e e e e e e e e good morning everyone it is Tuesday August 6th we'll call the right County Board of Commissioners to order we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisibly justice for all right first item on the agenda here we have a number of minutes here from uh July 23rd we have three different sets there and one from the 24th uh we can approve them collectively or individually I'll stand for any modifications or motions Mr chair I'd like to make a motion to approve all four minutes all right motion by commissioner dietr to approve uh the minutes collectively I'll second that second by commissioner Holland any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I I oppose same sign minutes are approved unanimously today's agenda is there any modifications or uh corrections to today's agenda I'll stand for any motion Mr chair I'll approve the agenda as presented all right motion by commissioner Dietrich I'll second that second by commissioner Holland any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I I poose same sign agenda approved unanimously today's consent agenda would anyone like to remove anything from today's consent agenda for further discussion otherwise I'll entertain a motion I'll make a motion to accept the consent agenda items all right we have a motion by commissioner Holland second second by commissioner Shane to approve today's consent agenda as presented any discussion hearing none all in favor say I I I post same sign consent agenda approved unanimously uh now on to the 9:05 we're running couple minutes ahead here but Chad's going to make his way up here to schedule a public hearing uh for Tuesday September 10th uh for the local options sales tax update yes good morning um yes this is the schedule a public hearing that we discussed at the committee of the whole um this is just a suggested time so willing to entertain other openings if it doesn't fit your schedules so I'm going to move it to 9:45 we have a couple other public hearings that day as well so I'm I'm going to sandwich that one in the middle so I would be asking for the board to make a motion to set a public hearing on Tuesday September 10th at 9:45 a.m. in this room for the public hearing on the local option sales tax I'll I'll make that MO motion by commissioner Holland second second by commissioner Dietrich any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I oppose same sign motion passes unanimously thank you very much thank you all right 908 Matt is making his way up here he has a good number of items for us here you saved them all up for one time right yeah all the fun ones today good morning Mr chair members of the board um yeah my first item is to adopt the order initiating repair proceedings for candy dis number 38 under Minnesota statute 103e 705 and just for a little context this is the ditch in montro that runs Under 12 High uh States um so obviously a big portion of this is to realign the ditch so it's no longer uh situated underneath the trailer court um so that's essentially what you're approving in this one is ordering repair and approving the realignment of this ditch system Mr chair I'll make that motion to approve right we have a motion by commissioner Dietrich I'll second second by commissioner Holland uh to initiate the repair proceedings on County dit 38 uh any further discussion Mr chair this is a roll call vote and just for the record is clear um under these items from Matt today we are acting in our capacity as a drainage Authority for cd38 thank you you uh at this point there's no other discussion uh roll call vote commissioner Shane i i i i resolution or not resolution uh vote is unanimous on the uh repair proceedings for County ditch 38 all right thank you all right the second item is to schedule a public hearing on the repair report for County ditch number 38 uh this is pursuant to Minnesota statute 103e 701 705 and 715 just due to the real alignment and some of the other procedural stuff that needs to happen so I had three dates um two of the dates are kind of all day the other one is September 10th um the engineer is only available from 1: to 300 p.m. on on that date so okay so we be looking to do it as a uh separate drainage Authority public hearing uh outside of the County board meeting which is all right do we want to stay with the Tuesday September 10th and doing it from at that 1:00 day or is so don't we have budget oh you're thinking one what was the September 10th I don't think we September not was there any other what September 16th he's available all day and September 19th he's available all day September 10 was wasn't an all day he's just available from that one to three window oh okay okay I'm good on the 16th all day so yeah 16th Works me see all right so we're looking to do September 16th he's available all day so you want to do a morning um or evening afternoon I mean either way um do we do those in the evening what ditch is it what what what district that' be Mike's District okay well otherwise you want to even do su later afternoon 334 3 Mr chair members of the board for purposes of scheduling if you're going to do the afternoon I'd recommend a 1:00 start there is a quite a bit of material that's probably going to be covered by the engineer as part of this and um cd38 has been going on with this issue since before I started with the county 14 years ago so we're finally at the point of fixing this long-term issue so I'm guessing there'll be extensive discussion about it I think one o'clock one o'clock would be good on September 16th get off work at noon mhm that works for me September 16th so I'll entertain a motion to set a public hearing on the repair report for County ditch 38 uh recommended date of September 16th at 1 oock I'll stand for motion I'll make that motion motion by commissioner Holland second second by commissioner Shane uh to set a public hearing on the repair report for County ditch 38 for September 16th at 1:00 Mr chair for further discussion I'm sorry um honestly I mean we've had the ditch meetings um in in the evening before and I'm just in consideration um with commissioner catchmark that he's not here right now I know that that is is something he he would push for um just out of respect for him I think you know even just going a little bit later at 3:00 um it gives us enough time and maybe opportunity for those that want to attend to attend that's just my thought I know there's a motion in a second but you can uh I will just note that uh anything that goes past uh 4:30 on that particular day uh as it is my short season that I actually officiate High School football I do already have myself a uh JV game already scheduled for September 16th in the evening that night at that time so sure yep I would I would say that uh I too was concerned about that but I think if people can get off they can work a half a day and get off at noon to be here at 1 especially if it's going to be a long meeting um I think I think that's doable um I I think like I said if you wanted to move it back a little bit later I i' be fine with it but otherwise if you want to go in that I just would be uh having to depart somewhere around that uh would be a happy medium to 230 depends on the amount of information I do know that some of these repair reports the the engineering side of it uh we haven't done any of them here in the last 12 months we haven't had any extensive repair reports some of the repair reports that they come through the presentations themselves are upwards of an hour uh depending on the public comment aspect of it and the discussion pieces the meeting itself could lend itself to be upwards of three hours three hours generally the public hearing aspect of this meeting probably wouldn't take place for public comment till much closer to the 2 o'clock hour um if we want to notice that the informational part will start at 1 and the public hearing part would start at two I would be okay with letting people know that we would hold out to do any public comment