afternoon everybody Welcome to the November 25th uh Watershed Planning Commission meeting I would like to call this meeting to order we will now um take a look at the agenda and the meeting of minutes um I would like to call for any modifications to the agenda at this time thank you madam chair we do have one um adjustment to theend genda uh we do have an updated tax docket for the tax docket item so Ryan will uh go over those changes during that item but we do uh have a an update to that agenda item that we would like to add to the meeting okay um we will include that then under new business um thank you any other modifications to the agenda okay and then um and to wrap this into one motion we um we also have the meeting minutes attached to the agenda so if there are any comments to minutes please speak up otherwise I will call for a motion to approve the agenda with the small change that Vanessa has mentioned um and approved many minutes as they presented quiet evening we do need a motion yep I'll I'll let me state that one more time do we have a motion since since I think folks were thinking about the uh the the meeting minutes and maybe changes to those that was a lot in one statement do we have a motion to approve the agenda with the modification that Vanessa stated um change to the dock at the tax docket um and approve um the meeting unit as presented we have that motion Madame chair this is commissioner Phillips I will uh make that motion to approve the minutes with the uh modifications mentioned and the yep the agenda um modifications and do we have a second Madam chair's commissioner pH I will second that all right Commissioners I will do roll commissioner Weaver hi commissioner pint hi commissioner Schmidt hi commissioner Phil hi commissioner Phillips I and commissioner cilus I perfect right that motion has passed we can move on to the um wo administrator report Vanessa thank you madam chair and Commissioners um well my administrative report today is going to be a little bit different um today is kind of the what I'm going to call the end of an era um we do have three of our commissioners uh leaving us at the end of this year um their term limits are up and uh so moving forward there there we've got other things going on um one of them in particular has been with us for a very long time uh commissioner pent has actually uh been with the WPC since its Inception of the wmo so uh commissioner pent has been with us for a very long time uh he's provided a lot of valuable insight into all three generations of our Watershed plan um staff remembers how he helped shape our rules and our initial S our initial standards and our initial Vision that most of which we've stuck with till today um staff noted that his efforts to help us through the 2014 presidential disaster um helping to provide us you know some decisionmaking ideas on on how to move forward and how to use our funds to repair some of those damages across the landscape um and and all kinds of things to that effect it was a lot of effort there uh he's been very instrumental in in so many aspects helping with the cier program helping to provide some comments and Direction there and then even serving on a policy committee with the Lura Minnesota River Watershed East recently uh with that one Watershed one plan partnership so uh staff absolutely wants to thank commissioner pent for what is almost a lifetime at this point of a assistance and support of the wo uh we know obviously you know want to retire and move on to greater things in Greater Minnesota um but we really want to thank you for all that you have done you've certainly Been instrumental to Us instrumental to the wo and we will miss you um and uh that's uh kind of summary of kind of what I wanted to say but um commissioner pint did you want to have say a couple of things and wa sure thank you very much that's very kind obviously you were embellishing my contribution I think some people thought maybe I was actually kind of a pain in the you know what sometimes because stickler about some things so I appreciate staff's great job that they've gone and I've worked with obviously several now you'll be the third uh manager that I've worked with in terms of the wmo so it's been really a pleasure i' I've learned a lot also and I hope in some small way at least that I have made a positive contribution so uh good luck to the rest of you and don't hesitate to to uh uh solicit my input on any other positions that come up anything else that could be of help by a bit glad to help the county out so thank you commissioner pin um I also want to thank uh commissioner Weaver and commissioner cilus I know commissioner Weaver you've been with us for since 2017 which is also a pretty long stint you've certainly again with the one Watershed one plan policy committee um helping us with our last generation Plan update uh you've obviously jumped in his chair as well on on a couple of occasions here and you've definitely helped us kind of uh Bridge some of those opportunities between the wo and the Board of Water and Soil resources um and we certainly have appreciated you very much as well and commissioner cilus I I know you've been newer and jumping into the wo during co uh that's huge to us it means a lot to us you have really helped us be that liaison with Cedar Lake Improvement District um definitely instrumental in helping us with our logo and branding using all your marketing expertise and knowledge um and and jumping in at all our community events uh and really asking Great Plain language questions we tend to be very technical and uh you've always helped encourage us to speak in a way that really helps us connect on on kind of a regular language with most of our residents so um I wasn't sure if either of you wanted to to say one or two things but staff definitely wants you to know how much we appreciate you well I will just say you weren't kidding that there will be some gaps now um yeah I think we all need to go back and kind of talk to folks and and try to encourage other people to get involved um to to round out the team here on the um as Commissioners so we can we can still have a healthy healthy set of Commissioners to I don't know I I would say help you guys along but you guys do such good work that that I don't you don't you don't really need us um but uh yeah I I know we'll I'll do my part and hopefully the rest of the Commissioners too will just get the word out that that we need some folks I'm hoping you can hear me I just wanted to say thank you to everybody it it has been a pleasure to serve with this group um I have learned a ton I'm not sure that I contributed a ton um the the other commissioner set the bar high but um I really found it really fascinating and I would encourage anybody that was interested in being a commissioner to to step up because it is very interesting and rewarding thank you so much well thank you all three of you uh staff does have a little uh like award certificate we are sending you in the mail um so you shall be receiving that as part of our thanks and appreciation as well uh but I did want to take the time today uh since we have you know three wonderful Commissioners and and that's how our term limits run our term limits you know the three-year term limits and they kind of come and go in batches um but uh we definitely wanted to thank you and we feel you provide a very valuable resource uh we do value the fact that we are a community and citizen driven entity and we really um to us it's of Paramount importance that the voice of the citizens who you present is really what guides us in our day-to-day work so thank you and with that I stand for any questions all right any more