Will you please rise and uh say the pledge with me? 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. Well, good morning on this chilly chilly morning. Public comments. I know we have a couple of people who would like to say one of them were forcing to talk and the other one is here from the public. Can I start, Mr. Chairman? Yes. Good morning, uh, Mr. Chairman and board. Mark Mets, Carver County Attorney, and I'm just really excited to announce and introduce our next chief deputy county attorney, and that is Jennifer Tishi. And you know, Miss Tishi, she's been the head of our civil division for over 17 years. And Peter Ivy retired after 37 years. And so, uh, we went through, you know, the due diligence to hire a new chief deputy. And it's on your consent agenda. And you know, Jennifer has obviously a lot of experience, but she carries the same values that certainly I have and the county has. She's really very bright, hardworking, kind person, really is going to be a a a good collaborator and a good partner for this board in her new role. And she'll work in the, you know, the civil arena as well and assist me with different things. But, uh, we're really excited in our office because she already knows everybody works with them, and she's just held in high regard. I talked to our judges and they couldn't say enough nice things about Jennifer and and uh so so I'd like to introduce her, but I also want to uh recognize introduce a new attorney uh Meg Doyle who is coming over from Scott County. So she's been with the Scott County Attorney's Office for two years and uh she wants to work in the civil arena and do commitments and guardianships and so she has experience going to court. So we're really fortunate to have Meg join our team as well. So, I'll leave it up to Jennifer maybe just to say a few words uh about her new role. Thank you. Morning, Mr. Chair, commissioners. Thank you. I am super excited. Uh thank you, Mark, for those kind words. As he said, I've been here since 2007 um in the civil division manager role that entire time. I I also had some time before that 10 years. I worked uh a handful at Scott County Attorney's Office and then I was a prosecutor in the city of Bloomington for about seven years before landing here almost uh 18 years ago and have really really enjoyed my time. I love the civil division role. I love the diversity. I get so many fascinating issues that come before. So I'm looking forward though now to this new opportunity to see what else is out there. Maybe go to law library board meetings and things like that that I haven't had an opportunity to do before. Yes, Commissioner Anderson. She's excited for that. Um, so I'm really grateful. Thank you to Mark for uh the the appointment and for your all presumed approval of that on the consent agenda today. Um uh and I'm with our new attorney. We're really getting our office kind of up to speed. We'll be posting for a new civil division manager uh as well. Also, I think a lot of exciting changes, but I'm really grateful to continue to serve Carver County, work with all the great division directors and county staff and continue to solidify those relationships that we have. So, thank you very much. Well, thank you. Fantastic uh pick, Mr. Mets, and uh a friendly face. And I'd forgotten you had some Scott County experience. And so we're cherrypicking Scott County uh in here and that that bodess really well I think for Carver County. So uh I we were going to mention it. You are on the consent agenda. I would hold your breath but um looking forward to great things, Jennifer. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else? Seeing [Laughter] none. Well, I'm picking on people I really like. How about that? All right. My name is Nicholas Schultz. I live in Cologne. I was I want to thank you for the letter that you did research some stuff. I did go see the mayor, Tim, over in Wakonia about the the problem over at the cabinet shop, but I want to enlighten you on your letter here. They need to switch some of these wordings in there. Older I got almost 40 year of 40 years of hazmat training. We don't call it an order. It's a carinogen. MDS sheets need to be pulled. You know that there is a child daycare less than a block away from that cabinet shop and I just dropped off my grandkid the other day and it stinks so bad. And I told that to Tim. They're going to have a meeting and go over it. And the pollution control agency, you may as well. They're disbarred because you talk to them and it says it goes in a computer, but it doesn't go anywhere in here. You should change your statute that doesn't say order. It should be looking up the MDS sheets. What is your threshold? How much can you have? How long can you have it? I've been trained many years. You know what happens when I bring my OEM meter and I stood out there? It went off. You know what we do when OEM meter goes off at work? You evacuate. Anyone get that? We got small children with lungs. It's very important that we don't allow this. And I'm here for the kids and the families. And if something doesn't happen, I'm going to get a petition going. I'm going to meet with all the parents and there will be something happening. The next step, I told Tim, I go, "I'm I'm here. I'm retired. I'm here to help. I will go with you. We will walk over there. We will get the MDS sheets and we will find out what's going on cuz all that air should be blowing through a blast furnace to burn it off. You know why they're blowing it outside? Does anyone know why they're blowing it outside? OSHA says the employees can't be in it. It will kill them. Let's blow it out to our children. Anyone get this? blow it out to the children. That's where I'm stand just giving you enlightenment of that. But the other thing is on another hand is CUP police. Remember we talked about this about all these contractors yards. They should each have a million-dollar bond compounding because we the people do not want to clean up the messes when they leave and leave a thousand cars, oil dripped in the ground, all kinds of messes. You should be charging 45 Jason just last time I called him, he was going out, do you guys bill them? It's 450 bucks for life for that contractor's yard. How can we the people be paying for that? They should be paying for it. Because if they're an industrial park or somewhere where it should be, does anyone know why we got contractor's yards? It was for the farmers that quit farming so they can utilize and still feed their family, not make new ones. It was for the farmers people. Now we're putting contractor's yards everywhere and contaminate it and we can't even control it or Carver County can't. And then Jason tells me, I just talked to him and he goes, "Well, I don't know why the grain trucks there." Ah, you're just nitpicking. His equipment's outside, but he has a 20x 20 area to put equipment. No, no, no. Read his contract. It says that he has a 20 by 20 area to put his product. All vehicles go inside. He was never supposed to have a rolloff dumpster company and he has rolloff dumpsters all over. He goes, "Well, if you were doing it, you would do that." I'm going, "He's even working on Sundays. I just had my wife's birthday, my daughter's birthday, and the daughter-in-law's birthday, and we had a big thing on Sunday loading trucks and doing stuff. Not good. So, how many signatures you want for a petition to get this police department, a private one? I'll go get them. We need to do something because eventually you're going to have contaminated yards. You're going to have contaminated stuff and clean up if you didn't already. So, let me know. You wrote me a letter before. Let me know how many signatures you need cuz I'll put a petition together and I will go knock at doors and I will get signatures. Talk to the attorney about my dog ordinance. I tried getting in that all those signatures I got for that. This I got more passion on. So, thank you, Nick. Anybody else in the audience? Seeing none, can I get a motion for the agenda review and adoption? So moved. Second, Mr. Chair. A motion by Udman and a second by Lynch for the agenda review and adoption. Any further discussion on that? Mr. Chair, if I may, in light of Miss Tishu that's in the uh audience, a couple things. One, I think that the word one of the best kept secrets in the metro is out. It's a Mark Bets is a good guy to work for. And I say that not tongue and cheek. Um but but I know that there's a small world in the legal field and uh for people that come over here, that is part of the part of the calculus, right? Who do I get to learn from? Who do I get to work for? And it is a good place to work for folks. and you've made that choice. I also think it's a great indication for staff to know that they can get promoted within. I know that we had a robust candidate pool. I don't know all the names, but I think some of those were internal. I think we have a lot of good candidates right here in Carver County. And so, um, the path that's there, uh, a willingness to build, uh, those internal relationships, willingness to stick with us because there's ups and downs and all the things that go with it. And then, um, I'm reminded of a event where somebody retired from the county, Tom Haynes, he had nothing but great things to say about you. You were kind of his pride and joy, right? somebody that he poured into. And so I elevate Tom in those comments because I know other feel other people feel the same way. So congratulations on the role. I think you're going to do great and every interaction I've had with you. You've been truthful, honest. You've leaned into some stuff, but you've uh you've always had the spirit of what's best for Carver County and the spirit of the truth of the law. So, thanks for everything you've done. Yep. Okay. I got a motion and a second on the agenda. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed. Motion passes. Item 1.4. for approval of the April 1st, 2025 minutes. Move to approve as presented, Mr. Chair. Second. I got a motion by Fehee and a second by Lynch to approve the April 1st, 2025 minutes. Any discussion on that? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, motion passes. Community announcements. Commissioner Udman, you already gave yours. I have four and a half minutes left. Why don't you go ahead? Uh, Mr. Chair, um, Paige Becker, so I'll just start with that. Um, anybody that knows that name probably watched the um, uh, championship, NCAA women's championship this past weekend. Paige played for um, Yukon. Had a delight to take my girls to see her in person when she played for the University of Minnesota. And there's hundreds of people in Carver County that have played with and against Paige. Um, she waited, she got injuries, she went through a lot of adversity, and they won the national championship by a large margin. And when we were watching it, my nine my nine-year-old, my 5-year-old, I said, "Watch Paige and how she interacts with people." Right at the end, she shook the hands of the coaches. She gave fist bumps to her friends and and she gave hugs into to her teammates. And they did an interview with Gino, who's the head coach thereafter. And uh he said, you know, she's not the easiest kid to coach. And she said he and she said, Gino is not the easiest guy to play for, but they build up a winning combination at the end. Um she pointed at this the um to the heavens and and thanked God for that as well. And so from freshman to five years to injury to to championship, she's the best person um number expected to be number one uh pick in the WNBA draft. And she plays locally against a lot a lot of our girls. So I wanted to elevate that. I'm going to hold up a visual aid because that's what I do. I don't know if Colin you can roll in on this, but we talk a lot about Emerald Ash borer. This actually came out of Minowasha Park. And so I'd never really seen it before, but this is the inside of a tree where you can see the worms that um that eat away at emerald ash. And this isn't just the 300 trees that are in Minowash. thousands of trees out of our community community park in Chaska, etc. And so the team um I had a chance to do a tour of of Minawashta. The team has done a nice job of knocking it down, getting that dog park ready to go. And then I also ventured into um I think the first significant improvement in our parks in 20 years. $1.2 million spent on a playground uh refresh in Minowash, including a zipline. And so um great job to the team that's um been able to put that stuff together, turn the corner on it. Um, everybody on this board uh has a lot of commitments outside of the boardroom. A lot of those are committees and and conferences and testimonies and you know, things that we do formally and informally. One of the ones I have the privilege of sitting on is our legislative priorities committee. And this morning we covered a whole lot of topics and one of the topics that's on my mind um it certainly is on constituents mind is affordability and taxes. And so um given some of the things that are coming down from the state um budgets and modified budgets are different things. Our lobbyist suggested that we may have to compl contemplate it at a county level as much as a 27 to 32%age property tax increase to absorb what's happening at the state government. And I'm not saying this from a partisan perspective. I'm saying from it people don't really know the true impact of that until they get their tax statement. And so decisions that'll be made later this year for budget will be on your tax statement in 2026. And at that time it would be too late. And so I just bring that uh to light um publicly. Um, we had a lot of good discussion of things that we should do and can do and need to prepare for and it's going to be a lot of work for staff. So, I just bring that ahead. Um, I jump on a plane and go to Denver um, early next week. I do this about once every year, every other year where I pick an area that's 10 or 15 years ahead of us uh, as a county in certain areas. This year uh, Denver was elevated. Denver is a gold standard in so many different ways. um I'll have a chance to sit uh in three or four days worth of conference and that conference and other things that are planned will include um learning more about surplus generating government activities that don't compete with the private sector. Um cannabis which they are way ahead of ours in a lot of ways not in a good way. Um we have a former colleague that works in Colorado Springs that has an Olympic presence there and I've had two uh potential Olympic uh entities uh look to see if they want to re relocate or locate to Carver County. Um, family resource center will be a discussion. Uh, class from Colorado State University. Um, commercial egg and industrial uh, development and how we can do that as a at a county level. Artificial intelligence and the role of efficiencies within that technology recovery of grant money, collaborative partnerships, child care and and then unlocking philanthropy. And so I'm looking forward to that. Just like to anytime I do one of those, I um, I'm public about that. And uh, and then the last thing that I had was I was at Quick Trip this past weekend. They had a job posted for an assistant manager making $53,000. And I asked uh one of their assistant managers, I said, "Where where do you where do you live, if you don't mind me sharing?" And the individual said, "Not here." And I said, "Why not?" And the individual said, "Uh there's there's not a place for me to live in Carver County at $53,000 a year." And so when I talk about these things and when I get to work on solutions for these things, I just tether it against numbers like this that you walk in there and sometimes people think if you're an assistant manager at Quicktrip, um, you've really, you know, you can live here. You can be part of this. And the honest to god reality is it's not in Carver County. And so I just elevate that experience. Thank you, sir. Thank you. JP Commissioner Fehee, as we know you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh we received the 2024 annual library report. Um and the Carver County Library continues to evolve ensure ensuring every patron whether visiting in person or online experiences exceptional service resources and connection. We strive to meet the diverse needs of our community through innovation and collaboration. And we also remain committed to providing outstanding service and fostering a love of learning. Carver County Library is here to serve you, your community, your story, and your pathway to endless possibilities. Thank you for your continued support. Jodie Edstrom, the library director. It was a great report and to see that we've had nearly 1.5 million total checkouts in the Carver County Library system in 2024 is is very impressive. So, keep up the good work and thank you, Jody. Um, the Hamburg Lions Club, if you enjoy bingo and meat raffles, it's your opportunity to be in Hamburg this Friday. Uh, doors open at 5. And then also the NYA Lions um pancake and omelette breakfast is at the NYA pavilion um this Sunday uh from 8 to 12. I'll be there serving some blueberry pancakes. So come on out. We would appreciate it. Another Highway 212 update. Um we have an overnight closure scheduled. It begins at 700 p.m. on this Thursday, the 10th, and they're going to close the traffic between 51 and 153 from 3:00 a.m. to the following morning. So, be cautious there. And then there's some additional closures coming up on Monday the 14th for Salem Avenue and then also Highway 153. And just a quick sidebar regarding Jennifer and her promotion. Very well respected. And I just had a chuckle, Jennifer, when Mark was introducing because I remember back in my early days on the planning commission and all the guidance that you had to give us as young planning commission members and all the support. So, thank you for all that help. It brought me way back and great job and it's excellent to see us from to promote from within. Commissioner Anderson. All right. Not much of a report. I do want to just um acknowledge I have been 90 days officially on the job. I know that because I got a lot of really annoying emails about my password needed to be changed. And um that made me reflect on these these 90 It's done now, Colin. It's done. We did that. Um it just made me reflect on um kind of what a whirlwind these 90 days have been and and I've had a chance to meet so many employees and one of my standard questions is what advice do you have for me? because, you know, I'm new in this role and people have seen commissioners come and go and and the the the main theme that I received was collaborate. We heard it from Peter Ivy on his retirement is collaboration and and how important that is. And we all started our strategic planning process with um Dave Unmucked. I think I said that right. Yes. Two wins in one day. And um so this is going to be an exciting time for us as a as a board to identify those areas um our strategic priorities to collaborate and and yeah, we have a lot of work to do with with the 2026 budget. So um it's been a great 90 days so far and I I hope it continues. Um I plan on it continuing and that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you very much, Commissioner Lynch. I did too meet with uh Mr. Unmach and I found out he was from Iowa and we talked about wrestling for in a wrestling fence. We talked about wrestling for quite some time and I knew you'd think that was humorous. Um I too would like to congratulate uh Jennifer Tish. She's done a wonderful job and uh always uh very informative and ask a very ask a question and she'll give you a very pointed answer very quickly. Um so congratulations. It's welld deserved. Um, and we're coming up on the uh Easter season, so uh have everyone have a very blessed uh uh Easter season and remember