till two but we'll start the proceedings on the engineering report at 1 um that would probably be a better methodology for us to go about it okay Mr chair members of the board we could accommodate that um as far as going later we do have to accommodate also the schedule of our engineer and his schedule did did not give us any availability into the evening that day okay thank you I'll amend my Mo motion that we make the public hearing portion of it at 2m all right so the motion motion by commissioner Holland amended amended by uh commissioner Shane uh so just the clarity of it we are setting a uh drainage Authority meeting for the presentation of the repair report at 1:00 with a public hearing to follow at 2 p.m. on September 16th in this room regarding the repair report on County ditch 38 all right any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I oppose same sign motion passes unanimous all right awesome um so item number three is to solicit seal bids for repairs reignment of County dis 38 so just some clarification from um item number two item number two at the public hearing you'd be determined if you're moving forward with repairs this would just allow you to seek bids so that those bids are available to you when we hold the public hearing on September 16th at 2 p.m. so everyone in attendance would know the exact cost instead of engineering estimates on the repairs so I'll make the motion we solicit uh sealed bids for the repairs of County ditch 38 right motion by commissioner Holland second second by commissioner Shane uh to solicit sealed bids for repair alignment for County D 38 any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I post same sign motion passes unanimous and awesome well last one um to appoint H2 over lsse to complete a redetermination of benefits on County ditrict number 17 pursuant to Minnesota statute 103 e305 so this is a procedural step to appoint the viewers the viewers actually have to come and and sign a viewers oath um so that would be at a later meeting date but this would be to approve their um preliminary um estimates for this work it's at $3,897 we did receive landowner requests for this and uh request for repairs this year um also from land owners so it's one that Tina and I have been working on I'm receiving calls on so um there's definitely landowner support for this process all right any disc discussion I'll entertain a motion I'll make that motion all right motion by commissioner dietr I'll second that second by commissioner Holland to appoint H2 overviews as the uh to complete a redetermination of benefits on County dig 17 and no other discussion all in favor say I I same sign motion passes unanimous thank you all right uh we're a little bit early for our uh appeal hearing at 9:35 so um we're going to go down to items for consideration uh we have one here to uh set a public hearing to consider the property tax uh abatement for monacello Hospitality LLC and at this time we have a date targeted okay sorry again we have a d targeted date of August 20th at 9:30 a.m. is that is right during the County board meeting so yep should everybody schedule should accommodate that at this time I'll entertain a motion to set uh said public hearing I'll make that motion to set the public um on August 20th at 9:30 during the regular board meeting all right motion by commissioner Shane I'll second that second by commissioner Holland to schedule a public hearing for the property tax abatement for monello Hospitality Group at August 20 at 9:30 a.m. any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I I same sign motion passes yeah abely all right uh still moving down here we have to set the agenda for the August 13th uh Workshop uh listed items are in there is there this right here is more of a no action needed it's more for consensus of the group that uh the items are on there and if whether there's any additions uh necessary Mr chair I have no additions to that um so I'll recommend approving the agenda for the workshop all right I'll second that all right so motion by commissioner Dietrich second by commissioner Holland to approve the uh August 13th Workshop agenda any discussion hearing none all in favor say I by bye close same sign all right motion passes unanimously and we're still moving down here uh so the next item would be the uh appointing of an interim administrator here in R County uh the ongoing discussions that we've had and uh working with uh Greg here on a contract to uh get us through the interim period of time uh will we uh determine our next steps forward for the organization here uh I feel that the conversations have gone well and uh we have finally now after a delay last week on just some contract items we are able to come forward here with one uh that I believe we can execute I make a motion to adopt the resolution appointing Greg kryer as interm R County Administrator second we have a motion by commissioner Holland second by commissioner Shane uh on the resolution appointing Greg krysler as the interim Roy County Administrator all right any discussion hearing none uh resolution uh roll call vote uh I I I I resolution passes unanimously and now we are moving on to the fourth item on items for consideration since we're still running quite far ahead here is approve a deviation from the county rules policies and procedures for the county attorney's office to obtain a county administrator's authorization through the assistant County Administrator who will be acting independently as the interim administrator uh this is a memo of understanding uh just making sure that there removes any conflicts of interest between uh Greg is role as the Civil Division Chief and that of the uh County Administrator in any type of conflicts that may may or could arise between uh the county attorney's office and the central administration of the county I don't know if you have any comments on that uh Mr loots uh thank you um Mr chair Commissioners good morning um you know my office is pretty simple other than my my Personnel budget which is you know quite High having 17 attorneys when we're fully staffed but outside of that you know my overall budget is about 250 Grand something like that uh the only times I really need to go um given you know especially with the autonomy of my office the only times I need to go to the administrator uh for approval historically in my time as as County attorney is when I need to seek uh permission or authority to higher and above the 12% um just with given how the market is and with Sals I just had to do it for a criminal attorney who I just met with who starting September 9th um outside of that because of the board's involvement in the budgetary process uh there's not many opportunities for conflict but when this proposal came to light um it was my idea you know jointly in speaking with you know Clay and and Mark to seek their approval for things like that outside of uh Mr kryer being involved so that's that's my proposal to avoid any any conflict of interest all right I appreciate that I I feel that it was well vetted uh on all sides of it um I think it is probably a good practice just for the very few times that may happen uh at least we have a procedure when or if it would ever arrive so with that we be uh asking the board to approve this mem of understanding between the uh Administration and County Board and the county attorney's office on a any potential conflicts of interest regarding Administration in the county attorney's office so mov motion by commissioner Shane second by commissioner Holland chairman I want to thank you uh for working with us and and then also uh uh sharing Greg with us yeah no absolutely and and maybe just comment on that briefly um you know Mr Chrysler's role has evolved over the years where um he he's largely filled this role I mean he goes to so many meetings and committee meetings with the board and has offered you know legal advice to the board for so many years um when when I was approached about this opportunity