All right, the hour of nine o'clock having been attained, let's stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Well, good morning and happy Easter week to everybody. I took a little vacation like many and brought back the warmer weather and rain and we are going to talk about our favorite topic, the 2026 Carver County budget services review. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Commissioner Styley, the county administrator. I know it's your favorite topic, which is why we're starting early this year. I know you're excited about that, too. But, uh, we are starting early because if you look at past budget processes more difficultly trying to look in the future, uh, the key word here will be uncertainty. So this budget process may shape up unlike any other. If you think about some of the tough ones, co for example, that word uncertainty definitely came up there. The great recession was another one that sticks out in my mind. Oh, thank you, Nick. The great recession sticks out first time at at the podium. Pardon time. Oh, Nick, we preferred it the other way. Is my five minutes up already? Uh, this is important though because this is serious business and it and it is it does seem like one of those sort of a boy, what's what what is this going to turn out to be kind of years. So, we added another step and I know the board chair had requested that we do this. Uh so we are uh we're up to our sleeves here already in the budget process and I'd like to thank the division directors really did a nice job on the document that you see uh Mary Kay of course held so thank thanks to her it was 20 years ago we did something similar and it sticks out in my memory this is a tough exercise to do not necessarily the starting point but the prioritization part and I'm not asking you to do that today is more about education and to get a better understanding of the key issue that we'll be focusing in on, which of course is our general levy. In other words, property taxes. So, that's what we're going to do today. Dave is going to jump in with some of the financial detail, but I'll give the budget overview on the service delivery side, and that's really the key focus today. Again, property taxes, general levy, the focus on services. So, it it's about what we do and we're considering this the initial step to the budget process. Again, something we we haven't typically done. And then as we look into 26, uh Dave will also mention the calendar, which really there aren't major changes being proposed there. And then we'll be looking for some discussion. So, as we look at 2026, who really knows? Boy, I wish uh we had a better crystal ball. It's about as fuzzy as it's ever been at this point. But we do know some things at this point, which is helpful in budgeting, of course, especially something like wages and benefits. Uh we have all of our agreements signed. I guess the deputies, we still need to get through the boardroom. And then the And by the way, I think most division directors are here, so they're going to help me walk through things. So most of most of our agreements are signed. Deputies is coming coming to you soon. And then the licensed sergeants uh we are still working on that one. But we do have that pattern of course. So we know what the wages are. Uh we went out for bids on health insurance recently. So we know that we have a 20 26 cap of 12%. So we know the the highest amount that's going to be. Hopefully we can drive that number down. Those are big pieces. Those are the biggest pieces of our budget. Beyond that, we don't know a lot. We uh of good news anyway. We we know that there's going to be continued high costs of doing business. Uh at least it certainly seems like it. While inflation, I just looked this morning is is around 2.4% for the past 12 months. That's a pretty good number. However, you pretty pretty uh recent memory, it was double digits, right? So inflation was at a real good clip, a real sort of unprecedented clip, it seemed like. and then it's flattening out. But what that means is there's this continued high cost of doing business. So we don't think that's going to dip down or decrease. So that's a that's a pretty good known that that high cost of doing business is in effect. Now there's more of course uncertainty and unknowns out there and we've all been reading them, reading about them and watching on uh various newscasts etc. top headlines every day. Uh what's going on at the federal government with the the Doge process, uh the tariffs that are out there, those definitely seem like they're going to be directly impactful to us, although we don't know to what degree. We don't know exactly how this is all going to play out. Uh the only thing big thing I've seen so far come through is a a grant cut to our vaccination clinics, which was a a pretty big number. I think in the 400 grand. Yeah. So, a pretty big number. Uh, so that's maybe the first ominous sign of what may occur, but again, we really don't know at this point. Uh, we we're watching on the state side what's going on with the the legislature. Of course, there's a pretty deep division uh here closer to home at the state capital. Uh we are very concerned and and you were all aware of this but very concerned that the governor came out and the the real heart of his budget was not cost cuts but cost shifts to health and human services. And while the governor's budget isn't going to be the final decision point for the legislature, it does set a tone if nothing else. And uh we recently of course uh thanks to the board chair uh penned a letter uh regarding that particular topic senatoral legislators. I would like Heather just to come up briefly and mention her top concern because really that that focus is on health and human services. So if you could mention your top concern that's lingering out there with the caution. Absolutely. Uh thank you administrator. Good morning board chair commissioners. It's good to see you all today. Um, I'll be brief. I actually have three concerns that are my top concerns. We do have a long laundry list of cost shifts that are potentially coming to the county. Um, depending on what the legislature passes this session. Uh, but my two main my three main concerns, two of them are connected. So, I'll be brief. Uh, the first one involves persons with disabilities. So, our waiver our home and community based waiver services. So when a person with a disability lives in, for example, a corporate foster home, assisted living, what they call residential care, the governor's budget is proposing a 5% cost shift uh to the county for the cost of that care. The Senate's portion or the Senate's proposal for that is a 2% cost shift. So a little better than the governor's budget at a 5%. Interestingly, the House does not have that cost shift in their proposal, but they are instead proposing a 5% cost shift on all rate exceptions, which I won't get too in the weeds today on that, but it what it what a rate exception really means is if someone who has is a person with a disability who needs to be served in a service and their and their needs are high enough that the provider says we cannot serve them for kind of a standard rate, then we go to the state and request a rate exception to to pay that provider a higher rate to serve and meet those that persons with disabilities needs. So the house is proposing a 5% cost shift on all rate exceptions across the board, not just for residential. So yes, sorry, let's keep it simple. Yes, I am trying to keep it simple. So dollar amount we're talking about. So depending on whether the governors, again, it's this rolled into the Senate, whether the Senate or the House passes, depending on the cocktail of how that gets kind of shakes out, we're talking 750,000 cost shift to maybe 1.6 million on the on the bad end. So those are so those are significant. So that that combination um happening between the Senate and the House and the Governor is is concerning because even at a minimum, unless it all completely goes away um and that door opens, it's a $750,000 cost shift to the county. Just that one thing. Just that one thing. Yes. Yes. And I have a laundry list of things. And so my second concern, and I'll be brief, apologies, Dave. Um is the does not meet criteria. You we've talked about this. This is one of our legislative priorities. Um it's been a concern of mine for more than a year. Um we are slated to the relief that the legislature gave us two years ago is slated to end at the end of June this year. Um the only right now the house has a placeholder for that with no dollar amount there. It is not in the Senate's bill and it is not in the governor's proposal. So, um, theoretically, unless something magical happens, um, that relief will end June 30th and then the county will bear 100% of the cost for persons who are primarily in Anoka Regional Treatment Center. And I've done some math, talked to Dave a little bit about this, but a a yearly cost would be around $835,000 a year. um cost shift and it's really a cost shift to the county uh because this is a state responsibility uh that really would be shifting to the county. So um we um we potentially right now have two. So theoretically unless those persons somehow move out of an NOKA um we have two persons who would fall into that bucket that Jan July 1st 2025 we would start incurring the cost. And for for those of you who are the math folks in the room um the cost is $2,320 a day. So, an average 30-day month, um, that's $69,600 a month that we will pay starting July in July this year for two persons. So, a six 69, um, 600 each. So, I mean, you can do the math and it's, you know, that's, you know, you're you're talking for two people for a year is, you know, you're you're 1.6 million. Wow. And and I think um to the political side of that is um there there isn't and one of the reasons we wanted to get a message out uh to the public about how this is going to affect our budget is um there's a lot of advocacy groups. I think Heather said it best that there's a lot of ad advocacy groups out there for all of these different human uh social needs that counties in the state provide and there is no clamoring political clamoring or protests or other because nothing changes in in the uh customer's eye. It's just shifting the money to property taxpayers, us, and and so you're not hearing a lot of it there. That's what sort of drove the the idea that we better start getting this message out there. And um uh because they're not they're not standing in the rotunda screaming and yelling because nothing changes for the customer. So you're correct, board chair. Thank you for that. Thanks. Uh yeah, I ask Heather, please make it understandable. I think that really to me when we're talking about these various issues that are complex, but two clients that cost over a million bucks potentially, but if if in fact they were to follow the governor's plan, now the governor's plan overall was 8% on the levy. That's a big number. So without doing anything, it was an 8% impact. Again, however, uh that's not going to be the final result. Correct, Mr. Chair? you're at the capital, right? Uh sets the stage maybe, but it it'll be much different and hopefully much much better, but it's ominous. I don't recall ever uh my many years seeing a governor's budget like that. Again, that's why I'm relating it to CO or the great recession. This is this is pretty ominous and keep your let's keep our eye on that. Of course, we will advocate uh hopefully they can come up with some solutions to their $6 billion problem. uh rather than cost shifting, maybe if they're going to cut some cost, cut some of our funding, please cut the service, which is kind of what we're talking about here, right? Not not necessarily cutting it now, but if in fact we're going to make major cuts, let's make sure we're doing it correctly and carefully. The last item on there, uh, the focus of today, property tax. We don't have the kelk yet on the average value home, the impact, and how much new construction would we capture within a couple weeks. Dave, okay, is Mary Kay here, too? I'm Mary K. Okay, thank you. Not that I'm checking his math, but okay. Couple weeks. So, that's a key a key variable, and we want to know that uh coming out of the shoot. Now, again, I don't ask the board intentionally, what do you what do you think of a 5% 10% 20% tax? I don't intentionally do that. What I what I'd like you to think about is uh giving us time here. Let's get our arms around this problem that we have. Let's understand the services that we provide and then go through this process including public input etc. and then talk about how how are we going to balance this? How are we going to make this work in the end? I think it's much too early to decide on a specific taxation level. That's the time to assess. So, uh Dave will lay that out in a chart later. So as we look at the the service delivery issue some definitions and and I don't think any other organization well I haven't seen it county or you know counties are in a bit of a different uh service provision uh classification but I haven't seen another county do what what we're doing to the level we've done it. So I'm pretty proud of division directors for for coming up with I think some very valuable information but it did take up front some clear definition of what are we trying to identify here and this is how we boiled it down uh uh at the start of the exercise with division directors. So, we're focusing on non-mandated services, things that we don't have to do in terms of service provision here at the county. Uh, and including expenditures. So, it might not be a direct service, but it might be a grant for example to it to a separate entity that's an expenditure. And one of the keys uh there's I think everything that the counties do generally speaking is driven by statutes. So there would be no statutory mandate to do it. So there's add-on value added services. Uh and it either has full or partial funding by a county levy and again interchangeable terms here. Levy and property taxation are same and similar. Uh the first bullet point uh is a bit of a tough one to unravel and we spent a lot of time as division directors talking about this. Some of those services you need to separate from the the base statutory requirement. You need to separate that base from the additional things that we do above and beyond that base. So when we refer to that exceeding the minimum requirements in the first bullet point, that's what we're referring to. I've asked Mark to help us with an example prosecution. County Attorney Mets, could you provide the board with that info? Good morning. Morning. So, you're all aware of diversion programs. So, instead of uh criminal charges, a prosecutor, county attorney could instead at his or her discretion divert cases into programs where they uh individuals who have engaged in offenses that are contrary to statute. They would have to do uh counseling services, maybe some community work services maybe and pay restitution. A perfect example of that is the vandalism to the Tesla uh owners yesterday. So, Henipin County decided to divert those cases. There was $21,000 in damages rather than criminally prosecute them. So we're mandated by statute to prosecute cases, but we have the discretion as prosecutors decide to how we handle that case. So instead of the resources it would take to criminally charge somebody with a prosecutor and go through the court system and judges and have hearings and go through the jail and get, you know, 60 days in jail, for example, and be processed there and then be put on probation. The county attorney's office, for example, could just monitor this and say, "You got to pay restitution in six months. You got to prove that you did, you know, 60 hours work service and some counseling or something like that." So, that's a good example where we could have a threshold and say any theft case above uh $1,000, we'll prosecute. Under $1,000, we're going to divert. You just have to pay back the restitution, for example. and and I think Henipin County is a good example where you know I think some of it's a matter of resources some of it might be well it is a philosophy as well and so that's not for debate today but that's I think a good example to understand that we could use our discretion and just say you know here's what we're going to do with this batch of cases when you think about the volume and my last comment is we prosecute cases at Fleet Farm if you steal a pack of gum you're going to come through our criminal justice system and be accountable through that well we could choose to divert those cases pieces and say, "Well, we're going to have a different program." Very good. Thank you. Yeah, I think it's a really good example. It to me it describes other examples which are much more complex and there's many of them in the mixture here. We did our best to put them down a little more detail and sent you that, including this prosecution issue right right in the front of the list. But I think it it really is a good example because it relates to the service, relates to the quality of life. Think about it. If you're a victim of of one of these crimes that perhaps isn't prosecuted, that's a quality of life service to the resident issue. That really is a is a board decision in terms of funding. It relates to Mark's budget, the number of attorneys and support, etc. So there that's in the mixture and what we've tried to do is tried to separate that as as best as we can when it when we boiled down these numbers. And then on the mandated service side, uh a little simpler required by law and it's