[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:01] Call the meeting to order. Please rise and join me in the public meeting.
[0:07] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, any of this is all, with liberty and justice for all.
[0:27] Good afternoon. Welcome everybody.
[0:32] Today is National Milk Chocolate Day, and it is also National Water Park Day.
[0:39] So, combine the two final water part and melt some chocolate.
[0:45] And if you were born on this day and also the way that is, they share a birthday, born in 1929,
[0:52] Jacqueline Kennedy O'Nesis, 1945, a Garfield cartoonist, Jim Davis,
[1:01] and born in 1866, Beatrice, Potter, author of Peter Rabbit,
[1:10] And a couple historic dates, events today, 1828, first the agricultural performance of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's friends.
[1:23] And I wonder how many times that's been re-made.
[1:27] 1851, first photograph of a total solar eclipse taken,
[1:35] 1858, first use of fingerprints as a means of identification.
[1:40] For it in the practice, 2002, I remember this one, 9 coal miners are trapped in a flooded
[1:48] mine in Pennsylvania, and they are rescued after 77 hours underground.
[1:56] 1945, Betty Lou Oliver survives, falling 75 stories in an Empire State building elevator
[2:05] that she was operate.
[2:07] Cable's broke due to a U.S. bomber plane crashing into the building and suffering the cables that held the elevator, and she considered the world record holder of being a survivor of something.
[2:21] And you might want to put this on your calendar on this day in July 28, 261, the 31st predicted passage of Hayley's comment.
[2:36] So, tell me how it is.
[2:42] And with that, we'll move on to our agenda.
[2:45] Can he change his precious position?
[2:47] Anybody?
[2:49] Okay, I don't know.
[2:51] Motion in a second.
[2:53] All of it.
[2:54] All of it.
[2:55] All of it.
[2:55] Post.
[2:56] We have an agenda.
[2:59] Up next, public comments.
[3:02] A lot of people are around.
[3:03] Anybody wish to speak public honest?
[3:04] for
[3:07] more of I needed to sign up to be able to speak here,
[3:10] or this is to bring up issues at this point or not?
[3:14] Absolutely.
[3:14] State your name, and my name is Bony Sabiniak,
[3:18] I'm the one Stanley Rose, okay.
[3:21] And I am here to talk about the people who were elected
[3:26] or chosen to be election judges this coming primary
[3:31] and the general election,
[3:34] and because I have some concerns about it,
[3:36] because the law says that first you must go to the party, you must use the party list that sent you
[3:45] and so that's how they're chosen as from the party list and if you don't use the
[3:52] party list then you go to local party officials and line them and then as a last resource you would
[3:58] go and you would ask the general public to sign up and the reason that is done is because if you
[4:04] the general public and ask them for people, you do not know for sure what party they are.
[4:12] They could say that they are, I don't regret and they could be a Republican, or they could
[4:17] be a Republican and say they could be anything. Or they could go in and they could say that
[4:22] they're non-affiliated. And right now we have the people that are going to be working as election
[4:29] judges in Lake County.
[4:34] They are, they are all of the non-affiliated, are given like what
[4:39] would be considered Republican positions. Some of them have four election judges, so instead
[4:45] of making four Democrats, or two Democrats, two Republicans, they have three Democrats
[4:51] and one Republican, and there are no Republican head judges, and it seems like it's
[5:02] tilted very much in one direction. And so that's why I'm here because I know that the
[5:07] county commissioners have to approve those lists. And I was part of a group in 2020 that
[5:15] So with the State Institute, our county auditor, and the county commissioners for daily
[5:21] values that we're taking place at that time, I'm not saying anybody's doing anything
[5:26] illegal now, I'm just pointing out the fact that we would like things, you know, because
[5:31] the five people that's the other thing, five of the 33 people that are going to be working
[5:39] as either an election judge, the IMF sent a ballot for it, or can be called up to do those
[5:45] jobs, are signed up as being Republicans, but not one of the Republicans that have been
[5:52] either a chair of the Republican Party of Lake County have been long time Republicans
[5:57] or Minnesota GOP who has a list of Republicans who have ever signed up, those five people
[6:05] are no already found in Republican documents.