questions or comments for Vanessa okay sounds like we can move on to our ongoing business um and Scott County S swcd's updates first Troy yes thank you madam chair and Commissioners and I'll just add um it's been a pleasure working with all three of you um Virgil to your comment about being a pain in that you know what um not at all we we look forward to tough questions being challenged uh by any commissioner any time I think that way makes us a stronger organization and provide more and better information for those policies uh decisions that you have to make so kudos to you and thank thank you all all three of you for all your service on this U Watership C uh commission um so I'll give you my final report I guess at least that you'll hear um so this is for November 24 uh just summarizing uh as you know I've over the past uh months and years I've been trying to move more towards visual metrics than textual uh so you can kind of see how we're tracking with some of our activities we been went with the tax program technical assistance and C share you can see for month of November our numbers are are on the downswing uh what's attributed to that is just we've made dozens and dozens of payments now uh closing out a lot of projects that we've had since that uh from the actually may period and building through June and July so we're finally closing uh those projects out with a finalizing payments um and and with uh certifying the project implementation so our next step over the next few months is going to be to get that to bounce back up by doing targeted Outreach based on some of the grants priority areas and funding that we have available soil Health practices uh I would say this is a tribute to the WPC their interest and their uh focus on really promoting that soil Health as part of the water uh comprehensive watershed management plan we've done that for the past uh gez six seven years or more maybe 10 uh and the results are really starting to show off I'm not saying every year we're going to hit that 3,000 to 3500 acre mark on sou practices but I think uh as you can see the trend for the number of Acres Rec covering under soof has certainly gone in the right direction for us uh and and that is uh mirrored as well in the equipment rental program that's where we provide uh certain types of farm equipment that's called noil Planters and noil seeders that allow producers and and other uh farmers in the county to put their crops in without tilling up their soil and you can see uh we've had uh the highest number of acres and since we've been tracking the program and that's another good sign because a lot of that is related to uh cover crops and no tail so not all those acres are actually in the number that you see on the um leftand side uh the left-and side soil practices are only those Acres that we provided cost share financial assistance for so there may be a quite a few of the acres in the noil rental program that are actually not accounted for in those so um that number could be a lot bigger than what we're actually showing cost share funds uh this is another kind of bright spot if you'll see that we've had we currently have total Awards on the book of over 1.25 million we've encumbered over 82% of that at this point and we've been working working really hard at getting those funds spend and uh kudos to Ryan and all the staff here that have been working hard to make sure we're focused in the right areas and on the right types of projects um I'll skip down to clean water education program the only thing I want to mention there is that we we submitted articles we do uh at least four or five articles in every issue of the scene uh this one did feature our 2024 conservation leader who lives on odow Lake it's Maxine Hughes she's uh going to the state awards banquet where she has been already selected as the area which is the metro area uh winner for the conservation leader uh Statewide program and she's in the running for a Statewide um uh a selection so we'll keep you posted on that uh let's see um water quality monitoring so we're pretty much wrapped up with Sand Creek we did our final round of biweekly samples in total we collected 240 or so water samples uh there was a beaver issue on one of the sites in San Creek so we told the township about that and now we're just looking at the field data getting everything entered into the database and making sure we do the proper qaqc before finalizing out that program uh precipitation move down to that graph you can see we starting to get some precipitation October there but not enough certainly to bring us out of the the super super dry spell although the most recent uh rainfall we've here had here in in the middle part of November has kind of slowed construction down we have quite a few projects under construction but hopefully we'll be able to get started back up when these cold temperatures settle back in uh but otherwise I'd say we're still in kind of deficit mode on the um precipitation um I'll skip down to subwatershed assessments so we've completed all the modeling at this point uh Chase is now working on the final reports and we should have both the phase one and phase two for Raven stream to the W Mo here shortly well in conservation act we had about seven or eight different applications so we're rounding out uh all the the uh application reviews and and approvals uh we usually see a slug of activity at the end of the year so developers are looking to get their approvals for other Wetland activity um and it can incorporate that into their permits for the county and construction plans for next year moving on down let's skip to buffer law we continue to do our annual review of buffer compliance uh the county we is divided into three zones so we come back around every three years to do compliance inspection uh and we keep that uh there's a database that is maintained by the state of Minnesota the Bowser and we go basically into that database and update the comp compliance on every parcel that is subject to the buffer law next section is just a summary of the new uh applications uh that came in that were approved you can see we had a little over $3,650 worth of new applications since the last WPC meeting and had payments of a little over $2,800 and per the request of the commission from our last meeting I've included uh a report uh that summarizes groundwater um the DNR observation well monitoring program results and um I have you Ryan scoot down to that so this report in I won't go through it in detail but it's there for your review at your leisure uh it includes a map of where all 19 observation Well locations are some are nested uh so if you see an X number by them that means there's multiple Wells at within the same general vicinity each of those going into different pieces of the or part uh sections of the aquafer um the next slide shows the uh annual precipitation so it's just for reference basically so you can see if uh how the the the precipitation values would or would not necessarily correlate with some of the readings we see in the wells so that's just mostly for reference the the next page shows the kind of in a very generic generalized uh perspective on what wells or what aquifers each of these Wells is tapping so multiple Wells might be tapping in the same aquafer uh but uh the goal of the program which is run by DNR is to make sure we have good data on each of the aquafers and they use this data to um help uh refine and and um validate their modeling efforts when they do groundwater modeling for uh things like permitting and water supply planning so this data here is the uh 10e so if it goes back to October 14 uh 2014 um I'll let you look at kind of