that base level of mandated services. While the definition again is is clear, uh there are some challenges when you try and separate a few of the areas out including including that additional level of service. And then also the next item here was a pretty significant challenge when we're doing this exercise. How do we separate out the overhead from from the top two? How how do we say well this is mandated overhead or is non-mandated overhead? Uh we started out trying to define the various categories within like it payroll employer relations tried to start dividing. We found very quickly that was really complex and cumbersome and it really didn't paint a fair accurate picture. So we decided to instead take our overhead and put it in one bucket. So, at least we understand the dollar amount that's involved in overhead, and it's a big dollar amount you see in the charts. Yep. Uh, again, we're not ignoring that and and we're we're stating that there's definitely a portion of overhead that is non-mandated, but it really depends. It really depends on if you were to cut A, B, or C service. That would then be the answer to that question. How much overhead goes along with that? Uh, an example Commissioner Odman and I were talking about this morning. License centers are not mandated. I think the number in here is $300,000 in uh, discretionary funding. Uh, we have staff that take care of it. It might be contractual. Is Nick here? We we contract or you staff to take care of the license center facilities. Yeah. So, there's there's expenditures being made. So, yes, if if license centers went away, again, I'm not saying they will. I'm just using it as an example. Along with that, not included in that license center, 300,000 line item, there's overhead. There's also IT support and indirectly employer relations, all that sort of backup that would ultimately have to be unraveled if in fact the board decided to to make some of those tough decisions. So those are the definitions that where we started and then the focus of today's exercise is really this non-mandated side focus on the property tax levy including uh grant funded services quickly gets pretty complex right fee covered services or I'm sorry excluding those items. So, so we're taking out Lyndon's state aid, for example. We're taking out potential revenues that we collect for for various things uh that are nonpropy tax related. So, we're separating all that out and most importantly, we're identifying again to clarify what what do what is it that we're doing that is not mandated. We're not looking at how are we doing it? Could we do it more efficiently? Of course, we do look at it that way, but not with this particular exercise. uh we're looking at what is it that we're doing and then uh we felt obligated not to put the impact in in the document we sent you really briefly. However, that's again not the focus of today. We're not saying well well if you cut this then then here's the impact but at least a recognition that each and every one of these whether they're mandated or not are really important. They're very important services otherwise we wouldn't be quite frankly doing them. So there is an impact to each and every one of these things that we're talking about today. And the last bullet point, not an exercise to prioritize. We won't we won't be asking you today what what do you feel as a commissioner or board uh that things that are more important versus less important. Uh as we proceed forward, I will give some recommendations on on how to do that. And again, it sort of depends on the the the size of the problem we'll be facing, how how deep we need to get into that. But stay tuned on that. We'll do that later. And I've already mentioned the uh overhead issue and and we put that in one bucket. It wasn't practical to separate it. So, any questions for me if any questions? If I could, Mr. Chair. Um Heather Heather talked about the Senate and the House and which ones are which. Do you have the breakdown right at the moment? I think the House of 67 tied, correct? And what is the Senate? Uh one so Democrats have one advantage. Correct. Okay. Thank you. So it's Yeah. One 35 34 33. So divided would be the word, right? And I neglected to mention May 19th. This is back on the timing. May 19th is is their adjourment date. Uh unlikely. What do you think, Mr. chair. Highly unlikely, which means they carry into June with a special session, which is very problematic for us. It's it's problematic in a regular year when they adjourn on time, especially in the complex areas like Heather's. And it sound it looks like the the the most direct impacts are her area or in her area. So, so we'll see. Another reason to remain calm. Uh, keep keep an eye on this stuff. Prepare for the worst, but expect hope for the best, right, as we move forward. And before Dave gets up, another note I missed here. Uh, every one of these exercises and budget processes we've gone through, we've come out stronger as an organization. So, that's the positive note that I'd like to step away from. I I really see see this. Thank you. Somebody somebody actually is thinking positive along with me. There's some positive here. I think this is a good opportunity if nothing else for education and better understanding of what counties what we do as this invisible level. I think there'll be hopefully a greater appreciation by even all of us in the room uh at the end of this if nothing else. And uh with that positive note, don't go negative on me, Dave. I'll give more of the facts on the budget side here. So I'll have Dave come up and do that. Mr. Fishman, thank you Administrator Hemsy. Morning board chair and commissioners. Um we thought now we're going to dive into the numbers and we wanted to start the big the biggest picture we have which is our total budget 254 million for 2025 and you can see we split that into a pie chart with the big orange being uh road and bridges and and it's important to keep that in mind that we're doing a lot of uh uh projects. That's why it's constantly in the the uh RBA's uh board actions for each each time is Lynon spending more money because you can see over half our budget is is uh for 2025 is going to be on uh road and bridge improvements. Um and you can see the other breakdowns that we have in the other areas. Um and I just want to point out operations that uh operations overhead they're interchangeable. Uh overhead's been the word we've used more often in the past. operations is we've noticed uh other organizations are using uh it's more common but so we're trying to use operations but it it means the same thing. You can see down below uh all the areas that are covered in operations and then the other one I'll point out is just number two where general government um that's that's the uh where we have front line front counters and we're providing services directly to uh residents. Any questions on the big picture? So 254 million. What's what's interesting to uh us people that like numbers is how much the uh road and bridges uh changes. It's now in in purple uh but it's it's now a much smaller piece of the pie. Health and human services has become the much larger uh piece because this is the $75 million of uh levy funded services. Um and we're trying to now now focus in on not the total budget but just on the portion of the budget that is um funded by the the county property tax levy. Um operations now is is a larger percentage of that because more of the levy more of the operations uh costs are being paid for by the levy. Less being in in road and bridges uh because they get so much money from um other sources federal and state. and you can also see Health and Human Services also takes a lot of the levy. Um, so this is this is a breakdown on that $75 million for uh our our 2025 budget. And then we're taking that 75 million and slicing it more for today's uh work session and breaking those into the three buckets that the county ministry just described. The def or gave the definitions for. Um so mandated services as you might expect is our largest um percentage of our 75 million goes to the six over 60 or 63% and then the rest is split up between operations and the non-mandated services and then our um in terms of the levy funded mandated services. So this is just that uh breaking that 63% um number down u further is u our health and human services that the majority of our um our levy dollars the mandated services are in that area along with the county sheriff. Um you can see the other uh pieces of the of the pie in how the the mandated services um which as Dave described were required by law and regulation. This is where our levy dollars are are being allocated to for in our 2025 budget. And then the levy funded uh for operations, you can see the uh public services. Um that's the uh IT and facilities mainly Nick's area. Um and then you can see the other um divisions uh that the amounts of operating costs that are funded by the levy um for our 2025 budget. And as Dave mentioned, we just we we could not break that into um how much these operations are funding the levy or the mandated services or non-mandated services or the non- levy services like all the public works uh contracts. And then really the focus for um today's workshop is the the non-mandated services and that's the $13 million. And you can see this uh breaks down uh where the uh where those levy dollars are being spent. Um back into public works. Um that that's mainly the parks uh area would be the the big chunk of that. Uh public services would be in the um that would be the library. Um and you can see that various other um areas where that the $13 million is being uh split. And with that, then the just to remind everybody about the calendar. Um the the next work session for the county board, we're we're uh we push that back a month. Normally we we'd start uh meeting in May. Um but with where the legislaturator's at um and with focusing on the um strategic plan um in May, we're going to we're going to bring come back to the board in June. Hopefully we have some we'll have more numbers um than we have now, but we may not have them all. But what uh we'll give the board an update on what we do have. Um and that'll be the recommended strategy for going forward. Then you can see the various hearings that we're um in the process of scheduling right now and we plan to come back in in August with two work sessions. Um one on give an update on the budget gap, fill in any of the holes, any of the um any of the legislative uh activity or any other good news, bad news that that we've uh that we have to share with the board. and and we also take one meeting where we focus on the FTE requests um for the year where we have everyone in the room together. Um and then following that the the following week, we'll actually put together the administrator's recommended uh preliminary 2026 levy and budget as the board may recall that levy number once it's adopted uh in in September. Um it can it can be lowered but it can't be increased. So that that becomes the ceiling for the 2026 um uh levy and budget. Um then the various other uh meetings are you know uh what we've done in the past with the uh the public hearing uh and then the long-term financial plan um the fee schedule and then uh the plan would be the board to adopt the final levy and budget in the 2027 long-term financial plan at the um December 2nd meeting. With that, um, look for any or direction or questions, concerns, any questions from the board. Commissioner Fay, Mr. Chair, thank you Dave. As we look at the calendar and just with all the variables that are going to take place at the calendar at our last Micah meeting, we went through as an exercise to get everyone's opinion on when the additional session will start and when it will end. And there was a lot of comments and just with the knowledge base that's on that Micah board with some past legislators that sit on that board, they're even been talking about July. So, it's going to be interesting to see this how this all shakes out and what's going to push it and push our timeline. Well, that's why I thought uh Heather back there giggled. I thought she just got the adjournment date occurred to her about 2 minutes after it was said. That's kind of a joke running at the capital. So, um I think there's maybe five omnibus bills in the House floor today. They're they're kind of passing them u ran a rapid fire uh as those placeholders. Uh and so what whatever is passing today is kind of uh worth little uh in until they can get some bills and get into conference committees and hide in back rooms and probably smoky rooms and uh but um May 19th is likely coming way too fast for that process. Sheriff Workman, can I ask a couple questions? Commissioner Anderson, couple of things. Um, first of all, thanks for the change to operations. I was highly confused um when I first came in. Um, so I so I appreciate um that shift and I also really appreciate the kind of the the big picture overview on on mandated and non-mandated. Um, quick question if you have it. Um, when we talk about a percent of levy increase, what does that mean in dollar amount? What what is our what does 1% equal in budget amount? Um, Commissioner Anderson, the $75 million um is our 2025 budget levy. Y so a 1% would be 750,000 that So that's okay. Um so so I appreciate that. I I I spent 14 years on the school board and I think half of those um we dealt with budget issues. So while this may be new to you, this was a normal day, a normal budgeting year for for us. So um so very used to this this this model. Uh I appreciate first of all all the work that went into um this conversation and really kind of breaking out the non-mandated services and the and the mandated services and really kind of knowing where we're at. Um, so I I recognize that that that was a a ton of work. Um, and and appreciate that. I also appreciate the, you know, this is going to be a tough year and I think this as an opportunity for us to your point uh, administrator Hemsy is uh, situations like this always bring an organization um, closer together. We better understand what our purpose is. we better understand where roles are and where our money is going is is always um an opportunity for us to grow as an organization. So, I love the idea of yeah, we're preparing preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. So, as I look at kind of um these deadlines and for our organization, I I just think it's going to be a real challenge for us to try and find kind of really look at the how and how we can maybe be more efficient, how we can um how we can manage this organization in a way that makes us stronger and more efficient kind of going forward. And so looking in looking forward to doing this work and um rolling up our sleeves and figuring out how we can continue to serve our our residents and with the high quality that they continue to expect. Mr. Herman, Mr. Chair, I think that uh a lot of the points were were made already. When I look at this sheet that you prepared, a lot of work goes into it. A lot of iterations. We're not done. Um I mentally think through if we did this then that. And I don't think about the vacuum over the next week or two or to make a budget in a couple months. I think about 3 to five years. Um uh Attorney Mets made his examples. I think that's a great example of if if you did that today, what is the impact in three to five years? The mentality of the person that's stealing the piece of gum is that person that's just going to punch out a window and grab a laptop in somebody's front, etc., etc., etc. And we've always said it, but we don't say it enough. Law enforcement and public service is our top priority as a board. And I think we just assume it sometimes. And if some of these things get eroded or go away, what's the cost? Um, I also think these conversations have the opportunity to take the wind out of the sales of things we're doing really well. And I just jotted down a few things just looking through the audience. I'll look at Carrie Air Team has got us to I think historic rate increases for our staff through negotiations that have happened faster than they've ever happened because that was the input that people wanted. They didn't want negotiations to linger on 18 to 24 months, right? So, we elevate that. Um, I think our benefits are in the best scenario that they've been in in decades. Um, and there was a lot of work that got put into that. I look at Lynon and we're in the midst of the most historic decade of road construction projects in our history. I think three consecutive years, hund00 million plus, and what those could mean. I look at our investment in the comm's team, which, you know, that's that could be on the chop block, too, if we wanted it to be, but our our residents have said, "We don't just want you to react to a newspaper article. We want you to get out in the community." And other people have done this as well. And so that's an investment that we've made. Um I think we're in the midst of the most historic um trails projects as well. You know, an investment that we've made in Paradise Commons and connecting some of the trails through other projects, etc., etc. Um historic investments in broadband, historic me investments in housing. Do we do it perfect? No, we don't. But these are these are things that I think when you're talking about budget get missed sometimes. The other thing I think are are lacking, they're certainly not lacking behind the scenes. Um, but if you're listening and you're just tuning in, uh, recognize, you know, to Commissioner, um, Anderson's point, um, we are looking at efficiencies as