good morning everyone and uh welcome to the November 5th 2024 meeting of the Community Health Board what an exciting good meeting a nice crowd in the room please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the FL of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you the first item on our agenda is to approve the minutes from our June 18th 2024 Community Health board meeting the minutes have been posted and distributed does anyone have any additions or corrections to the minutes Madam chair I'll move those minutes it's been moved in second and do approve the June 18 2024 minutes uh any discussion hearing none we'll proceed to vote all in favor please say I I I all oppose same sign motion carried thank you now we're going to receive a community health board report from the Community Health Service administrator public health staff and the Scott County medical director Lisa Brodsky welcome and thank you for being here today there we go good morning commissioner Brey and Commissioners uh thank you for having us today today we're meeting as a Community Health Board we are meeting our statutory requirements from 145a uh as a meeting as a Community Health Board twice a year and we met in June as we just approved the the minutes um we have uh some it's not working what okay it's not showing I'll just carry on um in uh the local public health act uh it does outline the public health responsibilities um there are six responsibilities including um those listed almost listed on the PowerPoint getting there um including assuring an adequate local public health infrastructure which really is about maintaining the basic foundational capabilities um to have a well functioning public health system in the county it includes health planning communication uh research data analysis evaluation and quality improvement also promot promting healthy communities and healthy behaviors such as um activities that uh focus on improving the health of the population investing in Healthy Families promoting um promoting and or preventing POS uh preventing adverse Health experiences and addressing Health disparities uh preventing the spread of communicable disease um which we'll hear more of and we've seen a lot of that lately uh including um detecting acute infection reporting infectious disease and activities to prevent that those Transmissions uh protecting against environmental health hazards which actually we do in our County through the environmental health division as well as through activities such as public health nuisances in the public health department uh preparing and responding to emergencies um in addition to covid we do active planning for Anthrax and and public health impacts of floods and other natural disasters we develop exercises and uh write a lot of plans on what we would do in case there was another emergency and then the Assurance of health services including um filling in the Gap in our County for health related uh services that people cannot access elsewhere at low cost or no cost and then a really big one which we're in the throws of right now which you'll hear a lot more about shortly is the conducting of the community health assessment to identify Health priorities and uh developing plans to address them uh just a little overview of what we're going to do today we're going to talk a little bit I'll spend some time talking a little bit about some trends that we're seeing and then you'll hear from uh the community health assessment team uh with an update uh on the community health assessment and then Dr Willcox will talk about disease prevention and control and some updates on on that as well I have a beautiful slide on the foundational responsibilities that will be coming up shortly excellent thank you um this is the newest National framework uh that closely reflects Minnesota's work it's kind of a a revitalizing of uh where Public Health spends its time and these oh there we go uh these are uh what government public health must carry out um Nationwide uh to meet the foundational Public Health responsibilities thank you across the nation and in the state to be effective and promote the health of um all citizens and um pretty much before they made this graphic we were doing all of this work the new foundational areas do Elevate Maternal Child Health as well as chronic disease and injury prevention which previously was embedded in prevention and population Health Improvement um in Minnesota uh so we are doing very well on this and more recently the state made foundational Public Health responsibility money available which allowed us to realign some of our functions and focus a lot more on uh health promotion there we go um just a little bit of Trends from the LA past year that we're seeing uh we are seeing an increase in demand in all of Public Health Services particularly in the mandated Services which we heard about recently when we did our uh delivering what matters session on mandated services and uh infectious disease outbreaks has been a big part of that uh Dr Wilcox will talk a little bit more about that but right now we are seeing covid still we are still have cases we are giving out um many many covid tests which to us is indicating that people are symptomatic um we still have them available currently for free um in our lobby the state is not giving them us to us anym more but we are getting some from the feds and there definitely is a demand uh we recently provided almost a 100 covid uh test kits to Mikasa who are going to be giving them out in their food distribution uh because they are also having um folks asking about it um we still tend to see the increase in TB Minnesota still is being impacted by pertusus and measles um and um we are doing some activities for prevention on there for the third year in we are still seeing a dramatic increase in our number of refugee Health assessments and you will show show you some numbers on that as well and an increase in Need for immunization still trying to get kids caught up we have had a high number of referrals in our family home visiting program and we are meeting that demand uh we have had uh some staff turnover which has led to some uh vacancies and a decrease in our capacity but I am pleased to say we have a couple of new St staff on board I believe they're here very exciting to have them here and uh we will be ramping up and we'll start seeing an increase in those numbers as well we also again still see Public Health nuisance referrals um more so this year they've been easy to deal with really quick turnovers and people have been very cooperative and very appreciative of our assistance that we've been able to provide for them and um we are seeing uh where working on our new program areas we're still working on Early Childhood screening in partnership with Shaka and a little bit of expansion into new PRI and working on some opioid and marijuana prevention activities um one of the things that we have been pretty diligent working towards is trying to increase uh Revenue uh looking at where we can possibly bill for insurance um I have some Trend data here starting from 2014 and as you can see there's been an increase we have been um uh bringing in more money each year we are on target to hit about 150,000 again this year uh some reasons for this increase is we've been asking we've been making sure that everybody that has Insurance gets insurance we have now Community Health worker that's helping people find Insurance options um we also our pH doc system is a lot more sophisticated than the previous system that we've had so we've really been able to um make sure that we haven't missed anything uh we're working with our um accountant Darla mson who is fabulous um has been able to set us up more recently for billing um for interpretation that almost immediately brought in about $20,000 in Revenue that we didn't capture before um so that um has been uh uh very helpful for us we've gone from about 3% of our Revenue in 2014 to doubling it to about six 6% of our revenue and also another Trend this Arrow here is when I started with the county so uh correlation causation I'm not sure you be the judge so what's happening in uh moving forward looking ahead in 2025 we know um that we're going to be getting some marijuana money about 142,000 this is supposedly permanent money that we'll be receiving annually um this is money that was uh given to us legislatively last year we're still not sure what we're supposed to be doing with it um so hopefully by Spring they'll figure that out and we'll come to you with a plan uh once we know what uh the what MGH um expectations are there um we also are starting a new arrival pilot project um as you know our numbers we've gotten almost 100 new arrivals each year for the past three years our current role is just to connect them with Refugee Health assessments um and that's current our current capacity we know and uh commissioner Al I believe this was your question last time that you brought this up last time is what are we doing with them how are we connecting them to resources um and uh we haven't been due to lack of capacity because we've been so overwhelmed just getting them in with Refugee Health assessments and finding places for them to go um we're hopefully going to change that I I have an americore member who will be uh currently is looking at Best Practices connecting with mdh and the volags and some other nonprofits that are seeing uh that are connecting with these the immigrants and refugees and ases um we're going to be doing some key informant interviews connecting with the past three years worth of individuals who arrived in our County asking them what do you wish you knew that you know now that you wish you knew in your first 90 days or while you know while you were still connected with the vags what could have helped you what wasn't helpful and making sure that they know where the resources are connecting them with the Family Resource Center Etc um and we're going to be hopefully developing something we're not sure what that is is it an information packet is it um I'm not sure what is going to come out of that but we're going to hear from those folks that have gone through this to find out what would have been most helpful and seeing how we can do a little bit of a better job when they arrive to our County we're also going to be working on some age-friendly communities work in partnership with the Aging and Disability um area of the county also again utilizing a maricor member which just as a reminder they're here for 11 months full-time at no charge to the county except for that computer and a place to sit and they are wonderful and it has really been able to um expand our Workforce without cost to the county and through that practice they're going to be identifying uh best some best practices we know that ASO and I don't remember what that acronym stands for I knew my staff wouldn't know thank you um they're coming out um with a public health toolkit to help develop uh more age family communities and that's supposed to be coming out early spring so by the time we complete the uh some of our preliminary work we're hoping to have a toolkit that we can identify what might work in our County for our seniors so I am now going to turn it over to Natalie and her team to talk about the community health assessment update thank you thank you Lisa good morning commissioner Brey Commission ERS Community Health board members um my name is Natalie hson I'm a supervisor with Scott County Public Health and I'm joined today um co-presenters with um Elena Tran who's our Public Health Data planner and also Fatima Ali who's a second term AER Corps member with our department um they've been helping to lead this process as Lisa mentioned it's one of our Public Health um responsibilities to do a community health assessment at least every 5 years um so our assessment is taking place this year for our community health Improvement plan for 2025 to 2029 our goals um for today are to provide