um you know I wanted to be a good partner to the Commissioners but I also recognize that it's a role that Mr kryer has has already filled in some aspects and I think it will be um an easy transition for him and I've had great discussions with Mr kryer just outlining um because he's so valuable to my office in his role and does things that no one else can do right now in my office and we're talking about that you know divers Ing and getting other people up to speed uh but we've had great conversations and have ident have identified the things that he's going to keep within my office that you know I think we will'll work well uh for both the Board of Commissioners the county as a whole and my office so I appreciate the uh the thanks though well said Thank you thank you thank you all right uh we had a motion and we have a second uh any other comments hearing no done all in favor say I I iose same sign a motion passes unanimously welcome on board Greg well thank you Mr chair members of the board I appreciate all the kind comments today um and I I look forward to working with the board as we move through this transition period and find a permanent County Administrator wonderful well thank you well moving on here we are going on to the committee recommendations here since we still running about 15 minutes ahead uh we have the revisor recommendation from July 23rd the first one was the uh consensus of the committee to hold a public hearing uh on September 10th at 9:30 uh regarding ordinance Amendment 24-5 pertaining to the uh Solid Waste ordinance is there any uh discussion or comments regarding setting this public hearing all right I'll entertain a motion to set a public hearing for September 10th at 9:30 a.m. uh regarding ordinance Amendment 24-5 I'll make that motion motion by commissioner Holland second second by commissioner Shane any further discussion Mr shair um with the recommendations also it was those changes to being made um do those have to be adopted first and then the public hearing or how is that so the the we're not adopting the changes right now the recommendation is to put the publication of the of the ordinances uh as presented in the recommendations and then any proposed changes would be if there was any would be post the public hearing thank you y just for clarity all right so with that is there although we can entertain if there was some uh imminent changes you'd like to make now prior to publication we can have that discussion now um because generally we if there was ones we'd want to have it published the changes out there for the most transparency so if you if you have some comments that you'd like to make uh currently we can certainly take them um no actually this is a lot of hard work has been put into this so um I'll take that recommendation to set the public hearing and um move those forward all right so we do we have a motion then to set the public hearing for September 10th yeah think a motion a second was I'll second it all right no we do we have a motion a second that's all right yeah yeah we did I think we did sorry after your comments I kind of lost track of where we're at my pardon me all right uh so we have a motion we have a second to set the public hearing for September 10th at 9:30 a.m regarding ordinance Amendment 24-5 regarding Solid Waste uh all in favor say I I I pose same sign motion passes unanimously all right the next one was the recommendation was to uh approve the recommendations of the consensus of the committee to make the following modifications to the tobacco ordinance 24-3 uh these recommendations then will go out to the publication which we will hopefully be putting out within the next week uh for the public hearing that will be taking place on September 12th at 1M yes Mr chair members of the board on ordinance number 24-3 this has been an ongoing discussion for I want to say the last four to five months through the Cannabis workg group um we've been dealing with it staff internally trying to finish up and make some finishing touches onto this ordinance at the last board meeting we scheduled the public hearing for September 12th um we're planning to keep that date the statute requires us to give 30 days mailed notice to all license holders so we're still on track to meet that mailing and notice deadline we just simply put this through the advisor's work group um to give an update uh formally to the board as to where things are at there have been some additional revisions that I think still keep with what we're going on here with what the recommendations were but just some more General ordinance cleanup to try to get us the best final product we can um it may be worthwhile to have another revisers committee um before the 12 but at this point in time I think we are at the uh five yard line ready to go here uh Greg I appreciate that I mean there's so much that's coming at us fast and furious with this and there's there's no way we're going to be able to hold out and make all the changes at once we'll probably have to have another ordinance Amendment before we get the final product on it there's just so many aspects to take into consideration of it yeah so Mr chair members of the board staff is finalizing it we're going to hopefully have it finished here very soon and then any further changes from that we'll we'll document any amendments after that at the public hearing all right and with that uh look for a recommendation or a motion to set that public hearing not set that public hearing I'm sorry the public hearing has already been set for September 12th at 1:00 I'm looking to approve the uh modified changes for publication all right sorry motion by commissioner Shane I'll second second by commissioner Holland to approve the uh changes for publication on the tacco ordinance 24-3 uh any discussion all in favor say I I oppose same sign all right motion passes unanimously all right now we have the WHERE time are we at 9:25 so we can get the uh approve the recommendations from the committee of the whole regarding drainage um there's quite a different pieces here I'm not going to read through all of them uh we've discussed them uh at quite length as I think we just shy of about a 4 hour 4our meeting uh to go through all the different aspects of the ditches I will say that it was a very good very robust conversation I think what we're coming out here with recommendations are good for uh Finance good for uh taxpayer Services there there's this will clean things up for them in terms of a process and not leaving them operating in the gray too much as to what is the desire of the board and what is in the uh best interest of the uh County ditches and the citizens that are on them so yeah chairman VCH I do want to thank the staff uh that was a long uh a lot of a lot of good good discussions and a lot of hard decisions um that the ditch people have to know that we they didn't come easy um but yes thanks to the staff for bringing forward all those small pieces uh to make them whole appreciate all the hard work Mr chair yes I also just I mean we can wait for a motion and a I just like just my comment I got had to leave early to go to a different meeting and it was already a very good discussion going on so just my piece in this is I I just um I know it's probably in right now the only process that we have that makes sense U with the ditches but using uh the general fund money to to um pay for the pay for the work and on the ditches and all of that and then assessing that over a 15-year period at Max for a lot of property owners it just it's just difficult me for me to see that we're taxing people for a ditch project um that may they might not have any it's not might not be impacting them because you're using general tax dollars to um pay for those repairs so that's just my only concern I know it was well discussed um I've looked through the information and followed up um I I think one of the options that you guys had recommended moving forward forward is if there was any way