the reason for the season. Okay, thank you very much. Uh I know everybody talks about how Ms. Tishi is direct and honest. This does not work well in politics, but uh that's why she's not in them. Um but uh uh like to echo Commissioner Uterman's comments. him and I are on the legislative committee of for the county and I spend a considerable amount of time down there and being a former recovering uh legislator and uh his numbers are not unaccurate if that's a word um for what the state plans to shift to Carver County taxpayers um before we even begin which is going to be a tough budget. year to begin with. And so I'll dubtail that in with the cheery uh report on libraries from Commissioner Fehee uh on what could possibly happen if we need to uh raise our tax levy 25% or more um to libraries, parks, other things that we are not required to do as a county. So I have a great trepidation about where this is going to go. Uh the legislature is to adjourn on May 19th. Uh they uh most do not believe that that they will be wrapped up by then. They do have to have a budget by June 30th. So there's probably special sessions somewhere in there. But it doesn't appear the legislaturator's uh real interested in the pain of cutting back on uh in 23 what was a kind of a wildeyed budget and a surplus. So uh stay tuned. Um if uh the legislature passes a budget with those numbers in it, there is little to nothing this board can do uh after that passes. So hang on. Um, on a bright note, uh, where, uh, Midwest Medical Examiner report came in on who died in Carver County. Blunt force trauma. Pardon? Blunt force trauma. A lot of blunt force trauma. A lot of some more than I I like uh uh drug deaths, suicides, but zero firearm deaths. Now, that would be a statistic I would send to my third daughter who lives in South Minneapolis who I'd love to live out here in beautiful Carver County. So, um that's about all I have for now. Okay. Consent agenda. Move approval, Mr. Chair. Second. A motion by Lynch and a second by Anderson. I will note a couple of things. Of course, Ms. Tishy is on there and her great promotion. Um, we did uh we do have a $13.6 million approval of a collective bar bargaining agreement for our supervisors and managers. It's kind of a big number. Um, one that everybody fought hard for. And uh I'm going to need a trip out to our sign shop because I do not know what a rolling application table is that we're paying a lot of money for. But I I am going to find out. So, anybody wants to go out to the sign shop out in Cologne, let me know. I have a motion and a second on the consent agenda. Seeing no more discussion, all those in favor say I. I. Those opposed. Motion passes. I number 3.1, a resolution to proclaim April 7th to the 13, 2025 as National Public Health Week. Mr. board chair, commissioners, others. Um, this is that one time a year that I get to smile a lot, right? Because I get a chance to acknowledge the team, our public health team. Also share the fact that um, I'm in my dream job. I've always wanted to serve as a role as a public health director or involved with working with the team to better the health of a community. I also was fortunate enough to be able to move into the county to be well invested in the community. So obviously I care about the health of our community from a resident point of view, but also obviously from a professional point of view. I will be reporting um uh as a community health board after this to kind of go into where we are and what the state of the health is for Carver County. So also defer some of that stuff to uh then I also just want to acknowledge some of my team decided to join me today. We have about 22 staff uh in public health. It's relatively small based on size of our county. Um, but we get we get real good at working with our partners both within uh Kyber County Health and Human Services, but also in the community as well. But I have my family health supervisor Sarah Pressure with me today. I also have one of our public health nurses, Courtney McIll with us. And then I'm also just delighted that we have an opportunity to host Americanore. I have been um involved with supporting Americanore for oh I don't know 20ome years. Uh even when I was working at Wakonia School District, we had several there. Um, even one of my youngest uh was a part of the reading corps through Americaore. Uh, and so having Danny Lewis Schuler, I believe is the right name, uh, one of our three Americanore people here. And what's nice about that is they come with a very strong solid professional um, skill set. Uh, and yet we don't have to pay them. They are paid through uh, AMPAC as part of the Americanore program, which is sort of like a domestic peace corp. Um, but it's really designed to give uh professionals an opportunity to sort of get their feet wet in the field of public health to see how they'll like it. So far, we haven't scared her away. I know that she's been already a wonderful asset for us in helping us achieve our mission and our objectives here for the county. But today, I I have a chance just to um proclaim this week, April 7th through the 15th, I believe, 13th, excuse me, as the National Public Health Week. Um, I've asked the county board if they would be willing to acknowledge a proclamation. So, I asked the chair Workman if he would be willing to read it. I'm willing to do it, but I gave if you're if he's willing to read it for us, that would be delightful. And so, I will defer to you to read the proclamation that's before you. Okay. Okay. Whereas National Public Health Week was established by the American Public Health Association in 1995 as a way to educate the public, policymakers, and public health professionals about issues important to improving the public's health. And whereas for more than two decades, communities around the country have celebrated National Public Health Week each April to help protect and improve our nation's health. And whereas this year the National Public Health Week is April 7th to the 13th, 2025 and is focusing on the theme, it starts here. Your health is our mission. And whereas Carver County Public Health's mission is to promote and protect health for all in Carver County and strives to address the many factors to promote health equity for all those who live, learn, work, and play in Carver County. And whereas Carver County Public Health works in collaboration with community partners to improve housing, education, food security, transportation, environment, and healthy recreational opportunities. Whereas Carver County is rated one of the healthiest counties in the nation. And whereas Carver County Public Health acknowledges that mental health is a core public health concern and that prevention, early detection, and treatment of mental health conditions can lead to improved physical and community health. Therefore, be it resolved that we, the Carver County Board of Commissioners, do hereby acknowledge the week of April 7th, 2025 as Public Health Week in Carver County in honor of the dedicated professionals who worked to create a safer and healthier community for all in Carver County. Thank you, Chair. Appreciate that. I almost didn't goof up any of that. You prove that you read really well. Sister Cecilia is very proud of me today. I would I would move approval. Second, Mr. Chair. Second, Mr. Chair. I have a motion by Lynch and a second by Udman. Thank you all for your hard work. This would fall under often the unsexy part of what county government does. Most of it that we do is not very sexy, but you do it very well. and we are the healthiest. I don't know 28 years in a row. So, I appreciate it. It was good timing for Mr. Schultz to hear this resolution and I think he might want to make a comment at the podium if he's going to We'll give him one minute. One minute. Okay. I would love you all to go to Wakonia. There's a school preschool. Walk around Aiden and kitchen area. Walk. Don't drive. If you got to be downwind and open your nose. Mine's been burned by chlorine many of times. And I don't go there every day. It's doctor's appointment, eye appointment, this or that. And every time I go by there, my eyes water and I can smell it. And you just talked about environment. You guys are on it. Our environment of that air flying up. I would love to see you guys walk around and do it. I had no clue you guys were going to be here today. And thank God there there's got to be a God because please go there and if you all want to go there with me, we all walk through that door to save our little children, which is just one block away. And then the other schools on the other side of the highway, please drive through there. You guys too go there right away in the morning. 8:00, 9:00. It's It's bad. My daughter calls me every day. She drops the kids off. So, please go there. You guys are all volunteers or you're all in it. You said the environment. I'm asking you please go there. We all We stand strong together. one person beating the drum because I talked to a lot of people over there. There's no complaint because everyone goes, "We tried. We tried. We didn't get nowhere." So, they give up. Well, you found a guy that don't give up because you know what? I'm a well driller. I don't get paid until water comes out of the ground. You can't give up until water's coming out. So that's not in my vocab. Give up. You ever see that little picture of the sloop pumper sucking down a frog and the frog has his arm out, squeeze his neck? Well, if he can't swallow, he can't he can't eat. That's me, the frog. I'm hanging on. So, please help. Thank you, Dick. All right. 