##VIDEO ID:sPDj5T4q64c## start our C County Board of Commissioners regular meeting today Tuesday December 17th with the Pledge of Allegiance if we'd all rise 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 so as we get ready today are there any adjustments or changes to the agenda administrator updates under administrator if I could please all right so we will add administrator updates to item nine let's make that n9d are there any other adjustments or changes to the agenda seeing or hearing none is there a motion to approve I'll make the motion to approve thank you commissioner white is there support support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion and support to approve our agenda as amended any discussion anything further all in favor I I oppos motion carries we'll move on now at this time to our public comment period an opportunity for citizens to appear before the County Board and please note that when you're invited to uh come up and speak to speak into our microphone for clarity sign the public comment sheet stating your name address and the topic you're addressing and you may speak respectfully for up to five minutes and public comment is reserved for the board to hear your views it's not a time for debate at this time are there any members of the public that wish to speak this morning good morning good morning Arvis Thompson 1455 County Road 14 um I'm want to address some issues that were part of the agenda today um I'd like to begin with um and this isn't part of the agenda I'd like to begin with a rumor that perhaps you could clarify at some point for the public and that is that our crisis mental health worker has resigned um operating from Florida as I understand he was um made no sense in the first place we could have hired someone from China at that rate who decided that um a local worker that we needed to hire a local worker to handle the crisis in Cook County when we paid for that service already except it went to Florida Cook County operated for I believe it was 18 months uh without this position being filled and I'm not advocating that we should or should not have such a service but did all of you Commissioners know what was being negotiated at the time of his hiring when does the word Preposterous fit this convoluted hiring practice and now months of salary Spirited Away with what benefit to Cook County no further ahead and the question of transparency I think has been ignored the Strategic IC organizational plan at the time it was adopted a statement was made to the effect that this was a series of suggested goals that under uh to be implemented under the best circumstances with adequate funding and yet the sentiment now seems to be that because the plan was approved it means we can go ahead and implement it without or whether the county can afford it or not circumstances change availability affordability changes real need should be evaluated again specifically let's talk about the human relations department you're being asked to approve another full-time position this would make a staff of 2.5 persons doing a job that I heard you say in a recent meeting was done by one person in a county twice the size of Cook County I know how you enjoy throwing comparisons at us as a basis to justify a direction you want us to go I'll throw this one around if the current position requires some additional skills then why not work out how these skills can be acquired so that you help to build a better Department with who we have on staff hiring another person to cover a skill set is not a fix for this department or any other department now or in the future there is a request today to um contract a fire wise coordinator we know one of the challenges in this position is to advise land owners how best to protect their homes and property from fire there are several examples of locals here for many years who wasted the time and money of the firewise person they got their inspection and did none of the recommendations that were advised so I pose this question what is the power of this position to enforce the recommendations the involvement of DNR forest service and other agency agencies means a lot of federal state and County money to fulfill the job the requirements of assessing but what of enforcement how effective is a firewise coordinator how many inspections are made how many of these actually have follow through is there an annual report that supports the need for and successes of the coordinator this position has a Perpetual about it because we're all so afraid of fire has anyone asked the question when will we see what's been accomplished over all these years or do you know that already and we just need to share it with the public and lastly commissioner Mills made an offhand comment last week that was published in the December 7th News Herald and he says he felt like commissioner Johnson was dragging out her decision uh since when do we criticize our fellow Commissioners for asking questions isn't this board meeting a time to ask to express concerns to expect at least the courtesy of listening and giving some thought to each person's request for more information and time when they ask you lose Nothing by respecting a request for information and time to go back and correct is more complicated than making a sound decision you can live by thank you thank you are there other members of the public that wish to speak this morning any other members of the public that wish to speak have any Commissioners or our in administrator receive comments to read all right we'll close our public comment period and move on to our consent agenda items we have claims minutes a donation for the county sheriff's department a um Ski N North Ultra 2025 special Road use permit the approval of the promotion of Steve Olsen to maintenance worker 3 and the approval of our annual Solid Waste haulers license any items a commissioner wishes to pull commissioner white I would like like to have a discussion about the ski North alra 2025 special Road use permit more precisely about what that event is because if it's the one I heard about on the radio it's 20 2650 or 100 miles of and I think this would be an interesting thing to promote from this from this spot this morning to tell the public about this event like 100 kilometers that it's a long ways so anyway when we get to that all right so we will pull item D any other items the commissioner wishes to pull all right is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as changed or as modified I'll move thank you commissioner white is there support support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I opposed motion carries so with item D um is there anyone that would like or will be able to address that specifically I know it is a new race um I heard about it as well on wtip and I have the information that we all have in our packet does anyone else have additional information commissioner suan I can speak to it a little bit if you that would be wonderful if you'd come up to one of the microphones thank you Mike yeah yes the organizer of that uh ski race did reach out to me uh as to what she would need for uh EMS Services uh an emergency plan a safety plan uh she has done previous races in the metropolitan area and when she came up here sing she just loved the area and and thought it would be a great great uh area to to have a race up here I believe the radio segment said it it'll be the longest cross country ski race in the state I believe uh she's very she wants to make sure she's doing everything proper um I'm going to share uh some some of the other as you as you know when these permits come through we usually have a safety or you know a plan an emergency plan I'm going to share some of the other plans that I'm involv involved with with her so she'll know kind of next time you know to be a little more thorough but I did walk her through uh getting hold of the West End First Responders and the ambulance service and others so so and and she has her Road Crossings covered pretty good so I I think I think she's got it pretty well and and I'll continue to work with her up until the event so well thank you very much we appreciate that information any other comments or questions commissioner just a comment so um these Road use permits have been discussed at the highway advisory committee meeting a few times about the amount of staff time involved in these kind of um events and of course I raised the question should is $100 enough to cover the staff time and of course it's not now I understand part of it is promoting events but just to be aware as Commissioners there is a lot of work that goes into outside groups that come in to make money off of these events in our community so um one of the things I suggested is does it matter if you are an organization within Cook County like the Lion's Club or um other organizations outside the community that are coming in to use our trails and our roads for their events um still great events love to watch the bike riders but um there there is a cost to the residents and taxpayers of Cook County and just want to acknowledge that so thank you any other comments commissioner storle here so what road or where is this going to be held it's uh it's in the Cascade State uh Park area and then up to the valy creek is it Trails up in there so a part of seven would be used or is it on the trails it's it's basically on all the ski trails that are present yeah other question if not I'd entertain a motion to approve I'll make a motion to approve the permit thank you commissioner white is there support I'll support thank you commissioner St we have a motion and support anything further I'll in favor I I opposed motion carries we'll move on now to item four which is an acknowledgement of Wayne heni and Cook County is deeply grateful for the the exceptional contributions of Wayne heni whose dedication and expertise profoundly shaped Cook County Wayne who passed away recently served as our County Surveyor for many years providing invaluable guidance to Land Services on MNS concerning plats his work not only improved the accuracy of land records but also strengthened the foundation of responsible development in Cook County Wayne's life was marked by a spirit of service and Adventure he began with a journey in the Peace Corps serving in Africa went on to a distinguished career with the US Forest Service and served by fighting wildfires for the US Forest Service supported by humanitarian Logistics in the Serbia Kosovo war and it contributed to critical projects in both Brazil and Haiti Wayne brought the same sense of mission and professionalism to Cook County where his efforts left lasting Legacy locally he served on our Soil and Water Conservation District board and played a pivotal role on the subdivision ordinance committee his work led to the adoption of cook Count's official plan manual and improvements to administrative subdivisions open space developments and planned unit developments Wayne's passion for his craft was evident in his commitment to correcting old survey Corners addressing longstanding inaccuracies and proper property descriptions that often hindered clear Land Titles one of Wayne's most impactful achievements was his work on the East End of Cook County partnering with the boundary commission he successfully resolved a significant area of property discrepancies streamlining titles and clearing the path for more orderly development his work was meticulous and not only benefited particular Property Owners but also ensured that our County land records were as accurate and reliable as possible Wayne used his sense of humor his charm and ability to help all of us whether Commissioners when he came a year and a half ago to speak for before us whether he was speaking to staff citizens or others to understand his work and the importance of it Wayne henchi was a remarkable individual a servant leader an adventurer and a true professional his legacy lives on in the land he helped Define here in Cook County and the community he served with both care and integrity Cook County is better because of Wayne's vision and tireless efforts and we will remember him with respect gratitude and admiration thanks to Wayne Hy let's give him a round of applause P J we'll move on at this point to the next item on our agenda and we'll ask Mike Keyport to come back and visit with us about Emergency Management thank you very much thank you good morning good morning Madam chair Commissioners uh community members um as you know our firewise program has been around for almost 20 years uh uh a lot of work has been done over them 20 years and it's uh We've we've kind of made a a statement it's one of the most robust programs in the state maybe the nation uh but as as you may know if you follow followed along that this is the third time in less than 4 years that I've had to look for a qualified firewise coordinator uh I reached out to the other counties to kind of see how they're managing theirs uh let me back up that our last coordinator uh managed Lake County and Cook County um our firewise committee chose to not go that route anymore the mileage and our our current coordinator lives in elely so to go from elely to end of the Gunflint for instance I mean that's a half a day right there so we we don't want to go that we don't want to share with L County anymore it's the committee's decision to have our own independent coordinator again uh in in reaching out to the other counties though uh St Louis County currently uses a company known as dovetail Partners so their program goes through this company it allows them to have more resources uh more skilled grant writing uh so I reached out to a local what I would call local dovetail Partners is actually out of the Twin Cities and it works well for them they've been doing it for quite a number of years now uh it it's just less stress on the emergency manager and and when it comes to hiring then that company would do the hiring they would go find these qualified coordinators should we need one so I did reach out to uh Paramount planning which is a little more local they're based in Carlton Minnesota uh the the owner of this business is an emergency manager and does many other types of work like writing emergency off operations plans updating Emergency Operations plans writing exercises and conducting exercises that type of work he's very familiar with the firewise program and has to agreed to enter into contract with us should we should we go that route um some of the advantages like I mentioned is the the hiring Factor uh of course we I would it really doesn't change what I do because I'm still responsible for this program and it's grant money coming through our County so it's auditor powers and myself responsibility to manage that funds that come through our County but not only the a big part of the firewise program is grant writing uh and this company works on grants on a practically a daily basis we would have the opportunity not only to secure the grants that we use now but potentially have more grant money funded funding this program making the program even even better uh uh the other part of uh the service agreement you have before you is basically the same service agreement we would use for an individual this is just going through a a company the only addition to this service contract is this uh Paramount planning has agreed to help us with our community Wildfire protection plan which is in need of an update and they are willing to have this person that we they hire uh help us with that update of that plan uh and and go kind of going back to the grants um auditor poers will tell you that the the grants that we have now since the five plus years I've been here are dwindling there will be a point I believe down the road that we're going to be coming to you asking for funding should in order to keep this program going I Believe by going through an outside consultant and having more grant opportunities that would take stress off the county and as you know that this program right now is 100% Grant funded it's not and and no no way shape or form costs the county or anyone else any any money to keep this program running currently but as I say it's it's we're we're losing funding every year little by little so um um having said all that I would stand for questions about put the service agreement in front of you commissioner stle thank you madam chair thank you for bringing this to our attention um it was um asked earlier at our meeting um is there any kind of followup to know what actually is done by each property owner I know when they come to my place I um I do a few things right around the house and then lately Mother Nature has been knocking down trees for me so that my tree outline around the house is getting a lot better that was recommended so is there any kind of followup as to uh how effective this is well yes um uh the I guess the the answer would be we can't we can't force people what to do with their property it's just recommendations and it's typically at no cost to the homeowner I I take that back uh some of the funds that we use the homeowner has to do what's matching funds so match it's not matching funds it's no dollar amount but they have to volunteer ours to help match the funds that we give them to uh for instance hiring a local contractor to Hall away the debris so there is so I get the reports as to what the V what the homeowners or homeowners associations do at as to their volunteer work and I and the invoices come through me as to a local contractor how that debris away in some situations where we do larger thinning pieces the US Forest Service will actually come and burn these piles in place and I would add um that the US Forest Service has been very active um this fall and burning some of those piles um we had some piles that didn't get burned in the past because of lack of snow so we really do have a significant reduction in fuel and I know in my district if you go up the Gunflint Trail you can see the many many acres that have had fuel reduction um done on private property and it's been very very effective but again as Mike said um f the firewise coordinator is not an enforcer they don't have authority they make recommendations um but we do have Grant dollars that are out there matching funds and as he mentioned Lake Associations Road associations or firewise communities can apply for funding on an annual basis and can get that for five years in a row so it really helps Property Owners to decrease the costs that they would um incur and they can also get paid for their time commissioner white um consequences for um I'll just talk about um plowing plowing some driveways in this County as my husband does there are driveways that are almost in a tunnel because of the fur trees on either side that are dense you know they're like they're really thick and and there's no way and then when you get to the end there's no place for a firetruck to turn around there's like yeah they have a loop but no it's too tight so if the fire department were to say and and I have always UND OD that if the truck can't get in and out you're on your own I mean though they will try to help you another way they'll come in with four wheelers and whatever the case may be but there's you know this there are consequences for not having a cleared path in if if people hear from the fire department because my understanding is that the fire department does inspections of of the different residents like here's a new Road what do they need and they can make recommendations also would funding be available through the grant the money from firewise for these people to clear back the rways yes yes yeah one of the grants that we will be putting in for immediately here um we will have that type of work listed under that Grant spec the grants have changed the this is a DNR Grant I'm speaking of the the the the how they word it has changed a little bit so they want specific work we can't just say we're going to thin 40 acres so that we put that in last year's Grant too for widening of private roads yeah it's widening and also going up 14 ft so that there's a nice clear path for an ambulance or for a fire truck okay and the firewise coordinator does does make those recommendations so that there's either a U or a t that um a fire truck or an ambulance can back around in and it's through the firewise program that we get the grand F correct yes and so otherwise even though the homeowners would be made aware of fire danger around their house I see it as a public safety more than just saving your house we have a lot of forest up here and you don't see your neighbor because of the forest but if one place goes that forest in between is not a buffer to save you it can be a danger so for that reason we have incredible