to legislatively offer different options for ditch entities for funding is that correct yeah we had a I mean so what I will say that okay the first year uh we do not we're not recouping any interest payments anything after that we're recouping equal priv pretty close to one to one and we would get investment income on that general fund money so there's no loss after year one um there was it would have C been more cost and effective for us if we would have we would have had to do an entirely additional mailing if we were going to assess them uh in the first year so that's where we chose not to go I understand I I appreciate assessing and and the time frames that were changing I I agree with that I'm just saying we're still moving General funds over to pay for those initially and and and at Max it will be 15 years before that is all paid back with interest I get that the 15 years is the exception um so the majority uh the vast vast majority of them are paying it in in the first five years um only in a very small circumstances where you'll be having them amateu to 15 years uh and into our point is that we are as you see here at the 5% interest which is pretty close to what our investment income yields uh in some cases less some cases more depending on the the length of time that it is tied up um the other point to it being is that the other two options were either to pre-assess the ditches but in order to do that that was going to because there has been neglect on the ditches for so many decades it would have been very cost prohibitive for us to assess the ditches tens of thousands of dollars uh when we wouldn't be able to capably do the work in some cases for upwards of a decade that wouldn't be very palatable either the other option was to go into bonding and if we went into bonding that would preclude any type of prepayment on it and it would tie land owners into a amateurz schedule and paying interest that they may not be interested in uh legislation does not allow us to go into a line of credit which probably would have been the best route I think that is discussion that we need be need to have at the legislator being able to get some changes that would allow us to do a line of credit and therefore we could just charge whatever interest was on our line of credit and that would free up the general fund money but in the short term uh for the lack of other options that's the only option we have I understood and chairman vitch uh we mirrored it to what we do to with our septics with uh loaning out for the septics we mirrored a lot of that the same um verbage and but that's State money that's not that we're tax in people to help pay for that so that's a different funding source but it's still I wish you would have been there because uh um it was a lot of good conversation right I understand that yeah all right uh so at this point do we have a motion to approve the recommendations I'll make that motion motion by commissioner Holland second second by commissioner Shane to approve the uh Committee of the whole drainage Authority July 24th recommendations any further discussion hearing none in favor say I I I post same sign motion passes unanimously all right now we are coming close here on our 935 uh appeal hearing uh so at this time uh surely here we'll call forward uh see here do I have the individual here we have an appeal hearing on Tobacco ordinance violation um staff do you have any comments on that before we uh move into that Greg um Mr chair at this point in time staff would just recommend that you I guess hold the public hearing excuse me the the appeal I believe the person who filed the appeal may be here so we can hear from them at this point in time and um the the materials are in the staff report the agenda and I guess afterwards maybe Public Health can give comments if they want to as to what happened in response all right at this time uh is the uh named individual uh present to the public hearing regarding the tobacco VI ordinance violation if you could come up micone state your name uh yep up here to the podium right there where the microphone is and please state your name my name is my name is Robert Joseph hennet so all three are sixes all right all right Robert uh if you uh want to explain to us uh your appeal here and uh see what we can do to help you okay the reason why I appeal is because you know when I first started this job you know I'm not new to uh selling tobacco in a gas station uh back in 2018 I did it for Fleet Farm with no problem um so as I started working you know I seen the three officers before the occur um they looked at me weird I ain't going to lie I've been targeted so many times um and throughout the weeks they would just be there uh I get certain type of looks and then when the time has come when they uh send the kid over is when uh my coworker asked me to switch and just apparent out of nowhere out the blue uh he came and um I always ID it don't matter what age how you feel I always ID my manager always tell me id them so I ID everybody and there's uh been no type of problems like this before um especially in ide in the machine uh because I know the machine is supposed to be 100% accuracy on IDs um I'm kind of invested in it myself um and when this child has came uh I checked the ID I put the digits in it was saying uh information that doesn't go for everybody else on the ID um so I thought it was a little bit weird um I did the math in my head over and over and over and over um I looked him in the eyes he looked pretty nervous and I know like in my gut feeling like okay you're like he's probably but nowadays in this age uh you know cuz of food and products we use uh it don't matter how old you look or whatnot they can look young from uh and old parents uh people can look young at a you know old I mean old age um so that's the reason why I everybody and so I I you know did the math in my head uh and I I was just off by one year you know and um as he bought the tobacco and he asked for a receipt I gave him the receipt and I'm still doing the math in my head over and over over and over and over and over then I see him going right to left like as if you know they was on the right side and they moved to the left side and um so I was just being very Vigilant and three days after that you know uh I completed my uh tobacco training course CU I was still in training especially as assistant manager so I was doing everything at once you know I was you know determined to you know do better in my life and stuff like that but you know being targeted so much like I have trauma and stuff like that but I don't let it get to me but you know it's just ever since that I just said coworker I'm just you know going to just head out for today because I'm not feeling it I'm not feeling myself you know it's just draining and stuff like that and he come to me he was like uh it been 5 months for him and nothing like this has occurred so then and there I just started putting one and two together I'm like okay you know and and the officer you know he would come trying to speak to me um cuz I think I know like deep in his soul he felt guilty of what had happened because like the way he tried to interact with me and every time I move off the cashier like you know he would just wait for me to come on the cashier to to spread up a conversation because I think you know on his side of the story too like he knows like he can tell if somebody's in trauma and been through a lot so I'm not really asking for much you know but I'm just asking for true honest judgment you know Mr Hanah yeah so my first question to you uh were you presented in identification yeah I checked that identification okay and uh was did you so you you scanned it and it didn't scan no you never scanned it you just you did it just uh manually reviewed the dates no I scan it like three times and then it didn't register no but then I tried to tap in manually on a date of the number it didn't it did the same thing it does okay cuz like underage