I aliance 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 for all. Thank you for that and welcome to the Carver County Board of Commissioners meeting September 23rd, 2025. It's a special meeting and work session and we are going to move into item 1.2 two public comments that relate to an item on the agenda may be heard when the >> that's you can come to the podium and talk about an item we don't have on our agenda that we will speak about later. That's how that comes up. Uh we will ask you to speak for only five minutes. I have a timer right here. So if you see me looking at that thing, I'm not on Facebook. Got a timer. So, who would like to speak first? Welcome. >> Thank you. >> Name and address. >> If we can get your name and address. >> Yes. My name is Mon'nique and I live in Chaska. Do you need my full address? >> Sure. >> 10615 Puppets Lane, Chaza. I want to thank you for allowing me to come and give my public comment. I really appreciate that about this meeting. I'm here to exercise my First Amendment right as a citizen of Carver County. We just participated in professing the pledge of allegiance to the flag. Are we willing to be true to this pledge? United States of America. It doesn't seem united right now, unfortunately. One nation under God. I looked up why this part was added in 1954 and it refers to stewardship of moral laws and societal values. Something to think about. Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Right now only some of us have liberty and justice and I have never seen us more divided. I am here to express my dismay about Sheriff Camero's decision to contract with ICE to provide cells for detaining migrants picked up by ICE. There are many examples of unidentified agents surrounding someone and not telling them why they are being taken, providing them no due process. I witnessed this myself on September 9th at the immigration court in the federal Whipple building at Fort Snelling, which is our local immigration court. I was there as an observer, a young man, probably in his 20s alone named Alex was told his case was dismissed, and I'm quoting the judge, because only the United States government gets to decide what cases are heard. It wasn't what she said, but how she said it in a demeaning way that bothered me. She said he had 30 days to appeal. And the translator repeated this. He left the courtroom and I followed him, following my heart, and immediately he was surrounded by four unidentified men that I assume were ICE agents and swept down the hall into another hallway. I followed them, asking, "Where are you taking Alex?" I said his name a number of times so he would know someone was witnessing what was happening. Then they put a key card in the door unlocking it and just like that they were gone. After they disappeared through the door I was in some kind of shock and I wept. Another woman who was there following me hugged me and we wept together over the cruelty of what we had just witnessed. I don't know where he is or if he will be granted the opportunity to appeal or if he has already been deported. All I know is he is a human being with brown skin. He was alone and terrified. Many times today I wonder about where he is and what he might be going through. Many of the people being taken into custody have lived here for a long time. Some as many as 35 years. Many of them have been working hard and paying taxes. Some who have been picked up are citizens. I don't know if he will be deported to a country he has never seen or if he has family here that he will be separated from. I know one thing that I do not recognize the country we are living in. In connecting with the local Latino community, I have heard stories of fear. Fear of going to work, the grocery store, taking kids to school. I try to imagine what it would be like to experience that kind of fear constantly or to be unable to go to work or feed my family. We are all human beings. I am not alone in how I feel about the sheriff contracting with ICE. He doesn't have to do it. If more local police departments would stand up against this terror, it would make a difference. Every Saturday there are hundreds of people like me that share my values. We are out on 41 in Hazelton from 1 to two with protest signs in good and bad weather standing up for our values against the plethora of unlawful and unconstitutional actions being forced upon our country by the current administration. We are citizens you represent. I hope we can come together and unite. come together and discover what we have in common and treat our fellow human beings like we want our own families to be treated. I will be reaching out to each one of you to see if we can get to know each other better and if there is a possibility of changing this trajectory. Let's not fall into the trap of dehumanizing our neighbors. Thank you for your consideration. >> Thank you. Okay. Anybody else want to speak? >> Mon'nique, that was a great use of time. It was 4:56. >> Hello, my name is Peggy Dette. I guess I'm a foreigner because I live in Jordan. Um, but I >> Peggy. Okay. >> Yes. >> You live in Jordan. Okay. >> Yes, I do. But I'm part of the region and I'm part of the human family. Um, I wanted to start first um the idea that what's going on is somehow widely popular throughout the entire country. And I'd like to dispute that. Um first of all um less than 50% of the popular vote even went to what's going on here. A lot of people don't realize that 49.81% only um went to what's going on. But in fact the majority of the motans certainly disapprove um of this effort to deport people without a court hearing and without due process. Um, two out of three Americans, 68% believe that undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay legally in the US and that should be our priority. Um, uh, the support for this is rising and um, disapproval of it is rising as well. Um, I hope you're aware of that. Um, it's the main thing. This this against our constitution to uh put people away and grab them off the streets and and shove them into places where they've never been and never heard of and where they don't speak the language. It's morally intolerable. I don't want to play any part in this tragedy, this misery, and this suffering. History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes. So, everyone that has a part in making this easy and greasing the wheels and allowing this to happen, we are all guilty of this. And when we die and we have our life review, we're going to see that we stood and we had choices and the ones that we make are extremely extremely important. Um, I hear this story that well my grandparents did it the right way. You know what the right way was? They got off a boat and they got in a line and they got a stamp in their passport and that was it. And look what they've done. Look who we are. Most of us here have come out of that tradition. And it meant that those people that needed to come here and wanted to come here, they did come here and they did wonderful things and they built what we have. And the people that are coming now, they are doing wonderful things, too. They're helping us in our hospitals. They're helping us in our restaurants. And they're helping us in our construction and all kinds of things. And they are wonderful contributors to what's going on here. They're wonderful people. And they work really hard. And they're not animals. And and this kind of thing of what's going on is absolutely it's it's it's it's stupid. Okay. It's stupid politically because now it's not import. It's not supported. It's really stupid economically of how how many businesses and things are being affected by this. It's really stupid religiously, okay? Because you cannot tell me that Jesus spoke in this name. Maybe the people that are quoting Jesus are are saying that this is the way to go. But this is not morally supportable. It's humanly wrong. And none of us, we must not be part of this. We have a chance to go along or a chance not to go along. and the things that we decide are meaningful. And I just think that again, history perhaps doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. And they say, "Where were you when this was going on? When the concentration camps were being filled? Where were you, Grandma?" Well, that's the thing. Where are we? Where are we? And what are we doing with our choices? Okay? Because we do have them. And we we can make them. and I'm and we have to okay we have to so that's my comment >> thank you [Applause] okay anybody else nobody else here >> okay thank you we appreciate it all All right. The agenda review and adoption >> have approval, Mr. Chair. >> Second. >> Have a motion by UDA and a second by Lynch. Any discussion on the agenda? >> Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. Approval of the September 2, 2025 minutes. Can I get a motion? Some of >> I got a motion by Anderson, a second by Fehee to approve the September 2nd, 2025 minutes. Any discussion on that? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. Community announcements. My favorite part. All right, >> Mr. Lynch. Uh well, I would uh I think we had a life-changing event in our country when we have watched the assassination of uh Charlie Kirk and uh hopefully that will bring uh uh the you the country closer together. I watched a uh uh memorial service with hundreds of thousands of people there and it was absolutely nothing but prayer and uh prayer and uh uh positive thoughts. So, let's uh do that without burning stuff down. Amen. >> Then go golfers. >> Darn right. They took the they took the weekend off. >> Kosher Fehee will go down the line. >> Mr. Chair, thank you. I wanted to say congratulations on September 10th. Um, we celebrated our community and honored some individuals and organizations that have generously contributed to making Carver County a great place to live, work, and play. And those individuals who received those awards in philanthropy were Daryl Sudheimer, Elroy Lake, and then also Sagelock Corporation located here in Chaza. I know Daryl and Elroy personally and they are just individuals that who have contributed their time, their talents and their resources and have made a huge impact on Carver County. So, congratulations to them. Also, uh Commissioner Workman and I u last week traveled to Washington DC. Uh we had some great interactions with Emmer Smith and Clovershar and uh others. Um, and it was encouraging to and support the city of NYA's uh future wastewater needs. Uh, the city of Wakonia and their frontage road and also the city of Victoria with the county road 11 and highway 5 request. And then all of the support for Highway 5 through Carver County was very productive. And then also just the request for the Minnesota surface transportation reauthorization as we continue to push that um legal ease into the system. That went well. Also, I'd like to say congratulations to Debbie Marsh who's been working in the assessor's office for 50 plus years at Carver County on her retirement. Congratulations, uh Debbie. And then on September 10th, also the Carver County Development Agency and the city of Carver with some other local leaders, we gathered to celebrate the grand opening of Carver Place. It's a new 60-unit housing complex designed to serve low-income families in Carver County. It's located on Hartwell Drive and sharing a parking lot with the Carver Crossings, uh, which is another development generated through the CDA. And it's the CDA's mission to expand affordable housing options for residents earning below the county medium income. Also, part of that ribbon cutting, uh, we marked the 45th anniversary of the Carver County CDA. CDA was established in 1980 um as a Carver County Housing and Redevelopment Authority and over the decades the AY's objectives has expanded to include commercial development, countywide marketing strategies, workforce senior housing initiatives, and long-term growth planning. So, congratulations uh to the CDA. And then on a personal not note, it's homecoming week at Central High School in Norwood Young America. Uh the fall season for football, volleyball, and also cross country. So good luck to all the fall sport participants. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you, Commissioner Udman. >> Mr. Mr. Chair, I've processed some of the events the last weeks, but also the last months. And uh I hear what Commissioner Lynch is saying, but I think some of these things are unthinkable when you think about Melissa and Mark and Fletcher and Harper and Charlie and having a six and 10year-old that go to local schools and being there for lunch yesterday. It's sad that we have to look at our buildings differently. Um it's also somewhat sad that we have to look at our roles differently. And I think that all of us five um sit in a position of influence in ways that sometimes we take for granted. And so I've been having conversations um and trying to figure out what is it that we can do up here on some of the topics that are coming our way. It's not lost on me that 26 will be an opportunity to either build unity or build division. Um it's going to be a hotly contested elections. Uh arguably the district that I represent is the most politically diverse in the county. Um and we have to make room for both of those conversations. And so um one of the things I do is I zip to Minneapolis and I ran the lakes. I love Lake Harriet. If anybody wants to join me, they're welcome to do so. And it was just weighing on me, you know, how we can have more conversations with maybe people that we disagree with on a regular basis. And so I sat down, guy named George let me sit down next to him about an 85-year-old guy. And I said, "What are we supposed to do with all this stuff going on in our community?" And uh George says, "Can I tell you, can I tell you a story?" And I think we can tell a lot through stories. And he says, "I was sitting here however many days ago." And he said, "My son came and found me." He says, "You know, I come here every single week, every single day almost." And he says, "I had heard ambulance ambulances, but I didn't really know what was going on until my son came and got me." And my son said, "Dad, you got to come with me. Mom's been shot." His wife was one that was at the church that was shot. And um he says, "I want to thank the guy that put a tourniquet on her leg to save her life." Nothing else really mattered in that moment when I was sitting with George. We had a good conversation. And that conversation probably wouldn't have had happened if we didn't have heightened awareness of the things that are going on in our community. And for me, it's not Republican or Democrat. It's not um left and right. It's not Christian or non-Christian. It's we're a community. And I prioritize the values of Carver County. And I hope that that plays through with some of the decisions that we're in and the things that we step into, not just to win the next election, um but to make our community better. And u it's clear every single day why I come here. There's a picture of my two girls right here. I want this to be a place that they can live in 20 years. I want them to be able to afford to live here and I want them to be in community and so um it's a heartfelt time for me and some of it takes processing. I'm glad people were here with civility um expressing their opinions and there's answers for some of the questions that come. I talked to a gentleman that's been attached to the county for many years and I think through relationships we can get a lot of those questions answered and sometimes there's going to be disagreement and hard decisions. So I wanted to share that. Had a chance to be on a call with Bob Lavine last week. He was talking about great workplaces uh in employee engagement and it was a meaningful conversation of what we can do for our employees to make them feel welcome. I know that we just approved um a strategic plan that said people are our strength and I believe they are. Um and he shared some tips um that we can do that as a as a enterprise. I wish the rest of the audience would have stuck around for a little bit longer uh to hear maybe some of the things that we had to say because there are some great things that are going on in Carver County for years. um uh residents and um staff have been asking for better benefits and so I was on a call with our leadership um for insurance and they've worked really hard to lower the cost of insurance for our staff. Uh a family plan last year versus this year is down on on average about $4,000 a year. Those are big wins that are happening that sometimes get overlooked. Um I'll echo what Commissioner Fay he said about the CDA opening. I had a chance to be there too and see the building. Um the CDA team has had so much momentum in the last couple years largely um or partially due to some of the dollars that this board committed to have a historic a half decade of the most amount of incremental units that we've added uh within the county. I had a chance to attend CHASA Cares this past week and I know others did as well or had a part in it. And the heart of Chesa Cares is how do we build a miracle field and fundra for a miracle field for kids that have less less advantage than maybe um some people in this room. And it was a beautiful night of music and raffles um and kids playing um and some people didn't even know what it was for. Um but we're hoping that that pushes it over the top so we can build a miracle field here in Carver County. Um yet another amenity uh for some of the people in our community. I think some of it was partially inspired by the inclusive field or the inclusive park that's in Waconia. We make a point to be out there three or four times a year. I do Polar Plunge. I know the sheriff's office in the back. We jump in cold water for no other reason than to raise money for the Special Olympics and maybe a photo out once in a while, but some of those dollars went to the U park that's in Waconium and our family loves and uses that. If you didn't see it when you walked in, there's a door that hasn't yet been placed on the posts. Um, but that's just a small thing that we've done here at the county to protect staff from um challenges that may face us. We have the boardroom over here, we have a hallway, and then we have health and human services. So, I think it's just a small example of how administration and leadership has said if there's people there that shouldn't be up on the upper floor, um how do we protect those folks because there's been some concerns in the past. So, another point point of action. Maybe on a more fun note um the Apple House is open. I know that Commissioner Workman likes the first kiss and he normally uh posts that. We had a chance to try all their apples. That apple house will be moving to the other side of Highway 5 in the next couple years. So, this year and next year will probably be the last time on the existing Apple House to get those apples. One more year. >> One more year. Um the DMV, I know it's been an item that we've talked a considerable amount here. Was out the door when I was there with somebody from outside the county. Uh had a chance to go and experience that. The staff was fantastic. If you didn't know, there's an option where if you do a walk-in, they can text you. Um and so this guy had to wait a couple hours, which is perfect. He had two hours worth of meetings. Um but he got a text. They texted him when he was ready to go. He walked right in, got his license, and he says, "I think I'll be coming back to Chesca." Um, so an interesting time. Um, it's not our responsibility to deliver the service to the DMV, that's the state, but we have taken that on historically. And then two more things. Um, the fall is a good time to get on a mountain bike. I know Commissioner Workman, myself, Commissioner Fehee, others have gotten on their mountain bikes. Monarch, there's no better place than Monarch. It sits within the city of um, uh, Victoria, and I know we're going to be talking about Three Rivers Park District. They do a wonderful job of maintaining that and expanding it. So, my six and 10-year-old had never been on there. We were uh, they were fighting, as all six and 10 year olds do, that they didn't want to go. They didn't want to go. really didn't want to go. They were on there for maybe a couple hundred yards bow and uh they're like, "Dad, can we come back?" And you know, it's always a win when your kids are asking to do that. And then finally, if you didn't know about it, another opportunity to build community every Saturday um right by the courthouse um is something called the park run. Across the United States and the