Board Meeting Information & Materials - Regular Meeting

Good morning. Welcome to the Bloor County Board of Commissioners meeting of July 28th, 2026. We start our meeting with the pledge, so those of you that can, please stand and join us. Thank you. All right, we'll start out with the agenda review.

Madam Chair, there are no changes to the agenda. Thank you.

Move to approve. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. So we're going to have a hearing on Ditch 59, County Ditch 59. Good morning, Jordan.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

So good morning and welcome to the final hearing for the redetermination of benefits for County Ditch 59. First item is an agenda review. When you're ready. All right.

No changes to the agenda, Madam Chair.

Thank you. I need a motion.

Move the review.

Second.

I need discussion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carries. Okay, the purpose of today's hearing is to listen to the viewer's report and receive comments from all parties interested in the redetermination of benefits for the County Judge 59. The order of business for this hearing is as follows. Staff will review the jurisdictional documents, we will hear from the appointed viewers, and then we will open the hearing to the public for comments. I will ask Blue Ridge County drainage staff, Jordan Wilson, to review the jurisdictional documents.

All right. Landowner informational meeting was held on June 15, 2026. Hearing notices mailed out on July 2, 2026. Notice was posted for this hearing outside the Blue Earth County Historic Courthouse located at 204 South 5th Street, Mankato, Minnesota. Notice of public hearing was also published in the Mankato Free Press for three consecutive weeks, including dates July 9, 16, and 23, 2026. And I have a brief memo here. Some background, the Blue Earth County Ditch 59 watershed is approximately 2,300 acres in size and located in Seresco and Vernon Center townships. On December 17, 2024, the Blue Earth County Drainage Authority approved a findings in order initiating a redetermination of benefits for County Ditch 59. Viewers were appointed in order to create an updated benefits and damages listing and viewers report. A copy of the draft viewers report for the redetermination of benefits was submitted to Blue Earth County Drainage Management staff on May 1, 2026. An informational landowner meeting was held on June 15, 2026 to discuss the draft viewer's report and property owner's report. On June 23rd, 2026, the Trainers Authority approved setting a final hearing date for the redetermination of benefits for County Ditch 59 for July 28th, 2026. We request approval of the drafted or subsequently amended findings in order, approving the Beaver's Report, including the updated benefits and damages for County Ditch 59. That's all I have, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Jordan. I'll move the jurisdictional documents. Second. A motion and a second. All in favor? Discussion, any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carries. All right, we'll have the Ditch viewer report.

Good morning. Good morning.

My name is Wes Dahl. I'm one of the viewers that worked on this process, along with Mark Behrens. We're from down in Freeborn County, and we worked on County Ditch 59. We're members of the Minnesota Viewers Association. There's four or five trainings a year you can go to to become accredited. So there's about three or four other groups throughout the state that do this viewing. So whether it's our group or another group, the process would be similar. Within the viewing process, we look at five main items to determine your benefits. One, the number of acres you have, two, your soil type, three, your location rate, how far you physically are from the open ditch or county tile, whether or not you have county tile on your property, and then the efficiency of the system. Those five items come together to determine a benefit value. With the benefit value, we add everybody's benefit value up, divide yours out, and get your percent of total benefits. When there's repair or maintenance on the system, obviously the whole bill has to be paid, and you pay your percent of the total bill. Like they said, we had a meeting with the landowners to explain the process, answer any questions. All of our contact information was sent out to the landowners. We welcome any comments to address any concerns, something unique about their parcel or property. We build a book on each system, and it's the landowner's information. We're more than happy to share that information with landowners. If we are sharing any private tile maps, we do not share private tile maps. Those are individuals' property, but we will show how we broke out their parcel or their neighbor's parcel. Like I said, we have kind of a standard way we break everything out, and we will adjust numbers up or down based on any information we learn from the landowners. County Ditch 59 was established in 1920. It has not been redetermined since it was established. There are a total of 2,358 acres in the system, and it consists of county tile and no county open ditch. There is 45,610 feet of county tile on the system, And we arrived at a benefit amount of $2,737,000 worth of benefits in the County Ditch 59. There is a large repair being considered on the system, but we're looking at just the great determination of benefits to get a baseline. And so we use the estimated assessment of $5,000 for a starting point. That's all I have, and I will answer any questions if you have them.

Thank you. No questions? At this time, we'll open the public comment portion of the hearing. If you'd like to make a comment, please come to the podium, state your name and address for the record. Comments from the public are expected to be civil and respectful. Please note the meeting is being recorded. There's a five minute time limit and the county administrator will give you a one minute warning and let you know when you've used the allotted time. In addition, the board may restrict or limit the time allotted to a person whose remarks are repetitive or not relevant to the matter under consideration by the board. Anyone wishing to make comments? All right.

I'm real green at this. I don't know what I'm really going to say. That's okay.

If you could just introduce yourself, please, your name and your address.

My name is Sandra Radloff. My address is New Ulm. I'm from New Ulm, but I have land. The culvert that they want to repair or replace, one or the other, is on my land. And my understanding is that they probably, no matter, my bill will be between $90,000 maybe and $126,000 without moving a piece of dirt on my land that they're going to work on a different branch. We're in our 80s, and I don't know how we're going to pay for this. I'm all for improvement, but I don't know how you would pay for this. And I'm not the only one. I think there's about 30 families involved in this, and nobody wants to do the petition because of all the finality that goes with it, the bonding and all that, what can happen afterwards if it doesn't, whatever. So I'm just here to say that I'm upset, I'm stressed. We're in our 80s. I don't have a clue how we're going to handle this. It's a lot of money. And everybody's afraid to say something. So I just want to let you know that I finally decided we have to give up our, which is a sob story for me, but my nursing home insurance of 29 years I've paid for, I'd have to have the money from that, and my farm insurance would have to go to have some money to pay on this every year, I guess. I mean, we're... My husband's almost 90 and has health conditions. I don't know how we handle these things. So that's my comment. I'm disappointed that this has to be. I would like to see it not happen. 82 years and we always had a crop. We had four inches of rain 10 days ago and there wasn't a puddle left. So I just think we should leave it alone. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Anyone else wishing to make comment for the County Ditch 59 Redetermination of Benefits Final Hearing? Last time, for anyone wishing to make comments for the County Ditch 59 Redetermination of Benefits Final Hearing. Hearing no further comments, I will close the public comment portion of the hearing. Approval of viewers report for the redetermination of benefits. Are there any questions or comments from the board? Is there a motion and a second to accept?

I guess a comment, I think one thing we need to remember is this is the ROV portion of it. So this is really, and Les could probably speak to this better than I, as a viewer, but this is the public comment period on did they get the percentages right of no matter what it is, an improvement or a repair. So this is kind of your piece of the pie. We don't know, according to this, the pie was what, $5,000 pie. As we looked at two repair options and at least what, three or four repair options, Um, we know that that pie is going to be much bigger than that, and that's the concern, but that will be a, probably a big enough pie to where there'll be meetings on that. There'll be hearings on that. There'll be, if it's anything like any one of the other 107 ditch systems, um, there'll be multiple landowner meetings and, and, and finessing to kind of get what everybody can agree on. So, and that all has to be coming through a hearings and. in process like this. So today what we're doing is we're just looking at is your percentage assessment right? And making sure, and we've talked before, Commissioner Brender, you know, the landowner meetings are so helpful, making sure we know who's got land tiled in or tiled out of the watershed and things like that. So, you know, kind of to Sandy's point, There'll be a lot of other discussions on what we're going to do repair, you're going to do repair or improvement, and what type of thing down the road. This is really only accepting the viewer's report. Did I get that right, Wes? Correct.

Thank you for that. So I need a motion?

So moved.

Okay, and a second? Second. Any more discussion? Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? This motion carries. This will conclude the County Ditch 59 Redetermination of Benefits hearing. All right. We'll move on to County Ditch 77. We will now move into the County Ditch 77 final hearing involving the petition for removal of property under Minnesota Statute 103E.805, the first item is agenda review.