[6:11] So it just seems like a very ad set of circumstances.
[6:15] And so that's what I'm here to address today.
[6:19] I feel like there were multiple people
[6:22] who signed up to become Republican election judges,
[6:26] and they were not selected.
[6:28] They, one person has always worked as an election judge
[6:31] and she was put in the on-call.
[6:33] And instead of hurt going as an election judge, they put in a not affiliated, and that's at the little red squirrel house, that's that bad bad polling place.
[6:45] So that is my concern, and it's a big concern, and I'd like to have that. I'd rest and I know that it can be the boss of right here.
[7:02] Well, thank you very much for your concerns.
[7:04] We're into something where we definitely want to look into and make sure that everybody
[7:08] feels comfortable with our election system and that we have the right people and the right
[7:12] businesses.
[7:14] Because I mean it really, I don't understand why there are three, three Democrats and one
[7:20] Republican at the Little Red School House.
[7:23] You know, especially when there are other, you know, I know case wants and fear and I know
[7:29] you signed up to
[7:30] She would be happy to work, you know, any place in Lake Columbia, I just found out that I am, and if I want to work in city, I haven't gotten all this stuff yet, but you're working for the city, you're working for the city, but you had signed up for anything. I'm just saying that, you know, I know that there are other people who signed up to do that. And again, Ronnie could address all of that.
[7:50] Absolutely. We appreciate your bringing to our attention. Thank you very much.
[7:54] We still have public comments that anybody else wish to speak today.
[8:04] Tanya Broussik.
[8:06] I'm here representing Operation Volunteers for Veterans today,
[8:09] just to get the county board an update.
[8:12] We have launched our website.
[8:15] So we officially have a website,
[8:18] operationneforv.org.
[8:21] We are switching from Thursday, movie night
[8:24] to Saturday, met name, movies.
[8:26] Again, that's hosted by Operation Volunteers for Veterans at the theater here in two harbors.
[8:34] It's the third Saturday of every month at 2 o'clock.
[8:40] The August movie will be Grumpy Old Men.
[8:44] And veterans get in free to that and then the public tickets offset the veteran cost.
[8:51] I've been working with Matthew at the theater for that.
[8:54] monthly copy for veterans only is at the theater again the first Thursday of every month
[9:01] at 9 o'clock and that's just the chance for veterans to come in and socialize with other
[9:06] veterans. We are working to get some medic care training sessions for veterans in the
[9:14] county hopefully right around medic care sign-up time and then we will also be doing
[9:21] additional ID.news sessions. Last year was focused on getting veterans signed up with their ID.me accounts.
[9:28] This year it'll be talking about what the ID.me blogging can do for them because it's not just for their government benefits.
[9:36] It's for social security, some areas in Minnesota also use that ID.me and so it'll be training them and all of the components that they can log into with that ID.me.
[9:48] And that's kind of where we're at right now, and I'm working with a couple different areas to find us a permanent physical location.
[9:59] So your website is Operation V4V?
[10:05] Yeah.
[10:06] F-O-R.
[10:07] Nope.
[10:08] V4.
[10:08] The number 4.
[10:12] And we will also, and I'm going to be filing a
[10:16] Does business as so we can start using the abbreviation be for me
[10:21] Because that's a lot shorter than volunteers for veterans
[10:25] That'll be filed hopefully next week
[10:30] We'll check it out. I think I'll that's all I have. Thank you
[10:38] I do have one other thing
[10:40] I can bring it up and as again as to do with elections and I don't know how much the county board can do
[10:46] I haven't been talking about the whole house who runs elections and there is a big discrimination,
[10:55] disparity between her and I as to what the law says concerning, concerning what has to be done on
[11:03] election night. The law is currently on the books in Minnesota. In three different places say that
[11:10] that once the balancing is done, once the poles are closed,
[11:16] that the election judges move the box,
[11:19] take the balance out and count them.