world, there's over 6,000 park runs in different cities. And we celebrated the fourth anniversary of the park run in Carver County and Chaska. There's four of them in Minnesota. This is the one that's the closest. And so if you're not doing anything, if you want to build community, if you want to have conversation, that's another opportunity to do so. So, thank you, Chair. >> Thank you, Commissioner Anderson. >> All right. Thank you. Um it's it's been a while since we've been in person. Uh I I also attended um both the CHASA um cares event last weekend. I want to thank the city of Chaza, the Chesa Rotary, Chaza Lions, and Ladybug Childare who sponsored that event. Um and the weekend before we had a Latino fest which really celebrated the diversity that um exists here in Chaza and had a opportunity to participate in that as well. Um last couple weeks ago uh I attended my first ever policy conference with the uh Association of Minnesota Counties and um I sit on the HHS committee. I there's been a a a shift um by the state and federal government to spend um to to shift their costs into um our counties. And um so we spent uh a good amount of time really talking about beefing up our lobbying efforts specifically with our state government um who has decided that that property taxes is how they're going to balance their budget and um that's going to be a real challenge for taxpayers if that happens. Um, so AMC along with uh Commissioner Workman and uh Commissioner Udman really ramped up our policy, our lobbying efforts this year and staved off some of that costs. Um, but we have work to do. We have we have a lot of work to do in in order to um push back against that. And so that I was able to participate in that and and talk about um and vote on how we we will continue that work. Saturday, I want to invite everyone. Saturday is our um the annual NAMI walk um for mental health awareness. And um I am walking that and I would encourage anyone who is interested in both uh personal wellness and um mental health awareness to to join me on that walk. And you can get more information at nami.com. It's all I have. >> Where where is that? >> Uh that's a good question. Uh Minneapolis, I think. Okay. I I don't know. I'll put it in my navigator and find out at the time, but nami.com is where you can find more information. >> It's terrible that I don't know where I'm going on Saturday. >> Well, there is a uh gopher football tailgate you could go to on Saturday morning before >> you come come and walk first >> 11 a.m. you can go to that >> game. And uh always good. I am always fully on board with our Golden Gopher sports and athletics. Uh, and I'm back on the wagon for the Vikings. Uh, week earlier, I had that foot ready to go off the off the wagon. I got to stay off the wagon there. But, uh, always fun. Uh, my Channass and Storm football team, ranked number one, was defeated. Uh, Chaza won. Seems like everybody else won. I'm not sure about Wakonia. I keep an eye on them, too. Um, but I will let you know that the Chanhassen at Chaza football game is Friday, October 3rd. I'll probably be there. Might have to get there early. Um, and if you sit by me, I'll tell you about my my great career highlights at Chesca High School. I always hope for a 5050 tie for that game. No defense, just fun tie game. Everybody wins, just the way I like it. Uh it was a a good power trip out to DC comm with Commissioner Fehee and others uh public works director Rob Jent and always good. Um this has not been a fun year for road construction and not just here but I know our Chaza friends and 41 and Engler what a mess. I didn't I grew up kind of close to there. I'm glad I don't live near there now. Uh but my estimation is with our arboratum transportation plan uh we're going to be in worse shape up in my neck of the woods next year. So if you think you're having trouble maybe this year although this is a happy week. Not only is it my birthday uh next Monday Monday >> uh but a lot of the projects are going to be opening. I think Bavaria at uh 82nd Street is going to be open, correct? And Ingler 41's going to be open. Um but next year 41 and five among others. And so a lot of different uh projects that will be going on in preparation to close down Highway 5 in 2027. Right, Lyndon? And to our poor friends in Victoria, beautiful Victoria, they have a geography problem there with lakes and beautiful Carver Park, Three Rivers, Carver Park, um that people think is ours, but we don't pay for kind of. So, and uh uh so when they close any single road uh near Victoria, uh they have a big problem to go around up to seven, which is not a good road. Uh my point being, we went out to lobby for some more money to keep this going. That highway 5 project has just one more thing to do and that's downtown Victoria. anywhere from 17 to 20 million or or so dollars, which used to sound like a lot of money. Uh but that is where a big bad bottleneck will occur if we do not get that funding for that. The roundabout, there will be a new roundabout uh starting next year by the Dairy Queen. And nobody seems to know what's going on with the Dairy Queen. Let's get that Dairy Queen open. Uh uh so a lot a lot going on. But I I did have friends, why why don't you stop going out to DC? Try to get more money so that we don't have to have all this road construction. Well, we're almost done for now. Um I tried to remember who the author was uh to some of Commissioner Lynch's comments uh but and I'll get it to you, but he he said we are in the midst of the ballardization of America. So, we have to have protective ballards around all of our buildings and big boulders and other things so people can't drive through our buildings uh and terrorize us. And uh somehow or the other over the past decades, that's where we've gotten. So, that's all I'll say about that. Let's uh get on to the consent agenda. >> I move approval, Mr. Chair. >> Second. >> Okay. Got a motion by Lynch and a second by Anderson to approve our consent agenda. Any discussion on that? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Those opposed? Motion passes. Commissioner Lynch. >> Oh, not yet. We have the county administrative report. >> Mr. Hemsey, >> I know you've been waiting for this, Mr. >> Wouldn't want to miss it. >> Well, good news. No meeting next week. Uh, however, on Thursday, there is a grand opening as you can see in page three of your packet of the Chesa Yards. There's some history behind that. I'm sure Commissioner Rudman can fill you in on that. Uh, which is the old Ernst House and a few additional houses. So, you're welcome to attend that. That's why we put it on the agenda that more than three or more of you can attend. That's all I have, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you very much. Commission Lynch, you got a motion? >> Yes. I could I'd make the motion to adjurnn our regular session and move into a work session. >> Second. >> Commissioner Lynch has moved to adjourn our regular session, move into a work session. And Commissioner Fee has second that motion. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. By the way, when we're out in DC, boy, this Lyndon Robin guy is a real popular guy. People like to hang around success, right? >> Okay. >> Asking for his autograph. >> Negative on that. >> Okay. Morning, Mr. Chair, commissioners. Good to be here after Vikings win. I am going to Dublin and England to watch two games in a row. So, should be fun. But anyway, uh we are here today to have a discussion um about our Carver County parks, our wonderful parks and trails in the county. And uh this thing worth calling So again, this is this is a work session just to talk about, you know, our potential service model for parks and trails. But to back up obviously with our budget challenges for 26 and ongoing um it's pretty clear that um division needed to look at mandated versus discretionary services and parks although being extremely popular as you all know is a discretionary service. So public works was tasked to look at efficiencies. What can we do with parks not only in the short term but maybe the long term and discuss some options uh for our system. As you know we're the highest growth county in the state. So parks are a wonderful resource. I know our our our staff does a tremendous job of looking after our parks and running our recreational programming. We're very proud of that. We know we have aging infrastructure that we've been working on in the last couple years with our asset preservation plan, working through that, trying to identify the conditions of our assets and figuring out a way to preserve, replace, and enhance them. That's an ongoing process. High level our our operating and maintenance budget is 66% funded with county levy. So with you know the budget challenges and and the future and the time is ripe I think to look at our model and discuss potential options. Uh so with that we'll talk about currently what we currently do at a high level kind of a revised model that the county is looking at. Um we already did some minor adjustments for the 26 budget and then look at a you know potential partnership model. >> Mr. Chair. >> Yeah. >> Could I just interrupt for a second? >> Sure. And uh one thing Lyndon didn't mention, we should recognize Marty Walsh, our former parks director. >> Who's that? >> Uh I've been asked, Jesus, is Marty still here? Yeah, he's still here. There he is. In a part-time role, but it does open an opportunity as as a key staff person, director, leaves that role. So, one thing I wanted to recognize. So, thanks Marty for your many years. He he'll be around for a while to help us out in a part-time capacity. >> Yeah, definitely. Marty's done a wonderful job for us and he's here for questions as you guys have questions about the presentation as is Sam who's also in the audience. We also have two reps from Three Rivers Park District which we'll I'll introduce when we get to that slide but thanks Dave. >> Yep. >> Apologize for not recognizing Marty. That's a good point. So our current model total budget is around 2.1 million. 66% is funded with levy. That's about 1.4 4 million uh recreational programming which I would say is absolutely fantastic and very popular and growing uh costs about 227,000 and only 52,000 of levy just over 52,000 levy goes into that. The rest are fees from the wreck programming themselves. So really really nice uh operation there. CIPs, as you know, those vary per year up and down depending on the projects. We rely on Met Council grants. Um, we rely on bonding money from the legislature or combined with Met Council bonds if the governor actually supports bonding for parks, which has been a struggle the last few years. Uh, AOF, that's the acquisition opportunity fund. That's a a fund that can be used to buy new land for parks. We've utilized that, as you know, several times, not only at Lake Okonia Regional Park, but also for the the former uh Union Pacific Railroad. Great opportunity to fund there. And then we have a new fund called the TAA fund that will help us fund uh enhance our trail funding. So, that's a great opportunity. um 245,000 levy. This is as of 2025. A lot of that goes into matching these grants as well as you know trying to keep up with our preservation program in our CIP staffing currently 12.3. So we're a small group staff that's 14 people and then uh 12.23 FTES and STOC. That's a lot of hiring that happens every season. for 26. If you recall, with uh Dave's recommended budget, uh we did reduce the levy in parks by 142,000. Um that combined with some re reorganization revenue increases, um shuffling a few of our funding sources around. Um we've got to number. Our wreck programmings remained unchanged. Again, that's a growing area of our business and revenue has grown in that area. CIP, you know, based on our our asset management system, we asked the board for 100,000 more for 26 just to keep up with those assets, replacing the things that are very poor and working towards the poor ones as well. So, that's uh that went up by at least in the recommended budget, 100,000 per 26. our staffing. This is where we did a a small a reorg where we reduced 0.9 FTEES. Um so as of 26 assuming the budget is approved we'll be at 11.4 FTEES or 13 staff. But looking ahead with the county model there are other things we we've started looking at. Uh one thing is to reduce our maintenance in the park parks. uh do less mowing, have more natural systems. That will take upfront money though in order to do that. I know Marty got a grant from LCCMR, right Marty? 350 roughly thousand to do some natural resource work at Lake Minowashta. Um but over time, maybe we can get away from um do a little less grass mowing and have a more natural system. One thing we're looking at too is the trail maintenance. This is just options that are out there. Can our operations department help out with that? Whether it's uh crack filling, clearing trees, whatever it might be. That's that's a way that's another model that we could look at. And then CIP program management. This is projects come along. For instance, Paradise Commons, a federal trail project or state funded trail project. we could have our program delivery engineers uh manage those instead of the the folks in the parks department. So there's some efficiencies that we could probably consider for for 27 and beyond questions so far. Okay. So the other model that we're looking at or discussing is, you know, outsourcing our partnership. And that's why we have Bo and Jonathan from Three Rivers Park here, just to give you guys an education on their partnership with Scott County. Um, that's the the one that I think is more relevant to us. They also have a contracting partnership or agreement that's newer with the city of Bloomington, but the Scott County model is the one they're going to educate you guys on today and then we'll open it up for questions and see where we want to go from here. Uh just little bit of a comparison between the two counties. Um on the screen here, you can see our park system and our trail system. takeaway is we have more regional trails than Scott County. They have more park acres. So obviously we have the the big Carver Park reserve that that's owned by Three Rivers. They manage that completely. The county has no responsibility in that. But we have 727 acres of regional park. Those are the lighter green ones. Obviously we have that Miller Lake search area that is in our plan for a future park perhaps. Uh but again, our trail system 41 miles and growing and with that new TA fund, we have an opportunity to enhance our trail system even more. Our user visits have been growing tremendously over the last few years and we're up to 1.8 million. So if you compare that on the other side to Scott County, more acreage of course they have more park reserves or they have I'm sorry about the same park reserves, more regional park acres, but their regional trail system is not quite as as big as ours yet and their user visits are lower. So just snapshot of how the two counties compare. Lyndon to that point too and the trails there's also the loose line which doesn't show up but that's a state trail obviously that doesn't show up but it runs parallel basically to the quarter rail >> 100% state-run trail. Yeah. Thanks commissioner. So, you know, just talking to Scott County staff and uh the three rivers um people a little bit. This is how the county the Scott County uh budget is today about 3.7 million 2.5 approximately levy. Um that that funding goes to Three Rivers Park to to manage the system. The wreck programming is included in that number. I didn't have a separate number for that. CIP just like us it's up and down every year >> but generally they spend two 250 to a million in levy per year depending on the projects that are in play more staff bigger system 25 FTEES that's 29 people and uh 13.6 seasonal FTEES. So that sets the stage a little bit. So, now I'm going to hand it over to these guys and they can run you through how the partnership uh works with Scott County. >> Welcome, Bo. >> Good morning. >> Thanks for having me here. Um, my name is Bo Carlson. I'm the superintendent of Three Rivers Park District. I've been with the park district for about 23 years, 24 years. I've been superintendent the last 12. Um, so very connected within the regional system and what we do organizationally. Uh, moving forward, I do a lot of the legislative stuff. So, a little bit more background on kind of the Metro Regional Park system and what that actually is and how that works. And then with me today is Jonathan Blaming. And Jonathan is one of our associate superintendents, also 20 plus year employee with the district. So, we have a lot of background, a lot of history, and hopefully we can share a little bit about who we are, what we do at the park district, and then specifically our relationship with Scott County. So, just a little bit of background on the Metro Regional System, and I hope I'm not repeating this or this isn't redundant information, but I think it provides a little snapshot or background of the system and what grew out of the Metro Regional Parks Act of 1974. or I think we have on there 1972, but it was actually 1974 that that bill was passed to create a metro regional park system. And this was intended by the state of Minnesota to have regional parks that would act as our state parks in the metro area. You think of state parks in the metro. We've got the loose line trails the commissioner mentioned. We've got William O'Brien, which is kind of on the border, maybe not even traditionally in the metro. Uh when you think about it, it's far on the east side on the river. And then you got Fort Snelling. Besides that, uh, Afton Park, I guess, is the other one, which is also very south Washington County. There aren't a lot of facilities to serve our metro residents. And when you have twothirds of the population in Minnesota, that's a lot of folks that don't have park opportunities in their backyard. So, the creation of the Metro Regional Park System back in 1974 established 10 implementing agencies that would provide those regional park services. And the intent is that they are regional and statewide significance. So, it has usership that's not within its pure uh political jurisdiction. It's outside of that area. 40% of your visitation is intended to come from an area outside of your jurisdiction. So, you have the burden of users coming from other areas, but you don't necessarily have the tax base to support that usership. That support would come from the state of Minnesota or the Met Council. Now, historically, that's great in concept, but that's not happening. we're seeing about 10 cents on the dollar of what they're actually supposed to be providing for the system itself. So in hindsight, you look back and you had all these systems that were created and this idea of the regional system in 1874, but we had park agencies that were established far prior to that. You look at Minneapolis and St. Paul, they were established in the late 1800s. Three Rivers Park District was 1957. So, we had all these systems that were in place and really it was this idea of instead of one park agency for the metro or maybe two, an east system and a west system, they broke it in all these 10 other agencies. And for many, many years, and Commissioner Workman remembers this probably very well, we fought very hard, each individual agency for our slice of the pie when we were trying to secure funding from the state of Minnesota. And it was a real battle. And I think over the course of the last 10 years or so, we've really come together as a group to say, you know, this does not make any sense. We shouldn't be fighting each other for money. We should be fighting to grow the pie. And with the passage of the parks and trails legacy fund, that's been a huge gamecher from the standpoint of tra uh funding and funding happening on a regular basis and funding we can count on and plan for. And that's the biggest element when we go forward with capital improvements and even our operations and maintenance. If we know the money's coming, we can establish it within our budgets. We can plan for redevelopment. We can plan for new construction. When we rely on bonding, that's not a reliable funding source. And as Lyndon mentioned, the last few years in this administration, we've done very poorly, unfortunately, within the metro regional system of providing dollars. One of the other downfalls of this uh creation of the system is that it really doesn't benefit growing or emerging counties. You look at the established systems of Minneapolis, St. Paul, even Three Rivers. We already had a builtout system by 1974. We already had parks. We already had usership. We already had the population base. So when we were looking at the traditional dollars that were coming in at the time, it really feeds the rich, so to speak. It feeds those agencies that have the capacity and the ability to spend that money and use it. It doesn't benefit emerging communities or emerging counties. And you look at the collar counties around the metro, that has been the case. It's been very challenging for Scott County, Carver County, uh, Anoka County, Washington County certainly to build their system because they just don't have the funding support that's coming from the state level. So, we have the the regional benefits there, all of which are based on formulas that are based on a couple things, population, usership, and park budgets. That's the big key for all three or all of these formulas. Those are kind of the criteria to use. And you think about that for a minute. You're talking about a million8 in visitation. Three Rivers Park District had 15 million visitors. You're talking about a couple million dollars in budget. Our budget just approved for 2026 is about $55 million. Uh you talk about population and the challenges Carver County growing population absolutely you look at suburban Henipin County or you look at the city of Minneapolis um you're talking you know millions and millions of folks within those communities. So, uh, it doesn't benefit the smaller county. So, there has to be a different approach and Scott County really recognized that way back, uh, in the I take a step back here before I get to Scott County. So, I mentioned a little bit of this, but uh, we were established as a special park district in 1957. We're the only special park district in the state of Minnesota. So, what that means is we have our own taxing authority. We have our own bonding authority. We have an independent board uh that five are elected, two are appointed by Henipin County. Um and we actually are in Henipin suburban Henipin County property tax breakdown. We're that category of other. Um and we actually have a direct assessment or a direct taxation uh of our property tax uh that supports our system as a whole. 