Madam Chair, there are no changes to the agenda. I'll move the agenda.

Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? I'm curious. So the purpose of today's hearing is to receive comments from all parties interested in the petition for removal of property under Minnesota Statute 103E.805. The order of business for this hearing is as follows. Staff will review the jurisdictional documents. We will hear from the appointed viewer and appointed engineer. And then we will open for the public comment. So I'll ask Bloomer County Drainage Staff Jordan Wilson to review the jurisdictional documents.

Thank you. Landowner informational meeting was held on June 25th, 2026. Hearing notices mailed out July 28th, 2026. Notice was posted for the hearing outside the Blue Earth County Historic Courthouse located at 204 South 5th Street, Mankato, Minnesota. Notice of public hearing was also published in the Mankato Free Press for three consecutive weeks, including dates July 9th, 16th, and 23rd, 2026. And I just have a short memo here to read. The County Ditch 77 watershed has approximately 3,491 benefited acres and is located in McPherson Township. A petition for removal was received by the property environmental resources drainage management staff on February 11th, 2025. On April 8, 2025, the Blue Earth County Drainage Authority for County Ditch 77, by findings in order, appointed a viewer and an engineer to aid in the petition and give their respective reports. A copy of the draft viewers' and engineers' reports for the petition for removal were submitted to Blue Earth County Drainage Management staff on March 9, 2026. On June 23, 2026, the County Ditch 77 Drainage Authority set a date, time, and location for today's hearing. We request the County Ditch 77 Drainage Authority approve the draft findings in order for the petition for removal of property under Minnesota Statute 103E.805 affecting portions of County Ditch 77. That's all I have, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Jordan.

I'll move the jurisdiction. Oh, I'm sorry.

Second.

No, that's good. Okay, motion and a second. Any discussion? Motion carries. All in favor? Aye.

Thank you.

Opposed? Motion carries. Now we will have the appointed viewer for this ditch to come forward. Is that Wes or is it going to be Mark? Mark today.

Mark for this one.

Mark for this one.

Morning, Mark.

Morning, Mark.

Turn this a little bit, please. I'm Mark Behrens. I'm the viewer that worked on this petition. You heard Wes talk about the viewing process, how we go about our work. A little info on this County Ditch 77. It was established in 1948, was redetermined in 2000, not by our group, but a different group, but the process is similar on how all the redeterminations work. It's got county open ditch and county tile. There's about 2.9 miles of open ditch. nine point three miles of county tile on this system there's uh... according to the benefit list there's thirty three hundred acres within this system all of this information was handed out and some of it was handed out here also on this petition I'll pronounce this wrong. The Gensel property is petitioning out of County Ditch 77. Not all of their property, but some of their property. They've got 131 acres within this system that has benefits to 77. There's 44 acres that are petitioning out. They went into a permanent government program, and I believe Jacob will talk about that. But there's ponds that are on that property, but in a big rain event, some of their water on that 44 acres still gets into County Ditch 77. So those 48 acres, we do not remove them from the benefit list, but we reduce them by 95%. So they will still pay toward any repair and maintenance on that system, but at a much reduced rate on those 44 acres. So previously, the Gensel property had 78,000 worth of benefits on the parcel. And after the reduction, their property will have $45,000 worth of benefits. So they will pay less on any repair and maintenance. All the other properties on County Ditch 77 will pay just a tad more. So it's fair, they're still using the system, but they're still helping pay toward it. A lot of info there, but I'm happy to answer any questions anyone might have. And Jacob will talk more about the process of the engineering portion of it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jacob, engineer's report. At this time, we'll have you come up.

Sounds good. Thank you very much. My name is Jacob Mueller. I'm with ISG working on this project alongside Adam Stenzel. Like Mark has said, I'm going to present some of the engineering findings related to this petition for removal and specifically in relation to the Gensel property and wetland bank that was established. So a little bit of what we're gonna talk about is Minnesota Statute 103E.805, a bit of overall watershed information history, the pre-project conditions being those conditions prior to 2024 before the bank was established, and after 2024 when it had been, a little bit of the findings on our analysis, and then finally our conclusions. So a little bit on Minnesota Statute 103E.805, specifically the portion of statute related to removing property from a drainage system. Three criteria kind of come up into play at the final hearing. The first being that the waters from the petitioner's property have been diverted from the drainage system or that the property cannot significantly or regularly use the drainage system. Two, that the property is not benefited by the drainage system. And three, that removing the property from the drainage system will not prejudice the property owners and property remaining in the system. Basically, these would be the criteria that would need to be met for full removal of property from a system. With that, we can look at a bit of existing conditions and capacities. So again, CD77's in McPherson Township, a little over 3,300 acres. It's a very flat system with heavy clay soils. Again, very similar to a lot of the systems in Blue River County, requiring drainage to retain a farmable condition. The system was constructed just before 1950. As Mark said, there was a lot of open ditch dug and a large extent of public tile that was installed. Specific to the Gensel Wetland Bank that we're gonna be talking about, that 44 acre parcel, that was construction finalized in April of 2024. And that drains a total of approximately an 820 acre watershed, all within the CD77 system. So a pretty significant portion, nearly 20%, around 20% of the CD77 system drains through the Gensel Wetland Bank. Here's an existing watershed map. There's a dash black line around the boundary of the public system. That is the CD 77 watershed. The purple boundary is what drains to the Gensel wetland bank. As you can see, this drains the main tile, branch three, branch six, et cetera. So there's a lot of public tile that come and drain into this wetland bank. The only public infrastructure which drains through this wetland bank is the main tile and it outlets into the main open ditch. There was portions of the main tile or main open ditch which were abandoned as portion of this or infrastructure which was abandoned to facilitate this bank. Looking at the existing elevation map, this is a digital elevation map. The light colors are low elevations, being those kind of green and cyan colors, and the white and red are the high elevations. The watershed for the Gensel Wetland Bank is one of the steepest in the CD77 watershed. This allowed the daylighting of tiles into the bank, such as the mainline tile and other private tiles. So essentially there's public infrastructure which drains into this bank and then subsequently outlets from it. Here's a bit more of a zoomed in view. These are plans that were developed as portion of the bank process. You can see the outline of the bank is in dark black. You can see portions where the ditch was filled. and other earthwork. The green dashes are tile breaks or blocks. This was required as portion of the project to disable drainage on the immediate site. So they've stopped utilizing subsurface drainage on the actual portion of the property. A bit on the petition. So there's the parcel information. We're in Section 28 of McPherson Township. It's the Gensel, Jonathan T. property. In total, it's a little over 131 acres, and the petition is specific to the 44 acres that are the wetland bank. A little bit of information on a wetland bank. This is a perpetual sort of easement. This is done for profit. So agricultural land is reverted back to a natural condition and then credits are generated from that and those are sold to developers that are subsequently going to use those to disturb another wetland. So this is essentially a perpetual land use change into a native condition. Some of the photos from the project site, you can see here, this is the upstream side where the mainline tile dumps into the wetland bank. So there's public infrastructure coming into the bank. On the downstream side, this is the weir, which controls the water level in the bank. This keeps it at a constant maintained water level, which is required through the wetland banking process to produce these native conditions. This goes directly into the main open ditch. So it is utilizing the main open ditch as an outlet. Here's some pre- and post-project conditions. Two models were run to analyze the impacts of this essential petition. These models were actually run as a portion of the banking process to see what the impact of the public system would be at the time. So the picture you see on the left is the pre-project condition. The picture on the right where everything is flooded is the post-project condition. So what we found from this hydraulic analysis is that the Gensel Wetland Bank does reduce peak flow rates quite significantly on more standard storm events. On a two year event, it will reduce 80% of the peak flow rate that the public system experiences from this watershed. So it provides a very significant amount of storage, which is definitely a benefit to the CD77 system. We've heard in previous landowner meetings that in certain segments of the open ditch, it's very prone to flooding, burdening landowners downstream. So this large increase in storage and reduction in peak flow rates is certainly a benefit to the public system. With that said, it still does discharge to the CD77 system in every modeled storm event, so it is utilizing it for an outlet. It will perpetually contribute flow, so it's not entirely offline from the CD77 system. In addition, what we talked about earlier, it does still function as an outlet for upstream public tile, so it's kind of a throughway for the public system. So looking at all this together, those three points we kind of talked about initially, we kind of have answers to those now. So first, the waters from the petitioner's property are not entirely diverted from the CD77 drainage system as the petition property discharges into the CD77 mainline open ditch through the weir. Two, the petition property continues to be benefited by the drainage system as the property utilizes the main open ditch to discharge hydrology as the weir overtops. Third, removing the petition properties would separate the CD77 public tile, the mainline tile, from the downstream open ditch. Ultimately, if it were moved, it would not need to rely on the public system. Without reliance on the public system, the properties maintained water levels would expand and expand and expand, kind of diverting from the original goals of the bank and potentially impacting neighboring properties. For these reasons, and based on Minnesota Statute 103E.805, the engineer believes that the petition 44 acres of the property should not be entirely removed from the CD77 drainage system, but agrees with the viewer's report that it does provide a benefit to the CD77 system, and it makes sense that it would see a reduced benefit. It's no longer farmed. It's not seeing the same type of benefit that it would have previously as that benefit was looking at a farm condition. Now it's just as an outlet to maintain the water. All in all, that kind of summarizes the engineer's findings. Happy to take any questions if you guys have them. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I have a clarifying question and it's not really a question. Would you go back to the weird photo of was in quite a ways. Over here. Nope, that one, that one. So it makes perfect sense when you think about it and you see it, but a lot of people don't see it right away. But everybody worries about what happens when the water backs up. How does it affect me and the neighbors? But if you don't really look at it, you don't notice. So just help us explain. I mean, if the water gets so high, it kind of comes out over the middle part there. So it's a controlled release. And then if it gets higher yet, then we've got another piece where it comes over and do that. I mean, I think a lot of people, unless you've seen one or watched one, don't necessarily understand that that's engineered in. Would you just talk about that a minute?