volunteer fire departments that and we search and rescue and all of that so um and our volunteer firefighters by the way do work very closely with our firewise coordinator they come to our meetings that we have on a monthly basis and give reports and updates um so it's really a nice collaborative group so this contract is for not to exceed $44,000 a year and that's the grant money that we get and that's basically what we pay now so that so the money part has not changed at all and as you see in the contract we will still be invoice monthly just as we are now now so the so the financial part will not change at all and this financial part is coming from Grant dollars not from Levy dollars yeah there this is I mean granted we're all paying taxes everywhere but it's not yeah this is 100% Grant funded y commer Johnson you had a question yeah about that compensation um I just was kind of confused about one of the lines here so compensation be paid monthly and within 30 days receipt of invoice monthly prog progress reports and claim forms shall be submitted by the contractor to to you as requested and I'm just wouldn't progress reports be submitted along with here's my invoice this is what I did yeah what we what we what we do now is we have a we have a very lengthy um uh invoice that we spell out by code uh you know like R3 is uh brush removal I mean it spells out exactly what they did on the invoice that I get every month so that's that's what I want so I know exactly what they did that month yes okay I just didn't want to Bill saying here pay me $3,300 for this month and uh and when when I talked to the owner of this company I said I would prefer something more in addition to that kind of a written and and and and he is willing to meet in person sure that's been a bit of a problem since I've been emergency manager here is getting is having them that personal connection and and personal meetings I think that's more effective than a piece of paper myself so we can be on the same page thank you for that clarification any other questions or comments attorney hickin uh this is an agreement I haven't had a chance to completely review and edit um I'm going to have a couple suggested additions to the agreement um nothing that's going to change uh the dollar amount um I would just be adding language which reduced the risk to the county um related to any you know potential misinterpretation of an unemployment relationship those kind of things so uh my request is that uh Commissioners approve this pending the um final modifications and approval of the County Attorney okay commissioner white is this good practice we've been here before we don't have the final thing in front of us and so should we not see the final thing before we approve it I'm not saying we don't trust what you're going to do because sometimes we don't exactly know what you're doing anyway it's but it's all right but is it a good practice to approve a contract without the contract being finalized in the final form um I think it's up to you and the I mean the business interests might be that we need something in place before the next meeting um I got this agreement on last week so with everything else I haven't had an opportunity to review it so I guess it's a necessary practice the best practice would be to have every word be the same you know so that you you can judge it um so and I guess I would jump in as serving on the firewise committee and Mike you can um speak to this as well it's really important for us to get somebody on board as soon as possible I um would trust attorney hickin to make any edits and um would feel comfortable with her edits and her approval and allow this to move forward so that we could as soon as possible fill this position and get that person writing grants for us I think it's really important and again it's not a matter of trust right or or professionalism or anything but it's process process get the stuff to the attorney in a Time get this stuff to the attorney in a timely manner so the attorney can get it to us in a timely manner completed going forward I mean that that's just my my issue was that I wanted the firewise committee to approve it first and that meeting was only a week and a half ago so yeah so we approved it on a Thursday and then it went to I was on a bit of a time crunch so I apologize for that well just we should all strive to have a better process and I know that life interferes with the process a lot so okay other questions no would anyone like to make a motion so moved thank you commissioner Johnson is there support thank you commissioner sterley we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you very much and thank you attorney hicken for carefully reviewing this as well we'll move on to it item six at this point which is our Highway engineer Robbie H good morning good morning morning still morning um so a couple of things under Highway today first thing is the sign policy and so that's one of the last ones that we've actually had a chance to get through not only Highway advisory committee but also if you remember uh a committee of the whole session as well and so in front of you is kind of that final version we put together off of some of the comments we had discussed I think some of the big ones was really just allowing us to you know in some cases use our best judgment in the field on it you can't make everything black and white even though I would love it if that was the case um but you know there's always going to be circumstances that arise where you know you need to use judgment in the field so um I guess does does anybody have any questions about the sign policy any questions or comment ments from those that serve on Highway advisory commissioner white I would just like to have the engineer H one more time explain why we can't have children at play signs on a busy stretch of the arrowhead Trail happy to explain that um mindat doesn't make them anymore that's it they are not they are not not mot uh the mutcd so the manual and uniform traffic control devices um specifically the Minnesota manual on uniform traffic control devices um they they don't make that sign anymore I think it's been several years since that's been an official uh like lawful sign uh so you still do see them up in places the one I can think of off the top of my head is uh 8th Avenue heading down the hill um there's one there uh but once that comes down they they just don't make them anymore so they're they're ineffective I'm not sure why they don't make them anymore um but that that would be why could we get from Amazon no right I I get I get the whole thing where we've discuss that speed zones everything are only effective for a short period of time and right but in the one instance where someone goes oh it might Save A Life That's all and I'm where I'm thinking of it's a growing family neighborhood there's on a busy stretch of right of the arrowhead so that that's will I'm it's it's something we we could think about and look at a little more closely I think I think it's important too to I mean you're familiar with the arrowhead Trail yeah yeah um you know that's not a 20 mph Road um it's a 55 mph road that is a a County State Aid highway so you know the point of that road is people A to B um not necessarily to slow down through and go 20 M an hour through an area now while I certainly understand that we want to be cautious when there are families that do live on our state aid highways that happens in a lot of places the gun Flint um in town granted that's slower but still um you know the point of the policy and the point of a sign in general right is Effectiveness and so we want people to pay attention to signs and not just ignore them if we put too many up that being said to your question of can we buy them off of Amazon or could we put something else up um that that's always a topic of conversation that we can keep looking at cuz I know you know as we're all aware research changes all the time the more data we get the more information we have the more we can say hey actually Studies have shown some other new technique will make an area safer or slow down or some new type of Technology gets everybody to slow down um that'd be amazing and I hope that happens rumble strips but otherwise no I'm just I'm not suggesting that people go 20 M an hour just so they are alert right understand that there might be a child and or their dog doing a child thing and running into the road after their fall or something right you know tot totally makes sense and I know when we had that that town hall and we were talking to everybody up there I know I know that's a concern for people up there um it's it I mean it's something that's in the back of my head as we start to propose projects especially in in that area um you know and if you remember like we talked about it's tough when you get into those there's no Silver Bullet a lot when it comes to speeding when it comes to a lot of that type of stuff um you know you would love to have a speed bump everywhere but now you're talking 5 10 miles an hour um no I was kidding in the speed bus but just that people are aware that now people live in this area because you're heading you're going right I get I get that so right nope always a topic of conversation for sure yes other questions regarding the sign policy if not I'd entertain a motion I'll make a motion to approve the sign policy thank you commissioner Johnson is there support I'll support that thank you commissioner white we have a motion and support anything further all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you very much um the next thing on here something we talk about uh almost at nauseum I feel like sometimes when it comes to Highway committee um not too much of the committee of the whole but here I bring a lot of very expensive contracts all the time because that's the the name of the business uh is that so one thing I hope everyone can remember as a couple uh Committee of the holes ago um I had produced a graph for everybody and I think it went back to 2009 showed how many projects we do every single year so if you remember up until a few years ago it was one project a year or zero in some cases and so over the last few years we've changed that we've done three four five six kind of kind of depends the year and so that's the trend I like doing I don't like being bored I don't want my staff to be bored they like this method as well um and so what it is is hiring out construction inspection services and so in the simplest of terms what that is is when construction is going on somebody needs to be there all the time monitoring what's going on that can also include taking truck tickets for example counting trucks measuring different things so you can imagine one person on a job doing that can get quite cumbersome things get missed and so what we've started to do that has really enabled us to do more is hire out kind of that type of stuff counting trucks measuring things um not that my staff can't but I have three staff to do that so I can't do five projects if I only have three staff uh and so what we do is hire out these services for kind of that day-to-day I don't want to say monotonous but that type of stuff um my staff moves into more project management then and so you know they're handling 98% of things out on the project and then really I get a phone call if you know something basically is wrong is when I get a call um it's worked out great for us over the last few years we've been able to deliver like I said three four five projects a year now um next year is looking I think we have this is five different ones and in the next few years it'll still continue that way um with this service so um any projects that are on state aid roads so cassa 1 through 20 23 that is reimbursable funds so yes that is a big number in that contract but big portions of that are also reimbursable to us from the state um anything on a county road though for example tofy Park Road that would come out of the levy or the TST fund uh local accounts so um that's kind of how that works does anybody have any questions about this contract any questions if not I would entertain a motion commissioner white a question yes sorry what does it cost uh so I believe the number on this one is around 3/4 of a million dollars and so that was you know a big part of that for the services of this yes okay and so that include you know if you're remember uh well if you look at it you can see there's uh the Big M of the Hill project on there that's a big chunk of it um you can see the arrowheads on there as well in Chicago Bay Road um I'm trying to I could click into it and go through it if you'd like but yeah about 3/4 of a million and pieces of that like I said are reimbursable from different Avenues okay I'll make a motion to approve thank you commissioner white I'll support since that Mill to the hill project will be uh slowing me down for a long time but I'm sorry excited to support it yes any comments or questions any discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you very much thank you so much we appreciate all you do all right we'll move on to item seven Land Services and director Nelson is here to talk about the sale of semi-trailers we get some money from this thank you and good morning uh Madam chair Commissioners and yes typically I'm I'm coming before you to request uh funds to spend money to uh acquire equipment and um we're at a point where we we've acquired enough and generally when we do acquire stuff we just kind of stop using ours or use use what we had been until we can't uh anymore uh there's very little value uh the three semi-trailers what we're talking about here are no longer uh Road worthy they don't pass the DOT inspection um and frankly as we have an existing policy where there's a certain amount of money that uh as a department head we can uh spend without coming to the board um we there should be or could be a policy on on how to dispose of equipment um once it's below a certain amount I have had this discussion with Brady and over the course of the years that I've been here I've actually done it all three ways um if it if a a piece of equipment or something is below uh and Brady can correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's $155,000 then it can can be um dis disposed of either by auction or by uh bids or even direct negotiations and frankly as I indicated um for the different pieces of equipment depending on the time of year and things that are happening um I have utilized all three different uh methods um if it's close to say the highway Department's doing an auction we'll just throw it in with that or whatever the case may be right now we there there isn't anything uh going on and so um it it is apparently the way that the regulations are stated that it is uh we could do it any one of either any of those ways but it's at the discretion of the County Commissioners and because we don't have a specific active policy that's why I'm just coming to you I really don't have uh a preference I've done it I guess most frequently through uh just the letting of bids I've had of the three uh semi-trailers that we do have uh sitting out there I've had two people two uh separate individuals come to me um and so I know that that they would uh kind of go either if we did uh through the uh through bids or uh by direct negotiations um I'd rather not go on aution because it takes a little bit more uh to set up and to go through all of that rig roll so I'm fine with with either way just looking for uh the consensus of the board and which way you'd like to go about it so I guess my my thought in um you know this process is that the most neutral and kind of open process is to do the sealed bids um what kind of time frame typically does that involve would you expect and I guess Brady or or the County Attorney could identify the time frame in which we let it out but I imagine it's it's a few weeks um if we put out for bids now I think in mid January we would uh probably get those in but especially with the holiday season does January seem reasonable I think the requirement is 10 days before an event generally but um I think the bigger question is you know how long do you want it out there to have people get a chance to take a look at it so absolutely other Commissioners commissioner Johnson well I'm just curious about why we wouldn't use the auction site that the highway department uses now according to them it's a real easy site to navigate they get lots of responses and get lots more money than they expect to get most of the time so why wouldn't we just put it on there and have the local people bid there well generally commissioner Johnson Madam chair um my view of it would be that you know maybe the people that are had approached me that are interested in it are interested in storage and not in utilization it they would would not pass do specs so I would imagine that people look to that auction site um for equipment that would still be functional or but would be working as opposed to uh something that may just be utilized for uh storage capacity on a on a piece of property or so um and they may not look at the site and it would be more of a Statewide view rather than keeping it as a local thing but it's I'm certainly wide open if you guys want to throw it on there on the auction site I'm as a mother of a son who looks at that stuff kind of stuff all the time for stuff he doesn't really need um I just think that's a more neutral when we're talking neutral way of making sure people know about it cuz guess what most of us don't read the newspaper small print this is what's happening um so I'm just trying to be think of going beyond what we've always done and make yeah maybe we do need a a different policy to think about that commissioner W what do you do in the interim you're talking the big semi-trailers that sit behind are we're not using them now is that is oh I'm sorry no we're not using them now or what what's going to replace them we have already replaced those uh commissioner white Madam chair we we had already acquired those we ran into kind of a a three first special um earlier in uh I think it was this year or late last year um and frankly those ones that are no longer uh do certified have been basically just sitting there and yeah we haven't been using those um and if if we were to use those we would kind of sneak them over to a a site Closer by or whatever but we we haven't we are flush with with uh semi-trailers the harder to get rid of I mean semi-trailers at least there is some sort of function for them in terms of storage capacity on a property or whatever even though they're not roadworthy the more difficult ones are those uh trailers with the multi- bins that are on those um because by the time that we're done with those and use those even to be used as a flatbed trailer they are not really serviceable at all and so those generally kind of go as scrap metal as opposed to being able to be utilized for anything but the semis do have some value but not very much and they so they're just taking up space that is correct okay so I I think we need to be as neutral we need to be as Fair Equitable to everybody and yeah there there are people I know people like that not your son specifically they just look just to see just to see oh I could really use that like what you know I mean there might might be somebody else out there that how they get a nonroad worthy semi to their place if they live in like oh Esco or some place I don't know but someone might be interested in doing it and do my son can tell you who can do it for you you um and you set the lowest uh you would set a a base price if you don't get this price in your not selling it or just anything goes well basically in the fact when it comes to an auction or even the sealed bids I I just let the kind of the marketplace work you know whenever it's gone to auction I've I've worked hand inand with whatever the highway engineer is at that point and I would then turn and kind of talk to Robbie and say hey you want to do that for me okay other commissioners else want to weigh in on this commissioner well I've I've heard that Sterling uh surprising numbers that the highway department has gotten for some pieces of used equipment um that was totally un unexpected and so you never know might have a dilapidated non-road worthy semi that has been something someone has always always wanted and there'll even be a bidding war I don't know but I think we should go that route so is there a motion is that your motion yeah it's my motion put it into a motion commission I make a motion that we put those um trailers from uh on on the auction site and I'll leave it in the hands of Tim Nelson to set that up or with the help of engineer has is there support support we