[0:07] Welcome to another edition of the Barron County Administrative Report. I'm James Longard. This is race like community media and this is my friend Mr. Jeff French. Hello sir. Good morning. How are you? I'm fantastic on this very wet rainy, frivolary day. It's actually raining hard outside James. Oh, is it? Yes. It was just sprinkling when I came in. It was raining a little bit last night too. It was windy as that last night though. No, it rained hard and barren. It woke me up several times. Oh, did it?

[0:36] already. Oh and I wish it was snow. That's my point. It's February. I wish it was snow for the

[0:42] Birkey, for everything else. Snowmobiliers. We actually have had a winter this year though. Yes,

[0:49] very short, very cold. Yeah. I know you and I have talked about this in the past. Your cross-country

[0:56] cross-country skier, right? Yes. And so you actually got a chance to go out and do that a couple of

[1:01] did yeah loved it and we're still going to try and meet up down in barren at the at the track and

[1:08] do a little thing down there right yes good probably next year because it looks like as I've

[1:13] looked out I mean it's they're talking 3540 degrees two weeks or no but snow the rest of this week

[1:19] yeah but it doesn't accumulate much but boy blizzard conditions north of us that's gonna be interesting

[1:23] I saw so just for the record we're recording this on the 18th of February and today

[1:31] I saw they just shut down the entire North Shore of Lake Superior Highway 61 all the way from Duluth all the way up to the point

[1:39] Really mm-hmm all the way to Susanne marine no no on the North Shore point. Yeah up there at Hancock, right

[1:46] Yeah, not not upper Michigan in Minnesota. Oh Minnesota. Yeah. Oh North Shore Lake Superior. All right. Yep. Got it. Yep

[1:53] All right

[1:54] Shall we begin? We should do it. They pay us to do this time. We're we consider dark, but we should probably do our duty

[2:00] Well, maybe.

[2:01] Maybe.

[2:01] Okay.

[2:01] Let's go with the maybe.

[2:03] So, county board, February 16th, 90, I'm at the right at the government center.

[2:09] So, special manners and announcement.

[2:11] I'm really excited about introducing a couple of new county employees.

[2:15] Well, one's a new employee, one's been here while, Dalton Bigg, from Prairie Farm, Wisconsin,

[2:20] IPF.

[2:21] He's a PF native.

[2:23] Oh, he is.

[2:24] He played football for PF.

[2:25] He's a great guy.

[2:26] I think we talked about him a little bit last year.

[2:28] Yep, he introduced himself to the county board.

[2:30] He's our new county forester slash trail coordinator.

[2:33] He's learning a lot.

[2:34] He said, told the county board he'd put on 12 miles

[2:36] on the snow shoes in the last week,

[2:38] walking around learning stuff.

[2:39] So, county board welcomed him.

[2:41] And then Shelley Shaw introduced herself

[2:44] as our new veteran service officer.

[2:47] You know, a little birdie told me

[2:48] that here in the not-too-distant future,

[2:52] you're going to do a special bearing county administrator

[2:55] report and you're going to talk to Shelley.

[2:57] I am. We're going to bring Shelley in. We've got four or five questions. We're going to talk to her because our veterans are important to us and she and Scott have done a great job and we're just going to chat her up a little bit and learn who she is and welcome her and good. All those great things. We appreciate when you do that. Well, I'm glad to do them. So we County Board approved the resolution, allowing the annual salaries for the Baron County Clerk of Court and the sheriff. And I like to always explain how this works because.

[3:26] For an elected official, what the county board is actually approving is, they're approving

[3:32] their salary for the term of their office.

[3:36] The county board is in fact approving the position and the salary.

[3:42] It's not the person.

[3:43] It's a different from, say, my position or another appointed position by the county board.

[3:48] So we look at what our

[3:52] comparables are, our continuous

[3:55] counties, the 14 counties that are similar in size.

[3:57] We look at counties that have three judges like we do.

[4:04] Those are all the things that we look at.

[4:06] So at the end of the day, the county board approves the elected

[4:10] salaries for five elected officials in the county.