you with an update on where we're at in the process and then to review our uh top survey themes and issues that were identified out of the community health survey that was conducted over this summer share an update with you on where we're at in our timeline for the assessment and next steps um and then also to engage you all in the process as a reminder we use a framework that was developed by the National Association for County and City Health officials called the map which stands for mobilizing for Action through planning and Partnerships a bulk of the work of the community health assessment happens in phase two which is telling the community story there's three different assessments that we go through for this process the first one being the community partner assessment and we completed that already and provided you with an update on that last June we've also been conducting the community status assessment and that's where we look at a variety of sources of data and we also talk to our community and Survey them around the health issues that they are facing and we'll be providing you today with an update on the community status assessment the final step in this um phase is the community context assessment and I'll provide you with an update on what that process looks like at the end of our presentation you may recall this infographic from the last time that I presented on the community health assessment um it has evolved over time and we continue to ensure that this is reflective of the work that we are doing so we're currently in the fourth row here um where it says collect input and action planning uh which started last last month um we went through a prioritization process with Community Health leadership and staff of the issues that were identified out of our community health survey and we'll be sharing an update on that today the states uh Community Health Improvement planning process the healthy Minnesota partnership kicked off last month and they have identified four different priorities out of the State Community Health assessment and have four different work groups established for those needs and we have scottt County public health staff who are participating in each of those work groups to ensure that Scott County is represented in that process and has a voice at the table today um in this month we are presenting an update on the community health assessment and engaging various stakeholder groups yesterday we presented this update to the Community Health Improvement committee so um some of you this is a duplicate of what you heard to yesterday um we are presenting to this board and we're also presenting an update to the Resource Council the Scot County Resource Council in two weeks to engage um our stakeholders in seeking your feedback and then later um this month and in December we will kick off our community context assessment where we begin to engage Community groups and seeking their voice and feedback in this process and now I will turn it over to foda and yena who will talk to you about our community health survey process and findings good morning hello um so as natly said the bulk of today's presentation involves a community status assessment which is largely quantitative data from local Regional State sources um this looks at Health behaviors outcomes and the social economic environmental factors that could influence a person family or community's health and it also looks at demographic datas as well so back at the April 2024 chick meeting we had nine different health indicators identified via n's map process and those nine indicators were presented poster Style with these different data points um so people could come through look at them talk about them and see what was missing what stood out to them and what um like data points are very like um big and loud to them so yeah and then next we did the community health survey this past summer which wrapped up in September this community health survey was available in the four main languages spoken currently in the county English Spanish Somali Russian um and we our goal was 400 surveys um we had a little bit of a chart going and we got total of 655 from Scott County residents 48% of those surveys were completed in in person locations and that means Citywide events we went to PR Lake Beach days we went to the ELO fire rescue days we went to the state fair the county fair sorry um we also went to community gathering places like Club prior which is a gathering place where um 55 and older I believe it is um currently being renovated so that was very exciting to get to talk to those community members and engage them about their current opinions on health status and health factors and how they see themselves in the community so yeah and 52% of the surveys were electronic and by that we provided an electronic survey to Community Partners trick members and other networks within the scout County uh residents so yeah and then as you guys can see here um these graphs look these two looking at educational entertainment and household income compare scout County demographics and the survey respondents and it just so happens that our survey respondents were in similar alignment to scout County demographic numbers and these two next slides are age distribution and raisen ethnicity distribution okay um I will pass it along to my colleague Helena good morning Commissioners um so our suring had a total of 41 questions that asked respondents about their health status their health outcomes their health behaviors um social determinance of Health their Community um and then demographic questions we also included three questions to ask respondents about what they feel are the most important health issues that impact them and their Community um and these three questions were broken out into Health factors health problems and risky behaviors so we gave a a a pretty extensive list of Health factors problems and risky behaviors and ask respondents to select their top three or their three most important from each um category so Health factors included things like social determinant of health so for this category we had responses including um Access to Health Care safe and affordable housing education um for health problems these looked at health status and outcomes so chronic disease aging problems infectious disease um and then for risky behaviors it was behaviors and choices that impact um an individual's Health um so these included individual substance use um uh distractive driving social media use gambling things like that um so we wanted to look at the top health issues that are affecting the community and um narrow it down to identify the most important health issues that are affecting um res Scott County residents um so the first thing that I'll call your attention to is um we um combined a variable called substance use and misuse and then in parenthesis it's any and this is a combination of response variables of substance use and misuse alcohol use prescription drug use tobacco use and marijuana use those were all separate uh responses on the survey and for the purpose of this data collection we combine them all into one um variable and that's what you see at the top in the far left column so that's the first thing I want to call your attention to the second thing is that we combined responses the number of responses per each item and then divided that by the total number of responses to get the percent of responses um for each Health factor or health issue um so we identified the top 15 overall that's the far left column that says overall with the percentages running down the column um these are all the respondents and the the top 15 um most responded to option um now we also wanted to take into account that c certain demographic groups are not going to prioritize health issues the same way um residents that have lower educational attainment who are low income um who are older may not prioritize the same um health issues and so we wanted to break this out by certain demographic groups and look at the differences and if there were any outliers in the health issues that uh respondents selected um so we identified these these um uh certain demographic groups that you see running along on the top uh row um so non-white refers to any respondent that selected a race option um that was not white um so this included black and African-American African and East African Asian um or Asian American native Hawaiian Pacific Islander um American Indian or Alaskan native um Hispanic or Latino or Latina um and it also included individuals who selected more than one race and this represented about 30% of respondents um the second column is next to nonwhite is individuals who had a high school degree or GED or equivalent um or less so those included those that have not completed a high school education and this represented about 29% of respondents um lowincome or cost burden respondents included those with an income less than 35,000 um this represented about 20% of respond resp um non-traditional employment refers to respondents who um identified that they are a stay-at-home parent or a homemaker um they are self-employed or a farmer um they are a student or in the arm serving in the armed forces and this represented about 20% of respondents um unemployed and outof work respondents included those who are unable to work because of a disability and this was about 8% of respondents um non- English survey res refers to respondents who completed an the survey in a language other than English so Spanish um Russian or Somali and this was about 18% of respondents and then the last column to the far right is respondents that are age 65 and older which represented about 11% of all respondents um so the top you can see that the top 15 health issues varies a lot across the demographic groups um and um for all the columns not including overall um not all the responses are going to be in order so you Can See For example for ages 65 and older um 70% reported that substance use and misuse was their number one health issue um but their second most important health issue at 61% was aging problems and their third most important was safe and affordable housing and this differs from the overall uh respondents so we wanted to look at the results across the demographic groups to identify outliers um or health issues that were potentially missed when we were just looking at responses overall um so when we did this you can see at the bottom that the two the last two um health issues poverty SL living with less and vision problems were not in the top 15 overall but they were selected or more highly represented among um the certain demographic groups that we looked at and so we decided to include them in the top 15 so the green boxes here highlight the top 15 health issues that we are moving forward with um and um because they are more highly ranked among certain demographic groups so with these top 15 health issues this is still a lot of health issues and we want to be able to condense them or uh narrow them down to a more manageable number um and to do this we are relying on input from um subject matter experts such as public health staff um the chick members um the Community Health Board including yourselves um and then in a couple weeks we'll go to the Scott County Resource Council and the purpose behind these uh these with each of these groups we're conducting ranking activities to help narrow down the number of health issues and this purpose is to solicit feedback um from these from these partners and leaders um um and to get a pulse check on the issue issues so to be able to narrow down the issues we decided to use prioritization criteria which is a set of criteria that helps us determine which health issues um we should focus on um and we did this by first researching what prioritization criteria were important for um our community and our health issues um so we did a a review of prioritization criteria that has has been used by mdh and a variety of um public