[11:21] Now, I don't know how you can count the balance
[11:24] without actually counting them,
[11:27] because she is now saying that the machine does the counting
[11:30] instead of the election judges.
[11:35] And that just changed this last election.
[11:36] The last election, nobody was notified at the time.
[11:39] Nobody was told that the live chains that the law were to remove it, and we were just told
[11:46] that we could not count the ballots, that you just take them off the machine, you just
[11:50] put them in envelope, you see the envelope, and you sign the envelope.
[11:53] To me, I'm not signing anything, if I don't know what it is, but they're saying that the number
[12:00] that comes off of the machine is the number that you say is where the things can.
[12:07] Now, if that's the way the law changes, I don't have any problems.
[12:13] If that's what the law says, I have no problem with it.
[12:15] But the law says that the values will be counted.
[12:19] And additionally, the second law says that when you use, when you use body machines, that
[12:28] as soon as the point is already shut the machine down, you take the box out and you count
[12:33] the values.
[12:34] Now again, I don't know how you count the ballots, how the election does just count the ballots.
[12:40] Unless you count the ballots.
[12:41] I mean, it just, to me, it just makes sense.
[12:45] And, you know, so why didn't you go from years and years of having this exact same law that says we count the ballots?
[12:53] To suddenly, without the law, changing at all, we are now being told, no, you don't know, you no longer need to count the ballots.
[13:04] So, that is a big deal of me, and I've been working with people down the Twin Cities who work on this stuff about this, and they're shocked, they're surprised.
[13:14] And at the same time I learned that in me apples, that's what they do, they don't come about it.
[13:20] And so I said that this woman down on me apples, I said, you've been breaking the law for years.
[13:26] Because the law says, and I wish I were to print it.
[13:31] I wasn't prepared to speak on that topic,
[13:33] but I could send anybody to the two statues.
[13:37] And as soon as I clearly say that,
[13:40] and one place it says,
[13:41] if they're talking and saying,
[13:44] well, the count is actually the number that comes off the machine.
[13:47] Later on, in that same statue, it says,
[13:49] it says the only people that can touch those balance.
[13:53] Are the election judges?
[13:54] So, why would we need to touch the ballots if all we're doing is putting them in an envelope,
[13:59] signing our name that that's how many ballots there are, you know, and we haven't counted them,
[14:04] and then turned them in.
[14:06] So, all of this just raises a little big red flag for a lot of people.
[14:14] Okay. Well, I appreciate that too, and that's something that I'll have to,
[14:19] or we'll have to definitely review and understand what the statute,
[14:23] what the law is saying really different things.
[14:25] And I guess that I talked a little bit a couple times and she definitely
[14:29] sees it one way, you know, and I understand that.
[14:34] I mean, people can look from two different directions and see totally different things.
[14:38] I just didn't understand that I couldn't understand it, and that's my biggest thing.
[14:42] I would like to understand it, you know, compared to what I'm seeing in the law.
[14:47] Absolutely.
[14:48] So thank you.
[14:49] Thank you.
[14:50] Thank you.
[14:51] any other public comments.
[14:56] Thank you for the comments. We're going to move on on our agenda.
[15:01] Next up, we're going to talk about the sawmill, Joe. Don't. We'd like to start us off in the introductions, please.
[15:08] I'll tee it up and come to chair.
[15:12] Sawmill, don, is just southeast of Finland on a little more rain road, kind of precipitated by a phone call from Steve Wilson.
[15:23] I don't know how many years ago but probably more than I remember.
[15:27] So we've been dealing with it for a photo while I've been up to the particular cliff that is pretty spectacular as far as views, inland views, and like views.
[15:42] Matt and I have been there.
[15:44] We've walked the area as foresters looking at even unique characteristics.
[15:49] We've had a meeting with the Lands Committee, and now we're kind of here introducing it to the full board.
[15:59] The will be if we decide to go forward with it.
[16:03] There's some county board action that needs to be taken, so we'll kind of talk about that.