For sure. Yeah, I can explain the hydraulics of it a little bit. So if we think about the previous condition a little bit, it's just a cut channel, right? It's an open ditch. As water comes, it'll take it as fast as it possibly can. There's really no control mechanism. In this case, we've got about a six foot wide shelf. This is what we call a variable press weir. We use them a lot to very minutely control water levels and discharge rate. We've got this six foot shelf that's only about six feet tall at the bottom of that weir. At the top of it, it's probably only allowing about three cubic feet per second. So as that water level raises, it's proportionally only letting out about very little bit of water, yet storing a very large amount of water. When it gets above that secondary shelf, all of a sudden the shelf is now about 20 feet wide. and the discharge can go much higher. Basically it's controlling it at very specific elevations to generate storage as well as not overburdening the ditch system. So when we control water like this, we kind of saw it in the modeling results, we're seeing an 80% reduction in peak flow rates on like a two year bank. This creates much less load on the downstream system, utilizes the bank area to hold all of that water back, and essentially just kind of create this positive dynamic for both parties where the well and bank gets its desired hydrology and stores some sediment for the ditch system, reducing future maintenance, and downstream the public system is seeing much less flooding that would just race through that open ditch previously on its way to Rice Lake. So that's a bit of how the weir works, what the design goals are. Again, it's pretty common practice just to kind of really control water at different elevations and flow that rate down. Does that work?

Thank you. Thank you. Good question. So at this time, we'll open the public comment portion of the hearing. As stated before, if you'd like to make a comment, please come to the podium, state your name and address for the record. Comments from the public are expected to be civil and respectful. Is there anyone wishing to make comments today for today's hearing on County Ditch 77 petition for removal of property? Anyone wishing to give comment for the County Ditch 77 petition for removal of property? Not looking like it. Last time, anyone wishing to make comments for the County Ditch 77 petition for removal of property's final hearing? Hearing no further comments, I will close the public comment portion of the hearing. Approval of draft findings and order granting partial removal of benefits from County Dish 77 for Petitioner. Are there any questions or comments from the board?

I don't have any questions. I'll remove approval.

Okay. We'll have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And that concludes the County Ditch 77 petition for renewal of property final hearing. So now we're moving on to County Ditch 53.

56.

And I just bragged that my eyes were working better. Go ahead.

All right. Thank you, madam chair. Bloor County ditch 56 is located in garden city and Lincoln townships. Bloor County drainage authority approved public bids for CD 56 branch three repairs, awarding the repair contract to Sally excavating on May 27th of 2025 drainage management staff receive an engineer's acceptance of contract report for the county ditch 56 branch three repairs on July 9th of 2026. All contractual work has been completed by the contractor and now is the appropriate time to schedule a hearing for the acceptance of contract. Today we are respectfully asking the County Ditch 56 Strange Authority set the contract acceptance hearing date for August 25th, 2026 at 9 a.m. in the Blue Earth County Board of Commissioners room located on the second floor of the historic courthouse building.

So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carries. To the next.

Next one is County Ditch 73. Blue Earth County Ditch 73 is located in Lyra Township. Blue Earth County Drainage Authority approved a quote for repairs awarding the repair contract to Leland Excavating and Drainage on September 9th of 2025. Property Environmental Resources Department Drainage Management staff received the engineer's acceptance of contract report for the approved County Ditch 73 repairs on July 9th of 2026. All contractual work has been completed by the contractor and now is the appropriate time to schedule the hearing for the acceptance of contract. We respectfully ask the County Ditch 73 Drainage Authority set the contract acceptance hearing for August 25th of 2026 at 9 a.m. in the Blue Earth County Board of Commissioners room located in the second floor of the historic courthouse building. That's all I have, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

I'll move approval.

Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We're on to Ditch 97.

The Blue Earth County Ditch 97 watershed is approximately 2,600 acres in size, located in Lyra Township. A petition to outlet additional acres into CD 97 has been received by drainage management staff. Drainage Authority Attorney Kale R. Van Bruggen of Rinking Union reviewed the petition and found it to be adequate for these proceedings under Minnesota Statute 103E.401. Today we request that the Drainage Authority appoint Engineer Charles J. Brandel of ISG to review the documents provided in the petition and prepare an opinion letter in accordance with Minnesota Statute 103E. We also request appointing Viewer Mark Behrens to make recommendations for an outlet fee and benefits for additional acres petitioned for County Dish 97. That's all I have, Madam Chair. Thank you. I'll move approval.

Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And that ends our drainage section of our meeting. Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you, guys. Thank you, Jacob, Mark, Wes, for your help.

All right. Flip the room a little bit here. There we go. Everybody ready? All right, we'll move on to planning and zoning.

Good morning, P&V staff. Good morning.

Ladies and gentlemen, there.

I'd be picking on John, really.

Well, if somebody has to. All right, so the next item on the agenda is planning and zoning. Planning and zoning staff are here to present their action items. This is a public hearing, and public comment will be allowed in just a moment. As previously stated, comments should be civil and respectful. If you haven't already done so, please sign in on the clipboard at the back of the room. So I'll have you guys, Planning and Zoning staff, introduce yourselves for the record and introduce the first item.

John Conceling, County Zoning Administrator.

Jenny Mochel-Johnson, Planning and Zoning staff.

Scott Salisbury, Land Use Planner.

Thank you. All right, the first item is PC 12-26. It would be for Jason and Shannon Beal. It is a request for review and approval of an interim use permit to operate a short-term rental. The property is zoned conservation and is located in the Shoreland District of Lewin Lake. The property consists of lots three and four, Howard Shore addition, section three, Garden City Township. That would be Township 107 North, Range 28 West, and the property address is 52084, 190th Lane, Lake Crystal, Minnesota. Um, we did have this item on the July 1st planning commission meeting in which staff presented the staff report and submitted comments. We did receive one comment from an adjacent neighbor. The applicant was present and confirmed the information on the staff report and there were no comments received from the public at that meeting. So following discussion, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to forward a recommendation of approval to the County Board based on findings and conditions prepared by staff. So we are requesting right now Board action of passage of the resolution based on the recommendations of the Planning Commission. Are there any questions for staff?