have a motion and support any further questions or discussion I have a question for director Nelson um will you inform the people that are interested in the trailers that it's going to be on the auction site most definitely I I would in fact expect probably calls from them this afternoon uh already to see the result of today's meeting so okay I just want wanted to make sure that people that were currently interested yes don't miss out on this and will they be excuse me will they be able to um bid on this site even though it's okay the engineer says yes anybody can bid on the site okay that's good yes let those people know other questions we have a motion and support any further discussion or questions all in favor I I opposed motion carries I'll make a great Christmas gift please note that we will ask for a report back on all the money you made on I do I want Madam chair is there some reason we've skipped 6A we did 6A uhoh yeah sign policy sign policy sign policy mhm talked about children at CL yep no on conveyance of the county owned land to HRA that's an old agenda commissioner oh it's an old agenda yeah oh because Miss Hamilton is here I thought maybe she would have she she's on for item 10 10 okay yeah it came out on my report for today I've got it right here well that's the old that's yeah it was republished I saw that I mean it was republished I printed it oh okay all right okay here we go all right we are on item eight Human Resources good morning we respectfully request to swap um switch around the items um since we have Matt and Robbie here and knowing that the next the a agenda item will probably take a bit longer so then we can allow them to leave and be on their way all right we will move to item 8 B which is extension of the resignation date for Kurt leoda sounds good all right um so today we bring forth um this is the first time I've done this is uh requesting an extension to a resignation date uh for Highway maintenance worker 3 Kurt laboda uh so at our last meeting on December 3rd we approved his resignation effective uh January 3rd um but since then with discussions and then this morning on the consent agenda uh you approved the promotion of current maintenance worker to Steve Olsen into backfilling that uh potentially soon to be vacated position uh of maintenance worker 3 um discussions have led to uh having Kurt stay on a little longer uh Kurt has been with the county for almost 20 years now um and has an extensive background in grading um even before working for the county he grew up integrating family um and that knowledge and experience is really invaluable especially as we have an uh bring on Steve wison and train him um so looking to request uh an extension of that resignation date by two months pushing it back from January 3rd to March 3rd um knowing that there is a financial impact on that as well uh Lisa sorley the highway accountant put together some financials and I included just a summary in the the board agenda item um but but what Jana just handed out is the kind of the spreadsheet that Lisa provided as to what the additional cost would be um so the information in front of you is Lisa figured okay well if Kurt was still to resign on January 3rd hypothetically if we brought a maintenance worker two in to backfill Steve Olson's position say at a step three what do those costs look like with wages and Fringe for that hypothetical new employee compared compared to what we would continue to pay Kurt for that position and his current benefits uh So Lisa calculated it would be an additional monthly cost to keep him on um at around like $2,650 per month however one thing to note too that's for two months that in talking with Matt and Robbie that they don't have intentions to fill the maintenance worker to position right now during the winter and spring months that we would do the recruiting and selection process later on um late spring early summer to prepare for that season so potentially we wouldn't be filling that position either say for the months of March and April maybe bringing someone on in May so in the additional cost with keeping CD on is kind of also then negated by a savings for not immediately filling that position [Applause] commissioner Sullivan commissioner what don't we have need for another maintenance person for those months I guess I'll speak to that okay um so Steve Olsen who we hired to be Kurt's replacement uh he is technically what we call the floater um so he does not have an ass assigned route except for the sidewalks in town and we thought we' just let those go no I'm just kidding uh we will be back filling that with uh shop staff and supervisory staff um because that's easy it's close to our shop and we can just do that um but yeah okay thanks other questions commissioner Johnson yeah I well I think this works out well we've talked about the um knowledge we've been losing with some recent retirements so I'm wondering about a training plan so how are you going how is Curtis going to train this new employee uh it's a good question I mean he's uh kind of the what we've established with especially recent maintenance twos that have left are it's kind of a shadowing program so you know Kurt's going to continue to be in the greater somewhat uh with with Steve following him then it kind of transfers to a reverse Steve's in the greater ctt's following him and then Steve's on his own Curts on call that's sort of generally our practice we also have uh grading programs that are put on by ltap which is the local technical assistance program uh and you know Steve will be doing those programs as well um but it's kind of this yeah um we try to structure it as much as possible some of it just has to be you know out there in the field and so we should hope for quite a bit of snow in the next month yeah and also not snow is not gravel too so there will be a um yeah we'll just have to cross that bridge when we get there that was my next question what are we going to how is he going to learn how to do gravel roads yeah uh if you ask a greater operator uh the only experiences by do being out there and doing it uh I would argue that training is also necessary we do have a 49ers training center which um ironically the contract I think now is taking money out of there but uh uh either way we will send Steve down to uh what we call Greater school which is uh near hinley and the 49ers have a training center down there we sent uh the other greater operator who we've hired in the last couple years down there as well this last spring is that in our budget a line item training in our budget yes I think yeah training is definitely a line item making up for the fact that we no longer the 49ers no longer put money into that training center that's a that's a new this is a new evolving scenario yeah and just to add to that as well it's not just the the out of County training we still do have maintenance three greater operators on our staff who have been doing this longer than I think Matt and I have been alive so it there's still the opportunity for our in-house Personnel to also assist with you know any day-to-day needs question you know so we do have a disparity in experience uh some people have been there a very long time some people are brand new and some are brand brand new um but there's there's a lot of opportunities for knowledge to be shared commer white I would like to address the reason it's the 49ers in the contract negotiations we never took advantage of sending somebody because it was not really feasible the distance the time and so why are the employees continuing to pay for this this um training when they for years have not had any time to take make use of it so agreed it was not well used right okay not well used yeah so I did have a question about that are you sticking around for the next part of the discussion uh oh Madam chair I'd like to make a motion to approve the extension of ctis leod's uh resignation date to March 3rd 2025 thank you commissioner Mills is their support support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion and support further all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you thank you thank you now up to item a okay so I think we'll get pat on the line yeah do you have his number it's up there okay um so our next item is to uh take a look at the provided County Administrator position profile along with the job description um we are going to get Pat Melvin with DDA on the line and he'll kind of guide us through the process of reviewing reviewing the items that he has provided um any edits additions subtractions things that you would like to U provide him um before we can make a final decision and approve good morning Pat um we've got you on say on the air we've got the meeting going live so um you're on the mic wonderful good morning Commissioners how are you doing today just fine Pat thank you for being with us um right now also is Allison plumber who's here to talk about the County Administrator position profile and thetion oh wonderful wonderful well thank you for allowing me to participate remotely this morning we're pleased you could be with us yes Allison did you want to start out or do would you like me to jump into it I welcome you to Jump Right In Pat okay wonderful thank you uh good good morning uh hopefully everybody has had an opportunity to take a look at the draft copy of the profile that uh we put together that is going to be kind of the primary uh document that we're going to be sharing with others as we go forward with the recruitment uh a big part of that obviously was the interviews which all of you participated in we did a total of uh 18 interviews uh including all the Commissioners uh we did Union Representatives uh we did the management team and then we also did the executive assistant so uh basically I spent a half an hour uh meeting um talking with them we had put together kind of a discussion guide uh looking into different aspects of leadership and uh it was really just an opportunity for individuals to share based on their experience maybe with uh you know with previous administrators but to to share kind of what we should be looking for in the next uh individual and more specifically what makes a person in the County Administrator position successful so what came out of those interviews uh was included in on page nine of the profile the desired attributes and so I I think you know you're getting a perspective here of what spe specifically is unique and needed for uh Cook County certainly some of these attributes may be valuable in other counties but uh it was information that came up from those interviews so uh what I am looking to do today is get the profile approved and I think the first thing that we maybe need to do to move in that direction is to look at the date that uh where we have SL for interviews because we actually have that included on the last page page 10 uh we talk about final interviews will be held on March 5th 2025 and I just wanted to confirm with you Commissioners does that Wednesday March 5th 2025 does that work for all of you to conduct interviews I know it works for me um other commissioners it's a priority barring some sort of health or catastrophic event yes I would agree yeah I have jury oh but I can get excused for I mean fingers pressed I get excused we'll find out M okay it looks it's good for the majority of us okay that sounds great at least okay okay okay then with that I guess I would at this point then open it up to uh Commissioners to you know if there was anything uh regarding the profile that you uh found to be inac inaccurate or that you didn't like the wording on if there are pictures that you know you thought weren't you know could have been improved upon anything like that I'm I'm willing to uh take your feedback at this point and then what I going to be asking is that you uh after we have this discussion that you approve the profile With The Changes what I will then be doing is going back and making those changes to the profile and then we will jump into uh posting and then starting to actively recruit individuals uh for the position so at this point I don't know how you'd like to to do it uh Madam chair but uh if I could just get input on any suggested changes to the draft profile um that would be wonderful thank you madam chair thank you Pat Uh one question is January 15th enough time for the application deadline in your professional okay yes typically what we do is that three four week uh window of time you know yeah you can give people more time well then they tend to delay until they put in their applications so I I think um four weeks is right on target with where we should be um we do find from past recruitments you do find people kind of I don't know if it's they're doing research but they do wait until closer to the closing date to apply we find oftentimes some very qualified people wait until that final couple days to put it in all right just concerned about the holidays but um I I think you have a better sense of uh the market and the process and so I'll trust trust your judgment there um the only other thing I think and this is a maybe a small thing but the only other thing I would highly suggest is to include the three charter schools in our educational opportunities um all three are public schools um and um uh I think the diversity of the educational um opportunities in the community are are a strength um and worth noting for um for recruits oh definitely definitely um and so so on page five correct uh yes okay so that would be oski ogag which is um in Grand Portage Birch Grove which is in tofy and Great Expectations which is in the City of Grand marray okay and we can get information to you and work with you to make sure that that um is updated yeah and I I would be happy to run this by uh uh Rowan or Allison if you'd like to have them make sure that we've got the spelling on some of these different names and everything that fine happy provide that wonderful great suggestion to include those Charter Schools that's exactly what I was looking for so all right other comments commissioner Johnson um one of the things I didn't see and maybe I missed it but um as far as tribal relations and being able to be aware of I didn't see reference to anything like that yeah and I I would think that that would be something um that would be really important under communication collaboration skills to at least have or under leadership understanding of a level trial relations cultural compet cultural competency thank you attorney hick maybe page8 core duties or or what are your what's I just thought we should is the person needs to have some can't come in blind saying oh I've never worked with different culture or reservation um before I don't think that would be helpful partnership so did you say cultural diversity or cultural competency okay cultural competency and or um understanding tribal relations and sovereignty okay so okay on page great [Music] suggestion yeah page page five it mentions a little bit but I think there could be some additional language yeah Pat next to where you have cultural education and it states partnership with local organizations to incorporate Ojo language and culture into curriculum reflecting the areas Rich indigenous Heritage um an additional language suggested by attorney hicken um I think would be welcome in that location okay well I'm sorry what page are you this page numbers are different I believe it's page five uh under educational opportunities page here but it's page six so your suggestion is well under as yeah sorry Pat as I read it again I think just you did touch on it a little bit and I wanted that to be clear to everyone but I think probably your talking about I believe it's your page eight uh which is our page nine just the way that the board packet is set up under core duties of the position would probably be the most appropriate location for I agree the added language oh okay okay St you had your hand up I thank you hi Pat we all survived the conference did you yes it was a great yes it was a good time a great time to connect and learn what's going on yes yes it was thank you under minimal qualifications education and experience and I don't know if this is a matter of some sematics or not minimum of 10 years I was wondering if we wanted to maybe be a little bit less in that maybe eight to 10 years I don't know what everybody thinks kind of makes it sound makes it sound like you have to have this minimum and I guess I'm looking at it as a little more flexible great great point to bring up you know I would typically recommend that we stay on the um on on on the lower end uh simply because you're going to have plenty of opportunity to you know uh weed out individuals but but if you have somebody who maybe has six years and they've been doing a wonderful job um would you consider a person um you know I I think you probably would so obviously as we get into the process you're going to have a wide array of experience uh and education uh knowledge uh you're going to have the opportunity to select who are those top ones we tend to discourage telling somebody they shouldn't apply we would rather have many people apply and then you know choose the best of of that group versus have people read a position announcement and say you know what I don't think I qualify I'm not even going to take a chance in a apply um but I would look to Allison if you have any thoughts on on that uh the job description probably does say 10 years I would assume yeah the 10 years of minimum experience what was in there previously and was not adjusted but I I would agree um I think uh I think 10 years seems a little bit much when we could have flexibility in finding the right candidate with less than 10 especially given like you said that the candidates and who we choose to proceed forth with um are at our discretion commissioner Mills thank you madam chair thanks again Pat and we did discuss this a little bit um when we approved this job description and it was suggested that we knock it down to five and I'm very amenable to that um and um but if six is more appropriate or I have no idea but I think it's important to cast a wide net and um and as you said we can filter out those um based on their experience levels um we decided just to go with what was written because we were going to relook at the job description after we got these desired attributes and see if that influence the job description at all um and then just uh amend it there so um I I Concur and I think we'd have to vote on that um and we should probably discuss more one other thing I wanted to point out is our recorder is no longer an elected official um our recorder is um appointed and so that changes the tree a little bit that's on I'm sorry that's on page s okay thank you for that commissioner M I totally agree with you on both of your recommendations so how does the board feel about moving to five years for experience so Jenny yes yes commissioner Johnson um I M Mo a little nervous about 5 years no County government experience to me actual government experience is higher priority than working at a business and you've managed 150 people um you have some skills you have some business administration Personnel skills but you don't have government and government is a whole different ball of whack so um I would just I'm okay with moving down from 10 but to mefic spefic governmental experience is a huge thing I would certainly support that how do others feel I would too she wants to see cor actually it's if you look at the previous page under desired attributes that's where the knowledge skills and abilities piece comes in um playing into the other kind of minimum qualifications minimum qualifications usually specifically education experience um but if you look underneath uh the operational and functional expertise a leader with a strong understanding of County operations and applicable Minnesota statutes and laws County government experience preferred and again we have discretion when looking at the applications yeah that's good I just sorry and we do call out in the desired attributes that we would prefer uh government experience prefer County government experience preferred under operational and functional expertise page yeah but I get that and we're closing applications on January 15th and we have nobody with governmental experience and then we say oh we need somebody we hire somebody with I don't know I that's call me a skeptic but I can see that happening um so okay that's I'm just raising that concern that um I think it's a huge deal to have government experience I don't know how to best I do but I I glad Allison you brought that up that it's government experience preferred when we're looking at the applications we can make that decision commissioner Salan uh so what