4.1 semianual report to the Carver County Community Health Board. Thank you, Commissioner Chair, Commissioner, staff, and people in the audience. Um, again, we vote. Thank you. Recess as a county board. Switch your hats. Commissioner Lynch, do you have uh anything you'd want to do, Mr. Chair? I'd like to recess as a county board and convene as a community health board. So move. I have a motion by by Lynch and a second by Fehee to recess as the county board and convene as community health board. Thank you, Mr. Hemsy for keeping us on track. Any discussion on that? If I could, I would like to say Sister Cecilia is very proud of you for reading the proclamation as you did and she didn't have to hit you with a ruler this time. That's right. Or other. She's real. She's a real person. All right. All those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed. Motion passes. We are now the community health board. Mr. Scott, thank you, Commissioner Bcher. I appreciate that. and you back again for a second round here. Um, as you may already know, the Minnesota statute 145A does require that the community health services administrator, which is a role I play, present to the county health board at least twice a year. So, I always look forward to these opportunities, always be delighted to speak more if called upon. So, this is just to fulfill um our obligation, but it's also provides an opportunity for me to brag a little bit, if you don't mind, um to talk about the impact that we are having on our community health here in Carver County. As you alluded to, Carver County has been selected as being one of the healthiest counties in Minnesota for a long time. Officially, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, that's going on 13 years, but probably longer than that before. And according to the US News and World Report, we were rated the eighth healthiest county in the United States last year. So we are obviously doing well. What we have discovered though with talking with our residents, with meeting with them, doing key informant interviews, uh, uh, randomized adult health surveys is that not everyone in our community is able to access and utilize the wealth of resources we have. And so while public health is charged to be concerned about the health of the entire county, we have a unique obligation to work with those residents who are more struggling, have more difficulties and challenges accessing utilizing our resources in healthcare. And so that's what we do. We want to work with our uh residents who may be struggling, who may be marginalized so that they can take advantage of the resources we have. We can also maybe modify some of those resources to make them more approachable and usable by those residents so that they can maximize their health and also equally importantly give them an opportunity to be engaged in the process so that they can pay it forward and be part of the solution here in Carver County. And so we're delighted about that and we have many examples where we have moved the needle in that aware in that area. What I would like to talk to you um now too is just briefly just to advance Oh, it's underneath. One of the unique things that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in partnership with the University of Wisconsin um uh health institute, they have been doing a lot of research over the years to kind of really understand what are those drivers that help promote maximum health. And they have changed their model a little bit this coming year and that's what's here in front of you. It's a new model of health. Whereas on the top, it's the population of health and well-being which is sort of those markers and indicators of health. What are some of the drivers under that? They identify community conditions, societal rules, and what they call power. And I'll talk a little bit about that. Um the top one where it says a community health and well-being is something we we create as a society. They point out that not something an individual can attain in a clinic or be responsible for alone. Health is more than the freedom of disease and pain. Health is the ability to thrive. Well-being covers both quality of life and the ability of people and communities to contribute to the world. Populational health involves optimal physical, mental, spiritual, and social wellbeing. Community conditions include those social and economic factors, physical environment, and health infrastructure in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age. Societal rules are the written and unwritten rules and how they are applied to shape community conditions. Written rules may be formalized and documented in laws, policies, regulations and budgets, ordinances that the county commissioners have um chance to to form as well as unwritten rules which are often made up of worldviews, culturals and norms. These can include customs of expectation and guidance on thought and behavior without becoming documented in white writing and they play off an important role. And then finally, the word power is referring to the ability to achieve a purpose and affect change. And I think that's the role that we often as county government working in partnerships with our residents. What what influence can we have in working together with our community to really make those changes necessary to optimize health and well-being? People can build community power where they organize and act together to set agendas, shift public discourse, influence who makes decisions and cultivate relationships with decision makers. And also I like to stress that this is an way that we can be involved for the critical importance of building trust in cultivating social capital. I know I've had a chance to share this with some of you is that I had a chance to go to an all day conference on emergency preparedness and the keynote speaker talked about the importance of social capital. He says, "Social capital is probably the most important variable that reduces that reduces the harmful impact of a disaster and improves the rate in which a community recovers more so than infrastructure, more so than money, more so than politics. The the degree to which we build relationships with each other, both horizontally, that's with our residents, community partners, and also vertically with our decision makers, leaders, both elected and otherwise. The more we can build that togetherness, that sense of working together, the healthier we are and the less uh impact we often have from um disasters. Moving through some of the criteria used from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and I know that you had received a copy of a packet that we had presented to you when this first came out. As you can see here, Carver County is listed on the left, Minnesota's average is in the middle, and the United States average is on the right. on all the indicators on that page, Carver County performed better than both the state and the US. Uh so that obviously is pretty significant. Some of those indicators are just looking at poor physical health days. We've had significantly less than others. Low birth weight, which is a marker of health internationally. We have fewer low birth weights, even poor mental health days. Mental health was identified as one of our top concerns during our community health assessment process. And even with that though we scored better than the state and the and the state and the United States did that poor health and as mentioned there and then the other areas are additional qualities of health that aren't used for the ranking but they are definitely have an impact on the overall health and well-being of community and as you can see those are listed there. One thing I just want to point out under suicides we had less than what was listed in Minnesota United States. This is based on 2022 data. um board chair referenced the um the medical examiner's report that just came out for 2024 and it is sad to note that according to the medical examiner for 2024 we had 15 suicides. That was more than twice we had from the year before. Not sure what's all responsible for that but it's definitely that got my attention and so obviously it's something that we're going to continue to address and work on as we move forward. Other so community conditions that influence that. This one is referring to health infrastructure. So this again is not necessarily the impact we have just going to our own doctor, but it's the ability for us to have a network of health uh to meet the needs of us within the county. Couple of the things that Robert Wood Johnson uses as sort of a marker of that is flu vaccine and you can see we have actually a higher rate of flu vaccines in our country than our county compared to the state and the United States. And the little green squiggly line means it's also in the process of even getting better. Our ability to have access to exercise is amazing. 