So at this time, we'll open the public comment portion of the hearing. If you would like to make a comment regarding PC 12-26, please come to the podium and state your name and address for the record. Anyone wishing to speak to PC 12-26? Anyone wishing to make comment?

Okay, come on up. Okay, last time.

Anyone wishing to make comment on 12-26? We will close the public comment portion of the hearing. Are there any comments from the board?

Nope, I would move approval.

Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion?

Is this basically a VRBO? Yes. Or an AirBnB? Thank you.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Go ahead with your next item.

All right, item two is Planning Commission 13-26. The applicant is Tony Marble and Kayla Forsythe. This is a request for an after-the-fact interim use permit for grading to allow for the cumulative movement of more than 500 cubic yards of material for a dirt-like practice area. The practice area is for personal use, not intended for the public. The site is located in the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter and the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 1, Rapidan Township. The property is zoned agriculture and the address is 56629 192nd Lane in Mankato. At the Planning Commission meeting, staff presented the staff report. The applicants were present and provided background information on the project the application history, their daughter's interest in dirt bike racing. Multiple members of the public provided comments in opposition of the project related to the time of day dirt bikes were allowed to operate, noise, location of pipeline, of the gas pipeline. The Planning Commission discussed the Permit history and other concerns were brought forward by members of the public. Following the discussion of the planning commission, they voted unanimously to forward a recommendation of approval to the county board based on the findings and conditions prepared by staff. So following that meeting, county planning and zoning staff met with the neighbors to review their concerns. As a result of the discussion, staff drafted an updated condition of approval for the board's consideration. So I have a few pieces of information here to provide as well. Within the packet, we do have a summary of those meetings. They're located on pages 45 to 47, just for your reference. The meetings were held on July 6th. And that was with adjacent neighbor, Ms. Jacobson. And then July 13 would be with Ms. Jacobson and Mr. and Mrs. Gerke. So the adjusted recommendation is a revised condition two. So the revised condition two adjusts language related to time of day. And it also clarifies the expectation for, you know, this is personal use, but clarifies the expectation for public use. So the revised condition states that the use of the practice area shall begin no earlier than 7 a.m. and cease by 8 p.m. Any public racing events or organized competitions including advertising or marketing races are prohibited. No spectator amenities such as bleachers, concessions would be permitted. So this is the revised condition two that was developed. We do have a few additional items to kind of hand out as well for reference points. The first one is an image. It gives an idea just from a visual standpoint of the radius to the adjacent houses. So those blue dots that you see are the main motocross jumping areas. There are a couple of smaller areas as well. We did not map them out because they are so small that essentially you wouldn't be revving an engine up or it wouldn't be making a lot of noise to do those really small jumps. So to give context, we have within 500 feet, we have zero houses. Within that 1,000 feet, we have one house, and then three houses are within 1,500 feet. there is one commercial property, so if you see an address but you don't see that dot, that would be because there isn't a dwelling located on that property. So for reference as well, just for a comparison, our mining standards for a crushing operation, so within a mine site, we thought this would be kind of an appropriate comparison for you guys to kind of reference. So within our mining standards, The setback is 500 feet for a crushing operation within a mine site, and then a stand-alone mining operation would be 1,000 feet, just to give you kind of a visual representation. So after the packet was put together, we did receive an additional objection, so we wanted to provide that out to you as well. So you have a copy of that. And on Monday, I believe, yesterday, we received just a few additional signatures. So these are a few of the names that are within the packet as writing letters of objection, but they also signed this document as well. So for your reference. that was given to us yesterday as well. And then in addition to those objection signatures, we did receive a document from Mr. for you to review as well. Obviously, I can't speak to it, but it was provided to us. So one of the items I wanted to kind of talk through a little bit before we open it up to the public is sound attenuation, so sound attenuation standards. So we wanted to kind of talk through within our memo that we drafted, which describes the meetings with adjacent landowners. We also talked a little bit about sound attenuation. So when we looked at this memo, The complaints that we received, we wanted to kind of walk through a little bit the review that we did tied into the sound standards. So within Minnesota, sound attenuation is measured by the NPCA. The MPCA has multiple responsibilities. So you're familiar with stormwater and a few of the other items. They're also responsible for administering the noise control. So that's tied in. Sound attenuation is tied into Statute 7030, and it also clearly defines the responsibilities and the methodologies for measuring sound attenuation. To assess the sound, staff used MPCA's Guide to Noise Control in Minnesota. It looks at acoustical properties, measurement and analysis and regulations. It served as our guidance document. So we reviewed the document along with sound level estimates provided by bike companies which outlined the required decibel levels for the bikes that they sell. So that was our starting point. We used a higher end estimate of potentially 90 decibels as a starting point. So that was our starting point. From there we estimated the distance attenuation based on the guidance document. which states that sound is measured based on distance within a period of time. So sound levels decrease by approximately three decibels for each doubling of distance. So from there, we got out the handy spreadsheet in the calculator and started calculating. So we have a conservative estimate or a high estimate of 55 decibels From the to the closest house. So it is our estimate that we would have the closest house would be potentially at 55 Decibels as a high estimate for sound and to give you an idea the required state standard is 65 decibels so We just wanted to walk through kind of those sound components as well to give you a few pieces of comparative analysis so with that Are there any questions for staff?

So that 55 decibels, that would be with one motorcycle?

So that would be, we're assuming that based on, I believe, the one motorcycle for their daughter.

Right.

Yeah.

Obviously, the more bikes, the lower it is. Yeah. Okay.

Anything else?

I can just add a point of clarification too for the board's consideration. We have our recommendation, and this is realistically just a summary of what Jenny said, but we've provided a lot of information here. So before the board here this morning, we have the recommendation from the Planning Commission that recommends approval as originally presented at the July Planning Commission meeting. With our meetings with the neighbors, we have an updated condition for the board's consideration, and that's included on the third page of the memo. Jenny kind of read that already into the record. So the board action would be deciding if they want to go with the Planning Commission recommendation, their own decision, or staff has brought forward this revised condition as well. staff's recommendation would be passage of the proposal of the project with the amended condition, condition number two. And I can read that again into the record just so the board has all the information. So the revised condition is use of the practice area shall begin no earlier than 7 a.m., cease at 8 p.m., any public racing events or organized competitions, including advertised or marketed races, are prohibited. No spectator amenities such as bleachers or concessions are permitted. That's realistically a rephrasing and a better clarification of what the condition was previously.

So are we ready for public comment?

Yes, just one quick question. So everything we got today handed out, which wasn't in the published packet, will also be into the record then? Correct.

And I do want to make sure I clarify as well to your question about sound attenuation. That's based on, think of an open field too. So obviously sound decreases with the more vegetation. Right. There's a lot of trees in this area. Yep. So it doesn't incorporate the concept of a wooded, vegetated area.

But we're talking about private use. We're not talking about using it as a racetrack or anything. Private use. Private use.