[16:07] And I'll let each one introduce themselves.
[16:10] So, go ahead.
[16:11] I am Amber Bathman, Ningen, I am Northeast Regional Specialist and Minnesota DNR with the Scientific and Naturalaries Program.
[16:20] I'm Calvier Barbel, and I am the Northeast Program Manager for Minnesota Atlanta Trust.
[16:26] I'm Amy Schwartz, I'm General Counsel at the Minnesota Atlanta Trust.
[16:31] And I'm Steve Wilson, along with my wife, Mary Shib, the owner is appropriately in the question that he mentioned.
[16:40] So this afternoon, we like to present to you a project proposal, essentially, for the
[16:49] Sonnell Dome, Scientific and Natural Area.
[16:52] So we're going to present to you kind of what we've been working on where we'd like this
[16:57] project to go give you an overview of the trails and public access that this will provide
[17:07] And what we've been doing and how long we think the whole project will take in its entirety.
[17:15] And then at the end, there would be a very happy to take all of your questions.
[17:21] So here's a map of Somaldome.
[17:26] So we have the handouts for you, if you would, would like one.
[17:34] As you can see, there are, well, the yellow outline, I show the, the, the, the, the,
[17:46] the, um, song no, don't highlands, um, by the diversity site. And within that, um, our is what
[17:54] where our, um, proposed scientific and natural area would be located. And within the scientific
[18:01] in natural area, there are three different land types. There is a private land, C. Wilson,
[18:11] and Mary Shudds, private land. There is tax forfeit land and there is school trust land.
[18:18] And then on the corner of the science vegan natural area is a aquatic management area, which
[18:25] already owned by the DNR. So the, sorry, you can come, come, come, okay, there we go. So yeah,
[18:38] so there were three types, as you can see, or as you can see on your map, three types of
[18:42] land, and we're here to talk to you actually about all three types, since all three
[18:47] will be incorporated into the future SNA.
[18:53] I'd like to let you know why we're interested in it.
[18:55] I'd like to put my face in the end over here.
[18:57] That's what I mean.
[18:59] Thank you.
[19:01] All right.
[19:02] There.
[19:03] That's all right.
[19:04] So why we're interested as the DNR.
[19:07] And then we're going to set a land trust and see if we're interested in this site.
[19:11] Several different reasons.
[19:12] One is how we mentioned the biodiversity site.
[19:16] So in the DNR, we described lands based sometimes on their biodiversity significance.
[19:21] and the site is a high bioresourcey significance.
[19:24] It gets that score from old growth forests that's found in this area
[19:28] to many cliffs and slopes and associated plank communities in the rare species there.
[19:33] It is within the chart stream watershed.
[19:36] It's on no creek right there, on the photograph.
[19:38] And it's also a minimally fragmented as far as ecological growth.
[19:41] It's pretty intact in that a lot of development in this area.
[19:45] It's also recreation destination.
[19:46] There's already rock climbing there.
[19:48] fear, hiking trail goes through, snowing for it's burning, it's beautiful views, people
[19:53] like to visit this place. Even though the ecologically the landscape is not
[19:58] fragmented, it has kind of a looted to the ownership of sort of fragmented. There's lots
[20:03] of different forties and different ownership going on here. We think that combining all
[20:07] of that into one ownership would preserve ecologically but also preserve the public access
[20:12] this site. I can speak personally from the DNR. We love this sort of public
[20:19] private partnerships and stuff that I've been involved in, the partnerships,
[20:23] the projects that have these kinds of projects and partnerships.
[20:26] Typically, the most successful, so this is great in our book, having this sort of group
[20:30] come together and we think it will have lasting public impact to protect this area for the public.
[20:37] It's a little bit more about the scientific and naturally, so we're at a small part going
[20:40] in the DNR, so if you don't know who we are, you're probably in the company, this is right
[20:45] from our website.
[20:46] So what is a scientific and natural area?