[4:15] There are two that are going to be approved this year

[4:18] in 2026. Two years from now they'll approve the

[4:23] Treasurer, the Register of Deeds and the County Clerk.

[4:27] This four-year cycle, they approve the Clerk of Court and the Sheriff.

[4:33] So I want to explain that and explain that the County Board by state statute must approve

[4:39] the salary of all four years prior to the first day upon which a person may take out

[4:48] papers and solicit signatures to run for public office.

[4:52] That's why it has to be done.

[4:54] Now, essentially, I will tell you, we are a month early,

[4:58] but a lot of the other counties are going a month early

[5:01] just because it's better to do it now,

[5:04] because beginning in April, they can start taking all papers.

[5:07] Sure.

[5:07] So let me ask and forgive my confusion on this.

[5:12] Excuse me, just a minute.

[5:13] Yep. Sure. The question I have is, so if you're going to run for share, what's it? So,

[5:22] Jeff is running for share. And you're going, so when you take your papers out, you know

[5:28] exactly how much you're going to make in 27, 28, 29 and 30.

[5:33] Right. Okay. That's the thing. No, there's a very interesting, and I talked about this

[5:38] on the radio show, you cannot, this was tried by a county, you cannot do this, you cannot

[5:44] say, well we're going to set the salary for James and his salary is going to be X, but

[5:50] if anybody else runs for Sheriff, there's is going to be less or more. You can't do that.

[5:56] It's the salary. One size does fit on that case. Exactly. No, it's very important to point

[6:02] I know when you look at our resolution, we also specify that these people, then, are eligible for health insurance and WRS, because it separates them from, and I got a great question from Supervisor Diane Vaughn.

[6:16] She had an excellent question. Her concern was, we don't cut out the County Board Supervisors. Well, here's the deal.

[6:23] they work the requisite number of hours to allow them to get on health insurance

[6:28] and WRS, where a county board supervisor isn't considered an

[6:34] hourlier even meet the number of hours to do that. Well, I can't think that

[6:37] they're considered employees either. No, they're technically not. Right. A

[6:42] county board supervisor isn't technically not considered an employee. They're

[6:46] considered a common law employee for Social Security purposes, but they're not

[6:50] an employee for other purposes. We've got to somehow work some of these things out because

[6:56] then you go to the clerk of court or the elected officials and they're considered an employee.

[7:02] Anyway, even though they're elected, yes. Yep, it's, it's an, how does that work? Well,

[7:07] hours that they have to work, the fact that we're an employer over 250 and they're eligible for

[7:12] health insurance, there's all these different federal and state laws that they trip into,

[7:17] to that a county board supervisor would not.

[7:20] And that's the difference folks between a supervisor

[7:22] and a commissioner.

[7:24] See, and that, it doesn't, I don't know,

[7:28] my P-brain can't wrap around the idea

[7:30] that an elected official is, well, I guess it does,

[7:37] is an employee.

[7:39] Well, I guess that does make sense.

[7:41] An elected official who's considered to be required

[7:44] to work full time in their job,

[7:46] IE 40 hours a week is considered an employee and that's a standard number of

[7:52] 2080, 2018. And a county board supervisor is paid a per diem. Their paid to attend

[8:01] the county board meeting same way as an assembly person or sender and then

[8:05] they're paid to attend a committee meeting. Got it. That's the difference. A county

[8:10] board supervisor is not paid a salary, they're paid a per diem. Got it. A county

[8:14] Many commissioners say in Minnesota is paid a salary and they get health insurance and

[8:21] they get retirement and they get a lot more things than we get.

[8:24] Wouldn't it be lovely if everybody can all states did it uniformly?

[8:30] It's very different.

[8:32] You talk to my compatriots out west, say Oregon, which I've had a few interactions with people

[8:36] in Oregon, some in Montana.

[8:39] For example in Montana, there's five county board supervisors.

[8:43] It's essentially a salary position with health insurance, retirement, and they have their

[8:49] own offices.

[8:50] They can get their own staff.

[8:51] In Oregon, I know for a fact, they can get their own offices.

[8:53] They get their own staff.

[8:55] They're considered like a mini legislature of that county.