Okay. At this time, we're going to open the public comment portion of the hearing. If you would like to make a comment regarding PC 13-26, please come to the podium. State your name and address for the record. Is there anyone wishing to come to speak to PC 13-26? Yep.

good morning fred gropey 5604 192 lane Well, the first part, minute, may seem like I'm getting an Emmy Award. I'd like to thank the commissioners for listening and hopefully hearing our concerns with the fiasco going on across from us. And thank Commissioner Pat for actually coming out last night, putting eyes on the project. And I thank Jennifer Mochel-Johnson, John Considine, and their staff. Once they were made aware of this problem, they were out there promptly. As all of April, the bulldozer and four or five skid loaders were working early morning to late at night at times, 10 or 11 p.m. under large construction lights. According to Ms. Johnson, Tony did take out a building permit for a house, barn, and a pond. No mention of a dirt bike motocross track then. Well, as far as we can tell, there's been no work done on a house or a barn, but the motocross track is about done. It probably is done now. And that was top priority, evidently, and that was with no permit. And I wanted to thank Logan. He's a damaged person with Magellan Pipeline. He was made aware of this because every couple days a spotter plane comes over and checks the gas lines for leaks. And they asked him if he knew about that, and he said no, and so he got out there right away and had a heated argument with Tony, or discussion with Tony, and said he's still on my radar. And the Free Press ran an article last Saturday regarding, I don't know where he came up with it, this decibel reading on my bikes, 30 to 70 decibels, with the lower reading about as loud as a whisper. I don't think they idle that low. Because where we are, I mean there's not much trees between us and the track really, but we've got a lot of trees between us and County 16. Highway 22 and Blue Earth 90. We hear traffic on all of those, especially Semis Jake breaking down 90. But they're there and then they're gone. It's not something constant that we have to listen to. And at the Planning Commission meeting, it was very open-ended as to who would be using it. Tony left it as family and guests, which could mean from one to X amount. We don't know. Said his daughter is training for competition, working on turning professional. With that, she'll practice more with high revving of the engine and want other riders for her competition if she's going to improve at all. With that comes more noise and hours of operation. In closing, I would seriously hope you would not approve the motocross track or any other motorcycle related endeavors on either of the two parcels owned by Tony. And I would also like that the jumps being tracked can be completely leveled to the agricultural condition when purchased. And this would hopefully alleviate any temptation for future use of the track. Thank you for listening to our concerns. I'm not a big fan of after-the-fact interim use permits and stuff. It's just, okay, I know it's wrong, but if I get caught, I'll beg for forgiveness. So that's what we got here. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Fred.

Anyone else wishing to make comment on PC 13-26?

I'm sorry, I guess I didn't sign the list.

My name's Bonnie Jacobson. I live at 56605 192nd Lane. I have contacted all of you and expressed my concerns and talked with four of you. And thank you, Kevin, for coming out last night and listening to our concerns. What can I say to stop this track The noise that will come from the motor cross and the noise that will come from the motor cross bikes. I guess the only good thing I can say is that when I get up in the morning and look out my kitchen window, I see these hills, which will remind me of the sand hills in Nebraska, which is where I'm from, because that's what it looks like over there. The bike track is 686 feet or 0.13 miles from my home. I am the closest property to the bike track. Mr. Marble has already developed the track and is now asking for an after the fact interim use permit. So now he's requesting permission for something he's already done. I could quote all the distances and decibels, but you already have that information in Minnesota rule 7030.0040. I would also like to quote from page four of PC 13-26. dated July 1, 2026. Quote, it should be noted that Blue Ridge County staff are permitting the Marble Project as an IUP based on the thresholds for grading and earth movement, not specifically for personal practice area, for the personal practice area. Also a quote from PC 13-26, dated July 1, under findings section B, quote, the applicants have expressed that there is a need for a dirt bike practice area in the county. It doesn't sound like a personal practice area if there is a need for one in the county. I can see the track from my house and from my deck and will undoubtedly hear the noise, as will my neighbors. My husband and I moved to Mankato in 1989 and spent two years looking for a house in the country where it would be quiet. Now after 35 years, it's about to change. And I feel it's very disrespectful to force this dirt bike track on the residents living in this area. How are we to fight this? It's already built. Fred and Deb have lived there for 35 or 40 years, and Jeff Meyer has lived there for 50 years. I am politely requesting that the permit not be granted. Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak to PC 14-26?

Brady Dreyer, 821 Nicollet Avenue, North Mankato. I own the property immediately adjacent to the west, a small 10-acre parcel, which I bought in 1991 for hunting land and a possible future home site. This track is definitely going to screw up the hunting, and we'll devalue the parcel for a home site, in my opinion. Also, I am a builder. Every building permit I've ever filled out asks how much dirt will be moved. I don't know if this was the case here, but obviously the interim use permit is for moving more dirt than was applied for. So I would request that this tract be denied. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to make comment on PC 13-26?

My name is Deb Grolke. I live at 56604 192nd Lane. And first off, I'd like to thank Commissioner Papp for coming and visiting us last night and giving us information on the property. but I still would like to bring up my concerns because a dirt bike track in our neighborhood in which we've lived for over 35 years, purchased the property over 40, it's peaceful and quiet we hear birds singing a little bit of traffic on the 90 bypass and I know that the dirt bike track would change all that there's no doubt in my mind even at 60 or 55 decibels you hear that noise At the last Planning Commission meeting, Kayla even commented that they realized that nobody wants a dirt bike track in their backyard. And that's exactly right. We don't, but it's going to be in our front yard. The track they've built isn't an ordinary backyard dirt bike track. It's a huge... wide track that is made to look like a competition size huge track with several jumps and spaced properly to make it better for competition. She's training and riding for competition, like my husband and everyone has said. The noise will be louder than just riding around the neighborhood. She's going to be revving her engine to bring up her speed, building her endurance, and we're going to hear that noise continuously riding around the track. So I guess I'm hoping that you'll understand and understand I'm hoping that this will not be passed and our quiet enjoyment of the property will continue. So thank you for listening.

Thank you. Anyone else for PC 13-26?

Is it possible to see, I haven't seen some of this new information. It hasn't been given to me. Can I see who signed this? My name is Tony Marvel. My address is 336 Harrison Avenue, North Mankato. So we are the new property owners, and we have a 15-year-old daughter. We didn't bring our family this time, because the last one, our neighbors were To be not kind, to say the least, to the point I think where there's a sheriff here now. So I have a 15, we have a bunch of kids. We have a track athlete that's a multi-time state champion. Luca's a national champion four or five times. I'm sorry, this has been extremely stressful. This is for my daughter. She may have a friend or two that will come to help train with her. And training usually lasts, if she's riding her dirt bike, we're usually riding for 20 minutes. It's about the time frame that we want to optimize her ability and have her on the track. And then she'll break for maybe another 15 minutes to an hour. and then do another 20-minute session. And we'll generally do two to three of those sessions, 20-minute sessions. And then that's what we do. She's trained all over the country. During the winter, she goes other places and trains. So it's not even like a gravel pit or something that operates all day long. This is maybe four days a week and minimal time. And we will... Kayla and I are respectful, and we want to be respectful of our neighbors. And I think if you talk to the county that we've worked with, we were more than respectful. We're more than willing to work with the county and our neighbors. Our neighbors have not given that back to us, or not even an attempt to let us talk with them. We have a track at my family home in Rapidan Township as well that we built. And so this just kind of seemed like something that this has been a lifetime goal, you know, is to build up and to be able to do this for our family and build a cool house. And we haven't continued with the house until we get through this because this is kind of a nightmare process. And just... try and touch on a few of their concerns. So one thing is it's not an all day thing. It really needs to be known that this, you can't ride a motor cross bike at this level for that long. I would also note that I looked at our north neighbor who signed the petition has a far greater motorcycle infrastructure installed on their property. I mean, way more than we do. So right to the north, our immediate neighbor has giant you know they have a hundred and some acres all carved out with motorcycle trails so this is a and we have another neighbor that had four wheelers out plan this this is and and motorcycles are inherently dangerous it's not something that you want to invite a bunch of people that you don't know out and risk your property Blue Earth County has been great to work with as long as Rapid Ant Township, so I'm sure their recommendation, I think we've done what they've asked, and thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Excuse me. Thanks a lot. Stand up, please.

small chairs with our arms. I understand.