health organizations including Na and the CDC um and we narrowed this pretty broad list down to five prioritization criteria um so feasibility refers to whether there are resources available to address this issue and this includes staff time money um equipment part partner organization support and it also includes um taking into whether there are existing interventions that are addressing these issues and whether these existing interventions um can make a measurable impact so are they effective um importance and magnitude refers to the prevalence of the issue in the community so how many people it's affecting um it also refers to whether the issue affects long-term Health outcomes um and it refers to whether the issue is a new or emerging um it has a new or emerging sense of urgency Community Support refers to whether the community is aware of the issue and they feel that it's relevant to them um whether our partners feel that the issue aligns with uh the work that they're doing and also here we wanted to take into account whether the issue aligns with the county strategic goals and um plan Health Equity refers to whether the issue disproportionately affects marginalized or vulnerable groups um so are some are people from some group are places more affected by this issue than others and public health concern refers to whether Public Health has a clearly established role in addressing this issue um and whether the issue is um outlined or aligning with um State action wide plans so using these five prioritization criteria we brought our top 15 health issues and the criteria to Scott County public health staff and we asked them to rank each of the health issues based on the criteria and our goal was to get from 15 down to a more manageable number so about 10 um and we asked uh the public health staff to rank each issue from a scale of zero to two where zero means that it doesn't meet the prioritization criteria at all and two means that it fully meets the prioritization criteria so these are the results from the activity that we did with Scott County public health staff the ranking activity that we did um so each each issue was given a a score from zero to two based on each criteria there are five criteria um so the highest score that a that an issue could get was 10 so we can see that chronic disease received the highest priority score of nine and this green box just highlights the top I think it's actually 12 health issues that we decided to move forward with um Natalie will talk a little bit more about how um we continue to narrow down our Focus for these top health issues thank you Elena so we as yina mentioned we continue to refine this list and um at this point we go back to our framework the map framework and it asks us or directs us to take that prioritized list and group them based on Cross cutting themes and the themes are identified within the framework so we took the previous list and grouped them based on the themes identified in the map and they include Health behaviors and outcomes and social determinants of health so we essentially took that same group from the previous Slide the top 12 and now have them categorized into various buckets based on the theme um so they include again Health behaviors and outcomes and you can see what Falls within that group it's chronic conditions and those are all the chronic conditions um included from the previous list including those under aging issues um we also have substance use including all um substances mental health and also lack of exercise the second cross cutting theme is social determinance of health and that includes access to nutritious Foods access to affordable health services and insurance and I would say that that includes Dental as well access to safe and affordable housing and finally access to Transportation I want to pause here and just say again the Minnesota healthy partnership the Statewide Health assessment that was conducted in the improvement process that the state is going through they have identified four key issues which are reflected on our list as well and they include substance use Mental Health housing and Health Services so we are in alignment essentially with what the state is finding as common issues across our state Natalie can I ask a question yes and I must apologize because this is the kind of question I should have given you a heads up for but I'm sure you can handle it um as as we explain this if if I needed to go talk to some residents about this they I think it's easy to see oh we did the survey here's the order of things and then I understand the the public health staff and and um looking at each of those you know like can can we impact it even is it in our lane which I think this SP that's that's really important to us um how would I respond to somebody who looks at all this and says well it kind of looks like your staff just decided what they liked out of what we liked and and picked it what what more can we say in a couple sentences to show you know for example how access to nutritious Foods went way up and social media and cell phone you fell off of what we're going to do how would you how would you talk to a general resident about that well first I would say we're not to our final list yet good so this is a this is a process that we're going through and so to pick out issues halfway through the process I don't think that that's reflect of of where we will end up good um however those all of the issues are still on the list essentially um we're we're going through a process where we can um ensure that the resources that we have um and the partners that we have um are reflective still of the issues that the community is saying the next process that we go through the community context assessment is going to be very key because we take this information and we go back to the community and say is this true is this reflective of your experience should we focus on chronic conditions or should we focus on Dental let's say um so we still need to go back to community to confirm where we're at in the process so it's evolving um but you know that's that's a fair question so thank you perfect thank you and because now if at each stage in the process every month you were giving this report that you know there's a million people watching right now then they'd hear this but we only do this twice a year so that really helped I think so thank you for that and thank you for letting me put you on the spot so now we're at the point where we ask you to engage in this ranking exercise we're not going to view the results live today but we will definitely follow back up with you to let you know um the results of that so you can either use the QR code or go to ment.com and use the the code here on the screen um you will see the top 15 issues there are no particular order and we ask you to use your own um opinions the knowledge that you have of the needs of the community and your constituencies to rank them from from 1 to 15 um in order from highest to lowest if you um need any assistance in that if you want some data to help inform your decision please reach out to us we're happy to provide that to you but this will be open for um a few days for you to participate in that are there any um additional questions or feedback that you have for for us at this time thank you thank you so much it's my pleasure to turn the mic over now to the man of the hour Dr Willcox thank you well thank you very much uh Natalie and and I I I really want to commend this Natalie and her herh staff for developing such a fine survey with data that we can look to to provide higher level of services for the folks within our County so it's commendable and I really do appreciate uh appreciate that thank you very much well what I'm going to be doing now as part of my presentation is to review with you the Community Health Board disease prevention and control related initiatives and we'll focus a bit on uh some of the issues that we looked at back in June at this point and uh so certainly as a as a number one area of concern that we reviewed you may recall was this uh infectious disease issue related to tuberculosis now tuberculosis is related to an organism that tends to get into a person's systems body systems and can stay there for extended periods of time in a latent setting so this organism may be around for years and not prevent an infectious disease clinical picture it can however flare up in a situation where if one's immune immunity is compromised it can then develop an active phase and it can into the get into the body's organ systems especially the lungs and present an infectious phase where it spreads very very briskly so certainly it is important at this point especially with the recent exposure that many of us oldtimers have had to covid where our immune response has been compromized this is where we're seeing a flare up in uh the development of this disease we called tuberculosis so as we look at the data that's been acred in 2024 you can see that our staff has been very active in uh developing plans to manage that problem in 12 active tuberculosis clients in particular three diagnoses of uh this type were completed with treatment plan in the year 2024 we've had nine newly diagnosed cases in this year as well unfortunately one of them has led to a death within our County at this point two have completed treatment which is what we hope to achieve over a period of several months it takes several months to have them take antibiotics to get rid of this organism we've also had an opportunity of course if you have someone with this disease living in a confined space with other members of the household we have to treat those exposed members prophylactically to prevent them from getting the disease as well so in the year 2020 we had one sibling who received what we call Window prophylaxis and we've had four contact investigations as well and at the present time our staff is watching over six clients who were dealing with this latent phase of tuberculosis to make sure they're taking their antibiotics in a timely and appropriate manner in order to prevent them from developing the active phase of this illness in order to do this you need to have staff who uh interacts with these folks it is critical that they interact with these folks to make sure they're taking this combination usually of four different antibiotics that they have to take every day consistently to prevent uh the development of uh a lack of response you have to make sure they're taking these meds every day and this demands an actual interaction with them and so what we you see in this graphic is directly observed therapy for this organism this tuberculin organism and you can see that some of them demand an actual face-to-face interaction with the client and as you get to know them you may be able then at some point to do a video connection with them and make sure they're properly taking their medications for this period of time so this graphic shows us then over the last several years exactly that number of direct and indirect video interactions that our staff has had to take on to make sure these folks with latent TV within our County are properly managing their illness now you may recall in our discussion in June we were a bit concerned because there appears to be a flare up unfortunately in this tuberculum problem and the question came up very rightly so why is this the case you know why do we have more folks dealing with this uh infection uh than we've had in previous years well this graphic shows I think pretty nicely uh what we're dealing with here there's an increased testing and surveillance opportunity for uh picking up on this organism and you know it it also uh we talked about the immune response that uh that folks have to head off an active phase of this illness well covid the p mmic unfortunately blunted many of our folks immune response to infectious diseases of any type and this occurred because some of the meds we had to give to curtail significant