##VIDEO ID:Zvmh8nFKZMo## good morning everyone I'd like to welcome you to the Cook County Board of Commissioners regular meeting today Tuesday September 10th and if we'd please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all this morning as we begin we're going to um see if there are any adjustments or changes to today's agenda any adjustments or changes if not is there a motion to approve the agenda as is so move Madam chair thank you commissioner Mills is there support support thank you commissioner Starley we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I I oppose motion carries at this moment excuse me we'll move on to our public comment period and the public is welcome to address the County Board on any matter of County concern and we'd like to invite you to speak if you please come up to the microphone for clarity sign in and state your name address and the topic you're discussing are there members of the public that wish to speak this morning good morning morning my name is Marjorie Lind Mills and I live at 96 Wildwood Lane which is on Pike Lake so I am here to the topic is the CJ ramstead Trail discussion that you had at your last meeting I'm here to express my disappointment with your decision to pass the resolution to recommend that that CJ ramstead Trail be open to ATVs at your 827 24 meeting I'm concerned with the process that was used to develop and pass this resolution specifically the speed the lack of communication and the lack of inclusion or discussion with any other stakeholder besides the ATV Club for my perspective it appears that any special interest group can quickly move a resolution through the County Government with no requirement of inclusion or communication with stakeholders or the rest of the community from the resolution background material included in your meeting packet of 827 the ATV Club first requested agenda time on the July 23rd parks and trails commission meeting on May 22nd a scoping meeting was held with parks and trails the DNR the us4 service the at V Club and Land Services on June 26th this was defined and I quote as getting all the relevant stakeholders in one room though no hiking biking or equestrian trails and no residents were invited this meeting is not on the County calendar and I was unable to find any record of agenda minutes attendees Etc on the County website to me this was not an open meeting as required by law the resolution passed at the parks and trails meeting of July 23rd it was listed on the agenda as update CJ ramstead Trail Improvement project scoping meeting however there are no minutes published from this meeting and one would not know that a resolution was developed by just looking at the agenda the resolution and background public with the county community Commissioners meeting was published or I'm sorry the resolution in background was published with your commissioner's meeting agenda on 823rd to my knowledge this is the first time any documentation was published to the public that I can find on your website I've thoroughly searched through all the parks and trails materials back to June of 21 and I see no discussion prior to the end of May and it was only a it was only posted in that uh 823 agenda packet any interested party had roughly 4 days notice to comment uh to send an email or a letter or attend the meeting in person several did which were read at the meeting including suggestions for alternative Trails environmental impacts and noise concern concerns all were rebutted or addressed during the meeting by the ATV Club or others present from Land Services or uh parks and trails and I apologize I could not tell by the Voice who is speaking one of the Commissioners asked about noise which the ATV Club answered they would be surprised if anyone lived within a mile of the trail well in fact there are more than 60 cabins and houses full-time and seasonal residents on Pike Lake that are less than one mile from the trail in fact at the Western end of the trail they are about A4 mile from the trail or Western end of the lake the resolution was passed by you on a27 after a defeating a proposal to discuss further I sent several Commissioners my concerns and asked asked for minutes of the meeting so that I could understand the specific resolution that was passed I was directed to uh the the agenda of this meeting that the minutes would be attached as of this morning there are no minutes on the website I would like to understand if the Commissioners were aware this was happening over the course of July to August was the county administer administrator a whereare this was happening what policies or procedures are in place for commissions and boards to communicate with you the County Commissioners or for the County Commissioners to communicate to their constituents and the public why were residents living near the trail specifically on Pike Lake and the surrounding area not included in any discussion as stakeholders this could e have been accomplished by communicating with the Pike Lake Area Association or plaa which met on July 6th or by other means why were hiking biking and equestrian groups not included in any discussion as stakeholders when this Trail was designated for their that purpose the resolution voted seemed to to be contingent on getting this feedback again I have have not seen seen the minutes what is the timeline Andor outcome of this query why was the community at large unaware any of this was happening and why did the timing appear to be so rushed that all stakeholders could not be part of the discussion this in my opinion was an opportunity lost to develop cooperation collaboration and identify solutions that were truly in inclusive I thank you for your time thank you are there other members of the public that wish to speak this morning are there any comments that have been received by Commissioners or administrator yes Madam chair I do have a letter that I received this morning uh this is from Kathy Bogan who is the chair of the Cook County CO Coalition of Lake Associations and she writes dear Cook County Commissioners I'm writing to you on behalf of the Cook County Coalition of Lake Associations which represents 19 Lake and Road associations throughout Cook County uh the association's focus is on promoting responsible Lake and Shoreland management practices with the goal of preserving water quality healthy shorelands in wildlife habitat our members work closely with the Cook County Soil and Water District staff to implement and promote strategies that protect water quality among these are collecting Lake water samples for analys is doing public Outreach and education on aquatic invasive species mitigation and educating Lakeshore residents on the importance of maintaining healthy Shoreline buffers uh the Cook County Soil and Water District staff provide invaluable service to our community which relies heavily on the protection and preservation of its natural resources we encourage you to increase the County's funding allocation to the Cook County Soil and Water District so that their level of service can be maintained we appreciate your consideration Kathy Bogan County Coalition of Lake Associations chair are there any other remarks that Commissioners or the administrator received to be read if not we'll close our public comment period and move on to our consent agenda we have claims um final payment for the Fifth Avenue West reconstruction project appointment of Sharon rodning bash to the Cook County Extension committee temporary liquor license application for temperance Traders the approval of hire of Elizabeth blade blazedale as our office support specialist in case Aid and approval of Brook lard as our new director of facilities commission I'd like to um pull the last item for discussion all right we'll pull item G thank you commissioner any other items that commissioner wishes to B all right um is there a motion to approve with the the um subtraction of item G which is or the last item Brook lard just to just to clarify on the agenda that I have online it just goes to item F because the minutes are not finished yet correct um so okay thank you is there a motion to approve as the consent agenda is amended so move mam chair thank you commissioner mels is there support support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion and support and any further discussion all in favor I opposed motion carries commissioner white um you would like to talk a little bit about item G yes f um this is to hire a person at $52 and some an hour I have no idea what his qualifications are nor do nor do I know how many other people in their qualif qualific for this position how long it was posted um this as the way this goes is there's the Personnel committee that does the review and hiring and then the uh recommendations are sent along to us I think this process is flawed particularly in a situation where we are hiring a department head with significant responsibilities uh I have a responsibility to be able to fully explain to the taxpayers why I would vote one way or the other for something and for me to be in a position to uh without the question without answers without how this happened particularly in light of rumors that are around town about uh this position's um about this position I cannot in exercise due diligence to my constituents to the taxpayers uh with its inadequate information I do not know his I do not know this man at all everybody else seems to but I don't and uh but that's irrelevant I would like to know how he stacked up and I do want to know why why the entire board in a position a department head position is not privy to behind the scenes who is being who is who is applying for this position and why we have no input on this and it just seems that it puts the power and the direction this County goes in the hands of just a few and I do not believe that is the Democratic way to do it and this is again we have meetings and we do everything we can but as was just pointed out there were many public meetings that yes everybody had an opportunity to participate and um but when the it comes down to the end it comes to the board whatever the if we have not had an opportunity to process to get all the information it doesn't seem to matter often we can't table I mean tabling doesn't work very often we are just expected to go ahead and vote on it and that is not not a way to honestly and promote for the good of the public I'll leave it at that so I'd like to take an opportunity to respond I was on the interview committee and um I don't know if you've talk to our HR Director about the process but it's the same process that we use for others um we had um an opportunity for applicants to apply we created a series of questions that were offered in the very first round of interviews those were interviews with administrator yorki and also with other department heads um I participated in the second round of interviews where the field had been narrowed to semifinalists um we were able to review all their qualifications and information and again I I wish you had reached out to me and asked about that or in particular reached out to our HR director who does manage that process and I'm looking at the process bigger this is hiring someone for more than $100,000 a year that's a huge amount the superintendent at the school district doesn't make about much more than that so why no offense but I'm just supposed to trust the this small group of people to make the decisions based on the information that they got and as we all know people see information and come from different biases different experiences in their life so I cannot just trust that the right decisions are just being I'm not refuting the sincerity I'm not saying that anyone's trying to be nefarious and pass something through but but I cannot I cannot just take somebody's word for this in this particular situation this is a department head and hopefully this person will be here for a long time and will not be leaving in a year or two like we have many other people in this County we hire so this is my there's a problem with this process in my eye there's the entire board is responsible for this and being responsible for this I I expect to know all of the information is it because I'm not the rest of the board is not smart enough or we're not to be trusted with information or whatever the case may be but this process needs to be evaluated and and changed so the entire board on these huge hires are included this is a huge decision for decades hopefully for DEC ades and this person is charged with taking care of the buildings that this County owns that are taxpayers own and I don't know this man I don't know him I've heard the name that's about it that's about it so um that's that's all I have to say about this so again i' um suggest that we address process through the Personnel committee that's the way that we approach that so there's two things here there's process and then there's also the hire commissioner stle thank you um I I'm hearing what commissioner white is saying and the process could be very simple it could be just a simple email to us we have five candidates we're working on interviews and we'll keep you up to date we've received nothing about that I didn't even know that I mean I knew that there was candidates but I didn't know anything beyond that and as far as job description I think I think we got that so we do have that but um just a simple we're working on it we have five candidates maybe not we don't need the names but um just that little communication that this is happening Personnel uh HR commissioner Sullivan whomever just an update once in a while would help because now we've got I'm sure he's very qualified because you hired him but we have nothing else other than we have a name and how much they're thinking could we have the person or before before all that happens you know could he be here could we be introduced to him when does he start you know it's these types of things that I think we've been kind of anyway I feel we've been kind of left out so that's what I'm hearing commissioner Mills oh I think commissioner Johnson had a hand first yeah okay um I agree with some that we need to know so my question is can you give us some background about this hire tell me how many at were applied for the position you said you've done two interviews how many went made it to the second stage that that's kind of the information that would be helpful for us to understand the process and understand this higher and what the qualifications are cuz we had a big discussion about the qualifications for this job so I'd be interested in knowing what were the qualifications for the a ANS that applied and how um Mr lard Rose to the top that would just be helpful to understand in the Pro talking about process okay Madam chair the ministry excuse me sorry um I think a large issue is the lack of understanding of the process rather than what the process is and I think that has to do with the weight of the position and then also just a lack of experience on the board um you need to be aware of open meeting law straight up like how could this work within open meeting law well we have an interview in a hiring committee um my understanding is that you were on the interview hiring committee although not able to attend um is that not the was that not the situation don't have any recollection that I was part of any interview okay committee whatsoever and how do we do this with open meeting the naive commissioner who only spent 12 years on the school board that has the same sort of open meeting laws we hired the superintendent and we reviewed those people and how did we do it we did it legally every sitting board member got to see the applicants and their their um qualifications we talked as a board we talk spoke as a board this the existing administrator at that point or Superintendent at that point put in the phone calls we as a board the process here is not Democratic enough we are not such a big organization that we are hiring huge amounts of people and the Personnel Committee just needs to do it all I this is even worse because I represent I am here for the voters for the taxpayers of Cook County and I don't know this person I don't know who else he was up against and I was not part of the process at all we didn't get this information so to say I don't know how open meeting law works is not factual and two there are other ways around this rather than putting the whole decision-making power into the hands of a few people and that's for many many of our subcommittees that we have so that's Madam chair um anytime I hear ways around it when we're talking about open meeting law is a red flag because we're not trying to go around open meeting law we're trying to comply with open meeting law and respect the privacy of applicants um it's you know I appreciate the the insight into the hiring of the school superintendent we had a very similar process with the hiring of our top of organization administrator yorki uh it was