well, right? I just got back from a conference in Denver and AI was a top topic as to how do we service these jobs that people aren't applying in mass for? How do we shift some of the work to something that's computerenerated? And it can be scary, but it can be useful. Um I believe that there's some inefficiencies within our organization and efficiencies that we've gathered by doing our hybrid work from home model. We've captured some of those benefits as well. And then also the efficiency of investing in culture. I know other people share that with me is investing in our 120 people managers. The other thing that's lacking from the conversation is the opportunity to have surplus generating activities. You know, it's it's long been talked about if we can generate revenues out of our parks and I had a chance to see Red Rocks is a great example. $216 million annually generating revenues out of that facility alone a $700 million economic impact. Those are some of the ideas that if we get creative and look in the future are there as well. And then finally, um you know, we sit on a good amount of uh assets and it's not lost on me that if we were to sell some of those assets, underutilized buildings, underutilized land, it's a one-time thing. The other two things I mentioned are recurring efficiency and surplus generating. Those are things you can do every single year. um a sale of asset might be a short-term thing, but we we do sit on a pretty healthy amount of assets um that are being underutilized. And so those are some considerations. And I appreciate, you know, Tommy taking the lead on on a number of these things, including a pretty healthy list. I don't know if the public's going to be able to see all these, but five pages worth of possibilities for us to look at. And with those possibilities comes a lot of layers of politics, too, right? There's a lot of stories behind each one of these. You know, how does it benefit my my jurisdiction? How does it benefit your district? How does it benefit? And so I think looking through the lens of if we have to look at some of these things, does it impact an employee? Does it impact their family? Does it impact hundreds of employees or hundreds of their families? How about the residents from a tax and and Lisa and I are just getting off of an election cycle. I knocked on 9,000 doors three times. The number one thing that people are saying, number one, number one by far is the taxes are just too high. And if you take your tax statement, I've done it publicly and you weed it down. And I'll just take mine. Average size house value went up 1%. Overall taxes went up 2 and a half%. But if you look at line item and by line it in and by line item taxes for the county level were about flat, about 3%. Taxes for the city were up uh 12 or 13% was their levy increase. I felt 9% of that and taxes for the school district actually went down. And so if we look at it, we have our swim lanes. We have our things to do. But if you look at a global look at this and I'm talking to people, our 65 plus population is growing. they're not most inclined to invest in your schools and make um and vote for referendums because the thought is is well my kids have already went through I don't need to do that growing population in that regard. Um we are seeing the fastest growing county in the state which we might see flat uh enrollment potentially and if we have city and county that are feeling the pressure and passing that along we may um inevitably um put at risk investment into our schools and and some of the things that go along with this. So, there's a macro equation that's happening here that's beyond just the the narrow of of our county that is on all all of our commissioners minds as we talk to parents and kids and future residents and what brings them here. And so, it's a pretty complex puzzle and I appreciate taking some of the these aren't easy steps to do to look at the truth of what's there and what's discretionary and what's not. So, thanks for the effort. Those are some of the things I'm thinking about. Well, and you know, we kind of inter interweave the politics of all of this. I think you have to go back two years to the budget cycle of the legislature and 2023 was the year that I think I think everybody's old enough this room. Colin, how old are you? Um, but okay. the legislature believed uh well many in the legislature believed in the Easter Bunny in 2023 um with the 18 or so billion in ex excess. And so when when the when the $6 billion deficit we now have came out, you could have pushed most people over with a feather that that um that we now had a problem. And I know that many down there are trying to change a narrative about President Trump's tariffs and other things. is this budget came out about 10 days after the president was inaugurated and the legislature has doubled down on it. And so, um, I think you have to go back to the to the problem. And so what's frustrating up here is I gotta, you know, by the time what are we a third, fourth, fifth ring suburbs, you know, I I've noticed in my life that as you emanate from the core where there's a lot of problems, you'd think out here in our fourth ring suburbs that we would look east and learn from those problems and maybe do things differently. So to hear that, well, we should start letting uh the terrorism on Teslas slide. Uh but next thing you know, you got 5,000 carjackings going on in in uh many just Minneapolis alone. So to hear uh that and I've said it with the sheriff and and Mr. Mets many times. I mean I think when I think commissioner said it, crime is a priority. Stopping crime is a priority. Um, and and but if I so if I go back to two years ago when the Easter Bunny was hanging around, now Carver County residents have to have less library hours, worse crime uh protection, um, poor health and human services, maybe less seal cracked roads, less whatever. That's the frustration. And so, uh, we're going to have to do a lot of work and parse over all of those little things. I I I like the efficiencies. Let's get efficient. Do we really need to do things? But, you know, maybe it comes down to do we really need to build a brand new building that we probably desperately need. It was sold on on me that that building on the north end here is not a good building. Uh even Commissioner Anderson couldn't get in some of the underground doors to get to heating and HVAC systems. Uh so that that's the frustrating part is that we now in Carver County have to either pay a lot higher property taxes to continue to do what I think our constituents want us to do and I don't think we're frivolous or do without $300,000 to save on license centers. I know my constituents really like those. You know, we got a private one in Mcconia. We got a private one in Excelsier. Maybe the privates need to take it over. I'd be willing to listen to that, but I know my constituents like the way that works. So, that's the frustration. Um, I'll have adjectives for the legislature. I spent 10 years there, so I think I have the right to call call it what it is. Uh, I'll have adjectives for later down the road. Uh but uh we're we ultimately don't want our taxpayers paying more. We want to be a good bargain out here. It's the best economic development tool we can provide is keeping our property the cost of government down. So there you go. Anybody else? JP Tim. Um well two days removed from Easter. I don't want to have any more loose talk about there being no Easter Bunny. We have a uh major exercise to go through. It's not going to be fun. Uh we're going to have a lot of uh tough decisions. You touched on a little bit and um um one thing that we do in Carver County here is that uh we support our sheriff and our county attorney. And the example our county attorney used would not uh with the individual if that's the one I'm thinking about keying Teslas. Um I don't have a Tesla. I'm not in any danger of buying one, but I support someone's right to buy them and not be damaged on there. Same way when you're driving your AMC pacer just because I think it's homely. It shouldn't be keyed. But uh got a lot of tough decisions and it's uh not going to be fun. And uh but as we go forward there'll be no more loose talk about being nobody. The Easter Bunny is fictit. Colin Colin said it was okay. He's the young guy at the Mr. Chair as we go through this whole process and as we struggle and wait for what happens as you mentioned the capital. I think that's going to be such a big factor for all of this. And when we finally get that decision, which could be May, could be June, could be July, as that rolls back into our calendar, as I stated earlier. We're doing the work now, which I appreciate Dave's work and all of the director heads of putting the time and effort into helping us with this process. It's ultimately we'll make the decision and it's going to be tough and I agree with uh Dave made the comment that we'll come out stronger as an organization as we go through this budget process. We've come out stronger in the past and I agree with Commissioner Lynch that police protection and parks and libraries and how critical that is to who we are in Carver County. and I want to continue to support those types of services and ultimately we will get there but it's definitely going to be a process. I drive an AMC matador not ugliest car in the world. If I if I could Mr. I'd also like to welcome uh uh Kay Thun from the city of Watertown here, council member. I don't know if she'd like to address us. Otherwise, we have a copy of the presentation that she said she's very concerned about the um pro, you know, our u going forward our um our decisions that we have to make. Council member Thu, would you got a comment for us? Good to see you. Yeah, good to see you, too. you know, thanks for letting me come and sit in here. Um, uh, Commissioner Lynch asked, you know, oh, what are you doing here this morning? And as a city council member, we are the first people that they go to when they get their property tax statement. They can't read line by line. They look at the number it's going up and we get the phone calls and the people stopping in. And so I thought, well, I have a Tuesday. I'm going to see where you guys are at in this. So, I appreciate that you're working on your budget this early. um so we know where we're going cuz it's it's kind of crazy. I will say if any of you have any particular connection down at the capital so we can make our concerns known not in an email form or on a recorded line. I'd love to have it because I've sent my comments. I know my legislators and have talked to them about it. But um just for the Carver County residents to be able to get word to the governor that his budget isn't what we like right now. So, but thanks for what you're doing. I appreciate all this homework. We'll be going through it in Watertown soon. So, thanks for all you do. Thank you, Kate. All right, we ready to move on from this uh of sexiest topics. I just want to thank all of you that are here today. I know that this is going to be a heavy lift for all of our division directors and all of our employees really. Um, and I appreciate in advance for you being here. And I also forgot to mention, thank you for the press release um and putting that out there and letting people know and sounding that alarm bell that you know this is going to be a change for us. I think that was um standing up as an act of courage and there's a lot of decisions we need to make, but I appreciate that effort. That's a huge piece. Thank you, staff. I would second that. I would also have to congratulate Chair Workman for actually having the courage to do that. Can I make a comment? It was interesting because I was in Wisconsin, great state of Wisconsin, where I grew up for Easter. And was there a bunny there? There was a bunny there. Lots of candy. Too much candy. Well, what was interesting was my sister-in-law in Oaklair brought up the press release in Carver County and said, "Oh, I saw the press release from Carver County about the budget and it popped up and and read that about you have some challenges with uh the governor's budget and so kind of trickles over and had an impact." So, I was really surprised uh that she had seen that, read that. So, thank you. Awesome. Everybody in Wisconsin gets up in the morning and brushes their tooth. So, wait a minute. Your parents live there. You do? Yeah. I've met your mom. Yeah. Even my dad. He's 90 years old, so he has not as many, but All right. All right. Thank you all for your input. and to staff. Thank you for your hard work and the hard work as Commissioner Anderson says that we're about to embark on. So, all right. Medical examiner annual port report. Always uh she exists. She exists. She exists. She's still here. Hi. How are you? Nice to see you. I haven't seen you. That's probably good. It's It is good. I hate to say it. Yeah. One of our favorite people to see every once in a while. How are you? Are you still a council member somewhere? I am. He's a mayor. Punishment commissioner. I love it though. I'll tell you the Sibly County commissioners are going to have their own problems with budgets and Yes. So, but not because of us. We have no rate increases this year. Nice. Good timing. Good timing. Was that good? That was great. Well, you know, and to dovtail you from into crime, you know, no gun deaths in Carver County, you know, and we're not too far away from where that is a little bit more of a common occurrence. And so, uh, we're still doing a good job, Sheriff. Thank you. And well, I'm Dr. Piper. I'm here to present the uh summary of deaths that um occurred in Carver County for last year, 2024. every year I come visit and every year we have a new format. We're still uh trying to be the most modern and also kind of reader friendly. Um as you're aware um our office serves approximately uh 32% of the state population. We have over u 36 uh counties that uh contract with us. We're the named medical examiner and then we have u multiple counties in Wisconsin that also contract with us for forensic pathology services. Um, am I doing the clicker? That makes it so much easier. I can look at this. Um, so last year for 2024, 449 of the total of 592 deaths um that occurred in Carver County were reported to us. Um, of those 73 deaths required the medical examiner to either um do an autopsy and or sign the death certificate. Um you can see we have done a number of autopsies for Carver. Um and then in 35 cases we did not need to bring the body in for examination. We just read um medical records many times nursing home records um to be able to sign their um death certificates. Uh there was one death classified as homicide last year. Uh 34 accidental deaths. Um 23 natural that our office signed. Obviously, there were um well over a hundred other natural deaths and then 15 were classified as suicide. And we'll have a um a multi-year perspective uh coming up shortly. Of the accidental deaths, eight were uh due to substance use or abuse. 