the individual ones but generally we're not seeing any significant change in groundwater um levels over the past 10 years there are there are bounces you know in from one year to the next but overall we're not seeing any significant Trends one way or the other and then uh the next slides go through the 2year finding for um each individual well uh ignore the noise those are those are wells that have loggers in them so it's track in data like every 15 minutes or so uh we can kind of clear that up if we wanted to do a lot of the data like data modification but we pretty much just give you the raw data here so you can see in the two-year Trend you're going to see uh some changes uh up some are down um but if you compare that to the 10year average you're not going to see this kind of uh variability and it's it's not super significant we would expect to see some of this variation year to year based on amount of precipitation so hopefully that uh information is valuable and and and provides what you're hoping for if you have any questions I'll sit by to try to answer them thank you Troy Madam chair this is commissioner pint yes Troy thank you so much I know I've been asking for this information and I really really appreciate it I know was a lot of extra work for you to put it together but uh as Commissioners here I think we all owe to our residents here in Scott to make sure that we are being good stewards of our groundwater so thank you very much for giving absolutely my pleasure any questions for Troy mam chair and Commissioners Troy just got a this is commissioner Phillips a quick question so that goes back about was it 10 years of data it looked pretty stable on the one graph um uh I guess how far back does a data go um and has there been any major change since Inception of when they drilled these Wells um I would have to dig back further to to give you a good answer on that commissioner Phillips um but I know that the program itself has been in place since I've been here in 2009 and I want to say it's probably been in play for for at least 20 years if not longer so if we wanted to go back we further we definitely could um but I could certainly have staff look back at a longer period and see if there's any changes when we do that okay yeah thanks I'd be curious if could go back and see there's been any major changes but certainly in the last 10 years they look pretty stable well we can do that thank you yeah thanks okay there are no further questions we can move on to Ryan with his program updates chair Commissioners uh good afternoon just want to start out by reiterating things we've already heard but um really appreciate the Commissioners and and all their hard work that you've put in through the years it's um although mam cheran said you feel like you don't uh we don't need you we we do we really appreciate the guidance that you provide and um um it's been it's been really fun getting to know you know each of you and and all the contributions you've had so I just wanted to start out by saying we really appreciate all your dedication and work through the year so thank you um I don't actually have much for updates uh today uh so the CIP where we're at uh Vite I mentioned at the last meeting they uh won they were the lowest bid at roughly 652 th000 and oddly enough uh out of the seven projects that we've completed during this effort uh when Vite completes this one they will have completed five of the seven so they found a niche for our projects and uh we must have a pretty good relationship if they keep uh keep coming back to work with us um I know we have really enjoyed working with v and um I'm guessing that um they won't keep coming back if they didn't enjoy working with us so looking forward to getting started on it um I think the soonest construction will start would be the first week in December um there's still quite a few things that need to happen from now till then and with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up um it wouldn't surprise me if we go a little bit further into December so start date hasn't been set um the pre- count hasn't been set yet so number of things kind of still need to happen but um that would be the very soonest they would uh be starting construction uh one piece of this the grant that's associated with the uh work for this CIP um is slightly behind uh so we are working with uh mpca mpca staff um and then also you know they're working with EPA staff at trying to get this um Grant agreement executed um we haven't had any um you know news updates in the last couple weeks so we're we're kind of crossing our fingers and hoping for the best um we've as staff we've put together sort of our a b and c plan uh depending on when you know things kind of get moving and and executed so um so we'll see obviously we're hoping we can go with plan a but if not we'll pivot to B and if not we pivot to C so hopefully we don't have to go any any further than that so just know that we kind of have a plan in place there uh depending on the outcome of that Grant uh last update I have is we've been working with the parks department at Scott County on um a property out in Blakeley Township uh where we were um keeping tabs on some Ravines and the erosion associated with those uh Ravines and we've been kind of waiting on some lar data um and so I did get an update from our GS Department that depending on how quickly the parks department would want to move with doing this liar comparison um we might be able to kind of parcel out a little bit of the data just specifically for those fields um so that's kind of where that project's at if anyone remembers the the Blakeley Parks uh review beans project that we've been working on kind of been on hold waiting for this slide our data but um depending on you know how quickly the park Spartan wants to move they can wait for the larger data to be available we'll do that if not we can kind of pick up where we left off so with that I'll stand for any questions thanks Ryan is the Blakeley um is that Sand Creek so Blakeley would be these Ravines lead down to Minnesota River um oh okay okay and to the parks uh Department's credit they've done um quite a number of projects on these uh properties already and kind of what they're doing is they just want to make sure they're being good stewards of the land and if some of these Ravines are you know eroding at a a high rate they would want to know about it and potentially then look at um doing some sort of stabilization so um so it's been a kind of a fun project um nothing this is you know the Bluffs along the river so there's nothing you know all that different from their property to you know a joining property so there wasn't anything that kind of really stood out so um we're not anticipating lar will show you know big big changes for these Ravines but you just never know yeah okay thanks um other questions for Ryan okay looks like Melissa you're up next thank you madam chair um just a few updates um so at the October meeting I had indicated that the following day U Megan and I were going to be presenting to the odow in th Lake residence a public meeting uh so we presented at that it was a really good to out there was probably 50 to 60 residents that showed up um we were only supposed to be there for an hour presenting we were there for two hours because they had so many questions so it was actually a whole hour worth of questions and they were asking really good things um and then we also received a volunteer to monitor th Lake water levels because there hasn't been a monitor a volunteer to do that for many many years so um that was a good turnout um I had also created an outow andth Lake survey that we sent