[20:48] We are public lands, and I really like this a straight from our website, exceptional places,
[20:54] we're native plants and animals, flourish, we're rare species are protected, and we can know
[21:00] and study Minnesota's fascinating natural features and there's more information you can
[21:03] find on our website.
[21:05] We are governed by statute, so the outdoor recreation act is where you'll find our statutes
[21:10] and then a system rules that can govern what we do.
[21:13] It's the same act that you would find
[21:15] this sort of information about more well-known state parts
[21:18] of land, lakes, state parks, and trails,
[21:21] wildlife management areas.
[21:22] We're all under that direct creation act.
[21:24] And what we tend to focus on, you can go to the next slide,
[21:29] are natural features and protecting those,
[21:32] managing for them, and then making sure they're open to the public,
[21:36] both for our just our enjoyment, education,
[21:38] and also for research.
[21:39] That statute lists the whole list of things that you can designate in S&A4, those things
[21:45] include plant communities, or species of geologic features.
[21:50] We also govern with the kinds of things that you can do on an S&A.
[21:53] We tend to focus on low impact recreation, think of things like hiking, snow-shoing,
[21:58] road-watching wildlife, viewing photography, things like that.
[22:02] So that means typically, we'll put a little asterisk by that typically, we don't allow
[22:06] things that are more extractive or we're taking a lot of infrastructure. Things like motorized
[22:11] recreation, camping, fishing and hunting, things like that. You probably find more like in a
[22:15] state park. However, on this site, we've been thinking about this kind of special and unique,
[22:23] what we would allow on a site. When we designate a scientific and natural area, what I mean by
[22:28] As far as the back room comes together.
[22:30] And it is signed by the Commissioner and there's a lot of things in that document, but it includes the public uses that we will allow and how we will allow them.
[22:38] So even though we typically get set up for an asterisk next to that, don't allow some things, we can allow them through this designation process.
[22:46] So on the site, what we're thinking we would allow is all hunting. It's open to hunting right now. We don't see a reason not to continue that.
[22:53] And in fact, hunting is not just a public use, it is also management tool, very important here in the Northwest, thinking of deer hunting, and making sure managing our deer herds on the North Shore.
[23:04] Also existing on that, we'll mention a few times, a superior hiking trail currently goes through there.
[23:09] And so we would kind of ramp off of those in, that is something we've done before and other
[23:13] North Shore, scientific and natural areas, think of some point on Duluth and as a hiking
[23:17] trail through it, still does, even though it's a mess today, and the existing and trails that come
[23:22] into a planning process we would allow on that site. We know this is a rock-living destination.
[23:27] Again, we're not interested in making that illegal. We would just discover those areas,
[23:38] or we've been
[23:38] work the rock climbing community to allow that in certain areas and bouldering as well.
[23:44] Similarly, I'm going to skip the next one, but good on the picnic and we know picnic
[23:46] happens. In fact, this area has the place called picnic rock. We want to make sure that if you are
[23:51] enjoying the area on the trail, hot rock climbing that it is allowed, of course, you're going to have
[23:57] grab some lunch for your picnic lunch with you. And we're going to propose to keep the same rules
[24:02] of the superior hiking trail. Currently, has on the land and their rules throughout the trail are
[24:07] that dogs are allowed on the older we would keep up with the trails, so I think that's my
[24:12] section.
[24:13] All right.
[24:15] Great.
[24:15] I'm going to take over and talk a little bit more about the three different land types
[24:19] that are in this complex that we're proposing to build.
[24:23] There's three sets of land types and each one has a different set of laws.
[24:27] So the first one I'm going to talk about is the Shed Wilson property, which is owned
[24:31] by Steve Wilson and his wife Mary Shed, that's the orange parcel on the map here.
[24:38] And the Minnesota land trust recently purchased a conservation easement from Stephen Mary just hot off the press at the very end of June.
[24:47] So Stephen Mary is still on the property, but we do have conservation easement restrictions on the property.
[24:52] And we used state grant money to do this cold water fisheries program, which helps protect our cold water streams along in our shore.
[25:01] This is a picture from the top of what I have heard is called Mary's Mountain.