25 were due to blunt force injuries. The majority of those um are in the elderly population. Um they fall and fracture or hip or have head injury. So that's the majority of the deaths classified as blunt force. So the manner of death by year um you can see there's a little variation. Um the accidents have gone down a bit. Generally across Minnesota, drug overdose deaths overall um have gone down. Um uh suicide deaths in Carver kind of have a little swoop there, but we see that in in most of our counties. you have um higher years and low years. Uh we don't really have anything that stands out um particularly to account for that. Um for the accident subclassification uh although um drugs and substance use deaths have gone down kind of overall they've stayed about the same um for for Carver County um for the toxicology overview. So the first number is the um incidence of this specific substance in Carver County and then in parentheses it's the total of our jurisdiction including um Wisconsin County. So there were seven deaths attributed to fentinyl last year in Carver County or at least with fentinil um present. These aren't necessarily overdoses. Um methamphetamine was present in nine um deedants. Cocaine was present in two. Um, as you can see, there was no heroin. And then I know that um, xylazine has been mentioned in the media. It's an adulterant um, substance that um, can increase the lethality, but there were no um, or xylazine wasn't detected in any deedent in um, Carver County. But as you can see, of the total um, um, opioid deaths, there were 127 due to fentinil. And you can see there were only four due to heroin. We're just not seeing heroin anymore. The vast majority of opioid stats are fentinel. Um and that was the fast and furious um presentation. Uh Jamie Ryerson, our morg operations supervisor, prepared this report. Um and then I believe our office director is here to share some Oh, you have a different title, don't you? I think that's Shane has some things to to share. Thank you for having us, commissioners. Just a two quick updates. I know Dr. Piper just shared the great one that everybody wants to hear about no rate increases for 2025. So, we don't we don't project any anytime soon for 26. We're just always monitoring, see what our lab costs are, etc. But we're we still try to operate with a tight budget and still give you the service that you expect. But now two good newses to share is we have we were the first in Minnesota if not the Midwest to issue a governor's proclamation this year. We were able to obtain one for recognizing the medical and coroner industry in total. So we were up there at the state capital obtained the governor's proclamation and that's been a a huge feat for us trying to just recognize the importance of a medical examiner system in Minnesota. So it's significant. The other one is we are finishing up this will be our I think one of two offices in the state and one of four in the US that will be dyed. So we're currently we're national association of medical examiners accredited we are now finishing up the international association of quarters medical examiners accreditation. Not only will be a national accredited office for you'll be internationally accredited too. This holds ourselves to a higher standard including our death investigation practices. So that's all I have. if you have any questions. Do we uh does uh you got Wisconsin in here and when we had the discussion I think up in an NOA about how vastly different their laws and requirements are. Does that remain are you? Yeah. Medical examiner titles. Oh yeah. Yes. They're very different. Uh so in Minnesota to be a medical examiner you have to be a boardcertified forensic pathologist. I believe in Wisconsin to be a medical examiner high school diploma I believe is the limit. It's it's just very different system very different terminology [Laughter] care to share with everyone there. Pardon me to share with the rest of us. Well, I I told Commissioner, "See my earlier comment about uh oral hygiene. It was very [Laughter] complimentary." Commissioner, um you mentioned you actually had great news. You said there were less OD deaths. Do you have any reason why that is? From what I saw, we just got a actually a report. They're saying probably because of the Narcan kits that are available. That could be it. Um that's one of the big ones. I don't know about adjustments in supply. Um but the vast majority of of feedback that I've seen is probably the availability of Narcan. You know, either the individual substance users have it or the first responders uh seem to have it. Excellent. We had a chance to go see your facility. I think it was last year. is very interesting. Thank you. You you bring uh humor to it, but um a gravity to it. Uh suicide death is something that's been covered nationally and it looks like 15 at least in the data set you gave probably is the highest we've been. Clearly, it's the highest our population has been, but what I noticed was a two and a half um times increase the year before. I don't know if this is anomaly data that comes and goes. I think that's what you mentioned, but are you seeing it across the state or the people that you serve saw two and a half increase? And if there any anecdotal uh thoughts that you have from the your your your exams that we may benefit from? Yeah, incident. No, it's not necessarily that all the uh counties this year have had these increase, but since I've been doing this for years, like we see these these bumps and then these lows, you know, and again and and we do have, you know, some insight sometimes as to why people may do this. And again, nothing stands out. You know, it's a lot of times it's relationship issues or substance use issues or, you know, medical issues. Um, so there's nothing that particularly does it. But again, amongst all of the counties, they all seem to have these highs and and lows. Two more questions. I know CO was a hot topic five years ago, three years ago, two years ago, and how the deaths get accounted for or whatnot. Have you do you track COVID deaths over the last five or six years in any any tied to last year? If they uh are investigated by our office. So when when COVID was at its peak, we worked so closely with the Department of Health. Um we had staff and running to funeral homes to do swabs to get it for the Department of Health. We brought people in to get samples um of tissue for the Department of Health. So we were very immersed in that. Now, um, we're not seeing it as much. I'm not seeing it in as many younger people. That was another scary thing. Um, is that the younger, uh, adults who would come in, you know, generally healthy who, um, fell ill and died from COVID. We're just not seeing it as much. I don't know if that the strains are different. Um, I don't know if the treatment's any different. Um, but we aren't just being bombarded with it like we were a few years ago. Obviously, the vaccines um are available, so it's not as as present as it was a few years ago. You know, we still ask about it. We will still test for it. Um but we just aren't seeing the incidents and we aren't seeing the illnesses that we were back then. And the last question I had is I think there's so many distractions that we really never talk about opioids until we have conversations like these. You know, it's COVID and it's tariffs and it's taxes and we never really talk about it. But are you seeing co opioids to be a significant risk within our communities and growing or do you think they've stabilized and are declining? I don't get to see although the one report I read said that they fe they their numbers show that not only are total deaths decreasing but the non-fatal overdoses are also decreasing. Did I say decrease? Yeah. Um but we still see it. You know, I I I guess I don't see it as something that to look away from. I mean, it just seems like there's it's available. It's lethal. Um, you know, young people are using it. This lately this year, we've had a lot of older people um 50s and 60s. A lot of them are methamphetamine users. We still see we we will always see we have always seen methamphetamine. that's a stimulant that um and we usually see the deaths in that in the older population um because it causes significant cardiovascular effects and so they actually die later because now they have heart disease and lung disease and they're still using methamphetamine um that's kind of what I've noticed this year but we have seen a little tick up again um of the overdose deaths and for example if you are using drugs by yourself particularly fentinil you can't give yourself narcan because you've already overdosed and so um you know there'll be a person deceased they have fentinyl and then their narcans's on the floor. Um so I don't know if people are getting more careless or getting you know I I it's hard you know to say but I even though the numbers are down I I definitely think it's still a problem. the uh I got a five and a nineyear-old and so I'm in the schools you know having lunch and observing and there's concerns that come with being a dad with that and one of the biggest concerns I have is the expanded use of marijuana marijuana type products the vaping products that are out there and the access easy access to those buddy of mine just got on I think it was weed.com and his son ordered stuff and his son's a minor and there was no checks it arrived at the house it just scares the hell out of me you know Dr. Scott has um has educated us. It's not your father's weed. It's way more important and it's uh being laced with all kinds of stuff. I don't know if that's a fear tactic or if that's reality. Are you seeing marijuana deaths or stuff like that? We we don't see deaths um from marijuana itself. Um and again, a lot of our motor vehicle fatalities, most of them are alcohol related. They may or may not have marijuana on board. Um, and we do hear about laced marijuana. We'll get that a lot like, "Oh, they were using marijuana." And we never we don't have any evidence of that. But again, like you say, it is easy to get and and um to to overshare a bit, my 17-year-old daughter was able to go to the smoke shop and buy stuff. And when I called our local, you know, um police, I'm like, um why can't she just go in there and buy these things? And then they said, "Oh, yeah. We've had trouble with that place before and they've changed and then she's, you know, did it again." And I'm just like, "Oh my god." So, yeah, it's very easy to get. It's It's terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mets. So, our relationship with the medical examiners along with the sheriff is really critical and we've had a really good relationship. I have a lot of confidence in Dr. Piper and and other medical examiners and the staff. And while we haven't seen each other in a couple years, which is probably a good thing because we don't have murders, but when we get a murder, it's absolutely critical to proving our case and meeting with the medical examiners, taking the time, understanding it. They're independent, which is really important to understand and appreciate. So, they don't work for us. They don't tell us what we want to hear. And Dr. Piper's a straight shooter and says, "I'm not going to tell you that this person um died because they were struck five times. I can just tell you it's a blunt force injury and if they hit him about the face in the head, it's more likely to die." That's an example of a case we had. So, they're knowledgeable, they're experienced, they're available, which is really important. And that's why we chose them back when is in vetting different medical examiner's offices. We're kind of a medium county and we want to have that relationship and that availability and so it's really important and they'll consult with us. We can call on a case as well and say, "Hey, we're, you know, maybe it's not a homicide or something else." So, I wanted to give, you know, my compliments and say we have the confidence. I won't speak for the sheriff, but I'm sure he has the same confidence as well. And then also, by statute, the county attorney has to get these um autopsies. So, I get their autopsies and and read them and it has an impact because we're looking at numbers and these are just statistics and numbers and and they'll be the first to tell you as well. These are human beings. They have families. They have loved ones and we see the details that we can't share. They're not public. But I actually dig a little bit more sometimes and read the obituary and with these fentanyl deaths and with the suicides and it's really especially with people that die by suicide is just so devastating because we had a neighbor that actually um died by suicide and he he shot himself and our neighbors heard it and he had done some tree work for me and he's a young man and stuff. So it really has an impact on communities and maybe the doctor could or Um Shane could talk about how they work with families too because they don't just come in and do the autopsy and that's it. I mean they they care about these individuals. They offer, you know, potential counseling. They sit down with them. and they explain it to them and that really helps um people and that's why it's important to us to have that communication not not that they're just a statistic and a number because she's obvious she's very professional when I watch an autopsy and and she's a doctor and so it's a different way of doing things than than I do things but they also have that other caring aspect and and maybe they could talk about just briefly like what is that process that maybe you're not aware of of how do you work with these families Well, that till we just updated our website, Dr. Bracie and um was Amber, right? What's Amber's title? She is our um really our counseling specialist with the county, but she works really close with all of our medical examiner investigative staff is is but yes, she is a Yes, she we have a yeah, therapist assigned to our office in the county and um Dr. Bracie and our office manager updated our website to include more grief resources. Um Dr. Bracie was saying, you know, we when someone loses a very young child, we're right there to talk about these resources. She's like, well, what about everybody else? Um so not only do we of course talk to them on the phone and personally. Um but now we can at least direct them to to these resources. And there are multiple levels when when families can either speak with our well they'll speak directly with our investigative staff. You know, even, you know, in our counties where law enforcement is the main investigator, we always have one of our staff talk to families, explain where your loved one is going, what's going to happen, um what the next steps are, you know, kind of explain to them. You don't have to rush out and get a funeral home. Take your time. um you know if you have any questions and then if they have specific questions for the pathologist usually you know did they suffer you know that kind of thing the pathologist will talk to them um and so I mean I guess we're an expansive office but we're still a small office and and you know the pathologist is always on call and again our office there's always someone at the office to be able to talk to families at three in the morning um or or whenever if they have questions or or concerns. Very good. Thanks. So, my mother-in-law died a year ago this week in Carver County. Nice long life, but about a week or so before she who had a little bit of memory loss. Got up and decided I was going to make a break for it or and she fell and broke her hip. So, she would fall into the blunt force part of it. Want to know where she is. Where she is. Um, it it reminds me that I was talking briefly to staff because there was an article in the Star Tribune about funeral home services. Uh, I guess the word might be for indigent uh or or lowincome people and how Matt Hen Hendrickson at the local uh funeral home um desired a chat because I don't think he's maybe getting paid what it takes to take care of some of those people in our county. So, if I could have staff does that fall under Heather? Yeah, also everything falls under Heather. She's back. Um, and we should have a little discussion maybe about that. Probably the wrong time to bring it up after our budget discussion, but probably. And commissioner, she has questions on that. Um, we've had a lot of counties calling us regarding the the what do they call it? I believe county burial or funeral assistance. I don't think you like the word funeral, but it's county assistance in terms of use of cremation or burial only. We've been working with a lot of counties on that to help them help share what the average is, what other counties are doing. So, she's welcome to get a hold of me directly. That'd be wonderful. Wait, isn't getting any sexier, is it, in here? Well, thank you very much. I always look forward to the statistics to kind of tell us how we're doing kind of as a county and uh and so it's always I think I was out of town when I got it and I read right through it. So, but uh good finding. Great to see you guys. Thank you. hopefully just next year. And Commissioner Anderson, I don't think you were at our our facility last year. So, yes, we'll we'll keep the doors open. So, if you're ever willing to come out and do a tour for for new commissioners, new staff, want to see how the operation works, you're welcome to do so. I'd love that. We're switching to the Wisconsin model. Oh, Mark left. Take care. Thank you. any opportunity to take a shot at our Wisconsin buddies. All right, Mr. Freshman, you're back up. Policy discussion on drainage system maintenance and repairs. This is good. Good thing our speaker is interesting. So, and uh yeah, thanks. But here we're going we're going downhill fast. Uh good morning, Mr. Chair and board members. uh Dave Fman, property and finance director and also ditch administrator. Um and today we um the as the board's aware, we're going through redetermination of benefits. We did nine systems in the last year. We had three done before that. We have a total of 17. So we're getting everything updated in terms of our um uh redetermination of benefits and our ditches. And now we're looking uh for board direction on uh repairs, maintenance, and and you know, just other general things uh that going to that come up. Um we're going to have uh John Cobb, our ditch attorney for Rink Rink Nunan, give a legal overview. Uh then Mike Wanis, our ditch inspector, is going to give an update on all of our ditch systems and then recommended maintenance and repairs. And then I'm going to finish with the financial update. Uh real quick overview on where the ditch systems are at and then uh answer any questions or getting direction from the board. So with that uh I I was just going to start out by there are a couple of sections of statute that requires uh buffer strips and that the drainage systems be respect to be inspected on a regular basis. Um Mike and I have been talking about this. We're aware of this and we're going to um uh be a little more formal about those inspections. Um and we're going to make sure we do it every 5 years and then we're going to document those inspections at a annual board meeting like we're doing today. Might be the one in the fall where we um um do approve our special assessments, ditch assessments. U but we do think we can we can um improve in that area. Um and then there's but what we couldn't answer and what we really needed help on is the the um making recommendations for the ditch authorities on short-term cleanouts versus long-term return as build condition. Um there's a there's a lot of decisions there. There's a lot of uh overlapping interests that that u ditch owners have. Um and if you're up on high in the ditch, uh obviously you have one concern. If you're low on the ditch, you have different concerns. Um, so we really thought it'd be helpful to have John come and uh provide an overview from the legal responsibilities and legal overview for the ditch authority. So with that, I'm going to invite John up and uh have him take it away. Mr. Cob, good morning, commissioners. I we will get ditch 2-3 done here soon enough. Um, so you're you're well on your way in terms of getting the