27,000 acres, 16.5 million visits when you factor in our golf courses, Highland Hills ski areas, also under the operation of the park district. >> Uh parks, park reserve, special recreation features, uh regional trails, we have 180 miles of regional trail. We do that independent of Henipin County, which is our transportation agency. So, it's a little bit different, a little bit unique. We're not under one umbrella. We're two separate umbrellas, but we deliver those regional trail services. Okay. So, now the Scott County partnership. So, as Lynon mentioned, there are a couple different models. The one we're really going to focus on is the shared powers or the JPA joint powers agreement that we have with Scott County. So this dates back over 30 years ago and it was really the recognition at the time in the mid 1970s we had Murphy Hannerhan Regional or excuse me park reserve that that became available and it was a recognition that was really a natural resources gem in the metro area and we didn't want to lose the county didn't want to lose that to development. They really wanted to preserve and protect that piece of land. They at the time came to us and said, "We don't have the population base or the capacity to acquire, manage, and maintain this property. Could we enter into a joint powers agreement with you, the park district, that you guys would actually buy that property, you would own it, fee title, and then you would manage and operate it in perpetuity." And we did. And we had that joint powers relationship for both Murphy, Hannerhan, Clearary Lake Regional Park, and then Spring Lake Regional Park. So we had three parks within that system. As the years progressed, that was a wonderful acquisition master plan or a wonderful acquisition joint powers arrangement. It didn't do a great job addressing operations and in about the mid 2000s or early 2000s, we were seeing growth within the Scott County system. And we recognized this JPA that was from the mid 1970s doesn't really reflect where we are today and the operations that we have going forward. So we took a step back. We said to both boards, we need a new model or a different model. And we negotiated and agreed upon a new JPA that really focused on the park district providing all the park operations responsibilities for Scott County. It also focused on expanding and developing the relationships and developing the system as a whole. So looking at not only those existing parks, but adding new parks. We had Cedar Lake Farm that was coming on board. We had Doyle Kenneth uh regional park that was coming on board. We have Blakeley Bluffs that's being guided and cited through a planning process to identify a park reserve that would go in the Blakeley area. So when we look at this and really this is related to what I'll call hard costs and soft costs. There's hard costs that are related to the actual system itself and we have a separate standalone budget. So all those numbers I mentioned before that was our general fund. We have a Scott County budget that we adopt and the county adopts independent of our general fund budget and that just focuses on the hard costs of operation and the hard costs of delivering park services within Scott County with that. There are all the soft costs around it to support that system and stand up that system. And this is what we really brought to the table. And this is the efficiency that's really related to it. We don't go back I don't go back and charge my time to Scott County to say, "Well, I spent two hours working in Scott County. that's going to be x amount of dollars going forward. We don't have our finance staff do that. We don't have our communications and marketing staff do that. We don't have our HR staff do that. By the same token, the county has their county engineers. They have the sheriff's department. They have the soil and water district. That also plays a role in contributing to the soft cost of the success of the system, but we don't charge for it directly. So that's the efficiency that we bring to the table. It's not two agencies that have to replicate all those services. we have our own services but then we can come together to partner in delivering the hard cost of actually operating and m maintaining those parks going forward. So like I said we have a joint powers arrangement and encompasses all the regional park operations in Scott County. It does exclude the landing um which you might be familiar with the uh sorry um which is in Shakape. Uh we operate that a little bit differently. We operate that more as a historical facility um that we do some programming there but for the most part it's preservation of those historic structures and building and then we have our regional trail network. Now their regional trail system similar to SC or Carver County is really tied into their transportation system and they've really wanted to develop that. They don't have nearly the trail miles that Carver County has. Um but they are looking ultimately as that being an element of their transportation system and their transportation plan. We're the coordinating agency for operations and maintenance. We retain final decision-making authority for the three rivers owned parks. So Murphy, Hannerhan, and Clearary, which like I said, we still own fee title. We own those properties. And then Scott County has final decision-making authority for Scott County owned parks and trails, including planned parks and trails that are coming online. The JPA establishes a policy committee. We've got the chair and vice chair of both bodies. We meet quarterly roughly uh to talk about uh work plans, to talk about budgets, to talk about capital improvements, um just general kind of check-in opportunities. Uh we report back to both boards then. So those members of that JPA policy committee, uh provide feedback on where we're at maybe in the budgeting process, what it's looking like going forward, and then we have an annual joint board meeting. We do that typically in the fall where we bring together uh both bodies. We share where we're at in the budget process. We try to get an assessment of uh where the board's position is, how they're in support of that, and then we move forward on our end adopting our budget, and then Scott County moves forward on their end, adopting their budget, and then we come together to work on those budgets moving forward. I should mention as well, the park district provides a Scott County parks program manager who essentially is the liaison. They still do have a parks advisory commission that is active and provides community feedback and input. And we absolutely want that as part of that relationship. We want to hear from the residents, those park advocates, what their priorities are, what their interests are. So, uh, the program manager works directly. She chairs their park advisory committee. They meet monthly. Um, they get a lot of feedback. They do a lot of tours. Um, they then bring that information or the general manager brings that information back uh to both the county as well as the park district to share what that feedback is. Um that individual serves on our leadership team at the park district. She also serves a dual role in the county. Um so she's in two different places. Uh she reports through the county system. She also reports through the park district system. This is a little bit of a a crude drawing, but it gives you kind of a sense of the flow of information and ultimately the input that we utilize going forward within the system. So you look at policy and prioritization. That's really the role of the electeds within both systems. That's also utilizing feedback from the SPCA, which is the parks advisory commission in Scott County, and the general public as well. We then have our chair and vice chair group, and then we bring those recommendations to either board dependent again on the property related to the decision-making. If it's an overall item like maybe a marketing plan, it could go to both boards and then ultimately it goes to implementation to our operations team. Financially, as I said before, each agency has its own independent budget. So, Scott County has their budget, the park district has their budget. Scott County budgets for what their contribution is to support the Scott County fund. So, within that overall kind of hard cost budget that we have for Scott County, we take park operations, we take out all the revenues, so the state revenues, we take out the golf revenue, which is a big driver in Scott County. We have Clear Lake Golf Course that is a big contributor to that system. And whatever the differential is between all those revenues coming off the top and then the remainder that's the contribution that Scott County makes to the park district to support those operations. They budget for that. They approve that. That moves forward. There's no additional financial contribution from our end. There's no additional financial contribution from the county's end. We then administer that operating budget for operation of the parks in Scott County. We do constant financial updates as to where we're at both from a revenue standpoint as well as an expenditure standpoint. So we understand what's going on and in fact over the last couple years we've actually developed a fund balance within that which has been great to see. Uh that gives us the opportunity or Scott County the opportunity to take that fund balance and invest it back into acquisitions that they're doing within the system. So, as it relates to that park acquisition opportunity fund, we've not necessarily had to budget for that through a levy process. We've had enough fund balance that we can carry the match amount within Scott County that they can then look to maximize what those acquisitions are based on the requirements of the Met Council and the acquisition opportunity fund going forward. And then each agency accounts for their resources and expenditures committed to the partnership. So we recognize again like I said the soft cost that there's a lot of contribution that goes into that there's a lot of time and effort but that's the soft cost that we put towards the efficiency of running the operation and both sides do that and provide that. So it might be again all those uh pieces on the Henipin side or the three river side but also on the Scott County side those same services come forward through their planning department through their highway operations department through the sheriff's department is a huge contributor on their end. We don't do any public safety. Um the park district does have our own law enforcement agency. We do our own public safety in suburban Henipin County. Scott County chose to do that through the sheriff's department. That worked better for them. They already had that stood up and ready to go. Uh it was something the sheriff wanted to take on. We support them through a park um service officer that essentially is the one that's enforcing the ordinances. So sheriff's department doesn't want to necessarily be approaching people about dogs off leash or that kind of thing. So a PSO that we utilize within the park system is kind of the boots on the ground, eyes and ears of the park operations itself. And they communicate directly with the sheriff's office when they do have incidents or issues that might need a higher level of law enforcement or public safety support. Uh all the employees in Scott County are Three Rivers employees. So they're all on our payroll. They're all in our union. Uh they're negotiating through our union going forward if their maintenance employees were non-union as it relates to park operations. But they do serve in our team. They're members of our group. Uh not only do they work within Scott County, but they have the opportunity to move within the organization and we certainly have seen that. So in the maintenance ranks, for instance, they have opportunities for promotion and it might be outside of those parks. Uh but we have growth opportunities for the folks that are both in uh all the operations or direct operations within the system. They might have the opportunity to transfer to a different park and be a manager someplace else within the system. That just means another opening and we backfill those positions going forward. As I said, the program manager is a member of our leadership team. Our work plan and budget is developed and presented to both boards for adoption. And we have a 12-month notice of termination for the agreement. Uh I just put that in. There's the opportunity obviously if we walk away or if anybody walks away we're not able to immediately stand up those parks or budget for what the operation of those parks might be. In this instance within Scott County it's a recognition that if we do walk away we'll still have the operation of Murphy Hanneran and Clearary Lake because we do own those properties be title and they would have the separate operation in their system and we would have to ramp up and kind of detangle the strings here of the relationship going forward. So the benefits certainly efficiency and coordination uh we can be more efficient on both the delivery of services. We can be more efficient on delivering projects. We can be more efficient on operations. We can be more efficient uh in the relationship with the Met Council. We provide support and direction. Uh we do the same for Bloomington where we're the agency at the table. When the implementing agencies are getting together, we provide that legislative support going forward. Strengthening the voice of the partners and the regional and state level. We try to have that profile that we have those relationships with electeds and the proper people that are providing those funding dollars going forward. Uh we add expertise and capacity. We're a special park district. We only do one thing. It's natural resource-based parks and providing recreation opportunities. We don't have all the other demands of local units of government. Um but we do that one thing really well and it's environmental education. It's outdoor recreation services, natural resources. We have our own natural resources department. So we have forestry, we have wildlife, we have water quality. All those folks provide their expertise and support of the Scott County system. And we've done a number of different projects whether that's been funded through Lassard and Sams or the LCCMR or just initiatives that we've tried to do like preventing oakwilt or some of the other things that we've tried to do to prevent invasives within those parks. And then planning services, we do support them in planning. We've assisted in master plans that they have uh both for developed parks in the form of clearary but also in Blakeley Bluffs. This vision of a a park reserve that's coming on board in that area. Uh we do park and trail design. We have uh architects, engineers on our staff. Uh we're project managers for projects being delivered in Scott County. So we've had a number of different initiatives down there, whether it be camper cabins, shower buildings, lakefront services at Spring Lake Park. All of that have been supported by our staff or a member of their team, the project team to deliver those projects. All right. So, that's a a very quick snapshot and overview again of the relationship that we have with Scott County. Uh it has been working well. Um that has been in place for now close to 15 years. And I think moving forward when we see the growth of their system and the contribution uh that the county has made to the development of that Scott County park system, it's been phenomenal. And and it's exciting for us to see and has been exciting for us to see in the last couple years where we've made significant investment in the the form of camper cabins at Cedar Lake Farm. We've seen a new shower building coming online that's at Clearary Park. Um, we have a lakefront development, like I mentioned before, that's at Spring Lake that has been a phenomenal asset to the public and is being wellused and well-loved. Um, we have a very similar project with Carver County that we're really excited about with Camper Cabins, uh, going in out at Carver Park Reserve. I think another first step in adding to the amenity of Carver Park Reserve and what a gem it is and all the different services that are out there. Now, if we could just get that county road open, it would be great to have access or better access, improved access, uh, as well as the trail systems out there connecting people into Victoria and and places uh, throughout both suburban Henipin and Carver County. So, with that, Mr. Chair, happy to answer any questions you might have. >> County Road 11. Good thing I have a Jeep uh, to drive that. I was asked by uh Humanity Alliance to uh and I guess that sign that is the Humanity Alliance sign is further down the road. It should maybe be more out by Highway 7. Um I don't know why they put it half a mile down the road or something, but uh I'm talking to our public openly discussing things with our public work director. Um >> the connection should be done at the end of the week. the connection, >> new road connection. >> We'll talk about that later. >> Um, uh, and so I I've I get to see Bo in action at our regional park meetings, uh, which are usually every morning, and hang out with Marty. Good time to hang out with Marty down there in St. Paul. If you're going to be in St. Paul, might as well hang out with fun people. But uh uh but we're we're not, as we know, we're not always going to have Marty around. We're not going to always have uh Bo around. And so I always maybe it's a negative attitude, but what you know, how how do we get the hell out of this thing if we need to get out of it? Because Bo replacement is some sort of a maniac or something changes in the board or or whatever else. And so I don't know that that's a question for you today, Mr. County Attorney. Uh but that would be a concern of mine. Um because it's all about personalities and other things and this is all really good. But but so that that's >> Mr. Mets. >> Mr. Chairman, that could all be discussed and negotiated. Certainly. I saw that it was a 12-month >> notice you have to provide, but we could discuss and negotiate some other provisions at least initially to make sure it was a good working relationship. So that that's what I was thinking as well. What if this isn't working like we wanted? >> We don't want to be stuck in a neither party wants to be stuck in a