##VIDEO ID:rJf5lADjA1Y## good morning everyone I'd like to welcome you to the Cook County Board of Commissioners regular meeting today Tuesday October 8th 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 world so as we look at today's agenda are there any adjustments or changes to the agenda any adjustments or changes if not I'd entertain a motion to approve the agenda as written I'll so move thank you commissioner white is there support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I opposed motion carries to begin today we want to have a brief recognition of indigenous people's day which is next Monday next Monday October 14th our community will observe indigenous people's day A Day established to honor the rich cultures history and contributions of indigenous people across our nation and continent the day serves as a reminder of the resilience and strength of our indigenous communities including the Grand Portage band of Lake Superior ch chipa the Grand Portage band rooted in Rich Heritage of the anishinabi people embodies the spirit of perseverance and connection to the land for centuries they have thrived in the vibrant Landscapes of Northeastern Minnesota cultivating deep relationships with our natural world their Traditions languages and Customs are woven into the very fabric of K the entire Arrowhead region and Beyond enriching our cultural tapestry indigenous people's day is not only a celebration of these contributions but also an opportunity to reflect on the historical injustices faced by indigenous communities it's a moment to acknowledge the impact of colonization including the loss of land culture and Language by recognizing the day we commit to understanding these histories and working towards reconciliation and Justice we honor the Grand Portage band's achievements and cultural Pres cons ation environmental stewardship and Community resilience the band plays A vital role in safeguarding our natural resources here in our region and advocating for sustainable practices that honor traditional knowledge and promote ecological balance as we observe indigenous people's day next Monday let us embrace the opportunity to learn from indigenous voices and perspectives by engaging with the histories and stories of the Grand Portage band and other indigenous people we deepen our understanding of their experiences and the ongoing challenges faced whether through ART music storytelling literature or Community Gatherings every effort to amplify indigenous voices contributes to a broader understanding and respect for their Heritage and together we can work toward a broad understanding and respect for that Heritage together we work towards a future that honors all indigenous people promotes their rights and fosters a deeper connection to the land we share by embracing the day we take steps towards healing and justice for indigenous communities ensuring their stories and cultures will continue to thrive for generations to come this point we'll move on to our public comment period um are there any citizens that this morning wish to appear before the County Board are there any remarks or emails that have been received by Commissioners to read okay with that we will close our public comment period and move on to our consent agenda are there any items that a commissioner wishes to pull any items that commissioner if not I'd accept a motion to approve our consent agenda as written so moved thank you commissioner Johnson is there support support thank you commissioner starle we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I opposed motion carries we'll move on now at this time to item five human resources and we see that Allison plumber Director of Human Resources is with us this morning good morning Allison morning so the first item that Allison will be addressing this morning is um an update to our County travel policy yes uh so some background on our current County travel policy this was revamped re-updated in 2022 to reflect the change going from our previous reimbursement rates to using the GSA rate depending on uh the location where individuals were traveling to for work um back in um it was spring early summer I received some communication from Public Health Human Services about wanting to uh present some proposed revisions to the travel policy and more specifically around meal reimbursement as the language that had been included in that 2022 update was fairly unclear in a sense um and could be very very much open to interpretation and um they were wanting to uh provide some revisions to that language that provided more clarity and consistency uh across all of the Departments and individuals fiscal staff in um three areas of the county that processed the reimbursements so everyone was acting in the same manner um and then the reimbursements were uh processed fairly um thinking equity across the organization um so what we did is we brought those proposed revisions initially to the July Personnel committee uh just for that initial uh presentation what are your thoughts is this something that we want to proceed with uh from that meeting it was determined that having kind of a more focused meeting with those individuals involved with reimbursement to discuss the changes would be the appropriate Next Step so in Late July um fiscal staff from Public Health Human Services the auditor's office the highway department um and myself to help facilitate the conversation we all met to discuss the proposed changes maybe even um more further changes that everyone would uh agree upon um and one of the big things to note is in that discussion it became clear that the three fiscal staff across those three organizations that or the three departments that process reimbursements were interpreting the