an open meeting law with all the Commissioners uh with recorded meetings um but when it comes to staff below that's outside of our duties it is now on the administrator and the team to go through that and then we give the final say we communicate what our values are what looking for in job descriptions and go through that um but we need to understand our roles and responsibilities because um where does it stop do we go now to the supervisors and have all Commissioners hiring the supervisors in an open meeting law do you do that with the janitors at the school right like it's we're in charge of our administrator that is our duty and then beyond that it's within the Committees and how ever the organization has their their structure and this this is not unique um whatsoever this is how um this is best practice frankly well if you would have what I had said initially was in a situation where we are hiring a department hat at more than $100,000 a year for me to just trust that every just like blindly say you bet rubber stamp that is not that is not being responsible to the taxpayers I can't see that and we never when it came to the open meeting law we never kept it they were all recorded when we were talking about them we did not do anything illegal but it was confidential there were many people that were reviewed that did not because they did not want their current employers to know that they were seeking in seeking other employment everyone well I don't know we kind of trusted that we were elected and we knew what confidentiality meant so we didn't go running off and telling anybody so to twist it and say now we're so now we're going to do the supervisors and we're going to do that no but now we're putting all of our trust in James and these couple of people and yeah okay we're responsible for James so how about are we not supposed to be doing a job review for our administrator and we have not we do it every we did not we have not done one this year no se that's coming and so you know this is there are issues there are a lot of issues that need to be and I I am not suggesting that this board deals with the employees they are not our responsibility but a department head certainly is because we need to make certain we're hiring the best people for our administrator to work with I'm sorry if I'm pointing I don't mean to be disrespectful but I'll pound down the table instead um but I feel very strongly about this and I don't know this person and and as commissioner um from the West End says I'm sorry C too wound up um this is we get this for the first time Madam chair may I please commissioner white you were in the courthouse yesterday I said hello to you I did I responded and you did and you did not at all say I've got major concerns about this issue you waited until our camera was on you bet I did because this goes on a lot because it's about this performance it's not actually about if you have concerns about process you should be talking to me and when will this happen well when you when you come forward and express concerns how can we work through if you have Pro concerns of our process how do we resolve those if you're not even willing to have a conversation is it for you to create process or the board creates the process so I'd like to stop right here this is not something that we should be arguing about we H do have a process department heads are typically hired through the process that goes through the HR department I would ask that Commissioners respect that um we can address that and look at our processes through the um Personnel committee at our next meeting that's coming up but right now the process is that we hire our County Administrator and that we have department heads engaged and a commissioner in first and second interviews for any department heads so that's the current process and if Commissioners have questions um please reach out in advance so that we can respond to those questions and I think commissioner storle an email or something like that is is a a really good way to um begin communic I would like to go back um so we can talk about Brook lard as the Director of facilities and approve his hire um administrator Yori if you could go back to the first round of interviews and talk a little bit about that the number of candidates and um then we'll move forward certainly we had five candidates for the first round interviews um I and uh Rowan Watkins and Allison McIntyre directors of um it and Public Health and Human Services respectively were involved in those interviews um we we scored the applicants based on the scoring we called back two applicants and uh Brooke was one of those um commissioner Sullivan participated in the second round interviews and based on the uh second round interviews um I should mention Robby H was involved in those second round interviews uh commissioner I don't recall who else was in those um Rowan was in the second round as well was in the second round yeah and also from our um maintenance department all right Jimmy Walter y Jimmy was there so based on the second round interviews the scoring of the applicant responses in those interviews and the review of credentials we um recommended Brooke to be hired it was a committee process it was not just me do do we want to modify the job description to have applicants be known by Commissioners it seemed like that was something you were you don't know them so oh no it's just that this is a name and why was he selected and this is something that through open open meeting laws you close doors tape the whole thing these are the applicants this is what they bring to the table I don't need to know them personally we we hire somebody from the outside world who might be better whomever it was I don't these are these are people that will be working here for the good of the county not for the good of Deb not for the good of James or Stacy let's see if we can give everybody's name here leave you out but anyway um so no I I know nothing about this particular person so and I explained it I don't need to to repeat myself on this but I believe the process is is not as transparent um done in good faith but it leaves out four fifths of the Commissioners thank you so um we've talked a little bit about the process I will make sure that that is brought up on our Personnel committee that we talk further about it um and now is there a motion to approve the hire of Brook lard as our director of facilities so move Madam chair thank you commissioner mels is there support support thank you commissioner Starley we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you on to item four highway department and I see that both Matt and Robbie are here to speak with us this morning there's a microphone for each of you or you can put one between you good morning good morning well actually uh I'll let Matt go pardon me I'll let Matt go first this time morning Commissioners um morning first item here on on Highway is the authorization to list vehicles for sale uh We've recently purchased a tandem truck as well as a loader as part of our uh replacement plan and in doing so uh We've rendered obsolete a tandem and uh loader so we'd like to sell those and the best method that we have found to sell those is on the midb minbid website which allows public entities to list them and people are allowed to bid we can put a reserve on those to make sure that we try to get a return on on our investment um because obviously we want to get as much money for those because that goes right back into our equipment fund um so yeah um more details are in the in the uh um the agenda item but if anybody has any questions I'd entertain those are there any questions for Matt we we don't want to we don't want to backup tandem or any uh so we do have a backup we have actually two back we have two backups so we have two backups um it's great to point out um so this would be our third backup that we're trying to sell right now um but yes it's always important to have a backup for especially for plowing thank you all right commissioner white and what was the price of the new one uh o one the the price of the of the new tanem was in the $300,000 range and the price of the loader I don't have off the top of my head and their life expectancy so we're on a replacement schedule so for the tandems it's I believe it's between 12 and 14 years and for uh a loader it's actually 30 years wow thanks and you'll see that the loader we're trying to offload here is uh a bit older than that it's 1975 so it's time is due definitely other questions or comments Madam chair I'd like to make a motion to approve the listing of the vehicles on the Surplus site thank you commissioner Mills is there support support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion in support any further discussion all in favor I opposed motion carries thank you thank you now A little update on our engineering interns I happen to know all of them I I love looking at the photograph of those yes that uh that made me laugh um no so this uh this summer is the first time we've done it in God I don't know how many years but it's the first time ever with high school students uh and so this last April I went to the job fair over at the the high school um and just put out a little flyer and said you know if anyone is interested in engineering construction surveying here's an opportunity to get some experience uh and so we ended up hiring uh four of our interns this summer and so what they did is they hopped around to each of our projects um and got to learn you know a little bit about how projects get built um and after all that was done I uh with the help of uh Allison over in HR we kind of came up with an exit interview and then what I did is compiled all that and just made a little summary with the power of AI because that does a way better job than I can do and so what I wanted to do though is uh just kind of a couple of them and just read off uh some of the things and so one of the things that stood out was most valuable Lessons Learned uh most valuable Lessons Learned involveed teamwork building relationships and learning about the construction process uh respondents appreciated the hands-on experience and the opportun opportunity to learn from knowledgeable Professionals in the field another question involved program Improvement so what could we do better um so to enhance the program suggestions included setting more consistent schedules planning ahead for activities and conducting interviews earlier in the year uh some felt that having backup plans for days with less work would be helpful we were a little light on work this year um we only had three projects going as opposed to I think six were supposed to be scheduled next year we have nine scheduled so I think we'll be okay with that um but some of it made sense too where just having interviews before school is done helps them plan if they you know if they didn't get the intern job to then you know ensure that they have summer work elsewhere in the community um one that I really thought uh kind of I'll go out on a limb and say gave me the warm and fuzzies uh was company culture it was a question about that and so what they responded as a group was uh culture was described as friendly supportive and welcoming with an environment that encouraged learning and sharing knowledge respondent that respondents felt that they could be themselves and compared the atmosphere to being part of a family and so what was neat to hear was it's not just my staff um it's it's it's the contractors that we're working with it's the Consultants that we're working with it's the wide array of people and so it was really neat to hear that from high school kids that that's what they felt in this experience uh and then lastly just overall internship experience the respondents had a positive experience highlighting that they learned a lot enjoyed the internship and appreciated the opportunity to explore future career and hobby ideas they valued meeting new people and gaining insights into the field of work and so that's something I heard from them uh throughout the whole summer was you know wow I didn't realize it took this many people to deliver a project or I didn't realize there were this many career opportunities you know from driving the truck to doing the design to doing the inspection and so I think it was a really really eye-opening experience for them and I'm excited to do it again this next summer so any questions about how it went no question but I would just like to thank you for engaging with um our young people here in our community and giving them a broad perspective on all the careers that are available um whether they be here in the county or careers that might lead them elsewhere but thank you for doing that thanks commer Mills yeah Bravo um on the culture Bravo on this initiative um and just planning ahead growing around look into the future of what we need and what we can do thank you thanks yeah and I know there are some questions too before we started this about um our budget actually and how much this would cost I see some smirks um and so overall we actually spent a little under $20,000 paying our interns all of them together our budget was $3,631 and so even if we took one of the interns that worked the most and applied that to everybody we'd be right at budget um and so overall think this is a program we can continue year after year um and and keep up with so yeah commissioner white would you hire them back again next year or open it up to for if you had if if there were like four brand new people that really wanted to be part of this would you hire all of them or would you keep the ones that you really liked I'm inclined with this opportunity to really try and reach as many people as possible so to say here's you know four had the experience great off you go now and then you know if there's a new batch of four or however we could do four I can't do more than that um but I I would almost prefer that and so to just try and get as many kids the experience as possible so that they they then they can go off into the World After High School saying that they had some type of experience with it but we haven't settled on anything we'll see who applies you know every year it'll be different all right commissioner starle thank you I think it's the wonderful opportunity for them were they like seniors in high school um I think no I think most of them were Juniors actually right okay yeah and how many weeks did they work it was I don't have it in front of me basically June through August um yeah so most of the summer okay yeah sounds like you'll do it again and thanks for budgeting all that out too there we'll we'll be with you in just a minute all right so um thank you so much for that information and update that's really nice um we have um some other items are ruming of Northwoods Loop and i' just like to introduce that by saying I met with the Gunflint Trail Scenic byway last week and there's great support for that and um so tell us a little bit about renumbering Northwoods Loop sure um so it's it's a little complicated up there if you're if you're familiar with the area you can think of there's kind of three old segments of the Gunflint the voyagers Point chunk popular Lake Lane The Rockwood Loop and then Northwoods Loop I'm do this off the top of my head so I'm going to try my best what we could find digging back through old resolutions and archives is when the Gunflint got rerouted um two of those sections were officially abandoned as the Gunflint and then renamed or one of them was then picked back up as um County Road 85 Northwoods Loop was never abandoned nor picked back up and so it was kind of in this gray area and from what we could tell back through everything and so our assumption was then I think it was in the' 60s and 7s it wasn't maintained there were some correspondents with former engineer and um I think some of the residents up there that said hey actually we can't find anything that says this isn't a county road so therefore it is a county road like it was never officially abandoned Northwoods Loop and so that's where we stuck the number 85 back up on it um after some correspondence then with some of the resort Folks up there um and residents and visitors you know it's confusing there's two County Road 85s and they're named different roads and so this seemed like a very easy way to alleviate some confusion over that and so uh that's where we're proposing and then if you remember ' 89 got freed up when we uh turned over Old Highway 61 which was up in Portage turned that over to the band and so that number is now free and so it at least fits kind of in the range of numbers that are up in the midrail area so any questions with that and we did I did talk to the resort they're all supportive Scenic byway folks supportive of it other visitors residents that we've talked to Matt was talking I believe with someone that had initially reached out also obviously supportive of it so yeah any questions believe so I'd