longer term relationship. >> Commissioner Lynch, >> along with that, that was kind of my question. Uh, do you make investments? Uh, when you explained it, uh, you own Murphy Hammerhand and then, uh, so with the termination, uh, the they would go back, Scott would own yours and you'd still have yours. Do you make investments in their park? >> Um, new playground equipment, camper cabins in the Carver County parks. That was kind of my question. So then if it would separate, how does how does that how does that work? >> So, Mr. Chair, Commissioner Lynch, I'm not sure how formal you guys do your work sessions, but um so basically all the capital improvements >> Extremely formal. >> Thank you. >> Um all the capital improvements that we do within Carver County are done through the Metro Regional Park System Investment. So it's uh grants that are received through the parks and trails legacy fund or through the parks bonding program um or planned for through those different programs. Now what changed a little bit is ARPA. So, the American Recovery Plan, the money that came a couple years ago, Scott County made the decision to invest all their ARPA funds into park assets and park infrastructure components. So, they've invested some outside dollars, federal funds into capital improvements and the agreement and all of these going forward. You know, we have to have partnerships, right? The only way we're going to deliver these services long term is not for independent units of government to ramp up and do all this stuff. We have to have relationships. So, one of the first things that all the attorneys say right away is, "Well, what happens if this goes south? We got to have a way to get out of it." So, we do develop agreements for almost all the elements of the system or the partnership we have with Scott County, but then also for all the other agencies that we partner with at the park district, and there's many of them. Um, but even down to a pickup truck, if we buy a pickup truck out of the budget, we actually have an agreement that delineates kind of what happens if this goes south, who ends up taking the truck home at the end of the day and who operates it, who maintains it, who keeps it in good condition. So, we do negotiate all of that uh because it is a concern of many electeds and rightfully so, right? You want to protect those assets, you want to protect that investment and ensure that if you are going to make those investments going forward that you can make them. Now, in the case of Scott County, I think the unique thing um that we have not really gotten to and kind of the un said element of it is if we do unravel that relationship, are we really going to have two agencies operating in one county? So, we've got Scott County operating a regional system and Henipin County operating a regional system or three rivers. Um that's probably up for future negotiations what that looks like. you know, should we go back to Scott County and say maybe we transfer those parks over to you guys for operation and ownership long term? Um, but we kind of have that in Carver County right now. We have two agencies operating in Carver County. We're operating Carver Park Reserve and the county is operating its own park system, uh, as was delineated through the earlier slide. So, um, we're already kind of there. It's a matter of going forward, how do we kind of make that work? I thought that was a a great answer. Um because there's a question for you is there's many needs within our our park system. I you're going to put camper cabins at Carver Park. It's absolutely wonderful, but that's really going to drive the need for the ones that we want to build on uh Coney Island. Our our park commission actually went and visited the ones in Scott County. I was super impressed. I think thought those were uh phenomenal. And once they get a taste of our public gets a taste of those, they're going to want it. We have different needs like playground equipment and at Baylor Park, we have willing land owners uh willing to uh uh same thing with Miller Lake, you know. So, we have a park system to be expanded. At the end of the day, I don't know if John Q Citizen really cares if it's run by Three River Parks or Carver County or whomever. They just like to go and enjoy the park. So, I'm actually kind of excited to sit down and uh have this I'm glad we're having this conversation. >> Well, and quickly before uh we move on from that. So, are the Carver County taxpayers paying continuing to pay for the employees used in our parks? So, >> just differently. >> So, I I always So, and you mentioned, you know, our employees will be your employees. and you'll negotiate the union contracts. And so you get a board of Three Rivers Park Board and they decide the employees need 25% raises. We're going to get that bill. Correct. >> Mr. Chair, uh that's a very good question. So yeah, that I mean that is the theory. That's how it works in Scott County. So those are our employees. They're covered under our union contract, our union agreement. Um, I will say we have a very conservative board that in the last 10 years, I think our total uh tax that we've raised is a little under 5%. So, we have a very fiscally conservative board looking at these. >> I wish we did. >> I'm sorry. Um, now that's not to say that's in perpetuity, right? And that's always going to be the case. But uh that is one of the elements that is part of the challenge is recognizing what that investment is going to be and recognizing again from the standpoint of the county's perspective what they're capable of covering. So in the relationship with Scott County um we do go forward. We put a budget together very early in the spring. We have the idea of needs. And when we're talking about some of these assets that we've added from a capital standpoint, they're no good unless you add operations dollars and you add staff to support them. If you don't have the ability to take care of what you have, you're not going to be able to deliver those services going forward. So, we have very early conversations with the county and it's the opportunity for the county board to say this isn't going to work for us. This is too high. So, at that point, we have to redirect. And in some cases, we've cut staff. we've cut positions or we've looked at rearranging or efficiencies that we can provide in delivery of that services with maybe lower level staff or seasonals or those kinds of things. But that is one of the elements that goes into the system. Now, I don't think that that hasn't been a problem in Scott County going forward. That's not to say again that that couldn't be an issue, but um I think the opportunity from a staffing standpoint and what they could do as far as growth and opportunities within our system as a whole is also a benefit for them as individual employees. >> Another good answer, >> Commissioner Bay. >> Mr. Chair Bo or Lynon, can we go back to the map that shows Carver County and Scott County, the different trails and parks? Because Bo, you had talked about the communication part with the marketing and and the services. And I'm not familiar with the signage. For example, at Clearary Park, does that say this is a Three Rivers Park in Scott County? >> Yeah. How does that work? >> So, good question. So all of our marketing is in cooperation. So it's Three Birds Park in cooperation with Scott County. We actually have separate um branded materials that we utilize in Scott County that highlights the partnership and talks about the partnership. In fact, you'll probably see I always seem to have branded materials on myself, but often for the Scott County, it's Three Rivers Park and partnership with Scott County right on the logo. And we do that in the signage. We do that in brochures. One of the elements I just to speak to that because you do mention it, the benefit of the marketing and the reservation groups and all that kind of thing. So when they call into our marketing number and they want to book a campsite or they want to book a picnic shelter and the one that they're interested might not be available that particular weekend or already be booked that particular weekend, we can direct them to another facility someplace else within the system. So from a delivery and a customer service standpoint, there's a real benefit in that that we have so many more resources and availabilities that they might have right now. So in the case again for Scott County or for excuse me Carver County, you're calling and you want to reserve the picnic shelter at Minowashta. Well, maybe that doesn't work, but maybe we've got shelters at Carver that are available or maybe even Lake Minnetonka that might be available that's still in that area, close proximity, but maybe we can direct them in a different direction. All of that's under our marketing communication staff that they take care of that as well as promotion of events and activities. >> Thank you. And then in relationship to the trails, for example, you have the Spring Lake Regional Trail. Um in our scenario, for example, the trails at Baylor Park, would you manage those trails within the park? And then also, would you manage the Dakota Rail Regional Trail because that technically is not in a park? Great question. So, a couple different elements of that. And one of the really interesting things I think within the Carver County trail system in particular is at least a couple of those trails we did used to manage for a long period of time. Um, in the case of Dakota Rail, that's an extension or an additional segment of the Dakota Rail as it extends into Henipin County and goes 13 miles from St. Bonnie into downtown Weisetta. So there would be a natural transition for us to take on those. But again, recognizing what Lyndon mentioned and I think this new transit tax that's out there that's available is going to be a little bit different situation for trails going forward. And we can certainly have those conversations going forward what that would look like as it would relate to a Baylor Park or any of the parks within the system. If there's trails inside the park, yeah, we would manage all of that. That would be part of our our program. >> Okay. And then um you had mentioned um with the PSO handling most of the problems within the parks. Can you give us any examples of how a PSO would have escalated a situation up to call the county deputy or the county sheriff? Great question. So in Scott County, we actually have a a lead PSO who is a little bit higher level service. They actually have access to the LEG system. So they can get online, they can contact the sheriff's directly. They have a radio directly as well. So they have a quick line to a sheriff's deputy that they can call on their channel to connect with them if there is an instance that's been escalated or needs to be escalated to that next level. And then we have two lower level PSOs. They don't have ticking ticketing authority. They're not out there. They don't have the ability to be out there writing tickets. That lead PSO does have that ability. So they can write uh citations on ordinance violations. So small level and it could be anything from being at the off leash area and you don't have a pass. And our approach and our approach to law enforcement in general. It's really from a customer service standpoint. We want to inform and educate. We're not out there writing tickets for the sake of writing tickets. So it's to tell people, by the way, you need to have a pass out here. If you go to the visitor center, they're happy to sell you one. Um if it does become a reoccurring situation, then it could be a warning ticket and then ultimately a citation from a sheriff's deputy. Um, it could be anything from an off leash violation to an offtrail violation. Uh, one of our ordinances is that you in the park reserves at least in particular, you need to stay on a designated trail. So, somebody might be off trail. Um, we get a lot of dumping. That happens I think in all parks, maybe statewide if not nationwide. People dump their trash. We try to track that down, figure out where it's coming from. Um, so the violations are all relatively low level. And you look at our system as a whole, uh, that's pretty consistent with what we see, um, is really minor violations, minor conflicts, trying to talk through those situations with the customer and figure out kind of what's going on, educate, inform them of what needs to be done going forward, and then hopefully we see compliance. >> Thank you. One final question, Bo, just that what does Carver County have that Three Rivers would like to manage? That's a great question. I, you know, again, we're in the regional park business. That's what we do. We don't do local parks. We don't do basketball courts. We don't do ball diamonds. We don't do any of that. That's one of the challenges I think Bloomington found within their system. They were split between the two. They had a local park system and they had a regional park system. And they were challenged to do both well. And they really recognized, hey, Three Rivers, you guys are doing this work. You're good at doing this work. Why don't we let you take the regional system and we'll focus on the local system. Carver County has got a great regional system. I think we could manage your system. I think we would have the capacity and ability to manage your system and I think we could do it well and they complement each other very well. I mean, we've existed for as long as Carver Park's been around and serving not only Carver County uh but Henipin County and Henipin County very well. And I look at Woodland Cove and the growth that's going on on the north side of Highway 7 and the system that we have and the trails that connect into Carver into Victoria into the Carver County Trail. They're interchangeable. uh they really complement each other well and I think there's opportunities and it might be something along the lines of developing camper cabins that the demand for cabin camper cabins right now is at a peak and if we look at a cabin or two at Carver hopefully maybe five or even more down the road but they do take a while to develop and if we do get to the point where we're at capacity there we can direct people to the next system which might be at Wakone or it might be someplace else within Carver County I think that complements each other very well So there are elements of this that I think make a ton of sense uh going forward. I look at Minowashta Park. I live off of Highway 7 myself in the Minnotonka area. I got a lot of friends that live on that corner of Minnetonka that use Minowashta every day. They love that off leash area. They just assume it's the three park or a lot of times they say, "Yeah, your park over there at Minowasha." And I think to the commissioner's point, the public doesn't recognize that. They don't know the difference between the two. They want clean. They want safe. They want good facilities. And that's kind of the bottom line from my perspective at least. >> Thanks for being here. I think it's, you know, five years I've been on here, it's been a good relationship. We've had a chance to go to your annual um celebration that Gibbs has led the charge with and heard all the different things that you've been doing. Um I think we'd be remiss if we didn't elevate the efforts of Marty. Um I've always said that we operate our parks on duct tape and twine and and none more clear than and you've stretched the dollar and delivered great things. We deliver a cost per visit about a third of what Scott County does in less than what Three Rivers does. So we're at 78 cents if the math is right um per visit. Um pay a buck to go jump on the trails, pay a buck to go to our lakes. I mean that's it's the best healthc care program I think you've said in all all the park meetings we've had um that's out there. Scott County at $2.27 and and three rivers at $3.70 based on levy divided by visitors. And so, you know, we'd move from kind of doing the best with what we've got. Let's make wait for some money to fall from the sky to being intentional about what does the future of the park look like. And that comes at a cost for sure. No doubt about it. Um, and I don't say it as a cost as a as a co cost per se, but at an investment because this has elements that we've all been talking about. Perhaps the best mental health program we have in the county is is our parks. Um um perhaps our best way to attract and retain talent is our parks. Perhaps our best economic tool is our parks, right? So, there's a lot of pieces to that equation. I think that revenues is a big piece of this and I think um the creativity that you've had in Three Rivers Park District to generate revenues is to either cover your cost and deliver amenities or deliver surplus to subsidize other areas are are important pieces, especially as we talk about budget. Can you talk about some of the um facilities? I've been to all of them, but if you could talk to some of the facilities that might be delivering a user experience that's feebased um that we may be considering or could consider as part of Carver County in the future. I'm thinking about Elm Creek and I'm thinking about camper cabins and I'm thinking about some other the band events. >> Uh Commissioner, thank you. Yeah. And and great point and I think the interesting element of the the cost per per visit or per visitor is an interesting discussion and you look at that you rais a very good point related to Carver Countyy's cost per visit and maybe Scott County or three rivers and when you look at those direct costs and that's the key to it. You look at the direct cost of what that services but then you have to look at the indirect costs. And one of the elements that I'm very proud of, we're very proud of at the park district is that we have no deferred maintenance. we've kept up within our asset management system to keep up with all the maintenance that's required and one of the real beliefs that we have as an organization is take care of what you have. You got to take care of what you have first before you build new and all of that is investment back into that system. So, one of the key components and maybe driving those costs a little bit higher is that we invest a lot into maintaining our system and our asset preservation. So, there's a chunk of that money that might not directly go to mowing that trail that that trail user's on. it might go into the seal coating or the crack sealing that goes into that trail long term or the redevelopment of that trail long term. Trails are a great example. There was a huge boom in trails. I remember when I started, one of the first things I did was as the trail coordinator in the park district, trails were a newer thing. We were still having battles with communities that didn't want to see trails in their backyard. Now we get demand all the time about communities saying, "We want more trails. More trails, please." They're hugely popular. They're also a huge investment. You got to take care of them. you got to take care of the pavement long term and that's the seal coating crack sealing redevelopment long term. So we make investments on that side from the standpoint of funding and revenue that go back into the system. There are some unique things that we've done and as as an organization and recognize um we've got a tubing hill up at Elm Creek that's tremendously popular. If you split that tubing hill off from our total general fund operation, it covers its cost. Now, what we factor in, another element to it is we also do cross-country ski trails at Elm Creek with man-made snow. So, the snow making and the cost delivery of those services are a little bit more expensive and when you factor that in, it doesn't quite cover the cost, but it comes really close and it actually reduces that expenditure that's necessary to support that system. We also use that building or that chalet as a banquet center, a banquet facility. and recognizing that you got this great winter recreation area and even with man-made snow we typically can get open first part of December and we'll be open till now days it's been first part of April we've had kind of extended winters or our seasons have changed we're no longer early Thanksgiving uh to kind of end of February we're now pushing into March but we recognize if we have a building that has the capacities to support that winter operation in the winter months it's got to be sized accordingly we don't want that building to just sit empty for the remaining six months of the year. So, we use it as a banquet facility. We use it as a rental facility and it sees a lot of traffic that way. Um, we abandoned our fee entry system