current language even for has unclear that it might have been they were actually interpreting it fairly similarly in their processing so it was the goal of that meeting then to modify the language to reflect the current practices that they were already understanding was the way to process those reimbursements so brought those changes back back to the August trying to get all my my months correct here the August Personnel committee meeting um there was discussion there and a couple of other things that we wanted to um bring back to that group and myself to just further say do we want these updates included brought it back again for a final review to the Personnel Committee in September and from there forth have the support an approval from the Personnel committee to bring forth these updates to you today so I have included in the board packet the revisions uh to the travel policy the whole travel policy the revisions are tracked they're marked in the red font um in the document so a few changes here and there some language consistency um to match the forms and other attachments that are referenced in the policy see um maybe some language was uh forgotten um just some modifications like that but the biggest uh largest amount of proposed updates are falling within section g as it regards to meal you can see there's a lot of red and underlining in that section um so this really clarifies when those GSA rates uh come into play um and it really hinders on on the time the length of the travel if there's an overnight stay um and that again just clarifies really the current process that those three fiscal staff are currently practicing but actually lays it out in writing uh oh I should mention too there's um at the end of the packet there's a copy of an Excel spreadsheet uh so this was also something really cool a new tool that phhs staff developed as well um so it's a it's a um it's an active Excel spreadsheet that really represents and replicates the current paper form however it has builtin uh formula functionality so as you complete as you the employees the fiscal staff processing the reimbursement as they fill in the columns associated with the date the time that they're leaving the location uh the form is built to autop populate and autocalculate the reimbursement for that individual for their travel based on the GSA rates and our policy as proposed so this will also help with just the calculation and and uh uh accuracy of that reimbursement calculation and so we can see potentially employees utilizing this the fiscal staff utilizing it we will still have the current paper form available for people to fill out as well uh and one other thing that was apparent with the travel policy is it references outof State travel and the need for a authorization form to com to be completed ahead of time for basically preapproval that form did not exist we couldn't locate it um couldn't locate it in old files so I created an outof State authorization form and that is also attached in the agenda to just round out the the completeness of the policy and everything that's referenced in it I'd like to thank you for all your work on this Allison and and for everybody that contributed to it I think it's so important that our practice and our policy match um that we have the appropriate forms and I appreciate the fact that um on the new form created can autocalculate um so that we can avoid errors human SS um we'll want to make sure we check that a couple of times you know um someone in person doing it and um letting the form do its work but uh I am just really excited about this it's the kind of um sometimes lengthy work that we need to do but it really helps the organization overall any questions or comments for Allison if not I would entertain a motion and chair I'll make a motion to approve the updates to the county travel policy thank you so much commissioner star their support I'll thank you commissioner why we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I opposed motion carries all right we'll move on to our next item which is approving job description and job upgrade updates all right uh continuing with our job description review process working with DDA to uh update review our job descriptions I have two uh job descriptions here both pertaining to the recycling center to present to you today uh we have the recycling center assistant and the recycling center supervisor position uh both of these just include a updated job description uh there really weren't many changes so looking more at just kind of making sure it follows the standard template has the knowledge skills abilities that were missing beforehand uh the job grades uh were deemed to be accurate where they were currently sitting so we're not looking at a change in the job grades so the recycling center assistant would remain at its current grade of a 110 and the recycling center supervisor position would remain at a 170 uh one thing to note with the recycling center supervisor title is that previously it was referred to as the recycling center operat SLS supervisor uh which personally I felt was sometimes a little bit um confusing to just have the operator SLS supervisor in there um so to be consistent with some of our other supervisor positions removing the operator slash part and just having the recycl recycling center supervisor so it's just very clear that that is the supervisor for that uh location thank you and timing wise this is great because we are going to be interviewing for filling our recycling center supervisor position so great timing to have a revised updated job description absolutely any questions that Commissioners have for Alison is there a motion to approve the job description and job grade updates motion to approve thank you