like to make a motion to approve renumbering Northwood liop to UT t89 thank you commissioner Mills is there support I support that thank you commissioner white we have a motion in support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries unanimously thank you I'm going to ask for a a pause from the highway department we have attorney hickin online she has um something in duth coming up at 10:00 and so we would like to move at this point to item six which is uh to delegate The Authority for the county attorney to contract with a county appeal officer and I'll turn it over to attorney hickin who is online with us this morning thank you so much commissioner Sullivan can you hear me okay um you're kind of quiet all right can keep going okay so I'll try to keep my voice up and I thank you so much for accommodating um my participation by telephone this morning um so the issue that I put on the agenda today is a request that the board delegate to me the authority to negotiate in good faith with a contracted party to act as a neutral hearing officer or appeals officer uh to make determinations as required under some of our ordinances um I included some language from three different County ordinances I think that there are other uses for a person like this also uh it's not anticipated that this would be a frequent need in fact we haven't had a need for it um that I can recall when I've been a county attorney um but the issue is that when we impair somebody's property interest and that could be by uh requiring them to pay a fine under an ordinance or um seizing their property or impairing their property interest in another way they are entitled to due process so notice um and a right to appeal and a hearing in front of a neutral magistrate or hearing officer we have the option under some of our ordinance language to have account employee act as that hearing officer so long as they are considered neutral um I have a couple issues with doing that on a regular basis uh one being that most of our County employees have a lot of other work to do and this job would be so uh infrequent that they'd essentially need to be trained over and over again um and that would take time and resources away from their other work and the other issue that it is that I think it's very likely that any County employee for C County might be accused of not being impartial being partial to the County's interest which is usually going to be argued by the county attorney's office you know we have a small uh a pretty small close-knit group of employees so my request um and it comes the timing is not a coincidence that we are um enforcing our dangerous dog ordinance against a dog owner right now that person has 14 days in which they can appeal that determination and say uh the county didn't make the right choice here and I don't have to follow through with the requirements of the ordinance so it is possible that in the next few weeks we'll have a need for a like this my intent would be to reach out to uh retired attorneys or judges in area who would be willing to um research the ordinance that's that issue preside over the hearing and then create make a decision and write the opinion for it um I'm estimating a cost of $2,000 it may be under that it may be over that but I'm just asking uh to negotiate in good faith up to $2,000 um and the board would have another opportunity to see you know who's being appointed and to see the contract um I just need I because there are only two regular board meetings a month and these hearing deadlines come up quickly when they do happen need the authorization of the board to get started on that process ahead of time so I know this is a novel issue please let me know if you have any questions or concerns well I appreciate you bringing this forward to us and and the fact that we do have um an issue with a dangerous dog um presses us to um make a decision but I also want to point out to the board that it is something that in other ordinances um could also occur and I'm aware of the airport ordinance where if there's a violation on Airport property um that it requires that there be somebody impartial who's part of that appeal and I I think it's really good that we don't have a County employee engaged in this um that we do look at a retired judge or a retired attorney as somebody who has that experience and can do this on our behalf and particularly at a cost of less than $2,000 I think it really cleans it up for us um other comments or questions that Commissioners have commissioner Mills attorney hickin um so there there was maybe um opportunities potentially with HR as well but is this also more relevant as we talk about our City County Joint Powers agreements or is this separate altoe I mean I know it's a hand alone thing but I'm just looking at opportunities for improvement and in process I'm trying to think of a role I'm just thinking of ordinance enforcement right that that oh sure your office may be or the sheriff may be taking on um and if there would be further potential roles for this position that's right it's likely that the city ordinances that several of the city ordinances have the similar types of Provisions where an administrative citation uh can be issued requiring payment straight to the city and in that event uh the person is entitled to appeal and needs a neutral hearing officer yeah that is true um that it could come more into you know if if we do end up enforcing more city ordinances then this would be a need for that too I do want to point out and I think I put this in my summary but there also in many of the ordinances is the opportunity to recover up to $1,000 of the actual cost of doing this of doing the um hearing from the appellant the person who require requests the appeal yeah you're you're correct that is in the U materials that we have but good point to point out out to the public commissioner Mills in my mind that would be cost prohibitive uh for most people um is this if the appeal fails or just to do the appeal just to do the appeal so you know I I think there's going to be a balancing of the cost versus the benefits always if um if the costs of the county enforcement is going to exceed $1,000 then it would be it' be in the appellant's interest to appeal if they think they have a good case commissioner white we have a couple more lawyers on staff lawyers are not lawyers yes lawyers they are to be impartial is that correct I mean no we have we have one more lawyer on ask um Oh you mean two two additional to me yes um but my point in asking for an outside person is that they have no loyalty to the county whereas I do and the assistant County attorneys do and it's likely to be the county attorney's office that's arguing on behalf of the department for example if the um Airport manager feels the need to issue a administrative Citation for violating the airport ordinance it's going to be the county attorney's office that uh brings forward that citation and defends it during the appeal so we can't both be the proponent of the action and the neutral magistrate there's that's a conflict thank you so much M other questions commissioner Johnson I'm I'm just wondering if this has um there's room in your current budget for this item or has there been thought about the 2025 budget and what you would think you might need to put in as a line item for this we I think that I've budgeted $8,000 for Professional Services some years we use that up some years we don't even get halfway to it so um it we often use those for expert witness fees if we've got a trial which requires expert witness testimony but yes this is a an item that possibly could go out of that part of the budget thank you for clarifying that other questions commissioner m i i just it um I don't have any specifics in mind I just uh feel that if I were to try to appeal uh something that $1,000 would be a a hard um a hardship and so what I'm wondering is if it would be appropriate to have something less than that or if your legal and professional opinion is that it should be $1,000 because it should be I mean yes we shouldn't have everyone under this and appealing everything they don't like um I'm just trying to balance like you said um the costs with the incentive um yeah the the requirement that the appellant pay up to $1,000 of the actual cost comes from the ordinance language so changing that number would require amending ordinances I think the vast majority of appeals are going to cost more than that if you consider the resources it takes and like of even just of the County Employees to prepare them for the challenge but I that's I don't know that that I have a legal opinion on that other than we'd require to we we would need to amend the ordinances I think it might be more of a business decision on the commissioner's part as to how much of the burden you want to put on the appellant they they actually say uh up to a maximum of a th000 must be paid by the person so maybe that covers it yes we could possibly have a policy where we don't charge more than a certain amount even though this ordinance authorizes us to do so or perhaps we could charge a percent of the total costs um to the individual that um is appealing so that's something certainly we can um talk about for the future making a change potentially to an ordinance um but for now any other questions about the authorization to negotiate for a $2,000 fee per hearing commissioner thank you um chair Selvin um just so I'm better understanding all the all the different directions I agree this would require you know further discussion and and and other changes uh if we were to change that $1,000 would it my question I guess is it would it be inappropriate to have that dollar amount contingent on the outcome of the appeal it I think I mean that's similar to other structures for payment that are built into the court system you know you only get your attorney fees paid if you win the case for example paid by the other side um so I think that's a defensible position yeah okay but down the road but thank you very much for the Insight yep commissioner storle thank you well it says up to so that could be uh based on each individual case and I think that should be the open part each indiv idual case isn't locked into $1,000 right Molly yes although it's what I'd be most comfortable with is a policy the same policy being excuse me you create a policy for what percentage or what amount your appellants are required to pay and that same policy is applied to everyone the only problem with Case by case decision making is that it opens up the opportunity for discriminatory treatment so or the accusation of discriminatory treatment right I'm being treated differently than others because you're making me pay more but you you know offensively you could have a policy that was based on ability to pay Financial ability you could have a policy that was based on a percentage um all the or the ordinance authorizes us to charge up to $1,000 but uh we could have a practice as long as it was applied equally among appellants of charging less than that thank you yeah again I think this is probably that kind of I'm sorry I'm almost sorry I brought it up but I'm not uh I'm happy to have brought it up but it is a separate conversation so um with all this being said I'd like to make a motion to authorize the County Attorney to negotiate in good faith with an individual to perform the duties of the county appeal officer on an as needed contract basis at a cost of up to 2,000 per hearing thank you commissioner mels is there support support okay commissioner Johnson supports we have a motion and support any further discussion just a little question so when will the commissioner n point so so when will we have a there'll be a continued discussion about the price about the amount we're approving this as it is but yeah when do you foresee you might have and maybe I'll never maybe this is the right way to go but when do you anticipate having a conversation to review and decide if this is the right amount I think if if this uh owner this pet owner appeals I'm going to be back in front of the board in two weeks if they don't I might take the opportunity to um you spend a little more time on a contract but um and I that contract would I could accompany that with a suggestion as to how we charge for the actual cost and certainly we could bring this up at a future Committee of the whole meeting if nothing transpired within the next 14 days okay sure commissioner mels I I was I was going to suggest that in the next year uh we we take another look at this and just see how it has impacted our budget and and what you might foresee um coming down the road in the future um I determining this dollar amount is not my top priority right now it's just uh something that I thought we should we should talk about I can bring it back in in a year sure any other comments or questions we have a motion and a second all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you attorney hickin thank you so much I'll stay on the call in case anything else needs my contribution thank you so much all right we will jump back up to our highway department and we want to thank you um engineer H for waiting appreciate that um we are on item D which is the salt sand shed update yes so as you guys are all aware um our shed is not supposed to be a convertible uh last June we uh had a pretty gnarly Windstorm and half the cover got ripped off and so what we were able to do though is um oh I think it was sometime in August few weeks ago yeah we were able to get a representative an inspector from clear span from the building um company itself to come up and you know inspect it inspect the damage make some recommendations to us on what we need to do so recommendation was obviously replacing the folded back part there's some holes in it um creases that you know once it's taed again um you know could could potentially create more tears and then the addition also of replacing the back wall that had some issues with it as well so the attached report kind of shows what his findings were and then Additionally the dollar amount to fix that you know it's a little over $40,000 to get that fixed by clear span for them to come up um and do the fix that was something we wanted uh was to have the company it themselves make the fix even if we were the ones paying for it uh and so that that's kind of the short of it I guess does anybody have any questions I have a question um is it possible that we can get this done before the snow comes because our product that we put under there needs to be protected and so is there a guarantee that we can get this done that's where we're moving um this week actually I'm going to shoot them another email once we leave here um just to see that we were trying to nail down dates uh for them to come up and so I've made it very clear from the outset you know it snows up here in about a month and that's you know we can laugh but it's not uncommon um for that to happen but we've plowed in the middle of October even just in my short time here um so yes that's that's the goal thank you that was my big question commissioner white yes how will we dry out what's underneath there well that's an interesting one uh so obviously we've been getting a lot of rain that was the early part of the year and now we haven't had any rain um you know a lot of times actually most of the time and we'll talk about it it's actually kind of related to the winter sand thing next when we get the sand it's already wet we never get dry sand delivered and so what we're hoping is that because it's been sitting in that pile hopefully it hasn't penetrated all the way through our assumption is that it's probably just created a little Crest on top um and so once we kind of do get our new sand and new salt uh and we'll start mixing everything together I don't think it's going to be anything that we haven't already dealt with in the past good question thank you other questions commissioner Ms I know lots of uh facets to the the issue and I just wondering if Northland is all I mean they've got any Northern Constructors if they've got any skin in this repair or um and that was something that we talked about at Highway committee quite a bit um I think I think that conversation you know you figure this happened in June it was constructed 9 months prior to that um and there's a lot of scenarios that can happen in that time you can say everything was constructed correctly and we just had a nasty Windstorm and maybe the design isn't good and that happened you could say it wasn't constructed correctly and the design was good uh and that's part of it um or you can say everything is great so I guess you know it it was far enough after it was built in my opinion that it's hard to assign blame to anything um if this was a month afterwards that's a different story like I wholeheartedly agree with that but I think I think in the interest of just getting this done and moving it Forward I think rationally you know and I've dealt with