hospitalization Intensive Care Management of covid we had to curtail the inflammatory response by giving them a medication called a steroid and this steroid not only blunted that response but it blunted the response then to this latent bug we call tuberculosis as well so in our elderly we're seeing more and more of that because of immune suppression and of course uh it's also related of course to some folks who have come to our uh County from different world uh countries who have been exposed to this illness and we have to manage their problem as well so that's why we're seeing an increase in TV infection uh within our County at this point this next graphic shows us then okay what are we talking about folks coming into our County from overseas well what we're looking at here is the refugee health program then this underlines I think over the last several years the number of folks who have come into our communities from third world countries where tuberculosis unfortunately developed in a latent manner within their bodies uh and they're now here in our in our County and we're dealing with them through part of our Refugee Health programming and you can see in our graphic here the number of these folks who are presently in our County that we're assisting to provide oversight for in this Refugee health program related to tuberculosis exposure now as I move on to another phase of what I wanted to cover with you relative to vaccinations you have any specific questions about tuberculosis and uh and uh the type of uh organism this is and how we're dealing with it have any questions about that you good we okay all right good well you may recall in June also we talked about another phase that we're dealing with in uh monitoring infectious disease and that's the immunizations and as we move on to our discussion uh in in that area you may recall at least had a graphic earlier on indicating that unfortunately there appeared to be an uptick in certain infectious diseases in particular that in the past had been nicely handled with a vaccination program and the question was well you know if we've got vaccines available why in the world are we developing these illnesses again well the bottom line was unfortunately uh we have not been able to vaccinate appropriately our young people to a level that prevents them from developing some of these uh disease processes now I'm very happy to say however that in our County we have a very robust Public Health Initiative on getting our vaccinations up to dat uh in uh all ages of our uh uh citizens and what you can see in this graphic is that uptick as we continue to educate our population in this County about the benefits of vaccinations for illnesses that can respond to proper vaccines we've seen an uptick in the number that are getting vaccinated we need to continue to work on this we need need to continue to provide this kind of opportunity for the citizens of our County especially the young people in order to get them vaccinated to prevent breakthrough illnesses of the type that we had concerns about in the past and you may recall that those were illnesses related to measles uh illnesses related to pusis uh illness related uh to viruses of various types influenza and so on we need to continue to educate our population especially the parents of our young people to get themselves vaccinated and their children vaccinated in an appropriate manner we're on a good upswing here we need to continue to work that all right any questions at all about the vaccine program then and how we're utilizing that to handle exposure to infectious disease commission beer thank you um I don't know what page it was but back in the active TV of 2024 slide there was nine newly diagnosed in 2024 um serve 12 active was the first bolt and the second bolt nine and newly diagnosed the question I have is um I know the last time we had this meeting and then now again today the this you know the graphs show that largely the uptick is because the refugee program is no I'm getting a shake I'm get Shake let me say this that's a factor however I really want to emphasize that it's related not only to that but also this recent pandemic of covid has unfortunately compromised the immune response of many of our elderly who early in their lives were exposed to this organism and they have it as a latent phase of their illness and when their immune compromise occurred related to the treatment for covid and prevention of covid Developmental uh complications it opened them up for this this active phase of tuberculosis that was in their bodies through their life so that that's my question is is the nine is the nine I'm seeing seeing it shake and it um we have two people the polium you can see on the camera but um where is that group is that are they related like siblings unrelated um they came with it and so they're now newly diagnosed like what does that exactly mean uh thank you commissioner beer I did want to make a correction my notes must might not have been um as clear I do apologize Dr Wilcox um almost all of our active DB cases have are longtime citizens they are not refugees and the number on this slide here is not those that have come in with TV these are just our refugees most they are all screened for TV prior to arrival and um most of them have not been like I don't think any of them actually that we've seen recently have had TB so these are just the new refugees that includes ases um those that are uh coming in for refugees um through like the Ukraine through the vogs none of them actually are positive TB they may have so that is a correction to the slide so let's just clarify so the slide the refugee health program this is in here to educate us about how many more referrals and assessments the Department's doing this is not related to the TB data and these are two separate data sets Okay two completely separate thank you for pointing that out commissioner buy these are two completely separate ones these are like you for you uh paroles um that qualify for Refugee benefits like ma snap cash benefits um they go through the vags they come in they've already had uh an igra which is a test for TB and then we connect them with Health Resources so that's a completely different subject than than this one now just want I also wanted to point out a clarification is we're not the only County that's seeing an increasing TV across Minnesota a lot of the public health directors were asking the same question um part of the of the gift that keeps on giving from covid is that it is causing those that are in latent TB that we have a lot of individuals in our County in our state that have had latent TB it's causing them to transfer over to active TV um we have also seen a lot of cases of actually one in Scott County going to the hospital for Co and finding out at that time that she also had TB or they also had TB at the time so it is um just there is just happens to be a connection between because of the immunosuppression between Co and TB and that is likely what is driving the dramatic increase in TB cases well and so of the nine or or whatever the actual number is the nine newly diagnosed 12 active you're saying many of those are longtime residents because I think I was under the impression because we always kind of have the TB near the refugee slide in past presentation so and again it sort of doesn't really matter but it's I thought there was a correlation that the more of the refugee population in the uptake that we see there again not the refugee program um tends to add to the TV watch you're saying of these numbers many of them or most of them most are not part of the refugee but correct refugees are all screened as part of it but may not actually fall into this category correct commissioner bar and the reason why we put them together is because those are in the same area of disease prevention and control uh same staff so we' have we haven't increased our staff in that area the previous years we've seen like a handful of refugees four six a couple of active TB cases and now we're seeing a hundred new refugees that the same staff have to to work with as well as you know 12 active TB cases who are getting daily observe therapy is a lot harder to to manage then two active TB cases that are getting daily observe therapy so it really is just about the burden on that um area for man for these mandated Services we don't have a choice if we had 100 TB cases we would have to do daily observe therapy on 100 TB clients and the same with Refugee Health assessments we also don't have um the ability to say you know we can't take any more refugees it's they get to choose where they want to go we have a Slavic Baptist Church here so and their's family here that's why a lot of uh the Ukrainian refugees have come to Scott County uh and a variety of other reasons but if you look at the state map we have for the size of our County and per population we have gotten pretty much the same that Dakota County has per population so we have had um a lion share of the refugees and they're coming um I mean these are uh large families our family that we just came the other day is a family of 15 and we have to track down immunizations I mean it's a lot of work uh that um we have to do for each family the larger the family the more work it is because we're tracking down vaccination records from like us bistan for 15 people and and uh trying to get them into a clinic and we have had um luckily we've had two opportunities in our County to make some new relationships with clinic so we've been able to get them in uh it is um it is challenging um but they also perform additional tests and do another TV test I believe um as they arrive but they are screened for TV prior to arrival which is why we haven't seen any TV from our refugees um how has the VIS or the the virtual we kind of talked about that before the virtual hey are you taking those pills and like how is that seem to be tracking and going well um well it's going well in the in in the um in the way that we actually can get them done every day what we need to um our county is pretty large so I don't have thankfully don't have to have staff drive like an hour to to bail plane and back um so it is enabling us to uh meet the demand um luckily uh we have that technology and it has worked out well um we uh it's not the best practice but we're able to at least set up their medication once a week and we are um we seem to be able to uh manage the case load because we have uh the video and the virtual opportunity um we have had a couple challenges uh and um in those situations where there's language barriers or there's questions or there's um they're having some kind of reaction to a medication which tends to happen we do go out in person which you see the orange bar there is the ones that we really just needed to go out in person or it takes a while to set up um their medication or there's a lot of questions you did ask earlier we uh I believe we have one family that has two I'm looking at stage or Michael uh one family that has um more than one person in the household that has TV so those are done at the same time um and uh but overall those are pretty much 11 or 12 different individual contacts per day Monday to Friday thank you other questions or Dr Willcox did you have more to add on that just wanted to mention when it comes to the latent TB if we have an individual who has that diagnosis and they're not actively showing signs of spread of the infection you can treat them you can provide antibiotics for them to prevent the active phase from breaking through so we're very intent on dealing with that kind of patient clientele as well uh relative to the vaccinations I can tell you that our county is very intent on getting our residents and our uh citizens updated on vaccinations that are are appropriate for them I can tell you I work of course in our health matters free clinic and some of my staff are here that I work with Mike and Stacy and I can tell you at the time of