people when I scan it or put it manually or I could tell okay they're very young from this 2004 uh 2005 or 2006 um it just will say under age or something like that and it was just kind of off to me because like his birthday month was close to mine so I was trying trying to add up in my head so and Mr h i can sympathize with you um be lucky that that that the incident here was with tobacco and not of another substance because the the penalties and such are much greater than that uh but you did admit to the fact that you were given an identification it is a legal identification uh you did scan it uh into uh for whatever reason uh the math didn't come out right it didn't scan right but at the end of the day uh the onuses on you as a uh worker of an establishment that does held a tobacco license in making sure that age compliance is met um and that was failed um I do believe the establishment has a number of different banners that put the year and date on it that you need to be for the uh sale of tobacco uh so those things were readily available whether recognized or not um I think in the future they use this as a learning experience for yourself um this is nothing uh personal against you this is just the same thing that we hold everybody uh in the county to uh from a compliance level perspective when selling tobacco products in Ray County you need to do an age verification and you need to make sure that they are of age 21 uh when making that sale uh so with that I I appreciate your your comments uh unfortunately I don't have any articulable evidence that would say that there was any wrongdoing on our part uh or any type of negligence by the uh ones doing the compliance check that would articulate otherwise um members do you have any uh comments otherwise uh this I do you have any other Mr Hanna any further convers comments yourself um if there's no other ones that with that um I would be at this point uh entertaining a motion by the board to uphold the uh violation uh in the uh upholding the fine of $100 I I I appreciate you taking the time and learning the system and coming in here and questioning it and bringing forward your your uh situation like I said I do sympathize with you uh but unfortunately in order for me to render a different conver uh different decision other than what is uh recommended here in terms of the fine there would have to be some sort of articulable evidence that there there was some wrongdoing on our part uh in issuing you said fine all right with that I'll entertain a motion Mr chair um I wanted to thank Robert for coming in here it's it's not easy coming in and and um giving his scenario what happened so I appreciate that um I'll go ahead and make the motion to go with a recommendation against the tobacco ordinance violation all right I'll second that motion by commissioner Shane second by commissioner Holland any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I po same sign recommendation passes unanimously all right now we are put on our health and human services head as we move into our health and human services portion of uh the meeting uh at this time our first item on the agenda would be to accept the Health and Human Services consent agenda at this time I'll stand for a motion to approve the Health and Human Services consent agenda so moved I'll second motion by commissioner Shane second by commissioner Holland any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I oppose same sign recommendation approved unanimously uh now we have the first timed agenda item resolution uh 248 to adopt the July 2024 donations I know I ask that to and I think the two of the donations were discussed here at the last board meeting and we're just asking that you um approve by resolution these donations all right I'll make that motion second all right thank you to the uh we motion by commissioner Holland second by commissioner Shane thank you for the wonderful donations that'll uh uh serve the citizens of the county well in the operations within Health and Human Services absolutely all right any other discussion that is a resolution vote commissioner Holland i i i i resolution passes unanimously now I'm moving on the second item the uh 20 or the resolution 2409 proclaiming August 24 is child support Awareness Month yes thank you and if with an opportunity I'd like to invite Kim Johnson and Karen Popkin up just to give you a brief overview of where we are sitting in child support these days um if you didn't know I started out in 1992 as a child support officer and it's always been near and dear to my heart I too started out as a child's support officer ironically enough um good morning Mr chair members of the board every year the governor proclaims August as child's sport Awareness Month I'd like to take a moment to recognize our child's support staff in 2023 they opened 532 cases collected 13, 396,000 14 this is an amazing group who does amazing work for the families of Wright County I'm here today to ask the board to adopt the governor's Proclamation declaring August as child support awareness move any questions well we've always known that uh our child support uh workers here in R County do a fantastic job you are uh above the top 1% I would almost say in in the county in terms for the work that they do and the collection levels that they do so we can't thank them enough for the diligence and the uh efficiency that you do the work here for the citizens of Ray County thank you I remember before we were collecting a million dollars a month we're like only if we could collect a million dollars a month and now we're at 13 over 13 million for the year consistently for years in a row so it's very exciting they do amazing work and um what that does for the families of rake county is priceless that's great so with that I'll entertain a motion to uh designate August 24 as child support Awareness Month in Ray County so moved I'll second that motion by commissioner Shane second by commissioner Holland any further discussion it's the resolution resolution commissioner dri i i i i resolution passes unan L director's comments yes this is kind of the gra grab bag portion I guess of the agenda I just have a couple of um announcements one would be that we're holding our foster care picnic on August 14th at BB Lake from 5:00 to 7:30 you are all cordially invited to join um if you'd like to join us at BB Lake on that day just let me know and I will give your headcount to our foster care staff um our County Fair update oh I should have that in front of me I think you have it in your packet as well actually I'm not seeing it um we had a great County Fair um I believe you have the numbers with you there we had um folks from social services and from public health um I saw a lot of read a lot of comments from um young families and mothers specifically about um having a place to bring um their child for either uh you know breastfeeding the child or changing them during the fair just um that's always just a huge winwin for everybody and that's always been very well received and we had lots of people visiting our tables to get out the good news about what health and human services does in right County so that was a great County Fair I didn't make it this year and I missed it so I hope to make it next year um I did want to mention about our uh um kind of in the note of what we just um witnessed as well our alcohol um compliance measures I think recently we had folks from public health and law enforcement going out to do alcohol compliance um not great results um um we had uh Sheriff Eric Larsson and Rachel Nelson from public health conducted alcohol and compliance checks to prevent youth access to alcohol and tobacco to date in 2024 right county has had 11 alcohol establishments fill and 17 tobacco businesses fail in including rechecks we found many tobacco businesses were negligent in checking IDs as well as both tobacco and alcohol establishments not having the proper training to read an ID we're hopeful that by providing