sent out after the meeting actually the association sent it out the deadline for that was November 15th we received a total of 57 responses we thought that was pretty good um last Friday I created an infographic summary of that um and actually if I could just share that really quickly share my screen H the share is not showing that but I have it open here I don't know it's not well I guess I won't um I'll just tell you some of the feedback that we received from them is that kind of the the two main concerns that they had were water levels and weeds um so kind of the two major concerns are they want to work on um increasing water levels and either aquatic invasive species management and Native Plant management um and so I'll be working with them kind of on some next steps on how they can move forward at least with um what we can help them with um obviously lakewater level stuff we cannot help them with um uh there were several comments about you know they wanted to address the burm maintenance on Blue Bill Circle um right away as well so [Music] um and they did also and the other thing I want to mention is they did receive a lot of um um responses for people who would be willing to volunteer for the association so I think they're going to have a pretty good start of um moving forward with some kind of an association that's going to help them be able to do more to the lake um than what they're currently able to do now um so the Cedar Lake survey we did send out postcards to that um there was a little bit of a mix up with the labeling so I had to resend letters but um that deadline for the cedar Lake survey to the residents has a deadline of December 13th and so far we've gotten a 100 responses back from Cedar Lake folks so we're having a really good response rate on that um this week I'll also be doing a a mailing to mcmah Lake residents it's you know definitely a smaller group and I'll give them the same deadline to get some feedback from them so that we have some kind of input into this next Watership plan on what kind of management strategies we should think about in the plan for the Lakes uh update on the UFM citizen survey so um the second mailing went out on November 7th um we're scheduled to do one last final mailing probably the first week of December um so far we've only received 264 responses out of 1,500 so maybe we we might think about waiting you know another week um maybe the second week in December instead but this is the first time after doing that survey a couple different times now that we're really getting low response rates and um I'm wondering if just too many surveys have been done um over the last year that people just are are not interested in doing another survey so we might have to think about how to do that in the future um to get kind of those behavioral um and barrier kind of responses um the um water based mation funding you know there was a few different projects that I had submitted that were approved I'm working on language for the work plan for Ryan to enter um the work plan into e-link I've got one more right up left for the Sand Creek water quality assessment and implementation Plan update and then I should be able to give everything to Ryan so we can get those um agreements going and lastly uh we were invited by Council to attend what they're calling the Twin Cities water monitoring and data assessment group uh meeting it's on December 17th in St Paul um so they're inviting different counties in the metro to just talk about um what they're doing for water monitoring what the water monitoring program is so I'm putting together just a short PowerPoint presentation I'll probably talk for five maybe seven minutes uh I'm going to include stuff such as um kind of an overview of what types of resources we're monitoring like how many streams how many laks uh what parameters are monitoring for um they they they're curious to know what kind of an examples of analysis that we're doing with that data and then how are we sharing that information so I was working on that PowerPoint this morning and I'll have it finished up probably by next week sometime and um I'll give a report on how that went uh after that meeting so that's all I have at the moment and I can stand for any questions if anybody has any thank you Melissa questions for Melissa okay uh all right looks like Ryan is pulling up our um final Levy and budget um document so all right Vanessa you're up Hey [Music] actually you skipped a item on the agenda oh sorry I saw the other screen move and I was like okay here we are um or our Watershed Plan update sorry actually I'm gonna share my screen um Ryan if that's okay just this is this will be back to Melissa this will be quick um but since it is on the agenda I want to share it quick so this is that Milestone sheets that I had put together um in SE September and I just wanted to share with you where we're at on here so in your packet I'll be talking about the public engagement phase one um I did put together a summary that's complete I am discussing it at this meeting um but in December I'll be working on a lot of different things so taking all this input determining whether we need to um change our issue statements or add more um and have a meeting with staff to kind of determine um tracking our progress against a plan um so you know what's working what isn't working what do we want to think about changing in this next version and then State and Rule requirements making sure we make a checklist for that so we're meeting everything and then I do plan on scheduling a TCH or technical advisory committee meeting in January to go over all of this information and I did request um to um Scott Cody admin to um schedule a board workshop for the end of February to also go through all this issue information maybe some draft goals and then kind of an overall prioritization process so just wanted to quickly show you kind of what the the next steps of works that's going to be done in in December in and in January and that's all I had on that thank you all right thank you Melissa okay any questions on the Plan update all right now Ryan you can bring up the the document thank you and Vanessa I'm guessing you're G to walk us through the um uh final Levy and budget yes thank you madam chair Commissioners everybody's favorite topic is the budget um it is always one of our most critical pieces each year uh our budget really sets what it is we're really able topl accomplish uh in the following year um we do strive and have a strong track record of of staying within our budget so uh we don't take these budgets willy-nilly we take them very seriously um and so we put a lot of time and effort into it and when we come to you with our preliminary uh Levy uh we do the best we can with the knowledge we have of course the preliminary Levy by law must be set by September 30th and unfortunately we don't necessarily always have all the information we need from our grants and so on and so forth uh but we do the best we can so to see changes between the preliminary Levy and the final Levy is not uncommon uh so uh today I am bringing forward the final Levy and budget for the wo uh the purpose of this is for you as the Watershed Planning Commission to make a recommendation to the board and uh based on that recommendation the the board will decide whether to approve not approve modify uh they do take your recommendation incredibly seriously uh they do rely heavily on the WPC to really kind of review and flush out the projects and programs the wo does from year to year making sure that we are aligned with both our plan our watered management plan and our annual work plans that we do each year so in order to meet those