commissioner storle is there support support we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I opposed motion carries thank you all right um item C all right item c um I will call upon County attorney hickin to assist with this um but what we will proceed for with is um having a closed session to discuss um and approve the termination of um an employee and then we would uh discuss this and then take action after that closed session all right and I'm glad you pointed out afterwards um there's a typo in the the report or the cover sheet so um our vote would be taken afterwards when we return to this room so this next item as Allison mentioned is magenda item that requires we move into closed session as permitted by Statute attorney Pi anything you would like to add at this point no all right I I will be recording the session and that is remains um a confidential recording until or unless it results in some litigation so all right thank you so much Madam chair yes administrator Yori thank you could could somebody call me uh into that meeting yes all right thank you so um is there a motion to go into close session so move thank you commissioner Johnson is there support support you will at this time um take a vote all in favor of closing the session I opposed motion carries the meeting is now closed to the public e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e like to welcome everyone back um we have been in closed session and are returning um to take action to approve the involuntary termination of a County employee and is there a motion we use the name right I will make the motion to approve the um termination of Ricker thank you commissioner Johnson is there support I will support that thank you commissioner white we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I opposed motion carries unanimously we'll move on at this time to item six auditor Powers is with us to talk about a proposed public hearing request thank you madam chair this is a request to hold a public hearing for considering changes to our fee schedule um this is allowed by Statute uh we can make that change after a public public hearing the department has has made a request to to have a fee changed our practice we could have it at the next meeting but our practice has been to set it a little bit in advance to give other departments the opportunity to make changes if they're thinking about it so I would suggest we set that hearing date for uh November 12th 2024 at 9:00 a.m. all right and I've had an opportunity to speak with a couple of other departments they appreciate that time to be able to look at their fee schedules and potentially make some changes um so is there a motion to set the date of Tuesday November 12th at 9:00 a.m for our public hearing I'll make okay some moved thank you commissioner Johnson is there support all support thank you commissioner we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I opposed motion carries so Tuesday November 12th at 900 a.m. thank you auditor poers all right at this point we'll move on to item seven administrator yorki is joining us by phone this morning and uh he has an appointment he would like to discuss thank you madam chair so back on August 13th the board um approved a resolution to transition the County Recorder position from elected to an appointed position um that triggered by Statute a 30-day window within which uh residents could file what they call uh file for a reverse referendum which basically could contest the board's decision on this um that 30-day window passed without any uh petition being brought forward and so at that point we began the process of Recruitment and so we uh announced the the vacancy and started collecting applications for it we are now in the middle of that recruitment process we do have interviews scheduled for Thursday of this week um in the meantime we need to um appoint uh Dusty I'm sorry not dusty but Holly as the interim uh recorder so that she can continue to do the work um that Dusty was doing prior to leaving at the end of last week um and she will be as the uh cover sheet notes she would be paid uh at an out of grade uh rate which is our standard practice when somebody takes on an assignment that is above their current pay grade and then once the recruting process is complete uh we would uh obviously hire whoever the the meing candidate is and then um we would that that out of out of class appointment would be discontinued so um the request today is to approve Holly to serve as the interim uh recorder and register of titles thank you are there any questions for administrator y attorney hickin Madam chair if I can just add um I did there's a second part of this request at my at my request um which is to to ratify the written appointment that uh James Yori made last week so because there is a one day Gap uh one business day gap between um Dusty Nel's retirement on Friday her last day Friday and this morning uh in case any documents needed to be recorded yesterday I did ask James to make a written appointment of Holly Schroeder as an inter um at recorder SL registar um in order to make sure that's completely solid in the event she had to record anything yesterday I'm asking that the board ratify his appointment of Holly schroer um last week so two actions one is to appoint as of today uh and the second to ratify the appointment made La um last week by James York all right and so for Commissioners that have not done this before um we would make an appointment by motion and a second and a vote and that would be a roll call vote and then we would ratify that appointment by a roll call any questions attorney hickin NOP all right so with that um I'd like to make a motion to appoint um Holly Scher as the interim Cook County recorder and