similar problems on other projects when I've talked to homeowners about tree removal for example and we say if our project is going to affect your tree um here's an opportunity let's fix it right now but if you come back to me in a couple of years and say our project killed your tree that's a little harder pill to swallow um and so I you know I kind of make that analogy and um you know that's where we're like let's just let's just get it fixed yeah and I I have no doubt that you've looked down all the different Avenues and possibilities but I was just not aware of it and so I wanted to ask thank you no worries MH other questions or comments if not I'd entertain a motion to approve the repairs to our salt sanded quickly I'll move thank you commissioner starle is there supp second thank you commissioner white we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I oppose motion carries thank you and on to talk about winter sand there we go never too soon um so yeah this is just a wording the contract uh with sand um it's a topic that comes up a lot up here uh the availability of sand so typically we do always get one bidder uh it's Isaac Hansen's and so you can see we're getting a lot less this year we had a pretty light winter if you all remember from last year so the pile is still pretty large uh but yeah so this was the only bid we received 750 yards of winter sand um um any questions yes commissioner for the listening public witer sand is sandbox sand or is it with salt in it uh simplest term sandbox sand the salt is separate and then we kind of decide if we want to mix it inhouse or um traditionally Isaac Hansen has done that in the past other questions if not I'd entertain a motion so move Madam chair thank you commissioner mels is there support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I opposed motion carries thank you so much thank you all all right have a great day at this time we will move on to human resources and We Have Allison plumber with us to talk about benefits and open enrollment it is the season I know she's been Gathering lots of information she and her staff and um it's a very busy time of year that's about to approach us hi good morning morning all right Jan's getting me set up here okay so I have a couple of items to bring forth can they see that do we turn that to them oh they got it good don't do a lot of presentations all right all right so my first item to bring to you today is uh some information so yes it is that time of year um that we are looking forward to uh our open enrollment for our 2025 benefits um some things have been happening behind the scenes and I wanted to provide you that information um uh so you are aware of what is coming up and some changes um as well as we're going to see uh for those benefits so we go to the oh not my computer okay so looking ahead uh to 2025 benefits so kind of my order uh like table of contents that I'm going to address things by we have our healthc care which is our our biggest benefit followed by uh some updates on our ancillary benefits this includes our dental vision our short-term disability our long-term disability life insurance and then I'm going to talk about kind of what our plans are for the open enrollment period so biggest topic biggest benefit is Healthcare uh we did receive our Healthcare renewal from the Northeast service Cooperative a couple weeks ago um I think that information has been shared with the bargaining units uh during the current discussions uh and so just in highlighting that as we expected there will be an increase for 2025 overall there will be a 99.65% increase in the premiums excuse me premiums paid by staff um also in addition to the increase in premiums there will be an increase in the deductible for our plan two so our plan two is known as our HSA uh compatible plan it is a qualifying High deductible Health Plan per IRS require re IR Ms and so that deductible can fluctuate each year depending on how how the IRS updates and sets those minimum deductibles in order to qualify as a high deductible Health Plan lots of terms so um our plan one deductible again is not changing that will remain at the 1850 deductible uh and then the plan two is going to increase from a $2,000 deductible to A2 $2,100 deductible and that's for single so families would then be double that would be a 5,200 um doubling for the family for plan one will still be at 3700 and then I have a chart here just to show you the comparisons of the impact on the premiums for 2024 our current premiums going into 2025 and then we also included the number of contracts we have uh so this would be like the single or family units the employees that we have have enrolled in each of the plans all right on to some ancillary benefits dental vision long-term disability and our life insurance our coverage and our rates are going to remain unchanged for 2025 so nothing there short-term disability so there are going to be some changes here with our short-term disability benefit um um in looking ahead to 2025 and what changes we would like to make uh first efficiency um ease of administration of the benefits um access by our employees it was apparent uh I so I started last year on the first day of open enrollment and going through that whole process and then processing all of the benefit requests um after open enrollment and going into 2024 it was quite apparent the short short-term disability is definitely a barrier it is a it's a it's a harder benefit to administer especially because we administer it at the county level it's called a self-administered benefit so in essence we retain all of the spreadsheets tracking the premiums due um for that benefit we don't send the enrollment information to the provider and then they do all of the tracking it's it's on us to do all of that including all of the health questionnaires that we have to provide for new enrollments or request for increase in benefits so in looking forward to 2025 it was like oh okay can we change this benefit so it's not so much of a headache for administering the program and for employees to get on the benefit so we went through an RFP process in 20124 so this is working with our uh provider integ Integrity benefit with Isaac upus uh to go through that RFP process and so what we determined after getting the information back from the RFP we received five responses including a response from our current provider is that it was determined um after discussions with Isaac Isaac also rep uh presented the information to our benefits and wellness committee is that we determined it would be in best interest of the county and the employees to transition from our provider of Madison National to the Hartford and the Hartford it made sense to transfer to them as well because they currently provide our life insurance coverages as well so the reasons for that transition um we have a couple of things get to my notes Here uh I think one of the biggest things I think that we tend to notice first and foremost is the cost for that benefit so overall there will be a decrease in premiums this was based on the current census um that based on the age band and the premiums paid for those individuals in that age band we'll see an overall reduction of 7% of premiums paid by our staff that's assuming the same individuals continue their coverage um big thing no health history is needed for enrollment so as I mentioned going in from the 2023 open enrollment period to processing those benefits for 2024 employees current employees who didn't previously elect short-term disability who were newly electing short-term disability or those employees who were requesting an increase in their short-term disability coverage would have to fill out a health questionnaire so provide their health history and then that questionnaire would go to the company for evaluation and then they would respond and say yes we approve you or we don't approve you you're denied coverage and I would say it was a good split maybe like 5050 I don't have the exact numbers um of those request for benefits denied based on the health history and really it was just another step of tracking on my end of do these people need a health questionnaire I have to send them the form now I have to track that they return it then I have to track that it's sent then I have to track did we get a response so was a lot of extra work for this one benefit um so that is a big plus so really in essence we're going to take away this barrier for requesting this benefit by removing the need to have that Health questionnaire that health history provided um one of the other benefits to moving to the Hartford is our reduced participation requirements Madison National required a minimum of 20% of our current employees uh to be enrolled in order to maintain that coverage they actually kind of gave us a Grace on that because we really only had about 15% of our employee population uh enrolled in that benefit uh so in essence we really weren't actually meeting that minimum requirement to have that benefit with Madison National the Hartford however requires only 10 enrolled lives so 10 employees so right there we meet that standard uh and then paired with the decrease in the premiums and no health history it was kind of a a no-brainer that this was the the the transition that we wanted to make also one of the other reasons for the transition is looking ahead in our crystal ball how paid family medical leave will work for June F or June 1st January 1st of 2026 so that is a um a state program I think we've all heard of it and they're still figuring out the Kinks and they're still figuring out the the premium that will be due by um employees and employers to fund that program but one of the things that was clear is that there will be two options to administer paid family medical leave one will be employers can utilize the state's program uh it will be I believe they'll utilize deed like they do unemployment insurance or we can go the route and use our thirdparty administrator like a private administrator like Integrity benefits um whoever uses or excuse me whatever provider we utilize for that benefit if they're going to be able to offer private administration of paid family medical leave that we could get a jump start on moving to a company that's going to provide that benefit um if we didn't want to go the state route in talking with Isaac it was also pretty clear that going the route of a private administration of paid family medical leave would be the most efficient route for our staff in terms of timeliness processing versus going with the state so it was also like is the company that we're transitioning to with short-term disability are they going to provide private administration of this program coming up in 2026 and they are Madison National was not um they were looking at implementing some type of system to administer that um but they were not familiar with being able to administer some of those programs on a on a private level however the Heartford it is so um paired with the decrease in premiums health history participation requirements and now knowing that they will provide private administration of paid family medical leave all of that together was overwhelming evidence that it was to our benefit to transition to the Hartford uh let's see and then uh just a side note too with our benefits and our providers so the Hartford now that we're transitioning short-term disability over to the Hartford and they also administer our life insurance then we're looking at long-term disability long-term disability is going to stay with Madison National at this time that has been our provider for several years uh we did look at and kind of did a underlying kind of request for quotes that if we did do an RFP what rates would be returned by the heart for long-term disability um could they meet the current rates for Madison National cuz Madison National has some really good rates for their longterm disability and that is a 100% employer paid benefit so looking at the kind of quoted premiums uh to see if we would be able to change our carrier for long-term disability to and basically bucket everything with the Hartford uh the Hartford was not able to even come close to the current rates provided by Madison National for a long-term long-term disability maybe if the rates had been a little closer um potentially we would have considered changing but we do have um we are locked in for our current rates again they're not changing for 2025 and then at that point we could look at doing another RFP to see if hey can we bundle short-term disability long-term disability life insurance all with the Hartford and then if they uh when they administer our Paid Family Medical believe to have all of those benefits that are very uh very much integrated um and they will work together uh to have them under one company will be a huge benefit but um I just wanted to note that we did look at the transition for long-term disability and it just was not in the cards for 2025 okay I should ask questions does anyone have questions thus far before I jump into open enrollment or do you want to wait for questions yes um there's going to be a lot of moving Parts in the near future uh 2026 yes and I'm just want to make sure that we leave our doors open for other opportunities and I think you're on top of that but I just want to you know ensure the public that this will lock Us in for a short period of time and then we can re-evaluate and see what options are and how things change just uh you know no health history needed is pretty uh fantastic but and um in the long run I don't think that the rates will be as affordable when there isn't no health history needed you know sort of thing because there's going to be more instances and more you know so right now it's great but then in the future I could see things changing as well so well and another uh aspect of short-term disability is how will short-term disability be impacted with the implementation of the state's paid family medical leave and that is something too that was in our discussions uh regardless of what provider we have um even with the transition to the Hartford so what they anticipate happening and what they're aware of is going to happen thus far with short-term disability with January 1st of 2026 is there still will be a need for short-term disability but short-term disability will really in essence be become a supplement to any payments for Paid Family Medical Leave So Paid Family Medical Leave will really in essence replace short-term disability as the main the primary payment of mtime for family or medical purposes and then potentially if someone um say their requests exceed the 20we maximum um for paid family medical leave between the two Family Medical buckets um or their income exceeds the maximum payout for the program then that is where short-term disability for those that still choose to enroll could come in and help supplement um so what they're anticipating is that the premiums for short-term disability will drop extremely so for 2025 we'll have uh short-term disability will be subject to the premiums right now through the Hartford that we're quoted um and then in 2026 the Harford told us there will be another adjustment because premiums will significantly decrease because they also anticipate there really won't be a need for short-term disability and the payout won't be much so they're going to drop those rates yeah and so the the long-term disability isn't entirely employer paid right long-term disability is 100% employer paid short-term disability is a 100% employee paid thank you yes other questions all right we'll let you go on I know it's a lot it's very technical all right so now that we know where our benefits are at going into 2025 now we need to figure out open enrollment um yay hr's favorite time of the year not really uh it's a lot of work I actually do really enjoy it um it's very technical and I really have enjoyed learning this stuff so um you're very good at it too oh thank you thank you um so Kath and I uh have started to kind of set out a timeline and I've already started putting things into place for open enrollment uh so let me just get to my notes here so you were're going to see some different things some familiar things I really want to revamp and create a lot of new resources and the time that I've been an employee here um over 18 years I feel that the information I'm going to be honest I feel like the information about our benefits outside of even open enrollment and then even during open enrollment has be has been very slim at best and even in my role now I'm discovering a lot of information about our benefits that should be relayed to staff but either wasn't known to the previous HR directors um or it was known but just not translated and provided to the employees so coming from that aspect is like I want to be able to provide all the information necessary so people can make the best choices for what they need with our benefits so um new resources I've been working