My name is Jeffrey Meyer. I live at 56618 1 East 92nd Lane next to Jerry, the owner of Webb Construction, who just recently built on his land. I've lived there for between 48 and 50 years. I actually can't remember when I first moved in and rented it. I've enjoyed my neighbors. I mean, I used to live out there and be able to walk around naked. There was no one came in. Postman drove up to my front door or walkway, dropped the mail in. It's all changed. But I've had wonderful neighbors. I have no problem with Tony and his family building. I actually think the racetrack is pretty cool for his kids. But I'm concerned about... I think there was another proposal for a Fairmont area for a racetrack. I thought I saw that on the thing. Anyway, I had friends that raced for many years, their children, and I know the amount of training and work it takes, but I find it hard to believe that they won't invite a few friends out for competition racing to get her into speed. That's my concern. So I would say if there is desire to have their friends out, it'd be a limited number at a limited times and not something that they could just have at a little party or let's have a race competition. That's my concern because that would increase the traffic tremendously. But as far as their use of the property, I don't have a whole lot of disdain for it. I find it a little hard to believe though that they didn't come to the Planning Commission before they built this and now it's all conditional use or interim use. I think that that would have been a better way to go about it if they're concerned about our personal status of the situation and if they were concerned about It was no problem. Why didn't they come ahead of time? So that's my few words on it. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak to PC 13-26? We will close the public comment portion of the hearing. Any other comments from the board?

I've got a couple of clarifying questions, Madam Chair. First, for staff, when it was brought up about building permits and on that, and as I understand it, this, they applied for and received a building permit before work began, whether it be the house or whatever. Do we ask on the county, on our building permit, about dirt removal? Or is that city, if that was referencing city?

We do not have a question on our pre-application checklist for dirt movement. We have a section on the checklist that asks people to describe the project in general terms. Most of the construction checklist is focused on structures.

Okay. And today's work is for an interim use permit for the moving of dirt. Correct. And things like that. where we have an ordinance if it's over 500 cubic yards or greater than one acre, which would be in this case. I did have on my bingo card, Madam Chair, we'd have two motocross tracks in one meeting back to back. But the next one is kind of the same but it's different because that's in a shoreline area, correct? And where there it's a 50 cubic yard and things like that as we look at that. But the intermuse permit Here we're looking more for natural resources, environmental things, making sure they conform with the land use plan, whether it's flood plain, shore land, water quality, quantity, erosion and things like that. And then which also triggers the septic, the well, wetland reviews and things like that. So this permit is really more, I would say, natural resources and environment based. county land use plan. It's been clear in here that this is for personal use and not intended for the public, because if it was intended for the public, then a conditional use permit would be also required, which is own set of standards or conditions, that's a conditional use, conditions in another separate process. So this is clearly with that. My second question is, Seems like noise is one of the biggest concerns, and I don't know a lot about dirt bikes, but I do have two boys, and I know that my youngest has the same pickup as he had when he was 18, but it sounds a whole lot different today as a father of two at 35 than it did, in fact, I think the 18-year-old The sticker, bumper sticker was loud pipes save lives. If we have some noise concerns, even with personal use type thing, and again, I don't know a lot about dirt bikes, as far as are there some things we can do for that? I mean, I think quite frankly, those of us in the county are well versed on berms and noise and stuff with our public works, whether it's noise, lights, dust, things like that. What do we have down the road if we do see higher decibels or, and I don't know, is there things that they can do as a practice to help make the bikes quieter, whether it's engineering, but are there other things, vegetation makes a big difference, things like that, if we get into noise complaints?

I can help address this. Jane, do you want to go first?

Yeah, and then you can fill in any piece I'm missing. So we did previously, not for this project, but for a different project, we did reach out to MPCA and they did volunteer their testing equipment. So if at any point we wanted to check rates to see if it happens to be clueless, We can do that. And as far as your question on mitigation, you're right. I mean, obviously we can burn, we can, I think the applicants did offer a series of, I think arborvitae or vegetative screening. So they did offer that as an option as well.

And my last clarifying question is on the gas pipeline or pipelines. There's multiple pipelines maybe in different areas and things like that and how that's affected. I farm with two gas pipelines going through my farm so I see the plane every three days and I know people, if you're out in the field with a backhoe, the pilot throws a rock out the window with a note on it that tells you to stop. That's the honest God truth. In about 15 minutes a pickup shows up. wanting to know because you need to call before you dig type thing and safety. Are these pipelines existing, all being used? Are some been abandoned and filled? Some are affected maybe by this and some weren't. Is that correct?

When the property was being reviewed, there was a lot of due diligence to make sure that any standards the pipeline has are being met. They have an easement in place on either side, and their concern is that no structures are within that easement. Dirt is dirt. They don't have concerns about that. There is a stretch of vacated pipeline that traverses the subject property west to east, east to west. There's another pipeline that runs along the western boundary and there is no structure anywhere near that pipeline. It runs pretty much adjacent to what would be Tony and Kayla's driveway.

So the pipeline closest is vacated?

Correct.

Okay. And then just my last thing is I just, I too want to thank everybody that's called and whether it's phone calls, county fair conversations, our meeting last night, everybody's been professional on this. I've learned a lot about this and hopefully we can work through this to make sure if it does become a problem, I think We heard from Tony that his willingness, I don't want to compare motocross tracks to hog barns, but I will. You know, if we've got a track where they're living on that, they want to enjoy the same things in that area of everything else. It's been my experience. maybe more statewide than Bluemouth County in my former Farm Bureau role, is there's a whole lot of difference between building a hog barn on the land either you or your family owns and lives on and deals with every day than building a hog barn in the middle of a whole bunch of other people when you drive to town to live in town that day. So I'm glad to see that this will be on on their residence and things like that. I think that helps police things a little bit better and it certainly gives you control making sure of what's going on. So with that, those are all my questions. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Anyone else?

I got one. So we hear today that there's another track in the area, web construction. He's got a motor track. Is that what you said, Tony?

No, sir. I'm talking on the south end of our property. No one brought that up, but they're on a petition. No, no, no.

But there's another track being used, correct?

Yes, absolutely.

Have we received any complaints on that track?

No, Commissioner.

Sure? Never. So... Is that track being used for the same purpose that this track is being used?

It is, my understanding that it is. It's a family.

And we never received a complaint? Correct. Thank you.

So, Madam Chair, if I may, Kevin summed up a lot of the... things that I wanted to visit about, but we've run into these issues many times in the past. When something new is coming to town, it is challenging. It is unfortunate that it's an after the fact, but at least we're getting the permit done the correct way. I think with the, in my experience anyways, being on the board, that we put these conditions in place and people have an avenue to express their concerns and we've fixed things. We've closed down a compost facility that wasn't properly ran, very difficult for the landowners, but we do have mechanisms in place to do that. And from my understanding, the discussions I've had with the staff is that if they weren't moving the dirt, this could be the same exact track and they could run it all day long without a permit. Just so I'm clear. That's correct. Because that's the only reason why we're talking about it is because they're making piles of dirt more than 500 cubic feet. So I think we can all get through this. I will be supporting this today. And I appreciate all your extra work and Kevin's and the landowners because this is how we get things done. So thank you, staff.

Public comment's over.

We let Tony answer. Let's ask Tony.

All right. We'll let you go.

In defense of the track that he's talking about, it's not really. It's like I would let my kids. It's their property, and the kids are driving their dirt bikes around it. And I can hear their dirt bikes. It's at the bottom of the hill behind my house. And it would be no more than my boys running around on my property with a dirt bike. It's not actually a track that's built down there. Yeah, they've got trails through their property, but it's totally different than having what Tony has built. That's all I have to say, in defense of the people that have that property.

Thank you Madam Chair for bending the rules. Just for you. It is my birthday.

It is. We'll sing later. Any comments from you guys?

No, we're happy to answer any questions. We took notes. Great.

Are we ready to vote?

I would make a motion to approve with the planning and zoning recommendations with our new Number two, now I lost that page. New number two recommendation. The condition? Condition, sorry. That was the one with the hours? Yep, hour seven. And this has been talked about with the applicant? Yes. Okay. With those hours and prohibiting the spectators and all that stuff.

Okay. Do I have a second?

I will second it.