uh the financial condition of many of your ditches in order. I wanted to start with this slide only because I want to emphasize the pickle that you're all in as commissioners. You are stuck in between landowner interests, the interest of private individuals that may have an interest in ecology or something else. Uh you are in the mid you are stuck in between uh a changing climate and you're stuck in between a lot of other state regulations and laws that make your job as a drainage authority very difficult. You know, back in the early part of the 1900s, the goal was we want to drain everything. In fact, there's a document the state has that they looked at the plan to drain the whole state. And and if you review that document, you can see that many of those drains that were proposed at that time are in fact now built. And there's vast areas that are drained uh because of that. But this slide in particular highlights the situ or the relationship between the land owners that pay for the drainage system and their property. And what courts have said is if you if you assess these property owners for the construction of a beneficial drain, they now have an interest a property interest in utilizing that drain as an outlet for beneficial drainage. Now for you as the drainage authority, the you are the custodian of that right to a certain degree. The way that land owners effectuate this right and protect this right is by exercising their privileges under the drainage code. The way you administer and are a good custodian of this right is in the same way by looking at the drainage code. Um, one of the last things that Dave had up on the slide was, you know, do we do just do short-term, you know, band-aid repairs or do we want to rehabilitate these systems to their originally constructed glory, so to speak. And one of the questions that I often ask uh of staff and I encourage the commissioners to ask is why why would we do anything or what if we do nothing? And this comes because part of your requirement is you're looking at this interest. You're looking at the drainage code. The drainage code has a whole series of musts and shalls and you know and and and those that type of mandatory language in it. But in the end, you're making a broader judgment about what is in the best interest of this community. And so, you're looking at the economics, you're looking at the ecology, you're looking at future land uses, you're looking at what interests have and expectations have developed over time because the ditch is in the condition it's in today. Um, your neighbors in Scott County are in a process right now of looking at their, I think, six worst ditches and deciding, do we want to keep them on the inventory and continue to spend money on them when they no longer really serve the purpose for which they were originally constructed? or because uh the DNR's purchased a whole bunch of land right in the middle of it and now it's a wildlife management area and they don't want you to touch anything or because there's now wetlands or other ecological resources that'll be a challenge um anytime you put a shovel in the in the ground and so they're looking at it saying is it practical to do these things and that's a very fair balance in that see if I got this right okay well excuse me why why would I why would we abandon a ditch because it's now neighborhoods and not farmland. If if in many cases you might abandon a ditch because it is neighborhoods and not farmland and the entire function of the drainage system has been replaced by municipal uh storm water infrastructure. You might you might abandon a ditch because it's now taken on a natural character and it's sustaining itself and kind of reached a point of stability where if you go in and start monkeying with it to try to make it a perfect trapezoidal ditch, you know, with great slopes and everything, it's just going to continue to fall apart. it's going to cause problems downstream. You might abandon a ditch because it's just not practical to restore it because it you might have millions of dollars of wetland mitigation, for example, or the avoidance of other ecological impacts are such that you're never going to get it back to what it needs to be or what some people think it needs to be anyway. So, there's a lot of reasons for that. Uh, abandonment can be done by petition. Um, abandonment I think also lies to some degree within the discretion of the drainage authority and we'll we can talk a little bit about that. Um, court cases have said you are the entity that's in the appropriate position to assert the landowner's property drainage or drainage rights because you're the only entity under the drainage code authorized to do the work. So again, it's in your hands. Congratulations. Um, and then we also talk about this idea about the property rights um, in this context as well. You have a a a series of competing responsibilities in this regard. On one hand, the statute says you must keep the system repaired or in a state of repair. That's a shall shall inspect, shall maintain. Um you have to prevent damage. So if you have people that are dumping rocks and debris or obstructing the drainage system or encroaching upon it or doing something that that harms it or harms downstream or upstream interests in that drainage system, it's your obligation to try to prevent that damage. You're supposed to prevent unauthorized uses. One of the ways you do that is to make sure everybody pays their fair share. You're in the midst of that process right now with your redeterminations of benefits. Um, and then lastly, you have to balance all the interest. You have to balance not only the economic interest, but the environmental interest. And a lot of that balancing then uh Chair Workman does uh does then implicate this idea about do we repair it down to its as constructed? Do we do something less than that? um maybe we have to abandon it because it's no longer practical or in the economic interest of all of those land owners um to look at it uh and to and to do that work. So you have this this ongoing balance and you are clearly stuck in the middle because you're the ones making the decisions and you're going to have upset land owners on both sides of the issue, whatever decision you make. And you may have others that are equally um either either happy or upset by whatever the outcome is um in what you're in what decisions you make regarding management of the ditch. Here's what the statute says. It says after the construction has been completed, the drainage authority and again this is one of those shall statements shall inspect and shall maintain. Um and and again it doesn't say make it perfect, but it says make the drainage system efficient, right? And we get to repair and then the definition of repair means to report repair uh to restore all or part as nearly as practical to the same hydraulic capacity. Well, sometimes that can't occur. And we've had cases where, you know, a drainage authority has said, "Well, we're going to do less than a repair down to the down to the original grade. We're going to do something less in order to avoid impacts or in order to address some other issues." And they've actually been sued by land owners saying, "No, you have to repair it right down to the as constructed grade." And the courts have come back and said, "No, the drainage authority has discretion. It can alter or limit or or redefine the scope of a repair in order to make the thing make the the drainage system efficient and that doesn't mean repairing it down to the as constructed if there's good justification for not doing so. And so again, you have this level of discretion and part of that goes to, as I talked about earlier, it when you do that, you're compromising a portion of that right, correct? But you're balancing against these other interests, which the courts have said you are obligated to do. And so you're protected in that way as a decision maker. You're exercising discretion based on factors that you are analyzing in relation to your decision. And so you're you're protected by law um in making those decisions so long as that was an abuse of discretion or some kind of arbitrary decision that you made. But there's a lot of other work you can do uh in addition to just digging it down to whatever its original configuration was. Um you can res-slope those those banks if you have an erosion problem or you have a stability issue. um you can realign the system slightly um if that makes it more efficient or if that avoids certain impacts um that doesn't come without the requirement to pay damages because you now have a new alignment. You now have a physical new physical intrusion on other property. Um and then other routine operations that may be required to remove obstructions um which includes incidental straightening and replacement of tiles. We see this often in Pete ground where the pete has subsided and now the, you know, either the tiles exposed or it's sagged along with the pete as the pete was subsiding and we basically re re uh uh set that tile either outside of the pete so it doesn't have that problem or we might put it at a different depth um in order to achieve a necessary cover. again, all all the while we're trying to not exceed that original hydraulic capacity because then we would end up with an improvement. Um, this is another one of those things that's in the code. It's not directly in the um where you might think it would be, but it talks about the ability to do uh other things on the ditch system adjacent to the ditch system and and in conjunction with repair and management of the ditch system in order to prevent damage of wetlands to incorporate measures to reduce channel erosion and otherwise protect or improve water quality. So we see this provision of the code being used oftentimes to do water storage or water treatment uh water quality type enhancements and oftentimes this the code will also allow um outside funds to come in to do those things if it's not directly related to the restoration of that drainage efficiency. Um the we highlight this case, this Blaine versus City of Sartell, and we compare it to the Slama case, which was the limited repair case. Uh in Blaine versus Sartell, Sterns County was in implicated in that case because it involved inspection and repair of one of its county ditches and a complaint or an allegation of damages because they didn't do that. And the court came back and said, "Well, the statute says you have to do these things. are mandatory obligations. You have to inspect. You have to maintain. So saying, "Well, we didn't feel like it or we wait until somebody complains and then we do it." Court said you lose your immunity then that's not exercising discretion in the face of a man mandatory requirement of the code. Whereas if you undertook that mandatory requirement and then you modified it, which is what happened in Slama, um because of external factors, now you're weighing those external factors. You're exercising your discretion on how best to proceed. And so I often compare those two things. And then of course we already talked about the preservation of wetlands and um other water quality issues. You are required by statute to have a drainage inspector. If you have a certain amount of of drainage systems, you have that here in this county. Um and so you do have a drainage inspector. We're going to talk about that later about what your drainage inspector's been doing and some recommendations of your staff in terms of a frequency of inspection and and how things should move forward in coordination um not only within the county but then with other counties uh that you may have joint systems with. We recommend the following in terms of inspections and I've talked to your staff about this. We we like to see it on a schedule. Statute says about 15 one of your systems every year. So system should be inspected every 5 years. Now inspection could mean anything and it's different if it's open ditch versus tile. Obviously we can't see inside the tile. So we often look for access points or we look at the outlet. We look at what's happening on the landscape with tile. Um very rarely are you expected to to camera that tile every five years. Oftentimes you can't access it with a camera anyway if it's small diameter. Um but we do we do require we do recommend putting things on a schedule. We do recommend that it be budgeted as part of the budget process. We should know you know next year we have to inspect this oneif of our of our systems and that's requires us to look at let's say you know 20 miles of system. Um there's a cost associated with that that can be anticipated and that can be budgeted within the drainage department um and then either collected from the drainage systems or whatever method uh the board chooses uh to fund those types of activities. They should be paid for in my opinion by the drainage systems. Um, and we can talk to staff about how to do that. You should have some specific criteria for your inspections. And again, you might have a level one inspection, which is just visual from the road crossings. You might have something a little bit more detailed depending on your experience with how the systems are functioning, what condition they're currently in, and what rate of of uh of degradation you experience with them. Kind of looking at historic maintenance costs. What you don't want is you don't want a complaint driven process. You don't want to wait around for land owners to be in a pro have a problem. Now, they're going to do this because they're going to run into problems. Beaver don't tell you when they're going to build their dams. They just build them and then you get the phone call. You don't see it happening. So, you're not going to catch that on a one in every five-year inspection. You're going to get that more on a on a complaint, but you don't want that to be the sole basis of your inspection program because that ultimately compromises rights. um strips you of your discretionary immunity and then also puts you in the position that Sterns County was in in that blank case. See if I got more. I don't have more. Um but I am going to remain I'm happy to answer questions. I just kind of gave you the wave tops there. Um thus far I think you you you're not in a position where you have any imminent problems that we see. We just know we have an agent system in this county and your staff is doing their best to try to get their arms around it and give you good information to make decisions with regard to the management of those systems. Any questions for me? Very good. Thank you. Mr. Wanis is going to give the bad news. Hopefully not too bad. You're our ditch inspector, right? Yes, currently. Um and I'll be getting to that. Um, so Dave asked me to come today and just talk about our overall ditch systems, what condition they're in. And instead of taking the time to go into each one individually, we thought, let's put them into kind of three buckets or three overall conditions. Um, so we have 17 drainage systems in the county. Um, we've got, you know, broken down in these three buckets. We have good, we have okay, and we have poor condition. Um, and then we have three systems that are just watershed only in Carver County. The actual physical ditch is located in an adjacent county. Uh, so we have the benefited lands in Carver County. If there's money spent on the ditch, Dave will get an invoice kind of at the uh at the end of the year and have to pay uh pay for it through those benefited properties. But I'm just going to kind of talk about, you know, these these three buckets. Um, so for good systems, we we have five of them. County ditch four, joint ditch three, joint ditch 5, joint ditch 21, joint ditch 24. They're circled on the right side there in the map. Um, these systems we would say are overall in good condition. Uh, they do require some ongoing maintenance. You know, tree spraying, small repairs, sedent removal. Um, we don't anticipate any major costs on any of these systems in the near future, but you never know. um things can happen and something unexpectedly could happen, but we're really not anticipating any major costs in these systems. They're all functioning pretty well. So, Mike, quickly, um you're going to get to the bad ones. So, when you do go and do a expensive cleanout or repair, it's assessed. So, on these, where where's the money coming from? Is that just in your budget to maintain the good ones? Who? Because you're not assessing or are you? Well, I'm not doing it directly, but I'm working with Dave. Um, and so Dave keeps uh track a separate account for each ditch system and then as these redetermination of benefits processes are happening, all those land owners that are benefit on the system would pay in, you know, their percentage. But he keeps track. So it may be uh three years down the road, but three years ago we did this and that and Right. Yeah. And then each year we do a assessment. We recommend an assessment for the ditches that need money because we spent money and then you guys approve that in the fall and then we put that under tax. Okay. And I should point out to any large cost that we might have on a ditch system, um, we would bring that to the ditch board before taking any action to expend those funds. So, we kind of have a $10,000 limit as staff where if it's something that's relatively inexpensive and it needs to be done quickly, it's less than$10,000, Dave and I talk about it. Um, and usually we get to go ahead to go and do that. If it's going to be greater than $10,000, we try to call a ditch board meeting and have the ditch authority approve that before