meyer.

Yes.

Schmidt.

Yes.

Kalina.

Yes.

Rapp.

Yes.

Wade.

Yes.

Motion carries.

Good. Thank you. Miriam's sitting here. Let's jump. Jill, you want to come on up?

Sure. Thank you.

I just have one item this morning.

Just looking for a motion to approve bills totaling $2 million. $33,973.98. Motion to pay the bills. Second.

Ms. Charlie. Ms. Jerry.

Discussion? An A, please.

Wade.

Yes.

Meyer.

Yes.

Smith.

Yes.

Kalina.

Yes.

Rapp.

Yes.

Walter Cary.

Thank you. Josh, I'll move into that.

Fantastic. Oh, come on up. Come on up here. You're the next. Uh-oh. Sounds like fun. We're just moving past it. That's what I heard.

Going good. You guys are running a fantastic show. Okay, so anyone want to know what this is, Tim Erickson? Public Works Director. Go ahead.

Good morning. I just got three items for you today. First one is to prove some no parking on Kassah 46. So I was approached by both the city of Alexandria, the school district as well, looking to put up some no parking signs in front of Discovery Middle School. So they have both passed the same resolution. So they're identical, what they're asking for. And it is no parking during school day from 7.30 to 3.30.

That's fine. I got a question for you guys.

Have they talked about how they're going to deal with the traffic problem they already have? Because now I go there and pick up grandkids. They sit out on that road to get in there to pick up kids. So where are they going to go now? Are they going to go park at Henry's and then they're going to wave them up? Because they have an issue with all that. Yes, they do.

So now that you took away the parking, where are they going to go, those people? So actually, I think they weren't supposed to be parking through there anyway. So Discovery was supposed to be working at Roding Street. Right, but have you been there for that? During that time? No. It's about the worst. I know it's nasty.

If you want to get up your kid early, you better be a half hour early before school's out in order to be up in front. And if you're there at the time school's let out, they're backed up, parked on the road trying to get in there because they've got a one circle. So by eliminating the parking, where are those people supposed to be?

So what I do think people are going to do now that we have this path that we're in the process of finishing up, I think they're going to tell their kids walk up to Willoughby or- No, they don't want that either.

School does not want that because we sat on that. They don't want the kids coming out to the sidewalk and get picked up. So I'm concerned about this.

But what would happen if we would take this out of here, take that out of there so people could come off the road and pick up their kids here? They go here? Yeah.

All the way back here, this is where you pick up the kids. You go around and go over there. And so when you stop here to pick up your kids, this is backed up all the way up to here. I'm there, you're here. So these people are waiting to get in to go pick up kids. And if you can't park there, where are they going to go?

Maybe if we made it so that they could come in here to get here instead of blocking up the road here.

Well, they could park on there, but they can't get here.

They've got to go somewhere.

They've got to come in here. They'd have to come in here, but then they can't get to this road. But basically, it's a, you know where I live?

Yeah, I'm within six blocks from this. The gymnastics parking lot is supposed to be off limits for after school pickup. School is paying. You and Jake, a couple more of your engineers should go over there in the morning. And then again from 2.45 to, not now, not until school starts. before we make any final decisions on this roundabout and everything else. What changed? And they have been working on it, but they need help. That's why I'm telling you that. Mr. Sandstead and his crew, they need help with this idea. There was a time when all the buses picked up the kids. Now they've flipped that. I mean, on the backside of the school, on the west side. Now they've moved buses to the east side. And then all the people, are coming in on that south driveway, like Shane said, if you're supposed to pick your kids up somewhere in the back. We live over there at the ranch at Arabella, and we've got a grandson there. My wife will meet him somewhere over there on Spanky's property down here, or an old drive, you know? And he walks away. So our place, anyway, a lot of times, it's just, it's such a, so I'm just saying, before we make a whole lot of final decisions of what we're going to do, I think it is. Like you said, that's probably got to work with the damn railroad to get an overpass. But what we're just talking about don't even happen when there's a train. That is a whole other thing. So, Mr. Chair, I just got to say, what would happen if we put a road across to the backside of the Eagles?

Charlie and I sat on that committee with Rick, and we talked about exactly what we said. Why don't you build your road up and go back into that neighborhood and even use a bus to get all the kids back there and unload them, just a short back and forth. And they haven't done a thing. We sat there. We talked about that whole thing. And when it got done, the school just said they didn't do anything. There was a lot of discussion. They didn't do a thing with it. And I don't know if this is going to solve the problem they got. The only thing they're doing is telling the parents you can't park in there. Because that's what they're doing. The kids are coming out. going out to the sidewalk, jumping in the car and leaving, and they don't want them doing that. Okay, what are you going to do with the problem you've got? Because that does solve some of it.