should ha what would happen if we get no applicants with any sort of government experience well at that point you know certainly if the board was not interested in any of the candidates that applied then typically what we would recommend is that we look to maybe hold off for a period of time to allow individuals work situations to change and that we would then post and go out again looking for candidates well we've got interim super or administrator who'd like to get back to his real life so that's a consideration here um and that we'll we can cross that bridge when we get to it but I have another question uh it's for the application finalists will be selected on February 11th and interviews on March fifth who selects the finalist you as the board will select the finalist once we have the applications in what I will do is I will review them I will remove anybody who doesn't meet minimum qualifications and I will provide uh the top candidates to the board the top candidates will be doing a video interview they'll be doing a information disclosure statement and they'll be doing a personality assessment that information will be shared at week in advance with the board so that you are more informed about the applicants and from there you will decide who you wish to invite in for an interview this is a question to to uh commissioner Sullivan so do we have a public meeting on the 11th of February to go to do this how does this work not yes I believe I believe that is a County board meeting where you will be selecting and what we will do is we will be referring to candidates uh by numbers and not names because at that point in the process the names of applicants is confidential so I will provide you with information in advance we'll be talking about candidates by numbers and once you select them to come in for an interview that's when their name becomes public information and I will provide you with a brief bio on each of the finalists that you select to come in for an interview okay thanks thank you B mam great questions yes and Pat after the candidates have been chosen let's say we have three cand candidates then I remember that last time we had a public invite for the public to meet them is that still on board yes you can certainly we haven't finalized that but yes you can have a public reception uh where members of the public can chat with the finalists and share feedback uh with you as the board to assist you in making that decision and you commissioner Mills was um two administrators ago that was public we didn't have it in public the last time due to co oh so of a different time my memory is actually we decided not to do that not because of Co but because of um the decision-making process and um having say one person from the public show up and having influence versus you know 700 of our um districts you know 700 people show up it was just a uh an inequal way versus the representatives from the districts making that decision I'd also heard feedback I thought from professionals that it was no longer best practice um but just that some boards still like to do that and maybe I'm wrong there but um um it it sounded like it was uh fraught and I as an employee at that time I would I'd say I would not recommend you continue that process it needs to be a public process we need to involve all staff we opportunity the public opportunity to meet this person that's going to be coming into our community into our building and it shouldn't be a decision only by this board that's just and I I would say I would support that and that um when we look at hiring um other um major positions in the community there's usually a public meet and greet that type of thing so that people have an opportunity to weigh in so I would feel comfortable and commissioner Mills to the your statement that it's fraught living in Cook County is fraught with situations and so we do well you do well we'll deal with it and I believe that our people and our employees in particular should have a chance to get an impression but it doesn't mean that we are we I will be easily swayed easily swayed I I want to hear other people's Impressions because sometimes people see things that I totally miss you know so there's value in that and this is this is someone who will be the County Head this is like a really important person and the more people that get to be part of this because we we're a democracy so the better and if one person shows up king for a day but other than that I believe we make the offer we have that opportunity out there commissioner can you I wasn't involved two times ago Could you um kind of inform us on what that process looked like and how it went and just turnout and um feedback that you received commissioner storley um we had the public um greet and meet over at East Bay when they still had their nice reception area and um actually at that time commissioner Gary Gamble and his wife provided goodies and we had three candidates and they all circulated and they all participated in um the goodies that um commissioner gamble provided it was for a couple hours and um and then we came to our board meeting and discussed now first of all we discussed without a board meeting about what we thought would be after the um meet and greet to get response from the public and then we privately met and talked about who impressed us and then we came before the board to say we have selected we have selected for the final interviews who we will find M okay and then he was hired yeah and please correct me if I'm wrong but I think all of that needs to be public um there can't be a Private Selection we need to discuss it publicly right and that's sure yeah correct uh and that's what we typically do when we're looking for public input is we don't ask who's your first choice who's your second choice what we ask them to to respond to is what strengths would this person bring to the organization how would this person fit in with your Oran organization because ultimately it is the Commissioners that are making the decision and it is the the public and staff who attend this public reception they are providing input uh so we prefer not to you know pit one against the other because obviously the Comm commers are going to have access to more information than those who are attending the public reception that's helpful that's helpful any other comments or suggestions director plumber um one suggestion after I had reviewed this that I sent to Pat and um I would look uh forth to you if it if it would be beneficial um under the recreation and events uh I don't know if it would be worthwhile to add a reference to you know we have a local YMCA facility Arrowhead Center for the Arts in terms of other community uh activities I mean I think it's very unique that we have a YMCA um and those opportunities here I think that's a great suggestion was North house Folk School oh yeah listed I don't recollect uh it's referen yes on the recreation and activities North house vulk school hosts workshops and the popular unplugged music series da right well Pat I think you've done a great job not only of capturing um the suggestions that that we've made and that all of our staff who were interviewed have made but you've done a great job of capturing our Community um and all that Cook County has to offer and hopefully we'll have multiple individuals that will be interested in um applying for this position commissioner Mills thank you madam chair the other we might want to explicitly put in there unless I missed it um is just our local radio station that's a very local you know that's a very unique um organization that we have in our community great I will certainly yeah certainly add that okay Comm Madam chair um where did we settle again on um experience where it says minimum of 10 years did we settle on five years years we were in agreement five years five years okay commissioner white however if somebody shows up and they have four years and they are outstanding you bet I mean it's that's why we screen we do a little yeah yeah okay um Madam CH I'd like to make a motion to um approve the County Administrator position profile amended to five years experience as well as the uh or I'm sorry the County Administrator profile as amended through our our comments here um and then the job description in regards to um five years experience thank you commissioner Mills is there support support thank you commissioner sterley we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries thanks everybody for all their work this is a a really big task a really important task and I think we've worked very well on great thank you thank you Pat thank you very much for your time this morning and uh we will get it out there and uh I will start uh doing active Recruitment and uh providing updates in terms of the number of candidates and and um hopefully yes come uh uh January 15th we'll have a wonderful pool to select from so any questions throughout the process uh I'm always available to answer or get an update from so thank you thank you much Pat take care byebye bye bye bye all right we'll move on to our administrator updates all right item a Amendment to the ls agreement uh replace the pay schedule and so this one is just the ls agreement was approved prior to the change in Pay tables uh that we had P up or no I think we do looks like you hung up for us all right sorry no problem um so uh following the conversation around the change in spread between 250 and 26 60 as well as the creation of a 270 on our pay table and the amendment that attorney hickin has created for us uh is so that we could do that and attach to those pay tables so we're just for consistency across pay tables it doesn't impact any of the um union membership it's at the upper end of that pay schedule U pay table but we're looking to incorporate it in agreement so there's consist across all of our agreements any questions or comments if not I'd like to make a motion to approve the attached amendment number one to the lels agreement which updates the pay schedules incorporated into the agreement with agreed upon pay schedules is there support a support thank you commissioner Mills we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries Item B Item B uh same document same process for the CCA agreement uh again just replacing the old pay schedule to reflect the changes that the board approved with the space between 250 and 260 as well as the creation of a 270 uh pay table in the bay table questions or comments oh I'm I'm sorry I spaced this on the first one um was there Amendment we need to do regarding Viva or is that um there will be okay but it's not gotcha here now thank you uh I'll make a motion to uh approve the um amendment number one to the ccea agreement is there support support thank you commissioner stle we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries all right um item C uh approval of the labor contract with the local 49ers Local 49 this is the one that administrator yorki uh just didn't have time to finish up and get to um so this this contract is the agreed terms uh the highlights of it are again the uh Cola that's the same across all bargaining units the increase in Viba uh from 1,200 to, 1500 a year and 25 and up to 1800 a year in 2026 it also includes the transfer of 20 cents per hour from the training center to contributions to the pension which we referenced earlier today and the understanding that I have from working with with the union rep uh Dan manik is that the amount that we were contributing to the training center we just weren't using and returning uh we just more training more money was going there than we had capacity to do training and so they thought this was appropriate um no real change in financial impact for the county it's 20 cents we had been applying uh to the training center but instead they negotiated for it to go to the to the pension commissioner white would you explain what feebe is or what are the real words Allison do you have the Acron I walked out the door and I immediately turned back like they'll Le me um Healthcare spending I have a mom voice but I'll still come up still usually pretty loud with that M um so the Viva is the benefit that all uh full-time employees get because it is paired with someone who enrolls in one of our health plans it stands for voluntary employees beneficiary Association it's easy to save vaa so basically it acts as a health savings account however only the employer um per IRS requirements can contribute to it so if we have a full-time employee who is eligible for one of our healthare plans they enroll they're a policy holder then the county will pay into contribute those amounts right now it's 1200 going to, 1500 going to 1,800 into that account um again acts as a health savings account it is retained by the employee even after they leave it rolls over from year to year and accumulates if they don't use it and can only be used for qualifying medical expenses thank you you're welcome is it other questions commissioner John yeah I have a question um so in this agreement we have our job descriptions and there's one job description that has not been board approved is it good practice or customary to include in a labor contract for a job that has not been board approved that is a good question which description I guess I would ask um um we it's at the end the environmentalist specialist That's the new position they want Y what page are page 45 um I think we do have that position already it's just we have a temporary part-time summer position so this is seasonal environmental worker is that right yeah yeah I think we have we do have a part time um cuz they can do um they can hire temporary positions without board approval okay departments can do that departments have done that mhm okay this is um makes it seem like it's not board approved this is a permanent position so you're saying the current environmental worker is temporary huh the environmental specialist pos position reference there is Tia Park's position right it is still going through the review process I'm on the no page 4 yeah I'm it was I was on the wrong page there so commissioner 4 5 did you say yes was on page 43 um I'm just seasonal maintenance worker Muller yeah that's the other one that's not board approved but I just it just makes me wonder I don't know I've never been involved in negotiations before in labor contracts and to me it that struck me that why would you put an unapproved job description in a labor contract I'm asking it just seemed backwards to me because I have no experience yeah I'm going rely on Allison and commissioner uh Mills and white for this one it was a a tentative agreement when we brought it forward so if you guys have the detail there um and I did notify Dan manik when I sent the job description to be included in the in the contract that that one technically is an approved description it just has not gone through the uh board um full re approval process which is just fine uh I mean things are constantly changing with job descriptions job grades and there are things that will uh with those items that will become out of date uh over the next couple of years um and that's just fine for it to be the old approved job description to still be referenced in um in the current contract and one of the things about that job um is it follows uh mainly the state statute requirements for what an a inspector does um and that so there's not going to be much change um anyways for that position um but that is it's still technically an approved job description and just like any of our other jobs it'll still go through the process that won't be halted um we don't need to have an addendum an amendment to the contract to reference the new job description thank you other questions or clarifications so have we has the board officially approved this job at some point yeah all jobs have all jobs have job descriptions that were approved in the past it's just just the newer re uh the newer re uh revised job description that would go through the DDA process it's still going through that process okay so this is where my confusion comes in and I apologize it wasn't until six o'clock this morning I'm reviewing my board saying that says not na or not approved not not approv and I'm like wait a minute it would not approved that I just noticed so is this the ex was there a change made I this is the current job description that and I didn't look at dates um so I was just pulling up the the job or the contract having a hard time finding words today apparently um uh so that is the current approved job description for whatever date it was so we have job descriptions that span back again um several years so whenever that job was last reviewed and approved brought to the board for approval that's the job description that's referenced right now okay yeah that clarifies but that's what I still think should say board approved even if it was 2016 whatever should be on there for not it shouldn't say it's not approved so that just clarification that sure that's s if you're putting it into a cont I mean a labor contract that what about a watermark that just says draft well this one's current this is current this is current but if there is a new one should we include that curious what the practice has been just for contract maintenance going forward do we as positions get changed and reviewed and reapproved those changes reapproved by the board we don't amend the contract with the local 49ers do we no no we don't usually amend things going forward it's just currently as is effective when we provide the information to them that was the the status of that job description and I just want to note too in looking as I've gone through this review process and we look at old job descriptions current job descriptions the dates are like all over the place so that's probably just what happened in this one um even partly through the job description review process right now the dates that we used to have uh were like date prepared and date finalized or something there were two dates they didn't even reference the board approved date so that was something too that we now adding to the board or to excuse me again words tricky uh to the job description so that's probably just those inconsistency with dates that I've seen through the various years especially if you have different staff who've come in and I'm going to do this differently with the job descriptions it just might not have gotten captured but I agree usually there should be a date in there so it shows when it was last board approved okay um Madam chair I'd like to make a motion to approve the 2025 through 2026 labor contract with the local 49ers thank you commissioner Mills is there support I'll support thank you commissioner Starley we have a motion and support any further discussion so are we not going to put in board we're not going to find the date when this job description was approved we're just going to leave it as not approved as it says on here this is the job title seasonal environmental worker and what commissioner uh Johnson brought up it says board approved na are we going to take that na out and just write yes I mean I think we can I mean yeah go ahead the have it be consistent with other maybe the other ones I don't know I did I could have missed it before and the other two I'm just saying last chance to cause chaos okay I know why not why not I'm curious if attorney hickin or maybe Allison have some information they could provide on the potential impact of having that say na is there is there a risk associated with that that we need to be concerned about and if not um would it wait until another amendment that we know is coming up related to um Family Medical paid Family Medical paid family medical leave was coming up we could flag it and make other Corrections at the time does n- a usually being not applicable yeah rather than not approved yeah yeah so just so it's not saying it's not approved just says it's we don't have that information right now I guess is what it was saying to me that's all all right um I uh just so I can further complicate things no no I I'm hoping that this helps to resolve the issue um I what's important here is how these job descriptions are incorporated into the agreement what what does the agreement say about this attachment and how should we pay attention to it what impact does it have and um so what I look at as I go back to article two which incorporates the do job descriptions and section two of article two talks about appendix a um and the job descri position descriptions it says um two things during the term of this contract the Cook County administrator will work with the union members and Highway Department supervisors update the position descriptions a second thing it says is in the event that the