the end of our patients interaction with me Stacy and Mike then move into a review of the vaccination needs of that patient and their families and they move ahead with establishing a time when they can come in and get those immunization of dates done so we're very intent on following through to make sure we're plugging ahead vigorously to get the citizens of our County properly vaccinated thank you other questions for Lisa staff Dr Wilcox nice commissioner just a quick question and maybe it was covered but sure who is routinely tested for TB well you know I tell you what uh now that this uh disease is is uh within our our our County and within our state uh those of us who do Health Care uh we're tested on a regular basis for exposure to this organism and depending upon where we're doing our work there are certain parts of the state where every six months you get tested as a healthcare provider uh related to exposure to this uh this illness or to this bacterial organism for sure once a year now once a year now we're uh asked by uh the organizations in which we provide Health Care to show proof that you've been tested uh for exposure uh to this uh organism so we're recommending early on as part of the vaccination program that individuals be tested on a regular and ongoing basis for exposure to this uh organism do we uh test uh people in in in jail it's a con concentrated population of people and that's a great Point yes we do because if you end up with this organism and a a group of folks in a confined space it spreads very very briskly and so yes one of the uh things that happens when a person enters our Correctional Facilities they are tested for that exposure to that particular organism and if it shows that they're positively uh showing they put put a skin intestine called the PPD and if that shows positive they get a chest x-ray or you can do a blood study to see if they really have the organism that they're dealing with as an infectious organism and you treat them accordingly thank you yes any other questions County attorney just to add to commissioner oric um as when I was in the military we were regularly tested with TB Soul military or at least once a year tested for TB yeah many of our EMS providers if they're working say in areas where there's a lot of this sort of uh uh bacterial problem in place they're tested every six months for exposure to that uh that organism and when you say like I would just add on you know healthc care providers and that includes at least from my knowledge at most even staffs of group hom staffs of any I mean healthare related type um situation you're tested upon hiring usually and then have some updates so I have two things one would be I I think Lisa based on our questions if we could get a little more data about the um Refugee population and and where they're coming from as when I look at Minnesota Department of Health Website it's not quite up to date it's you know 2022 and I think that just will help us as we interact with citizens who maybe have other information or not correct it's good for us have the correct information on that that would be awesome and then number two is Lisa during your presentation you also talked about and I know this has been um good work being done by your department for a long time helping people uh make sure if they're eligible for health care insurance they get it and they're on it and and I do appreciate the the additional revenue and making sure we're billing it appropriately um but I think one thing that every so often at least I and and maybe my colleagues come up with is we have citizens who don't qualify for our health care programs that that are offered and they need menur some other things and for us to know who it is in your department you talked about that you have somebody who who maybe can help those folks and that would be good for us to know even good for for others who are out in the community maybe in libraries and things to know again we can't inundate this person but if we have somebody who if folks are not able to get signed up for mure or any of those health insurance options that aren't offered through Scott County it'd be great to have a resource to to send them to I think those were my two that gave everybody else any more questions for this twice a year meeting presentation I would just say thank you thank you for all the work you do every day it is important and I think when we have these um meetings we realize just the the breath of what's going on in in public health in Scott County and helps us appreciate all that so thank you for all your due thank you for a good meeting and um next then we'll go to item four which is adjournment second it's been moved in second to adjourn the November 5th Community Health board meeting any discussion hearing none um I'll just make an announcement that we'll reconvene in a board meeting in about two minutes um and all in favor of the motion please say I I I all oppose same sign motion carried the meeting is adjourned Mr L right thank you all right good morning everyone I'd like to call the November 5th 2024 meeting of the Scott County Board of Commissioners to order we just uh adjourned a meeting from 88: to 9:00 a.m. and we already said the pledge so um we won't do that right now there's two things I just want to say before we start with the agenda one is um it's election day and I hope everybody has voted is voting um I do want to just call out our tremendous uh staff and volunteers who have worked so hard to get us to today a lot of folks in Scott County have taken the opportunities to absentee and early vote and um and all the folks working today at my own Precinct in Jackson town ship uh at 6:55 we already had a line of folks lined up and at 7 the doors opened and the folks there did everything they were supposed to do and I'm sure they'll do it all day um the folks working our precincts and our election sites are likely working um 12 14 16 hour days today so I do want to thank them and appreciate them for making sure that um everybody's vote counts and is appropriate and is done with Integrity so I appreciate that uh can I can I comment also um we attended the um Association of Minnesota County's um district meeting last week and the cap students had presented on the fact that they are working in elections and they're helping out with with elections and doing a great job so so I just wanted to add that in there thank you and that was a good um I'll come back to you commissioner Al in a minute I'm just going to welcome we have five cap students um with us this morning to view the County Board me if you just want to wave uh thanks for being here today the cap students are um students from shabe high school who are in the human services Academy and currently um hold their class here at the government center in the afternoons I think you had to get special permission to get out of your other classes this morning so welcome commissioner alrick well I just I just wanted to comment on the early uh voting that was has been offered you know throughout the county and how great that is it's early in person so you know my experience was um less than 10 minutes you know maybe five minutes to vote I don't but very quick anyhow and so I just encourage people to consider that in the future that that that's a really slick way to to vote and and and not get stuck in a line you know thank you thank you for that so polls are open until 8 and many of you uh we'll be watching the news and media But be sure to check out the Minnesota Secretary State site as that's where our data will go to be be reported with that we'll move on to our agenda item number two on our agenda is any amendments to the agenda the agenda has been posted and distributed colleagues any amendments to the agenda and will stand uh approved as posted next on item three we have some minutes to approve first we have minutes from our September 23rd 202 4 um joint meeting with the three districts uh Three Rivers Park District board and our Scot County Board those minutes have been posted and distributed any corrections or additions to those minutes Madame chair I'll move approval second so I move to and second and do approve the September 23rd 2024 minutes of the joint board meeting between three reverse Park District and Scott County any discussion hearing none we'll proceed to vote all in favor please say I I I'll oppose same sign motion carried thank you next we have the minutes from our last board meeting October 15th 2024 those minutes were also posted and distributed does anyone have Corrections or additions to those minutes Madam Sher I'll move approval moved in second it to approve the October 15 2024 minutes any discussion hearing none um all in favor please say I I I'll oppose same sign motion carried thank you on to item four on our agenda which is recognition of interested citizens um if you'd like to speak to the board on a matter not on the agenda please approach the podium say your name and address and you have up to five minutes per person per subject welcome sir perfect hi my name is tror wiin I live at 1633 East 205th in Lydia and we are very concerned group of people we have been to a few of their Town Hall meetings concerning the building of an industrial park in Lydia s off of 13 we have asked numerous questions and the board itself of the Lydia Township and Cedar Lake have blatantly lied and give us false information on this building and his concerns as for the problems with this is the known traffic issue already on Lydia in Lydia off the 13 as well as the property Tech that we've raised from the Valley of the land that has just been sold for this business we move outside of the city to get away from the city we don't want the city coming to us when we asked what it's going to do to our property taxes and the value of our land and they lately said it will not it will not affect your property but the problem is it will because the value of the land next to our properties will go up in value because it is now usable they're using it to use sorry using it for making of warehouses and other industrial parks we already have potential plans for some 50,000 foot Warehouse that is going to be plopped right there on the 100 acres that was sold by the township when we were asked when we asked the County Board the City Board what would we do about the road maintenance we already just had that road completely redone not too long ago the Lydia intersection from that church of a 13 is a very high traffic intersection and it's actually very dangerous this past year I've almost been hit twice on a motorcycle and one of my cars a lady stood up in our board meeting and asked what do we do about that situation he said there's no talk the board replied there is no talk on changing the intersection she says well does somebody have to die before we have to a better intersection because from what you're proposing we're going to have a highly tracked trafficked area with very large trucks that it bring into this Warehouse deliver vehicles and not just general public that people work there and he said unfortunately somebody will have to die before anything is taken action wise at that that intersection we do not the citizens of this Township do not want that industrial park that entire thing to be put up there's not one person in that board meeting that we sat there that said yay let's do it it doesn't bring any value to our our County our community I should say they said that the money that was made by that sale will go into the budget we looked at that budget they are grossly being negligent with our budget they are taking our money and they're putting it towards things that do not help the public we have now Prior Lake Fire Department that is on this what would you say an agreement that they are going to be then protecting our citizens there was a fire not far from that church that took down somebody's hobby far and Barn Jordan mid wakon and prior and not Prior Lake new PR showed up