both civil and criminal citations along with providing alcohol sales training we can reduce the failures and have a better outcome for next year so as you can see this is kind of uh one of those areas I think that kind of dips and swings and we're in a process right now where um we have a lot of failures and we're hoping to remedy that in the near future uh Jamie I appreciate you bringing that up and I'm going to use this as my chance to make my two cents Conversation Piece on it um I really wish that alcohol compliance checks were in the same line of a penalty as that of tobacco I think they're largely egregiously charged uh tobacco if or alcohol compliance checks is a gross misdemeanor uh and a tobacco violation is an administrative penalty of $100 um miles apart um and the sad thing about is both of these penalties are people that are working that are trying to better their lives and a lot of times they're college students and that gross misdemeanor is actually charging CH forcing individuals to have to change their lives they may have been going working as a bartender or a server and going to college and trying to be a nurse or a teacher but because of that compliance check they now have to change their life career um I really hope that we look at it from a Prosecuting level and from a legislative level on how we go forward with charging those because uh I I don't think that the intent of those individuals was to sell to minors and to be able to get to intoxicate youth I think it is is a penalty necessary yes is the penalty that prescribed by the state uh uh correct cor no uh at least at least from an alcohol perspective uh I think that a penalty more in line with tobacco is more necessary especially on a first offense but uh right now it's egregious I've seen way too many people in the industry that have uh got greatly harmed because of these compliance checks and because of the penalty that the state levies on these alcohol compliance checks um I'm using this this opportunity once again to sympathize with them because uh most of the time these are individuals that are trying to better their life and are now getting kicked even further down so and chairman B yeah and it it doesn't mirror with the the Cannabis uh the Cannabis is uh a petty Min misdemeanor I think it's underage I think thank you and I don't disagree I'd like I think sah would like just make one clarification um I just want to clarify for the record that it's was 17 alcohol failures and 12 to failures to date so we've actually seen much more alcohol sales to miners um and some of the sales uh the youth that we're using are 18 so I just I think it's a concern and we need to do we're our our we're committed to doing the education right and doing the sales training with all of our volunteer you know for our events all of our um businesses in the county um because there's a real risk right so I and I don't disagree with what you said chair I because I think from our point of view from Health and Human Services we want to be more of an educator and you know making sure this doesn't happen in the future um and potentially there is right now kind of a um uh unbalance of where that penalty Falls so I don't think we're into it for the penalty reasons I think we're really here to make things better for our youth and so we don't have tragic accidents or something that would be follower youth in the future but I certainly understand where you're where you're you're coming from I just am going to use every chance I can to advocate for change on that because right now you can go and steal $500 for Target and get a a far less penalty than you would be selling one can of beer accidentally as a bartender or a server uh at a busy moment uh so and to me that's Injustice at a great level so you got that's got to change I I've seen way too many lives damaged because they're trying to do the right thing and they made an innocent mistake um most people don't work a job where they can just get stung and get a gross misdemeanor at a snap of a finger uh and mo these are not high-paying jobs uh these are largely college aged individuals that are working their way to get to a better career and more often than not because of situations like this we have 17 individuals that may have to find different career paths for their future they may would have maybe would have been good social workers good nurses or good teachers but they may have to look at a different path because of that again I don't disagree and I'm familiar with several situations like that myself um the next item we have is a letter of recommendation from our um our our health and human services advisory committee we call it hsac there's a subcommittee a housing subcommittee um this recommendation to hire housing com um a housing coordinator is not to circumvent anything the county is doing as far as um positions uh Health and Human Services does have this position on our request list coming forward so it go through all the regular you know approvals or denials as the board sees fit coming forward however our housing committee and along with Haack did feel it was important and this is the venue for them to because they exist in order to make recommendations to the board and provide the board Insight so this is a recommendation coming from that group um for the board to um consider H hiring a housing um person for Health and Human Services um we are looking at some funding potentially through a path Grant through our adult mental health initiative um and this will be all discussed I believe later this week on the eth commissioner Holland sits on the both the housing committee and hsac and is familiar with this the committee um has uh people on it that are community members uh providers for things like Mental Health Services and we've had a lot of information coming forward from um different nonprofits also that work with people that are homeless and trying to keep people in their home homes so um just please accept this letter of recommendation from where it comes which is a heartfelt request to um help support our homeless people in R County and then finally um some not so happy news and um there's a funeral today at 10:30 for Larry dears he was a longtime employee with re County um Health and Human Services he was our accounting supervisor for I believe going on 40 years um and he was just a wonderful man who just Advanced all kinds of things he was also our um technology person he was the person who first introduced onbase I believe to the county um way back when when it was just going to be something that was working in our um eligibility area he um I remember his comment we want the Cadillac and at the time that was our Cadillac vehicle and the board of course listen to all the arguments from not arguments but all the um information coming from Health and Human Services and from it and from all the other um places and as you can see it's kind of taken over the county at this point so um from I think staff that have been here for a long time you can see things many many years later that keep advancing it but Larry has a family in Maple Lake his wife Kathy um also used to work at for Health and Human Services in our licensing area um and we're just really sad to have to say goodbye to Larry today that's all I have thank you Jamie all right uh moving on to our 945 uh item we have planning zoning adopt resolution to enter into a a Minnesota clean Waters partnership project implementation Loan program Jacob yes good morning Commissioners um so there will be a change um so our previous clean water agreements have been a 10-year 3% loan we have been informed Now by by the Clean Water partnership that Wright County will be charged 1 and a half% interest going forward uh so we're going to have to adjust our rate that's why I'm speaking here today to get that in line with what we need to to to make sure that we're um not losing money again and and uh and to make sure that we're um accounting for staff time and