97% of our community has access to healthy recreational opportunities. I think that's been a priority of the board. We appreciate that and that allows us to become really that destination location not only for residents but for others coming in to enjoy our county and as a result it also helps us be healthier. Another area we focused a lot on in the last several years was is food security and there's a couple of markers that indicate that and we perform better than the state and the United States in both of those markers on food security issues. Where we are struggling though is the number of health care professionals per capita. We have less than the state average and we have less than the US average in both primary care physicians, mental health providers and we don't do that well with dentists as well. So that's definitely an area of growth. In spite of that, we've done pretty good though at preventing hospital stays. That's referencing primarily the Medicaid Medicare population. So it's not the whole and we do other real well with some of our screening and we have one of the lowest uninsured rates uh in the country as well. So those are some of the things that obviously contribute to our health. Just kind of quickly going through some of the other things, there's that food security again, access to healthy foods. One of the areas that we are consistently struggle and I sometimes tease this is maybe why we were rated the happiest county in the United States once is our excessive um drinking uh is significantly of concern. We're tied with the Minnesota average on that but I did check around some of our surrounding communities where I hate to say this but we're actually doing better than Scott County. Uh we're doing better than Wright County. We're doing better than Mloud and Sibly County. We're about tied with Henipin which was interesting but other than that um uh it is still an ongoing concern that we keep an eye on and we are continuing to offer programs that help people in this area as we move forward but we have less adults who smoke uh and we have less people who are physically inactive. Couple of other things that are important is severe housing problems. Obviously we live in an affluent community. The cost of living is high and we really try to put a lot of effort to try to make things more affordable. Help those who are in transition. help those who are h homeless to provide a place so that they can feel like they can be part of a community. And when you look at the indicators that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation uses to measure that index, we're actually doing better in a lot of ways than both the state and the United States. So that's amazing. We are still somewhat of a bedroom community because a lot of um a lot of our residents drive and work outside of the county. Uh and that's why we score high there. Um, the other thing here, 94% for broadband, but I have a feeling from what the work that the county commissioners have done that we'll probably close to 100% the next time that report comes out in the future. So, that's really exciting. And then also notice we made we we did a nod to library services. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation acknowledges the importance of library as it relates to contributing health. And while that was mentioned, I thought I would just look it up to see what see what artificial intelligence tells us, right? And here's what they said, which is amazing. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recognizes public libraries as vital community resources that can play a role in promoting health and well-being. Libraries can provide access to information, technology, and programs that support health literacy, education, and access to other social services. So that's that serendipity benefit that libraries have provide. So obviously, as we have to make tough choices moving forward with how we spend our money, that's just something that we need to be mindful of. And one other thing that I would be uh remiss if I didn't say it as a public health director is what is the return on investment in investing in public health. So I did a little bit checking on that and one of the newsletters that I get fairly regularly is called our local epidemiologist. And in that she reported based on multiple peer-reviewed research studies on the return on investment for public health. It ranges from three to um was it 20 $60 um and I can even maybe get that article here from three to $60 weight on rate of return. The $60 for every dollar we spent to promote flu vaccine for our seniors based on the studies returned $60 of medical savings to the community. For every dollar spent for immunizing our children saves 11. And for every dollar we put in for just helping families learn how to use the right car seat. So the car seat programs we have that with public health saves $29 of potential costs associated with accidents for folks who are not wearing seat belts. So while those are long-term costs, we don't necessarily always experience them immediately. I think it's something that us need to be mindful as we're making appropriate choices for our funding as we move forward. So what does our future look like? I think many of you recognize this slide. I did present this when we finished our community health assessment. What was the overall I mean I don't know it's like hund and some pages long if you take all the data into it but distilling it down to those core things what came out is that overall health is declining at a much lesser rate in Carver County but we're still spread struggling with some of those concerns that we have to be mindful of. But the top two concerns that the residents shared both from the randomized adult health survey as long as well as our inter key informant interviews and listening sessions is mental health which I think has been on a lot of people's mind and what it's called what they call affordability especially in the area of those basic essential needs that we have to have in order to thrive and that's one resource navigation. Sometimes the gap isn't not having the service is not knowing how to access and utilize it. Sometimes a service is not always presented provided in such a way that's respect that's responsive to the to the diversity of our clientele. So sometimes that needs to change but it's not the availability of it per se. It's how do we access it. So the accessibility is one of of and so that would be resource navigation is one of the areas of concern. The other one was housing was listed as an area of concern. food security and transportation. Those were the top things that our public health advisory council after reviewing all of our data really felt were some of the top priority areas of concern. And the other thing I think we all know is our county is changing. We're one of the fastest healthy one of the fastest growing counties um in Minnesota and will continue to be over the next 20 years. And that's something we need to be mindful of and that's changing across all age span. But when you target specifically 65 and older and 85 and older, that's even growing at a faster clip than the other age groups. So that's obviously going to provide some unique challenges for us as moving forward. When I reviewed all this stuff along with my team, we tried to say, okay, what are those key challenges and opportunities that we need to be mindful moving forward for the next 12 months, but also for the next five years? And one of the things I think we've become acutely aware of recently is changing public health landscape and funding priorities. And I'd be happy to respond to questions after my presentation if you have anything more specifics of how some of the recent changes are affecting us here locally and how they might also affect um our nation moving forward. Growing population with changing dynamics. We're going to look a little different in the next 20 years and there'll be a lot more of us. increasing risk of both chronic and communicable diseases moving forward and improve and then we want to take advantage of improving capacity to respond to public health emergencies and core public um services and areas of responsibility. And finally bec um we want to expand our substance use and o opioid settlement programs initiatives. We had the good fortune of receiving an opioid settlement amount. It's not a huge amount, but it provided us to have focused conversation about what are our concerns in Carver County, who are our collaborating partners that want to be part of the solution, and how can we use the funds from that settlement to leverage accessing and other funds. And right now I'm um working on another grant with Minnesota Department of Health of state dollars, not federal, to help us expand our partnership with our court services to really work with those justice involved youth who are at risk for using or in the process of recovery. We provided some opioid funds for them, but we didn't have enough to really add the mentoring program and some upstream activities of doing some coaching and peer um support in the high schools. And so hopefully that grant will help expand that. and then finally continue to cultivate communities to belonging and trusted relationships. You can imagine how excited I was when I was at that conference and when the keynote person said the single most important variable you can do to both promote your health but also to help you in times of emergency is building communities of belonging. He used the word social capital but when you start lining up what that means that's basically cultivating communities of belonging and we already have a good start there. And so that's going to be one of our focuses as we move forward. What are we doing to reconnect and rebuild that sense of trust uh with our community residents, with with our partners, and obviously with our leadership to really so that we can work together to really maximize the health and well-being here in community. So again, real quick, finishing up shortly, uh we are finalizing our community health improvement plan. It's in the process of being published as we speak. Um Pat Steig who's been one of our staff here is a lead. He says, "Richard, you're the one that's holding it up." So I need I need to sort of rewrite the introduction piece of it. I wanted to be more aspirational, more hopeful, obviously acknowledge the reality of some of our concerns. And so once I'm done that, hopefully that will be ready for publication. And what's neat about the community health improvement plan, it's not Carver County Public Health's plan, it's our community's plan. These were the I priorities and the areas that the community as a whole um as referenced in our community health advisory council feel that they can invest and have skin in the game to be a part of the solution. Obviously, our internal strategic plan builds on that. Uh but this is uniquely the community's plan and I and I referenced those areas of priority before. So, what is our plan? Right now, we're right in the process of developing our five-year Carver County Public Health strategic plan. We started out by sort of identifying, well, what are our values, missions, uh, and vision? And again, this