kind of existing obligations in our 2019 to 2026 spattered management plan and our existing Grant obligations uh we are still con uh as staff asking to recommend a net Levy increase of 6.8% which would set the 2025 Levy at 1,513 425 so that is the same as the preliminary Levy that has not changed however the final budget is up slightly at 2,367 700 so what are those changes and that's really what I'm going to highlight for you this evening uh Revenue uh Revenue projected to increase from 1,883 th000 to 2, 243,000 240,000 excuse me uh we honestly just received a lot more accurate data on the status of our existing grants how much we've actually spent this year versus how much we were projecting and what's coming in the door uh and based upon how that's all shaken out here in the last couple months we're actually projecting to have an additional 357,96 of Grant funds for next year which is very helpful uh expenses uh are expected to increase a little bit of about $40,500 uh couldn't quite zero it out and that because that is basically due to three program areas um if it's not in here it didn't change so the three areas of change were uh the land and water treatment budget uh from the preliminary Levy to the final Levy uh we did update the Coster program based upon remaining grant funds um we had a little bit left over I tried to pull a little bit more of General Levy funds in as much as I could um but you know I I can't quite bring it up too much otherwise we're again dipping too far into our reserves um uh the biggest impact of course to the land and water treatment budget was really that our bids for paa Creek came in higher than estimated we we estimated 640,000 after opening the bids even the lowest bid um very responsive bidder as Ryan has mentioned uh but still higher than projected so now that's coming in at 700,000 uh I did try to cut a little bit of of our wo staff time for this program area to kind of help balance the budget I can't really cut it low than the bare minimum the bare minimum is basically what our minimum threshold is just to keep the programs lights on from year to year um anything below 880,000 and even 880,000 might be a tiny bit low um based upon what we've spent on previous years but we'll strip it as as far as I can go second program area uh was the monitoring program uh this one's you know just a few actually ends up being only about $1,000 doll but there are a few different changes uh one of them again is just a little bit additional program costs for laboratory expenses um based upon what we're actually seeing in laboratory expenses for this year uh there is an additional kind of Swag Grant from the mpca uh it's a monitoring Grant uh for Cedar Creek uh the S swcd is actually going to apply for that for us on our behalf uh but we do need a little bit of Staff time and and so on for that so uh there's $1,000 doll there and then obviously to try to balance that budget again as much as I can uh I did reduce the wmo staff time to $88,000 and then the last one of program area change is inventory and assessment um that goes back to that U ofm social attitude survey as Melissa mentioned uh a lot of work has been done but not quite maybe as much as we were hoping to get done this year and so we actually need to push some more of that contract working into next year so in order to push that additional contract work into next year I had to raise uh the budget for next year the total contract amount is still the same we're not changing the total contract amount it's just we're now projecting spending more of it next year than we were this year and then uh that brings us down to our fund balance uh we are basically uh looking to actually decrease how much fund balance which is good we'd love to dip into our fund balance nothing that never really happen happens we try to get as close to zero as possible um you can't live on your savings um but uh we do obviously carry a fund balance for a reason uh however fund balance is projected to decrease from $440,000 to about1 127,000 uh again that's pretty much offset by those Grant funds uh as Ryan mentioned we are waiting on that nine elements Phase 2 grant that is sitting in the epa's in basket to be signed I did not include that in next year's budget at this point in time because we have not really heard from EPA when and if they're planning on signing it so until I have confirmation that they're going to sign it and when they're going to sign it um I can't really include it in the budget so once that happens it likely bring forward a budget amendment and um adjust these numbers slightly accordingly but that is at this point we're not sure when that will happen so uh final thing uh just so you kind of understand what does this mean if you're a resident of Scott County I throw a lot of numbers at you but what does that actually mean if I'm a homeowner of Scott County living in the wo um part of that comes from County taxation taxation runs how all of our taxes and levies affect the average resident based upon home values and property values and residents um it's really kind of the tax impact really is what how how our budget affects you as as a resident um the tax rate will actually be a little bit of an increase at 0.25% um which means we're still under 1% our tax rate is less than 1% so we're going from 0918 2943 again still 100% uh that 2025 rate is lower than 2022 2022 uh we're at 1.1 and 2023 we're at 0977 um again in 2023 the average property value taxpayers saw was actually an increase of $46 compared to the 2025 average tax impact of $2.29 so at the end of the day even though we're asking for a 6.8% increase which you're actually going to see a change in your Levy as your tax bill is probably closer to $229 for the average resident within the wmo so all that put together um I have attached at the bottom a final Levy and kind of a budget summary uh if you like Excel spreadsheets based on uh what our revenue is our Revenue areas and then our expenses based upon program areas and with that I stand for any questions thank you Vanessa let's check for questions first any questions or coms comments yes this commissioner Phil U Madam chair just want to thank you all for all the work put in this it's a tremendous amount of work just look at at this it's quite impressive and I appreciate it thank you commissioner d right suggested changes I kind of want to just ask Virgil and Pam should we just throw something totally crazy in there just before we go out just make some crazy recommendation to the board maybe not I'm gonna play it safe and say nice job everyone I agree with commissioner Phil it's a lot of work well I'm not hearing comments or concerns so still feel free to bring them up but I will look for a recommendation that the commission um approve as proposed and that the board approve this so we we would recommend that the board approve um the final Levy in budget as proposed chair this is commissioner pinch I'll move that the Watershed Planning Commission recommends to the board approval of the budget as presented and discussed tonight at the meeting thank you sir and do we have a second this is commissioner she gets it that's okay all right Vanessa you're up oh so much love tonight oh it must be Thanksgiving no that's cool I'm good I'm passive oh no problem I I I will do roll uh commissioner Weaver hi commissioner pint hi commissioner Schmidt hi commissioner Phil hi commissioner Phillips hi commissioner cilus I thank you Commissioners we really do value your support and your input but and we really do value all of your time and effort and we will put this to good use all right yeah I Echo the others thanks so much for your hard work on this