expending those funds. So, um, if you needed a staff recommendation on these good systems, I guess it would be just to continue with the ongoing maintenance and bring items to the ditch board as needed. Um, the next bucket is these okay systems. Um, we have seven of them. I'm not going to go through them all, but they're listed there and then they're circled on the map on the right. These systems are, you know, overall okay condition. There's portions of the ditch that work really well, but then there's also portions that will need some attention. Um, the items of concern usually involve excessive tree growth. We have some aging tile line systems. We have some aging culverts and bridge crossings. And then you're always going to have some sediment accumulation in these ditches. So, just need to do occasional maintenance where you clean out the sediment. Now, depending on the severity, some of these may need some engineering assistance for future repairs. Um, we just about a month ago, we talked about this with joint ditch 15, uh, which actually on the map, it still shows us county ditch 5, but, um, that's now a joint ditch with Mloud County. So, in that case, we needed some engineering in order to prove to the DNR that the work we're going to do is just a repair and not an improvement. So, the ditch board approved um to hire an engineer to put some documents together for us on that system. Um again, if you're looking for a staff recommendation on these okay systems, it would be to evaluate cost benefit um to address the portions that need attention to kind of keep them from falling into a poor condition or I would even say, you know, if we could do a little bit more, we can maybe even get them moved up into a good condition rather than, you know, where they're currently at as an okay. And then we do have these two poor systems. Um and they've been poor for a long time. We'll get into a little bit more detail about them, but um I would say these systems would need extensive work to get them to that as constructed or subsequently improved condition. Um they lack any real detailed engineering plans and we certainly don't have asbelts for these ditch systems. So it's it's hard to determine what they should even be repaired back to when you don't have an asbelt. Um there's areas of heavy tree growth before you even can even get to the drainage ditch. And then, you know, there's portions where these ditches pass through large wetland complexes, DNR flood planes, just there's some more complicated things with these two ditch systems. If you were to decide to try to get back to that as constructed, subsequently improved condition, you know, these could easily exceed half a million dollars by the time you pay for the engineering and the construction. Um, so I'm going to go into a little bit more detail on these two just because we only have two of them and they are poor. So, we'll start with county ditch 23. This is the one just south of Wakonia. Um the you know, one of the things about this system is prior to it becoming a public ditch, it was a natural creek system. It's it's Carver Creek. Um and in 1904 is when they went through the legal process to turn portions of it into this public ditch. It currently functions more like a creek than it does a drainage ditch. Um it's got this huge watershed that really pushes water through the system. Um, it's kind of hard to see on that map there, but there's about 40,000 acres that drain through this system. So, it's a very large watershed. And because of that, you know, it is a natural creek and it does have real thick areas of heavy tree cover. There's a lot of wetland and flood plane issues that would need to be dealt with. Um, and as Mr. Cole said, this one is still in the redetermination of benefits process. Your next meeting to talk about this ditch system is scheduled for May 20th. Um, I want to point out on the right hand side there, uh, you'll see a little chart that says, you know, total benefits. Currently, there's only $15,800 of benefits on this system. We believe it's still from 1904 when these benefits were assigned to the system. Um, and so I think prior to me being the ditch inspector and everybody else who's ever dealt with this, you're really handcuffed with how much money you can spend when your total benefits are only $15,800. I mean, it doesn't take long on a ditch system to spend that much money. So, um, the proposed new benefits are for over $14 million. So, that'll change. Um, but again, I think if we're looking for a staff recommendation here, this might be one of those systems like Mr. Cole talked about that you don't necessarily need to go in and put it back to that as constructed condition. I think because it is a natural creek system, the water keeps flowing. So, I guess the staff recommendation on this one would be let's kind of continue with regular maintenance. Let's be responsive if there are blockages or, you know, beaver dams or tree logs or, you know, blocking up the ditch or whatever. we have the legal right to go in there and clean it out and keep the water moving, but I'd be a little hesitant to go spend big money on this ditch system. Um, given that it still kind of functions as a natural creek versus a drainage ditch. Mr. Chair, Mr. Le, I don't know why you I don't know why we're even looking at this. This was originally from 1904 at 15,000 uh dollars. Now, it drains 40,000 acres and 14 million. They're virtually the same, aren't they? [Applause] Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. Yeah. So, again, these are older systems. They haven't had a lot of work done to them. That's a lot of what prompted us to get going on these redetermination of benefits, which has kind of been in the process for a long time. We've talked about starting redetermination of benefits quite a while ago. Um, in fact, we had a work session with the board precoid and then COVID hit and kind of everything settled down for a little while and then we kind of got it all fired back up again. But I'll move on to joint ditch one. Um, there's some unique things about this one. Also, nearly all of the physical ditch system is in Carver County, but now after redetermination of benefits, the majority of the benefits are actually over in Mloud County. So, the largest part of the wershed comes from Mloud County, drains into Carver. Um, that's not necessarily a problem. Um, unless Mr. Cole thinks there is some issue here, but, uh, what it might mean is Mloud County has the majority of the board members that should probably be sitting on this ditch board and they may be able to dictate, you know, what happens with this system. Um, but this one is more in farm country and it does provide a lot of benefits to land owners. The upper portion of the ditch is the outlet for Winstead Lake and it's also the outlet for joint ditch 111 which is a Mloud and Wright County joint ditch system. Uh the lower portion, if you guys remember, we talked about this a little bit during the the redetermination benefit meeting. That lower portion once you get kind of um below Highway 7 is all influenced by the the flood plane of the Crow River. So we could have a perfectly functioning ditch. we get a bad flood in the spring and all a sudden things change completely down there. U this one also has some areas of heavy tree cover. Um there are some potential impacts to DNR protected waters and of course the DNR flood plane if we were to go in there and do some major repair work and I think we certainly would need an engineers report uh before we could do anything major on this ditch system. Um, so if we're looking to try to get this system out of the pore and get it to be okay or good, um, I do think our next step would be to try to get an engineer to provide some of those engineering documents. Um, I think a staff recommendation then would be to get some quotes for engineering services and then bring that forward to a future joint ditch one board meeting. And again, we' we'd have to coordinate that with Mloud County since the majority of the benefits are over in Mloud County. Um, and then on this slide, we just wanted to talk briefly about kind of the history of our maintenance and repairs. Um, and then, you know, get a little bit of direction proposed out there anyway, and then get some feedback from you guys. So, in prior to me doing this in 1980 to 2004, public works was the drainage inspector. Um, some of you probably know Bill Weekman. He was originally hired in 1980 to be the drainage ditch inspector. I think his title was uh drainage and permitting coordinator. I just talked to him a couple weeks ago at a retirement party, so we were actually talking about ditch stuff. You look good. Yeah. Yeah, Bill's doing good. Um, then in 2005, I don't remember exactly how this happened because I wasn't really in charge at that time, but uh the SWCD got told, "You guys are going to be the drainage inspectors." So, we've been doing it since then. Um, good and bad. You know, we're out there anyway working with some of these land owners. Of course, the ditch realm of things kind of has its own um ups and downs, and you're never going to make everybody happy. So, it's it's been controversial at times. Um, and kind of historically the the direction, it's maybe not written down anywhere, but kind of the attitude or the direction has been, you know, let's keep the water moving, but let's not spend a lot of money. Let's respond quickly to complaints, but let's not really go looking for problems. Um, and then a lot of things that we have dealt with over the years have been, you know, block drainage. If you have beaver dams or bank failures, slowed down drainage is usually, you know, because of some sediment accumulation in the ditch system. And then we do have, you know, a fair amount of older culvert crossings that are starting to get old enough that they're starting to collapse or be in need of repair. I would say we've done many regular informal inspections on all our ditch systems. Um, and then we annually get together with Dave and his staff to talk about maintenance, repair, upcoming assessments, things like that. Um, to kind of lump these staff recommendations into one spot. So I, you know, we're saying evaluate the cost benefit of doing engineering for joint ditch one. Maybe allow county ditch 23 to kind of continue as is, but let's be responsive to any u potential blockage of flow. Um, evaluate the cost benefit of our other systems to keep them functioning or try to get those okay systems to be good systems. Um, and then we'll, we already talked about we probably need to, you know, as we're doing our inspections, turn that more into a formal inspection that's documented so that we are meeting the statutory requirements that Mr. Cole talked about. You know, right now when we're going out and looking at systems, we're really only creating a report if we find a problem and we're asking to spend money. Um, so we do have a lot of those documented. we probably don't have as as much documentation on the systems we look at that look fine and we don't really need to do anything on them. So that we can just do internally as staff and make sure that we're you know turning that a little bit into more of a formal inspection process so we have so we have it on record. Uh and with that I believe Dave is up to talk about the finances. Thank you Mike. Uh so real quick just a financial update. Um the the um county ditches and joint ditches I listed on top, those did not have the redetermination of benefits. The recent ones um they all have all have positive cash balances. Uh their future dishes ditch assessments based on maintenance repair projects as as Chair Workman and I were discussing um in the fall each year. We work with Mike. We look at the balances um and we look what money's been spent and then we recommend to the to the ditch authorities that they approve an uh a ditch assessment based on each individual ditch um that will now be using the the updated redetermination of benefits uh to spread those costs over. Uh so we we've done that every year. That's uh why we have those positive cash balances. We've worked on them, got them up uh and and they're all in good shape. the uh the other um second bullet point, those are the county ditches and joint ditches that had the redetermination of benefits. We've been spending money uh uh over the last couple years uh with engineering, with uh the viewers, with attorneys um and we've not um assessed any of those costs back to the property owners because we knew this new benefiting property um uh redetermination was coming. So we've just held those uh the board approved loan in the ditch authority money. Uh so we we've been drawn that down. But now as these redetermination payments are completed, we've come back to the board and the bo the ditch authorities have approved an assessment for the future. We as we mentioned, we've done that for all of these ditch systems except for uh county ditch 2-3 where um at the public hearing uh the board directed the viewers to go back and look at a couple more areas. So we come back on May 20th. We'll make that final um assessment. Then uh shortly after um and then we still will come back in the fall in any of the ditch systems that where Mike has spent money on inspections or getting rid of a beaver dam or a a joint ditch sibly or right county have done work on one of our ditches and they've sent us a bill for it. Uh we will then you know do a recommended assessment to cover that. So we keep track of each individual as Mike pointed out each uh ditch system has its own set of books own set of money coming in going out. Um and then annually we we bring that to the board or the ditch authority any any recommended assessments to keep those uh balances where they need to be. Um I do have a chart showing the um the ditch assessments from these redeterminations. Um and then as I mentioned the future assessments will be based on maintenance repair projects. Um as M Mike mentioned anything over 10,000 will come back to the ditch authority um and get your approval. anything under that that needs to be done. Uh we we've uh had the board and and uh with the county administrator uh we've just taken care of those and then brought it back to the board when we needed to pay for those. Uh so these are the nine uh ditches that had the redetermination of benefits. Should have mentioned 2-3 is uh that's still ongoing, but um that's the total uh uh recommended right now over 200,000. Um it is the largest ditch system, which is why it's uh um higher amount. Um but then you can see the number of benefiting properties um that are um are now covered under the with the new redetermination. And then I did a median uh just to give everyone a feel. So uh those median numbers half of the benefiting property owners are going to pay more than the the number listed there and half are going to pay less than that just to give the the digital author you guys a little sense of the dollar amounts. And then I also picked the highest uh found the highest per parcel amount. Um and then I did note that uh for those three there that's actually um an assessment to the cities and then the cities uh take th those amounts and then they um uh collect that from their uh property owners. But um those are some those are some big dollars in terms of u this what the cities are going to be get assessed. Um and then I should point out that those are this in the that's a per parcel. There are people that own multiple parcels, so they could be getting multiple, you know, thousand dollar bills um and add those up. I just picked out an individual individual parcel. So, um but it could be, you know, fairly extensive if they have a lot of benefiting property um in in the ditch system than though those are the ones that pay the higher percentage of the cost. This is just a one-time cost. Um and now we're caught up on all of all of our ditch systems will all have updated redetermination and benefits. And you know, we might not do this again for 25, 30, 35 years. As we mentioned, some of these systems hadn't been done for, we think, for over 100 years. They they got created back in 1900s. Um, and we're just now doing the redeterminations. So, we're getting all caught up. The finances look good and Mike is, you know, working on the inspections and making sure the flows are going good. So, um, we feel in pretty good shape, but we just want to keep keep moving forward. Um the one question we had for the ditch board the uh as as an as a ditch authority is there is a joint uh powers agreement with Sibly Mloud Maker Wright and Renville. Um and we could join that become part of that uh joint powers agreement. Uh one of the factors would be we'd have to increase that spending limit to 60,000. As part of that joint powers agreement, they they allow um individual counties to spend up to 60,000 without going to the joint um power through the joint power agreement and having uh joint ditch meetings. Um pass county when we talked to the comfort county board in the past uh they were not willing to to do that. Um it it those counties all have a lot more ditches than we do. We're we're relatively small. So it's kind of you know playing with the big boys and and having this more money. um you know, we don't feel there's a real strong um push to to join that, but you know, it's something we just want to make sure the board uh is okay with us. We're still evaluating. We're still considering it. Uh but we don't see a compelling reason at this time to join that. So, with that, I'll stand for any questions or any other direction from We still use dynamite to get rid