took the care of the fire guess who showed up last Prior Lake Prior Lake somehow got the contract to protect their citizens they said that now since they are doing so they have to get a ladder truck now they have full-time fire why is it that the budget is almost 3/4 of a million dollars to protect our citizens and then the sale of this land and they blatantly lie saying that our values and our taxes are not going to go up when the value of the property next door is going to be up because now other businesses and other people are going to come out to this area cuz land is cheaper and build a business where is where is the line being drawn here where we take accountability in our local governments no matter how large or how small they are these people are straight blind to the citizens of Lydia and Cedar Lake and all the townships that they oversee and we're not having it we're we want serious answers why does it take someone dying to get that intersection taken care of why is it that they're in control of our budgets but they won't tell us what the money is going for and they're just blatantly blowing it on things that we could have done a little bit they call them studies on figuring out who's going to be the best option to keep the W welfare of this community and the people safe and to be actually spending their money wisely why is it that we're spending almost $700,000 on prior Lakes fire when they respond last we are concerned citizens we we do not agree with the sale of that land they sold it with any all of our knowledge nobody agreed to it nobody wants it it's it butts up to multiple homes ours included we have a really nice dream property and now we're going to be staring at a 50,000 foot Warehouse not to mention light pollution we try to get away from that we already have you know the mingon with their their Tepe we see that everyone sees it why should we be staring at the backside of a warehouse now there's eight people on that same road that are have their properties buted right up against it nobody wants it and we're not getting the answers these people are blatantly lying to us and we Willock some answers and Barb I know that that's your kind of a district so you kind of overseeing some of these things is there anybody we can speak to is there anybody that could really just put a halt to this and really give the citizens a Lydia because that directly affects them the people of Lydia the church my entire life I've lived in Shaka I've lived in this County and everybody knows Lydia the church as soon as that place goes up it's not going to be known for the church it's going to be known for that giant Warehouse that big ugly eyesore and all it's going to do is going to cause more traffic more accidents and higher taxes and the last thing we want is to spend more money on taxes we already have a problem not taking our money and putting it back in our pockets it just goes it just goes more taxes more fees we don't want it we're we're very irritated that we have these people that are control of our money but they have no they have no Care on our well-being or our properties because they don't live there they live on the lake but they spend all the money to make the lake nicer so why should we be okay with them building a giant monstrosity in our backyards would you would you be okay with living in in that I don't think so that's all I have to say and I really appreciate your time thank you Mr W just so you know we don't usually respond to um things that come before us today but I do want to make uh just a a correction or so the district is in commissioner Wolf's District not that we don't all represent the whole County and all care about the whole County no that's that's okay so that's a good good connection um second of all I hope that you um it sounds like so we're talking about Spring Lake Township and and just want to make it clear that's a separate jurisdiction then Scott County they have elected officials our role is um the County Planning and Zoning so this proposed development hasn't come in front of this board yet and will not until it goes to Planning Commission and you probably know about that so there should be some more opportunities for for public input and um Mr Wagner over on the end here um is here for another matter on the agenda but I hope that that at the end of the meeting you'll connect with him if you haven't already and make sure that you're getting notice of of any next steps in this development that Scott County is involved in so just wanted to make that clear and thank you for being here today we have this item on our agenda every meeting for good reason to allow people to come and talk about these things no thank you any other interested citizens who'd like to approach the board today all right next we will move on to our consent agenda um the consent agenda has 11 items these items are um usually fairly standard items that either we uh have been workshopped already have been uh evaluated by our planning or other boards or our um standard items that uh go on consent I'll read all items on the consent agenda and then any board member May remove an item for further discussion or a separate consideration item 5.1 to adopt resolution number 2024-25 authorizing entering into agreements with Pinnacle Services Incorporated Thomas Allen Incorporated ab and B Services LLC Mount Olivet Rolling Acres and People Incorporated for contracted Case Management Services 5.2 adopt resolution number 202 24- 221 approving estimates of just compensation for RightWay for the County Highway 27 bypass Lanes project 5.3 to adopt resolution number 2024-25 authorizing entering a contract with v vate and Company Incorporated for the Pica Creek sediment reduction project 5.4 adopt resolution number 2024-25 two authorizing final payment to sirin's a lot LLC for the 2024 annual payment marking and striping project 5.5 to adopt resolution number 20242 78 authorizing entering into an agreement with koft technology corporation for the service now technology platform 5.6 to adopt resolution number 20242 authorizing entering into an agreement with Brun Intertech for professional Engineering Services on the trunk Highway 169 and Bluff Drive overpass project 5.7 to adopt resolution number 20242 one approving the findings of fact and conclus conclusion for the environmental assessment worksheet and a negative Declaration on the need for an environmental impact statement for the Schultz mine expansion 5.8 to adopt resolution number 2024-25 approving a preliminary plat and final plat of Hess one makeu Family Farm partnership applicant and property owner 5.9 to adopt resolution number 2024-25 authorizing entering a purchase agreement for an acquisition of real property for the Blakeley Bluffs Park Reserve and a grant request to the Metropolitan Council for acquisition funding 5.10 to set a public hearing for November 19th 2024 at 10:15 a.m. to receive public comment on the 2024 Scott County Solid Waste Management Plan update and 5.11 to approve payroll processing of personal actions so colleagues these are the 11 items on consent are there any that you would um like to remove for separate consideration Madam chair I'll move approval of the consent agenda second it's been moved in seconded to approve the consent agenda um any discussion I would like to just make one comment we have a um and this is a general comment on a type of item that's on the consent agenda and so um 5.7 where we're declaring a negative Declaration on the need for an environmental impact statement uh we we did this a meeting or two ago for another project and local media um reported that we we made that decision without discussion which was true it was on the consent agenda um and there's some people who read that article who think that we approved a project and I just want to make it clear that what we're approving there is a negative declaration for a further study based on technical information that was in our packet and that we all reviewed and that in general when staff is recommending a negative declaration for the need for that further study we do Place those items on consent and that has been a fairly um common practice at least in in my mind and that we'll continue to do that unless a board member thinks thinks otherwise but it is not approving a project um in in the case of of the last one I'm just picking on on the one that's here today and I see you here we're not picking on this I'm just using it as an example so uh any comments uh or um further discussion on the motion all right with that being said all in favor please say I I I'll oppose same sign motion carried thank you on to um item six which is presentation of the spirit of Scott 2024 quarter 2 and quarter 3 Rec nition Awards and I see we have some Spirit of Scott committee members uh here for that presentation welcome yes good morning Madam chair Commissioners so since we have Quarter Two and quarter three I brought an assistant today Kaitlyn since you're probably sick of seeing me all the time so um so as you know the spirit of Scot is an organization that supports our County Employees um with the support of the County Board and County Administration and we like to recognize people that go above and beyond in their duties um so for quarter 2 2024 um the first Michelle there we go thank you so the first uh nominee is Myra Lopez she was nominated by Lisa Burke colme uh So Lisa had received a three-fold pamphlet from another County with the other County's logo uh they gave Lisa permission to change it to reflect Scott County so she asked Myra if she could do this for her without hesitation Myra said yes and within a half hour she had completed it to the point uh with some other changes needed it's Wonder to be able to count on other people to help out so thank you to Myra for that um our next is Brandon Severson he was nominated by Tom lson so Brandon has been on a mission of find efficiencies and cost savings for the Scott County Fleet Department he stepped up temporary to filling the part shop supervisor position and has uncovered items that the county has been buying that seem to be expensive Brandon did some in intensive research and found a new vendor that supplies the same products at a largely reduced cost and lower shipping functions uh Tom feels that Brandon deserves recognition for going above and beyond and also would like to mention how well he handles the County's motor pool he has demonstrated excellent customer service skill no matter how simple or complex a user's phone call may be he can handle them with a smile he is still performing all the normal mechanical duties on top of this as well so kudos to Brand in for that uh next is Daniel Daniel slva nominated by Deb Brazzle uh Deb was visiting with a a group of Scott County residents and two of them started talking about dealing with Scott County's customer service area her natural instinct was a feeling of trepidation but they both talked about the wonderful interaction they had with Daniel first in a phone conversation and then in person uh one needed assistance getting her husband's driver's license renewed and the other needed assistance in renewing her adult autistic daughter's passport both spoke highly of Daniel's patience his can do attitude and how easy he made these renewals for them so thanks Daniel for your great customer service uh before I turn over to Caitlyn I want to thank the board and admin for the support for customer service week that we had a couple weeks ago and uh your help in getting that organized but I'll turn over to Caitlyn for quarter three all right our quarter three nominations were Christy rer who is nominated by Jacob cring Jake wanted to recognize and thank Christy rer for her exceptional work on the mde library construction Improvement Grant Christie gathered information across multiple meetings with the city and county staff created a draft Grant application based on that information and ensured that all parties were comfortable with the