on a multi-page benefits guide which will basically be I not a novel um a book I don't know what to describe um but it's going to lay out our benefits in a very comprehensive manner it will have charts it will have details about about the benefits how they work together how they tie together and it will be in one comprehensive document versus before I feel like things have been all over the place and that's very confusing uh let's see other resources that I've been working on um in regards to open enrollment to do more of a flyer uh kind of like a news flyer that uh will indicate the dates for our open enrollment um the sessions that we're doing and I'll talk about the sessions here shortly just to provide people that information again comprehensively in one location and then I'm working on uh a checklist so what can you do to prepare for open enrollment and this is more of like a mental checklist for people that like to have checklists I know some people really like to cross things off so a checklist of how can I prepare what can I do during and what do I do after and then paired with that checklist will be um what is it I'm trying to remember what it's called um like an enrollment I remember what I called it and kind of like another checklist um where we will lay out all of the benefits that we will have like summarize the benefits like for healthcare I want plan one I want plan two for dental do I want a wave coverage do I want um employee employee plus one employee spouse family blah blah blah so people can ahead of time look through the materials and then Mark what they intend to enroll in so that can be a tool when they actually go into ukg just um we're calling it not not we're not going to call it Kronos anymore because it hasn't been called Kronos in a really long time we're calling ukg so there's just a little bit of lingo change but people can use that as a tool so when they log in and do their open enrollment through ukg that they will just know right away besides the computer telling them what they currently have they can use that as a cross reference so we're just trying to provide as many options as possible to help people successfully enroll in the benefits they want to uh let's see then we've also got um I'm working on revamping our SharePoint page for our open enrollment and our benefits So currently um that is not available for access off of uh off the HR SharePoint site while we're going through the kind of comprehensive revamping of those pages so something to look forward to um presentation so previously in past years we've invited the providers up here to typically do an in-person presentation last year we had Northeast service Cooperative uh both our representative for healthcare Susie and then our um spending accounts our wex representative with the Northeast service Cooperative Marlo and then Isaac with Integrity benefits came up um to do presentations we had I think four employees attend one session and five employees attend the other um that was really hard to see for the amount of work and the time that these providers spend and come up here to only only have four or five employees so I decided I can do the presentations myself and if not provide more information or more comprehensive information especially because I'm an employee um who gets these employe or gets these benefits plus I'm administering these benefits on behalf of County staff so um instead what I'll do is we'll do two sessions um one one morning one the other uh the next afternoon and allow kind of those two options for people to come and attend and I'll do like a PowerPoint presentation for those that aren't able to attend we'll do kind of a voiceover PowerPoint presentation that will be available uh then we're going to do some kind of different sessions uh we'll still have our open house sessions where people can just come and go as they please with questions or they need help enrolling uh but new this year we're also going to do guided sessions so what we noticed with the open sessions the open house sessions last year is a lot of individuals are just like how do I get in to ukg where do I start the process and they more just kind of wanted someone there to help answer questions as they go from page to page so Kathy and I are going to provide some guided sessions where it will be um and we have like an increment schedule there'll be in the ITV room that was what was available people bring their laptop sit down at 9:00 we all start I'll run through the the TV screen I'll show you where to start we'll just go all together someone ask questions we'll stop we can help them all right that group's done we'll start another one at 10:30 whoever wants to go through a guided session come in um so trying to just figure out different options again everyone does things differently so trying to accommodate different learning styles different processing Styles uh yeah it's always worth trying something different um oh I should say too with the Open Enrollment we're looking at I'll give you those tentative dates right now uh we are looking at October 28th through November 15th so more to come on [Music] that any more questions thank you very much and I'm frankly just really excited about the idea of the guided sessions I think that's going to meet a lot of people's needs and appreciate your approach and looking at it in a new and different way commissioner starl thank you Allison you know me I want to get in check my three boxes and be done yes so thank you for all these opportunities that we can sit down together and really um look at it in a new light M right other questions or comments commissioner M I just want to remind the board that um our HR director position is still fairly new and um there's a lot that falls on the director's shoulders um starting without one and then um fleshing out these opportunities has been a long process and Allison is knocking it out of the park here and just really appreciate the work and effort that you've done but um when I see our and this has nothing to do with Alison necessarily but when I see our premiums go up to such an extent um the reason is is well I'm sure there's also other other corporate um profit reasons or whatever but a large part of it is the health and well-being of the people in the pool and so how do we keep those premiums as low as we can is to be as healthy as we can and so um we can all do our part uh in addressing that whether it be healthy habits and exercise or diet or sleep or uh utilizing the benefits that we we currently have have um those are all ways that we can try to keep our premiums as low as possible there's also things outside of a control 100% um but but we do what we can and and I I'm hoping to uh have other opportunities for our staff and to enable our staff to do just that um so I just appreciate appreciate work and and thank you and um uh a huge reason why Allison is able to do what she does is because the job descriptions are largely onto an outside consultant um and then Allison of course has to facilitate that and manage it as well but the bulk of that workload is off of that director's plate and that was not the case with previous directors um and uh the feedback received was that that was a large reason for the burnout of other director so just want us to keep in mind where we've been um both you know before we had an HR Director as well as where we've been through HR directors and where we are now and how important it is to to support the position and and just do everything we can to try to um navigate the the rising health insurance costs and as well as just our um Rising needs of employee so other question questions or comments well thank you very much Allison it's been really informative and we're looking forward to October 28th to November 15th all right all right uh next item is a job description and job upgrade update yes so uh going off of what commissioner Mills said uh we have a job description uh for you today an updated job description along with a recommended change in job grade this is for uh what's formally called the financial assistant supervisor position Public Health Human Services now renamed the economic assistance and Healthcare program supervisor that name change too for background is to match the r termed renamed uh economic assistance and healthc Care programs team formerly known as the Income Maintenance team and I only know this because this was the position I was in before I moved into the HR Direct your position uh just to give you some background on on that name change uh so presented in your packet is the updated job description um and proposed change in job grade from a 180 to a 200 and um just to point out I believe that the other supervisors are all at a 200 grade correct so uh history um as we've gone through this job description review process even prior to this process um the majority of the supervisors in Public Health Human Services between the social workers team Public Health Team fiscal and the financial assistance um a majority of them were at a grade 200 um the two supervisor positions that were less than a 200 um before this job description review process was the fiscal supervisor and then the financial assistant supervisor at a 180 the fiscal supervisor position uh that plaman uh currently holds uh that went through the job description review process earlier on um that was I think spring of 20123 it was like right as Lori Erikson had left the position at that time that position was regraded from a 1880 to a 200 leaving this the sole supervisor position um under a 200 um also for context social workers are out of 170 this position is out of 180 so this is uh really in essence um uh let's see Tess's I'm just looking at dda's um memo is really to acknowledge uh based on the Keystone Matrix that this this job does have a significant amount of decision-making problem solving problem solving um and impact on end results so reflecting that in that increase in grade to a 200 and then in essence will match it with the other supervisors okay I just was looking at it through that lens of consistency absolutely we do that too yep thank you other questions or comments if not I would entertain a motion uh so move mam chair thank you commissioner Mills is there support support thank you commissioner St we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries okay thank you great thank you I think given the fact that we've been uh going for quite a while here we will take a short break and uh return in about 10 minutes thank you so much question did you get e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e welcome back everyone um we're returning to our um meeting for September 10th and we are down to item number seven auditor treasure Powers is with us this morning thank you madam chair so this is a request to purchase an esns ds450 through high throughput scanner and tabulating for scanning election ballots and tabulating results so esns stands for elections systems and software they're one of the state approved manufacturers for election equip um the ds450 it's also known as a central count because it's it's a machine designed to tabulate results for mail and absentee ballots where the precincts are processed in a batch um all of the ballots for a single Precinct you know are placed for one Precinct they're placed in the top band pulled through the scanner one at a time they're sorted for writings or for further review but it runs without interruption until the precinct is complete you can get different speeds and sizes this is the slowest sized unit uh the large Counties have much larger faster units and multiple units currently we're using a ds200 scanner also from the same manufacturer esns well this one is designed for polling places uh where each voter enters their own ballot so the ds200 notifies the voter if there's an error or an Omission such as crossover voting or they left the ballot blank and it gives the voter a chance to correct the error they can go back and get a fresh ballot if they've spoiled the one that they've entered and things like that so it's it's really an improvement over just filling it out dropping it in a box um so it's ideal for polling places but it's slow for processing these batches of mail absentee ballots where it's actually our election judges that are entering those ballots into the machine one at a time so just a little history the county used a central comp machine from sometime in the late 1980s before I got here it was in being used and we used it up until about 2006 um in the 1980s and up until 1996 all the voters voted at precinct polling places in Cook County we had precincts for all 10 and uh all these precincts the judges brought their ballots to the courthouse where they watched while the county staff scanned their ballots into this Central count machine and got their count to match the number that they' already hand counted for the total number um beginning in 1996 the towns in the county instituted uh Mail balloting For the First Time wherever they could which is all of our unorganized precincts and the three towns they had to agree to it individually City of Grand morray could not because of uh State statutes having over 400 voters that statute's still there so they have to have a polling place and uh so they would continue to bring their ballots up to the courthouse to have them run through the central count um we retired that Central count machine after sometime after the 2004 election duee to loss of fun functionality I mean it was extremely accurate I never never verified that it ever made a mistake in all those years but ballots would get jammed folded ballots they come mail and absentee they're folded you got to unfold them Etc and uh the technology is vastly improved now for that type of equipment but at that time there was a lot of jamming still much faster than one at a time and sometimes they were terar a ballot and you'd have to remake them things like that so in 2006 then we had a large um it was a federal Grant actually because of the the 2000 election problems with the remember the Florida machines and Etc so there were a lot of changes and uh the uh the polling place machines were just much improved and we wanted to buy those for the uh City uh precent sinks to have these uh polling place units and a lot of counties were using them also small counties were using them for their absentee and mail ballots and we said okay a lot of them were doing it and we thought okay let's let's do that sounds like it's doable and it's worked um great for the city uh polling place and it it served our needs adequately um and a significantly lower cost than Central count machines always hope those that price would come down but guess what uh price has never come down so they put in uh improvements but the price never comes down so why now so since the early 2000s you know our population has increased significantly we were at 3,800 in the '90s we went to 51 now we're at 5600 and we think a lot of that change came in the last couple of years around covid and I don't we don't see any signs that that's slowing down the other thing is more people are using absentee than did 30 years ago so we're just seeing a lot more uh of these batched mail and absentee ballots than we did uh we've got 27% more than we did in 2002 for example of mail and absentee ballots and just assume it's going to continue that way um moving back to a Central count machine uh would reduce long hours on Election night we've made some of those we've made some process changes in the last election that's helping already but this would take us another step to keep from those long nights it would give us more flexibility to deal with the processes and the laws have changed dramatically over especially the last 20 years since that 2006 change and get a lot more technicalities um so this would give us as staff a little more flexibility this year also we're seeing as you just talked about on the break Co is rising has been rising this summer and this fall um we could be losing judges and staff as we did in the 2000 presidential election the other thing in this year um we may see you know process changes come out because of legal challenges court orders uh information requests public information requests we saw a lot of that in the 2000 or 2020 2000 2020 election and uh I I suspect we're going to see a lot of that going forward and again this upgrading equipment is something we can control it can give us a little breathing room um financially we've been waiting for a state election equipment Grant to help make this move well the last big Grant was a security Grant and we can't use it for equipment but we've got over 20,000 left in that Grant and I'd like to use that instead to pay for part of the uh security system for the courthouse I've checked with the SOS that would be uh agreeable to them cameras and doors Etc and then in return be able to use 20,000 the fund balance that we're saving um we also have a fund balance uh within that