county and the union are unable to agree is the inclusion or exclusion of a newer modified job class the issue shall be submitted to the Bureau of Med Med mediation services so um a the contract already uh the contract already contemplates that these pos position descriptions will be changed um and um and that both parties will be involved in that process and B if they can't agree as to how those job descriptions are changed then there's a method here the Bureau of mediation services to resolve that um the other thing I would say about that little piece of that single job description um is that it's probably not material to anything in this contract it's not going to like go back and invalidate the entire agreement because that little piece um is missing um especially because it seems like it would be recorded elsewhere um and easily looked up that this job description was approved on this date okay um and that can always be brought in all of that said you could certainly modify your motion to say with the correct you know add the date of um board approval of this job description into appendic a that's my input for you I stand for [Laughter] questions I don't have a question but I really do appreciate having you here at the table to help me um process this kind of information because I think it's important that we don't just say oh that's close enough or probably no big deal so I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to ask my question and talk this through and providing legal expertise so thank you for that you bet other questions something for attorney hicken or anyone else so we have a motion and support one last time any questions all in favor I I opposed motion carries we have three contracts all finalized wo thank you all right administrative updates yeah thank you madam chair uh first I'll just start with a conversation related to how we've negotiated uh Cola on contracts before that we've had uh director plumber brought it to our attention that the way language has us implementing Cola across the pay table on every step uh creates some discrepancies in the steps um so as you all are aware um different try to get to a pretty standard 7% increase from grade over grade uh as you move from step to step that is consistent across the pay table of 4% um the way that we've been applying that is um creating very small uh changes that as you they compound themselves over you get to very small per % changes uh up to 1% or a decimal of a perc and so where that leaves us is just wanting to address it for everyone's awareness and and flag it as something that as we negotiate going forward as opposed to negotiating a cola across everyone uh to maintain that 4% increase a different approach um would be to negotiate the base pay on every step negotiate the Cola at every base pay for every grade and then maintain that 4% across the pay table um I think right now we've done this for a couple contracts and I think the biggest we've seen is like a 3.95% um up or down and so it's it's pretty minimal um but as we do contract over contract it's something that if we do want to maintain that 4% that's a a different way that the board uh could look at negotiating contracts uh aside from that uh we've been talking a lot about short-term space needs um facilities director and phhs director um as well as myself and Commissioners uh handful of Commissioners have visited different locations uh just to see what's available for space needs um a commercial space in lootsin the hub uh the space B in Great Expectations School uh are all some of the places that we've looked at um we also worked with Brook lasar facilities director to kind of review some space in uh the basement that we think is is underutilized and has some potential uh we brought all of those items and information back to the building committee uh and the building committee supports us kind of exploring further the the downstairs space in the courthouse and so tentatively uh what we're looking at there is is having some architectural plans put together as to how we could reutilize uh the break room and some storage components to add space for additional staff uh the way that we this by no means would meet all of our space needs uh the way that we've looked at prioritizing this is both phhs and HR uh have staff uh that don't have space allocated for them so it's it's not a fix for everything in phhs and it's not a fix for soil and water as another example or or you know all the different ones that we've talked about at length before um but these are I think phhs is at a if they're fully staffed they're at about uh four staff over what they have room offices to put them uh and then currently the halftime FTE uh for HR doesn't have a dedicated office and then as you know on the on the 2025 budget the additional FTE no no space for that person as well and so um we'll continue to look at that uh there's a potential of unused professional Contract Services that were in the uh facilities budget uh that we could use to have those architectural drawings put together for the basement and so we'll we'll bring that forward again when we have uh a broader concept but that's where we're at now uh the next one I'd update you on is bkv uh our design team which is made up of representation from the Sheriff's Office Emergency Management facilities Administration and representation from the board uh had our second round of meetings U headed up by by bkv Design Group and they have architectural Advantage out of duth there as well as now our uh construction manager at risk Johnson Wilson the contract that was approved and um it was a really good good meeting they had uh drawings for us to to look at and talk through operational processes with Folks at the Sheriff's Office and made changes for us on the Fly there um and they'll come back with a another revision but just to say that I think the proc process is going well I really appreciate having uh Johnson Wilson the construction manager at risk in the room um they uh gave some insight into see how they how they see the costs that uh bkv and has has provided us with um so there was some some numbers adjusted there and the last one I'll talk about is clear go uh we did reach out and get access to our uh cleargo account and we can see that operational budget data was entered uh it's not fully up toate with the revenue and expense changes it's been a while James was the one that had access to that and had been working on that late into the summer into the fall but things have have obviously changed since then um it does not show Personnel or capital budget um but it does have a a breakdown of operational budgets by fund and shows expected Revenue versus expected uh expenses but again not not up to date where we are so just kind of in summary I would say it it has the potential to be a nice Tool uh to share information with the public uh but requires additional work before it would be you know accurate and informative um and that's a a year-over-year contract so if that's software that we would like to keep access to or retain our account um sometime likely in January that's something the board will will need to make a decision on again I had a brief conversation with auditor Powers about it um I don't want to want to speak for him but I think he sees that the you know the value in that really line with Administration and the administration's office versus a tool that his office needs so I I think because we're having this conversation about whether or not we we want this continue this software subscription um just having that piece of information that it's going to be most likely appropriate for whoever's next County Administrator to be operating that software yeah and just what is the cost of this yearly use of this software I'll get us a a do quote Brady do you remember what we paid it's just over 20,000 yeah I remember the specific y it the the benefit clearly is for the public to see in understandable means how our budget is utilized and so personally I think it's a really valuable tool and we'll have to look to our new County Administrator to um you know so see how he or she moves forward with that yeah that's all I have questions any questions for administrator Watkins all right well we will move on then to conance of County owned land to the HRA and we want to thank Jason hail for his patience this morning I should I say this afternoon in waiting for this item Anna Hamilton was also here but um had to leave and um so if you refer back to our uh last couple of meetings this was brought forward first of all as just an informational item that there had been um an opportunity for the HRA to um help Hamilton habitat move forward with some infrastructure costs through the application at ITR and this particular parcel has been looked at um over the years in a number of capacities but within the last year by the HRA and I just uh asked Jason to maybe speak a little bit to um what the H was looking at the Wetland delineation and what you see as an opportunity for this parcel thank you chair Commissioners uh first actually I think it's I want to start by um uh acknowledging attorney hickin and I have been talking in their we did not get the legal description we were hoping for in time for this meeting um I'm sure uh people are very busy the end of the year trying to cramp things in just like I think we we are I know that um so with that said I think it's we're probably going to have to wait for formal approval of this resolution until January 7th is that the right meeting yep that would be the next so January 7th is our organizational meeting it's not the first board meeting so that would be the 14th which is the day before the application is due yes and in fact the application is due on the 10th ah uh for ITR however so there's a lot of things to throw you um after talking with uh an Hamilton who was here like you said chair and had to leave uh we are going to the H is still going to apply for I funding to help with infrastructure but this round we're going to apply for the homestead lots that they own on the west side of town on 11th Avenue okay we were looking at doing the prop subject property uh just up the hill here but time constraints other reasons we decided to Pivot uh and she and Hamilton habitat already have those lots of course and they're ready to build in 2025 um so I have an application I'll be bringing tomorrow to my board uh a request to be able to submit that application to I in time for the 10th uh deadline so there's a little pressure off uh we still want to get this done and in in particular before I'm done at the H that was the ambition here to make sure that all the eyes are dotted T's crossed so all of that paperwork for the h side is done of course this is not going to change and materially at all uh with the exception of the legal description so if you would like I'm happy to answer any questions or go through the project Etc now um I'm I'm not sure if I will be here at the meeting whenever the next meeting is the 14th right um so I'm happy to stand for that now so that you know what we're talking about I know some of us won't be here the 14th um but I I'm happy to do so if that makes sense commissioner Johnson um when will the description be available commissioner Johnson if I had control of the survey I'd be pretty happy um the uh we were told uh this morning at 8 or something that probably by the end of the day um but uh the surveyor had our Deets mixed up thinking the deadline was the H board meeting tomorrow not the 17th and so they are you know scrambling to wrap it up um they have the essentially we're talking about about approximately 2 Acres of that parcel on the northwest you know corner on creechville road um but we don't have the precise legal description so again nothing else would change just the exact property we're talking about so my next question is to attorney hicken then and we approve other things saying you know our intentions and you review it and if you sign off on it it goes forward what would be the problem with doing that with this so my hesitation with this is It's a property transaction property transactions are so dependent upon a pro a legal description um and this resolution um might be need to be a recorded document um the yeah the deed at least would need to be a recorded document your decision um should include the property description I don't know okay I I I think the risk is just too high in this case it's it's not just a modification of language it's um the property description so thank you for the clarification commissioner Mills what's the what's the deadline for the next round then um since I funds are for the homestead for instance next round for this property your person uh that depends on two things commissioner one is presuming there are funds left for the next round uh which the I Hing Grant as you can imagine has become more popular U because there aren't a lot of resources to do just this like infrastructure funding is very limited having said that in a little asterisk the state did approve last year the legislative session $8 million for public infrastructure for greatest Minnesota I like to call it um and we that's another opportunity but particularly by ITR uh they may allocate all of the funding this first round they try to do two rounds for their funding for the year but of course like everything else there's a set budget and then they see how many asks they get in so to speak if there is funds available for a second round uh they would likely aim for fall i r is a little bit of a moving Target with their board meetings because their board is made up of all the representatives at the legislature so it's a little harder to pin them down schedule wise especially during so it's very likely what happened this last year is um it moved uh but the fall September was when it opened up uh and then the deadline was November but the housing Grant wasn't on the agenda in November so I would suspect it would be October November of 2025 in time for I'll say a 2026 construction which is what Hamilton heti is targeting for this property commissioner Mills and um um okay so okay I I'm also just curious about um the process here and we probably have authority to just do this um what I'm curious about is when the city conveyed the property for the view there was a public hearing is that or what was that whole there was quite a large turnout at City Hall um and I think that was in regards to the sale of public property and so their transferring of is is that a requirement or maybe the H has to do it but we don't have to do it because we're giving it to public or um so there's a couple um different things that issue in that question so if a property is going for less than $155,000 we're valuing at at less than $155,000 we don't have the same public bidding and public hearing process required for the transaction um and there is also another statute section um which I referenced in the um in the resolution which which it talks about transactions between U Municipal subdivisions and so the reason I'm including that is because I believe it can be interpreted to um oh and what it says about transactions between um Municipal subdivisions is that all the public bidding and public hearing requirements are so we don't have to do it for H yeah yeah okay commissioner I think it's good to rely on both the value and um this other subsection because it hasn't been interpreted by the court so and to that point uh as attorney hien said the HRA would hold a public hearing um once we would actually determine uh that we'd sell sell the property for for the dollar so um and you know that's an we we potentially wouldn't have to based on Atty hickin is saying with regard to interpretation but often we do uh just as a matter of course so that's another reason that again you know we would like to approve this as soon as we can but if we are waiting on the precise and this parcel a little weird as well I don't know if you've looked at it but it it goes up and it straddles the right away on both sides so it's kind of a you know for that reason it's it's maybe Prudence to have the precise legal description I I don't want to wait because it would be great to button this up but um we can't uh we can't rush art I guess with surveying so we want to make sure we get that together but again my intent is if there are questions just generally about this I'm I'm at your disposal to address them commissioner Mills when you say the right way are you're saying the west and the north sides it's so this parcel ID uh um is bifurcated by creechville road so I believe the Horse Park uh is also within the same parcel oh oh yeah the whole okay it's 14 acres as yeah gotcha so we got to okay so it's a little more complicated than the typical like we're subdividing a lot in half sort of thing uh and it might be got uh the the surveyor is using I don't know if you're familiar with the parcel all there's a there's a um how to describe this the Eastern side Gunflint Trail if you go South toward the Ballfield right north of the Ballfield there's a runoff sort of Creek that's boy Creek yeah yeah that's being used as the southern Terminus of the parcel in question so that's being the boundary the the surveyor wanted to leave buffer there for maintenance and for the ball field oh so that's the general area we're talking about from that Creek up to the Gunflint Trail 2 Acres wor great that's approximately I think an excellent way to divide it um and it potentially allows continual access um from the school land down um pass the ball fields past this parcel to the to cre Road there it looks commissioner it looks like there'd be sufficient room to do that yes M so a question I have is should we consider a special meeting on the 7th following our organizational meeting to get this done well um Sheriff if the intent of that is to get it done in time for the January 10th deadline uh one that is very appreciated two it's probably not necessary because there we don't have enough information yet to submit a compelling application about this we need information about cost projections for utility Etc we have that for Homestead but that's part of the reason we deferred to put this to a 2026 project C have it that just doesn't have the bandwidth right now to do all that I just wanted to make sure if we could get it in we could all right oh maybe this is not a question for Jason but a question I think we should at least be just thinking or talking about is just the wetlands on there is it to um the projects benefit to include those um or would there be an advantage for the county to retain those or uh and I have I don't even know the factors involved if it's Wetland credits or or access or anything but I just thought that might be worth discussing commissioner I think um the short answer to question is it's probably it depends on how the parcel is delineated the the but it's probably to the benefit of project to include them because they're are minimum requirements for lot sizes so if you try to carve all of them out then you're left with an irregular shape that is not going to you know work for zoning um on top of that uh you can have wetlands in your backyard um and you know obviously if they're they're going to have to probably impact some the question is just is it that a Min Minimus amount and they're required to get or they required to get Wetland credits and there is a wetland Bank um that I believe Mr laboto owns uh that they can tap into if they need to um but the Western Northwestern most part of that Parcels you probably I don't know if you have the map in front of you or not but that's the primary area and it might the idea is to just capture that as much as possible and go west to the road unless it rains then the whole hill has a problem until it rains these are homes on stilts didn't you hear that that would be advant 45t tall yes yeah oh golly all right well we thank you for your time and explanation and we will make this happen um it's it's important to our community and you have very strong support on the board BR thank you I think there's another item I'm just going to there that's okay yep so um before we get to that item I just wanted to share a few remarks um because this may be the last meeting that our executive director for our H is at and so on behalf of the Cook County Community we want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to your exceptional work as our first executive director of our newly established H your leadership dedication and vision have been invaluable in tackling our community's most significant and longstanding challeng Cheng housing from the outset you brought a really clear understanding to the complexities of our housing need by developing a strategic plan grounded