staff staff uh expenses for this program uh we did get approved for $500,000 again it's a 7-year loan um staff has determined that well we cannot charge more than 8 and a half% that's the prime rate that's the rule um if we go to charge our current 3% uh our interest Revenue would be 30,000 uh staff made a recommendation that we should charge 5 a half% to make what we were making prior at 82,000 doeses that make any sense okay so the staff recommendation was at 55% but we can also discuss if you don't want to be in that same range of what we were doing in that realm on our end and staff time and and and revenue we can adjust that uh it would be about 10,000 less in Revenue if we went to 5% and 20,000 if we went to 45% so at 5.5 that covers our costs it it would be the same as the last loan the 10e 3% now in this 7-year space it would be 52% with the current um the current rates at eight and a half and and mortgage rates at six and a half so we're still well we're still low interest yeah you aren't going to get any personal loan anywhere close to that so so um it's it's more of a budgetary question here when you look at it if you wanted if you went anything less than the 5.5 you'd have to reduce a revenue interest line uh to accommodate that otherwise uh to staying with the recommendation staffs bringing this for forward with with trying to keep that Revenue line within the budget study and that's hence their recommendation of 5.5% yep so it'd be a sevene five and a half instead of 10 three I'll make the motion to accept that all right motion by commissioner Holland second second by commissioner Shane to uh approve the modification to the interest of 5.5% over 7year period uh for the uh septic Loan program uh going forward any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I post same sign motion passes unanimously thank you thank you all right wasn't that resolution oh was it oh you're right uh resolution vote all right commissioner Shane i i i i motion approved unanimously all right thank you see Barry's on there today all right now we're on to the nine 50 we're a little behind here we have the review of the 2023 audit uh finances making their way up here as well as uh Clifton Larson Allen uh [Music] staff oh you're giving it to the mystery guest put it in his office I know put it in his office I think I I like paper thank you oh that's right thank you hea good morning chairman Commissioners I'm gonna have Kristen start first okay good morning um I do have Eric my um manager on the audit he is online listening in he was unable to make it today but I just wanted to let you know he is online in case we have any questions for him as well so today we will go go over um required Communications internal control single audit Minnesota legal compliance Financial results and then other items um so the first um item here on page three is um the first bullet is that we do have a separate communication that we are required to give to governance as part of audit standards so that's the five-page letter that Heather just handed out FY boiler plate um if you ever have questions on let us know I won't um go over it and bore you today um the other thing to note on this page is that you were given an unmodified or clean opinion on the financial statement so that is the best you can get so on page four um here is the internal control section so we are required by audit standards to look at your controls in place as a county and make sure that everything is operating correctly and if something isn't um there's different levels of deficiencies some do have to be in writing so that's um the next Pages here we'll talk about um there are other ones that are just orally communicated during the audit that go to management just to correct more like a slap on the hand um but the first type here is material weakness so these are in writing and they are material in nature so as you can see here there's a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement would not be prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis so there were two items this year noted the first was um adjustments adjusting journal entries during fieldwork with the transition to the new general ledger system Oracle some things came up during that so we helped get um the finance team through that and make those adjustments and then the other item was also due to the transition um just the yearend cash reconciliation to make sure everything was reconciled at your end on the next page this is the other type of internal control deficiency that's in writing so still like I said required to be in writing but just less severe um none of these types were noted so overall great job on those on page six this talks about the single audit so since you spend over $750,000 you are required to have a single audit and we are required to test 40% of your federal expenditures each year so the two programs we tested this year were um arpa the covid-19 Corona State and local um fiscal recovery funds as well as medical assistance or ma for short um no material weaknesses in those programs and we did find one significant deficiency in arpa so that was around suspension in deartment and the check was done but it was not um the date that it was verified was not kept on file so just a little background on that before entering into contract Federal contracts you are required for any over 25,000 to look at um a sam.gov website to make sure that the vendor isn't suspended or debarred from doing business so like I said that check was done but we just didn't have the date it was done and we need to make sure the date done is before the contract's entered into so minor very easy to fix perfect okay and then on the next page U Minnesota legal compliance we are required by the state auditor's office to look at their checklists that they put out each year they're about 25 pages around Contracting bidding miscellaneous items um dispersements cash public indebtedness things of that nature all the statutes that you're required to comply with and during that check we found no items noted so good job on that any questions on those before we go into the financial results okay so the first graph on page nine that shows you how many months of expenditures you have in your fund balances so one thing to keep in mind the fund balance numbers at the bottom those are your assigned and unassigned numbers so anything restricted for Grants or any other purpose those are not in these numbers so this is more fluid cash that you could um spend so you'll see here it has been increasing the last five 5 years you're up to about 6 months the recommendation is no less than 3 to 5 months and so basically if you had no Revenue coming in you could go six months with you know your current spending levels is what that's saying okay the next slide here shows for The Last 5 Years your revenues and expenditures in total all funds all your governmental funds so you'll see that revenues did EX seed expenditures this year was about 4 14 million um revenues did increase from last year 25.5 million and expenditures increased about 4 million so I'll go over the details of what makes these up in the next couple slides but I just wanted to show this snapshot of How It's been doing over the Last 5 Years okay so page 11 shows the revenues so you'll see here your major funding sources are taxes charg for services and intergovernmental um taxes are going up gradually each year which is really good to see that the levy is supporting as expenditures increase overall um intergovernmental you can see here it did Spike up a little that was um more arpa money was spent this year as well as $2.3 million was received in public safety Aid right at the end of the year so that'll start being spent now um starting in 24 that is sitting in restricted fund balance currently um your charges for services did go up quite a bit that was mainly due to the sheriff contracts going up 15% this year or in 23 uh investment earnings those went up quite