Executive & Legislative Committee - Regular Meeting

We'll call to order the Executive and Legislative Committee meeting. Tuesday, September 1st, has the meeting been properly noticed?

Yes.

Item number two, we have an agenda.

I move to approve the agenda item.

Motion by Klitschke, second by Lorde. Approve the agenda. Any discussion on the agenda is printed. Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carried. Item number three. You have been provided the minutes from the previous meeting. Is there a motion to adopt? Move to approve the minutes. Motion. I'll second. Motion by Kinsman, second by Chrysler. Any discussion on the minutes?

Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye.

Those opposed? motion carried uh communications well there's been a ton of them but we're saving them for board are there any other All right, seeing none, public comment. I do not see any public comment here. Hi, Bethany. Hi. So public comment is closed. Item number six, Tony Kaczynski, VSO, you have floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Everybody should have my monthly report in their granicus. I will... Since I see a couple of new faces, take a moment and talk about under upcoming events. You see post visits and you'll see those over the next few months. What a post visit is, it's when a representative from our office, me or one of my key people, go to the monthly meeting of the VFW American Legion and so forth. And just report to them what's new with the VA and also answer any of their questions regarding benefits. It's proven over the years to be a great outreach opportunity for us to get the word out on communicating to veterans their benefits as well as making sure they're aware of our offices and the services that we have. And it's, as you can see, they're a very busy time of the year for our office. We continue to get many decisions every day for the claims that we're filing for service connected disability for our veterans. And barring any questions, that'll complete my monthly report.

Supervisor Kliske.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one. I was curious with the office update and the number of the veteran relief applications. Yes. Is there any reason, I mean, that you would maybe be able to surmise that there's so many? I mean, almost double or not quite half the time.

It's historically been cyclical like that. We typically will have a year where we use half of our budget and then the following year we use the balance plus what we normally budget. And certainly the economy's a part of that, I think. But the cost of goods and services, general cost of living, Substance abuse problems for our veterans, a very, very real part of some of that jump. And so it keeps us busy as well as, but year to date, despite those numbers, we're not on pace to run out of money, thankfully at least, for the commission.

Okay, thank you. Just being new, I guess it was shocking to me, but there's an explanation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Really good question. Any others? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the July invoices of 14-01-56 as well as the August invoices of 74-26? So moved. Second. Motion by Dietrich, second by Cross. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of the invoices as presented, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carried. Thanks, Tony. Thank you, Tony.

Item number seven, Jed Seidel, Emergency Management. Yes, good afternoon. You have in front of you my reports for both July and August, along with the budget and the invoices for both those months. Just a couple of highlights related to those. I don't want to get too bogged down on that. I have some other information to bring to you regarding a resolution that we're going to put to the committee. We did sell the command post, the old one, for $10,750, so we were hoping to get $10,000, so we got $750 over that, so we're thankful for that. Wisconsin Surplus took care of the entire sale, and all they do is eventually they'll send us a check, so hopefully they'll be showing up here within the next week or so.

Also, I'd like to introduce to you my new deputy director, Bethany Tate.

so as of april after the storms my deputy director stacy blakemore whom all of you knew she took a position with wisconsin emergency management as a training coordinator i think the 10-hour days and and all the weekends involved in that month were i don't think she told me we're pretty much after all the years she had done in emergency services she decided that the monday through friday routine of the state was better better options hold that question did you tell that to bethany

Do you want to go to closed session and ask her that question?

Bethany comes with a background with the police and also, of course, being a risk management coordinator here at the county. She's very familiar with what it means to work outside normal business hours and has an excellent background. We're very thankful. She's already shown to be quite an asset in a very short period of time and us catching up on things because of all the spring storms. So we're very thankful to have her be part of emergency management. I look forward to working with her in the future. Some other things, too, on my monthly reports, unless you have any questions for Bethany. I told her I'm a 20-minute speech prepared, but she knew I was kidding. I'm sorry, did you have something? So we did have the FEMA and SBA Assistance Center at Baraboo City Hall that went very well for a week they had about Not as many as we hoped I think just I have 15 people that showed up for actual in-person assistance But then we had 21 total online to apply for some level of assistance we are still working through some things with our farmers to try to get them something because the level of assistance for individuals is And farmers was vastly different. So somebody who lost everything in their home might get upwards of 90% back, which wasn't a loan. It was just disaster assistance. But our farms, everything for our farmers was all loans. And that was very unfortunate. No matter how hard we tried, and it really was off-putting to me for a state that has its background built in farming, that they did less for farming than they did for people who lived in apartments and for homeowners and even for businesses. The only thing available for all of our farmers, and most of our damages in the county were farm-related, almost $2.5 million of it. Of that, probably more than three-quarters of it was farm loss and structures. And the only thing available to them was loans. So like I said, we are still working on that. There's some legislators from the county here have been very helpful with that. So hopefully something else will show up. We have a couple more months to maybe work through some of that for them. So if there's any questions related to any of that, otherwise I do want to talk about something that's going to be kind of forthcoming next month. Is there anything related to any of these things? So, some of you were part of this PSAP, this Public Safety Answering Point. That's our dispatch center in Sauk County. We did a grant in fiscal year of 25 to get new electronic equipment put into our PSAP. It was a 90-10 grant. These grants are a little different in the way some other grants are. So, 90% is reimbursed by the state, 10% the county is on the hook for. The only challenge with the grant, this FY25 grant, was... The money has to be paid out by the county up front. And then at the end of the grant period, which the FY25 one ended in June, then after it closed out, we just finished closing out June 1st, turned in all the reports and everything with it. So sometime within the next couple of months, we'll see reimbursement. That's just shy of about $57,000 that will come back to the county for what was already paid out. So we've been tracking these grants because, and some of you are aware, we've been putting aside money in a capital improvement project fund to knowing that we have, within five years, we're going to have to make some more upgrades to the dispatch center here in Sauk County. So right now in that CIP, there's about three, as of the first year, it'll be about $300,000 in that, figuring that at about four to five years, there'll be enough money in there to make the improvements to carpet, consoles, all the other things that are not related to electronic equipment to replace it all. Well, in the meantime, what showed up was a grant, a PSAP grant for NextGen 911. and to replace or to upgrade all of these things that we've been setting aside money for. That grant, that application for that grant closed as of August 25th, so just this past week we had to have the application in. So we're kind of back where we were, if some of you remember where we were with the FY25 grant, Because the window for applying was so short, we had to apply, then bring it to resolution and make sure that the committees here and the county board was okay with approving the funding up front. And then if for some reason the county board or all of you decided not to approve it, we would just turn down the money when it was approved. We would just not take the money. But because the window to apply was so short, we had to get it in, and this had to be done within two weeks before the committee even met today. So this next grant that we've applied for is $2.7 million. I knew there were groans when we added it up as well. And, of course, the challenge is, again, because this is a 90-10 grant and because it's a state-funded grant, so it doesn't have the ripples that a lot of our federal grants have shown, but it is state-funded, but those grants require and this grant requires that all that money and all that work be done up front and then reimbursed at the end of the grant. So we submitted the application in August. The grant actually starts December 1st of this year. it ends june 1st of 2028. so during from that window is when you have time to get all this work done but also all that money has to be paid out by the time by june 1st of 2028 that entire balance has to be paid, and then 90% of that is reimbursed. So the county match for that $2.7 million is $275,300, of which our capital improvement project, the money we've already put aside for it as of January, will be $300,000. So the money or our share of that grant is already there. The biggest challenges and the resolution I'll bring to you is the fact that we are... In order to qualify for this grant, that $2.7 million has to be fronted ahead of the payout in 2028. So, you know, I want to just present the information to you ahead of time. It is a substantial amount of money. It is, though, money for a project that we are already saving money for. And so the difficulty is, of course, paying it up front with the idea that in 28 that will be reimbursed. But it is also a very challenging time budget-wise because of a lot of other federal grants and a lot of other programs that assist the county are no longer available. Just to kind of give you some information on it beforehand, and I'll bring that to resolution in October. So you'll have that and have an opportunity to act on it before they start approving these grants in November. Any questions?