Thank you. Any more discussions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And now we'll ask for the final item of the day.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The final item is PC14-26. The applicant is Joseph and Samantha Hunt, and the request is an after-the-fact interim use permit for grading to allow the cumulative movement of more than 50 cubic yards of material in a shoreland area for a personal use dirt bike track. The site is located in the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter, section 30, Jamestown Township, and it's in the shoreland district of Albert Lake and is zoned agriculture. At the Planning Commission meeting, staff presented the report. The applicant was present and confirmed the information in the report. There was no comments provided by the public. And following discussion, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to afford a recommendation for approval to the county board based on the findings and conditions prepared by staff. This track is about a three-acre disturbance. Movement was over 50 cubic yards, probably a little over 100 cubic yards of movement of material. The applicant is planning to remove fill from the lower area of the track and move that to the north and also reduce the overall impervious surface area of the track to fall under the MPCA standards. And the board action today is passage of a resolution based on the recommendation of the Planning Commission.

Thank you. So at this time, we will open the public comment portion of the hearing. If you would like to make a comment regarding PC 14-26, please come to the podium, state your name and address for the record. Anyone wishing to speak to PC 14-26? Yes. Anyone wishing to make comment? All right. Seeing no one, we're going to close the public comment portion of the hearing. Any discussion from the board?

Move to approve.

Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And this concludes the planning and zoning items. Thank you. Thank you. We'll move on to Public Works. Ryan?

Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. Good morning, Ryan.

Thank you for allotting me a few minutes this morning to get a couple of action items that we want to keep moving, taking care of. The first item for consideration is State of Minnesota Agency Agreement Number 1062832 for Federal Participation in State Projects. That is for construction engineering on County State Highway 9 bridge replacement project over the Blue Earth River. This is for the reimbursement for county staff time and consultants that we would hire for say material testing and things of that nature. For construction of the bridge, again, we intend to construct using our own staff for construction delivery and construction observation, contract administration, and then we'll have to consult out for some of those special services like material testing. So this would reimburse us with a combination of federal and state funds for said work. Total reimbursement amount is... estimated at $1,256,604. With that being said, I would recommend approval of this MnDOT agreement.

I'll move approval. Second.

Thanks, you guys.

Thank you very much. A motion and a second for approval. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

All right, action item number two is a resolution for agency agreement for federal participation in construction engineering supporting the agreement that was just approved by the county board. I would recommend approval of said resolution.

So moved. Second. Motion is second. Any discussion?

Does that mean we're going to start up yet this year?

Yep, we're advertised for bids right now, actually. All right. We're hoping to award in September. I think we're getting traction on our permits.

Awesome.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

Thank you. And last but not least is a change order for our 2026 bituminous overlays contract for state project number 007-610031. This is for County State at Highway 10, placing the final lift of the bituminous wearing course over the road that was reconstructed beginning last year and completed this year. I think there was some miscommunication between staff on whether or not that would be added as a change order under the Casa 10 construction project or included in the overlays. And so a short segment, the eastern segment from 20 to 32, was added however the western piece to the county line was not included in the overlay plan so this is adding that to the overlay contract it still has work remaining to do this was budgeted in our our transportation improvement plan uh for the total segment i had uh almost 1.2 million dollars budgeted in the 2026 tip so it's not unanticipated cost for our project This would be the final wearing course to get us to 10 tons. Reading your mind.

Second. Motion is second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carries.

All right. Thank you, commissioners. Thank you.

We moved on it yesterday for the first time. Now if you could get one county to fix that bridge. I'll do my best. I could still get to St. James. Have a good evening.

Thank you. And... We will move on to Human Services. Good morning, gentlemen.

Good morning. No action items.

There it is. We can breathe for a minute.

Well, it all depends on how long you're going to talk on information.

Madam Chair and Commissioners, I was going to comment on that. Commissioner Vance, just that we ebb and flow in human services. At the end of the year, there's big volume, and the rest of the year is small volume. But then every once in a while, we don't have any action. Very often.

Very often.

Yeah, not very often. That's correct. Thank you for hearing us today. I have Andy Carr with me. And Andy, as you know, runs our mental health center, chemical health and yellow line project. And today we're gonna talk about detox in particular and the yellow line project. And you will see a direct correlation between what we've done in Yellow Line and how our detox utilization costs have been over time, which is a good thing. So I'm just going to hand it over to him and if there's questions for either him or I as we go through the materials, we will do our best to address those. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. As you can see from the first slide here, as we look at the 2025 detoxification costs, last year we spent as a county a total of $548,000. $133,000 of that was actually in client fees collected, so about 32% of what we spent we were able to recoup in client fees. which is on par if we look at the last 10 years of detoxification expenditures, you do start to see kind of an ebb and flow between 2022 and 2025. It has gone down considerably. Part of that, like Phil had said, is because of the O-line intervention, along with some changes that we have made as well of making sure that we're following up with people that have been in services. So if someone's been to detox more than three times in six months, we meet with them as best we can, as we're able to, to be able to help get them other services as needed. So, in this year, we did go from having four providers down to three providers that we work with, and those costs do go from $450 to $500 per day for those. By far our biggest person that we use for detox would be Brown County, the Brown County Evaluation Center, and they have stayed pretty consistent with their fee of about $500. So it went up a little bit from last year, and we anticipate that to continue to be the same going into next year. Before I go into Gallaudet, is there any questions on the detoxification services? Okay. And then we have a quick overview of our 2025 Yellow Line project evaluation outcomes. So in the last year, the first that you will see here is Yellow Line screenings that were offered and completed in 2025. You will see they... continue to be pretty consistent. They did go down a little bit. Some of that is due to us going from two community-based coordinators down to 1.25. As you see that went from 1,400 in 2024 down to 960. However, the number of people that were completed for screenings did stay pretty close to our average, which is good. On the next slide, if you look at referrals made to the O-line project, that continues to be pretty consistent. And some of that has changed from 2025 to 2026 as we continue to be more out in the community than just stationary within the jail. We do still work with the jail quite frequently as they're releasing inmates out into the public. The jail social worker will reach out if they need additional supports. We are working with other community partners, however, including Mankato Police, Salvation Army, Connections, and so forth. The next slide, if we look at individuals screened as eligible and referred to Yellow Line, that, again, has gone down a little bit, but it stayed pretty consistent with our year-over-year from 2023 to 2025 specifically. We had a little more staff capacity in 2024, so that allowed for a little more of us to be able to screen more individuals at that time. And then the caseloads, it's a little skewed due to the fact that we did go from that two to 1.25, so of course the caseloads are gonna go up. But the caseload does continue to be consistent with what we would expect within the yellow line projections. The last slide that we have for you today is going to be the O-line community-based coordinator, what they spend most of their day doing. Now, we don't have 100% time reporting. It's not what CareLogic set up for, so this is our best evaluation that we could put together is 30% of their time is providing weekly contacts or attempts of contacts with the participants on their caseload. That could even be as much as a text or actually going and meeting with the person, whatever that person needs, what's in their plan. The second biggest thing, and I would say this has continued to go up, especially in this year, would be actively engaging and collaborating with our partners out in the community. Again, that's Mankato PD, that's the Blue Earth County Sheriffs, Salvation Army Connections, and others. One of the other ones, actually this afternoon we have a meeting with MSU to start working with their security team and their student resource team as they've asked for help. as they have officer-involved students that have officer involvement. So if there's a welfare check or they have a student that's going through a mental health or substance use crisis, we would then be able to help and connect them to resources that I guess has become more acute in the last year or so. So we're very excited for that.

I'm sure if I could just say that's a really big deal for us just to add a whole population and certainly with the college to build a bridge with them. It's not that they haven't always been our partner, but it hasn't been as close as maybe we're heading towards now. And so from a program side to get a referral is one thing, to get a whole referral. catchment area like MSU is a really big deal. So I really am pleased with that development and hopefully we can, like I say, build a pretty substantial bridge between ourselves, Yellow Line, and the college. And colleges, I think it's fair to say that we work with all the colleges in town.

Is that it? That's it. Try to keep it short.