election account about 16,000 at the end of 23 there is another new operations State grant that just started in 2023 and the voting operations technology and election resources account so this is going to be ongoing and we've accumulated 19,000 in 2023 and 2024 so I propose to use that the the 20,000 from the security Grant and we have 5,000 uh for capital in 2024 and all of those would cover the cost of this we've looked at the there's three units approved by the state for this kind of this kind of equipment in Minnesota one by Dominion one by Hart and then the one by esns handful of counties use the Dominion mostly the larger counties and one County uses the heart version for Central count um they're they're less expensive uh but they use off-the-shelf scanners we don't expect the longevity to be there even though they're less expensive some of the larger counties use them because they need several of them and so they're the saving is worth it to them um we've had great uh success with that esns um almost 20 years on that old dinosaur of a unit I expect that kind of longevity out of this one also um we would purchase it off of the uh Minnesota County's computer Cooperative we belong to that group through our financial system um the tri ifs system and for other things through uh it so we save roughly 9,000 off the list price and the cost would be 52820 for including shipping uh some training and installation so that's the request well one thing that strikes me is the the esns unit that we had has a long track record and worked very well so I like the fact we have experience with that and then I also than the fact that we have more mail ballots and absentee ballots coming in um about 3,000 more it seems like um lends itself to to this particular type of scanner and tabulator so I I am I would support this other Commissioners a second well I I haven't made a motion you want to make a motion now all I make a motion to support this and I'll second that motion thank you commissioner white any further discussion all in favor I I oppos just oh sorry motion carries just going to say it'll be coming next year with a a process change that'll on how we um upload information we right now we hand enter it through um we get our results we produce a tape and then we upload um Race by race Precinct by Precinct there's there's systems out there that can that can help speed that up too that doesn't really slow our overall process but it would it would give us more um we would have a little quicker results on our website using that we'd have the option to to to produce some different reports in elections too um so anyway I'll be coming back with that just a warning well thank you very much and thanks for researching these different um scanners and tabulators for us all right we'll move on to item eight administrator York all right thank you madam chair so the first item under my section is the preliminary budget and Levy uh included in the board packet are updated uh sheets for the general fund budget all the detail from the Departments um and then we have the uh Highway and Public Health and Human Services budgets which have been updated based on new information from the state and so on um I guess the big pieces of this are that the cost of living adjustment that we've uh budgeted for next year is 3% um and I I should mention as of last night we have tentative agreement with two of the bargaining units on that Cola so we're still negotiating with a third um the other things as you heard from Alison plumber earlier is the health insurance premium increase we learned a couple of weeks ago that's going up 99.65% and so that is within the 10% that we uh budgeted for for that increase but just barely so um it's nice when it comes in significantly lower and we can use that to to whittle away at the uh at the levy but at this point it's consuming um most of what we budgeted for for that line item um the other thing to mention about that is when we met with Northeast service Co-op a couple of weeks ago to talk about the premium increases they indicated that a lot of jurisdictions are starting to budget like 12 to 15% for insurance premium increases so I'm not advocating that we start doing that but I'm just saying that's kind of the seems to be the trend uh out in the world and so that's something we may need to discuss uh for for 2026 um in any case I'll direct your attention to page 39 um of this this item that is the preliminary budget and Levy um so you see the three major funds are at the top and uh for the general fund uh we're budgeting about 13.7 million uh we're not proposing the use of any fund balance uh in that fund um that's a overall increase of 17.16% and I also send you an update or put in the packet an updated summary of some of the new items in there uh which include a new maintenance position um I I should mention too I was looking at U National Data on what is recommended for uh for maintenance uh staff based on square footage of of buildings um we have about 185,000 Square ft of space that our staff have to maintain uh the national average according to the international facilities Managers Association um is about 47,000 ft² per maintenance technician and so that would put us right at about 3.9 basically for full-time staff and currently we have uh two full-time staff um one of whom is a working manager and then we also have a part-time technician Troy M um who works three days a week so um part of the budget request is to add a full-time maintenance technician uh to to bring us up to a little closer to that national average and put us in a better position to catch up on deferred maintenance and keep our buildings in good shape um the other big uh ask this year is the uh HR generalist position that would be a new full-time position and we've talked about the um the Strategic plan which the board approved back in April um which uh focuses a lot on updating HR processes and also coordinating training for staff um so that that position is budgeted at just a little bit north of $98,000 so going back to the highway department on page 39 um their total budget their expenses are uh just shy of $23 million they're proposing to put about $115,000 back into their fund balance after major Capital expenditures for salt sand and also the uh the equipment storage building that they're building right now um Public Health and Human Services is budgeting about 5.6 million and proposing to use about $567,000 of fund balance to achieve a a levy that department of 4.93% and then the other smaller funds down below um are are shown um Al together this uh leaves us with a preliminary Levy of 9.8 1% as I noted in the cover sheet um the S situation is Sim similar to last year we had about 9% preliminary Levy uh that we're able to whittle down to a little over 5% so um there's still work that we can do for the for the Public's benefit the action that is requested today is for the board to set the preliminary Levy which basically sets a cap on what can be levied for the following year so we can't if if they approve the 9.81% levy today um we couldn't come back in December and say well we're going to Levy 12% it would have to be something under that number and historically we have worked to keep the levy increases in the neighborhood of uh 4 to 5% so that is based on our 20 plus year historical average um so that's I mean that's kind of the high level view again most of the uh in fact all of the numbers at least in the general fund budget have not changed since the presentation that we did well they they changed a little bit but there haven't been any substantial additions to the general fund budget uh since it was presented on July 23rd so I will pause and see if there are questions I'll I'll just make one um on the page 39 that's a spreadsheet that I do and I did not carry you can see housing does not show up under 2025 final Levy that's just a a formula but it's in it's in the number because it uh there's a cross check in there so it's adding everything from the left to right on the bottom um I've corrected it on my own but it's not corrected here but 3 13396 910 is the correct number for the levy thank you you see the housing yeah 595 and then 300,000 of Revenue there should be a number of 295 284 under final Levy and there is no but not here and it's in the number because it's in the columns going down which are then added across so 295 284 yeah thank you I'll send that out as a correction to everybody um one thing I was looking at as I've been reviewing this um over many months is just um in addition to looking at our historical average over 20 years looking at the last 5 years and um noting in 2020 we had 5.89 for the levy then we had the impact of covid and didn't know what the future would hold that went down to 3.95 22 was 5.5 23 5.5 and last year down to 5.16 from the original preliminary of 9% so I think um you know we're in the ballpark where we have been in the past um one of the things commissioner Mills I know you talked about is looking at it over time so we don't see these huge fluctuations of zero and then double digigit um increases and I think it's important for us to to keep that in mind so kind of around that 5% area is is um you know where I'm thinking and hoping we will land um I've done some research on a number of things um one of the things we've talked about is the Boundary Waters appraisal so that when um pilt the um amount is reappraised in 2028 we potentially could have our own appraisal and have something to go back to the feds with to do some negotiation I have contacted St Louis County and Lake County I haven't heard back from St Louis Lake County has not at this time put anything in their preliminary budget for that um item they feel like it would be done in 2026 but i' I'd like to hold off um on any decision making till we hear from St Louis County as well and have a discussion further with um Bob Thompson um our assessor about that as well but I just wanted to give you an update and let you know I am looking into that other comments that Commissioners would like to make or questions that they might have about the preliminary commissioner Johnson okay I'm very uncomfortable with the 9.81% pr preliminary Levy request here in front of me but and then you go on to talk that traditionally we get down to 5% so I'm interested to hear how you plan on getting from 9.81 to 5% I think just like past year as we take these items um for example the one I just gave the reappraisal get more information um one thing I was even thinking about last night and it um is kind of a mathematical way of creating discussion for us but doing a force Matrix with the additional items that have been requested and we could mathematically look at where all of us are with these and then use that as a conversation starter um for future meetings so that's one of the ideas that I had other Commissioners commissioner Starley thank you well this has all been presented to us in various forms over the last few months I think we should take all this in consideration again and then just have a meeting about our budget and looking at everything that's before us and getting from nine down to five 4.5 I don't know but we have some really huge considerations here for our staff and um the folks out there that um voted Us in other questions comments Madam chair I guess uh in response to commissioner Johnson's question I um over the series of work sessions that we had on the budget I have been requesting board feedback on where you think we could or should make cuts and I haven't heard any really decisive answers on that so I I see this process as a as a I mean this is a proposal that I'm giving to you and outlining you know what some of the new costs are and it's my hope that that you'll provide some feedback that would enable us to I me we are going to have to make Cuts somewhere um and I'd like your your feedback uh in determining what what those cuts should be um so that's you know that's the conversation that we've been having that's why we started the budget planning process early this year is so that you could provide that feedback and I agree with commissioner storle you know um taking time to to have a full conversation on this this is our task at this meeting is going to be an important thing to do I appreciate that commissioner white and I would like to concur that I do like um commissioners s's um uh suggestion I think getting a five heads with our administrator and with our auditor to just talk about to talk about the where should we cut and that would be maybe most efficient and not put the onus on like here's here's like maybe we should look at this and then after we have a discussion then James and Brady and whomever else like get it closer to 5 thank you I would just say no time like the president I mean here we are it's a public meeting this I mean we could we could schedule another U meeting to talk about this another time um but we have all the information before us um this meeting has been noticed and we've got the time to have this conversation so well one thing we we did um Talk talk about previously is looking at the training staff training for the um strategic plan and commissioner training department head training and looking at that even though it is a strategic plan but perhaps delaying that and and I did based on the request from the board at our last uh work session on this I did reduce those line items significantly so um I think the I don't have the old sheet in front of me but I believe like the staff strategic plan um training was about 100 and some, that's been reduced to 25 department head training went from I believe about 15 to 6,000 and the commissioner training went from 15 to 5,000 so I did make those cuts based on the board's U request and my thoughts are are potentially that we look at that training for um in the dollar amounts that we have there looking at for new employees Thoughts by other Commissioners can say that again I'm I'm confed that we focus our training on those people that are newly hired or newly elected the dollar amounts that perhaps we could um prioritize it in that way and maybe I'm a little confused of where you what kind of training you're thinking of and where this so for example new commissioner training if um for for let's say District 2 if there's a new commissioner coming in in January making sure that that person gets the required training through AMC that that would be a priority well isn't that part of our AMC package that's I went to the that the first year of new commissioner everyone always goes to those so I'm saying that would be something we'd expect and make sure that we include in our budget but that is included in the commissioner's budget as far as going to the AMC conference so do we really need another line item addition is my question I see what you're saying and that's probably more of a Brady question uh I don't have a quick answer okay all right and I'll just say that I'm still analyzing the information that I got M um in the packet and um haven't had an opportunity so I will reach out to you administrator Yorkie because I some I do have a partial list of questions here and concerns but not ready um to make them public CU I didn't have enough time to get everything done over the last couple days but um I and there are a couple items on the request for additional resources I that I maybe give me more pause and I'll just say Robbie I know you want to plan ahead and I appreciate your planning ahead but I think looking at the highway department um the seasonal worker position and the future maintenance worker position I understand that importance I'm not saying we shouldn't plan ahead but maybe that's an area that we can say not this year and same thing with the Sawtooth Bluffs planning for regional designation I think right now um I understand we're in transition with our parks and trails and maybe there's some gaps in communication that was brought to our attention today um but when we're talking about having to cut to get to 5% that's another one I say well maybe not this year and I understand commissioner Mills you've been pushing this for years and years but I'm that would be another one that I'd say maybe not this year anybody else than commissioner just to clarify I don't think that's what that is oh okay so the the request to make the my understanding is the request to make the parks and trails um director position um or call it what you will um full time is has already been withdrawn from the request so this is exclusively for that further uh steps with the Sawtooth Bluffs to uh hopefully someday be able to access the Legacy funds um that the city is is going to be accessing for for their um or maybe already has for their for their Parks uh and that is a contractual line item not a Personnel so that'd be for like ardc to to do or whomever you know M chair commissioner storying so thank you so we're at 9.81 we want to get down to around five how many hundreds of thousands of dollars would we be