[8:59] What about, you mentioned that you set the salary for the share of, again, one size kind

[9:07] of fits all.

[9:07] Well, why is it that they do that, is it planning purposes, is it some of the reason

[9:15] why they set the salary for the entire tea of the term that they're going to be in

[9:20] office?

[9:21] Okay.

[9:22] There's a history.

[9:23] Okay.

[9:24] County boards used to play games.

[9:26] And my understanding from the history, so my understanding, and if I'm wrong, I apologize.

[9:31] My understanding is it goes back to the founding of the state.

[9:34] And afterwards, the legislature stepped in and said, no, no, there's no games here.

[9:42] You have to set that salary.

[9:44] So the electorate knows if we elect James, he's getting the same amount that if we elect

[9:50] Jeff, or if we elect Linda, that's what I, that's what the, there's a history here, yeah.

[9:56] Because I think if we go back to what you were saying before, if I got elected, I'd get

[10:04] $10,000. If you got elected, you'd get $15,000. And if Linda got elected, she could get

[10:11] $38,000 or $30,000 or whatever. Right. Well, there's also some case law here. It used

[10:16] to be, and there was a back in the 1930s, and it's in our county, uh, preceding book, I've

[10:21] read it. There was actually a blow up in the state stepped in and said, no, no, no, no.

[10:27] County Sheriff, County Clerk, you don't get your salary plus the fees you collect.

[10:34] You have to turn the fees you collect into the Board of Supervisors.

[10:39] That's revenue for the county.

[10:42] Your revenue is your salary.

[10:44] So they were double dipping.

[10:47] Aha.

[10:48] Back in the 1930s, the state of Wisconsin, the county auditor had actually addressed the county

[10:53] board and told the county board not your county elected officials shall put

[11:00] together a budget shall turn in all of the revenue they collect there's that

[11:04] some of the history why this happened and I suspect that that's part of the

[11:10] just the stacking of how how counties relate to the state as as basically a

[11:19] the sub-district of the state.

[11:20] Right, okay.

[11:21] And it's also the fact where the,

[11:23] by the way I've said this a lot of times in this program,

[11:26] Wisconsin has some of the highest white laws,

[11:29] which means transparency in election,

[11:31] transparency in government of any of the states.

[11:34] I mean, we do.

[11:35] We just simply, we do.

[11:37] We have the, some of the highest standards

[11:40] of any state in the union.

[11:43] Which some might argue is a good thing.

[11:46] Well, look what's going on in North Carolina.

[11:47] I know you've got a town manager down in North Carolina, $150,000 spent on a book that the

[11:54] township paid for come to find out his wife was on the make with the economic development

[12:00] director ship.

[12:01] I can go on and on and on.

[12:03] Things like that don't happen in Wisconsin because we have laws that can't do that.

[12:10] Sure.

[12:11] All right.

[12:12] County Board approved an expenditure of $23,753.96 for the Wisconsin Department of Military

[12:20] Affairs.

[12:20] It's called the PSAP answering grant.

[12:22] This is an important grant that Chairman Ockie was involved in, the emergency management

[12:29] director, Mike Judy.

[12:31] This is a grant, 90% of it paid by the state of Wisconsin, 10% from local funds that allows

[12:39] the Sheriff's Department to set up a completely functional yet remote 9-1-1

[12:44] Center. So let's say the Justice Center was to get wiped out with a tornado or

[12:48] a flood or power went off for days. This grant allows the county to go out and

[12:54] purchase the equipment necessary to have a remote location, take our dispatch

[12:59] there, take whatever you need there and bang, we're up and running. This was

[13:03] something that was worked on and the Sheriff's Department and talking to

[13:07] several people out there and Chairman Oki, this was something that felt was a necessity

[13:12] because it could help support all of the police departments or fire departments if something

[13:16] bad were to happen.

[13:18] Is that through, you mentioned the Department of Military Affairs, of course they're headquartered

[13:23] in Madison.

[13:24] I'm very familiar with that building as a matter of fact.

[13:26] It was that through the emergency operations group.

[13:30] I believe it was.

[13:31] Yeah, County Board approved 14,850 for digital imaging conversion.