So what I think a lot of their issue, I don't think they need the whole bit. No parking like what they have in here. They need so far away from either of their driveways so that as you're in and out, if that's what we end up doing, I think that makes a ton of sense. I agree with you.

I think you should go over and readdress this. In all fairness to the school bus drivers, once the buses start leaving, everybody shuts down them. It's like they did in Jefferson. People that are 20 and old enough in this room that, and the high school was over there on Jefferson. Once they started going across Jefferson Street, nobody drove on Jefferson. The buses went in and right on up to Broadway. One right after the other is Martin Park. They do the same thing coming out of Discovery. That doesn't mean they're necessarily watching traffic, but traffic has to see them and stop with them. So it's not... It's not proper traffic control by a dam site. It's just what needs to be done.

I don't know. It's not easy. When I read this, I wasn't excited. We sat in there and went over this all with them. They asked us, we gave them ideas and nothing happened. Others create more of a problem, I think.

I don't, we can't, they don't want to come up with a solution. It's not easy, I think. I would really like you to do that before. Like I said, I do a lot of whining, but I live there and I get to witness this every day a couple, three times.

So what I'm hearing from the board, you want me and Jake to study this a little bit better? Should I be bringing this to you January? Is that too late?

Well, their school year's coming. I don't know when they want to try and do it, but how do you go look at it until school starts? They were wanting this, I know, before school started.

I know they want to answer it, but you're going to have the sidewalk.

What is that going to create? I don't know if that's going to create anything. It might, unless all the kids walk down and they pick them up at Henry's, like I said.

Yeah, but then you got- They're not going to move.

No, that's not good.

I mean, that's why we have other issues because with the sidewalk, how are the residents going to take it? They're going to get a lot more going on in their area, right?

So what I'm writing down, study this, see if we can come up with a better option for them and present it to, should we put them with the LGCC? You've got to see what they've got going on. You can bring it to us too, but you should write down what they're planning.

They got to have one. It started in August, the end of the month.

So they got to have a traffic plan.

So just one question. What if you put the no parking there, but turned it into a right turn lane? There isn't going to be a cop within a mile and a half. But I mean, with the no parking, if you turn it into a right turn lane, they're going to go, you can't play or stay away.

The other thing you could do is put no parking by boat I think that's the start. I don't have an issue with that. That's the start. But I don't think you need to do the whole thing because you're going to have, I don't know if the cars are going to sit on the road then. They're going to block stop traffic. Because I want to make a right-hand turn, like you said, into the school, and I can't get in because they are backed up onto the road.

And they don't leave no space up the approaches.

I live with that.

Mr. Chair, go ahead. Also, I'd like to make a comment. I think that the move-up transportation paying for that transportation. And I guarantee you that the school buses are almost empty. And we know that today. We talked about that 15 years ago when we were planning a new high school. Even if we should get rid of our school buses, what do you need? A parking lot that holds 2,000 cars and school buses. You know. Get the 90 and 72 passenger buses with 8 to 10 kids on them. As the state says, we'll provide. So the motion is out there.

If it doesn't get a second, it's going to die.

He made a motion. I made a motion. Parking, as I said. There's only parking, you mean? Who wants to do that? You said the school.

The school and the city. The city's already done. They have both passed their resolutions there. But it's up to you to hear that. It's up to the county board. It's up to the county's right.

What he's saying is Jeff made a motion. I said if we don't get a second, it's going to die anyway. I'll second. Just so we can close.

Oh.

I can always be a leader. My name, please? Schmidt. No. Kalina. No. Rapp. No. Wade.

No.

Yes.

No.

So, sorry, you didn't, you didn't.

No, no, no, no, no, no. So question to the board, because we talked about maybe doing something at each of these approaches. Is that what you want your motion to be? Should we take care of like 25 feet, paint the curb back and make that no market? With your recommendation. On what do you think? I think that,

Can you say it again?

So what we would end up doing at each of those entrances coming into the main parking lot, we would paint probably 20 to 25 feet of the curb. We'll look at each of them, exactly what that is. So we'll make no parking as you're entering and exiting the main parking lot, so you can actually see what's going on. We would paint that yellow. There would also have to be one sign up on either post.