looking at $581,500 so Madam chair would we uh include this in a special meeting or would we include it in a board meeting we could do either way I would like to see a special meeting because we always have so much going on with other things that are important for the board so my suggestion could we consider a special meeting to to clarify are you talking about special meeting to approve the preliminary or are you talking about approving the preliminary today and then having a special meeting to further Whittle away because those are two different approve what has been before us the 9.81 and then a special meeting and then a special meeting so we all have a chance to look at this and then um move ahead with a recommendation at a board meeting so that would be a work session so a work session so that would be a committee of the whole I mean we could do that as early as next week if you wanted does I give everybody enough time m m johnon think about that yeah I today's Tuesday I know I'm thinking my schedule for the next two weeks can I fit in another meeting but that's beside the point I'm not comfortable with the 9.81 I would be more comfortable with a seven and then we Whittle down from there so we are committed to maybe the final goal is five it sounds like there's some agreement that we should get to around five so why not just go to seven right now then and say we are committed to making some changes here reactions or suggestions I just feel like in the past we've done our preliminary Levy and then then we work to get it down um I would agree that we've had time to to look at this as administrator Yi said but I know I had a lot of questions that yesterday I was trying to get answers to and I understand you have questions as well um so I'm all for setting the levy today um but I'm comfortable with the 9.8 one and whittling it down we've done that before commissioner Mills uh Comm thank you madam chair um so how would we today get to that seven well no well that's what our next special meeting is for is but I just want us to commit that we recognize that a 9.81% levy at this time for this year for this county is not realistic and let's be realistic about setting our preliminary Levy and we will have to make Cuts we know that so let's commit to we will at least make a portion of those cuts today what's whatever somebody will have to figure out they'll have to tighten up some of these little things that increased when expenses increased and the revenues didn't increase um on those line items like that I haven't had a chance to ask about yet there are quite a few of those is it because we didn't get more your revenues decreased 4% but your expenses increased 16% why did your revenues decreased 4% is there a good reason or was it a was there a program that you started that maybe we shouldn't be continuing I don't know because I haven't had time to dig into some of those but that's what I think there's some room in our budget currently as presented to um reduce this ask Madam chair um I don't think we required to have a um a complete preliminary budget it's the levy we have to set it this time so exactly how you get to the seven if you get went to 7% I don't think you have to determine that at this moment just for it it would be easy to put a number into fund balance use use in the general fund to to see the numbers that would get you to 7% but you don't have to determine that you're going to use that fund balance or make Cuts elsewhere till later commissioner M can we talk a little bit more about the last um second to last line rather not the total but the last line maintenance contractual plowing and cost increases any any further details there forgive me if we've talked about this before and I just that was something Brian talked with Brady about that I wasn't part of that conversation so Brady do you have any say that the very last line on the additional resources the maintenance contract plowing and cost increases of $45,000 and I got this from the the summary sheet bradying that the Departments put together I don't have it in my well if we if we don't have that today I can certainly follow up um I still have Brian's number I could see what he was thinking there um I we do contract for for plowing for um for example the Courthouse parking lot for the uh Community Center and so on so yeah I don't I don't think there was any major change it was just analysis of history that goes up and down so much with snow so it's really uh you know we had Light Winter last winter we had heavy Winters so it's an average of what's Happening you take your best shot at it but um I've got it you know some of the background and how we got to that I don't have it right in front of me sorry okay well my thought is that we just establish the preliminary Levy at 9.81 get these questions asked and have a discussion strictly on budget as commissioner Starley recommended thoughts from others Comm white um I think what commissioner Johnson was saying is if if indeed we are committed to getting it down closer to five someplace what is the harm in saying we'll do seven which is in Optics um it it's like yeah yes Community we are serious about doing this but then on the other hand I'd like to believe we are serious about doing this and we will do it one way or the other we're going to do it so um and particularly if we have an opportunity as an entire board to go over this budget and talk you know someone might come up and say well how come and and we can just thoroughly go over it and and shoot for it so I guess I would like to trust that we're going for it we're going for a lower number and to expedite in this instance but the 5% I like that number so if it's possible you're calculating yep I'm just looking for options um okay I'll make the most to um approve the preliminary Levy increase of 7% I don't have the number in front of me do you want to do the calculation of what I'm actually saying fiscal year 2020 five property tax levy at 7% preliminary preliminary yes preliminary um Madam chair and uh Commissioners one thing I'd like to add into that motion is to set the date for the truth and Taxation hearing that's something we have to do um if we were to set that preliminary Levy today and when we looked at it we can do it on the 25th or the 26th of November which yeah typically we do it right before Thanksgiving it would yeah it would avoid Thanksgiving um it's usually it's in December but there's a usually the AMC annual meeting occurs the first week in December but this week it's delayed or this year and then people if it's too close to the end of Thanksgiving um can be a struggle for some so it might be better to go before if we [Music] can so we should have two separate motions one will be for truth and Taxation and another so commissioner Johnson has requested um 7% is there support I'll support that any further discussion all in favor I I opposed no motion fails did commissioner storle go M okay was there another motion chair I'll make a motion to set the preliminary um Levy at 9.81 thank you is there support oh support we have a motion in support for 9.81 any further discussion commissioner stle did you oh I thought you had a comment okay commissioner I yeah I'm just trying to Quick get down to 700 here and I'm I'm struggling and so that's why I wasn't comfortable with that of course it's my end goal to keep it as low as possible but we have some very significant costs um that I thought we all agreed on um that uh the health of the organization thus the health of the community depend on um and so I greatly appreciate the idea of tightening things down much like commissioner Johnson said I I like that I'm just uh without knowing how I'm just not comfortable um I want to believe that we we can do that um because we have in the past but there's some real there's some real big big costs here so um that is why I um did not support that motion and and now I'm kind of taking a step back and going back to the drawing board much like commissioner Starley was suggesting um previously and having that work session too so just my rationale understand feel the same way all right we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor iOS just get done just one I guess okay there was confusion there one or the other what was that motion passes four to one who oppos me all right thank you thanks jna all right so we will move on then to our next item T Mis yep and TNT if we want to look um prior to Thanksgiving um we could look at the 19th or the 20th 25th is the first day oh 25th is the first day okay would would there be a reason not to do it the week of December 2nd that's for from not from my standpoint not from any standpoint so we could do it um Tuesday December 3rd from my standpoint sure does that work for others I think so what was the date Tuesday December 3rd and we aren't going to be at AMC no that's the week after oh the week oh okay that's interesting yeah cuz then there'll be we'll skip our board meeting we have to talk about that to you oh okay and I I thought I sent out an email about that did I not so Tuesday December 3rd for TNT 6 p.m. 6 p.m. send out a meeting invitation to the board great thank you Adam sure I'd like to make a motion to schedule our truth and Taxation uh meeting on Tuesday December 3rd at 6 p.m. thank you commissioner Mills is there support I'll support thank you commissioner sterle we have a motion in support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries all right next item is our memorandum of understanding or agreement with University of Minnesota extension so this is something again it's been on the agenda a couple of times back in June um Carrie cavat with uh with youan extension came and talked about their uh changes in their cost structure um and we had a public discussion about this and now it's on your agenda for for Action um I I did want to say I did call commissioner storle yesterday because she had expressed some concerns about the Moa um and so it might be good to touch on those and and uh make sure that we're all on the same page so commissioner storle I know there was a question or concern that came up um related to the agenda being kind of driven by the University Minnesota yeah I think I'm hearing um from the community that they feel that they've come in at the top down and um nothing to reflect on Sarah she's done a wonderful job with what she's been doing she was um you know came in after an employee Diane Booth had been there for 30 years so you know there was no expectation she's going to be another Diane for sure and um going to some of the meetings as I have over the last 10 years I think we can work it out in that um we can uh perhaps have a discussion with Carrie about the agenda and the fact that they seem to come that University seems to present it from the top down and I think we want to kind of say wait this is our County this is our extension group and let's work together as presenting it as a whole of um bottomup and coming from you know suggestions from Sarah and um I was looking through some of the old agendas that I happened to save and uh it seemed like that was the case but I think so just kind of returning to that prior practice and I'll going to an extension meeting now when I'm in Alexandria so I'll have a chance to talk to some folks there too so I it'll and commissioner Johnson is also on the extension board and I think together we can talk about strategy together and plan for the New Year and have it kind of where we see that um would be important programs and important um items for the uh residents in Cook County to take advantage of go ahead thank you madam chair so I did talk I called Carrie cab yesterday as well um to talk about the process um by which the agendas are developed and so um it is true that the agendas are issued by extension um but it's done so in consultation with the uh committee so um two ways that uh local input is provided in uh on the agenda is that there's a standing item on the agenda called word around the county and that's an opportunity for committee members to suggest items for future um extension committee agendas um and then also there are commissioner updates so that Commissioners who are participating in that committee um I believe commissioner Johnson is the the main appointee to that committee has the opportunity to talk about what's going on in the county and also to suggest U issues that the committee might want to work on um Carrie coordinates with Sarah to develop those agendas and and then when the first draft is available it goes to the committee chair who is a local person um and I'm drawing a blank on his name right now but George George harelson harson thank you and so George has the opportunity to review the draft agenda to suggest additions or ask questions about what is on it so the idea that this is somehow you know process that is totally topped down is is simply not true I mean there's there's a lot of consultation that goes on and there's a lot of opportunities for local input to to develop the agendas that's helpful commissioner Johnson thank you and I just want to point out I'm not the primary because it's they required I am with commissioner storle we both attend because it's a state law that's one of those old state laws that make no sense anymore but it's still on the book so it is required that there we appoint two Commissioners to attend that meeting and um I have appreciated Carrie and Sarah's um patience and understanding of we have a kind of a CH transitioning board it was a new this whole way of doing extension is different than we've done it for 30 years in Cook County so there was a learning curve for all of us and I remember sitting at a meeting where Carrie asked us hey if you've got ideas of what you want in Cook County let us know so we we have the resources we just don't know what you want well I was still kind of what is this and I uh didn't reach out I did on one say oh I don't think we need that one but um I think this is a learning time for that board we and I think we're getting more cohesive and learning what the um the many resources the university can provide to us here in good County and it's kind of pretty amazing um so I that's why I am in support of this memorandum of agreement I think it's been good for Cook County and I think Carrie and Sarah have done an excellent job in um getting programming together getting processes together and um I'm in support of this agreement I think it's really important to hear from you and commissioner stle because of your involvement commissioner and I thank you for saying that I was under that assumption pretty much everything you said um including kind of that learning curve but when I hear from um you know uh citizens that are contacting a a a commissioner that they feel feel like they're kind of getting squashed Then I then I want to know more about that and so I really appreciate you bringing that to our attention commissioner stly and just understanding that whole dynamic because I think it's extremely important to be sensitive to that and then also to understand that bigger you know uh transition as as you're saying that just really helps helps me get a better handle on all the ins and outs here so um thank you thank you both for serving on there and I my short experience with the extension was um was very positive and favorable um and I was really impressed with with their processes and their willingness to listen to us as we were searching for our extension director so um and just like you said all the different programs that are out there it's a little overwhelming frankly because there's a lot um so um yeah as long as we're making progress I feel I feel good good commissioner white are we not do we not we pay an annual contract with the University extension anyway Would we not have access to all that programming otherwise no not at the level that we do currently okay yeah you can go online and do it yourself but it's it's total online experience and you pay for those classes through that um we don't get to say hey we want to provide this in person in in got it Grand maray got it thank you my understanding too is just part of this whole thing is their costs have been increasing oh sure but our contract rate has not and so there's a deficit there that they're trying to smooth out across the state which is no easy lift at all um any other questions or comments is there a motion well I'll make the motion to approve the mo MOA with the University of Minnesota to continue extension programs employee extension educator Community Center Director thank you commissioner Mills is there support I'll support thank you commissioner white we have a motion and support any additional discussion or questions all in favor I opposed motion carries unanimously thank you all right thank you board um item 8 C is request to approve the use of $200,000 in solid waste funding for transfer station architectural services uh backing up a little bit at the August Committee of the whole meeting um