is for primarily for internal use to kind of guide our decision-making as a public health agency. And we really see Carver County as wanting to be a dynamic community where everyone belongs, everyone is valued, and is supported to live their healthiest life. We feel our unique mission is partnering with our community. Emphasis is partnering. So, it's not just about us, but working with our community to both assure, protect, and improve the health and well-being now and well into the future. And some of the values that are driving our decision- making is we want to have open interactive two-way communication. We want to cultivate that sense of trust. We want to hear feedback and we want to be responsive to that. We want to use sound um data in the best way we can to drive our decision making. Uh we want to be adaptable and responsive to changes. obviously collaboration. Um we're clearly focused on service. We're public servants after all and it's a sense of genuine respect for all that we engage. So those are sort of our driving values. What's moving us forward as we develop our details of our strategic plan and that's still to be developed are four overriding questions and those have been driving us through this process and these questions do align with our sort of mandated services as our foundational public health areas of responsibility and the first question is how will we effectively meet the growing needs of our changing population and ensure that we can do uh that we can do so within the evolving social political environment. The second key question is how will we effectively train, develop and support a strong public health workforce? I.e. Danny Loose is one example that we're doing to try to prepare us for our future public health force. Third question is how will we ensure that we are consistently practicing effective communication and engaging with community members and our partners? And then finally, how we will define our department's scope of work to operate effectively and deliver the core public health responsibilities for our residents even under uncertain and changing circumstances. So that concludes my official presentation. Surely would be open for other questions or comments that the board may have. Thank you very much. Mr. Schultz, could you uh could could you stand, please? Got a question. I know when I ran my business, you got to go to the heart and you said about not having enough money to live in Carver County. It all could be solved. We got a workforce that is way down. I went to Wonia and that's where I got a lot of my help is summertime help with the high school kids. And I bring them in. I talked in the wood shop. I knew the wood shop teachers. Still know them today. And I do pepcott talks to them, which our schools are not teaching these kids. They're saying everyone has to go to college. No, you don't. I never went to college. I have the I had the biggest well drilling company in the state of Minnesota. I sold it. I retired. You know what? I'm 60. I've been doing it my whole life. Right now, I can name all the all the unions that are looking for people. If you called up all the unions and put a job fair together at these schools and had them talk the first day of school and tell these children, these kids, these men and women, I even talked to some of the girls that were there and said, "You could be a dump truck driver. You're 18. You could be driving that truck. a GPS, you know where to dump. You can be a tin worker, you could be this, you could be that. I go, they're all union. You're making 50, 60, 80 bucks an hour, plus a pension plan, plus health insurance. It's all in a package. You don't want to waste four years of college and you get on, oh, I don't know what I'm doing. I still have guys today today they meet me on the street and they come up and they shake my hand. Thank you, Nick, for getting me in the right direction. I got one young kid. He was on drugs. There were actually two of them. One's tinting windows now. I got him off drugs right out of high school. I put them in a straight narrow line. One owns They both own houses now. They both got union jobs. One of them has a good union job. They're making great money. They're happy. You know what? You want to solve the problem, you got to start at schools, you got to start. And you know what? I'd love to talk to the principal and do the prep class the first day of every school year up in front and say, "Welcome them to what's going to go on in your future." And it's not a grade average of 70%. You got to be 100%. Can I get paid at 70% if I drill a well and no water? No, it has to be 100%. I got to have you water. So having a grade average is not. You're better off slowing down teaching lesser and making sure everyone has 100% than 70% of a hunter and then they missed out on the 30% they needed. Well, Nick, I think I need to make you an honorary public health professional. So, thank you for that. Thanks, Nick. But if you want me to come and talk to kids at school, I will because I'm not scammed. Yeah. Well, Nick, you're representative of the type of engagement we want to have with their residents. So, thank you for sharing. Also want to share before I came here, I worked for um almost nine years for Wakonia public schools. Um uh the public health manager position at the time was open. Rod Franks, who was in the HHS director role, had asked me if I'd be interested in applying for that job. And at that time, I turned it down because I was very excited about working with the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce to expand a vocational technical and and industrial arts education at Wakonia School for the very reason that you mentioned that. And so I because I was excited about that program, I delayed that, but eventually, you know, Woney decided to lay me off. And so I came looking and I'm glad now I'm like I said now I'm back in my jeans. But I think acknowledging the importance of providing the right opportunity for us to all contribute and make a living and be part of our community is important and that is one of the reasons why we are one of the healthiest is because we focus on helping people be part of the community. So thank you. Thank you. I know that Senator, former Senator Norm Coleman always said, "If you want to fix housing issues, jobs. If you want to fix poverty, food insecurity, just about any crime, I see the sheriff back there. Job. A good job. Uh, and it fixes a lot of different stuff. So, back to the board. I know we get a a fire hose of information from uh Dr. Scott. Any con any Commissioner Rderman? Uh, a couple things. First, uh, no obligation, but with I don't want to waste the opportunity. Danaloo, thanks for being here. Um, if you want to approach the podium, it's very rare to be able to speak in one of these meetings and have that on record for your friends and family and whatnot. So, invitation extended. If you want to say a few words where you came from, all those things, I think the uh mission of Americanore is serve, grow, and lead. And I think that um investing in our future leaders such as yourself. I know there's a few people that have joined us from other organizations. um uh if that's a of interest to you. Uh no obligation, but I think that it's important. I've got two young daughters and uh they were in here um not so long ago and they they got a kick out of coming up to the microphone. It wasn't taped or whatever, but the confidence that I've seen in them given the opportunity to speak publicly, that's available to you if you'd like to. Um uh thank you, Dr. Scott. Um this is some of the work that even people on this board, me included, uh we don't have the full depth of what it is that you do every day. and to trust that what you're doing, it's not lost on me. Just five short years ago, it seems like an eternity ago, you were in here on different topics. Um, and we had to navigate those things. And you know, you brought some stuff we didn't really want to hear. Um, some things we probably still don't want to hear. And some of the things within in this report are inconvenient for us to know that is the most affluent county in the state. That doesn't mean our problems are not, but it also is the fastest growing. And I would say maybe some of our language could be the fastest changing as well. the people dynamic in Carver County look way different from 10 years ago or 20 years ago and you're navigating that and there's sensitivities around that. You use sociopolitical um but quite candidly there's uh the highest growth uh in our community doesn't look like you and me. These are real friction points that I think you're proactively working upstream to address and so I thank you for that. I also think that we are in a unique position in Carver County that as the most affluent, as the fastest growing, relatively speaking, maybe some of the fewer problems, some of our peer counties, we have the opportunity to lead. We have the chance to pilot different things and take those back to the greater population for the greater good. And so I guess one of the questions is is how are we using AI other than you pulling it up on your phone? um how are we using AI and technology to find efficiencies to address problems to collaborate with solutions as to what does it what does that look like um I've talked to a lot of people that say the future of HHS and public health will lean heavily on technology um and so I'm curious to hear from you how is technology in integrated in some of these pillars that you're you're offering I'm sure Pete will get annoyed if I keep on asking him about what's our plan for um AI I understand as our Microsoft platform we will have the ability ability uh to look at that in the future. I know Heather and I actually went to uh social service uh conference and one of the keynote speakers or the workshop presented was on the use of AI. So clearly that's on our topic. Um