I'm happy to answer. Yes? The 90% portion is guaranteed, though.

The 90% portion is guaranteed by the state, but it is a grant. So it's always, you know, I can say that of the grants that we're challenged with, they're all federal grants. We just got our emergency management program grant, and that was a federal grant that got held up for a year, but all of our state grants are still, thankfully, coming through. John, then Dick.

Dick can go first. I saw John's hand first.

The state's good for it. We get that part, but that's going to be one heck of a squeeze.

Well, I would argue, and we can let Lisa and her staff address that, but I'm fairly confident, depending on how projects they've got money, fund balance to...

Well, we need to be careful.

But we need to be careful, right?

Because one of the things we've done during this budget process, and I'll just inform you all of this, is have Stephanie look back and see how our fund balance has depleted over the last 10 years. So where we used to be 10 years ago, her estimate that's actually available to you is a little over $5 million. We started at... something around 40 million. So little by little every year, because of the situation we find ourselves in budget-wise, we're relying more and more on that general fund to do those one-time projects, but the money coming back into the general fund at the end of the year isn't what it has been. So eventually we're going to get to a point where there may not be much workable general fund balance.

Right. I guess the point was this isn't like a standard cap project. Once it's out the window, it's gone. And to all respect to the fact we had $40 million down to five, we also didn't have about 15 years worth of projects completed. The highway shop would be a good example. The airport runway, there's a bunch of projects out there that just were festering and nothing was getting done and then all of a sudden we're moving so we're actually spending money. Obviously we can't afford to deplete the funds but we can have that debate next month.

Dick? Explain the front loading, how that works. Does it mean that we have to submit the contracts TO THE STATE SAYING WE'VE GOT THIS PROJECT, THIS IS WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN. IT'S GOING TO COST US $3 MILLION. THEY'RE GOING TO GIVE US $2.7 MILLION. WHEN DOES THE MONEY ACTUALLY HAVE TO BE?

So the money has to be, during that entire time of the grant, you have to have spent that entire $2,753,000 before the grant closes in June 1st of 2028.

Okay, but during that period of time, you have already committed. Yes. You have signed contracts with the vendors? Yes. or do you go get the signed contracts?

We had to, as part of the application process, have to have contracts from vendors ahead of time to show, to at least estimate what we were gonna get.

And can we get, I'm thinking about cash flow. How much actual cash flow comes on in 2027 with this project? And is there ways to push it into 2028 when the payout is going to happen?

Well, I mean, it could be structured in such a way so that something is paid in portions at a time, depending on when it, as long as it is all purchased and paid for by the county before the grant closes.

I'm trying to get to that point so that our actual cash going out gets a lot closer to being reimbursed Oh, I see.

The biggest challenge would be then is that then you're delaying when the project is complete because you're not only talking about purchase, you're talking about the project itself. So the sooner you buy it, the sooner you get it installed, the closer you are to having it all done and complete by the time it closes in June. If you, I don't know, unless the vendors are going to extend that credit, you have to have all this equipment here and have it in before.

Obviously, you can always ask. Yeah, yeah, and it's worth an ask. If you close out early, do they pay out early?

No, no.

I can give you a solution. I wanted to ask.

This is the state of Wisconsin we're talking about.

Yeah, we actually were early on this last one. That makes no difference. They're still making us wait, but, you know, other than the fact that it was closed and will be paid shortly, so.

would it make sense to borrow the money? And because the payback of that loan will be the $900,000, whatever, 90% coming back, and then we'd have the carrying costs. But you would have a much, I mean, these are capital improvements in a sense. It makes more sense, it doesn't make sense to expect that this, you can't borrow your way out of operating expenses. but in capital improvements, that makes a little bit more sense. It seems that it's awfully stressful to spread

The grant application only requires the county to commit to the fact that we have enough grant money available to cover the match at the close of the grant. So how we fund it, and actually in speaking with Lisa about this when we first brought the idea forward and mentioning what we had in capital improvement, it was mentioned about a bond would be a better opportunity than... Can we cross our fingers when we tell them that we've got the money?

Well, we got the money. That's the Commerce Committee's problem.

I'm sorry, the answer is no.

We don't even have to bring it to resolution.