final product she worked in close coordination with the bplan city administrator on the final submission which had to be completed by the city as a result of Christie's work mde awarded 74872 for the expansion and Improvement of the Bell Plane Library well done Christie Tate sexy Chad Weller and Chris Meyer were also nominated by Troy beam Troy says that these guys did a remarkable job taking care of the RTF during the flood they went above and beyond and Babys sat the facility 24 hours a day and made sure the pumps were running and the RTF was protected Tate even slept in his car at the facility on Saturday during the worst of the flood we owed a huge thank you to these guys for doing that and then we also want to just mention that we are planning an event for Spirit of Scott in January which is going to be a second breakfast and will be providing coffee and um hot chocolate and probably muffins to the employees of Scott County for all of their work and dedication wonderful thank you very much and congratulations to these employees I know all our employees often um go above and beyond but it's so great to highlight and recognize these particular ones sleeping in the car overnight I did you have a comment about that I just thought [Laughter] so thank you and thank you to the committee um I think as our organization's grown and and uh you know over 700 employees it's hard to get to know each other I really appreciate the work of the committee in um honoring and recognizing employees we have some certificates here for are any of the recipients here no okay well thank you thank you for your work and congratulations to these recipients commissioner beer well I've just noticed you know the last uh few of these everyone's becoming a little more camera shy so maybe we need to maybe we need to get them back in the boardroom to you know show show themselves so um but nice work thank you very much for doing that wonderful all right we will move on to item number seven which is to adopt resolution number 224-279-8737 welcome Derek good morning Commissioners um resolution number 2024-25 uh recognizing operation green light whereas the residents of Scott County have great respect admiration and the utmost gratitude for all the men and women who have selflessly served our country and this community in the armed forces and whereas the contributions and sacrifices of those who served in the armed forces have been vital in maintaining the freedoms and way of life enjoyed by our citizens and whereas Scott County seeks to honor individuals who have made countless sacrifices for Freedom by placing themselves In Harm's Way for the good of all and whereas veterans continue to serve our community in the American Legion Veterans of Foreign Wars religious groups civil service and by functioning as County Veteran service officers in 2019 states to help fellow former service members gain access to more than $ 52 billion in federal health disability and compensation benefits each year and whereas approximately 200,000 service members transition to civilian communities annually and whereas an estimated 20% increase of service members will transition to civilian life in the near future and whereas studies indic at that 44 to 72% of service members experience high levels of stress during transition from military to civilian life and whereas active military service members transitioning from military service are at a high risk of suicide during their first year after military service and whereas the National Association of counties encourages All Counties parishes and buus to recognize o operation grp green light for veterans and whereas Scott County appreciates the sacrifices of our United States military personnel and believe specific recognition should be granted now therefore be it resolved by the Board of Commissioners in and for the county of Scott Minnesota with designation as a green light for veterans County Scott County hereby declares November 4th through Veterans Day November 11th 2024 a time to salute and honor the service and sacrifices of our men and women in uniform transitioning from active service be it further resolved in observance of operation green light Scott County encourages its citizens in patriotic patriotic tradition to recognize the importance of honoring all those who have made immeasurable sacrifices to preserve Freedom by displaying green lights in a window of their place of business or home during the week of veteran Wednesday wonderful thank you for presenting that resolution thank you um I would like to make a motion to adopt resolution number 2024-25 n recognizing November 4th through 11th 2024 is Operation Greenlight to shine a light on Hope and support for veterans second thank you I think we have Universal second there um discussion yeah I would like to comment that last year I had com um received comments about the green light and people in chak were wondering what was happening and and I've been trying this year to um encourage people to get out of their green light and I have my own green lights sitting outside my door so um I hope people in in Scott County um I'll say Shaka um take the advantage of this and and learn more about what the veterans are doing um in Chaka in Scott County so thank you very much you other comments I I would like to say ditto to some of those comments I think we you know we have Veterans Day but um it's important to think about our veterans every day and all year long and I like to be able to use this time and and operation Greenlight to highlight Derek and his staff and the fact that we do have a veteran services offer officer and we do have resources here for our veterans and some of them are very specific to their military service but if even if not it's a good entry way into the count and Derek can connect veterans with other services and things here that can be helpful so um Dereck I don't know if you before we take a vote here want to say anything else about the upcoming lunch and how people can still buy tickets and if there's any veterans or friends of veterans watching how they could participate in the lunch in yep so our our annual veterans appreciation lunch it has typically historically been on Election Day but the county building is a little busy so we pushed it out a week um it's going to be next Wednesday November 13th the lunch itself is from 11:00 to 1:00 veterans eat free uh with tickets that are purchased by County Employees non veterans uh can have lunch for a $6 charge uh this year we are also including a a resource fair to see how that goes from 9:00 to 2 o'cl uh where we intend to monopolize the entire West End of the government center uh with both County resources um with different departments that we end up bringing veterans to most frequently um and then we've lined up a couple of of more veteran specific resources we'll have the VA the Minnesota VA um a service dog organization and then Heartland Credit Union who donated $500 to our lunch uh will also be there but uh November 13th 9 11 to1 is lunch 9 to2 is a resource Fair tickets can still be purchased for veterans in the veteran service office uh anytime the government center is open you can buy them up until you're standing in line for launch so thank you thank you for that Derek any further discussion all right there is a motion on the table all in favor please say I I I'll oppose same sign motion carried thank you we will move on to committee reports and and commissioner updates and commissioner wolf could start with you please thank you madam chair on the 16th uh I was out at Elco New Market and uh you might have heard there's a uh water bottling plant going up out there and so I got a tour and I think you guys were invited I don't know if anybody else went but anyhow um that building is enormous anyhow um I think it's like over one half mile around it and so we walk through and uh um yeah they're gonna they're going to bottle a lot of water over there so any I think they scheduled to open on uh March 27th of next year to uh have their first bottles of water go out um on the 21st Credit River met um everything's kind of quiet out there although there is a um couple contested races today so get out and vote like the chair said met with the administrator on the 22nd the mosquito control had a meeting on the 23rd uh Solid Waste Management met on the 24th and one of the biggest things is uh um still is it's going to be um a lot of tree waste from uh dead trees you know this uh Ash thing and just in my neighborhood there's 250 that they planted 20 years ago to line the boulevards and uh um most of them are either sick or dying or going to be sick and dying and so uh uh that's not just unique to us it's clear Park I mean there's going to be wood everywhere so I'm hoping there's a a good place I think the shakam me mid walkington they're going to uh try to burn some more of that so that' be a nice thing to convert that to uh to electricity uh Elco narket met that evening uh everything quiet out there also then on the 29th uh the uh El Market met with the mayor the administrator and our County Administrator Leslie Vermillion had a nice meeting there about things going on out in that area and then uh um last night uh Cedar Lake Township met and uh um they had a couple concern concerns about some voting things they had seen and um so I had them text me the deals they if you see it where they're they're texting uh like some fake ballots or whatever and there's a square or a rectangle and there's a dot in it or something by somebody um we don't use rectangles here we use ovals so anyhow it was a a fake deal so I'm I'm glad we could uh get that stopped and corrected at least in that room last night so uh but anyhow I can't wait till this election's over that's my report thank you you commissioner commissioner Brandon um October 18th I attended the Scott County 55 plus Expo um in various departments um from Scott County were there in attendance um the law library the transportation um the sheriff um and volunteer people um staff were there so that was great to see it was really well attended by people with and uh Scott County um October 19th um I went to or helped out at the city of Shak B cleanup day um and it was reported that there was 229 vehicles that went through um the 31.5 six tons of waste was turned in um nine 10% or 10 tons of that was yard waste and 11.67 tons were commercial construction and demolition material um and then in addition there was household waste um electronics and shredding and Furniture so um it was a very busy day um and it's supported by a grant that they receive from um Scott County um October 23rd um I met with Chief Tate from the city of shaki um October 25th was the Dakota Scott Workforce board meeting October 28th was the association of Minnesota County District 10 meeting um and I really think the meeting was on partnership and collaboration and we talked about collaborating uh how we can collaborate or the need to collaborate on uh housing for children for with mental illness um and also solid waste um October 28th um Barb and I our commissioner Workman Brooky and I spoke to the cap students after that um AMC district 10 meeting um and talked about what Scott County does and Scott County government does October 30th um I sat in the um mvta meeting October 4th um I met with staff um with um commissioner alich um to talk about met Council imagine 2020 2050 plan and some of the comments that um we would like to bring forth to the Met Council that's it thank you commissioner beard thank you on uh the 15th through the 18th of October uh went on a little field trip uh out to Billings Montana with Jake grusing and Dr Ward um Jake I believe I think it was you I'm I'm blaming you for this in a good way you're the one that found came across uh this group called cldd Community leadership and development Inc is we're more open I think we've always been in county has been open to new things um looking at Best Practices which I don't really