in data and Survey information you laid a strong foundation for progress and your efforts have gone far beyond planning as you began implementing real tangible solutions that are going to benefit people who are residents today and residents in the future your work has made a lasting impact from apartments and grandm to stick built and modular to single and multifam family housing opportunities in tofy you've demonstrated a deep commitment to ensuring housing op options are accessible they're varied and they're sustainable your support of Hamilton habitat and the creation of small affordable homes reflects your ability to collaborate with partners and identify innovative solutions that we need here in Cook County Housing has been a decade old challenge in the county and your leadership has given us hope Direction and meaningful action and you've set a very high standard for your predecessor while the challenges remain your contributions have brought us closer to a future where everyone in the county has a place to call home we thank you for your service your passion your humor your commitment to critical work in this area and your efforts have not gone unnoticed you've made a real difference in the lives of many people and we wish you well thank you very much our sincere gratitude auditor polls let's take a break a break yeah thank you commissioner sorry you weren't Tim Nelson so it didn't hit me right away all right we'll take a five minute break and then we'll finish up e e e e e e e e e e e e e e the uh welcome back everyone to our Co County Board of Commissioners regular meeting Apartments we are now on item number 11 audited treasur Powers thank you madam chair so I'm asking you today to approve a resolution um that will obligate our final state or remaining state and local fiscal recovery funds that have not yet been obligated there's a requirement to do that by the end of the year here uh in order to keep these funds and not have to send them back so you actually approved uh this use back on November 26th for $135,500 at 11 units of The gunet View Apartments that they remain at the 60% of the area median income and to uh approve the use of 200,000 of the funds for the NorthShore waste transfer station architectural fees and this resolution uh gives some background to the American Recovery Fund program and this portion of it the state and local fiscal recovery funds and uh and some of the background of of how these things are used in general and how we came to this type of use so um I see the two recipients of the funds are here if you have any questions for them or for me I'd just like to make a um remark that under item a the way it's written it says approved by resolution to obligate 135,000 to the H but it does not include to the NorthShore it doesn't but it's in the summary below correct and it's in the res in the resolution any questions or comments commissioner Sullivan yes commissioner um this was brought to my attention with a phone call from a taxpayer and so I missed this was thinking differently but we are essentially going to subsidize 11 units taxpayers will subsidize the rents like seven units or 11 units of the gun View Apartments commissioner uh no not exactly actually this is good time for an update because the the three projects or programs that auditor Powers outlined were the three that we originally proposed subject to the amount of the money that the County Board determined to allocate the at it is the amount is reduced from what was possible and so in fact the gunin view I'm bringing resolution to my board tomorrow to use other funds that the H has to assist with that this slf RF funds would be for noris scogan and for the envelope program only um $100,000 tomorrow the resolution for the h is 100,000 will be used as match for the ITR application we're submitting uh in January for n scogan and then the 35 and change would be the envelope program okay thank you you're welcome other questions commissioner mels the nor skan will have the 60% Ami no sorry commissioner the noris googan project is the uh up to 12 unit single family homes those will all be for sale to income qualified long-term residents who are working in the county um so that's a separate entirely separate project other questions hearing or seeing none is there a motion I'll make a motion to approve this but uh as per um director can't even think of his name anymore he's not even gone director Hae director hail stated that there will not be any monies going towards the Gunflint View Apartments so I'm trying to see where that is stated in the resolution summary oh this was the I'm just looking at the resolution so just asking for and it's not in the resolution oh yeah so maybe amend the resolution to say uh approve this resolution including use of $200,000 for Northshore Waste Recovery Northshore waste and then 135,000 16 for the h h sounds good make it clean yeah thank you I so are you making I so move what he just said Thank You commissioner white is there a support support thank you commissioner Johnson we have a motion and support anything further all in favor I opposed motion carries thank you Commissioners thank you so much uh second item is the County Commissioner salary and schedule a pums which again you you approved previously on December 3rd and so this is a resolution to formalize that decision uh and that decision was to increase the County Board salaries uh for 2025 at the Consumer Price Index that was available on October 24th uh the most recent at 2.6% that's the CPI for Midwest Urban consumers and to make no change in the pum rate County Commissioners for 2025 would anyone like to make a motion commissioner well Madam chair I just wanted to um communicate for the thoughts I had I was corrected after our last meeting that in negotiations I'd normally advocate for an average um and um that was not in my mind at the time uh of this conversation the average of the CPI thank you average CPI for the cola so if we looked at a 10-year average which we don't have to we can just do the one year as we already discussed and voted on but if we looked at a 10 it would be 2.85 uh I'm assuming if we did either a three or a five it would be uh higher significantly higher than three even um but uh I wanted to bring that point forward because I think it is a more stable way to go for employees and what I try to advocate for I just failed in our last meeting so I want to put that out there for discussion to see if that makes more sense as far as putting money where the mouth is or if we want to stick with just the one year um CPI Thoughts by Commissioners commissioner starle thank you um things change though if you do a three or a five I think when you go by a year that could either go up or down right because of what's going to happen out east so right the influence of all yeah yeah no that's why I was that's why I try to advocate for for an average you know it's just uh I don't I I don't know just like you said if we do it by the year uh during Co it would be 7% and then before Co it was 0% and you know it's just all over the place if we do an average you know the 10-year average right now is 2.85 and um if we did a three-year average I think it would include covid inflation and so we I wouldn't think we'd want to do that or fiveyear um I think want the longer term I don't think employees will like that but I think it's a good way for Commissioners to go I I still think it's a good way for employees to go but it's that's part of negotiations so just to clarify in case somebody is thinking uh this is still you'd be using the 10-year average but it's for one year yes of board salary not doing it for 10 years and next year you'd be looking at the 10e average at the nearest State again to be consistent yeah that's my intention thank you commission what why 10 years um that's a good long time to get an average we could do three or five like I was saying or 20 or whatever but just seemed like that's up for discussion or I not set on 10 we could do nine or 11 or whatever just something longer to get that more stable um changes rather than following the CPI which can go every well in it's less stable commissioner Johnson did you have a question no yeah uh no it wasn't a question it's observation about what time frame 10 years like you said and covid screws up everything so I get that we're going to be talking about that forever um but I'm thinking if you're really trying to capture wage and inflation um tying it to a shorter time period for 5 years is probably better otherwise you're talking about 10 years ago the cost of something and we all know things go up and is it really fair to count that dozen eggs at a dollar over here when now it's $4 over here I don't know I'm just Y no I I I think that's a valid point um I'm not tied to the 10 year I just I thought it might be more palatable because it will be lower and we don't want to be pushing things up but to be more accurate I agree with commissioner Johnson um and I'll try to and that's I will just think your labor negotiation team is going to push back on the same exact thing and that's why they don't want that to use that they don't want that average so um mhm I'm fine with the way we are doing this for this year the way it was presented to us 2.6 I think is just fine I'm fine with that as well I'm okay with this year thank we'll figure it out next do I hear a motion I'll make the motion to approve res the resolution for the commissioner's salary and no change in pdms okay is there support 2.6 all right we have a motion and support any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries unanimously all right the Caribou Lake Watershed subordinate Service District yeah thank you madam chair this is to approve a special assessment fee in 2025 for each of their property owners within the Caribou Lake Watershed subordinate Service District for use over a 5-year period for 2025 through 2029 so this they've agreed uh that they would like to just be assessed the whole 250 now and they think that'll carry them for 5 years um not that they couldn't come back and ask to assess themselves again later but that's their plan so in 2021 the County Board reestablished the subordinate Service District and for the continuation of the water quality testing and monitoring program that helps combat the aquatic invasive species at that time they requested a one-time special assessment fee of $60 um that they hope take them over a fiveyear period so um we did not end this District in the past you might have seen this come back to the board to be reestablished but it wasn't established with an end dat so it's it's in existence so this is just to ask for uh basically their financial recommendation for next year's tax special assessment commissioner storley since this is in your District any comments or remarks you'd like to make nothing other than you know I'm glad that they agreed that that was going to be assessed to them um that was my question I don't remember that they discussed this at any current meeting but maybe they did we only meet in May and um Labor Day weekend so must have been discussed then this yeah this well this comes from the the head of the organization right who I take their word for it okay as as we do with the highway department where they have a spokesperson right commissioner Johnson well um I I understand that I had the same concern that I first time I heard about it and I didn't see I was hoping to see a letter of support in our packet saying yes we are the Coalition and not just one person saying oh I need to raise the price and are we I'm sure it's not going to impact most people but if I got a $250 assessment that I wasn't aware of it would yeah I would not be happy seeing that so I just want to make sure that cuz I do re had to go back and look that was my first year I think first month and a half on the board when we had a public hearing to set this District that had lapsed and we had a public hearing and had that information from the public it there was obvious support for that $60 but now that we're going to to 250 I'm just wondering what documentation we have to say that they still agre with an increase or do we just get to say it yeah it's I don't think there's a there isn't a document for this as we have a a policy for this as we do for the highway department but even in that policy they don't I don't know that they have documentation yes they do do they well when the subordinate Service District they have a process for for um the assessment because what work do you want done and the they have this meeting of let's document what we're doing how much is it going to cost I don't know how it gets transferred to your office and as far as property taxes but at this has been discussed at the highway about those service districts and how they have to meet every year to talk about what's it going to what's our cost but do they document it I don't believe I've ever seen anything for I'm not arguing I'm just asking if they actually do that maybe is don't know how you would not document it if you got to go out for bid for something I don't know how no I mean of the vote of the Committees of the people that are yes they do they do so they see that that's part of the that's part of the they have a so they have that in their policy yes so maybe this is not this is not the same it's not a road it's not that but we could have a policy for any other kind of District like this that was similar to the highway which we don't right now do you want to look at that we have time because these assessments um they don't need to be approved until sometime in February when we put them on the tax roles so there's plenty of time to do that Comm M you said this is coming from the president of the association even even a minutes of a meeting what I can do is I can contact a couple folks long as we have some time here and then get the official written they approve they talked about this and approved it in uh on Labor Day weekend that would be the last time they met if we could have that for our first business meeting in January that would be great and then it I think it behooves us to establish a policy that's consistent with different kinds of subordinate service districts Al this is the only other one we have but mhm you know the way things are moving there could be others yeah so the vote at the highway is to say this person speaks for us and we all and there's documentation that it was talked about at here's the minutes of the meeting saying you are our person it works and it probably says that somewhere in the policy and even good practice it's not the vote it's the minutes yeah okay all right well we have an agenda item for [Music] January all right um I'd make a motion to table this until um we get some more documentation thank you commissioner mels is there support support have a motion support all in favor the table till January hi hi poos all right thank you thank [Music] you see I think there was another item oh that's a joke sorry so this is it's nice to start out with some humor before we get to this so this is the County Board this uh could be your last chance to approve the budget and Levy unless you schedule a special meeting so um so we've looked at it at length um on September 10th just to summarize our proposed Levy that you approve was 13, 396 910 which was a 9.81% increase over 2024 and some of the large items in this budget is a 3% cost of living increase for staff 99.65% health insurance increase additional staff for human resource and maintenance departments to manage their workloads cost of a new payroll system staff training both per the Strategic plan uh highway equipment cost increase to maintain their equipment fund with Rising costs uh BCA software upgrade and security system replacement fund fund a use of 300,000 of the uh American Rescue plan funds for HRA housing costs this is a different section of the arpa than what we just talked about this is the uh um I won't say it um lcf uh look okay I'm not going to try and capital Improvement Bond costs so since that 9.81% various adjustments not requiring board specific decisions have brought the increase down to 7.68 well you did approve the uh the fee increases um so that was a big chunk that was about 148,000 I believe of additional Revenue but other other changes were uh just normal process for example retirements uh are actually if if there's significant retirements of department heads is a significant savings and then people coming in who aren't taking health insurance and things like that have helped to bring that cost down um you've also you've talked about using uh parts of the 2.57 million of our bwca uh reappraisal reserves to offset the levy increases so that's available um High interest rates continued in 2024 and they've helped their fund balance significantly and they' given us these options for funding Capital Improvements softening the levy increasing housing needs um I sent out earlier this week just some options what would what would it take to bring what's currently at 7.68% to bring it down to six would take about 204,000 bring it down to 5 1.2% would take about 265,000 to bring it to 5% 326,000 and some odd dollars uh you could go lower 4.5% 387,000 it would take to 4% 448,000 and if you wanted to go Sor could you repeat that uh 4% would take about 448,000 and 35% would take about 9,000 and that could be any combination of use of the fund balance or any Cuts you might choose to make and I I see rowand sent out a an email just recently on um some questions from one of the Commissioners and um some of my responses and I would one of the questions was you know what's our what's been the long-term expense change like what's been our uh average expense change over the last five years and you know the the trend is up um if you look at in five years this is since 2020 the expenses in the general fund have averaged 7.2% 7.3 in the highway department and 5.3 in human services and then I went back and looked at the long term 25-year average and for the general fund it's 4.7% three and a half in the highway department and steady in human services 5.6% so they've actually gone down slightly in The Last 5 Years um but it just tells you that there's a you know there is a general Trend um and just to keep that in mind uh we've had some good fortune in recent years with the you know the federal funds that have come in after Co I think that's isn't that some of the talk I hear that the the large Levy increases around the state um is that and even more so I think in other counties that needed more used more funding for um for Co for um recovery and and all of that and so now that's disappeared so I think uh that some of what's hitting you know other counties probably cities too so just something to keep in mind and to make that comparison that using the sales tax money is the same principle of covid money a shortterm boost to your fund balance and using it to um for ongoing expenses there comes a point when you have to pay the piper there so when you look at this financial management plan which when I was looking at it and to think that our three major funds are budgeting uh 4% uh expenses every year I'm was like that doesn't make sense to me that doesn't and then so that's why I asked Brady for that spreadsheet that shows no we haven't been at 4% so and I appreciate he went back to 2020 but I think like I said earlier that's when you're looking as far as budget and planning ahead going back that far and saying that's what you're going to spend doesn't make sense you have to use rational numbers thinking about going forward because it's very unlikely those eggs will ever get back to a dollar MH and that that kind of comes back to a point that was made at our budget and Facilities advisory committee last month um one of our citizens who sits on that board looked at the information and said I really think 6% is where you might be want to look but what I'm saying is what was given to us to say hey we can afford everything these numbers are higher mhm these um Levy amounts are not realistic especially when you figure factor in the lost money that when I say lost the sales tax money local option sales tax um to reduce our Levy and then it goes away and our Levy is going to Skyrocket or it could if you don't cut what you're provide the other services you're providing because you're using this for new positions we've got two three new positions what do we have well actually we one we've already approved in public health so but there's new positions that weren't in previous budgets we have new spending new projects sat Bluffs projects we have and I'm not saying they're not good things but we heard earlier this morning the fire wise will likely need support down the road we don't have a whole lot