I was trying to prevent the problem, but I did bring it to resolution. Actually, a question I have. Is this the last round of funding? Is there more funding out? I mean, where are we? Do we know?

I'm sorry. They're focusing on different areas of the state at different times. So even though, just like with the last grant, we requested over $1.1 million in the last grant for fiscal year 25. We got $65,000 out. I'm sorry, $62,000. You can put in for as much as you like, what they'll give you. The only difference this time is a lot of other agencies, because of this fronting the money, paying for it up front, a lot of other counties have said, we can't do it. We can't do it. So there is a very good chance, unlike with the last one, that what we've asked for, we may get very close to getting. But we have to be able to show that we can get all of it purchased and installed and done by the time the grant closes in June of 2018.

All right.

Well, so we don't get in the verge of debating this. Any questions on anything else? All right. Was that it, John? Yeah, just my invoices and stuff. You want your invoices.

Yeah, if you would, please.

Yeah, we gotta give up 900 bucks. Ian, emergency management invoices, July 353, 56, August 664, 26, is there a motion to approve? So moved. Motion by Kinsman, second by Dietrich. I almost gave it to you, you raised your hand.

I thought Jim was trying to be the highest bidder.

Any discussion on the invoices as presented? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carried. Gee, thanks, Jed. This guy's really expensive. Never comes with cheap problems. All right. Item nine, Becky Everett, county clerk.

Well, after that, I'm just going to say you have my report. Any questions you have, I'm happy to answer.

I have a question about the complaint on the jail. We're shooting people in wheelchairs.

What?

That's not my report. Was that your report? I was going to say, what? Ever since I read that report, that's the only thing I care about this meeting.

Geez, don't say that online.

I only tell. That's not a true statement.

We have a motion by Laura, second by Klitschke to approve the July and August invoices of the county clerk. Any discussion? Did I give the $1 amount?

No.

You did not. July was $67.48, $24. August was $99.37, $81. Any discussion? Seeing none, Those opposed? Motion carried. In a moment, you can ask your critically important wheelchair question.

Item number nine, Corp Counselor. Yes, indeed. So we have a couple of monthly reports in front of you, given our month of absence of the meeting. In both months, month and we are now at the grand total of 264 on the year again that doesn't include some large considerations like really getting our arms around some of the public records requests that are out there right now spread the better part of two days last week catching up on even some things that backlog prior to my time here. So I think we're in much better shape and you kind of saw in the report there that we've even kicked around some ideas of like some inter-departmental working groups or coordination to continue to try to whittle down and keep on top of and better respond to in general the high volume of public records requests that we're receiving in the modern day era of government. Also, as you see, Atollis Law has finalized working with LRE and my department on the modernization of Chapter 7, so that resolution and final documentation is currently under review to come to you all at the full board meeting in September. So we should have the ordinance updates all done on that front. Should I kick it off with the wheelchair? Yeah, you may as well.

I just couldn't believe the story. It's just fascinating.

So this individual had apparently been shot six times and landed in the jail in a wheelchair. And that is alleging that... There were a series of things like ordering him to stand up and go to the other side of the room. They screamed at him so loud that he apparently had to cover his ears. And generally had kind of handcuffed him. So there is a $600,000 claim related to those items. Before we had ever even received any official notice, essentially, we got our 1st copy of this documentation. When the judge issued his order and opinion, that order was related to moving, removing 2 of the 4 deputies from this lawsuit. Essentially, he had determined that those 2. Per the record, we're not established as having been present, much less kind of abused this particular individual in any manner. So with a total devoid nature of any accusation against those two, they were removed from the lawsuit before we got started. So this was sent to County Mutual for assignment of litigation counsel. We'll keep you all posted if any formal service occurs and we kind of go through the process. But that's kind of where we're at. Did you have any other questions on that one?

We didn't shoot anybody. He did not. He had been shot.

I actually re-read this. You know how sometimes you prove things and you're a little too close to it? Yeah. I re-read this and I'm like, it almost reads like we shot him. That's why I was... So the question is, how are we doing at the range? Yeah. Have we spent enough time on the range? Yeah, maybe we need to assess that. We have one shot and he's gone. Instead of six, he's in a wheelchair. And then, as you can see, we did have an appeal of a Board of Adjustment decision into the Circuit Court. So this relates to a Lake Wisconsin shoreline property. The homeowners had submitted plans related to the initial zoning requests and Licensing and the like, and when this was built, it showed that the deck and the staircase were shored up. They were uniform behind the shoreline setback, which requires that 75 foot from the normal high water mark back from the, again, the high water mark at the shoreline. So in this particular instance, their staircase was not built in the same manner that it was showing in the blueprints. Well, apparently what happened was the inspector came out and said that would not be to code. The staircase would have been too concise, too steep. We wondered why other alternatives weren't explored, bringing it back down and underneath the deck, spiral, going laterally, whatever that might be. Essentially, through council, they made an argument here that the fray is necessary to access surprise very broadly. So if the staircase leaves the deck of the house, it is necessary to access the shorefront. The board basically felt that is too subjective and too broad of an interpretation. We consulted with DNR on this matter in advance. There was a lot of assessment of the legality of this statutory language. And basically, we came to the conclusion that that was not a correct assumption. That would be a steep drop off, rocky terrain. They had a sloped yard that went all the way down. And they actually had multiple points of egress from the house that would actually be able to leave the house. They even had a walk out below the deck. So this is really not necessary to access, but they do feel that it's probably worth taking a shot, I would assume, in bringing this to the circuit court. So basically the court just reviews this based on the administrative record at this point. It's essentially looking at jurisdiction and authority, whether our theory of law was correct, was the decision reasonable, and then just looking at the evidence that we used for the VOA and the department to make that assessment. Knock on wood, pretty confident that the right call was made there. I did get some questions about what would happen if for some reason they were to win in the circuit court. And I think we'd probably be looking at further appeal with probably some other folks looking to intervene because we haven't talked to other counties and obviously no one is interpreting this that broadly.

I'm familiar with the property. Surprise, surprise. Gorgeous property. It is. And I would argue they had a lot of remedies prior to this probably coming up.