uh all right what should plan Phase One update Melissa thank you madam chair um in your packets was a kind of summary memo and then a multiple page summary of everything that we did for the phase one public engagement an Outreach um it was a lot to read I don't know if any of you actually had a chance to read it or not but um the memo really summarizes everything um very quickly so we did 24 different meetings and community events trying to get public input with this fourth generation plan um you know through all the method methods we had about 115 different um input responses which is is better than we've ever had before um and there was really two kind of groups that came out of this so the public survey or online survey and the mapping application and all the different community events um we kind of considered you know the general public input and then the virtual stakeholder meetings that we had which I received some really good ideas and input from was mostly um um you know we would consider our technical advisory committee um people that attended those meetings so this memo really I kind of put together what I heard as common themes from both groups and and I just like to for the record go over those but so from the public point of view some of the themes that we heard what their concern in major issue war was really concerned over our in you know increased demands on our groundwater Supply especially from businesses that are taking that resource and selling it for profit so I think it could probably elude to that we had a lot of comments on you know the the bottling company that went in and was approved and people are very concerned um I think people really came out and um gave their input into the survey mostly because of that issue um you know this this input period was very different from the last one um you know we're we were hearing concerns about people concerned about increasing drainage in protection of wetlands and more habitat and biodiversity concerns which is strange because we didn't really hear a lot of that in the last Plan update and like it says here the impacts of Mining and there was a real strong focus on our groundwater groundwater Supply and sustainability and groundwater quality from different activities that that could happen in the future in the county um and a lot of comments on U more management and aquatic invasive species um and you know we have a very limited budget on that because we get that grant money from the Minnesota Legislature but you know it's a very limited amount to do aquatic invasive species management and we do that mainly through those watercraft inspections um and then a lot of people mentioning you know increased development and how that's going to impact our groundwater and our surface water and and there was also lots of um comments on people want more more access to our resources to to water bodies and more Trails um around them as well so I thought that was really interesting um as far as the virtual stakeholder meetings um only four of those were held the first two really didn't get any signups um but if you kind of scroll a little bit further there right to those kind of um more high level concerns is was more you know the pollutants the chloride um concentration concerns really strong comments on groundwater both public and private sources um a focus on storm water you know the maintenance of those and the capacity of some of the um areas that are that are already developed and do they have the capacity of our changing weather patterns um and and drainage so drainage was also concerned with this group as well so I I was seeing some commonalities between both groups um the other thing if we could scroll just a little bit further just okay right there um so one of the questions that we did ask in the stakeholder meeting was you know what are some of the barriers and opportunities that they see to protect ground water surface water one thing that really stood out for me in one of the meetings is a comment made and it's the one two three four the fifth bullet point down there is that we have this lack of urgency that we're not really in crisis mode when it comes to water quantity issues you know we we're not feeling this um we're not feeling like water quantity is an issue um and you know and I I thought that was a really good comment that you know once we are in Cris crisis mode then we have to act but we should really be thinking about you know with more demand especially on our groundwater you know we should maybe be thinking about prevention and and planning more in in that direction too that stood out for me I thought that was really interesting um and just the idea of you know thinking about the challenges that are going to come with rural development which that kind of aligned with the kickoff meeting and what some of the comments that we heard from the Commissioners at that meeting as as well so um that's what I really wanted to point out and share at least in that memo and um I don't know does anybody have any comments about the the actual summary document that went along with this memo no comments but um quick question for you the so the last time because you were saying just differences you saw from the last time the last time would have been the last Plan update right yes 10 years ago okay I just getting a frame of reference from time how much time it that so so I'm not hearing anything so um just you know my next steps like I had mentioned with the Milestones is that we'll take all this information and shape it into um issue St statements maybe some will stay the same we might see new ones and then work on creating kind of draft goals um and present that at the January WPC meeting so one thing I would add Madam chair and Commissioners is Melissa thank you it was a very thorough uh summary and you've put a lot into that is something for the WPC to keep in mind is you know staff takes in all this data and you know we disseminate it as best we can and then we summarize it as best we summarize it as best we can and we disseminate it as best we can for you uh but uh things to keep in mind is that this is what we're generally hearing from the residents your neighbors as to what they feel are important but that doesn't necessarily lean towards what you will want to guide us to do or you will have to help prioritize how we address these things so uh for example obviously selling groundwater that's kind of a big issue right now um that may be something that is very important in the County area right now but it might not be something you necessarily want the wo to lead it may be something that is really best for the county to lead the County's natural resources department which actually we we are also the staff of that but it is it is a different agency um or is it something something that you really do want the wo to kind of help lead you know that's a really good example um another one like Melissa said is is AIS you know we're definitely hearing more about it and we're getting more um input from residents that it is of value so what exactly do you want the wo's role to be in that issue is it something again that you really think that wo could really lead these specific things study and um summaries and inventories or do you want the wmo they doing more treatments or do you want the County area to lead those more so we can get more from the state and have the wmo continue to just provide a strong supporting role so as you kind of take these things in and you digest them just kind of realize that that's kind of what we're going to be coming back to you for that yes we're hearing this information from your neighbors and the citizens of the wmo um