back in 2003 where we were charging a a pass. You entered the park, you had to pay five bucks or seven bucks or you had to buy an annual pass. We had a commissioner at that time that said, "You know what? Everybody's paying in the form of their property taxes. Why are we charging them twice?" And it was the recognition that for basic park services, you have free access to the parks. You can use the parks. If you want to go fishing, you want a picnic, you want to go for a walk on the trail, that's all free. If you have value added services, so services that we have, uh additional staff time or resources that are required to go into that, you're going to pay a fee for that. And that could be launching your boat. That could be an off leash area. That could be cross-country skiing where we do have man-made snow. We have lights. We have the facilities to groom those trails and all that. So, we do charge a a p or a uh recreation pass for those various activities. Back when we still had our park entrance fee, we were looking at about four or five million visits per year. And we thought, boy, if we could ever get to six million, that would be huge. Like I said before, we're at 15 million right now. We generated at its peak about a million dollars for our past sales and that was dailies and annuals. We're at about 9 million right now in revenue through our pass system alone. And then in addition to that, you look at the feebased services we charge for our banquet facilities and we have what we call the big four which are marquee facilities that we utilize for wedding rentals, event rentals, those types of things. Uh and then we have additional space rental. Um that might be picnic pavilions, shelters, uh campgrounds, camp spaces, camper cabins have been hugely popular. Um to see the growth both at Baker Park Reserve as well as Cedar Lake Farm now coming online. So we're always looking at that new revenue stream, what that new revenue opportunity is out there. Um and we have been successful in a variety of different ways. And the key, I think, from our standpoint is really looking at it from a year- round standpoint. It can't just be revenue in the summer. It can't just be at that golf course. It's got to be at other facilities around. And we've tried to tap into that as best we can because as we all know, we're a 12-month uh recreation demanding public and there are facilities that can be provided to provide those services, but then also generate some revenue as well. >> I think it's great that you guys are sizable enough to be able to deploy um capital and tal talent to try new things, too. and I want you to talk a little bit about what you've done with bands, but um you've been quoted as saying, and I've stolen your quote, is we've loved our parks to death, and we have um throughout COVID and and high traffic through through our parks. We've seen it. Our team's responded to it. We've addressed those things. One of the questions that came up a couple years ago is can we have a separate line item on our taxes that shows what people are investing in parks? Uh because we park, we invest, what was it, it $2 per hundred um in parks, which is poultry. um it's about a half of what we invite invest in our libraries, but the parks are are more beloved, more used, etc. Is there a path with Scott County or others to carve out a line item on our taxes that says this is what you're contributing to parks? Is that a revenue stream that people could say yes, I do or don't referendum wise or otherwise? Because right now it just comes in through our levy and I don't think people appreciate it as much. If they knew that we paid, you know, two bucks per hundred on our parks, they'd be like, "What are you talking about? We should pay more than that. It's worth way more than that to us." and people in other areas have said our parks are worth that when they get a chance to vote on it with referendums and whatnot. Is there a path for referendum or or line item tax items if we were to partner to free up dollars that doesn't necessarily come out of a general levy but comes out of the dedicated park levy? >> Commissioner Utman, that's a good question and certainly I would have to do a little bit more digging through the statutes to kind of figure out what that would look like and how that would be managed. Um certainly within our system, you know, we are another line item in your property tax statement. And when you look at at your overall uh tax burden, if you will, for property tax owners in that suburban Henipin County, you look at that, the average valued home in suburban Henipin, I think this year is 417,000 somewhere along those lines. The those homes pay about $100 to us per year. Um so when we're looking at our fee increases or we're looking at maybe our um preliminary levy and what that increased dollar amount might be, it's two bucks per year going up when we're looking at a 4 and a.5% increase on our taxes. So they directly can see that. Now when you think about about a $100 and the overall burden for a property tax system within suburban Henipin and you have school districts, you have cities, you have the county, you have the state, there's a lot more that is going to those different systems. Now, I don't know how you would break that down, and maybe you could through a referendum process to pay off what that might be ultimately. Um, and there's been a lot of successful local and county referendums out there and throughout the state that I have to dig in a little bit more to see how they would go about >> functioning with that. >> And then I'll stop. But you talked about golf courses in your holding, and I know that there's one, if not two, golf courses within Carver County. Um, let me back up. We we have the second most amount of uh holes of golf per capita per square mile here than anywhere else in the state except for Ramsey. Part of that's our size, but part of it's our holdings, right? Um Hazeline draws, town course draws, etc. But there's others that are like, are we going to be a golf course or we not? Is that part of would you guys have interest in a potential acquisition or building a new one or how did that come to evolve? Was it part of the system already that you guys just took over? it seems to be a net positive um for most courses that do it well. >> Uh Commissioner Otterman, certainly that's an element of the services that we provide. We have six golf courses now um total uh in a variety of different forms. We have the championship course at Baker National. We have a number of nine-hole uh executive courses, if you will. We have the driving range at Parker Lake. Uh most of which are partnerships. We have partnerships with the county at both Glen Lake Golf Course as well as Parker's Lake uh driving range. and then we have a couple stand alone and you've seen the tremendous growth of golf since co and those numbers seem to be staying strong and will continue to rise I think. Um but there is going to be a breaking point where we have land valuation rising tremendously fast and you have some of these mom and pop courses that they're having a hard time making it or they're having a hard time kind of consistently delivering the service and they're looking at boy I could sell it to this developer and make a lot of money and now I could retire. Would we be interested in expanding our services? It would depend on the circumstance. It would depend on the conditions. Um the benefit that I think we bring to the golf operations within our system is the scalability. Y >> uh we have both golf superintendents that manage multiple courses. We have golf managers that manage multiple courses. We have instructors that instruct at a variety of different courses. So the more we grow in that side of things and the more we grow and have those opportunities because of the scalability that we have, we can deliver efficient services and all of our courses are running in the black uh and in some cases significantly in the black. Um they not only within our system we call those enterprise operations that includes our skiill uh that not only do they cover the cost of operation, they cover their capital cost too. So, in the case of the golf course, we just completed an irrigation project, $2 million irrigation replacement project that was covered 100% out of proceeds raised by the golf course. >> Good. >> Um, the chalet and I just to mention one more example. Sorry, I can't help myself, but um the chalet project and we rebuilt Highland Chalet a number of years ago and that was a $15 million investment. All of which was made by proceeds that we saved for many years to rebuild that chalet. Again, the recognition that that's a thriving ski business. We're probably at capacity. That hill's not getting any bigger and it's not very big to begin with. So, we probably can't expand our winter revenue, but we really wanted to expand our summer revenue recognizing we're putting 15 million into this building and it's going to sit empty for 6 months out of the year. >> We had an initial goal of a $250,000 revenue amount that we asked that hill to generate uh over the summer months. And at first that was a little bit of a challenge and then we really challenged the staff to come up with unique ways that we can do it. Uh we hit this last year about 450,000 in revenue. And one of the things that they've done and one of the things they've been successful at is not only looking at the banquet revenue because we all know we're limited. You have a limited season in which you're going to have weddings. People aren't getting married on Tuesday nights. That just doesn't happen. But we do have happy hours on Tuesday night. We do have concerts in the park on Wednesday nights. We had two concerts uh one in August, one in September where we had uh pretty bigname bands, local bands, not anybody nationally, but local bands that tour around. We made 25,000 and 20,000 in concessions alone in two nights. Um we run the concession operation. The band is free. Uh the music is free. People just show up. The amount of revenue we develop or we collect via concessions is all right there. So there are different streams that we've been able to identify and they've been very successful. Uh, last thing for you is I've cast vision to see if we could have 5 million visits by 2050. We're on pace to do so. 1.8 million visits last year. I don't know what the counts are um recently. Uh, and and and and to generate $5 million a year in revenue out of our parks. I think those are doable and I think you guys have the vision to to do that and pull it off and the staff and all the other stuff. You talked about the band events. You talked about sledding hill. We casually refer to the sledding hill and and Woney as Tom Workman Sledding Hill because he saved us a million dollars by dumping dirt there, right, from the road project. Um, but those are some areas where I think we can get there and I'm supportive of taking the next step. I know there's a lot of devil in the details and how do you work through contracts and what does it all look like, but and it's an arbitrary number, but I would like to think of a future that maybe in five or 10 years if we did come to partnership that maybe 70 or 30% of our revenues came from generated surplus within our parks that are optional. You don't have to force anybody to buy a beer or a soda or a hot dog at these events, but you're you're pressing the envelope to say, "Hey, wait a minute. We look at the future of the parks. We're getting a lot of stuff dumped on us at the state and federal level. How do we how do we continue to deliver great parks? I think we have to be smart about delivering surplus with surplus generating activities and I don't think anybody in the metro does it better than you guys. I also think that in partnership with Carver County, we tend to forget that you guys have largely delivered Carver Park Reserve at no cost to our taxpayers. We'll start generating some revenue out of those things and there's some grants and partnerships and all that other stuff, but it's a huge holding and we thank you for doing that. What does it look like for us to take this system to the next level? And I think that I think that there's cost associated, but I think you guys bring it. And the last thing is is if staff's listening, you said it and I guess have missed it before, but but the opportunities within Three Rivers with I don't know how many employees you guys have, >> 350. >> 300 versus 11, 12, 13 that we have here, that was lost on me over the last couple years. That's a huge opportunity, I think, for some of our staff to see professionally how at a career basis that maybe we haven't necessarily had so much. We can retain talent and do stuff like that. So, I'm in support of this. I think we should be intentional about generating revenues to pay for some of this stuff. So, thanks, >> Commissioner Anderson. >> All right. Thanks. Um, welcome. Uh, a couple questions. I just first want to loop back around on the PSO. I I'm a big biker. Um, so there's the how are you handling ebikes on your trails? >> That is the question in my biker community. >> It's the number one thing I I've heard in the last couple years. Um and it continues to grow uh unfortunately in the wrong direction. Y >> um you know when ebikes first came around you'd see them once in a while and you could identify them easily and you would know which one's an ebike and which one's not. Uh I I ride a lot myself. I'm right off the the uh Lake Minnetonka LRT trail. I bet it's at least 50% if not 75% of the bikes on trails on a regular basis are ebikes. Um, what's happened unfortunately is the industry has far surpassed what the intention legislation ever meant for as it related to ebikes. And it's like everything, right? The market is far exceeding what government can do to define what these things are. And now you see them on the market and there's these kids riding these Super 73s that they look like motorcycles. They ride like motorcycles. >> If it doesn't have pedals, it is a motorcycle. >> It That's exactly right. And now it's even expanded further to Emotos, which is the number one thing I hear complaints about, which are pegged motorcycles. They're electric motorcycles. They're offhighway vehicles. They are not to be on trails. >> That's right. >> Um, we've tried very hard. The challenge is most of the people that are riding those are 13, 14, 15 years old. Some cases they shouldn't even be riding. You have to be 15 to even be on one. >> Um, they're not insured. you can't get them insured because you don't have a license for them. Uh so they're dangerous and if you do have an accident, often you're not covered under your homeowners if they hit somebody or if they hurt themselves. So they need to be we need to be educating. Uh we also need to do something at a state level. And we have a group in uh Henipin County of both mayors and sheriffs that we've been working on legislation and working with our delegation to talk about legislative changes. In fact, we have a meeting coming up October 1st to talk about what our legislative strategy is going to be going forward because it has to be addressed and it's the emotes. There's a lot of people complying with the ebike laws and complying with what ebikes were intended to be. The emotion of ebikes are and they're illegal. >> Well, thank you for that. I um had a conversation with both uh police chief uh Ciphford and Chaza and our sheriff and um both would be in support of legislation and so um I'll give you my card and and we'll we'll chat about that because because it is it is dangerous. >> So thank you for that. Um looping back around. I'm a huge fan of outsourcing. Um I think that provides us the economies the scales that we need. Obviously, I think this is a big win for the taxpayers of Carver County. Not necessarily that we'll save taxpayer money, but it will allow us to save some of the co soft costs that we have in some of our operations. Um the concern I have a and um Commissioner Uterman mentioned, I do think that this is a win for our employees. Um it gives them more opportunities. However, our employees in the park system are are going to be the most impacted by that. So, I'm glad our employee relations staff is here. Thank you for that. And so, I guess that's my question is what is what is our transition? What's our next step in the process? Um, if we move forward, what's our transition plan for our employees? How are you going to take care of our people? >> Commissioner Anderson, great question. So, this is a little bit unique. when we did Scott County uh in our relationship with Scott County, most of those folks were already sky or park district employees. It was just the recognition that they were going to officially kind of be under the park district umbrella uh and covered with that. You know, one of the things we've talked about a little bit just in preliminary conversations, I mean, we're in almost October. This is not a 26 plan. We're not going to be able if we were to sit down and talk about the details of this. There's no way we could deliver this in in 26. It's going to take a long time. And if that means sitting down with employees, talking about what that transition is, talking about what the details are related to what we offer as an organization compared to what Carver County offers, how we would look at that transition. Those are steps we would want to take and we'd have to navigate that and kind of figure out what that's going to be. I think to begin with we really need to work through we haven't had any discussion on the details and the framework of what this would even look like. Uh if we got to that point that we felt comfortable I think that would certainly be the next natural step to start to have those conversations about how would this transition look for employees to make sure it's as seamless as as possible. And the hope would be for everybody it would be nothing more than well I'm working now for three rivers instead of Carver County and we have all the you know parapension that we contribute we have the same leave program we have the same uh benefit programs or very similar benefit programs. So hopefully that transition if we get to that point I caveat that would be as smooth as we could possibly make it. A a and and the reality is for our employees this this is already a subject of conversation and um so I think we need to be intentional about what our next steps are. We need to um radically communicate with with those individuals about where we're at. Um you know this is the business I'm in and change management and transition management is a huge piece of that. We have Thank you Marty for your leadership. Sam is in the room. Um, we have good people and we want them taken care of and um, so I understand that this is a long process that that puts our people in um, that long process as well. Um, again, thank you for our ER staff for being here. I know you're really good at making sure we take care of our people, but um there's a lot of tees to cross and eyes to dot and uh let's make sure that our people are understand what the process is and and where we're at going forward. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. So, as is tradition, I didn't hear anybody speak too negatively. Are we uh are we going to ask staff to proceed with this concept? Anderson nods yes. Uman's a yes. Behe and Lynch are a yes. I'm going to say no. Forget it. Uh wherever they're going, I'm not. No, I think uh I think it's good. But I think you helped uh allay some fears and and on my I'll speak for myself maybe ignorances and other things. So sounds good. Let's uh let's see how this will work. Bo, >> thanks for your for your morning. We appreciate it. >> Well, thanks Mr. Chair, commissioners. Yeah, there is obviously a lot of work to do before we come back and talk again, but you know, you get what you pay for. So, just realize that takeaways I got on this with the trails is a an area we got to figure out how that works, right? Because it's probably a little different than Scott County. Obviously, the staffing is hugely important. Uh how these guys do wreck programming compared to how we do ours, which I think we did an awesome job to work through that even the as asset preservation, you know, we're at the beginning phases, you remember, are budgeting for that. If they're already totally mature, that performance level is going to be different. So, for us to get to where they are, that's going to be dollars. So, we just got to work through all those details and figure out what the numbers say and then we'll we'll come back and give you an update if that works. >> Thank you. Okay, thanks for your time. >> And and Lyndon, can you provide kind of what that timeline might look like? >> I not right now. Not right now, but it but in the f I don't need that right now, but but in the future we >> Well, is the goal January 127? Is that Is that a goal? >> Could it be done earlier? I I don't >> You mean like the total package finished JPA signed? >> I don't know. Is that reasonable? 