like that term but um ways that people are doing things and ways that bring real outcomes to real people in real ways uh and how can we best maybe U do some of those same things here whether it's us or another nonprofit third party that that might work in this County someday so we went out there and spent a couple days I think we really only had two days with the crew but it felt like a month in a good way like in a really good way um they have have a 40-year head start it's a group that is um really changing The Narrative of the south side of Billings they're literally the other side of the tracks literally um and making a real difference again to real people and real ways and and delivering outcomes and transforming people's lives um and they take zero government money it's it's self funded um Grant funded um and just wow uh kind of left me speechless which even with my hands I can I can just sit and calm in the peace and the things that are happening out there and I think we're going to bring some of those things back it's not necessarily our role to do that but to be and create an atmosphere in this County that would allow that type of a organization or others to come alongside and do the work that needs to be done in people's lives to really make generational transformative change so super excited about that we still need to do a debrief get that on the calendar just to um and then hopefully we hear more about that and other partners that might be coming uh let's see the 2 chair Vice chair 23rd mmcd uh and fish board uh new and fun things happening and then um oh yesterday was the the checkboard community health Improvement committee I also wanted to say a shout out to elections I'm an old dog learning new tricks I early voted I early voted but I waited till I wanted to see my ballot and I hear the ding but we down in our two big conference rooms we' during the absentee process the early voting process have been very open and very transparent and have had three rows of seats and two big rooms for people to come and observe the process now I think I only went down there two or three times just to kind of you know I I wanted to see this in action the seats were empty our staff were doing their things um but the seats were empty so we were open are open um take advantage of the opportunity when it presents themselves so um things we're running smoothly and I expect we'll run smoothly into today and late tonight so that concludes my report thank you and thank you for making that trip and bringing back some new ideas for us commissioner Al I've got a list here and I'm going to comment on a couple of the meetings that I attended on the 16th the transportation Advisory Board and on the transportation Advisory Board one of the things we're very concerned about pretty much wide on a widespread basis is safety and you've heard of toward zero deaths that's a initiative of menot we're not doing so well on that um for example up to August we had 289 deaths and U on on the roads and and um some of the information is kind of interesting I just thought I'd go through break that down a little bit 207 were men 82 were women um the um 24 were pedestrians four were bicycle lists and 50 were motorcyclists uh speed was a factor in 84 I don't if you've noticed the crazy speed that people are driving we talk about the transportation Advisory Board you you can't build a project that's safe if people are going to go 80 or 90 miles an hour I mean I'm not talking about somebody going five or eight or even 10 miles and over you can be going 10 miles and miles over the speed limit like in a a roadway and you'll have somebody going 20 miles over that you know 90 you don't have to drive more than 15 minutes out on some of our freeways to see that and so speed is crazy um and I'm I've been calling for more enforcement um alcohol factor in 71 of the cases uh unb belted not wearing seat belt 64 distractor driving 18 uh DWI were 18,000 in the same period um one thing that's you know safety is a concern but also in the transportation Advisory Board we continue to get this idea of equity always comes up and I finally probably had enough of it I said you know I've been on the transportation Advisory board for 25 years and in my opinion and I think I don't know if anybody would disagree with us but we've been pretty good at equitably Distributing the money in the region to the counties so each Count's basically gotten their fair share of the money okay now take that one step further if Scott County didn't do something equitably with that money that's our fault that's on us that's our problem and I was hoping that in their minds they'd go I'm from Hut County if we didn't do something equitably that's on us and and my problem with this Equity can see and some people said they if you dig into these numbers these fatalities more you'll find that more people of color were killed is that an example of inequity I would say well I don't know you could also say more of these people were killed in the urban core where it's a denser population uh more traffic movements more pedestrians more bicycles more more light rail you know there's a lot of Light Rail fatalities you know where people are hit by pedestrians are hit by light rail so Equity um but I said I've been on the board 25 years and I don't think we've done anything that lacked equity and so if you could tell me what lacked Equity tell us we would like to know we would like to learn we we're causing harm in other words they've even done a harm study that what harms have been committed by roadways and stuff and it's like wow um so it's concerning um you know I would say this relates to my other report that I want to talk about is Minnesota valy Transit Authority I think we have a really good way toing provide Equity across our County it's growing it doesn't cover all the county yet but the Minnesota belly Transit Authority connect ridership program where you can call and a small little van type vehicle will pull up to your house and take you where you need to go within Scott within the zones of you know Scott and Dakota County you know you can't go to many ampus on this little van but they'll take you to the transit station and so we've got this thing going all over and and you know people that don't have a veh can't afford a vehicle they can call and get this service and that's very Equitable in my mind um a very good thing and it's starting in um Shaka and Prior Lake in um January so um those are the two things I really wanted to come and I'll give the list of things I attended but but I I think we oh in regard to the tab they're going to come up with with a tool to measure equity and I don't know how you do that or you know any I just said we we and the transportation Advisory Board we've been doing our best the projects don't come top down they come Bottoms Up from the cities and the counties and and we score them based on their Merit well any so that's my little frustration there with some of the themes in society that are affecting the transportation category okay that's a commentary I guess the 22nd the fish executive committee the 23rd the fish board meeting the 28th the AMC district 10 meeting which I thought was like it's in Scott County that's required I got to be there it was required so I enjoyed it um there was some good presentations uh 30 the MBT board meeting first a scale executive committee the um the fourth the med Council imagine 2050 prep meeting and some of this Equity stuff will is woven all into that and the harms is woven all into that imagine 2050 and you know it's just some of it's mindboggling the fourth Transit uh Mobility management board that's in of my report thank you thank you for your report um for my report on October 15th we all attended a workshop after that board meeting um after that I met with our Human Services Health and Human Services director our County Administrator and economic assistance director to discuss some Rea recent data about our Healthcare programs the usage of Staffing October 16th had a Micah meeting uh that just the Metro counties participated in to talk about issues that were pertinent to the Metro counties like imagine 2050 um met Council some things like like that October 17th uh attended the Scott County Community Corrections Advisory Board the 22nd was chair Vice chair meeting and then the 28th of course was the AMC district 10 meeting that has been discussed already um October 28th uh as commissioner Brennan indicated she and I went to the um Shak High School Human Services Academy caps class thanks students for being here today and um just wanted to say that uh those students uh spoke spoke to our AMC district 10 group and did just such a phenomenal job and any emails I've received from attendees of that meeting talked about the students and and what a good program it was and how they're interested in finding out what's going on in their own high school so you guys have changed some minds and and uh encourage some action um October 29th I was at Shaka High School for the Human Services Industry Council um also on October 29th and then again all day yesterday whatever day that was November 4th um I had the State Community Supervision advisory committee meeting um as you remember that that group is looking at how we do probation the data the processes and practices related to the increase in funding that we received uh the report is due to the legislature um here in in to the commissioner in December so uh lots of work getting that done and and good work because we we want we want our good folks who are probation agents to have the tools they need and to be even doing better we hope people who are on probation never come back to probation so it's good work it's hard and um we we hope that that we're going to make some change Statewide that that will improve those outcomes um October 30th together we can steering committee meeting where we reviewed really what together we can accomplished over the last year and started talking about the the next year um October 30th also had n healthy counties virtual meeting and then on October 31st I had a a meeting with Dakota County Commissioner Lori Halverson just T talk about some items of mutual concern build some relationships with our neighbor to the east November 1st was scale executive committee meeting uh November 1st was also AMC board meeting and then um this morning we all attended the community health board meeting so that is the end of my report yes commissioner yeah I forgot one item I wanted to put a number to the VTA connect and I'm going to start sending you all the writers ship reports from mvta so you can see that um what is the writers ship now ridership is substantially down preco for all the region not just mvta but for metrotransit and so forth it's it's down substantially and so we're we're seeing like 10% increase this you know this month or but that even when we talk about increases it's still substantially down okay MBA connect writers ship in the third quarter 44,000 rides in July alone almost 15,000 rides so that's pretty exciting that we're providing that kind of service to people that's what I wanted to add great thank you for that all right we'll move on to um County Administrator update we have a deputy County Administrator Danny lens here what do you have for us today sir I do not have anything today thank you good job very nice report and on to number 10 County attorney Ron hostar do we need to recess for an attorney client meeting Madam chair we do not all right well thank you you did a good job too um next we are on to item 11 which is uh to adjourn following this meeting we will meet in Workshop setting to talk about the egg Society Property Management agreement and also have commissioner round robin um colleagues if there's no other business to come before motion to adjourn so I'm moved in second and to adjourn any discussion hearing none all in favor please say I I I'll oppose same sign motion carried thank you