[13:37] Now this is at the County Clerk's office.

[13:39] So the clerk ends up with a lot of historical documents.

[13:43] And they're in a vault that is secure, but it's not waterproof.

[13:47] And there's some old documents there that really, honestly,

[13:50] I do believe the clerk was right in asking for this money to digitize this stuff.

[13:54] And it was a very, this is a very nominal fee to pay for this,

[13:59] to have this also in a vault and then digitized and keep some of these old records.

[14:05] I mean, there's records for dams, there's records for old buildings, there's records

[14:08] on the campus, there's records on records, there's records of things from opening the

[14:15] Highway 53 from Cameron North.

[14:17] These are all records that end up with the clerk.

[14:20] No, I do think it's important to talk about this.

[14:23] Very few people realize the county clerk cannot just arbitrarily get rid of historical

[14:28] documents. They are required to ask university Wisconsin at stout. It's stout. Yes, sir. They are

[14:37] required to ask the historical people at stout. If stout wants them, we give them physically to

[14:43] them. What they don't want we keep. That's the purpose of this is to digitize this stuff. So we have

[14:49] a digital record. Do you think once the new building, the welcome center essentially at

[14:59] Pioneer Village?

[15:00] Those in, some of those old documents could go there. Yes. And in fact, it's interesting you bring it up. We had a person just gave us a stack of historical agricultural documents going back into the thirties. And so we're going to not keep those. We're going to turn them over to the historical society. Because remember, once the clerk keeps them and she doesn't want to keep them, but once the clerk keeps them, then they become a record of the county. And we don't really want that. We want the historical society to be the record.

[15:28] And now we should also clarify by law you have to keep stuff for seven years.

[15:35] Yes, or 10 or for 50.

[15:38] Oh, yeah, there's some stuff at the clerks like there's schematics of dams and buildings

[15:44] you have to keep those either 50 or 70 or until the building is gone.

[15:49] Yeah, so it's there's a different like for example a voucher we pay a bill that voucher

[15:56] I think it's seven years and receipts are seven years.

[15:58] We typically keep them 10 just in case.

[16:01] But there's other things like minutes, they're indefinite.

[16:04] Oh, okay.

[16:05] County Board authorized us to participate

[16:09] in the municipal dam grant.

[16:12] Now this is important because the county does have dams

[16:14] and this is a 50, 50 or 25% match.

[16:18] So if we get a million dollar grant from the state,

[16:21] we have to put in 500,000.

[16:22] If we get a two million dollar grant,

[16:24] we have to put in 500,000, which is 25%.

[16:27] The purpose of the resolution is not that we have a project ready to go, it's to apply

[16:32] for this grant, which is a competitive grant, which other municipalities are going to

[16:37] apply for.

[16:38] And if we get this grant awarded, it'll probably be used at the Shatech Dam, which is very

[16:43] large dam.

[16:44] County Board approved the Sustainable Transportation Funding Grant.

[16:48] This is also, there's a lot of things here that are critical to Wisconsin.

[16:52] Johnson, this is being put forward by the Wisconsin County's Association to have our

[16:58] legislatures, legislatures on record saying, hey, we need to stay on top of our transportation

[17:06] funding. In the last two-year budget cycle of the state, there was 500 million transferred

[17:11] from the General Fund to the Transportation Fund. 30 years ago, the Transportation Fund

[17:16] with supporting the general fund. In 2006, this state got away with gas tax indexing.

[17:23] It's about $1.6 billion in the last 18 years has not been deposited into the transportation

[17:30] fund. If the gas tax had been indexed, there would be another $1.6 billion to work on our

[17:36] roads. The purpose of this is to get all the groups, the towns, the league, the county,

[17:42] the road builders everybody and say okay we all got to agree state we got to do a

[17:48] better job at maintaining our roads and we do it and it's pot hole season right

[17:53] plus there's bridges plus there's culverts but it's not just roads it's bridges

[17:58] it's culverts it's all those things that need to be maintained because we

[18:02] travel and when summertime hits we really travel we sure do all right so then the

[18:07] zoning in the tone of Cumberland by Scott Mary Belfie was approved zoning

[18:12] zoning and a ton of rice like for Dennis Ganya was approved. We approved two

[18:16] fire wardens for the county. It used to be we had a lot of fire wardens because

[18:19] they were kind of the first defense if there was a fire. But now with GPS and

[18:24] other things it's it's kind of being whittled down. Is that sorry to interrupt?