of wiggle room if we decide to go forward with a $35 million project especially and I had the opportunity to sit in on the bkv group the other day and really like the construction manager I think they did a good job choosing having them I appreciate that um Brooke recommended that group I think it's going to you're going to do great with them but that one um he says plan on the higher end of your budget so this 7.5 probably we're going to go over that which we kind of always knew I always think it's funny they try to give you uh a range but you know right away they're going to go to the top so right here you know the information you're being given to make financial decisions that are going to impact taxpayers five six seven years from now this is not um complete or accurate and I I have a problem with that and which is why I advocate we shouldn't use all of our reserves for ongoing expenses now you want to put it aside and say that's what we want to do to reduce our bonding so we don't have to bond for 8 million we only have to bond for 5 million that I think is a good option but using it for ongoing expenses of wages Health Care New programming it's not that's what's gotten the state in trouble right now because they spent onetime money on ongoing expenses okay get off my Soap Box commissioner M yeah one of the things I've been advocating for and I I've done so previous to our um wage study was that weaning off and so I agree 100% that we can't sustainably do that spend our our um reserves to do that but I do think we can wisely spend our reserves to wean off and and lessen that impact because I think what we've been hearing all year is these requests aren't just high in the sky they're um they're real and they've been um kicking around for um a good number of years the capital requests in particular have been kicking around over 10 years um and it's it's I think a disservice to our community and um and our staff to to not take action on on those and it's absolutely true we have to plan for it um I I really appreciate the two different scenarios with that harder hitting uh Levy and then asking Ellers to come back with a softer one to kind of spread that out and you know I would I would ask that we we spread that out even further um you know come 2030 goes down to 3 57 to commissioner Johnson's point it it is uh maybe a discrepancy between what our actual costs are but if we take you know the seven the seven and the six and bring them all down to five and spread that out over longer period of time it accomplishes it without having that you know big impact and we can do that by combination of using reserves as well as the levy um just using all the tools that we have but I don't think it's impossible it's just um not easy did you look at the debt service Levy funed bonds and Nots which um page are you looking at here well it's every single page has Levy funed I mean depending on which one you want to look at so maybe December 9th 20 24 okay that's up the top December 9th 2024 sure okay and then which line item that that's the one where it they Factor it in and you only have to pay interest I assume is part of what that one was um so 73 so 84 lines Levy funed bonds and notes so 79 I think that's an important important number to look at this is what it costs us when we want to Levy for new debt and we're talking almost $1.6 million just a few years down the road here mhm um that's a big portion of your Levy yeah which if you didn't have to bond if you you didn't have to borrow as much cuz you had a savings account over here that you've got the cash you don't have to spend 1.6 million and send it out of state to investors you can keep it here in this community to provide the services that you want to expand down the road so you're saying that um going from potentially $35 million to 32.5 is I don't I'm just saying if you save if you don't pay interest on a it's we all do it at home with our mortgages or our cars the bigger down payment you can make the less you have to borrow Y and the more on the principal y right y so this is where the community says we wish government work like business doesn't work that way which is why I want somebody with governmental experience sitting in that chair over there cuz they're they are two different things but it's spending decisions that the community is frustrated by because we don't think like other people about how we spend our money and maybe putting some things off for later and say we don't get that trip to Disney World this year because we need to fix our roof we have buildings that need to be fixed we have space issues that we heard this morning we're going to have to hire an architect to solve in this interim while we figure out what to do next I'm saying dude we really need to start a committee and plan for a saw too Bluffs do we really need to set everything aside for a new tandem truck and Driver could we get by with half that amount this year and stretch that out cuz that makes more sense to be responsible of saying we don't get to do everything this year because we need a new building or whatever it is that we ABS what are our priorities what have we've been talking about all year long building building building and we're saying well that's not priority here commissioner I think it is priority absolutely um our capital projects I would say our priorities are that whole list that we're we're put on there and that's where I'm saying I think we can do this nothing here as Disney World these are all things that I mean how how else can we better serve the public if um our staff don't have the space to do that or we're not planning ahead for um our needs and improving um I think a lot of the difficulties that we're in right now is from lack of plan and a lack of budgeting for the future and and I understand we don't want to bite off more than we can but what I'm saying is with the pilt dollars we can uh work with that to leverage what we have and um and accomplish more so that future Generations future Commissioners future boards don't have to uh plan for things that should have been planned for previously much like I think we are right now it's it's um it's I think it's a more holistic approach to try to cover those things rather than um you know saying no we're not going to set aside for the tandem when we know our roads and our the the community's growth is happening there are more demands more um sub subordinate service districts and just those demands are are building and so I would like to I'd like to address our community needs and I think I think we can do that and cushion the the levy uh impact so one of the things um that is very new information um is related to pilt money our federal pilt money and um we received on Friday afternoon about 4:30 a call from Senator Smith's office indicating that she is bringing forward this we week a bill in the well I shouldn't say a bill um an an item that they are proposing for unanimous consent and it would bring back our Boundary Waters dollars to the 208 level which was the highest that we've had and then you recall it was cut there was the reappraisal and then it went up a little bit but um there seems to be very strong feeling by her office that this can be done if that's the case I would support taking the reappraisal money that we had and we talked about this last time and um pulling that out of the budget for this year again knowing that depending on what happens in the United States Senate we might have to make some changes a year from now but I don't believe her office would have cont conted us about this had there not been a real strong feeling that this was going to go through so I'd like to recommend that we remove the 189 um from the budget based on that brand new information and I want to thank Rowan and Brady and Bob Thompson for yesterday putting together some documentation for Senator Smith on the impacts to Cook County because what they're bringing forward in the Senate will very likely have a positive impact on Cook County and Lake County those are the only two counties that would be impacted was really good news it was a great phone call um I also would like to talk about Sawtooth Bluffs which commissioner Johnson brought up last time the City of Grand marray put a really low priority on that at their last meeting um and my feeling is we need to work with the city of Grand marray on this it's a very important um Regional piece when I was at AMC I actually went to a Regional Trail planning meeting to talk about um what to do and one of the things I learned that they did in Southwestern Minnesota is they had the University of Minnesota extension put together a study on the economic impact of a regional park like that and then brought that back to a variety of cities and counties to help them move forward and so I'm thinking since this it's low on the City of Grand Marr's priority that we put this off for at least a year that we meet with the city to talk about how to develop a long range plan look at engaging extension services to help help us get some information for how to move forward but it was it was really quite amazing the study that they did they um on existing trails that were already in some of these counties they put counters on so they could find out how many bikes had gone up and down how many people were walking the trails they collected data and then they used that in projecting what a regional park and Regional Trails would add to the economic Vitality of those communities and it was it was really amazing so um I would also suggest that we consider pulling that 295 off in addition to the 189 for The Boundary Waters appraisal thoughts from other Commissioners commissioner m i I'm a little skeptical of the additional revenues that um designation might bring to our community from visitors I think that the real potential is the Legacy dollars that it can bring to help um and that's not ongoing that's just to to kind of build it out um also um um oh shoot I lost it it was in regards to the parks and trails committee oh thank you uh the city so in the conversations of the parks and trails commission their understanding our understanding is the city is kind of like here you go they it's such a low priority that they're not really interest and so it's just all County it's 100% in the County's hands and the city is willing to put the land there but they're not looking to take on any more uh project you know so and that's not going to change from what I know of their uh organizational structure um so uh that was never I mean it is always better to have more engagement and more Partners but I think it's pretty well understood that it's just a it's just a county deal at this point so um if we wait for the city it'll never nothing will happen I can understand what it's not a priority um I just don't think uh that we need to cut it um it's uh it's one of those things that's been on the docket for many years um and like I said we do have the funding available we can make this as painful or as painless as as we need we have that cushion and that additional pill money is a shocker to me um I won't count on it um as far as our financial management plan is concerned but as far as the reappraisal is concerned I think I can I can be comfortable with keeping that out of our of our costs comments from other Commissioners commissioner white something's got to be cut somewhere I mean as commissioner Johnson said we'll just take it from from the reserves and then somewhere down the road we'll start getting it evened out you don't get things evened out unless you something's got to go there's got to be red ction somewhere and um yeah we we got like free money we fortunate we've got the um covid dollars we got pilt dollars it's great but just because we have it all I really agree that if we don't have to put that money towards interest payments in the long run which is not that far away we will be getting more bang for the buck you know we we'll have more building or we'll be putting our dollars towards uh building assets for the community as opposed to um sending it away as interest so I mean some at some point we've got to just just make a we've got to reduce our spending where we can and that's all departments and um I know I mean we're at 9.8 we're at 7 point whatever and looking at this this that we got the um County financial management plan and I can't find it quickly I did the other day but at some point the impact on the levy will be 17. some perent where did I see that do you know where I saw that um it was on one of one of the versions We asked them to soften so on version three uh you won't see that any longer so that would have been the document dated December 4th on this three and four pages three and four I believe and that's the difference is Brady's alluding to it's just two different ways to service the debt either a high the other packet Levy increase one year or more moderate Levy increases over a number of years that's where I was saying I would either I would like to extend that more moderate further you have the how far out you have the December 9th decemberth yeah okay for Deb can you oh got there right yeah it's you me that one both December 4th oh yeah there's oh W one December 9th I thought December 4th so how do you plan on um extending that out we can go to 2033 and we can leverage our reserves to keep that lower throughout and that's I mean pretty much what we did with the co relief or the wage um study is to use part of that to taper our Reliance on it off to incorporate the levy into making those operational payments um and I'd say we're pretty darn successful with that as far as the impact on taxpayers um because incorporating a million dollar wage uh into the into the levy is uh is not easy and so I think we can do that with the the pilt reserves that we have as well as maybe if that comes through uh the future ones but I'm a little I'm I'm still a little uh reluctant to to count on that so I'm looking at line 85 cash balances December December 9th December 4th I don't know if it makes a big difference but yeah I I I they're the same I think or they're very close but so cash balances that's your reserves which includes your 35 millon that you bonded right am I cuz we haven't spent or maybe it's in there that we spent it all still analyzing this what I'm saying is this is that um fund balance number down here I said this is the first time it showed up on a financial management plan I've ever seen I've never seen this before so I didn't quite understand what that percentage was um but it goes down and then I want to know because we do have a budget and fiscal policy where we say that um fund balances won't fall below a certain level and you will notice that they do here quite substantially so when you get down here and realize your your fun balance your cash balances are dropped are there is that really and when you say oh we can spend all that uh well no we can't we have this yeah this I don't understand well this this is a different kind of calculation um they're actually using cash balance rather than our Reserves and they're using things such as the highway department all of their expenses are in the expense numbers and we don't use that when we're calculating uh our reserves against it because that's that's their uh Highway construction fund which is almost 100% funded by State uh and federal gas taxes so we got we have to take that out to get a realistic number when we do our analysis and uh just as one example so okay I'm okay I'm sorry for yeah I just want to clarify so then when it says 4% so there's nothing wrong with this it's just that they're not doing the same type of analysis we have the same amount of money okay left so this cash balance iser not our Reserve fund it's not it's a cash balance number one it would our reserves are are undesignated or committed reserves are less this is a cash Reserve but well that's yeah but they're including all expenses not operational expenses that's what we calculate for for art for art percentage so you know this is not a perfect document okay so I get it that that Highway fund so you can't just say 4% of the um expenses because that includes well you you can if you uh I mean whatever you want to program in here and look at the long term their long-term expenses are actually um their operational expenses are less than everybody else over long term partly in the in that Long View as you point out because were really held down for a number of years compared to in recent years but but that's just that that percentage is giving you a trend whether it's the trend of the operational or the trend of the whole expenses my point is just that all of those expenses would not be part of our analysis of the percent we'd be deducting um probably 12 million or more of that for construction cost right and we'd have less we know we wouldn't be including that um and the same for those uh Bond costs we don't include that we include our three major funds so it's it's just it's it's apples and oranges as far as that the trend is probably um the most important if you want to is that that fund balance percentage it goes up and then it starts to tail off at the end and the reason it's tailing off out there at 2030 31 32 33 is we don't have the sales tax uh reserves any longer we don't have as much um we're building up they they're actually doing this uh the probably close to the way I would do it um because we didn't we didn't tell them exactly how to do every line in this but that's similar to what I would probably do they're taking this 2 million 2 and5 million in a year and then you can see uh that they're using some of it uh all the money shows up in the general fund but not all of it goes into the fund balance because some of it's being used to offset some of the bonding costs and as you get farther on more of it's being used to offset the bonding costs and then you have you don't have as much to cover this after 2033 but you still have even with this plan you still have about 3.7 million um to help fund the uh Bond costs even off this chart because those expenses continue but you do have to have a plan out that far um but that's a long way to plan that and know what you're going to have but things like pilt come into play and things like that that you know your your guess is beyond 203 33 are becoming more guesses than good estimates but but just know like you haven't used all the sales tax money on this chart there's still some left because they've been trying to use some and use a little more um as the debt gets bigger but they're trying not to use all of it on this chart to keep the levy down let's just keep the levy down we'll use all that sales tax money and then fall off the the end at the end so they're trying to moderate it um in a fashion like we would with the the our other fund balances if you use the 2157 you wouldn't want to use a large amount of that if you didn't have to this year know it's there for a number of years um use a little bit this year use a little bit next year and in our case probably try to want to use less as you go on so Brady what would we need to use in pill um it sounds like there's kind of a consensus it's okay to remove that Boundary Waters reappraisal fund how much would we need then to use of our fund balance 308 308 yeah if you want to depending on what number you want to get to um that's five I'm looking at five okay that's where I'm focused yeah you take 18 off of there and You' be at roughly 308 okay Madam chair in the summary here um my understanding after much discussion many meetings ago was most of this is a one-time ask except for cost of living and and health insurance we never know what's going to happen there but commissioner Mills indicated that he thought this was going to be a one time we aren't going to be hiring another HR on and on here right is that what you meant um the bump will be a one time it's not that we have to keep increasing it no and so this increase is a one time thing so the the expenses will stay most of them are ongoing expenses it's just that we won't be doing it year after year after year as far as the bump and so that's why I was thinking we'd be able to taper and and um use some of the the pill just to incorporate into the and still take care of these that that's part of the summary yes the asks that we had yes yeah but that would require using the um the pilt to the tune of 308,000 if we correct the the reappraisal C of there which would leave uh uh 1.8 million 1.7 million is in the pilt reserve which again I I I don't want to use that for operational but I don't want to have a high impact on the levy and so I want to use it to you know work bring the levy up bring the you know the use of it down and just try to meet meet for that softer Landing so that