Yeah, I mean, it's their right to pursue this. I'm not sure. Maybe they felt it was important to try to defend this and see if they could get a win in a certain circuit court. Obviously, it doesn't apply broadly to everyone across the state, but... some circuit court interpretation of the broad reading would help other homeowners. So I don't know, maybe they viewed it as a good fight, maybe they had other reasons for it. all the way. So our ordinance then makes DNR code exactly. So there's nothing we could do there. DNR code is seen as a suggestion.

Supervisor Kalitsky. Thank you Mr.

Chair. When was this heard at the Board of Adjustment? Oh, I would say a little over a month ago. I want to say it was July. Okay. Thank you.

And they have to, what, 30 days after? 30 or 60 days. So they got it right on it.

Yeah, they did.

Yeah.

And then you see there was a notice of claim here related to a slip and fall injury at Circus World. Unclear why we were a named party. I mean, maybe they'll try to tie us to that property, even though it's state-owned property. But we have not received anything further since, and it was forwarded to County Mutual just in case, just so they were aware of it. That is largely it on that fresh day. And then with existing litigation, shockingly, despite two months' time, we have not seen any activity or any judgment in any of our cases that are ongoing. So status quo remains on that.

Any questions of court counsel? I'll move to approve Jim DeMoyce's.

Second.

We have motion by Laura, second by Klitsky to approve the Corp Council's July invoices totaling $54,419.27 and August invoices totaling $66,716.92. Very smart move to ask for that request before item B.

Any other discussion?

All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Opposed? Well, she carried. Well, that brings us to item B, discussion of Corp Council budgetary overages.

Yep. So financial policy dictates that departments should be coming to the governing committee whenever there is an overage. So essentially, we're tasked with not only notifying you, but talking about recommendations that would be implemented to try to correct some of those overages or reduce that in the future. Okay. And you've largely gotten some of these updates, I think, on a pretty consistent monthly basis. But we wanted to kind of put a number to that in talking with the accounting team. We felt that it was probably due to give at least a prediction. This is a moving target. So the 191,358 is a weighted average over the remainder of the year based on the months we've had. As you know from looking at invoices, that's a moving target that is difficult to pin down because we had one month where we had three termination of parental rights matters go to court in one month. That next step involves more consulting fees for our outside attorney. We also have the Chapter 7 rewrite that we opted to give to Atolis in this particular instance, right around the time that I first started, both to draw from their expertise in some of the new environmental regulations, but also to essentially kind of temper the work between the two places as we were getting up and starting with two new attorneys in the office. But those matters are all kind of winding down. And then in the next budget request, we've also requested, as I talked about previously, to get rid of the consulting services and bring an attorney back in-house. So I think that would not only allow us to potentially save on budget, including all costs of benefits and the like, over the consulting services that we have right now for that attorney, But I also think you're then having an attorney who will have the time to do other work for us with that same dollar amount. I could see increasing workload a quarter or 50% with the right person at the same cost or less. And so I think that'll be a way that we'll look at reducing funds. And again, as I kind of hinted at, a lot of the items that are listed in here are big expensive items we've had so far this year. But they should be knocking wood off the books for the rest of the year. So I think Hopefully we won't get up to that 191 or maybe even anywhere near it because I don't anticipate a large volume of things. Short of some of the CPS type matters potentially unexpectedly landing in court more frequently than they usually do, which can have a big impact.

Any questions? 191,000 sounds like a staff.

It's, well, and it's a pretty sizable chunk of our total budget because we're a small department. But, you know, again, also acknowledging that for multiple months, we had nobody up there. And a lot of this, a lot of the start of this was also related to our worse. The totalist billing in the beginning of the month or the beginning of the year for several months was pretty big.

Yeah, well, yeah, I remember 2020 was pretty high.

Well, I think there was, you know, last time around it was a lengthy period. We're happy. Last time around was a lengthy period that kind of required them performing all functions. And I think this time around we kind of focused, it seems like at least I wasn't here, but we focused more on critical efforts to kind of keep us afloat. And then Shamir and I have kind of reined it all in and tried to catch us up over the last few months. So I think we're in good shape.

Okay, yeah.

Cool. Could be worse.

Good job. Thanks. Any questions? All right. Thank you very much. On to item number 10, Lisa Wilson, administrator.

So I have my monthly report. I have worked on nothing but budget, union agreements, transmission lines, and any other item that seems to have become controversial. So I've been very busy. I also included the strategic planning tracking sheet for like the third quarter, just showing you what we're working on, hoping going into next year we'll be able to tackle some of those other things. And then my invoices are there.

Before we go to invoices, any questions of Lisa? All right, seeing none, a motion to approve the July invoices of 29,626.74. So moved. As well as the August invoices of 42,223. Our move for approval by Laura. Is there a second? Second. Second by Kinsman. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Item number, and thank you, Lisa. I know there's been a lot on your plate.

It's been fun.

Yeah. Item number 11, discussion of possible action on a resolution honoring Supervisor Rockson. So moved. Second. Motion by Klitschke, second by Dietrich. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, resolution's approved. Item number 12, discussion of possible action on resolution to terminate a property maintenance agreement, property maintenance management agreement, city of Baraboo for the Baraboo-Sauk County campus. You want this one, Lisa? I'll do it.

You want to do it? You do it. You're on the campus commission. This has been a long slide for, what, 2007. I've seen the descent of how we ended up here, so to speak. Long and short of it, we no longer have a UW branch with us here locally anymore. And We are spending an exorbitant amount of money on keeping these buildings heated. And Ian's been tasked to keep them up to date and all that stuff. And we don't have the money for it anymore. And there has been a ton of people and groups and not-for-profits that have been interested in the buildings over the course of... uh the last few months but we are to the point where none of these uh organizations or people really have the money to cash flow um you know the cash flow the continued use of these buildings so uh with all of that said um i i think we're at the point in time where we need to really start as to what we want to do there and it's been, last year we had I think 400 or is it this year we're projected at 430,000 in costs in maintaining these buildings. We have spent as a county for the last six or seven years at least 110,000 in our budget to maintain and continue the use of these buildings. It's not in the cards anymore. Just to give it to you straight, we can't continue the way we are.