register of titles effective October 5th is there a second to that motion support thank you commissioner starle we have a motion in a second and this will be a roll call vote storle Sullivan I white I Johnson I motion carries and now we want to ratify that appointment um and again this will be a roll call vote storle I Sullivan I white I Johnson I motion carries unanimously thank you thank you bo uh item 7B is a resolution to approve um the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources acquisition the conservation easement um the board the board packet contains information about this request um the parcel in question is on the Southeast Corner um of Lake Agnes in the West End there is a legal description of the parcel in your board packet um and then the there's also an overview of the uh program into which this land would be put and that would basically accomplish a number of purposes related to forestry and habitat management um one key question that you are likely to wonder about is what how this would impact um the the assessment of this property and then the tax payments made on it um I did talk with uh Bob Thompson about that and he believes that the impact act to the the taxes for the property would be fairly nominal so um this does not take it off the tax roles by any means um but it does accomplish a number of beneficial purposes related to natural resource management are there any questions for administrator Yori commissioner Johnson yes so there is currently a house on there on that so excluded from this easement and does that mean that the remaining the easement portion now becomes the taxes are under pilt or does the property owner still pay regular County taxes on that based on the feedback I got from Bob I believe the L so probably just changes the class classification of that person um it does it may affect the property value which would then affect the property tax um because be classified differently and that's I get that I just wondered who pays is it estate or is it the property owner yep still the property owner other questions if not is there a motion to approve the resolution to enable the Minnesota DNR to acquire the conservation eement at ages lake so move thank you commissioner Starley is there support I'll support thank you commissioner white we have a motion and support any further discussion or questions all in favor I oppose motion carries thank you all right we'll move on to administrator updates thank you madam chair uh just uh a few things this week um we continue work to get the three buildings uh re-roofed I I believe the community center project is complete at this point um Roofing of the County Museum is underway and then we do have uh Mike leerer uh lined up to put a roof on the cville Town Hall um and so those three projects should be complete by the time winter starts the other thing that I wanted to mention is um I've been working with Brook lard our new facilities director uh to get him up to speed on on things related to the capital Improvement plan wanted to let you know that that he and I have a meeting with cbps which is the firm that put the capital Improvement plan together and that's scheduled for tomorrow to talk about the the details of it and how we can best I'm sorry hang on a second I'm sorry for that Interruption um so so and I will be talking to cbps with the uh purpose of getting him up to speed on the element to that plan and to begin the process of issuing requests for proposals related to all the other projects that are in the plan and unfortunately I need to step away at this time um so um I I'll pause and see if there any questions before I have to go any questions for administrator yor no no thank you so much all right thank you folks have a good day you too we'll move on to um commissioner updates commissioner Johnson um let's see I attended a Arc meeting Arrowhead Regional Corrections meeting and our director is retiring so um we're starting the process of um advertising and looking for a new director for and we will really miss Wall-E and his work at Corrections and he was a great guy he is a great guy but he's just going to enjoy eny life now without work I don't have anything else that I can think of right now all right commissioner white well I have just two things kind of more fun things one was last week I uh attended um up in Grand porage the 2024 Great Lakes Beach Association conference it was a yeah I got it right I wrote it down so um um Grand pory toasted it there were people from Washington DC Ohio Illinois Michigan uh Wisconsin and um it it was all about water quality all about protecting the great lakes and what the testing is done uh requirements are and standards are in different uh locations Cook County Minnesota Cook County comma Minnesota our local area and our greater state is very um we have more strident requirements for clean water than some of the other places one big thing was they were calling them beaches the only Beach I'm aware of in Cook County is Paradise Beach and everything else is Shoreline though someone said you know uh they were they were they found it humorous in answering the question or seeing the definition of a beach because the uh if if you as a county are going to identify beaches for the public use and the person said this was a person from Grand Portage who said we don't tell them where they're where the public where they're going if enough people go it's now a beach that's all there is to it so um there was that and then I attended the zoom meeting on the emergency communications board and I had two pages actually of notes but for that reason to really get a good to know exactly what I heard and better yet to know what good hands we are in as a uh community and across the board