[18:28] Is that related to like forest? Greenlands? Yeah yeah yeah. I mean it used to be

[18:33] that the burning permits and stuff were issued by the fire wardens. Now it's

[18:38] getting to be where the town clerk will do it or somebody else will do it.

[18:40] Used to be the list was huge, but they also used okay

[18:44] I'm old enough to tell you I can remember when the when the when the fire

[18:49] Towers were maned sure like when I was a kid state like when I was a teenager

[18:54] They paid eight bucks an hour to sit up there and that was that's a lot of money

[18:59] Yeah, even the latter. Yeah. No, I don't know. I wouldn't climb that high

[19:04] But people did and it was quite an interesting boring. You just sit there and watch, but yeah

[19:10] How else are you going to make $8 an hour in those days?

[19:14] You didn't.

[19:15] Exactly.

[19:16] Yeah.

[19:17] So there was one appointment.

[19:18] The appointment of Shelley Shaw as our veteran service officer.

[19:21] There were no claims petitioner or correspondence.

[19:24] Oh, I just want to go back and say the only report from me was we had the 2025

[19:30] per diem report, which lists all of our who's paid and what committees paid.

[19:34] So the next county board meeting will be Monday, March 16th,

[19:39] 9 a.m. at the government center, and that's the last scheduled county board meeting for this board of supervisors.

[19:45] We'll have a election in April and we'll have a new county board.

[19:49] I think we're about eight or nine, possibly eight or nine new board members,

[19:52] so essentially a third of the board can be a new board.

[19:56] So some upcoming things we're looking at expanding the ATV route in the Chateque area.

[20:01] We're going to look, update our recycling ordinance to keep in accordance with the DNR.

[20:09] And that's where we were at. So with that we were done by about 935 was rather short meaning a lot of important stuff but nothing controversial.

[20:19] So here we go. I was asked to do somebody brought up about the gray lakes. And I thought you know what? I did this on the radio show. I thought we just chitchat about the gray lakes because there's five of them.

[20:34] And I ran across a system profile and I've lived here all my life, and I'll tell you this is I didn't know. Maybe you did. I did not know this. So the first thing that astounded me is it's 2,212 miles from the western terminus of Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean.

[20:56] 2,212 miles okay yeah it makes sense yep Lake Superior is 601.1 feet above sea

[21:05] level according to this St. Ray's River is at 577.5 feet which is why you know

[21:13] what we've got to draw down about 24 25 feet which is why we have the

[21:17] sulax then the St. Claire River is two tenths of a foot lower than the St. Mary's

[21:24] river, the Detroit River then is down at 569.2 feet, which is the same depth as the Lake

[21:31] area. So we've went from superior at 601 to Lake Michigan at 575 to Lake St. Clair

[21:38] at 575, yep, 575.3, then we're down to the Detroit River at 589.2. But then we really

[21:49] drop off. Oh yeah. Because then we get to Lake Huron at I believe it's 243.3 feet.

[21:57] It's a healthy downhill slide once you get past Detroit and then you go up

[22:02] up the river on your way to the ocean. Yes. So then you get to Lake St.

[22:10] Lawrence, Lake St. Francis, Lake St. Louis, then you find to get to the Montreal

[22:15] harbor and then it's really downhill you know it's it's 850 miles from the

[22:21] terminus according to this of the Montreal Harbor to the Atlantic Ocean which

[22:26] doesn't seem possible because from Montreal to the ocean isn't all that very

[22:30] far but it the meanders and loops and yeah I'm sure this is probably not a

[22:36] cold miles and this is from the US current Army Corps of Engineers so now we all

[22:41] know the deepest lake is the is Lake Superior. Yep, 1,330 feet. Now, I got this from the Army Corps of Engineers. I also got

[22:52] another one that says, no, no, no, it's 1,332 feet. We'll get you that we'll give you the two feet followed by Lake

[23:00] Michigan 923 feet deep lake here on 750 feet deep but lake eerie is only like 210 feet deep

[23:11] like Ontario according to this is 802 feet deep and i think because of the

[23:18] relatively shallow depth of lake eerie that's why they get so many of those great big huge snowstorms

[23:24] blowing into Cleveland and on the Buffalo and up up that way.