15 months >> could be. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> But you'll have to make some serious decisions before that for sure. >> Yes. >> Just keep gibs out of it. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you. >> Good. Thank you. >> We're going to talk about highways near your house. Uh >> Bo, if you want to take a break. Sorry. Sorry. Rob Jet. >> All right. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Commissioners, we wanted to give you an update. It's actually been a few months overdue on the Arboritum area improvements. So, we'll try to keep it as quick as we can. Not not that easy considering the magnitude of our undertaking here. So, um, as you know, this is the this is the Arboritum area master plan, so to speak. Uh, the projects shown on here are in various stages of development. We'll go through that. As you know, 82nd Street's under construction as we speak. Uh, that's the orange piece. Uh, they actually poured the deck on the bridge yesterday or they started. So, I got a cool photo of that on the west side by Dairy Queen. That project is also underway. Um, as we speak, there's a few issues with that one that we need to discuss. And then the green one, well, Crimson Bay, is that under construction? Yep. That's the part that Chan is leading. And then the big boy, the big one is the green that we'll discuss where we're at. But before we do that, I just wanted to kind of give you an update. This is kind of all the area projects, area project update in the next five years. Um, I just wanted to point out a few updates for you while I got you here. 41 and 10 our big project that you mentioned commission I mean Mr. Don't ever love it. >> That one we are hoping that big roundabout if you driven there it's big. The big the concrete roundabout. >> Big beautiful roundabout. >> Which one? >> Should I have said that? >> 41 in Angler. >> 41 in Angler. Big >> big. You might want to mention big beautiful Turbo. >> Turbo >> Turbo Roundabout. >> But um our contractor is hoping that that opens 9:29 September 29th. >> My birthday. So, let's hope for the best there. >> Uh, they also want to finish the other roundabout by the community center. >> Oh, there we go. >> There you go. >> They want to get this one done this year, too. >> Yeah, that's what happen. >> So, they're working really hard, but hopefully the the opening of the highway will be >> like everyone loves it >> the end of this month, unless we get some radical weather. >> So, that's good news. >> Beautiful also. Um, Carver Park Reserve, Commissioner Workman, you talked about that project being painful. Um, that continues to be closed. Access is from the north. >> I think you pointed to rolling acres there, but >> sorry, >> this one here, this guy, >> access is from the north still. Most of the grading work is complete. Y should have the one should have the onelane path back to full roadway from the church to humanity alliance by the end of the week. Curb and gutter next week and paving October 6th. Darren, bless his heart, he's on he's on leave for a few weeks. He's been working not only as the lead in design, he's also been the construction engineer for the last six months. So he's his plate has been enormous. So he's he gave me a few notes here just to give you an update. Bavaria road and um um 182nd again that one where we here this guy right here that guy will be open too on 929. So that's good news. There's still be some work remaining but the roundabout should be up and running. >> That's awesome. What what about the rest of 82nd Street there? >> The rest of the 82nd Street will be um east side the bridge will be later in October, but we're hoping the whole thing will be done by mid November. Okay. Okay. Um I don't think it's on the map. Wonia Parkway North in Wakonia, as you know, that roundabouts open. This is the year of roundabouts, as you might have noticed. >> It was It is. >> Yeah. We've done eight eight I think this year. Maybe nine if we get them all done. We got that community center one done. >> 212's going well. Just a quick update on that. We have to keep that search charge on the by bond guards for a little longer. It's moving more than we thought. So, but the overall schedule is still on track. Galpin the city project. I'm not exactly sure where that is, but I think it's going to be it is going to be done this year. >> Thanksgiving. I'm hearing >> you heard that. Okay. >> Horrible. >> Uh 11 and 14. Another roundabout in Victoria that opened on August 29th. Uh 5 and 11. I mentioned that by the Dairy Queen. That one's got a couple things going on there. There's two roundabouts there. The norly one we found way more poor soils than we thought. So, that one's going to take some time to figure it out. We the intention was to have the at both roundabouts and done this year, but the second one won't the one at Highway 5 won't happen till next year. So, we're not going to close the road. Highway 5 will remain open this year. Uh we'll get it done next year in time for the big project. So, we're hoping that the roundabout will be complete midsummer of 26 to coordinate with the huge project. So that gives you an update on construction. If you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, we'll move on. >> The trails for um adjacent to Bavaria from 82nd to 5. Is that doing are we doing that this year or next year? >> Uh >> next year. And then the trail from that we're doing on behalf of Chaza from community center down to Ottabon. Is that going to be completed this year or next year? >> The community center to >> on Angler. There's a trail that we're handling on behalf of CHASA. >> Oh, yeah. That'll be all part of the big Oh, will it be open? Good question. I don't know. I'll have to get back to you on that. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Yeah. >> The grading work for sure, but whether it'll be paved and open, who knows? >> So, we're just going to run Eric's going to run through this and then Dan's going to come up and talk about the uh the phasing plan for the big big project. >> All right. Good morning. Uh here's an image. This was one of the final pieces of the Arburedum area transportation plan. That was the two-year plan that we prepared from 2019 to 2021. And that identified 20 projects to be realized over 20 years pending uh leveraging funding for many of the pieces. So those 20 pieces all had independent utility. and we set it up that way to maximize the financial competitiveness for outside funds. Uh the the highlights in green are those are all projects that are under construction right now. Uh you know over $50 million of investment. Lynon already hit on uh most of these here. Uh but but we have Victoria, Channassenled, U ofMled, and a Carver County project all under construction. Next year we begin the big highway 5 project and uh in 2028 when we're all done with this round of work we have two pieces left of the plan uh downtown Victoria which I'm going to talk about at the tail end of this presentation and that the north end of Rolling Acres from Interlockan to Highway 7. Uh so to not be too repetitive here, this is 82nd Street and again as Lynon said, it'll it'll be completed uh by the uh in November. So underway. >> That photo was taken yesterday. >> Fresh. >> Yeah. >> How long does it take to cure? You said you poured it yesterday. How long does it take to cure? I don't have the exact number. >> What? >> Okay. >> Awesome. I know it's a while. >> Here. Here's a couple images of what the University of Minnesota Minnesota landscape arboritum are doing. Uh so they started construction this year on their new access point that's opposing Minasha Parkway. Um here and so that's a that's a new road, new entry, new way of ticketing. Um that will that's they're getting that done and established. Uh so in 2027 at late 27 when highway 5 is all done and opened up uh the signal here at Minawasha Parkway will just work and that will become their primary entrance point. The image on the the top right that's an artist's rendering of what this could look like as they establish it. Again that's a roughly a 15 million investment from what I've heard that the U of M is leading. Here is the image. North is to your right. Uh this is Crimson Bay Road. City of Chanhassen is leading this one. This will be completed this year too. Uh severing access uh of Crimson Bay Road at Highway 5. This sets us up for the big project too. That's Crimson Bay Road opposes the existing Arboritum entrance. So that's not going to be a right in right out out of on the five >> full closure uh called Culdeac uh at the end of Crimson Bay Road and it's tying into 78th which ties into Highway 41. So redirecting those driveways north. And here's the west side of downtown Victoria. This was the city of Victoria leled project that Lynen hit on as well. Um, not only improvements to Highway 5 and County Road 11, but also extending Stiger Lake Road, uh, Stiger Lake Lane to the west, uh, aligning with their development that's underway. As Lynon said, due to weather and soil conditions, uh, the work on Highway 5 roundabout is going to happen next year. It's very much coordinated with our our other work going on, but it should all be uh the plan is to have it all opened up by Fourth of July when and that's a key moment that Dan's going to talk about with the staging of Highway 5. I'll switch turn this over to good morning. I know you've heard a lot of this uh information before, so I'll try and pace myself and give a little bit of time for questions. Just uh see this is the laser the bottom. Okay. All right. Well, as Eric said, we're going to talk a little bit about the staging, give you a quick project overview. You've seen this before, but if you want to ceue up the the video, uh this is just going to take you through the project that we're about to build. So, I'll kind of talk over this to a degree, but um I know you've you've seen it before, but it's it's again a massive project and it's really important in our minds to keep reminding the public of what they're going to get at the end. This is not going to be an easy project to build. It's going to be inconvenient. It's going to be a challenge to actually get it done, but at the end of the day, it's going to be a massive improvement for the area and we're that's what really uh focused on trying to get this message out that this is what we're trying to build. There's nothing left of what was original and uh it's going to be quite an operational improvement everywhere we look on this project. So, this is the downtown Victoria, the commercial a roundabout. When I'm talking about staging, refer to that roundabout as the Commercial Avenue roundabout. And that area that they're driving on to the bottom of the screen, that's all going to be under construction at the beginning of of uh our closure year. And that's going to be those businesses are going to be accessed through uh just a construction uh in and out under under gravel condition. And so uh you can refer to these images in your head as I'm talking about the staging, >> but that isn't the part that's funded. Y that's in this one. >> I thought that was a part of the >> project. >> Yeah. >> No, this one's included. >> Okay. >> And and just a question. Can someone if you're going west? >> Did you want to pause for a second? Go ahead. >> All right. And can you go back Colin just to that roundabout right there? Right there. >> So this is going west. So, this white car, >> that white car is looking uh Yeah, that white car is looking west. >> On the top left is the fire station, right? So, it's going west. >> You're right. >> So, that white car, if it took the right turn, >> went past the gas station, can it get to downtown Victoria on that street? >> Not not at this time. That's that's the ultimate community plan, but that connection is not yet made. >> Yeah, that will be part of the next project that Tom's referring to, connecting that street with the town. >> Okay. It's set up for the future, but right now it accesses really the private businesses and and uh >> that'll be a challenging project. >> Yeah. So then as we move ahead and we get to that Floyd intersection, >> can you take a right then to get to the Noble Lion? >> No Lion >> or to Vicks >> at the four-way stop. >> At the four-way stop now. Or is that right hand going to be eliminated? Eric, do you want to >> Yeah, I think that will that will should remain open. The the actual vision through downtown isn't set yet. We've done we did some preliminary work in the study that needs to be rec restarted and I have some slides at the tail end about that downtown piece, how we lead it and some next steps. >> Okay. >> Yeah, you're probably getting into that last segment right in the middle uh that that this one is setting up for and and so >> Right. But the the question then if the Floyd intersection five and 11 that's going to be the very last piece. So why this is all happening people can still take a right-hand turn go by Floyd's >> and get to downtown Victoria. That has been a common question. >> Okay. >> I don't want to lose access to downtown Victoria >> for sure. >> Okay. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> And of course the >> overpass for the trail network in Victoria. >> That's at Stiger, right? >> Yep. Yep. That's right. Right. It's at Stiger. So, we're going to be looking up at Rolling Acres Road at this point here. So, got of course the Apple House on the the right side here. the former who will be the former Apple House at some point here. So, this is going to be a significant makeover of this area and uh this is going to be one of the first things that gets done on the job. This uh north south segment uh that that portion of the project is going to be in 2026 to create this uh this north south section of highway. So, you can see the significance of the changes that are going to be occurring here in 26. And there again, that's the basically a four lane and those the two lanes going west that's just going to bottle further west as the construction process takes place. >> Yeah, we're we're vastly improving the efficiency of of this segment of highway. Certainly there'll be other areas that get taxed. So this is rolling acres. So, we want all this done uh before Highway 5 is closed. That's what we're trying to accomplish here. So, this Rolling Acres is going to be able to handle traffic much more efficiently, much more safely uh after uh after we're done with it. And then we we get into Highway 5 being closed and Rolling Acres is going to see a lot of that traffic being rerouted. So, here we are looking at the arburetum access as it will be in the future across the lake. You can see uh if you're looking across the lake how significant that change is all that is a lot of pete underneath there. So that was certainly not easy uh getting that from bridge to a widen section that we have. Of course, the new access going into the arburetum, um, new signal, a lot of discussion on on that in terms of this now being a four-way, but we're quite confident that, uh, it's it's going to be a vast safety improvement and many of the concerns about all the trips leaving our breedom going to the north is is not really going to materialize based on how this is this whole highway system is set up. Of course, the small bridge se section that used to be in the early planning phases of this, a much longer bridge. So, there was what $10 million of of benefit to get that thing down to the section it is now. So, I think you probably remember that from some of the earlier updates. >> And has the new bridge design been approved by environmentalist? And >> yep, we've gone through every every phase now. So, we are now officially approved and authorized. So that was that was a big moment. >> That's a big win for >> Yes, it is. >> Yeah. >> So here is five and 41. Uh so this is actual live not live real traffic volumes that we're talking about. We don't we don't just paint the cars on here. This is actually the volumes that that uh we we did some of the modeling. >> This is the current underpass, right? That we built county built and then there's going to be a new one that's going to go north south. Do this to raise your credit score fast. Have you seen Wait a minute. Let that play. >> I had some nice static slides, but Eric took them out for the sake of me talking to you. >> So, just uh for everybody, I don't live too far from here on the south side of Highway 5, and we would desire to get to Victoria. We would basically get on highway five and take the shoulder in the opposite direction >> to get to the arboratum entrance to get into the park and then go through the park. >> That's before the bridge, the tunnel >> and it was a little always a little hairy. Uh >> so big change. So to Commissioner Fe's point and Orman's point, if um if we want to get from east of 41 to downtown Victoria, we would probably go south on 41 82nd back through and then weave our way up up area. Is that accurate? >> Under what condition? Under under the stage condition or what? >> Yeah. When uh when the bridge when everything's closed on five >> highway Yeah. to to Victoria, you're >> you're probably going to be going down to 82nd Street is most likely. Otherwise, highway highway seven is another option later in the year, but >> um yeah, so we'll we'll start stepping through this uh each phase, >> but the 41 intersection with five is next year. >> Yep. Yep. So, we're trying to get that all buttoned up in 26. So, that intersection is operating highly efficiently for the five closure. So, this is the overall project schedule status. The red line's where we are now. Uh grayed out is what we've uh done. I I do like to note the the significance of of this timing uh on on the job of this scale. Uh this is generally a three to four year delivery effort. Um there's uh authorization driving the timelines on this. So we were trying to hit hit 25. Uh it everything ended up being overlapping concurrent. Again you mentioned environmental clearances all of that is typically a long duration to get through all that stuff. the value of that is significant in in the in the industry we look at each year as as inflation uh costs and so you're talking about probably close to $5 million uh or three to5 million easily in savings from getting this done this year. So the the the drive by the county to get this accomplished was many millions of dollars on the cost of this project saved to actually accomplish it uh in um 26 27 versus later years. Um itation for construction is generally three years. That's what we started out with on this job. It was a three-year project. Multiple years of closure on Highway 5. So we'll talk a little bit about how we got to where we got to in a second here. So, uh, we've we've basically down to 26 and 27. Um, and, uh, the the brunt of it here, I think, is best explained in the in the graphics here. So, uh, next steps before I touch on staging is, uh, bid date. It's coming up. November 6, 2025, right around the corner, is a huge moment. We're going to find out uh, what this job is actually going to cost. So that uh has has now been cleared. We have our federal authorizations. We have our state signs signed plans. We've got all the agency permits uh in in line. So we are now to the point where we're just waiting to have the contractors come on board and tell us what they can build it for. So that'll be a big moment here. The award date is expected late uh November, mid December. Um we'll have another public open house right before construction. We feel it's best to get to the point where the construction's right around the corner and then folks will be coming out there. Uh >> the only thing we don't have yet is the signed agreement for the rural grant, but we talked to the federal DFT while we're in Washington DC. Make sure that they've got that processed on time. So that's the last thing we're waiting for. And we're not gonna avoid uh I'm sorry, what's the name of the the equal? >> Yeah, GB goal. >> No, we're not moving ahead and business as usual. We can't wait for that decision. I think our goal is 20%. >> Yeah, >> it's a significant number. It's a significant number, but most of the contractors of this scale are going to be so wired with the processes, the subs lined up for to to meet the goal. You know, we're we're at least not expecting a dramatic impact. The timing to actually change that is it's just not months, it's going to be a while. >> And we have good contractor interest or >> Oh, yeah. Yep. We're we're getting we're getting calls from uh the the big outfits that are getting themselves lined up for this one. So >> wonderful. >> Yes. Good news. >> Because of the timing and what we've done to date, we're not going to be impacted by that greenhouse gas. >> We're exempt from that. >> We're exempt. Great. >> Lynon, what's the bid climate like? Labor, materials, and contractors. I'm guessing 21 212 will be done. Will like Matawitz or whatever be >> actually pretty good. I mean, we've experienced, we're talking about this in DC, too. I think when the feds passed the IGA, there was a big federal bill. They contractors were thinking there'd be a lot of construction projects coming. That hasn't materialized for whatever reason. INDOT being behind maybe. So, the local projects, we've done really well on bids like 41 Angler. I think we got 12 biders on that. Really competitive. >> So, they're hungry. We probably won't see. >> We're thinking we'll get We're hopeful. >> Okay. >> Yeah. here. >> The other favorable I'll I'll mention is fuel prices. It's a huge part of a job this size. Huge. And so those are on the on the decline here. So that's going to be very favorable for the bed environment right now >> and hopefully some of us are still around when this is all done. It would be interesting to ask the question then if Mandot would have did this project, >> we wouldn't have anything yet. >> Right. >> Right. and the time and energy 212. >> Yep. >> We wouldn't be around. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. >> All right. So, I'll I'll give you a rundown of uh the details on the staging and uh it'll be a very high level because obviously there's 100 points on on everything I'm talking about. But the primary goals when we when we went after this thing is uh you it always starts with the the standard. We're going to try and minimize public uh impact during construction. That can be any number of ways. It can mean keeping the road open and doing it over a longer period of time. It can mean uh shortening closure durations and trying to go incredibly fast. There's there's a whole bunch of different ways you play this one out. We we quickly came to the point where this one is going to have to have some closure of some period of time. uh keeping it open under traffic. It was the costs were incredibly prohibitive and uh we got to the point of how could how fast can we build it? And that's that's really what we set after is we're looking at three years of construction uh two years of closures. So what we set out for is two years of construction, one year of uh highway closure for five. And that's what we try to do. It was it was definitely a challenge uh to try and fit that puzzle together and actually make it possible. You can set goals for these contractors about what happens if your goals are completely made up and pie in the sky type goals. They will price that in to their their bids. And so you have to do this thoughtfully that they legitimately can do what you're trying to get them to do and you can show them a path to do it. And then at that point the contractors can put some good hard pricing on these on these jobs without bidding at a ton of risk for if they were to fail on the schedule. So I think we have a very constructible schedule. It's aggressive but it it is doable. Um and so what we're also looking to do is minimize the duration of closure to downtown Victoria. Uh obviously that's been a huge topic throughout the be throughout the beginning of the project is is the uh impact of the downtown businesses and then uh we had to maintain suitable access to the arburitum millions of visitors here half a million visitors. Uh that had to be a seamless uh seamless process throughout the project and then uh effective alternative routes and that process started years ago. really the planning of 82nd Street was step one and what I would consider the staging plan for this project. I mean that really is not connected but ultimately is going to be incredibly valuable and significant to this. That was that was really CIP planning but it was a stage in this project as as I would I would offer it. And so that was that was a goal but we also had some routing considerations for north south and such that we built into the staging plan. So, when we look at the u the regional uh area here, we're going to we're going to see a lot of trips get rerouted. We all know that people might people might use seven or 212 as alternatives to five during construction. Um that's just a known known reality that we look at as we look at this impacts of of construction. But we do have some good alternative routes for those that are going to be in the construction area in 2026 is when when things are going to show up. That's when it's going to really start up here and you're going to see a closure on the north side of uh five at 41 and Bavaria Road. What we're doing is we're trying to keep one of those north south routes open at all times either at 13 or 41. And so we're staggering the constructions. This job becomes very linear in nature as to how how things need to play out >> which again ties to the trying to get it done in two years but 41's going to get closed. Um and we're trying to get the north side done. Highway five is going to be expect delays is what I would offer is this stage when they start this project. It's going to be the intersection going to be half at a time type of construction. Barricades, barrels, and a signal with less less movements than than it did before. So, you will see delays at 5 and 41 during construction, but five is still going to be open. Now, that being said, people will be having alternate routes. During off- peak times, it'll be perfectly fine to drive through, but during the peaks, people might have to be thinking about their alternate trip uh time uh through the through that intersection. But uh moving forward here into uh June through October, we're going to get to Rolling Acres Road. That's going to be construction under a full closure environment, but then 41 is open. So then the north south route again is going to be uh is going to be 41 at that time. The south leg of 41 is going to be that therefore closed. Century is going to see a lot of traffic. Uh but we are also continuing to construct Highway 5 and 41 half of the time. So that's that's uh still going to be under traffic. And then we get into September October. Uh we're finishing up uh five and 41 on the five segment. All of this being under traffic. Still finishing up the south leg of um 41. And then we get into the roundabout construction at on rolling acres road and interlockan. That's in the fall but under closure. And then uh you've got the north south routes done at that stage. 5 and 41 is operating a ton better than it does today to handle the the traffic that is going to be hitting that intersection during the full closure. So we get into April of 27. This is the very big year uh for for five. It's it's a everyday matters in this schedule. We're going to start it in April as soon as we possibly can to start widening out the highway in into the causeway area. Um and so we are uh basically starting all the way from Victoria uh up to the Arboritum entrance which is fully completed at this point. We've got to the current entrance is now uh fully fully completed. It's not converted to an exit only yet but we're we're done all the way up to that point. So that's going to be April through June full closure. Uh the only difference here in this next stage, June through September, is that that commercial avenue roundabout that I was referring to in the picture, that's going to be done uh by about July. Uh that's that's uh the access into those businesses in the downtown area, the the gas station, such they'll be able to drive into the completed roundabout as opposed to through a work zone to get get there and whatever. Oh, go ahead. So uh to uh my friends on Lake Minawashta who are worried about increased traffic, this appears to be oh >> a time when there will be that. Is the is the now is the original access to the arboratum going to be open for people to come down 41 and get into the arboratum. So that until 27 or end of 27 >> that then'll be a is that going to be a right in right out? They're still full uh fully accessing the arborum through the current access at this time step >> through through 27. >> Yep. All the way through the end. It's going to be just a big switchover moment in which it goes current access point to in the fall. >> Okay. Signal >> because that would be a disaster. >> Yeah. Yeah. So right right here because the roads closed the west. >> So the only people that go visitors, >> right? >> Yeah. It's like a private driveway. Highway 5 is effectively a private four-lane highway to the arburitum. So they've got the best access they've ever had by by a long shot for a little while. And the Parkway is getting no traffic from uh you know reroute traffic. Zero because it's closed. >> So I'd say at this stage everybody should be should be content. So except people trying to get through five. They're >> Yeah. >> And then the the gentleman at the end of the blue dots here that built the new house I'm in a wash there. He's got his own private driveway then. Right in, right out. >> Yeah, he he's going to be driving through a work zone is what it's going to they're going to grade up a dirt route and they're going to let him get in and out. But it's certainly far from anything that you consider to be a finished driveway. >> He's just going to be able to get in and out. >> But his ultimate driveway is right >> right in right out. That's what's going to happen when it's done. Yes. Dan, do you bring in a bunch of dirt to make that go for lane or how does that >> um yeah, there's there's certainly a fair amount of fill here. I we've got I can't remember Eric was asking about that. I can't remember our balance on this job. Uh but yes, there's going to be quite a bit of earth moving around this project from point A to point B. >> Is any of that coming back from Workman Hill or is that where's that come from? >> Um at this point, I'd have to look at the balance. In in most cases on job this size, what we do is is we we let these bigger contractors decide how they want to bid that in the project because most cases these these the big comp the big companies are going to have other jobs in the area where they need dirt or they want to take the dirt from here elsewhere and they actually bid that into their pricing and that gets into the actual final numbers. >> Dave Hemsy is that option if they need more dirt to pull it off before we piled it up years ago? >> No. >> No. Now, now once the decision was made park >> Yeah, that big hill. >> I will admit that hill is a little too big for my age. Wow. >> Create a bunny hill for commission. >> If you went down that hill, but I'd break something going down that hill. >> It's a good question. We do build sources of dirt into some projects, but in this one, because there's so much development happening in the area, we we're letting this one run to the >> That's all muck, >> is it? Okay. I didn't know. >> Taking out old highway. Good D. >> And Dan, did you really say that everyone's going to be happy at this point? >> Yeah, >> that prediction might be incorrect. >> Okay. All right. I will explain to them why they could be happy as opposed to the alternatives. But yes, yeah, you're you're absolutely right. It is going to be construction. >> Yeah. Um, >> but Dan, maybe part of the communication because of what I've observed on Highway 212 of the big truck traffic that's going on County Road 33 right downtown Norwood. >> Yeah. >> The amount of those trucks that are going the same thing if those trucks are going to go 41 to 7 and then go west to get the material or are they going to go down 41 to get on 212 to go west to get the material? those huge side dump trucks. That's gonna be a big part of it. So, >> yeah, absolutely. And you know, a lot a lot of the the trucking on this job ends up being aggregates. So, what's the nearest pit? A huge competitive advantage among contractors is what's the source of their patuminis? What's the source of their aggregate uh for for class 5? The the common excavation we call it the moving along. They're going to keep most of it on site as best they can, but those exports and imports, they will probably balance it with the nearby job is what generally happens. So, all right. So, here is another big moment in time in 2027 September. We're looking to open that segment from downtown Victoria to 13. So, we're trying to get that that segment of five back open as soon as we can as and that's we believe September is the soonest they can get that segment built. But at that point, the last segment of five that is left under closure is from 13 to the current arburetum access point. And then that is is a very critical month in this whole schedule in which we hit um October 1st. October 1st is the big moment in which the signal at uh Minwash Parkway and the new Arbreedom uh access would be turned on and people would shift to the new access point. the old access point would be closed and that would be the way in uh or well actually we move it to exit only because we're not closing it yet at that stage. Sorry, I misspoke. But we will open it up at the new location and then people will still continue leaving at the at the current uh exit for for that stage. And so that's going to be a huge milestone of the project and one that we staging plan. So, back to my original concern about Minowasha Parkway. This would be now an opportunity for them to go up Minowasha Parkway if they're heading east as a customer of the arboratum. >> If they're heading east, yes, that that would be >> or they could go out the original access >> in theory. Yes, they they could they could choose to go that way if they're going east up to seven. That's why we kept the existing access point for this initial stage open. Um there will be a time there will be a time in which we'll have to close it for a short period to convert it to exit only but for now it's still open. So the the quickest way to the east into the cities is going to be using current access. >> Okay. >> So I I would say it's very very minimal because most people are going to continue doing what they're already doing which is going out current access and taking a right and uh it'll it'll be an easy right to to make. So I think that'll be fairly minimal in this stage. But what this is an a unique stage in which we do feel there might be a period of time where westbound is open but eastbound is not while we're trying to finish up that that deep uh widening uh called a column supported embankment over over the the wetland areas. And so we might have eastbound closed, westbound's open. Highway five is going to be um open, but we'll we'll still have a eastbound detour at this point. >> So Dan, full closure on on five from April to September and then partial closure starting in October. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> So I don't want to say it wrong, but I thought that five was going to have full closure for up to 28 months had we not pieced all this stuff together. Is that accurate? We went from 28 months of closure down to six. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's that's what's designed in. >> So I want to make the point because I know we're going to have upset business owners, but when you tell the story of 28 months versus six and going from whatever it was less 10 11 12 million dollars with victorious participation shrinking every step. There's good stories to be told here. Um it's probably not the right time to say it, but I'll say it anyway. I think that wherever the signage is, it's routing folks. um we owe it to them to offer them a QR code or a direct link or something like that because you're not going to have every every every business time, but there's a lot of businesses that will be significantly impacted for those six months and they're their their revenue year their revenue months. It's not like the doldrums of winter. It's their revenue months. And so if there's any way that when we're entering those areas, if there's like a you know, carvercount.comdown Victoria to quickly get people there, then we get less complaints. I think that AR will be set up to win on a communications side, too. and the business owners can feel like they're part of it. We don't have to have sandwich boards everywhere. >> I think the uh I think the Victoria Business Council, I know last time we devastated them with the bridge and and everything else, boy, they were organized with a campaign that had a V for Victoria, right? >> Um and so somehow in conjunction with them, but I'm sure they're they're getting ready. So, >> and to Tom's point, it might make sense too to have token funding. I'm sure it's baked in there for marketing, but to give them a chunk that they can guide or they can spend themselves, I think it goes a long way. The impact that we're going to have to their business is significant. The savings we'll have is significant, but I don't know $10,000 to, you know, for them to deal with it. Then we don't have to chew on it. Let them handle it. >> Mr. Chair, again, what are we what's the thinking with deadlines, incentive payments, penalties? What's is that related to the environment? What are we doing for the project? Yeah, we we evaluated incentives on this and it's an evaluation process. Is it worth it? It's tax money just like anything else. I mean, in this project, is is it worth the money to get the benefit? And so, we did an incentive evaluation on it. >> And what it comes down to is a lot of projects the incentives are are valuable. They they they end up shortening duration. There's there's value to the public to that shortened duration. And so, it's worth paying paying this incentive. where where this one had some challenges to actually justify whether or not the incentive was the most effective way to do it because you're either you're either uh deincentivizing them to to get it done and and not miss their deadline or you're incentivizing them to get it done early. The the benefit to incentives comes from having all kinds of options to hit their milestone where where they've got some flexibilities to actually finish early and we know what's in the schedule and so they can shave off a month or two from the way they build build the job. will pay them for that. That's that's an effective way to use incentives. On this one, everything is baked down to the working day. Everything is linear. One thing builds off another. Any single delay that occurs on this job, we have to have a discussion with the contractors to determine whether or not it's a justified delay. Otherwise, there's damages involved. So because it's so linear, there's a scenario where they can be very very aggressive towards claims of delay and they can get 20 days of delay claims, for example, for weather conditions or utility conflicts or whatever the case may be and then they can miss our deadline by 21 days and then we can end up paying incentives for justified delays despite missing the deadline. And we we feel that there's so much linear nature to the way this plan is put together that there's way too much risk to incentivize. We're we're what we're doing is we're pushing a lot of these deadlines up to the absolute tightest timeline that a working day schedule could accommodate and we're we're putting in substantial completions a few weeks ahead of time. And if we can manage to two two weeks of delay, three weeks of delay, we'll still hit our goal of October 1. And so that that is the way we we approached this one and ran through the mind office on alternative delivery. They agreed because the way this one's built, we're better off pushing to the fastest they can do it, hold them to it, and then we'll accommodate the justified delays and and hit our milestone another way. We just really did not want to get to a point where we paid incentives while they missed the actual time we needed. And that's there was there was risk on this one. >> Sounds like he thought that through >> night work involved or is that >> not allowable neighbors etc. There's there there would be some situations I I'd have to look back at all the different elements of the project in which we'd have some uh after hours, but