for communications Rowan Watkins from the mysterious Department of of uh of uh of uh technology is here to actually I prepped him yesterday so he knows what to talk about to tell us all really really good things and about the Min about the Minnesota um what what did you call that Minnesota Minnesota model it's the Minnesota model 20 we're leading the charger people 24 states are looking to Minnesota thanks to our guys thank you good morning everyone morning uh so at the meeting a couple topics that were covered uh you guess I'll back up a little bit the Northeast emergency communications board is a joint Powers agreement with the Northeast region uh including a handful of cities and and then the tribes that are within this area um but it's a subset or falls under uh the secb or Statewide emergency communications board governance structure that's defined in 403 statute the the 403 statute for authority over emergency communications really driving things like inter operability making sure everyone can talk to each other and so we cover everything from uh LMR land mobile radio the armor system to NextGen 911 to things like IPA integrated public alert warning system for us in this County that's code red uh Wireless Broadband or first net so all of those Public Safety communication Things Fall underneath that um and I I give that context just to say what a a great and valuable partnership we have there with the state partners and our regional Partners who support us in in that um the things that were were covered that commissioner white asked me to speak about the first one is a tool called rapid SOS and Rapid deploy so these are are two mat based 911 tools that are used by our Dispatch Center uh that leverage real-time data from smartphones iot or Internet of Things connected devices wearables like smart watches um geared towards improving response time by providing our dispatchers with very accurate location information and so what I was sharing with commissioner white yesterday was that um when you use some of these apps whether it's Uber or or you name it you pick the app that leverages your location you sign up and and you accept the fine print right and they give that gives them the ability to sell your data and inform which usually is not great uh for most people but in this case uh these companies are actually leveraging that and providing it back to Public Safety so they're buying that location data and then giving a much more accurate picture to our dispatchers when youy 911 so that's the current status of Rapid deploy and Rapid SOS we do use both tools at our Dispatch Center um and increasingly they're working towards becoming uh a key provider in the NextGen 911 ecosystem so they're looking at being the applications and tools that facilitate things like video calls into Dispatch Center 911 right now you can call 911 not too long ago we gained the capability to text to 911 next phase in in what they call NextGen 911 uh or one of them is the ability to send video directly to dispatcher and that's a consideration that we'll have to look at but it's it's what one of these tools uh one of the things that these tools are looking to provide um the next item was encryption requirements and so again through this same same group uh there's a a change management plan put in place based on a requirement that came down from the FBI and BCA to have the encryption the level of encryption for law enforcement radio traffic enhanced so the FBI and the BCA say the current level of encryption that's used in the state standard uh as a state standard for interoperability talk groups so that law enforcement agency a can talk to law enforcement agency B they share Keys needs to be elevated and to do that uh the requirement is that the uh all R law enforcement radios that are capable of taking those encryption keys because you got to pay for the ability to do that um will have it by 2025 and just by the nature of myself commissioner White emergency manager mik Keyport and radio communication analyst Jay D going to these meetings that's the type of information that we have in advance knowing that those changes were coming and so when uh I think we're at three or so years ago when we replaced the Cook County Sheriff's Office radio part of our regular replacement schedule we knew that that change was going to be on the horizon and we purchased radios that were capable of doing that so that it wouldn't be something that is an added hit and an added expense that we would have to do after the fact and so in 2025 because our radios are capable of accepting that we will we will add those interop talk groups and then for anyone else that can um we'll be able our law enforcement agencies will be able to share those talk groups and encryption keys and and communicate those are the big ones that I have is there anything else you wanted me to yes right um oh I guess that was it those are the big ones I just finish oh excuse me no uh airplanes yes uh so search and rescue uh Aviation uh our radio communication analyst Jou uh also a search and rescue member has worked with the Sheriff's Office search and rescue and Sawtooth Aviation to to create a a technical solution and an operational process that meets State Standards uh for the armor system as well as FAA and FCC requirements for radio communications and a fixed wi aircraft um and it's just about getting an armor radio up in the air when they are doing search and rescue efforts so that the folks in the air can communicate clearly with the folks on the ground and there's a lot of tech Technical and operational Hoops to jump through to do that and that was something that was identified as a need after a couple searches that we've had as a an area that we could improve and Jou