And I'd like to add on to that and clarify this here. Back a couple years ago when working with UW-Platteville, this portion of the agreement was intended to cover their maintenance expenses so that they could right their ship and Obviously, they failed to do that. We're still going to have the $110,000 kind of basic maintenance costs. I believe it's $110,000, right? $105,000. $105,000 with the city. But this makes it very clear. We're done mowing the lawn. We're done removing snow. We're not cleaning out garbage cans and swapping toilet paper rolls and whatever else magic things Ian does up there.

Well, this goes in the heat, electric.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, we... We don't have the money for it anymore.

It'll put us on a playing field that the city will have to cost share things that are not being cost shared. That's the plan. That's the plan.

So to sum it up, we've carried the weight and we no longer can carry the weight.

Anything else, Commissioner Chair? Or did we sum it up well enough?

We're hopeful. We're hopeful that a peaceful resolution will be arrived at between the county and the city of Barrow, in which the doves of peace will fly over town. And we'll work this out in a way that is best for the citizens of this area. How will we reach that? Nobody's going to get shot. racy tweets to the mayor because it seemed to work so well for the president that we might set the table to work really bad if tim would just kind of step up to the plate like he should do you want to digress any further i just think that i think we should be hopeful that that common sense will prevail Oh, wow.

Just a real quick question because I've been away for a couple of years.

Has the city of Baraboo had any role in paying for anything?

Well, there's a basic property, like basically the capital agreements that we've got, and that's what has been the status quo. And the part that the county took over was really Platteville's expense. It was in their maintenance budget, and so we took that part over. I think when Brent... Miller was the administrator at the time. We had a strong feeling we could do it probably less expensively, but unfortunately we got in there, and Ian can attest that the tenant was not maintaining the product pretty as well as they should have been. So our expenses in just getting it to what it is today have been exorbitantly higher than we anticipated.

The intent behind that was to keep it.

Mr. Chair, I'm not always familiar with a lot of the language laying out some of these resolutions, but I don't really understand if you could clarify for me or the lawyer here, I mean the Corporation Council, no offense. Whereas the University of Wisconsin-Platteville has reduced their use of campus facilities, are they still doing something? I guess I thought they had severed the relationship.

And here it says reduced use. They will be gone. There's still some activity.

There's still two employees. They keep saying they're days away.

So that's why it still has some use listed in this resolution.

No, just reduced to zero. Two people maybe, correct? Oh, correct. It's two people. It's just two people.

They're just holdovers.

Thank you. No, I just didn't understand why it said reduced and didn't. Okay. Appreciate it.

Supervisor Kessler. So are basically, like are the buildings going to still be heated this winter and things like that? We have a closed session coming up that some of this discussion might be more appropriate.

Okay. Attention.

Cool beans. Way to take control of that. All right. Is there any other discussion on this resolution? We have a motion. Is there a motion and a second? No. Motion to approve the resolution by Cross. Second by Lohr to terminate a property maintenance management agreement at the city of Baraboo for the Baraboo County Campus. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. This doesn't solve the problem. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carried. All right, item number 13, discussion on citizen appointment policy. Lisa. Lisa.

Yeah, so this is just a draft. The Corporation Council got me comments after this was posted, so I have some updates to make. I think it's more than anything a heads up that we're actually working on a process, or I'm working on a process to have a process, so what happened at the county board floor probably, hopefully will not happen in the future. Yeah.

Can I ask you a question, though? In all respect to this, because I mean, I think it's awesome that it's there and formalized. If we were in the same exact situation as we were then following this, how would that have prevented the... What would, Doug? Okay, that's what I wanted to know. I'm good.

Well, at least it's a policy to point to, though, to say you approve this and we kind of follow the conduct we laid out in the policy. Yeah. At its core, yes.

I've expressed my opinion about that. I think that was very unfortunate. And I will give you a very good example that it was nothing more than political gamesmanship because I appointed a county supervisor with no questions. And no process. Nobody asked me what I did or how I did it.

We're glad you did. Yeah.

It's just my point.

I mean, yeah.

Anyhow, I'll get off my soapbox.

Laura?

Yeah. Thanks for working on this, Lisa. I think, just this is my sentiment, I think this is kind of taking the board back to the way that it used to operate. And what I would like to see, I think, in the end here right now is that the board is voting on on the appointment, is that correct? We always have. Right, but the board is going to see all of the applicants and all of the... It's going to be... Well, sorry.

cut you off, but I saw you look like you wanted. So in certain instances, there are appointments that are made by the administrator and then the recommendation of staff comes to the board. And then there are obviously the types of appointments that we see otherwise. So certain non-citizen membership or vacancy within the county board itself that are going right to the county board for kind of its recommendation and consideration directly. So staff would be present to talk to you about how we got there, what the backgrounds look like, but essentially it would be coming to you in the form of a recommendation for that person. And the way that Lisa and I kind of worked this out the last time around and kind of how we tried to codify this is we mimicked it after a civil service interview. So if we were hiring like an FTEV civil servant for the county, You know, we have a set list of questions. We don't deviate. We treat each candidate uniformly in the same manner. And then we are basing this on the parameters that Lisa put into this policy. So we're looking at background, experience, the answers to the questions. So it looks just like a civil service interview for all intents and purposes.

Is it fair to say, okay, so it's coming in as a recommendation and not as a... Let's let 31 people decide, based on your feelings, what they want to do.

But basically, the policy says that the appointment is made with the approval. So it's almost like when you see an appointment at the state level to head an agency, that comes with like... the consent of the Senate. So the Senate will do like a route. The county board is basically looking at, you know, the appointment's been made, there is a recommendation, but you got to go through that process to kind of get that final governing body approval for that person to sit on a subcommittee. Thank you.