we had Dustin Hansen and Reena Rogers um here to talk about um the current funding package for the transfer station um fortunately we were successful in getting uh $2 million from the state toward the construction of the transfer station um and as was discussed on the on August 20th that money is coming it's actually part of the tax bill so it wasn't they didn't do bonding this year and so it's coming through the tax bill and being administered uh through I RB and so that that's a little bit of a curveball because we we thought it was just going to be sort of a lump sum that would be given to the county for the purpose of developing the transfer station but um because it's coming through i i r there's some uh requirements they're going to bond for for the the money and so um because of that um there are some requirements attached to the funding that we didn't expect to have one of those is once they do the um the bonding in November that starts at 30-month clock within which those funds have to be spent and so in order to make sure that we are ready ready to proceed with with moving forward on on that um the request is for uh for us to allocate $200,000 this is not new this is not a new Levy or new burden on the levy it's money that has been budgeted and has been in our account for some time um that is for the specific purpose of solid waste management and currently the balance in that in that account is about $330,000 and so the proposal is to use2 ,000 of that um to proceed with architectural design uh final designs for the transfer station um so that we can be ready to start spending those State dollars when they become available in November and so that that is the request and if there are questions I can try to answer them think we had a really thorough discussion at our committee of the whole and it was so nice that um both Reena and Dustin could be there um any other questions or comments that people might have I make a motion to approve the use of 200,000 in solid waste funding for the transfer station architectural services thank you commissioner mels is there support I'll support any further discussion or questions all in favor I I opposed motion carries unanimously all right um item 8D is a request to approve a roofing contract to replace the roof on the cville town hall um as indicated in the board packet we received uh four bids for for the work um we're recommending that we contract with leerer Roofing of grand morray which is currently replacing the roof on the community center if you've had a chance to go by they've completed the north side of the building and are well underway completing the south side of that roof roof and so that should be done fairly soon and so um the the other thing about this contract is we had been waiting to make repairs to the chimney um The Masonry on the chimney has been repaired and I just got an email from uh from James Hammer who's going to be putting in the flu insert he he is expecting that part to come in um shortly hopefully by early next week and so um in the meantime we're going to get Mike leerer lined up to to do that roof replacement so uh the amount of the contract is $1,414 any questions or discussion um just from my perspective which is again limited uh um as long as the masonry work is done then the roofing can proceed the the liner for the the the chimney can be done after that it's not a big deal ideally you're not walking on shingles but if that's what has to happen then we got to get this fixed so yeah MH I'm not I don't have heartburn about about that timing as much as just that masonry part so thank you well move to approve the contract lrer Roofing of grand marray to replace the roof on the Colville Town Hall at a cost of $1 6,414 is there support support thank you commissioner we have a motion in support any other discussion or questions all in favor I opposed motion carries all right um a couple of brief updates um on Wednesday we're having the uh final meeting with bkv group regarding Master planning for the courthouse and the uh community center before uh coming forward at the September 24th meeting with a presentation on that that Master Plan um again as I've said before the process has been going very well I'm really pleased with the uh with the level of service that we're getting from bkv Henry pittner is just really great to work with he's very thorough he's a great listener and he's really taken all of our needs into account um and so I feel really good about the direction that this is taking um and so I just wanted to give you all heads up that you can expect to see that the presentation at the next business meeting um in the meantime we are also knowing that even if that plan moves forward we are still out of space in this building and so we are looking at some other options that we can use in the interim to make sure that we have adequate spaces for our employees um a couple of things that we've been looking at we I reached out to higher education because I heard they had office space in their building that potentially could be used um they do have an office that is currently being used by norshore Healthcare Foundation in the restorative justice program but that that space is uh only occasionally occupied and so the the question is could we have a time sharing agreement with them to to use that office space um yesterday Allison McIntyre and I went up to the YMCA because I had reached out to Alex gagala um because he uh I thought or I heard that he might have an office vacant up there um they do it's on that main Corridor by the administrative offices um the last office before you get to the child care room on the right um is currently not being used and so that would be another location that we could use on a temporary basis it's the great thing about it is it's a it's an enclosed space it's got a door so if we wanted to put somebody from public health in there it would be suitable for that purpose um we are looking at other locations um including um we've talked about GES before um I I've heard the the new space uh on the addition that is the second floor which is very large probably wouldn't be suitable for our purposes um for a prolonged period but I understand they may have some uh space on on one of their or in one of their existing buildings um that that we could potentially look into leasing um so following up on that as well we're just really trying to be creative in the way that we're looking for spaces because we know that again even if we move forward with with new construction uh in the foreseeable future um we're still going to have needs uh currently so more to come on that um and the last thing I wanted to mention is that we uh as I alluded to earlier we do have ton of agreements with two of our bargaining units we're in the process of completing negotiations with the third um bargaining unit and hope to have that done here very soon that's all I have thank you very much all right um on to commissioner updates commissioner Johnson I don't have anything oh the only thing I do want to report and I asked Brady about this during the break our um Arc amount that is in the budget that packet for today we did approve our final budget at our last meeting and it is lower than what we anticipated so there will be some cost savings there okay good to know commissioner white uh I read um two things uh aeoa uh a meeting they um they are of course the supporters for the Hub with and uh they uh what am I going to say about them they do which I think is an interesting idea but it would not be for the county per se but they do they do a a a carival community Carnival and like it was just pretty interesting and they served over 700 people hot dogs in a day which seems like an awful lot of hot dogs uh The Hub continues to um um would like to have a conversation with Frank with the uh and David and the in the board and and a revisit of ways in the past and it's become now this year a struggle like this year it's a more of a struggle and they don't want to lose their inde dependence but it's the meals um they their meal counts people depend on the Hub for their food many carry outs many many um Meals on Wheels and uh food costs are going up and the AOA uh more or less uh covers the cost of the food but um it is a an asset for our community to have meals available and many people pick up frozen meal they freeze them and then people can pick them up for the weekend so that helps to keep our people from being hungry so that's uh that was about it of yeah commissioner Mills uh I guess firstly I would just like to speak a little bit more about the CJ ramstead resolution that we had we had passed and um not at all my intention to um rush or um exclude people it it it really G came down to um jurisdiction and capacity and um our County department does not have the capacity to um engage in these discussions at this point so early on really what it's going to come down to is what both the state and the fed's find and their analysis of the environment and and the impacts therein and so we it's really hard for us to make any decision when there's when there's so limited information and more information will not come until the feds and the state do their their deal so um that was my rationale for um trying to move forward and to look at things and also frankly to engage people because those processes will um will have room for for engagement so just tring to put that out there uh the parks and trails commission I think does a pretty excellent job of representing the different user groups and had uh conversation about it and um you know I think we mentioned this in the past too that this idea has been uh pursued for over a decade um but just with plenty of ins and outs and changes going on so um nothing nothing really new except for um our willingness to look at it so um I don't want to minimize people's concerns um I I share many of them um and also want to to do what's best for as many people as possible so um I had had the opportunity to attend one of those carnivals in the past for AOA and that is an apt name for it it's quite the carnival and uh I was in Virginia and um I just caught the tail end of it it was right before uh AOA board meeting and uh it was pretty incredible to see when you get over to the range in Virginia the population is so different than here you know um both culturally as well as just the sheer number of people uh and their needs and so uh it was very eye opening and very well attended and uh a lot of smiles and um a lot of energy so happy to hear it it continues um and and I do uh intend to follow up with the Council on Aging and and the Hub about the future um at this point in our schedule my schedule I I I I can make efforts um but I I think it's going to be most realistic after the New Year um is is what it comes down to so um but the the the concepts the concerns have been on my mind for uh well over a year so um I won't forget it's just a matter of um strategically using our time yeah as far as that they would like to have have more than just you but they'd like to have the the uh Frank in that whole board to have a discussion about it pH advisory Council yes yeah we I think it'd be worthwhile having um having a robust discussion meting here or we can to them just depending on Logistics and all that so thank you thank you for sharing that and and continuing your advocacy because yes I I think we all agree on the importance of that organization Comm Sullivan yes oh are you completed are you done I'm never done but yes I'm done um I I wanted to share this about the aeoa they have just they they're closing in on uh completing a project called Home on the Range and they took a tax forfeited property and they turned it into a homeless shelter and that's that's a good idea so um and it's the largest uh the work was done it's 54 units it's the largest um north of the twin city and they had 15 different funding sources 15 to get that accomplished so thanks for sharing that commissioner Sterling thank you madam chair the Caribou Lake Association last Labor Day weekend was well attended over 60 folks they have a very large board also that is included I was allocated six minutes so I talk fast because they have a real concern about Rusty crayfish mhm you know um they do call in crayfish um folks from um duth and they come in and they take out 40 50 60,000 crayfish and then they sell it to the restaurant so we can have a tasty little tidbit of the crayfish which are deep fried I guess I haven't had one yet but I assume that's the way they do it so help the cause when you're at a restaurant um over the last couple weeks um you remember Christy Kaine came here um to introduce herself as the interim executive director of ardc um pretty exciting about some things we're looking at some new divisions she took a survey of everyone uh a at ardc and um so next week we will be discussing that with the executive board and moving ahead with some I think some pretty exciting things that are going to be happening there um Wednesday tomorrow I leave for Alexandria for the AMC conference if anyone has any concerns shoot me um concern I will be attending the health committee first but then there is some time on a Friday that I could pop in to other areas too so I'll be I'll be there as well okay good it was the last minute okay are you staying in St Cloud no at Arrowhead yeah oh was the cancellation probably or something it it it was Price Line yeah oh Price Line okay yeah they apparently snagged rooms which prevented commission you know so I just had to game it but uh but we gamed it okay well then we can maybe cover a few more things yeah good good to hear that's it thank you I had an opportunity at the end of August to attend an mcit training land use training and there were um a number of people our County attorney was there I was there and um people from Land Services and the Planning Commission and board of adjustment um and in this land use training there were some updates on uh Contin uh conditional use permits the 60-day rule and one that I found really valuable defensible public hearing records and talking about what's okay what's not okay it was extremely well done and then um all of us attended the Cannabis session that was offered and you wouldn't believe how many people are watching Cook County and as soon as we pass an ordinance they want a copy of it um many people passed a moratorium and didn't dig in like we have and uh anyway it was an excellent presentation there was a panel um there talking about the law and different situations a lot of Q&A we went a good hour over just with questions and answers so that was very valuable um also on Labor Day weekend I attended the lon Lake Bay Road Association providing County updates and talking about Wildfire preparation and evacuation if you're familiar with Lon Lake um there's one way in on the south and then one way in on the North very narrow very uh lengthy on the North and so a lot of good good preparation was made and good collaboration between Property Owners Gunflint Trail Scenic byway met um to talk about the Northwoods Loop renumbering but primarily to set and discuss priorities for the upcoming year um they meet regularly in the winter when all the resorts aren't so busy and get a lot of their work done at that time so anyway they're setting their priorities for the future um Soil and Water Conservation District um we reviewed their budget and talked about and I'm sure commissioner white is aware of this the public hearing that's coming up for Lake Superior North one Watershed one plan that's going to be on Friday October 25th from 10: until 12 and um worked a little bit with uh City County mou on law enforcement and uh legal services so we're working on that and and I believe that is it for my updates but boy we have a lot of meetings coming up as we can see we have our lodging tax comparison uh through June that is listed and then a big recognition this month of staff so staff anniversaries first year anniversaries um El kley with phhs Carol Schmid Huber Highway Department Jay Ernst with the assessor's office and Marissa Chapman with phhs all one year for two years Adam Maxwell and Andrea Cubo Brenda port and Laura Nelson all with phhs and then we have Kathy ply three years with HR she's halftime employee Amanda Anderson in the sheriff's office for six years and Richard W for six years in maintenance Jade Waltman phhs 7 years Andrea deor phhs 11 years and then in Mis Melissa rexroad with 11 years and Rowan Watkins with 12 and topping it off Sheriff Eliason 29 years with Cook County and one Milestone anniversary Mike Keyport Emergency Management 5 years it's probably felt like 10 dealing with Co and fire and everything else and with that is there a motion to adjourn so moved thank you commissioner Johnson is there a support support thank you commissioner Surly we have a motion in support anything additional all in favor I opposed motion carries we are adjourned thank you all very much when you go to the AMC m