[23:29] Watertown.

[23:30] Yeah.

[23:30] I've also been told that because Lake Erie is so shallow,

[23:35] that is why if they get a hard wind one way or the other,

[23:38] they can actually measure that the depth of the lake

[23:40] will be eight inches deeper on one end of the lake

[23:43] than the others.

[23:43] You've heard that too.

[23:45] Yeah, I've seen following National Weather Services, I do.

[23:51] they have on the because a lot of times the wind will blow really hard from west

[23:55] to east okay so they'll have what they'll issue what they call low water

[24:00] warnings on the on the western end of that lake because it's all pushed up to

[24:06] the other other side okay I know I had some friends acquaintances that that

[24:11] traversed from Lake Superior all over the Atlantic Ocean and they got on one of

[24:15] those and they had a sailboat and I mean they were like going like 30 miles an hour or something.

[24:21] It was just they were just oh they do cruises now all the way up through the rivers and

[24:26] they tell you yeah and I was I was remarked on the radio show with Amber Gansky that I can

[24:32] remember being a young child and the last in the early late 60s early 70s the last cruise closed

[24:40] now and they couldn't keep it open. I remember my dad writing a letter my because my dad wanted

[24:45] wanted to do that. My mom, my mother, my parents were in love with the Great Lakes. We vacationed

[24:52] consistently at Susane Marie. We just loved it. My parents loved it. They'd go there. It

[24:57] was a huge relaxing time. And my dad wanted to tour and they said, well, we're down to our

[25:03] last couple years and the boats not in real good shape. We really don't want to take on

[25:06] any more passengers. And you know, the Edmund Fitzgerald used to be the pride of the lake.

[25:13] It used to host parties on the Ed and Fitzgerald.

[25:16] Sure.

[25:17] Before it went down.

[25:18] Yeah.

[25:18] And that was just 50 years in November.

[25:22] Yeah.

[25:23] So I don't know when we're out of time.

[25:25] We've got a couple minutes.

[25:25] Okay.

[25:26] So just go real briefly.

[25:28] Some facts we've talked about.

[25:29] Lake Superior being the deepest lake.

[25:31] But you do realize that you could take all of the other four lakes, put them in Lake Superior

[25:36] and still have plenty of room.

[25:38] The building of room.

[25:39] That's all big.

[25:40] And that amazing.

[25:41] Well, it's just 60-70 miles from us.

[25:43] Right.

[25:43] And I've heard several times Lake Superior referred to as an inland sea.

[25:49] Yes.

[25:50] Yeah.

[25:50] I was just at a meeting with Wisconsin's Colonies Association, and that there was a professor

[25:55] from UW-B Mass and he said, it is not a lake.

[25:58] No.

[25:59] It is an inland sea.

[26:00] Right.

[26:00] And he also pointed out that when they get gales, it's not like on the Atlantic Ocean because

[26:07] is the Atlantic Ocean has a shorter wave distance,

[26:11] but the salt has to get colder.

[26:16] Where in like superior, it can be warmer

[26:19] and still freeze on the ships, because it's no salt.

[26:22] Okay, there's only one great lake,

[26:25] completely in the United States.

[26:28] Great salt lake.

[26:29] No, Michigan.

[26:31] The great, the Great Lake, yep.

[26:33] Only Michigan, yep.

[26:34] Yeah, Michigan, yep, and you know, people want a tour, all five lakes.

[26:42] That's going to, how many miles you want to drive around all five great lakes?

[26:46] How many miles are you going to find your car?