Well, and if I could say anything, and then I'll go to you, Dick, is the one thing I do like about this, and this is no fault of Lisa's or Brent's or anybody's, over the years, especially when it was a county board decision, You know, no matter who's in that chair, we don't know everybody in the county. I mean, the first two years I made those appointments, or first year and a half or so, Brent made them, then Lisa's making them. And they come from the department heads. And typically what'll happen is, let's just say this is the homegrown committee, and somebody resigns. Joel says, I don't want to do the homegrown committee anymore. So then Laura will be like, well, I got this buddy Bill. He'd be really good at it. And the next thing you know, Bill comes with a recommendation from the department at Delisa, And we put them forward. I mean, that's how it works, because we're happy to have anybody with a pulse. This, at least, I think, does tell staff, too, hey, this is going to be the process. Find people who are qualified to do these positions before Lisa even gets the paperwork. Am I wrong about that?

Correct.

So, great. Yes, I said cross first. Oh, no, I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Ladies first, but I called on you, sir.

My concern is that we're creating a process that kind of makes a little bit more complicated process. That's up to the executive. Yeah. It almost seems like there's punishment to the person who's willing to put their hand forward to go through an interview, a civil service interview, and dig into their background or whatever. I think that given the situation that we find ourselves in, politics has found its way, this should be a normal process. a decision by the administrator whose job is to find someone who's qualified and put that person in that position and then be responsible for what happens after that. I think the whole point is we want more citizen participation. We don't want to scare people away. We don't want to make the survivors. Maybe we'll be able to train people that might become superintendents. They go in and they say, hey, I really like it. I think I'm doing good. And they want to be a supervisor. So it's more of a training rather than anything else. And the whole point of having citizen members is for outside information coming in to us. Because we're a close group. And this is a source of someone who's not tied to the county in a sense and is able to have a different point of view. Otherwise, why have citizen participation? I think... We have the authority as a county to adjust our rules on how appointments are made. It doesn't have to be approved by the board if the board adopts a policy that says that these types of appointments can be done through the administrative process and not through the board.

Sounds like you're working on a rules change. Supervisor Klitschke?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Actually, speaking of rules change, I just had three things. In regards to the rules, I was just kind of curious. Thank you, Lisa. This is a men's documentary. comprehensive but like the attendance requirements for instance I find fascinating because I didn't compare them or contrast them with the board rules prior to the meeting but I guess I was just curious and I haven't been on the board that long but I'm not familiar with the board rules having attendance requirements or ratifications of that fashion, and I guess I was just curious to make a comparison that perhaps it would be a good idea to have some of those for the board. Does the board include percentages and things like that?

I don't know if it includes percentages, but there are some requirements there, and I'll be the first one to admit it, the board chair. Removing a supervisor for attendance issues can be, I think, politically detrimental to the board. I will say in the case of Mr. Roxon, I reached out to him and asked him to relieve me of that problem. And he did. Prior to that, I got a lot of... The most profile one that I could come up with was with... then-supervisor Thielen, who was hospitalized for an extended period of stay. We all knew he wasn't getting out of the hospital, and if he did, it was very unlikely he was returning to the county board, but I wasn't going to be in the position of removing him under those circumstances. So I think, to the point, that it is up to the chair how they proceed.

I didn't need an explanation, thank you. No, but I... I'm just saying, I'm just kind of curious with some of these... committee, like, is a supervisor held to the same standards that this would, and I know it's not necessarily because I'm supervisor of business, but I guess that was just one point I was going to comment on.

And there is some rules, just so you know, related to absences and how they are excused and the like, and not missing more meetings than allowable, but it kind of isn't that detailed.

Okay. Yeah, thank you. I just kind of wanted to make a comment And then regarding some of these changes and comments that we're making, do you have kind of a timeline that, I mean, you want this done by January 1st or what? I mean, I know we're discussing it here, and I know it's a work in progress.

No, I mean, it needs to – we already have a couple seats that have to be assigned. Not necessarily – the Health Corps Center Board of Trustees has like six people that want on. So, I mean, this process has to be triggered at some point in time. But we also have people that are coming off the Nutrition Council that need to be – there's somebody on the Health and Human Services Board, that person needs to be a medical doctor, right? So we kind of need to get moving, even if it's not the full-blown policy right now, but we need to have these seats filled.

No.

I guess once Jim and I feel comfortable, if you guys don't change the board rules on me, that doesn't have to go to the county board.

Yeah.

We would just implement it because my understanding, it's kind of my policy.

Before I go to John, I was just going to... Those are only two questions. Oh, okay. Sorry.

If I may.

Go for it. I forgot you had three. I couldn't count.

Thank you. No, I just, I guess I had contacted the Preparation Council, but... I know I just had a concern regarding some of the language, the first line of the purpose and the first line of the general policy statement. And I serve on the Health and Human Services Committee. I was just a little concerned about the equitable verbiage there. It seems to be kind of a buzzword. And so as far as explanation, I thought maybe the committee would benefit from hearing why we would have to have that word as one of the...

Well, I know you talked to her. I did, yeah.

I just thought it might heighten up a couple other folks' awareness because sometimes I don't necessarily feel, because I talked to Lisa, I think, last year in the mission statement for the health care center, and I don't always know that that's the most appropriate term. But as far as being in this application or appointment process, I thought if you just don't mind.

Absolutely, yeah, and I did recommend that she kind of convey that concern, just so that I think the group would have the opportunity to convey any feedback or concerns there might be as well. But I think at its core, this policy is not adopting or implementing any EEO or affirmative action type policies. In some cases, there are even laws that require that in certain components, or we have to pass those through. through services that are on contract above $50,000. It's not getting into any of those policies or any of those kind of practices that we might otherwise implement into the hiring process. The only references here, and there is some related to equitable, as the supervisor mentioned, but also kind of a diverse pool of candidates or members within these groups. And I think it's largely referring more to the process we're employing, trying to bring in an equitable process. So like that FTE kind of civil service type interview that I talked about. Everyone is getting the same questions. Everyone is getting the same responses from us. No direct follow-up that isn't related to your response. I mean, there's a very laid out process that we would use for hiring someone that we would apply here in the same way. And then in terms of kind of the diverse representation of the members of the group, it is speaking more on a much broader level than the typical type of diversity we might think of in hiring practice. So the example that I gave was we might be looking at the healthcare center, for example, We might say, well, you know, we've got a doctor on committee, we've got an administrator on committee, but the insurance industry is not represented. And we have these candidates, and we felt like the background on this particular candidate was strong because they come from health insurance. And we think they have 20 years of experience, but they also have that diversity of experience. workload that they would bring to the group or it could be depending on what group we're talking about. They're affiliated with an organization or a belief system that's different from the other. So it could be a hundred different things. We're really just talking about trying to bring in the right mix and the right candidates. So experiential diversity and kind of some of the other qualifiers that might apply to certain committees.