[25:07] Mary's Sheds Mountain, so you can see some of the really incredible views from this property.
[25:14] And in many ways, the private land is sort of the easiest, and Stephen Mary also made it very easy to work on this land with them.
[25:23] So I'll turn to the tax forfeit land, so that's where the county is more involved, obviously
[25:28] tax forfeit land is managed by the county.
[25:31] So the two parcels that are in green with the arrows are the tax forfeit land.
[25:35] And I want to point out kind of that diagonal boundary that's on the parcel to the east.
[25:45] When we met with the Lake County staff and commissioners in January,
[25:49] we talked about kind of carving that part out, south of there, for land management, like
[25:54] County thought it would be easier for them to manage the land to the south if we followed
[25:58] kind of a ridge. So that's why that particular boundary isn't squared off, and this is just
[26:03] an approximation for now, but we could go out with a surveyor and get that exact, if the project moves
[26:09] forward. You all probably know much more about tax-forfeit lands than I do, but the little bit that I know
[26:16] is that tax forfeit lands can be sold directly to a private individual of a party through the land spill.
[26:23] Usually it would go to an auction, but the legislature can authorize direct sales,
[26:28] and the DNR does a big bill every year where they gather parcels from the counties,
[26:33] and then they have other land parcels that they included in that bill.
[26:37] So if this project goes forward, we would propose that the tax forfeit land,
[26:43] shown on this map would go in the 2027 Lansville, which would be in January of 2027.
[26:50] And this is the just reference to this year's Lansville.
[26:56] I'm going to talk about school trust land briefly, which is complicated.
[26:59] Again, many of you probably know more about school trust land than I do, but when Minnesota
[27:04] became a state, the federal government set aside section 16 and 36 of every township
[27:10] for the benefit of the schools in the state of Minnesota.
[27:13] Many of those sections have been sold off, but they're still about two and a half million acres of school trust land.
[27:22] Back to this for a second.
[27:24] So the middle section that's yellow on your map is school trust land.
[27:28] And of all the laws governing land school trust land is the most restrictive and in some ways the most complicated.
[27:36] So the state of Minnesota cannot sell that land directly to any party they have to go through an option process
[27:42] or there are other tools. And in this, it's since the DNR would be willing to pursue
[27:47] condemnation. And so they basically kind of condemn the school trust status and convert it
[27:53] to regular state land. They pay the school trust, the permanent fund, the appraised amount,
[27:59] and that changes the designation. I give that mercy rate. Okay.
[28:06] Great. The last thing I want to
[28:07] touch on before I hand it back is payment in lieu of taxes. So another concept I'm sure all the
[28:13] measures are familiar with. We did ask the DNR to give us an estimate for the tax
[28:18] forfeit land, what the payment in lieu of taxes would be, and what the rate would be.
[28:23] So one of the advantages of having a partner involved is if we are able to purchase the
[28:28] tax forfeit land and then turn it over to the DNR, it would be at that highest-piltrate that
[28:33] acquired land status. And so the current estimate is about $2,700 a year for that-the-piltz
[28:41] And again, just for the tax forfeit land, that doesn't include the school trust land or the private land if that were to be part of the complex.
[28:49] And those numbers would change a little bit, but that classification should stay the same.
[28:55] So, I'll pause there and turn it over to Kathy.
[28:59] Right, so one of the really special parts of this project is access that it provides.
[29:06] So, some of them obviously is a part of this appear hiking trail, but Mary's Mountain is not.
[29:13] And while some of them you can see valley to the west of this appear hiking trail, Mary's Mountain, as you saw in the previous picture, you can see Lake Superior and all of its glory.
[29:27] So we would work with Lake County and we actually have gone out and that's small dotted line
[29:35] at the north part of what we propose as the SNA is where we want to determine what the best
[29:45] views were the easiest way to get through the area and then back down off of Mary's mountain.
[29:50] So, it would provide the public with another place on a superior hiker hiking trail to see a great view of...