but now how do you want us to address this moving forward and one thing I just wanted to point out which I thought was really interesting too on this page 41 of these infographics so these infographics were um all the results of the online survey to to the general public question number 13 I found really interesting is that um people are in support of more regulations on development and more regulations to protect water quality so what does that look like I don't know but I just found that interesting because I think in the last Plan update people weren't in favor of more regulations but now they are so that was just another does it change the fact that the wmo is still a non-permit entity so no matter what we would never create regulations where we didn't but we we won't permit where we didn't permit before um but uh we might put language and our standards if if that's what you decide you would want us to do um moving forward okay was this just what you wanted to cover on this any other anything else nothing for me Madam chair okay um Madam chair this is commissioner pent I can't go on without acknowledging the excellent job that Melissa did in putting together she's been working on this for quite a while very very important for our organization to do these Community outrage kind of pro projects Etc and the presentation here was excellent so thank you very much Melissa thank you commissioner print I really appreciate that any other comments questions for Melissa I'd also like to thank Melissa for her work she and I cross path many times when I was on the Cedar Lake approvement District board too so um I can really appreciate all the hard work she she puts into this stuff so thank you so much thank you commissioner cilus I appreciate that okay uh well thanks so much uh Melissa and I think we can move on to our next item uh Ryan with a casier program mam chair Commissioners uh two things before I get started just technical things uh commissioner Phil I was getting some feedback from you so I it's not like I don't want to hear from you but I did mute you so just as a heads up uh if you need me to manually unmute you I can otherwise but just wanted to pass that on to you uh the other thing to I'm I'm unmuted I'm unmuted all right now you're good I was getting feedback before so that's why I put you on mute but I think we'll be good oh sorry about that okay um second thing we've got a participant and it might be uh commissioner Tom Wolf uh that's listed as Spencer's iPad I just want to make sure uh we know who it is so we've got that in the minutes so if you signed on under Spencer's iPad just let us it is me yep okay perfect all right we'll put that in the minutes thank you commissioner um all right well let's get started into the casier manual item so uh we're at the point of the Year where every year we look at our casier policy manual and um we adapt the program to meet uh the needs of our plans um and also the residents and luckily for us this year we don't have a ton of major changes um this is an action item and I'll reiterate it before I'm all done but we since this item was amended I'm going to first just go through the the items that we had that made it to the packet and then I'll go through the amended items but just keep that in mind for the motion that You' want to put to motion the amended Kare policy man um so once again we met with um staff uh and administrators um of different Watershed districts wos um in the county I'm just kind of going through the the changes that everyone wants to see and if you recall this policy manual goes countywide and then if you know one entity didn't want to change um they can obviously have that in their appendices so um you'll notice the wo has you know kind of their different policies to the other WDS and wos as well on the back end of the policy man so we won't go through everyone um I just have a few bullet items here uh to go through just to kind of let you know of some of the bigger changes that we had one this one actually comes from commissioner Schmidt so thank you this is a a great item to add to the policy manual uh and that is require requiring residue management projects to maintain previously enrolled acreage if they're applying for new acreage so that means if you hypothetically applied for three years of residue management and then after the three years are up you want to to apply for an additional 3 years on new acreage you have to maintain the previously enrolled acreage um as well as then um enrolling the new acreage in so um it should help you know that that's really kind of the goal of that practice is is the long-term uh success of it and so I think that that should help um with uh maintaining the old acreage uh another item we just wanted to clarify that there is the potential of flood plane permitting that may be needed in certain circumstances for project so was related to an item that had come up this year and so um you know obviously the projects have to follow all requirements but we just wanted to further clarify that in the actual policy manual as well so it's very clear um next item pre-treatment may be needed for urban storm water projects and that would be as determined by the funding Authority so if we get um you know the urban storm water BMP projects that come in um then in the instance that would be in the wo uh we would then look at whether pre-treatment would be needed um for that project or not so it's on a project by project basis you determine that another item is allowing trees to be planted in our conservation cover project so conservation cover is actually our native grasses um so allowing uh not to exceed 10% of the acreage enrolled to allow that to be trees um we felt as though land owners that are putting you know some amount of trees in their native grasses are less likely to to probably take that out after the term is over so hopefully this is then um extending you know any projects that we um that we fund uh that they choose to put these trees in in that hopefully they would keep it beyond the the term once it expires so hopefully it's helping us longer term uh clarification on which projects fill to the screening committee or not so if you remember last year we actually uh held Wetland restorations in stream Banks based off of the cost benefit rather than just a blanket statement they all have to go to the screening committee and we found there was one sentence in our appendices that still made it appear as though those were supposed to go to the screening committee so we just basically clarified that um so those projects will be based off of on Merit for their uh environmental benefits on whether they'll come to the screening committee um by or not uh last item here uh we separated out bioengineering and structural stream Bank projects and then also increase the rate for bioengineering to 90% um so they're very different the two structural stream Bank projects are quite a bit more expensive than bioengineering ones so we wanted to separate out those two and then offer a higher rate for bioengineering because if it is possible to to do the project with bioengineering um that would actually lessen our cost we increasing the rate we should should still get a cheaper uh project than weather structural project so um with that I'll first see if there's any question questions on um those items and if not then I'll get into the um the uh the new stuff all right uh commissioner I was getting some feedback from you there again so I did sorry muted you one more time uh I'll un you unmute you at the end of this so you can uh then put in your your motion or your vote um so the the I'll first start out with high level of what