[26:48] So if you, you said it was 2,212, 2,212 from the western end of Lake Superior to the ocean,

[26:59] but if you want to go all the way, make the, I think there's a great circle, yeah, there

[27:04] is yeah yeah I'm gonna say 4,500 6,500 I was gonna say 55 I should have stuck with

[27:14] my first yep and as far as environmental protection of the Great Lake that

[27:18] is the result of the Ohio Ohio's Kaohoga River fire in June of 69 it put in

[27:24] the Federal Pollution Control Act put in the EPA and I believe it also helped to

[27:29] create the Great Lakes Commission you know all of these things and I believe

[27:33] I believe that was the start of the fact that you cannot pump water out of any of these

[27:37] lakes to go anywhere.

[27:39] You know, as you know, it was brought up in 2025 that some of the southern parts states

[27:44] want a pipeline.

[27:46] They want our water.

[27:48] They can't have it.

[27:49] They can't have it.

[27:50] You know, we can buy it one can at a time.

[27:53] One thing I've always found interesting because I used to live over there.

[27:57] The Fox River that runs from Oshkosh to Green Bay.

[28:01] actually flows from the southern end to the north. Yeah, it's amazing, River, isn't it? No,

[28:09] I also want to talk about the fact that all of the lakes are either derived from an indigenous

[28:15] language or French. So eerie is shortened of the Iroquoisian word, Elyri Honeg, meaning long tailed,

[28:24] Say it again, eerie lohanan, meaning long tailed or raccoon nation.

[28:31] Lake Michigan is from the French spelling of the Ojibbe word Mishikami, big lake.

[28:38] Lake Superior is Gichigumi.

[28:40] Here on is an obsolete French adjective, meaning bristled hair.

[28:47] Negolich, neither of us have to worry about it.

[28:49] Okay? Shipping is still the dominant thing on the lakes or carriers, so it's iron ore,

[28:57] coil, coal, limestone, and then agriculture. Wheat, corn, sorghum, soybeans. Some of

[29:03] those things are steel, scrap metal, iron products, fuel, and chemicals. And finally,

[29:09] the largest fish in the lake would be lake sturgeon and it can weigh 200 pounds.

[29:14] you don't want to get slapped by one of them. I know I was just in the largest

[29:19] and there's lots and lots and lots of wrecks in there. Right. I was just

[29:24] watching about the the gar down in the Everglades how big they get. Now I

[29:32] believe a sturgeon has a sucker mullthrate and that's on the bottom. I don't know.

[29:37] I don't know. But 200 pound fish and you know they're considered like a dinosaur

[29:41] Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting. I mean, it's just fascinating the types

[29:48] of things that are literally within our drive from where we are. Yeah. And I

[29:53] also mentioned I believe isn't the Mackinac Straits at the some of the like

[29:57] the foggiest parts of the U.S.

[30:00] It's funny to say that because we were just talking, I was just talking with my part-time, where's the other day about the bridge. And I am not, I height some fine with bridges, not so much. Somebody sent to me, I think it's maybe a result of this show as we talk about things. A picture from 1958 for the bridge was built in there, the parking lot. Two, I believe it was two, two ferries.

[30:31] going, and it was like a two and a half or three and a half or a weight was the caption

[30:34] at the bottom. That was in 58, which is why the bridge was built.

[30:38] Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think that one, the Machinov bridge on one lane is concrete, and then

[30:48] the other lane is great, so you can see all the way down to the water.

[30:53] Having rode motorcycle, I never rode across the bridge because I was coached. If you're

[30:59] going to ride across that bridge on a motorcycle, you do it on a calm day and you do not ride on the

[31:03] great. Right. Yep. Yep. Under any circumstances, you do not ride on the great. I will not ride across that

[31:10] bridge any day. I don't care if it's calm, windy or otherwise. All right. Thanks, chef. Appreciate it.

[31:18] And we'll look forward to your show with with Shelley. We're going to do it. The veteran service

[31:23] New Veteran Service Office of Barron County, so keep an eye out for that, and we will see

[31:28] you next month.

[31:29] Yes.

[31:29] Very good.

[31:30] With Jeff Frinch, the Barron County Administrator, I'm James Lungard.

[31:33] This is the Barron County Administrator Report on Rice Lake Community Media.

County Administrator Reporrt - Feb 2026

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