did the work to get that done both the technical and operational there's an moou in place now with Sawtooth and search and rescue in the sheriff's office as well as our participation plan that we hold with the state to use the armor system has been amended to meet all those requirements and then one other thing Rowan was uh money yes and so both I know my intent with this one is to make this a a standalone agenda item and come back and talk about it in a bit more detail and also as we have a little bit of more information on uh how the cost sharing will go but what I will say is that the the same governance structure and the meetings that we go to through the SEC CB and the Northeast emergency communications board over the last several years have been a source for us to get a lot of funding for emergency communications uh they helped significantly in the initial purchase with armor radios um uh our latest 911 system was help paid for through a grant from this same group and now we've received a letter notifying us that we stand to receive another roughly $390,000 for replacement of fire department radios which is a a huge benefit to to our group and so I'll be I'll be back with more details to talk about the how and why at that um probably at your next regularly scheduled meeting um but yes again this this group the Northeast emergency communications board and the larger uh Statewide emergency communications board is has been really great for Cook County in a lot of ways thank you all right thanks so much we appreciate you coming and sharing information with us anything else commissioner wait no commissioner stle thank you um last week um I attended the first um fall meeting for Nik um we have a new president she's from uh the state of Virginia and she is dynamite we were there like two and a half hours talking about her vision and I'll go more into that when we have public health next week but um our assignment is to come up with a A list of priorities for n in uh March so we'll be working on that and we have a deadline we have to have it in by November 4th so I'll be working on that in between everything else so that's it for now all right thank you so much um I appreciate that uh Rowan could update us a little bit on um our radio situation I know up at the airport that has been discussed repeatedly how sath Aviation and their pilots can be of assistance during search and rescue so really good to hear from him um about everything that's in place and the memorandum of understanding as well um the airport thinking of that um had their annual flying breakfast about a week and a half ago and it was a great success um they earned more money than they ever have before on all those blueberry uh pancakes and syrup and whatever and they had 42 individuals participate in short flights that left from the airport and the Fall colors were stunning so um it was a great day and uh great turnout for our community for that flying breakfast may I add chocolate chip pancakes yes with never had the choice before and chocolate ships I went for both all right and and we did not have a quorum at any particular time um Commissioners were spread out as they attended so that worked out very nicely thanks to all of you that were there um we had of course for the county our active shooter training recently um both classroom training and then a number of people also participated in the drill we did close the courthouse early on that day it was um really good and what I personally appreciated was the debriefing afterwards um discussions about how to help the public when they are in our buildings if something like that were to happen so it's employee training but then also thinking about what do we do in those areas of the building where the public are uh with us at that time um then last Friday participated in a six-hour training that was part of rural Minnesota's Community Safety project and it's something that northspan put together for our community they did a survey last spring and offered this training as a response to concerns that came up in the training and I'll be sharing this um with Commissioners but um talked a little bit about um how to intervene how to deescalate situations in the community could be at the grocery store it doesn't have to be here at the county it could be just anywhere but um we talked about deescalation and intervention and when it's appropriate to step in and um people's Comfort level and such but it was a very excellent training there were 16 members of our community that participated and uh will'll be sharing information um through Community leadership related to that and then of course um last week we celebrated Dusty Nel's retirement um and you know I just have to say after 45 years she's just been such an important part of our community she's part of our history um our growth and our governance and her journey with the county really exemplifies dedication and hard work and a deep commitment to public service so I just want to thank her for all that she has done for the county and for our community um we have a number of meetings that are listed it's very busy couple of weeks coming up we have our lodging tax comparison which takes us through July and then I do want to recognize our October staff anniversaries Kyle Monson who has been in the assessor's office for three years Stacy Schmidt and phhs three years our administrator James yorie four years and Bob Thompson our County Assessor eight years so thanks to all of them for their great service and with that is there a motion to adjourn so moved thank you commissioner Johnson is there supp support thank you commissioner so we have a motion in support anything further today all in favor I opposed motion carries we are adject thank you [Music]