I'm probably a little behind the eight-ball on how that works. My oldest son is all about that. He works for a defense contractor uh which is the 22nd century of using AI for military technology. So that's all I can share otherwise he'd have to kill me. But other than that, so definitely it's it's our future. Um, but I I I I'm not sure exactly how that's going to work. One of the things I alluded to before is building a sense of trust, right? And I think that's something that's um we would also have to how are we building trust on how we use data, how we use artificial intelligence, how are we protecting the privacy of our residents and each other in the use of that data. So that will also have to drive that conversation as we move forward. But I look forward to it. just because it is a way of kind of sorting through a lot of stuff and gleaning what might be considered appropriate and then obviously we still need to use our professional judgment to vet that information but it can save a lot of time. Yeah. Uh two more things. One I think there's a plurality there. You know as a dad I don't want my kid melting their face on social media or technology on the daily but we know it's useful to her as well. So, is a challenge, a respectful challenge to we we were we're in a unique position to push the envelope a little bit and lead in this space for the greater good of the community. And then the last thing, I love quoting you um when you said years ago, the worst time to exchange business cards is when you're in in a catastrophe. And and I think that you do a great job of building those deep relationships within our community that when there's a time to lean on that trust factor, um your team yourself are ready to go. So to you and your 22 managers and proclamation that you offered, thank you for for the work that you're doing. Yep. Commissioner Anderson. All right. Thank you, Dr. Scott. It's always nice to have you here and it's always nice to see you. I want to um go back to a slide um about Carver County Community Conditions and um I'm Yes, thank you, Colin. um and and looking at um not thrilled that that we have fewer primary health physicians and mental health providers. And as you know, access um is is so important. So, I'm I'm a newbie on the mental health advisory task force. I know I said that wrong, Heather. I know I said that wrong. Um however um any ideas on how we can recruit more primary care physicians and more mental health providers? I do believe at our first street center we have had an opening for a psychiatrist psychologist still can't get those straight for for for quite some time um which hinders us from a able to be providing those services. So any recommendations and and how we can um partner with private organizations in order to to recruit some of these um key um physicians here or healthcare providers, mental um physical and healthcare providers. Commissioner Anderson, thank you for that question. I think that is the million-dollar question that we've been struggling with for a long time and I think there are multiple factors that affect that and I think we'll need to sort of look at all of those. Um um I know when I had a chance to meet with some of our legislators uh through the local public health association day at the capital, a couple of the areas that I mentioned is how are what are we doing as far as mental health parody. Uh and also what are we doing to address some of the other costs that we don't always know about in providing critical mental health care whether it be in the community or whether it be in the jail or whether it be and that just the co increasing costs of malpractice insurance the increasing cost of liability u make it increasingly more difficult for many providers to be a part of that in the private sector and so then the question is how can the county help with that you know so there's I think a lot of of I don't have all the solions I'm sure Heather could probably speak to that from her perspective on that, but it is something that we're working on. And on one one very specific example, however, I referenced um that grant opportunity through the Minnesota Department of Health. It's called the super grant, which is substance use prevention and recovery grant. We're if we get that, it's be very competitive, but we think we have a good chance. We're going to use some of that funding to contract with a a current local um provider of mental health services that focuses on the Latino, Latinex, and other people within our community. So, to offer that service that's unique to that diverse group of people to be more responsive in that area that came up as a need. We're also going to be expanding the support with our court services to provide that both mental health and substance use treatment and support and recovery whether it be a certified peer um peer peer specialist or whether it be mentoring or whether it be the direct intervention as well again to provide those critical services. It's a drop in the bucket. I know. But what's nice about that, it's collaborative and and and we each have a sphere of influence and hopefully with that sphere of influence, we will, you know, attract and encourage others to become more a part of the solution. Yeah, I I appreciate that and and and I appreciate the work you do in public health. I mean, I think, you know, we're statutoily obligated um to to protect the safety and well-being of our our community. We have services that do that. um but especially providing for those who are the most vulnerable and I know that's the work you do and I know that's very difficult work um and so I appreciate um all that you do in that area. Um I was curious I was encouraged actually to hear the the communities of belonging in that piece and how important culture is. Um, I I I say it a lot. Um, local government is a team sport and we're really blessed to have great partners of our cities and our townships. Um, I met with uh Mayor Hubard, new mayor of Chaza yesterday, and she wants to change the phrase uh instead of being the best small town to be the best hometown in in the state because that provides belonging and community. That's so important to our residents. So, um, kind of strengthening those both private and public partnerships, um, is is it I'm hoping is a way that that we can can attract more of these providers. Um, but thank you again for the work you do and and I'm looking forward to partnering with you and making this look a little better next year. Not that it's great, but you know, always focus on what we can improve and and uh, so thank you for that. Appreciate it, Mr. Mr. Chair, thank you. Yes, Richard, thank you for all you do and I've appreciated our we met this morning and talked a little bit more about the shack topics and you shared with me the the strategic plan and one of the interesting upcoming topics and this has been on the national level about drinking water and public health and all these concerns about the drinking water that we've taken for granted all of our lives And so that will be interesting to to sit in and and and listen to that. And then the community of belongings and gone to a few of those meetings in Cologne and what that has done for that community and the surrounding communities is I think the gold standard of bringing the a small community together to to reach some some very positive goals. And then you and I talked about just a sense of trust and respect and professionalism and and how that goes forward with who we are and and who you are and and ultimately how it reflects on Carver County. So thank you sir. Thank you Mr. Lynch. Anything? Um Dr. Scott, thanks for the presentation today. I go back to the Carver County health outcomes and u we're consistently better than the state and we're substantially better than the United States in basically all of them. Uh that's not to say that we don't have some issues and uh they been articulated by my colleagues and uh but I really appreciate the work that you do and for keeping the your finger on the pulse of uh Carver County Health. So appreciate it. So, I uh got a physical on Friday at the Alina Clinic. Uh I think the words were, "We've never seen a finer specimen." It was something like that, I'm sure. Um wasn't it round as a shape, too? Uh but I walked in and uh I'm a fairly uh chatty customer wherever I go. And I wow, nobody was in there. Oh, and um my doctor uh I'll say it out loud, Dr. Bill Moss is uh retiring. He's uh not even a year older than me. And I reminded him uh since I've been seeing him for 30 years or so, I said, "You can't retire until you put me back the way you found me." And so he's recontemplating. Uh but uh he he in fact was not there. I think he's burning up his vacation time before uh June. But I saw a PA, but there were only two primary care doctors. This is the 212 212 clinic uh Alina. Um and uh they thought, well, people are on vacation some spring break and other things, but maybe we've gotten through the the illness season a little bit. But I was kind of shocked uh that it was uh that open and uh I don't know, food for thought. But I I do have the advantage of being around here for a long time. I see the sheriff left. What 25 years ago, this county was a real outlier on the on the alcohol related uh DWIS, DUIs, whatever you want to call them. I remember it sticking out. Commissioner Lynch, maybe you do too. we really kind of stuck out. And you know, I'm not sure what happened. Maybe uh uh stricter law enforcement. Um we were a little sleepier county 25, 30 years ago. Um uh better roads. Um our our road imp we we spent a lot of money on lighting rural busy rural county intersections. Probably remember that. Um, and so all those little things that I think back on that added up to, you know, we design roads so people don't get hurt and we feel like we could go 80 miles an hour down that road because we made them safe. And so a lot of different factors uh uh everybody chipping in to make this a great place. And but we do appreciate the comments and uh you're going to hire Nick uh slooh sloohoo pumper. I hadn't heard that word in a long time. Slooh pumper Nick over there and uh and get everybody uh on the right track. But uh but we appreciate this is a six month, right? Don't don't we hear you every six months? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I hope that's okay. It is okay. Okay. So, but seeing no other questions? Yes. I don't want to throw cold water cold water and a lot of good news here, but you and Commissioner Rutderman already mentioned the state fiscal crisis and what that may the impacts that it may have on our services and and public health this part of the mixture and of course nobody knows right now. So let's hope for the best. We will be preparing for the worst. However, but we haven't talked much about the federal issues related to public health and I just read this morning 11 billion in fed federal cuts to CO funding were put on hold by a judge. There's a lot of uncertainty what's going on with this money, but I do know that wasn't 400,000 that was was it cut or paused? Yeah, for uh well u the co 19 funding uh there was two pots of funds but it was all underneath that umbrella. Uh we still had about $400,000 left in Carver County that we were hoping to utilize to support our programming and some short-term on call staff. Um obviously depending on what happens with the restraining order, all that's gone and and Minnesota Department of Health, if you've probably been keeping track of the news on last Tuesday, they had to lay off 170 people. They had to resend 20 new employees. And then obviously the domino effect is going to affect other employees. So that has caused some concern and I know that Minnesota Department of Health said that's really going to have an impact on our ability to um as far as immunizations are concerned it's going to have an impact on our readiness to respond to communical disease outbreak. We may have to take an even more active role on case on contact tracing and contact investigation. So there's a lot of concerns that potentially could happen and then obviously at the federal level um that may not always immediately directly impact us but we look to them for a whole lot of things. They have early warning systems on on potential communicable diseases on education on a lot of different things. So there it could be very disruptive um with the impact that's happening there but it's so volatile um you know I know and we're so I often tell my team is that we need to be very alert on what our are areas of concern are uh and be mindful and how do we start planning for worst case scenarios but at the same time we need to focus on our energy on what we have immediately in front of us what what resources do we currently have what's our task at hand and continue to focus on our sphere of influence. Uh because otherwise I know I could be guilty of just going down the rabbit hole of anxiety and concern that will take away from my energy to remain focused on what we can do in front of us. There was if you don't mind me just sharing there was a sort of a phrase that we used even during pandemic. We were often um using the wisdom of the Frozen the Disney Frozen movies. I don't know if any of you saw Frozen one and two, but the first Frozen movie just said, "Let it go." You know, let go of the things that you can't worry about. But Frozen 2 said, "Do the next right thing." And so I think putting those things two together really is sort of helps guide us forward. Focus on our sphere of control, on a sphere of influence, work with our partners, let go of our sphere of concern that we don't have, but always making sure we're being mindful to provide the best quality care in the most respective, compassionate way we can. and just do the next right thing. Miss Trip, if I could follow up though, that's good. I like like the attitude, but the reality is there was 400,000 that was so this is sort of one of those first big things that that I've seen that have a direct impact and uh Heather did did provide the board with an email. Uh but can you describe again what what our reaction or what we did then uh and how it impacted the services we're providing? Well, one of the biggest struggles I think with that not only to the loss of funding was the timing of it. Right? We got the official letter the day after the funding was no longer available. So the funding was ended as of March 24th. We heard about it on 25th. We had staff that were being paid by COVID money. And so as soon as we found out the very next day we said thank you but your assignment with us will need to be stopped because we no longer have the the funding to support your work. Uh so obviously that's devastating. We also had a uh to temporarily terminate a contract with Homeland Health uh who we were using to help us with our vaccination program. About 30% of our vaccines were being provided by them. They were focusing primarily on COVID and flu but when you look at all the vaccines about 30% of them were being provided. we were no longer able to provide that added service. 275 or so residents were using that as a more accessible alternative to get their shots than trying to find it either through one of the other formularies or through their healthcare. That's no longer available now for them as an option. So, it definitely had some very real consequences for us. We'll see what happens. But even if they reinstate the funding, it always takes a while to rebuild up those programs and those relationships and those contracts again to provide that service. Is that Oh, and to clarify, you mentioned staff. Those were contractual, too. Those are short-term on UNC because we knew that those were short-term funding. Um there was two pots of money as I alluded to before. One of it was, you know, planned to suns at the end of June. So, we knew about that and the other one was going to end the end of March. So, we already were planning for that, you know, scaling back on funding, but we were hoping to maximize that funding during this next year to really continue to build that capacity, save those funds that we can use then for other programming to expand our outreach. Thank you. Well, and so for those keeping score at home, uh, from the beginning of this meeting when we talked about the potential state, uh, shifting a lot of dollars our way, it's in I think Commissioner, you said between 25 and 32%, something like that. Um I'll speak for myself. Uh this isn't a preliminary levy hearing, but that is not an acceptable tax increase for residents of Carver County. So something would have to give. And uh so I think we are already in that mode before uh the governor and the legislature started shuffling their feet on a budget deficit. And so um we'll see how it goes. Uh the next months are going to be critical certainly at the legislature. May 19th they're supposed to be done. They won't. They'll go to special session. June 30th is the is the end of the fiscal year. Some are saying they won't be done by then and then the inspector for beer won't be able to get beer to the liquor stores and then the pressure will go on and then they'll get it done. But um so it's going to be a fun busy uh summer. Uh but we don't traditionally on this board tolerate big tax increases if we don't have to. So there use your imagination. So thank you Dr. Scott. We appreciate it. Commissioner Lynch. Mr. Chair, I would like to journ as a community health board and reconvene as a county board. Second. Commissioner Lynch has moved and there's a second to adjurnn as the community health board and reconvene as the county board. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. Those opposed. Motion passes. County administrator report. Yes, sir. Mr. Chair, board members, before we go into close session, busy month coming up, including uh this afternoon at 2 4110 groundbreaking. That's at the Shepherd of the Hill Church. you should have a calendar announcement with with the location of that. So, that one got posted. Uh the the 82nd came late, but we did get it posted on our website. It's not on your your list here. Uh that is Friday at 10:30 82nd Street. Uh they said uh west of the ravine. I think most of you know where the ravine is, right? You should be able to find it. Just a sec. Can't miss it. Right. Lyman, right? No, it's off of Lyman. Off Lyman. And uh but yeah, so down the gravel road that right by the ravine there. Uh sounds small townish like like directions like that. Yeah. Uh and then uh next week work session of course but then you have a strategic planning meeting and to clarify that's with the five board members. Yes. Uh Dave Dave Unmach myself and then Ari will be there to help put put the package together for communication purposes. That's the format of that and that's here here at the government center and of course to be later followed by a a larger group meeting with the division directors in May. I believe that's it unless you have questions on the calendar. Mr. Chair, I was told there would be a light buffet today later. Uh simple no. We can do that. Budget cuts. Oh, during the uhur during the uh maybe during the groundbreaking my protein snacks. No ribeye sandwiches, Lynch. Darn it. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hemsey. We are now going to move into a closed session. So, I'm going to read this quick paragraph that Minnesota statutes 13D.03 subdivision 2 allows a public entity to enter into a closed session to plan and discuss labor negotiation strategy. Employee relations requests to enter into a close session with the board to discuss labor negotiation strategy. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. A motion by Anderson, a second by Lynch to adjourn the county board. Any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed. Motion passes.