we'd be left with 1.84 five million and you realize then next year you're going to have to use more than that because you are going to have Cola increases operational increases that you are putting into place today that are going to be more expensive next year at this time so that 1.7 million in reserve it's going you're going to take a bigger Chun next time just to keep it um equal right um if it depends on what we set our Levy at um if we set our Levy at 3% then yes if we set our Levy at next year this is if we set our Levy at 5% um I'm not so sure because like I was just explaining this kind of bump is not going to happen year after year it's just the cola which we negotiated to um less less than three for next year so um I think if I think if we take this approach we we can successfully taper off of the use of pilt for operations commissioner white I now I'm really confused you're saying the bump the bump is like so we have the cost of living but increase but that cost of living increase won't be a bump next year it'll just be the increased cost which will move along every year until we negotiate again and then it'll go up again so call it a bump call it whatever but it is an actual increase in expenditures that will just continue to go forward into the future and it will just keep going forward it will grow yeah it will grow I mean definitely it will grow by about the cost of living increase this year we have a bump of 684 th000 that was proposed minus that 18 that's what's not going to happen again next year is what I'm saying it's just the C so we'll know that so it predicting the future no one no departments will come in next year and say well we need this this this this not saying they're frivolous asks or anything like that but we absolutely cannot sit here and say well this is a one shot deal everything's going to be running smoothly in a year and we all only have to worry about the cost of living real life doesn't work like that you put a lot of money into fixing say your car or your lawnmower and you take it and use it and then something else goes wrong now we don't have old equipment I get that but life is like that or everything's fine till somebody falls down and breaks their foot so we cannot predict what's going to be additional expenses in the in the next year and and we just have to I don't want people I like to believe that when you live in a community everyone has to pay for being part of the community I mean the community provides services and this community of Cook County has an abundance or a real heartfelt sincere efforts are made to provide services for our community people we have community volunteers for our Ems for we for fire departments for food shelf for everything like that but there's still it's got to be paid for somehow it's got to be paid for and so taxes are the way that we do this however the demographics of this County are aging and we have many people on fixed incomes and some of these people will still be alive in 2033 or whatever and at that point if we have no more pilt Monies to be spent do they decide it's time to move somewhere else like with their children I don't know but but taxes it's great land values go up but so do your taxes and if you can't support paying the taxes H maybe just it's just like if you can't if you can't fix one more thing then you either live without that one more thing or you live with it not being in perfect shape and I just you keep borrowing from savings hoping that we're going to and maybe we will maybe there'll be another huge influx of money from the federal government from won't be coming from the state because they're facing a big deficit in another another go around but maybe but we can't budget for the county on Naes I mean I I still don't I understand your your belief and we're weaning ourself off I don't I I just can't understand how we're I can't in my mind figure out how we're weaning ourself off when there will be no reductions in expenditures because life always gets more expensive but we'll just keep spending down pilt dollars and then it'll all be good I I just maybe it's my brain that can't I can't get I can't figure it out could just be trying to figure out positive and negative numbers and all of a sudden one day it all makes perfect sense but at this point I can't I can't in my mind if I feel comforted by that fact that if we spend the money and we keep spending the money then we get to a certain point when the pil dollars are gone then it's all good that'd be great so that's just it could be my personal inability to understand to embrace what you're saying and and you could be perfectly right and the future may show up and pilt comes in and we get an extra million dollars a year from pilt you I mean I don't know we don't know so um or everyone will decide they don't want to live in C County anymore and we can reduce our highway department and everyone goes away and we just live here I you know so that said okay I said all I need to say I might be able to illustrate a a simplified and fairly arbitrary way and and how this works okay so say our Cola is um 2.75 okay that's one of the largest drivers of of our Levy is is uh yeah Levy increases is is Cola um so say that just for instance that translates to a 2.75 Levy increase okay okay we have $2.1 million in reserve okay um if we also have funding requests like we do this year for $600,000 instead of setting our Levy at 2.75 we can set it at five which is more than what we need to cover that Cola and we can reduce that by spending some of the the pilt but the idea is that you can increase Levy then you need to slight than the expenses to try to get yourself off of spending that savings as you as you put it so then we would have extra dollars each year where it just it depends on how we spend the pilt that's what I'm saying if we can try to get it to meet you know wean ourselves off that's that's the concept that's the Glide path and that's what we did with the wage study in increase is we had these dollars that came in from wasn't arpa was it arpa yeah arpa was one it was the I thought it was like the rural the West Coast thing or whatever remember we paid back like 200,000 or something or I forget what it was 20,000 but anyways we had this extra money and so we did have to raise the levy still significantly but we were able to use some of that uh dollars to make it not as high and then we did it over a second year but not to the same amount and so then we were able to raise Levy spend savings and it was I thought pretty pretty successful in making that kind of an adjustment um pain painless for taxpayers or minimizing pain I should say because you're right taxes keep going up I would mention that property values not a direct uh relationship between increased property taxes because it's it's spread out everywhere but you know the costs keep going up just like you said and um and they always have and I'm I'm assuming in the type of economy that our global economy that we have that they continue they will continue it one of the things that I would like to do um when I get capacity to do that and uh I've discussed this a little bit with um commissioner Johnson and and others AMC I've also talked with Bruce Kimmel a little bit about about it um is to try to figure out some kind of tax relief and um if if we have these people and we do um that are um unfixed incomes and and really struggling to pay their taxes it's a significant burden on their family budgets why can't we give tax relief to them and have second homeowners or Lakeshore owners or whomever you know have the brunt of that um and that's a program that is not simple I think Brady is skeptical of the legality of it um I think Bruce Kimmel gave me a little more encouragement around that um but it's just a talk at this point it's just an idea so that's down the road but it's something I think is a is a is a very worthwhile Endeavor to try to help the people in our community and meet all of the the demands that that are out there so and the first step to that is that second homeowner property becoming one tax classification not a separ that would be very help and that's the thing in the legislature that we for us here is really important to us that'd be really helpful well Madam chair I'd like to make a motion to approve our budget um uh excluding the reappraisal um and including 38,000 of our pilt reserves to what else what more do you need there Brady to get our Levy at 5% yeah so the removing the appraisal 18 18 is it 18 189 that was more like 19 then so if you remove that at 189 to get it to exactly 5% you need 307 691 so do you want to amend your motion um to reflect that 30761 yes please is there support support thank you commissioner storyline so we have a motion and support to uh eliminate The Boundary Waters reappraisal fund for the 2025 budget and use $37,988 Waters reappraisal funds or pilt funds to offset Levy increases any questions comments all in favor I I opposed n motion carries 3 to two all right thanks to everybody for good discussion and a lot of hard work all right um we'll go to uh meeting updates commissioner Johnson sorry I don't have anything right this second I was okay commissioner somewh else me update um one big thing that U makes some people in hoveland very exciting it was started with a uh on the way to the highway road meeting with a with a uh constituent stopped the talk and um thanks to Tim Nelson and his department hoveland now has their recycling trailer out in hoveland again which is now I don't have to go the other way around to avoid my constituents so that was a very very good meeting that we that we had although my constituent then said oh well I don't go there anyway but I know other people that do I come to town anyway so it was it was very thank you thank you Tim Nelson for getting the getting it out there and many people are excited about being able to recycle I can't think where else I've been at the moment you I remembered something that I had written on that I wanted to say um I just want to um talk about the HRA board and you know so proud of the work that got done over this last Here There and with Jason's leadership but I also wanted to call out um Cascade vacation rentals they have been setting aside 1% they charge their guest 1% extra on top of the whatever lodging tax whatever other fees but they charge 1% that they donate to the HRA in donations and we were hoping that there'd be other vacation rentals other businesses that would join them that hasn't happened yet but we you know um but I want to call them out that they have been very faithful in sending in that money and that is seed money to help us continue the housing in cook Cook County so that's what I wanted to say thank you well and along the the the vein of housing I just found out that Hamilton habitat has been getting all of their building materials at cost for all these years from Cook County Home Center and that's that's local supporting local local dollars staying local and that's like that's our community so don't go to Menards go to Cook County Home Center for for whatever you need so that's my little plug for Jeff and the people there commissioner Wells uh nothing beyond our our morning updates commissioner storle yes thank you madam chair I'm going to report mainly from AMC it was so well attended that we had Buffet Lin set up in the hallways for us because we never had that before it was really really well attended and I went to many good workshops and updating on things with public health and all that but what I want to say I feel today is more important is that we have received an award Cook County has been designated County of the Year wow and that's because our safety yeah saf grou of people have been so diligent in all aspects of living in Cook County whether be careful when you're on Gunflint Trail you don't hit a moose and as you say don't slip on the ice going out of the courthouse or other places too and this was a survey that was done by them over a 3 to 5e period so um you know how the stage is set up with all the poin zettas and the trees and all that so everybody came up and we were presented this award and then they took our picture um commissioner Sullivan is going to have something in the paper and then it'll be in AMC newsletter too I'm sure but to me it's kind of like winning the Academy Award you know because we have so many people behind getting this good award that it was really something for all of us to be proud of so we'll have to find a place to hang this somewhere we're getting so many awards now that we may have to have a special award while going down the middle or over the side or something thing but we'll figure it out so that's uh that's what I'll report right now from AMC and I will write to thank you note I represent from the board on mcit so that's um special group of people and I I will write them a thank you note thank you well I'm going to just break with the way it today has been approached I have a lot to share um so I think about um since we gathered last and um one of the groups that met was M Cola they our Cook County Coalition of Lake Associations does not meet in December and we attend the Statewide and this was via zoom and they prior prioritize three different areas legislatively water quality through repari and buffers around Lakes um discouraging the spread of AIS and one of their ideas is something that has um occurred in other states where when you bring a big boat down I94 or any Interstate you're stopped at the state line and they check your boat and um the biggest threat for invasives is coming right now from the state of Michigan and so um I don't know if they're going to prioritize a Wisconsin border or do all the borders but that is something they want to work on legislatively um and then they were really impressed with the Caribou Lake approach to dealing with wake boats and so they are hoping to establish um for the purposes of safety and water quality and environmental concerns a 600 foot distance from Shore where wake boats can be throughout the state of Minnesota so Cook County has um really impressed their group um Cook County local energy project met and their researching Grand opportunities through the carollyn and mcnight Foundations doing some event planning for the Builder Workshop which is at Cook County higher ed all our local contractors can go there for continuing ed credit so they're working on that and also Earth Day and then board recruitment they have a a couple of vacancies on their board right now um firewise uh we heard a lot about that today but there was um just a lot of accolades um and remarks to Aon malen King for the great work that he's done with the firewise community applications and he's finishing his final application this week for the lon Lake Association that was one of his priorities and then one thing I learned at the firewise meeting is that our highway department has purchased uh or has a trailer and they have a biochar unit on it and so I'm sorry yeah our Highway Department yeah our highway department and so I want I want to um have them come and talk with us about it you know they are out clearing ditches they're working with pits and pushing the pit piles up and the this wood waste trailer with a biochar unit is a way to without putting junk in the air get rid of that um waste and so I'm going to ask them to come and present to us at a committee of the whole so we can learn more but that was great it would be really powerful for fire lines that's that's why um Matt talked about it there and then I got information from the AMC policy committee um and we'll make sure to dup at all the legislative priorities and get them out to all of you um attended many great sessions um Robbie has presented at AMC and talked about the impacts of Transportation legislation and Workforce changes and his Focus was on what to do in a community like ours where you need CDL Drivers and there aren't any available well you build a program with Cook County higher ed and you create your own Workforce and so he did a great job of presenting at AMC and was very creative um in his approach and and all um I went to a couple of cyber emergency workshops um that talked about just the importance of annual training for staff um timing of events so the holidays are coming up basically before holidays don't click on anything they know our staff is going to be gone for a long weekend or a couple of days and they try to get into your system right before you shut down before a holiday and um some of the costs that other Counties have had are absolutely exorbitant it is really important for all our staff to continue with the training that we have um that cyber emergency training was some of the best I've attended and and uh it is something that our Emergency Management Group is looking at um attended um an interesting um piece on public hearings and meetings and it was basically from attorneys reminding us to return to our preco policies most of us have not revised our policies since that time um and so to take a look at those so I have that on a little list for 2025 and to um really look carefully at our video and record retention policy uh the recommendation from some of the attorneys we spoke to um was to you know cut to 5 years or three years but reduce the video retention and particularly there are areas that we're doing it and we're paying for storage in places we don't need to like Planning Commission we store all those videos we don't need to do that we have minutes and that is what the attorneys want for legal records so it would be a way we could save some money um and our commissioner's basket that we um put together with maple syrup and there's something from the NorthShore Winery and um Caribou cream um we had world's best donut a mug with some cocoa in there and um some jalapeno jelly from Trail Center and that was a big hit um so got a lot of um thanks for that basket and then lastly um I attended on the way home an interesting um tribal forum and it was the members of the tribal Forum from AMC meeting with all the 11 tribal nations of the chipa county or chipa tribe and we met um in hinley and talked about how to work together legislatively and we looked at the tribal priorities we looked at AMC's priority and what we struck agreement on number one is mental health Solid Waste bonding and then um through phhs the Department of Human Services System modernization getting rid of having to re-enter all these things and equa compliance which is federal but how as a state can we support the training that staff need to do that appropriately so those are our priorities that we're going to work on together and then I will let you know as soon as we hear back from um Senator Smith about pilt so we we should hear from her or from Oran def Franco later this week wow so I won't communicate with you that would be a violation of open meeting law I will let Rowan and Janna send you something yeah um and so we have a number of meetings coming up it's going to be really um busy as we approach 2025 we have correspondents and memos there our tax comparisons and then some really important recognition of staff today so today is commissioner Johnson's last day serving as Cook County Commissioner for district 2 and she's been serving with us since January of 2021 we took our oath of office together and Stacy served on a variety of groups throughout the association of Minnesota counties Regional groups and of course many on a local or county level and we'd like to extend our heartfelt thanks to you and gratitude to you for your four years of very dedicated service on the Cook County Board of Commissioners and your commitment to the residents of District 2 and your efforts on behalf of olive Cook County are deeply appreciated your work has been impactful we're grateful your time and for your energy and the passion that you've brought to your role so thank you thank you very much a little something for you and then um our County attorney Molly hickin on behalf of our residents and the leadership of Cook County we want to extend our deepest gratitude to you as our long serving County attorney for your unwavering dedication integrity and countless contributions to our community your commitment to upholding Justice and providing sound legal advice has been instrumental in shaping both progress and stability for our County your professionalism and Steady Hand have left an indelible Mark and your legacy will be felt for a long time to come thank you for your tireless service and we wish you the best in your next chapter thank you so much and with that is there a motion to adjourn so moov is there a support support we are adjourned thank you all you have this to do I got to get Silver Bay Silver Bay we do this off camera no I uh