of beaver dams. Nope. That' be a fun field trip. Anybody got any questions, Mr. Chair? Pretty pretty good presentation. Yeah, great presentation. Thanks, Dave. And Mike, I have a question for Mike. If you could come up to the podium, please, and just obviously a lot of ditch talk in my district when I'm out and about and with the redetermination of benefits and going through that whole process. And I'm glad we went through the process. There was a lot of education I think that took place and really helped a lot of people to understand. Can you just talk briefly, Mike, about uh Carver and Bevans Creek? Um because of um County Ditch 2-3 you had mentioned that flows into Carver Creek and and where that responsibility ends for us once it flows into Carver Creek because that's a public waterway managed by the DNR. Uh sure, Mr. Ditch Board and Mr. FY. I'll I'll try to cover that. It gets a little bit complicated. Um so like County ditch 23, it is a public ditch system. It's also Carver Creek. Uh the outlet for that system is Miller Lake, if you know where that is, just on the north side of 212 by Cologne. Um once it hits Miller Lake, it's no longer under your jurisdiction. It's no longer part of County Ditch 23 after that. Um, so any work downstream of that obviously is not going to be coming to this ditch board. Um, and you said, you know, the DNR manages that creek. It kind of they do, but they have jurisdiction over it. So, you would need DNR permits to affect the cross-section of the creek. Um, but there's no DNR staff coming out and doing maintenance on Carver Creek or cleaning out tree debris or anything like that. And so, we do get a lot of questions. Um, I think it probably comes up more on Bevven Creek, which is, you know, southern part of the county, south of Nord Young, America, south of Cologne. Um, same type of thing. We have County ditch 4 that ends, um, real close to County Road 50 and Rice Avenue, if you can kind of picture where that is. Downstream of that point, it's all Beavenons Creek. It's not under the jurisdiction of the drainage authority at all. Um, it's DNR protected water. So again, you would need DNR permits to do any sort of maintenance activities on that creek. And the DNR is not coming out and and maintaining it themselves. They just have jurisdiction for um permitting and authority and things like that. It it gets really confusing because when you move back upstream on Bevans Creek, you get into Sibi County. Throughout the years, they've turned almost all of Bevvens Creek and Sibly County into a public ditch system. So in Sibi County, you talk about Bevans Creek, you're talking about one of the public ditches. But when you get into Carver County, it's now Bevans Creek. It's not a public ditch. And it it uh falls underneath this DNR jurisdiction. And I don't want to say nobody's out there paying attention to it, but there's really no ongoing maintenance on the creek systems themselves. Does that kind of get at your question? Yes. And we can do all the work we want to county ditch 2-3 for example and have it all flowing but that flow is going to end somewhere and it's turns into Carver Creek and it turns into Dalin Township and San Francisco Township and ultimately into the Minnesota River. So if it's not flowing properly in those two down townships well then we just have bigger issues that start to back the system up etc. I just wanted you to clarify it. So, thank you. Sure. Minnesota is the land of 10 to 15,000 lakes. If we didn't maintain any of these ditches, would it be 80 lakes in about 50 years? 80,000. 80 lakes. No, just 80 big lakes. Connected lakes, maybe. Yeah. Um, you know, a lot of these ditches were originally dug through large wetland complexes, shallow lake basins in order to try to drain them. Um, so yeah, we do have a lot of drained basins, especially in Carver County, that these public ditch systems travel through. Anybody else? Seeing none, thank you very much. And I think we're going to take a quick fourm minute break. People are running out the door. Four. Four minutes. Okay. You going to hold us to four? Yep. [Music] Uh we are going to go to our final topic for the day, the transit workg groupoup considerations for the southwest transit expansion in beautiful Carver County. Well, hello there. Hello. Good morning. Um Mr. Chair, county administrator, county attorney. So Kate Pro Fundes, deputy director for health and human services and a member of our transit work group. So just a little bit background about three years ago um with a support and directions of Carver County Board. Carva County um upon analyzing finding from our healthc care assessments, Carva County Board has suggested that we create the transit work group to really look on transportation and transit in Carver County as a whole. So the members of the wardrobe includes our Southwest transit, mobility management group, public works and few other community and county departments. And uh we here today to really h do a presentation. Southwest transit will be doing the presentation to trying to figure out what is the best way to consider some potential expansions or studies within Carva County to address needs of Carva County residents. So health and human service needs focuses on residents we serve which would be our seniors and work uh individuals and of course like I said that transit itself is much broader the health and human services. So I'm just here on behalf of the group and introducing Mr. Eric Hansen who is a CEO of Southwest Transit who will be giving us some information. Mr. Hansen, good to see you. Good. Good good morning. We're still morning. Okay, that's good. I wasn't sure. Uh members of the commission. Um I uh just to kind of a little bit of of history. We were here a little over a year ago. Um and I want to give you a sense of kind of a little bit of history and kind of what transpired as well. And I know we have at least one new commissioner who wasn't there at that particular time. And so, you know, you might remember that a couple of years ago the state legislature passed a 3/4 cent sales tax. Um, the county is projected to get roughly $10 million in the in the in fiscal year 2025. I don't know what your actual collections have been, but 17% of that money is earmarked towards three things that you can spend it on. You know, one is transit, the other one is um greenhouse gas mitigations, and the third one is complete streets. And so when we we came to you kind of a year ago, we thought there's really an opportunity here because you have to spend some of that money on transit and what does that look like? Um when we met before, there was some direction that was given to the board, you know, to kind of, you know, move forward with some potential, you know, service. Um and what I will tell you is that we've had several meetings with your county staff subsequent to that. Um got a couple of pieces of feedback. We kind of put together a service plan to provide our Southwest Prime service in Waconia. Asked for some more detail. We gave it. Um ultimately staff came back and said, "Well, do we just want to do Waconia? Do we really want to look at the whole county and what that looks like?" Which makes a lot of sense to me because when you're thinking about transit, you want to think about a system, right? I mean, just little hodgepodgees of things over, you know, the place. they're going to serve some people, but are not going to serve people as well as if you have a connected transit system. Um, and transit generally works a little bit better in some areas that have more denser populations, too. And you know, Carver County is a little different in that you have some denser populations and then you go out west, it's very rural, hence the ditch discussion a little bit earlier, obviously. So, you're kind of living in two different worlds in a lot of ways. Um, and so, um, and then we were giving some direction. Well, we might want to spend about $600,000 a year on this. And so, what does that look like? So, we went back uh worked with our transit planner and had some internal discussions. And ultimately, um we're going to have a couple of recommendations. You know, one of them is that we really need to have a better plan for what this means for the whole county before we start throwing transit ideas out there. Um and number two is is that we think there's an opportunity to maximize our dollars. I mean, if $600,000 a year is what you want to spend on transit, you could spend more, you know, than that. But if that's what you want to spend on transit, um, then we really need to look at maximizing our dollars potentially, um, with an ask at the transit uh, at at the TAB at the Met Council. I I think the chair, are you the are you're the current representative on the TAB currently from Carver County? um and have the opportunity to potentially maximize that dollars, maybe get some additional money under a regional solicitation. So, those are going to be the recommendations, but I do want to kind of go through just a little bit about who we are because I think we didn't spend a lot of time talking about the last time um as well, but this is our mission statement and providing a premium experience for the Southwest Twin Cities through safe, reliable, and cost-effective transit. Builds community and connects our customers for where they are to want to go. I will tell you that my my boss is the Southwest Commission were very keen on this idea that we serve the Southwest Twin Cities. This is not just Chanhassen and Chaza and Eden Prairie. This is really the south part of the metro area. So we go into Carver and we go into uh the city of Carver and we go into Victoria and we go into Wakonia and parts of Shakabe and Adina and places like that and all the way along the 494 corridor with our new fixed route. So really, we're a much larger system than just those three cities. And so that's kind of baked into our our mission, I guess you could say. So the idea that we would help expand uh a potential transit system into other parts of Counter County really is part of our mission statement. Um we provide really three basic services. You know, fixed bus routes. Um we provide ondemand ride share, which is basically Southwest Prime. That's a little bit different than what Transit Link does. That's a dial and ride service where you kind of schedule a ride ahead of time by making a phone call. This is on demand. So, you could either from an app like Uber or if you want to call then you can get Southwest Prime that way. Um, and what we call Southwest Shuttle is a lot of our service to special events like the State Fair and and things like that. Um, this is our service area map uh in terms of where we are currently. Um, and you can kind of see where our routes are. um along the 212 corridor from Carver um all the way um east of the airport. And then we have a couple of different routes that go into downtown Minneapolis um along 62 um and uh 394 to the north uh and then also to the university where you get a lot of students actually that take it to the university um uh from this area. the areas in Adina Shakapi and some of the areas that are indicated by pluses including Wakonia Wakonia and the inset map are part of our program to bring people to medical centers as well as service to Normanddale Community College. So this is what our service area map looks like currently. Um and currently we're providing these services uh transit and shuttle services and connection points with a number of routes, park and ride locations and southwest prime and Eden Prairie Chaza. Well, Eden Prairie is not in Carver County, but Chesca Chan and Carver and Victoria um and from those cities. And so you can go from the city of Carver all the way to Normanddale Community College if you're a student or you could go um from Victoria to Eden Prairie or Victoria to um uh Adina and places like that. Um so um what we looked at initially was this idea of providing a conceptual service strategy for Carver County residents based on a possible $600,000 budget. Um looking at kind of the chip plan and comprehensive plan in accordance with community feedback. you may not there was uh one of the reasons why we initially proposed uh Southwest Prime on demand in Wakonia was because as part of your community feedback um you might remember uh Adriana Aerson who was a planner that worked with you you know uh she's left about a year ago but she put together a work paper that identified that as really back in 2023 as the number one priority in terms of the opportunities was in Wakonia specifically because they currently don't have any service. Um, and so ultimately between that in terms of the community feedback and what your staff had already done, that was really where that was targeted. So kind of our our our mission has changed a little bit, I guess you could say, you know, based on some additional direction from staff to look at more of a countywide perspective. Um, so here's what we are suggesting that you do at this point. Um, the first one is about a mobility study. And this was actually one of the original recommendations from when we were a year ago. And you might even remember somebody made the comment, well gosh, you know, didn't didn't Scott County do something like this. It might have been Alan Herman who said something like that. Yeah, I mean, Scott County has looked at this this idea of what assessing what the needs are for the county. I think we've done some of that preliminary work, but I think that there needs to be um a little bit more community outreach on this as well and community engagement of stakeholders. Um and that would include not just human services folks, but that would include county people and you know um city people and you know other stakeholders in the community that have an interest potentially in transit. Look at what the feasibility of things are, service levels, budget, understanding the needs of the community. Um ultimately the idea then we would take and put together a group uh that would be a steering committee that kind of decide what that looks like. We kind of already have a lot of that with the transit working group now but I think you could add some additional people to that you know for something like that with the purpose of applying for regional solicitation. So we actually are currently engaged right now. Uh we have a staff member that that sits on the committee that's looking at what is the criteria going to be for the regional solicitation for the TAB in 2026. And there's a couple of things that they really are interested in based on what we think the direction that this is going to go with the TAB. And Tom, you might know more than I do about this, but but my understanding is is that expansion of service is something that they're really definitely interested in. Microtransit is also something that is specifically, you know, called out in that. And one of the things that they're going to want to really know is that do you actually have um it part of your plan, which you do as part of your comprehensive plan. um and is it part of some kind of analysis that that you know demonstrates not just need but community engagement in it. So from my perspective, if we go through this process in terms of, you know, stakeholder input, you know, mobility study, apply for regional solicitation, ultimately what we will be able to do is to maximize the dollars, right? We don't just want to spend $600,000 on transit. We want to be able to go and and say, "Well, if we put in $600,000, maybe we can uh you know, with an 8020 match or something like that, you could turn that into a $2.5 million project or $3 million project." Um, I think something like this would be very successful at the TAB. It's interesting. I was having a conversation with one of uh the Met Council board members uh Deb Barber, who I think a lot of you probably know because she represents a piece of Chasta. Um and and she said, you know, gosh, I really wish that with this new sales tax that was created that the counties would, you know, do more with that. And I think it's because folks just don't know exactly what it is that they they want to do. Um, and she specifically praised Carver County because of what you're already doing with Transit Link because Met Council was putting in some of that money at the same time. And and I I thought, you know, that's a really good point, you know, because Carver is one of the few places where we're actually taking those dollars and leveraging it, you know, from the Met Council um to be able to, you know, create more service. And I think that this is would be a similar model to do something like that. Um I think that's it. Oh, recommended service timeline. So I mean ultimately we anticipate that this process is going to be happening at the end of 2026. Um and the uh um so we start this year kind of working on some of these kinds of things. We identify levels of service, prepare, you know, this kind of uh solicitation guideline or application, you know, submit it later in 2026 and then work to kind of start service in 2027. I realized in a lot of ways that some people say, geez, you know, why can't we just dump in and do something right now? Um, and we can, you know, I mean, that was kind of the original Wakonia proposal, but I think the concern was is that that wasn't potentially meeting the needs of the entire county. And I think one of the things that would be a mistake in doing is to kind of do things on an on an ad hoc, you know, basis. Well, we're going to do this and we're going to do this, we're going to do this without kind of this overreaching. What are we trying to