the the change is for that came last minute and why that happened so and Troy can interject at any point because he's kind of the middle person with Bowser on um this kind of last minute change that we're looking at so Bowser is uh offering the potential IAL of Grant funds for incentives and um which historically has not always been the case uh and so in our policy manual if you remember a number of years ago we did offer what we termed to be an incentive and that led to um some back and forth as to whether that was actually eligible or not and so um if you recall we change the language to go from incentive to what we call Flat Rate um can of you know really at the end of the day a lot of the same things it's just has a different name to it um and that allowed us to still use those Bowser funds on our projects that were utilizing flat rate funds your conservation cover tree shrub establishment cover crops all those where you know quote unquote it's looked at as an incentive essentially to uh to enroll your land into this program and so on Friday after the packet came out Troy got word of this potential opportunity to utilize uh Grant funds from Bowser to add to our program as an incentive so now they would allow for that however you we would have to have that language in the policy manual for it to qualify so sort of a last minute if we want to utilize These funds in 2025 we would have to make these changes so at the end of the day the the change albe it looks like a lot of strike through an underline in the actual document and I'll show you if you'd like all the places we're proposing that those changes but it's really just because we use the term flat rate so frequently in the policy manual and now we're having to change that language to basically you know is it still a flat rate is it incentive so it it looks like a lot but Troy and I have been kind of talking through this today and um and we're we're on the same page it's it's really not it doesn't amount to a ton of difference um where there is a slight amount of difference um is where we identify the actual rates that uh applicant is eligible for tree and shrub establishment and conservation cover Troy was kind enough to go through and he created some spreadsheets which I'll certainly can make available if anyone wants to look at them during the meeting here um but the the the gist of it is that when switching over to this incentive from Flat Rate we're talking you know potential changes in the you know cents um dollars teens of dollars not not much the highest one um where it would change is the example would be if somebody's signing up for our native grass program and also the CRP program and it's a larger acreage the biggest difference in the the rental rate would be about $44 is dollar uh per acre that's the biggest one most of them are in that dollar you know in the teens something very very minor um there there's actually some instances where we would save uh money by going this route so it's a lot of information I'm throwing at you but basically what it is is if we want to utilize these Grant funds um which would then lessen our local dollars for um those two practices cover crops and tree and Sh establishment um we would need to adopt this this new language and I'll stop there and I'll see if anyone wants me to actually go through each of the um line items Andor the spreadsheet that shows the difference in dollar values and the last thing I'll add to the dollar values is we can still use Grant funds to cover that difference so if we want to not have an increase to wo funds we can actually utilize Grant dollars to cover that difference the the biggest one being the $44 per acre example I gave so a lot of information I'll stop if anyone wants me to share it um speak up and let me know if you want me to look at both or just the language or just the spreadsheet do we have a preference Commissioners Madam chair commissioner pent um Ryan no I think you did a good job explaining it so I don't think we need to look at individual items I think it makes sense if we can utilize Bowser money um in terms of some of the grant money I think we should do that so I would go ahead and move forward with the changes that that affects that so thank you that is yeah and that is my opinion too so but I wanna give another minute here or just a few seconds anybody else want to see those comparisons spreadsheets sounds like we're good and then I'll just reiterate one more time Madam chair that um we would want the motion to be amending approving or recommending the approval for the amended cost share policy manual and this was the change that we referenced earlier right correct to the agenda okay I just wanted to make sure there wasn't another item after this okay no Madam chair Commissioners uh be because the tax docket that was included in the packet obviously did not include these changes these changes just came out today we have to ask for the amendment because there's now a different attachment that was uh included um I also did want to also thank uh Troy uh deeply for all the work he must have put cramming this out in probably 48 Hours um as Ryan said he got it Friday and we're meeting right now so I can only imagine how much work Troy spent over the weekend doing this so we appreciate it Troy thank you very much you're certainly welcome and I appreciate you accommodating this change at last minute I like you I I do not like bringing these last minute changes but I got this information on Thursday at 3:30 so it was just um just kind of a mad rush and I appreciate Ryan's help on it as well I think it's a good change it's not that big of a change and the outcome but it certainly allows us to access fund so I think it's a it's a good way to move forward right thank you yeah if we did nothing nothing nothing would change we I mean nothing would affect our program we'd still have the same money the same funds etc etc but if we update our language uh it does allow us to access an additional potential source of Grants so it seems worth it oh for sure yeah I'm glad you guys were able to to get that incorporated in so okay questions first or other comments from Commissioners if not do we have a motion to recommend approval to the board for the amended um cost share program as presented today Madam chair this is commissioner pent um yes I clarification first are we able to approve this or are we gonna just recommend this to the swo for approval Madam chair commissioner pin so be a recommendation to the um wo board thank you all right in that case then I would make a motion that the AIP Planning Commission recommends to the swmo approval of the amended financial assistance uh program policy manual otherwise known as docket as presented to us today perfect do we have a second is commissioner Philips I'll second the motion I'll do roll commissioner Weaver hi commissioner pint hi commissioner cilus I commissioner Schmidt hi commissioner Phil commissioner Phil um so thank you and commissioner Phillips all thank you Commissioners all right that motion has passed thanks again for your hard work on this Ryan and Troy with uh the last minute changes too um last one up uh do we have a motion to adjourn the meeting it's commissioner Phillips I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting and do we have a second this is commissioner cilus I'll second that motion right and I will do roll Commissioners commissioner Weaver hi commissioner pint hi commissioner cilus hi commissioner Schmidt hi commissioner Phil hi and commissioner Phillips hi thank you very much Commissioners and have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend you as well thanks everybody too youone