[30:00] And just a nice little story, all off of, you know, one of the nicest trails in the state.
[30:10] Additionally, part of Stephen Mary's hope with their easement and providing the land for an SNA is giving the county access to, to manage all of the tax-war filth land that lives.
[30:29] is to the east of the property or the south east of the property that currently is inaccessible
[30:37] right now for the county for management purposes. So with the road that's even very
[30:43] proposed, allowing through their property to allow the county access, then the county can
[30:50] all of this export that we had, that's, that's to the Southeast, and it's approximately 700
[30:58] acres that would be then accessible for the county foresters to go in and do management activities.
[31:13] I will wrap up here quick with some timeline and milestones. So this slide shows what is completed
[31:19] to date starting with the meeting we had in January with Lake County staff and a few commissioners.
[31:24] We've also worked through our board and through some of the DNR processes and the Minnesota Land Trust is also secured a private donation to help with the acquisition of the tax forefit land.
[31:39] This slide shows where we are today with the yellow being where we are right here in this moment.
[31:44] Just starting the process talking with the full board about this project.
[31:48] If it were to go forward, we would start working on the details of the acquisition in the fall and winter.
[31:54] The lands bill, the DNR would work on the process to condemn the property,
[32:00] or condemn the school trust land, and we would continue working through the process.
[32:05] As Amber Beth mentioned, there's a formal designation process in order that the commissioner signs where they talk about all the uses that would be allowed in the SNA.
[32:13] And so my estimation for when this would all be complete is 2030, so save the date for a giant ribbon cutting party.
[32:21] So it would take a while, but it's a lot of moving pieces with, you know, three different land types and different laws and processes.
[32:29] But we're very excited to be presenting this to you today, and then Steve Wilson, I don't know if you want to share anything.
[32:36] Sure, first, this is probably out of order, Commissioner Sweet, but I'm on offer motion to the board that in the future you've recognized Dark Shop with it.
[32:48] It's no doubt that-
[32:49] With John.
[32:54] Yeah, the mood is to the beginnings of this project.
[32:57] It's actually a little laugh of it.
[33:01] We have to go back 46 years.
[33:03] It's an 1980.
[33:05] When Mary and I were just, Christy Mary,
[33:07] we just bought property in Isabella where we lived now.
[33:10] And we're planning to build on it.
[33:12] And we got wind of this auction of parcels in Lake County.
[33:15] and we have to look at the map and we saw this person down here and we looked at the top
[33:20] of the map and, wow, that's pretty interesting. You know, we could see it was the top one
[33:26] of the mountains. Looks like it had a cliff. So we took a day off and came down and made the
[33:33] rather arduous trip up the mountain and doing so we were going through some very interesting
[33:38] plant communities like up to an old roof, white cedar, which is rare across the state, even
[33:45] in the north shore where it's most common, is not common at all. And so we're impressed by that.
[33:50] But then when we got to the top of the mountain, we were the standing on the precipice of a cliff
[33:55] and had this spectacular view up and down the shore of Lake Superior. And we just looked at each other
[34:02] You think, oh, and I'm thinking, yeah, this does not belong in private ownership.
[34:10] Somebody with enough money would eventually come along and push your road up to the top
[34:14] and build a mega mansion up there, and that'll be ruined the view for everybody else from
[34:19] down below, but the nine access to the public, to what we were experiencing that moment, which
[34:25] was pretty special.
[34:28] And so, life and everything, we didn't have any plans.
[34:31] I mean, I mean, I heard a scientific and astral program out of you thinking to exist it down.
[34:36] And we didn't know how this might be predictable.
[34:39] We went to the auction and we raised, you know, offered a bit of a $100
[34:45] little minimum.
[34:45] And it was ours when we walked out of there, kind of stunned.
[34:48] What have we just done?
[34:50] And then life intervenes, fast forward,
[34:55] 35 years.
[34:57] And the county came knocking on our door and asked about it and he's going to cross
[35:00] are private breed to access that land lock, counting land that you didn't have access to.