Thanks, Jim.

I guess I didn't really read that. It wouldn't be a formal implementation of any kind of metrics we have to hit, any kind of characteristics or background of the person other than experience. And the process itself. Thank you. I thought that was a great explanation.

Yeah, I read it as equitable, not equity. They're different in how they're...

But I think it is. It's an important kind of trigger word at this point that we want to talk about just to make sure.

Thank you. make citizen appointments, I would encourage whoever I was choosing, and I would be the one who chose, for them to give some sort of short biography so that the county council knew who and what they were voting for. I'm sure there were other things, but the point I want to make is having some sort of questionnaire listing the person's qualifications, their residence, and what have you. That's a grand idea. I'm very much in support of that. This happened to be a single committee which has a lot of heat on it right now, and there's a lot of game playing. I won't mince words there, but if we take this out of the hands of the county board for approval, generally speaking, if we thought there was a political ambush, and ambush is the most polite word I can come up with, there's a compound word that ends with storm, we'll see even worse response from the public for sure. And it can be as harmless as finding someone to serve on a committee where there's absolutely no controversy and the qualifications are so obvious. But I would be against it in such a way.

So I'm going to close the discussion and move on, and all I want to say about this is I appreciate the fact that Lisa's being very open and transparent about this. I personally don't think is, and I don't want anybody to take this flippantly. It is her responsibility. This is what we've charged with. Her sharing her process with us is always welcome and more than welcome, but I think as far as the dynamics of how she does this process... In this form, it's up to her. We set the policy to have her appoint people. She can follow whatever procedure she so chooses. So thank you, Lisa, for that. And if you want to continue to tweak it and present it to the board, that's up to you. All right, thank you. On to item 14, standing committee reports. Guys, I'll steal the chair for a second and I'll turn it over. Obviously, the 745 KV thing has been pretty huge. I do know, I'm talking to Lisa, that Land Resources is really busting their tail to go through all of the stuff we've got going on in the county and to tie it to state statute and get it forward. I've been pouring through massive amounts of documents and probably driving her nuts. Only from the standpoint, some of the issues were really prior to almost everybody here on the board. Brian Simmer may have been the only person around, but at the time, if you go back to the MOU agreements for US Highway 12, during the extension and all of the easements that were bought throughout the county. The Badger Oversight Commission having oversight and some control over getting ATC to limit heights of towers for transmission lines along the Highway 12 corridor. A lot of different precedents along the way, so we've been working on some of that. You guys got my letter pretty much that I plan to send out tomorrow. I appreciate all the feedback I've gotten back. So far, it's all been positive, and I was surprised nobody's caught a couple of typos that I fixed. I will be delivering that to them tomorrow. I do want to let you know I attended a meeting that was put together over in Arlington in Columbia County last night. A lot of members of the Columbia County Board were there. A lot of residents from Sauk County, Dane, and Columbia. The place was absolutely packed. And I think that's what we've been seeing so this wasn't the Becky people doing their presentation This was a group of people who want to know how to fight this thing I shared with them really nothing more than I've shared with the county board and that is you know we want to be thoughtful and deliberate about how we move forward and that we're planning to go through these documents and make a request, and I told them I feel very strongly that I haven't heard any opposition to the board applying to be an intervener in this process. That was obviously well received, but I told them, I said, I appreciate that you're pointing your stuff at town boards and cities and the county boards, and we're all doing our part because I haven't found really any town board that's stood up and going, hey, we want it here. They've got to get in front of the decision makers. And if you can communicate to anybody, it's fine, you can tell me about this, but you need to get in front of the decision makers. That's who they need to hear from. So that was my message last night. I'm going to the Merrimack Town Board tomorrow at the town chair's request, and that's at 6, and I've got another event out in Plain that I've been requested to go to. I normally would try to avoid these things, but I'm trying to. Take as many opportunities as I can to tell people, get in front of the decision makers. And I even mentioned last night because the place was packed. If I've got to give everybody in this room three minutes, we're going to be here for six days, right? So be thoughtful, be strategic about approaching these communities, how you move forward, and also understand we're in line with you, right? We're going to provide a comment. And until we get approved by the PSC even to be an intervener, we're just another commenter. Really no different than anybody else. That's where we're at on that. I know the town of Merrimack's got a pretty compelling case on a portion of the line there because it goes through a proposed subdivision that's actually being constructed right now. It doesn't show up on their maps. I brought up our airport. I know Sock Proudy's got... Our Sauk Prairie's got issues with the line near their report. And then, of course, Lisa could probably go up and down left and right of all the conflicts through the area. Not to mention the Sauk Prairie recreational area itself. They are kind of spurting to the south of that because I think they were smart enough to stay out of there, but... You know, it really goes against, okay, so you put it on the other side of the fence. Whoop-de-doo.

So, but they do crouch into the USDA because I'm pretty sure they thought, well, the government will take our money.

But, you know, the other thing, too, and I didn't say this last night, you know, it's easy for 1,000 people to say no and they've got to go somewhere else. But hopefully they don't want to hang and darn feather their neighbor who maybe is cash-strapped and wants the money, right? to be some of that so but overwhelmingly i haven't heard anybody in favor of these things nobody's called me up and said wow this is great i can't believe you guys are going to get an intervener so um you know that's where i'm at anybody else committees

Campus has been we're going to talk about land resources basically chapter 7 so that'll be coming to the county board And then our 18-month data center moratorium ordinance So that'll be coming to county board as well. So I'm sure there'll be some comment on that.

Oh God you think you look let me forget about public comment before I talk Finance for the first time in the eight years or nine years that I've been here. We are getting to a point where we... really need to start watching what we spend. There's a huge gap that we're going to have to cover, and we knew this was coming, but the snowball is getting large, so when you're in your committees and you're making those resolutions to spend, spend, spend, you may want to just consider that in the back of your head because things are they're going to get worse before they get better, so to speak, at the rate we're going. County income has been relatively stagnant, and expenditures are exponentially increasing. Thank you.