generally it's it's not significant in in this one. There's going to be because we have closures, we can generally do things through working hours. uh where where you get more nighttime work is where you have under traffic and you gota but like for example you know there there's going to be some situations where you might have to do a nighttime for a certain effort or activity but not much. >> I I I'd imagine that your timeline is as tight as you say it is. Was there and I just I just want to hear from you. Was there any consideration for trying to get open before the start of school? Because I know that that's created a lot particularly in um Lisa's district in the district I represent with 41. I know it's not your fault, but was there any consideration to say is there any way to pull it back three weeks and get open before first of school? >> Yeah, we have See, let me go back to our timelines here. Um we have October 1st is getting eastbound. That that is a planned opening of October 1st. We're actually in September in in our completion schedules by contract. Okay. >> Of of a bit before that. >> Yep. >> And so it's going to be close, but we we can't make a guarantee for for Labor Day. >> Now, I'd imagine that the net traffic flow in the morning would be east. Is there any consideration for making that a eastbound only for the morning hours to accommodate school traffic for the weeks between um school opening and and um that road opening? Oh, switching the flow. >> Yeah. Is that even a I don't want to get up on my skis if that's not even a >> Well, the Victoria students are going to be going to either Chan High School on Lyman or Right. >> Yeah. >> Um, it's a fair question. I mean, under huge metro area systems where you got traffic going in both directions, they do have situations where you actually reverse the lane flows. it it tends to be incredibly expensive to switch traffic control every single day and so it's it tends to be a costbenefit scenario. Okay, >> we haven't gone down that path because we didn't think it would trigger it here >> because we're talking more so like weeks is but um it's a fair question. I we have not gone a whole lot further in not >> and I guess if you're looking at traffic flow you also have Minnetonka in there too which they'll go north to seven. >> So I don't even know if I don't know how many people would be impacted. I know that the perception is significant and I also know 82nd is your relief valve. So that's that's a path to get to Chan. But I just asked the question because I know it will come up and I know that we've had good partnership with school district and AR will be equipped to answer those things as well. >> Sure. we can maybe get you a better answer as far as the details of what what that reality would be. >> So, >> all right. Well, a lot of these questions are leading into my last slide here, so Eric's got some other things to cover as well. Um, so I'll I'll try and wrap this up with the big next step is preparing everyone for this. We're going to bid it soon and we're going to be on our way. Uh, we'll have the open house planned in the in the spring. But what I will offer is at this point all the prep work for what's going to happen. I mean, it's already started is we've we've talked to the downtown gas station in Victoria about truck access and built that into our staging plan, how they're going to get in and out. They're fully aware about what's what's coming. We've had a lot of these uh discussions already. We just need to continue them. I mean, that's the reality is you need to continue to prep everybody that it's it's not gonna like Commissioner Lynch, you mentioned this is, you know, not not going to be great. It's construction and we do have to keep continuing the the comment that we're doing the best we can. Expect expect, you know, a fairly low bar as far as, you know, what you you have to deal with with construction. It's not going to be convenient, but we're we're we're doing a lot of things to minimize your impacts. and here's what we're doing. And during during the process, what we're doing is we're continuing those communications with these folks to give them uh tools, tips, how are your business customers supposed to get to your store during this stage? And that's the type of stuff that that often gets overlooked and missed. And we are we are spending a fair amount of energy on uh the the one-on-one discussions for each individual business. They have a different need. They have a different story. And so we're we're putting a lot of energy into that in terms of how this would really need to be delivered uh in terms of uh keeping each uh each business or stakeholder in informed about uh what's going to be needed for them. Uh we've got proactive targeting to busing, transit, police, fire. That's all part of the process that has to be well wired before this project starts. Um and then we're trying to spend as much time as we can listening to the individual circumstances, needs people say if all my business comes from the north, how are they going to get here? So, uh those are the things that we'll helping to provide tools for them and then uh like we just mentioned, we're trying to set some accurate expectations. Uh uh hopefully we overd deliver uh and under promise is what we're trying to trying to do here. So, >> it's a good model. >> Yeah. So that's that is uh my last slide here before the funding starts. So any last questions on staging or what we're going to build, feel free. Otherwise, I'll pass off to Eric. >> Where' it go? >> Oh, Eric. All right. >> Yep. Funding and agreements. Here's here's a lot of words on this slide, but we've had a lot of success in Yeah, a lot of success in uh leveraging outside funds. So the current estimate, total project estimate stands at 122 million and uh we've leveraged over 100 million now uh through 12 different sources and that's what's on this slide. Federal and state funds and um the local share uh as was already discussed has continued to drop along the way with our different funding success. And as we went too, we were able to to fund the whole project. Remember, we started with a part and we grew we were developing the whole project and it it all worked out to where we can deliver the whole project. As Lyndon mentioned, our last award was earlier early this year, the rural, and that was a little bit in flux, but again, we we've we're on our second round of uh of um edits on the funding agreement, so we expect that soon. We hit the, as Dan mentioned, we hit the fiscal year 2025. We had $50 million in 2025 funds and the federal fiscal year closes uh or close September 15th. So, everybody worked really hard to to get us there and uh preserve all the funding we have. >> Lynon, if uh that bid comes in say $5 million lower, do we pull back some of our 11.8 and redeploy it or does everybody get like a share of it? We are probably going to spare our money, right? We have to budget some change, >> right? >> Yeah. I think right. >> Yeah. >> We and the cities would probably be the safest. >> Okay. >> We want to spend all that other money. >> Yep. Yep. I didn't know if it was if we had to be in for so much. >> As as it stands, the estimate, the the the construction cost is just under 80%. 80% is the max it can be federally funded. You have to have 20% non-federal match, >> but we'll have to work the numbers after we get bids. But yeah, I agree I I agree with Lyndon um on that agreements uh with the cities. Uh I have the next slide on the university. So we there's three things we need our city partners to do. Um and we're shooting for midocctober for their their council meetings to approve uh the JPA between the county and the cities as you know that establishes the financial and maintenance and partnership for the project. Uh we also have the cooperative agreement. So that's between Mindot and Cover County and Chanhassen and Victoria. Uh same thing from Mindot's perspective. um raise that out and a municipal consent waiver. So, normally Midnot led this project. Uh they would need municipal consent since the countyy's leading that we need to we need to obtain that. But we've been working so closely with the partners for the last six years. Like we've been doing this together as we go and updating the councils as we go and I think the councils are prepared um for consent item agendas for this. We need to bring those same agreements here too. um for approval. We we we need we need uh the cooperative agreement in place before award. So that'll be coming this fall. >> Does the contractor handle utilities or is that separate because it seems like utilities always delays us including the 41 project and it's not your problem. But is can we start that earlier? >> Have to wait till bid. We already have >> but that's not rolled up through the contract that's out for bit. That's separate. >> It is. It is separate. It's all private utility relocations that takes coordinated efforts. We're actually coordinating a lot of that. >> Dumb question. Do we pay for that or does the utilities have to pay for that? >> They have to pay for their own relocations. So unless they have an ement, it's all paid for by private utility. It's all schedule management. Okay, >> thank you. >> That's one thing about one advantage of it being a state road that has a bigger stick than county. >> Yes. >> They order them to move. >> Yep. >> And we give them a schedule and if they fail to meet that 2121 there, we can actually with MDOT's help go after the utilities to pay part of the change order cost to delay the job. So that is an advantage the state has, counties do not have. >> Do we have a stick on 41 or no? >> On the 41 part, 41 itself, not angr. >> 41 angler the whole >> depends where the utility is where the delay was 41 maybe if it's angler. No. >> Okay. >> Thanks. Uh one one item that came in later in the development here was uh we didn't have Mindot support for the pedestrian crossing treatment on Highway 41 at 78th Street. That's the first intersection north of Highway 5 and that's very important to the city uh and connectivity. Um, so we came up with a solution that we're g that we're doing outside of the big project but concurrent. And so that's building a uh a pedestrian connection under 41 and tying that into 78th Street. So that's something we're going to work into the agreement as well and again deliver together with the project in 26. >> Okay. So the west side of that on the bottom is going into Westwood. >> Yes. Yep. >> I drove through there on Sunday morning and holy cow uh the traffic down to Tanaduna and everything quite a mess. >> Y >> I think it's >> No, because their church services are >> Yeah, I think it's always that way. >> They have highway patrol helping them, but >> and they have for years. They paid for that for years, but they have highway patrol. There's a revival going on, Tom. >> There's a revival going on. >> Well, I was trying to get to a Bloody Mary then, so >> your revival. >> I'd already been to my revival. Uh many agreements with the U of M. Uh some completed, some underway. Um we we do have the lands we have the deals the agreements worked out with the temporary construction license which is like temporary easement and permanent easement agreements. Uh we are currently almost there with the transfer of the 26 acres. Um that that should be done mid-occtober from what I heard uh today. uh that's taken some time with with uh getting all the paperwork in order to facilitate that transfer. Um we also need to amend our master easement agreement. That's the overarching agreement uh that recognizes all the different land commitments um uh to offset the impacts of the project that we're doing. and the uh cooperation agreement. That'll be a new agreement and that that facilitates the financial commitments. The U of M is paying for part of the signal and they're paying for the upcharging of their underpass that's just south of this image on here. So the green there is a Bumblebee mitigation. >> Yep. the the green and and the yellow that is the approved final final uh rusty patch area where we're going to do some habitat enhancements over those 10 acres. And part of this deal too is the U of M will take over the maintenance in perpetuity of all this uh all these lands and the easement for that. >> Do we got to do some milkweed for the monarchs or >> not? No, if it's it's focused on bees, >> but >> we don't have a monarch issue. We That's by the bite. >> Right. Right. Monarchs. I'm not an expert on it, but they're not officially on the list yet. >> And I think they're smarter. They can fly above the traffic versus the bees can. I'm I'm really glad you got this agreement in place because last week Commissioner Workman was stung and he's anti-B now. >> I'm allergic. >> Yeah. >> Really? >> That's why we got to keep confined to this little patch here. >> Really? >> I am not allergic. But I did not He's lying. I did not get >> You are pro then. Oh my god, it's getting late. >> It's not even noon and we're already punching. Come on, guys. >> It's worse. >> Bring us home, Eric. >> We're in the LA This is >> Bring us home. >> This is the last last stretch here. >> Downtown Victoria, the purple piece, the piece that remains from the old infrastructure. Uh, so the piece on the west of course is being built and that that I didn't mention it earlier, but it's being built to a fourlane width striped as a two lane. So we'll have it set up for four lanes on the west. >> Can't get anywhere. >> And of course through that commercial roundabout that's pretty much set up. >> Um, >> trying to get them to stay stay involved here. Sorry, Eric. >> No problem. >> Boys, can you focus? But with with at the conclusion of all our our our work that we talked about that's getting built in 2028, then Highway 5 is going to work great until you get to downtown Victoria. And so we're going to see every evening, we're going to see backups from County Road 11 South that that signal, the signal in downtown, it's going to back up through that commercial roundabout in peak periods uh uh halfway to Stiger Lake. Um, so that's a problem. It's going to get harder to get across and around downtown when we have more traffic um, queued up here. As I mentioned earlier, we don't have that vision yet. We've done it we did enough work during the study to uh, understand we can we can get four lanes through downtown without full acquisitions. We also have roundabouts now at 11 and commercial which should calm traffic and so I think downtown can be a more urban environment and you know when you consider access and things like that uh traffic will be more calm than it is today. >> What do you anticipate in the back of delay? Is it minutes? Is it tens of minutes? >> Um >> yeah I >> as a reduced by >> I thought the same thing. I'm like 40 seconds is not a big deal but it's not. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Right. I >> Right. When I think it it's going to be more than one cycle of a signal, you know, to clear, you're going to be waiting multiple green lights before as you're inching uh through in those most peak period. >> And so the solid line is the average peak, the peak hours, and the dashed are the the max cues. Um, but it's something a condition we don't want to leave in place. Like we want we want to eliminate that as soon as we can. >> Oh, we got to tweak that signal downtown to make it more efficient. Right. >> Correct. >> Yeah. >> Yep. Uh, >> Yep. As part of our work next year, uh, trying to get better lane geometry so downtown and 11 better. Go ahead. um when they when they are green. >> Eric, any idea on how much traffic takes a righthand turn there on Stiger Lake to get to downtown Victoria today? Is that a thousand cars a day? Is it only 10 cars a day? >> We have that information. I don't have it at hand though. I could follow up on that one as well. I know that pattern in is much heavier than the pattern out. Not many people just because it's such a difficult movement go out out. >> But it is easy to go into that. Correct. >> That's a good question. >> Yep. And so Lynon said too earlier I'm highlighting the highway, but part of this is also what do we do with the city system and connect the commercial roundabout into downtown and give people options. >> Um that's going to be part of this work that needs to happen next. And by the way, I said stiger earlier as spelled here at stiger. I see it both ways. And I know Sue Orson of the Victoria Gazette did an article years ago about what the right way to go was, but I don't have any clue anymore. >> Stiger. >> Stiger there. >> Stiger. >> I've always heard stiger like tiger. Me too. But the Germans say the second vowel. Okay. upon once we complete the fourlane here's the queueing the peak hour it all works very well so just wanted to show that um we've been focused now this year on uh looking at funding opportunities for this piece for that downtown Victoria segment seeking funds for the planning and and uh construction. So, we didn't we didn't make the list of congressionally directed spending at the last cycle. Uh hopefully we can get on that for next time. We've also submitted for corridors of commerce. They had some planning funds available. We'll hear in November if if successful seeking funds to design this. Uh same with the governor's bill, the capital budget request, trying to get onto the governor's budget for this next session. So we have that request in and uh two funding sources we were successful in the west side of downtown was Ted and Teddy that's transportation and economic development. So with the growth of city and the creation of jobs that's attractive to that funding source and so hopefully we're preparing applications for that um for this central part of downtown too. Of course, last week, Commissioner Workman, Commissioner Fehee, and a group including Victoria uh were out in DC at the fly in and starting to tell the story of this this part of the project. That was the first time we were talking about downtown Victoria as a priority. >> Now, that that's it. Any questions? Eric, could you go back to the cost breakdown where we get the I think this is an unbelievable project that uh you guys have put together and you guys have worked together so well. I'll give u Lynon credit but also Dan and Eric you you work together so well if you look at it and then the U of M is87 mil and city of Victoria for 2.9 mil and uh I just think this is the most unbelievable and uh for $122 million project uh but we have to keep our eye on the the the prize at the end. We have to go through short-term inconvenience to get a long-term gain. And this really says it all. But this is really an unbelievable uh project you guys have put together and uh stay ahead of it with the communication about what's happening. You guys always do, but I think that helps immensely. So anyway, congratulations. This is one heck of a project. >> Thank you. It is. The city of Victoria's number 12 months ago was 12 million. That's what they were planning and budgeting for. And the counties was much higher, too. Yeah. worked out. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> You U3, but U3 credit too, but also uh Commissioner Workman, Commissioner Feety for their work on the TAB and all the work they've done going out to DC. Just you guys have done just a wonderful job. >> Thank you note from Mindot would be appropriate here. >> Yeah, Joan, hold your breath. >> Connie Connie will write us a note. Oh, the construction. >> Yep. So, we did >> Yep. Mindot had Mindot had a mill and overlay plan for Highway 5. So, we applied those funds. That's the 6.3 million and um MDOT's Mindot's going to do some of the work in the construction phase, inspection, surveying, testing, things like that. That's going to be a partnership with the county team leading that >> joint effort. We still get to make the final decision, but we're going to use a lot of that people in the field. >> Nothing will hurry up like a expensive mill and overlay project in the future that you want to avoid. And I think Mary Kay's in the back wondering about her life choices this morning. >> She's worried about the cash flow. when we start spending this money, how do we get the revenue in liquidity split? That's the big big concern. >> She's the She'll be the ball juggler. >> Yeah. So, we got we got to get on top of that. It's an issue this year with 212 41 spending so much money and we got to build our apartments and get the money back in. It's constant. >> Well, what a team. Uh we we all rose to the occasion. I I love it. Good job. This is really incredible. >> All right, we are adjourned. >> All right,