a bit you'll see they were actually negative last year because the markets were down this year they are a positive 8.5 million because at 123123 markets were up and there's a mark to- Market adjustment that needs to happen in the financial statement so those invest ments are at market and that is what's that is showing really we only receive after you take that out about 3.5 million just to clarify it's more of a fictitious number because it's sitting there um and the miscellaneous is down that is the catch all I know last year you had larger mcit dividends and a railroad crossing Improvement um money that came in but that one fluctuates um year to year as far as expenditures here you'll see um the far left has most of your expenditures that um buckets that you're spending on and capital outlay so General government spiked up this year because of the arpa expenditures that you were spending uh Public Safety Cola step increases impacted that as well as it those impacted Human Services as well um highways and streets those went down fluctuates year toe you know the road projects that are going on there were two large projects last year that um spiked that up and then lastly on this page Capital outlay you can see has been up quite a bit because of all the construction of the um buildings and this year it was down to 2.5 million because everything basically was wrapped up as far as the county indebtedness so you'll see the top line is your go bonds so you're paying the payments um that are in the schedules amortisation schedules so that's why it's gradually coming down as well as um the loans opab is the other post-employment benefits and net pension liability those are Actuarial determined so those fluctuate based on what those actuaries say and the assumptions that are going into them so you can see in the bottom there net pension liability fluctuates year to year um based on what perah actuary says and then compensated absences that's just the vacation and sick time that's AC Creed at 123123 any questions before I wrap it up with the last slide okay um so just some other items new this year was gby 96 so that was around sidas or subscription based Information Technology um Arrangements so on page 68 of the actual financial statements it talks about those and there was about a million dollars that were put onto the books for the liability side of that as well as 5.5 million on the asset side and that's net um Oracle is in that asset side so that's why it's so large um and then also the statement of auditing standards was implemented for 143 to 145 this year so looking ahead to 24 it's going to be pretty quiet um compared to what it has been in the last couple of years and so it's gby 101 compensated absences it really just defines what goes into that compensated absences number and actually can simplify the table that's in the financial statements instead of showing additions and deletions you can have just a net change in there so like I said pretty minimal compared to what we've seen in the past yeah overall I would like to thank the finance team Heather and her team y um I mean I think with everything that happened it's great that know we made it yes and they did a great job helping us through it yeah I I brought some of the team down just so that they could be appreciate it as well thank you well I appreciate all the effort uh Finance I know that every year this is a uh a heavy lift exercise but it's a necessary exercise I am always pleased to see that that we don't have any uh major significant uh deficiencies uh so that speaks loudly to the work that all of you do uh and it's always a a continuous Improvement all the time because uh even as good as we think we are there is always uh new things that we can do and trying to stay ahead of the game and making sure that we're doing the best reporting and having the best fiscal controls in place uh so hats off to uh Finance staff and Clifton Larson Allen on putting together a good uh Financial audit thank you yeah thank you that's that we need authorization and approval to publish the financial statements and the vendor list in the County's official paper I'll make that motion second motion by commissioner Holland second by commissioner Shane any further discussion hearing none I'll in favor say I I I oppose same sign motion passes unanimously thank you all right moving on to the last item on today's agenda here is to adopt the resolution and authorizing signatures on the updated tax abatement uh for the sjb holding company LLC uh this was a carryover from the previous board meeting uh based on some modifications and some discussions um it sounds as though the sjb group with the uh uh question about the modification to the abatement would still be uh able to and willing to move forward with said modifications yeah thank you chair and board members so at the last meeting the board directed staff to rework this agreement to have a maximum dollar amount of $115,000 which we've done we had a conversation with Steve bun who's in the audience today and the owner of sjb and discussed with them that change and he requested that if we were to make that change he'd prefer that that money be front-loaded so it wouldn't taper down like we had originally planned and instead he would receive 100% of the abatement over the period of time that the abatement was in effect until we reached that $115,000 so that's the way that we've drafted it and you can see in your packet the amended agreement with the areas highlighted that we changed to reflect that so with that we'd be open for questions and otherwise as I mentioned Mr bun is in the audience today if if board members have any questions of him and this time is there any comments or questions uh I will say uh uh Steve I appreciate you bringing your business to R County we're we're excited and we want to be able to work with you I think you're going to do uh great things for the community in montros and uh for Ray County holistically so uh wishing you all the best here and uh we want to be good partners with you here at R County uh in making your business Thrive and grow well thank you Mr chair I'll go ahead and make that motion all right motion by commissioner Shane I'll second that second by commissioner Holland any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I I post same sign motion passes unanimously all right uh at this point we have concluded today's agenda uh with no other business to attend to and if there's any parting comments yeah one parting comment two parting comments I want to thank uh the DMV when the uh when the network went down and they worked feverishly to uh um you know wait the states um everything that the state was working on and I think they heard a lot of complaints that Friday um I know Jesse came in on Saturday when the state said there uh it was up and running she came in on Sunday just to make sure so that she could get information out we appreciate all that hard work it's hard to work in the DMV and it's even harder when their system is down and then too uh thank you to it uh apparently our network was lost for a little blip what was it Frank maybe a a minute somewhere around there anyways they found it and nobody was none the wiser they were they scrambled beneath uh behind the scenes and uh always appreciate our it people and and uh all the hard work they do behind the scenes thank you well with Mr Mr chair I was just going to point out the last vote on the abatement was a resolution oh so again I think we need to go back in very back all right I having deja vu over here yes we had a motion by commissioner Hall and second by commissioner Shane on the sjb abatement that was a resolution vote so I will'll start off the vote at i i i i all right resolution passes unanimously appreciate you catching that clay well it was Elizabeth actually and she teamed me from the back of the room so thank her all right uh well with uh no other business to attend to we will adjourn today's meeting at 1014