We did talk about that as we saw the parking lot. So any questions for us in that or in any regard before?

So in your opinion, I'm on the board for the Detox Center in New Orleans. In your opinion, have we cut the amount of people that we've sent to the detox center over the last few years?

Yeah, and I think the biggest return... I mean, Blue Earth County is still the biggest... For sure.

I mean, if it wasn't for Blue Earth County, there couldn't be a detox center.

Right, and it's a very backwards viability thing. We've talked about that with child protection, too, is numbers go down and the business model starts to be impacted, but... It's not like we want numbers to be up necessarily. On the other hand, to make Brown County viable, we have to be that bigger payer in the mix, otherwise they're not going to be consistent. Andy worked with Brown County quite a lot to try to get more medically advanced detox option, and it still hangs out there, but it didn't come to fruition. So building some of that extra capacity would, I think, solidify that as far as making sure that we're capturing all our needs and those really high-end folks are the hardest to serve. Which is the other part of that question, which I know Commissioner you're knowledgeable about, but our repeats, which Andy mentioned in his data, has been our biggest return on investment. If we can intervene, especially through something like Yellow Line, and try to find a different track, get somebody who is resistant to go to treatment. And by time, and sometimes there are relapses, this is the world I came from, and yet all of those successes add up. And so I think the biggest influencer on that is the revolving doors that we try to not, I'm using a lot of metaphors here, but be on the ride of just in and out, in and out, in and out. I think it's really hard on law enforcement And I think that person really does spiral down. They don't, people say I'm doing fine, I'm doing the same. They're not, they're doing worse, worse, worse. And so we have to step in and that's our biggest target to your question is looking at those folks and then trying to identify them through first support staff and then hand over a referral and go see if they'd be willing to partner with us and get help. It is a voluntary program. We can't make them unless the courts get involved or a commitment, but which happens But yeah, those are all of our pieces. And so I I think the summary statement is the overall numbers are down this year It can come back up next year and I don't know if that surprised us sometimes it's circumstances and and And, you know, just anomalies in a family or in a person. And then all of a sudden we have a rash of folks that need detox. And for whatever reason, child protection has always been the same exact way. Just high tide and then kind of empties out. And then it'll be like all kinds of cases again. And I have not been able to track any kind of. quantitative reason for that. So detox can be that way but right now our numbers are lower and I think it's because we're trying to intervene quickly. I just want to say there's a few people in law enforcement that are kind of our champions too and willing to go that extra mile and we all know over the years that there's always been a few people like that that are just like they're looking for ways to intervene with people that are hard to serve.

Yeah, I think a couple of things. So first off, like Phillip said, all it takes is someone who has a higher acuity that's in detox that has to be there for several days instead of the normal two or three days. That can also impact the budget. I think withdrawal management's a great option. that if they're able to do that at Brown County, which was the plan at one point, now I know they have a new director, so it'll be interesting. I haven't had a chance to meet with them yet. I'm very excited to do that and kind of talk through that, because I think that level of care is greatly needed within our system. And then also I think it's important to note that we meet as a collaborative outreach team with all of the community supports, which includes the detox center once a month and talk about maybe cases where there is someone who is repeatedly either in detox or someone who has multiple phone calls into law enforcement and hey, what can we do with this person? They might not meet this level of criteria or need, but how can we get them into other services? yellow line is instrumental in making sure that we're able to get them kind of fit in those gaps to get them to where they need to go.

Thank you.

Thank you all. Good to see you. Thanks for the work session the other day. We really appreciate the time and this time as well. Thank you all.

So we'll move on to administration.

Madam Chair, the first item is the approval of the minutes. Move to approve. Second.

Motion and a second for the minutes. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carries.

Next, we have three weeks of bills for approval.

Yes, we do. I'll move approval. Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

Next we have the human resources agenda, all informational items. We do have the resignation of our human services director and then the recruitment initiated for the human services director position. We have employment of a social worker as a adult behavioral health case manager, employment of an assistant county one in the civil juvenile human services division, promotion from a probation officer to a corrections supervisor in the community corrections department, employment of a maintenance technician one, resignation of a part-time correctional officer, and a recruitment initiated for the part-time correctional officer. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer those. All right, the next item we have is we have our donations for the first and second quarter. If you look through the donations, the vast majority of those is donations for the library, oftentimes for collection, and a lot of those for the summer learning program. In the first quarter donations, we also do have a donation for public safety for the sheriff's office, and also a couple donations for the veterans' van. Then also donations of by in kind and for volunteering. And in the second quarter we also have again more mainly donations looking at the library, looking at their general fund system and the summer learning program. So I would respectfully request approval of those donations of acceptance.

Move to approve.

Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carries.

All right, then the last item is the financial status report for June 30th, 2026. You'll see once again, we continue to be really on track for our revenues, what we have here year to date. Also, I would say the same and for our expenditures at this point in time. enterprise fund, pretty much unchanged from the last month as we really looked at the big thing is that machinery and equipment that were done this spring for that machinery out at the Ponderosa. And then looking at where we're at for county cash investment balances. For six months operating, we're sitting at about 93 million for those operating needs. And then for dedicated funds, we're looking at a total sitting at this point of about $155 million. Any questions or comments regarding this financial status report? Any questions? Okay, nothing further.

All right. Commissioner reports. Kevin.

All right. Since our July 7th board meeting, participated in a JD16 and a JD49 meeting that afternoon. On the 9th, we had drainage work group. I also attended the Soil and Water Conservation District monthly meeting and mayors and clerks. July 13th was the Minnesota River One Watershed One Plan Policy Committee meeting. 14th participated at the PACE Committee meeting, as well as the work session number eight. On the 16th, we had a CD47 Landowner meeting, and the 17th was Goberba Policy and Technical Committee. July 23rd to 26th was the Blue Earth County Fair. I wasn't there for all of it, but I got over 30 hours in there. I want to stop and just thank all our staff. We had over 20 staff, whether it's administration, the deputies, dispatch, jailers. We had a lot of good representation there. We even had some county folks that were stopping by either with their families or whatever, but I think we do a lot of goodwill at that fair, and it's not only having a presence there if need be for an emergency, but appreciate that. I wasn't at it because I was at a 4-H event, but I heard good things about the canine demonstration, and it's always good to be able to have people see what we've got for infrastructure and things like that, so I want to thank everybody that participated in that. And then yesterday was the Rural Minnesota Energy That concludes my report. Thank you.

All right, Kevin already mentioned a couple of the ditch items and the planning and zoning meeting we had. I was at Mayor's and Clerk's also, which I think everybody enjoyed the tour of the shop out there, so that worked out really well. The only other committee meeting that I have had the last couple of weeks was the MVAC annual meeting, and we honored all of the of the supporter awards and the achiever awards up at the venue. Program up really well, things going well there. And then several landowner meetings, still working on county ditch 77, 93, 89, and then some gravel road issues and road ditch issues the last few weeks. And that's my report, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Vance.

All right. After our board meeting on the 7th, I had a Zoom meeting with NACO ambassadors getting ready for the conference. Mayors and clerks on the 9th. Detox board meeting on the 13th, along with a work session on the 14th. From the 16th through the 21st, I was at the NACO annual conference. On the 22nd, I was a Blue Earth Nicollet County TZD. On the 23rd, I had a Transportation Alliance Board of Directors meeting. And on the 24th, I had a speed limit discussion with Chair O'Connor and Ryan Tildes. And that leads me up to this morning. Thank you.

Thank you. Mark.

I'd say July 7th was a joint drainage meeting with Faribault County. And then July 9th, mayors and clerks. And then, of course, then our July 14th was with the county board work session. So that concludes mine.

Great. I, too, attended the mayors and clerks and thought it was a great event. On the 13th, the Lunch and Learn with AMC. On the 14th, the work session. And then I, too, was at NACO. And... and met with the county engineer on the 24th. And that's the end of my report. And we need to recess. Move to recess. I have a motion to recess. Second. And a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We are recessed.