do? Who are we trying to serve? Because at the end of the day, that's what we're trying to do. You know, we're trying to serve people. And and and what's interesting is is that I mean, this is a you know, Carver County is an affluent area. You know, I live in Chanhassen myself and so I mean, I think we all know that, but I don't think people realize that there actually are people that need access to transportation just to get to a medical center or to get to the grocery store. I mean, you live in in Norwood, Young America, for example. I mean, there isn't a full service grocery store there. You have to go to Wakonia to go to Macinthons or Target or something. And so, so there are needs in the community. And when we do surveys on our Southwest Prime service, um what we find is is that almost half of those people are transit dependent right here, Garver County. And a good portion of them um are seniors. Um and um and in many cases, about a quarter of them, if they didn't have that service, they wouldn't be able to get to where they were going. They literally didn't have another alternative. Um so um so ultimately we think that having a good plan in place and kind of working towards that and maximizing our dollars um through a grant application process um is going to get you in the long run a better service even if it means that we wait a little bit uh in order to maximize this. So that's our suggestion um at this point and uh be happy to answer any questions. I do want to introduce Erica Schulty King is here too. you know, my colleague, I just asked her, I said, "Do you want to be part of this presentation?" She says, "No, it's all you." I'm like, "Okay, thank you for that, Erica." But um but um Erica is in charge of uh a lot of our new program development and a lot of our kind of standard operations and marketing and things like that and community engagement. And so, um she would be a key figure in this in this process. So, with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. I know that's a lot. wanted to maybe meet at Tequila Butcher with us and I She didn't she didn't say that. I think I said that. Well, and likewise uh work closely with our forward thinking Kate Probert and others. Uh Mr. Robin back there is really the tab expert. If you really got a question, um he he knows uh everything. he'll make it up. But um but this is a this is one of those great topics. I think uh the county is committed to great transit and uh I like the way you're thinking about using the dollars to do even more. So who's got a question for Eric? Mr. Pe. Yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I think the regional solicitation would be a great route, Eric. And Kate knows and just serving on the Metro Mobility board. You had mentioned Al Herman and Smart Link and what they have in place now with a couple of fixed routes that they've started in NYA and also Wakonia. It's interesting to see how they work and to have those conversations with Mr. Herman and just the number of people that it impacts. It's not a lot of people, but it's the people that you're talking about that that need to get that live in Peace Villa or the harbor in NYA and have to go to the grocery store and how do they get there? And now with this fixed route, they can jump on a bus and we can drop them off at Mac and come back and pick them up in an hour and can take them to Target, etc. So that stuff is working. that stuff's in play and I think that's the information that you'll need to pull this all together for that reasonal solicitation application and Kate will definitely be able to help you with that and Mr. Herman also. I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean it's interesting. I mean, I've had some conversations with the folks, you know, that run the the food shelf, you know, and in Waconia, you know, and and the people in Bountif Basque and Chaska, and one of the things that they tell us on a regular basis is that, you know, a lot of times people have trouble, you know, they have transit, they have transportation needs to even be able to get get to the to the food shelf or some of these other places. And so, you know, I think that there's a lot of potential supporters for this kind of thing. And I and that's one of the reasons why I think we need to do kind of a community process is because we want to bring those kinds of people into the discussion too, you know, so that we can understand what their needs are and can help craft a solution, you know, that makes sense. Um, and so I I think that's well well said, Commissioner. I I agree. There are people that need need services like this. Yes. Okay. Any other questions? Commissioner Udman, couple for Lyndon. Um, we talk about the where the money can go in transit. Curious, can this can these dollars be used for a trail head or um we've got a lot of trail connections. I know there's some congestion in some spaces. Are these dollars that could be spent on on a trail head? Yeah, Eric mentioned 10 million. I don't think we got we're not going to get quite that much. It's probably more like eight to seven. So, there's three different categories in the TAA fund. the trails is a separate category. Okay. But obviously if it's connected to a transit investment, it could be eligible. So the 600,000 that we mentioned, I don't recall a year ago where that number came from. Um, I think if we go forward with the study as recommended, we just got to figure out, we got to scope that out, decide who's doing what, whether Eric runs the study or it's a combo, figure out what the budget is for that study, then come back to you guys for approval, and then we would help fund that study with part of the TAA money implementation plan. I mean, this there's not a lot of time if we want to apply for the 26 regional solicitation. should get going on this quick implementation plan with the highest priority recommendations that we submit for grants. Yeah. So that's my recommendation how we move forward. Uh on that point um in speed it's been a year since you've been here. I thought we had given direction to say go study it but you know I've also come across in the huge projects that we've done in 212 and five and others that there's a whole crap ton of data that's out there to ping your phone and all the other stuff. You know strip out people's all their personal stuff. But if we have a use case that we're trying to close gaps, um, uh, you'd mentioned, um, use cases like major businesses, getting people to and from for work, airport, medical center, grocery store. It seems like there's a finite amount of use cases as to where we're going. It's not just, oh geez, today I want to go to the park or tomorrow I want to go to the whatever. Can do we have access to data to expedite a a study if you will from actual data of traffic flows or who's using or who could use or who might use um these guys probably know way better than us because they're they're data oriented but I know there is software out there's this thing called street light y which has GPS data for all vehicles and including bicycles now if you have a phone so that is definitely a resource we own a license to that I don't know if you guys do but so there are a a lot of things we can use to Yeah. Yeah. And there's there's a there's a number of different pieces data sets out there that are publicly available. Um we just did a strategic plan through 2027. And so one of the things we were looking at was traffic patterns like how many people from Chesca commute to Minneapolis for example for work and stuff like that. And so I think there's some data in terms of commuting patterns and things like that available you know on a city-bycity basis. how many people are coming in to Chanhass and how many people are leaving every day and those kinds of things and some of that so some of that data is certainly readily available. One of the things that we do every two years is we do a community survey. Um, and so we've asked kind of these questions about what you would do for transit. And I think we probably could include a component to include all of Carver County in some cases as part of our community survey that we're going to be doing, which is just a phone survey that we do, you know, by the end of the year to try to get a little bit more robust, you know, questions on, you know, what people's, you know, needs might and things like that. So, yeah, I mean, there's some data out there. Um, I think that, you know, there's a couple reasons why you want to do these kinds of community efforts, though. And it's not just to collect information. That's part of it. But the other one is to kind of bring stakeholders together at the end of the day around this idea that we want to do something. Um, and that we have this money out there that and and so when you then go forward with a project, you kind of have some built-in support and also you brought all the stakeholders together in terms of the discussion. Um, and so some of it's about data, but I think some of it's just all about rallying the troops to an extent. Uh, couple couple more questions. You're a unique individual in the sense that you've sat up here before. You have supervisor, I think, in Colorado, right? Yeah. So, you understand it from a board perspective. Some of the things that kind of come to mind, you know, gaps and overlaps, you know, is there service to Cologne public works area because that'll be a growth area. Costco, has they have they has that come into your data set? Um the Shakapei amphitheater, I know that you got the twins in the everything downtown Minneapolis, but will that amphitheater be served by Southwest Transit? Are there any overlaps? Uh the Waconia night and weekend uh crowd, particularly the breweries and the wineries. Um I tried to be a customer on Saturday coming back from the airport and I think you guys cut off at 6:30. I came in at 8. And so, you know, I'm a sample size of one. I would have used it, but it the hours don't necessarily support it. And so the things I look forward to that you're probably not going to hear in a survey is when new businesses come here, can we help their workforce? I I mean I I totally agree with you, you know, Commissioner. I mean I I think there's a lot of things. I mean I will tell you that we're working through kind of changing some of our service levels. And one of the reasons, for example, just on the airport question, we launched the 686 route, which operates from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. um so that you can get to the airport is because Southwest Prime didn't really serve the airport on Sundays and into the evenings. Well, that's fine if you're ready to fly during the day, but what happens if you're not, you know? Um, and I usually fly in the evenings and early mornings anyway because I'm trying to work around my work schedule, you know. Um, and and so it doesn't really work for me either for that same reason. A lot of the reason why it was built that way is because Southwest Transit was originally honestly just a bus service taking people to downtown Minneapolis with a little bit of kind of ondemand thrown in. Um, but COVID kind of changed a lot of that because people don't use transit the same way that they used to and a lot of people are working at home. And so we're in the middle of kind of resetting what Southwest Transit is. It will probably include longer service hours like you just described for for for Southwest Prime. It will include more services on Sundays. We now are actually operating on Sundays, but that's we have never operated on Sundays up until March 31st, three weeks ago. So, so I think we have an opportunity to do some of those things. Um, and just to connect that a little bit, one of the things that Kate asked us was, well, what about service for Southwest Prime on the weekends? You know, don't people need to go to the grocery store on the weekends? And I said at the time, I said, "Well, that would be tough for us right now because we don't have a dispatch operating on the weekends, but as of March 31st, we now do." So, I think we're in a better position to kind of serve things, I guess you could say, than we were a year ago because of our increase in service levels. Um, so I think I think those are all valid points and I think we're going to get there. The key takeaway I take from that is is that we got to build a transit system based on what people's needs are, right? So, let's figure out what that is. Um, and that's what we want to try to do and then go out and maximize our dollars with, you know, some other money. Last thing is I know you've been heavily invested in autonomous and I think that that's a wave of our future. Do you think that plays into this study and part of your recommendation? Yeah, I mean I think we could definitely look at that. I mean, that service is running in Eden Prairie right now and it's under a three-year grant pilot program essentially and, you know, we'll have some information about how that works, I think, you know, when when we start putting this together and that could be, you know, part of the issue. I will tell you that half of our costs goes into labor, you know, for these kinds of services. And you know that scares some people a little bit when they start talking about what does that mean for workers, but I'll tell you honestly, we can't even find enough drivers as it is anyway. I mean, every single day this is an issue. Um, and so I don't think we're going to be displacing any workers and I think that there's some potential cost savings down the road. Um, a lot of the technology still needs to be worked out and people need to be comfortable with it. You know, think of it like the internet. I mean, people didn't do internet banking in 1999 either for the same reason, but then they they do now and they get used to it. So, I think some of it's customer adoption, some of it's the technology, but yeah, I think we'll get there. Thank you. Sure. Four or five billion dollar uh rail, Commissioner Anderson, Eric, and Erica, thank you so much for being here. I also am a I'm a um frequent user of your prime service to the airport and um my my worry has been how often I'm the only one on that bus and taken to the airport and so um I appreciate the new service now instead of that that you have expanded it to the evenings and at night you you just have to um park differently. So, uh, I thank you for not taking it away and and allowing that, but I I think that, um, I don't love the fact that this is, um, taking a bit of time. I think it's but it's very important to make sure we know what our needs are and this is very much supplements and is a huge advantage that you're taking this time so that we can serve the people of Carver County. So, thank you for that. And by the way, Erica, great template. really landed the BL brand on this. So I every time I see that uh the Southwest Prime brand, it's We did do a rebrand. Yes. Yes, you did. And you did it nicely. So yeah. So good good work and thanks for your service to our community. You bet. Okay. Anybody else? Colin, could we go actually go back to the start of the presentation? The very first slide. I thought it was a great commercial for you right here. Um, first of all, I'm not very high into fashion, but I do know now after watching this that white cowboy boots are in. Yes, they are. I was thinking I was that was a Zack Bryan concert we went to last year. I tell you that. And they're going to the Zack Bryan concert. So, this is a perfect example of you and special events. Yes, that's exactly being at any any type of game or big show down there. And there's also in the background cowboy hats. So, those are allowed on the Southwest bus. So, I just answered that question. People don't even realize what a big part of our service this actually is. Um um we we we sent 160 so last year get an idea. It gets you an idea. We talk a lot about Southwest Prime and we had about 145,000 writers on Southwest Prime last year, but we actually took 165,000 people to just these special events. So it's actually it's actually the second biggest thing we do after our regular bus route. Um it's huge actually. Yeah, it's a big part of what we do. Well, and it makes getting to the state fair, the Vikings game, twins, so less stressful. It It sure does. And it's a pretty good We we actually made a strategic decision to increase that last year, which is one of the things that Erica has been doing for us because when we did a survey in 2023, we asked people one thing that you wanted more of the it wasn't quite a majority, but was a plurality, the largest number was go to more of these kinds of special events. And so we leaned into that like the Renaissance Festival for example, we did that last year which we'll be doing again this year and people responded. Um and so I there's definitely a need for this out there. You just got to figure out what it is, you know. Did the Did the Twins start? The Twins have started. Yes. I don't know about the team they're playing. They are they are fielding a team. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. They're fielding a team. So I guess really the the the question we have is do you like I mean I I hear a lot of positive comments about liking this direction you know and so that's what I hear you know and so you know um unless the staff hears something differently you know we'll work with with you on on u you know making that happen. Yeah I I think so. Yep. Indeed. Sounds good. Thanks again for uh for being here and we appreciate it. Thank you commissioners. We appreciate it. You bet. And seeing no more, we're going to officially adjourn. Thank you.