Any other comments? Public comment. That reminds me. I'm going to put a... I'm going to probably... press for a special board meeting to hear the 765 resolution, we'd do that. With our budget coming up the way it is, we've got September, we're not going to be ready for September. Then October is preliminary budget, with November being the budget area. I think we're going to have to have a separate night for the 765 KV line. I don't know, maybe you want to put the I don't know. I don't think we'll get too much objection or hopefully too much public comment.

There's a group behind you, but I kind of told them, I said, you know, I think the public is kind of for you. I don't think you need to have everybody go up and spend three minutes. It's obviously up to them if they want to. But, you know.

How is public comment at the meeting?

zoning committee uh the first one there was a little bit but i think i mean now that's actually coming before us they're a fairly cohesive group at least so they're the the two supervisors out of the primary contacts with with that group they understand that they don't need to Blow it up. Yeah, blow it up or, you know. But they don't need to sit in front of the mic the whole time. Everybody's kind of on the same page more or less. Obviously, that's their...

They can do what they want. I think the 765 is going to have to move off site. I just don't know how we can host it in this building with the crowds we've been seeing showing up.

With our resolution on vaccinations years ago, we went down to the basement and opened up the whole thing. That, even in and of itself, is probably not big enough.

Yeah, I remember that, and I don't think that's going to be big enough. I mean, I was really surprised when I showed up at Arlington last night. That thing easily seats 500 people. Exactly. I mean, it's in the board rules. I can't limit public comment. I can reduce them from three to two minutes, but I can't stop 400 people from showing up.

What's your goal with having a special meeting for that?

Just because if we do this on the same night as anything else, we're going to be here until 2 in the morning.

Oh, if you bring the resolution.

Right. If we bring that in October, we also have buzzer presentation. Yeah, we're also going to have buzzer presentation that night.

I see. So you're just trying to separate it out.

Trying to separate it out. Because I think if we try to do that all in one night. Yeah.

And is recording a big thing? Because that's what we ran into with the vaccines because we wanted that recorded. That's why we did the two rooms.

We're not statutorily retired to record.

No, I know. I'm just bringing in a point because you like it recorded usually.

Well, I do because it has people behave themselves. Well, no, not anymore. I've got tape evidence that shows that didn't work. You know, I mean, theoretically, you know, we could set up a camera and replay it later, but.

Yeah, I'm just bringing it up.

I just don't know how.

What's the timeline that ECIs have following us in terms of when the decision on whether or not to get to any different meetings?

Well, we can't apply until MGS makes their application, right? And then from there, we have 60 days. So the reality is we've got to have our ducks in a row before they make an application. And to that point, that reminds me. Andy Phillips, there's nine counties. The chairs are all meeting with Andy virtually to kind of talk about this project. There's been a lot of interest in potentially sharing legal services, which- To some extent makes a lot of sense, but at the same time I did kind of address with Andy. The reality is, Being an intervener doesn't mean we're going to be able to say, not in my backyard. We can only tell them where in the yard we put it. And where we might want to put it in the yard could conflict where Columbia County wants it in the yard. So he's going to talk about those with the board chairs and what those potential conflicts are. We've asked their administrators to pop in, and we haven't been able to schedule a time. yet for that meeting but we're trying but it sounds like everybody even i never hear from the county board chair in dane county but sounds like he's going to get on board but i i got to reach out to melissa because i think melissa agard should be on the county executive should be on that too so yeah i mean that's all i'm trying to do is make sure we're not here until three in the morning in october yeah And I don't think we should wait until December because the natives are going to get extremely restless.

We don't want to create the impression that there's something we could do.

Exactly. But the problem is we're going to put a resolution forward about it being an intervener and 500 people are going to show up. Yeah, but I don't know how to stop the 500 people from coming, Dick.

That's how you stop it.

You have to put it on.

No, I'm just saying. It's in our board rules. Can you limit the...

the amount of public i can only limit it to two minutes under the board rules i can't even say we're going to take comment for 30 minutes but what we did with the vaccinations i don't know if you remember but i got up and gave a little speech about public comment and to your point there was a well-organized group behind that as well right and we spoke to them in advance and just said you know you have the legal right to do this we welcome it we want to hear from you but to the extent If you can consolidate within certain members and then represent how many are here to represent that viewpoint, that we really limit. Well, that helped us last month. Yeah.

Because rumor got out and I made phone calls to those organizations and controlled it. I mean, maybe I'm wrong. but we can control it to the best we can, but I don't know how far-reaching that is going to be when we actually put a resolution on floor. It was great because that woman stood, the organizer sat at the front door, gave out pamphlets and said, this is not on the agenda tonight, and sent everybody away. This meeting should be handing out pamphlets and directing them up the stairs. So, because we, you know, to that point, right? So. Mr. Andrew Kessel.

Sure. Oh, please.

You can't control the rain, John. All right, so that's all I got. It is probably time. Any other committee stuff that we didn't bring up? Cool. It's an exciting time in Sauk County. Next meeting dates October 6th at 4.30 p.m., I thought I might have a conflict, but I'm wrong. So I'm here. Anybody else? Everybody good? That being the case, on to item number 16th. It is anticipated the committee may enter into closed session pursuant to Wisconsin Statute 19.85, parent 1, parent E, for the purposes of deliberating or negotiating the purchase of public properties, the investing of public funds, or conducting other specified public business whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session. Topic. Discussion of possible action regarding ownership and redevelopment of the former UW-Platteville-Barboussac County campus property. A roll call vote will be taken to go into closed session and return to open session. Is there a motion to go into closed session?

So moved.

So moved by Dietrich. Second?

Laura, second.

We have a second by Laura. Roll call. Klitschke?

Yes.

Laura?

Yes.

Chrysler? Yes. Yes. Kinsman? Yes. McCumber, yes. Dietrich? Yes. Cross? Yes. All right, we're going to close session. Before everybody leaves, we keep the administrator, the lawyer, Supervisor Alexander, and the incumbent. So everybody who's here gets to stay. All right.