So I think that's good. I do think that you should look into taking that road west

That came up when we talked about it. Yeah, that's why I was surprised they didn't do anything. They actually got a trail there. They just built it up a little bit.

We'll look at more options for the school. Charlie, make a motion. I'll second.

Any further discussion on this? Renee, please.

Kalina.

Yes.

Rapp.

Yes.

Wade. Yes. Meyer? Yes. Schmidt?

Yes.

Olsen? Yes.

All right, I got direction. Next item that we have is a resolution to accept a park donation. So the Big Olney Bike Club donated a mower for the trails for us. Brad was going to be on his way to explain that. He's here. He didn't make it? Wonderful. You were hiding back there on me. He came in quiet. He stayed away from me because I don't sound like I had a leg.

Yeah, so... But, yeah, the Big Ole Bike Club, they were looking for a mower to help with the spin trimming on the mountain bike trails. And I told them, we'd be all for it, but that's not something the county's going to purchase. And they ended up writing a grant and getting one. They donated it to us to maintain, and then we mow. And we've been using it. We've been using it this summer. It's been fantastic. And we can run. It's all-terrain, zero-click tracks. And you can go on 30-degree slopes. And we run it right down the center, although we centered the mountain bike trail and run the tracks on each side of it. And so we can mow about a foot and a half on each side. It's just one pass around instead of walking up and then coming back down the trail to spin from each side. So it's been a game saver. We're actually, because of that, we've got the entire race course for the high school mountain bike race in September. It's already been repacked with clay this summer because we've had time because our mowing's been cut and We mow about once every two weeks where we're having somebody spin trim almost daily to try to keep those open for a high school race that's coming this fall. So it's helped a lot with the maintenance.

We've been trying it out.

It's obviously working. So we're looking for the approval of potentially accept it. Sounds great. Make a motion to approve resolution 2662. Yep. Part donation. I'll second. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Charlie. Thanks for the discussion. Nate, please.

Helena.

Yes.

Brad.

Yes.

Wade.

Yes.

Meyer.

Yes.

Schmidt.

Yes.

Awesome.

Terry. Brad. Thank you. The last item that I have is to approve our engineering contract to do our bridge safety inspections. We've had MSA, they've been doing our bridge safety inspections for the last couple of years. They've done actually a really good job with that for us. 22 bridges, I believe, are on here for this year. That includes the initial inspection of our Chippewa Park bridge that we did last fall. This is kind of our standards. It's the federal requirements. The one thing that I am looking for, one thing that we have to include. So, As of 2024, the feds are actually requiring extra culvert data and bridge data. So different items that we typically didn't have in our bridge inspections. So that includes, this 21,000 includes time for putting those in. So when you look into the attachment A, page three of that, items three, item four, that mentions those SNBI culvert data collections standards for national bridge inventory, it's all city stands for, what they're going to get that extra data. So that includes the time for doing all that for us that we commit those federal requirements as well. One other thing I was going to point out under a state timber haulers permit. So the state's been collecting all this money for years. They didn't know what to do with it. They've been given it back to the counties. So we'll have another $6,000 to apply towards that 21,000. So our cost will be less. And how often do they have to inspect the bridges? So it's going to depend on the structure itself. Some of them are at 12-month frequencies. So I think we have four, no, I think we have two of them that are every year. That should be on your list back there. Oh, yes.

The ones that are in poor condition, they've got to come in.

Yep, they've got to come in every year. Most of your structures that are actual bridges are going to be on a 24-month frequency. They're still pretty decent. We have, in Douglas County, 61 structures. And then your culverts, when they're in actually pretty good condition, we can get those on a four-year frequency. So we do. Every fall. So the state of Minnesota, any structure or group of structures that spans 10 feet or more is a bridge. And that's what ends up on our bridge inspection list. Tell me how many thousand culverts we have. No, no. So you're thinking culverts like the smaller. That's anything that's bigger that spans 10 feet or more.

Oh. Wide.

Wide. Wide. Okay. Not length. Yeah, that would have been quite a bit more than 60 feet. He's about the only guy.

Correct. So we got to check all the ones on the Central Lakes Trail.

So we would check the ones, it depends on what road goes over it. Those are the ones that we check. And so we are also the bridge inspectors for the townships. So a lot of those township roads are going to cross the mural itself. Yep.

All right, thank you.

We need action on that.

Correct.

I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second it. Any further discussion?

Monique, please.

Rapp.

Yes.

Wade.

Yes.

Byer.

Yes.

Smith. Yes. Salina.

Yes.

Motion carried.

Thank you very much. We'll take five minutes.