[35:06] And so a discussion is due, there's a under Tom Martinson,
[35:11] and you know the stars
[35:12] didn't in the line.
[35:13] And so it kind of got set aside.
[35:16] And then fast forward another ten years and brings this close to this moment.
[35:22] And the stars seem to be a line.
[35:24] And I think what's happened is the interest of the various landowners who are lying.
[35:28] From our standpoint, we've been able to protect the native high quality native plant
[35:33] communities already through the assistance in a sort of land trust, and because of the access
[35:42] that we're building into the easement, the public is going to have, well, number one, there's
[35:47] a parking lot that was allowed for native staff, it's on even better.
[35:58] Here is the easement right here that was built in the easement.
[36:02] I mean, the road easement that was built in our concentration easement.
[36:06] And the county is identified this narrow sliver of county land here, which isn't really
[36:10] good for anything else, to put a parking lot right there, which would be ideal.
[36:15] And then the public could access this.
[36:17] And then, I think Joe could be build up here and we've allowed for this hiking trail on our land through the Eastmond.
[36:28] So, the other objective is that ours besides the Planned Community Protection, the public access would come to be if this project moves forward.
[36:41] Kathy talked about Minnesota mantras, interest, the county interest have been alluded to.
[36:46] You're in cash and hand for parcels of our engineering in cash, not out of the PLT, which would continue.
[36:53] I'll leave you to have the sale price to the county budget, which would be very helpful.
[36:58] The access to all these county land down here for forced management that you don't have now,
[37:02] the ability to sustainably manage those for forest products, and it comes to the county.
[37:10] And then the natural area, amenity, I like to call this, which Lake County residents
[37:16] will be able to enjoy, but also visitors from all sides of the area, which this is going
[37:21] to be in a tract.
[37:23] You know, people are going to put this on there to visit this when they come up to North Shore,
[37:28] So that's going to be just a benefit of the way it comes.
[37:31] And then I remember Beth talked about, you know, all the scientific and actuary, and just a line. And I can't tell you how unusual this is.
[37:40] For these multi-honorship landscapes, scale projects, I used to be a member of best job for 22 years, before she so ably took it over.
[37:49] And I tried several of these type landscapes scale, multi-honorship projects. One I worked in for over 10 years, and never got any of them to the finish line.
[37:59] So, this is pretty remarkable that this project has gotten as far as, cautiously, not
[38:06] kind of wood, looking good for a year out now.
[38:10] I want to thank the county for their support to this point, especially the County Forestry
[38:18] Department, in my position I had the opportunity to work with County Land Forest
[38:23] department's cross and northern part of the state. And Lake County's department is second
[38:30] and on in terms of professionalism, accessibility to the public, open-mindedness and just
[38:37] getting the job done. So, cool those to you on your department. That's been great to work
[38:43] with you. I hope the next time we meet here, there'll be a vote to approve this project and move
[38:50] forward. I hope that's not too far down the road because Mary and I don't have too many
[38:56] fast forward. It's left enough. Especially 35 years or 10 years or given the last year,
[39:02] I'm not even sure I want to coach in terms of years. If you could meet at that timeline,
[39:08] a little bit Amy would be great. So I look forward to coming back for that meeting and thank you for
[39:14] hearing now.
[39:24] Here are presentation. Question two reports.
[39:29] The one question I had on that last
[39:30] that we have on our sheet here, next there. What is the blue destination on there?
[39:41] So the land that's in blue is owned by the state of Minnesota and it's a aquatic management
[39:46] area. I never recognize the acronym. Yeah. So I think there's trout stream fishing a lot
[39:54] on the corridor and then they manage that area.
[39:56] It's from the peak.
[39:57] This is the doesn't it?
[39:59] Yeah.
[39:59] Fisheries manage it.
[40:02] So it wouldn't be part of the SNA because it's managed by different parts of the DNR.
[40:07] But we wanted to show it as kind of part of the whole complex.
[40:11] Isn't it the yellow light all the way around?
[40:14] That doesn't make the...
[40:17] Hey, for me I'm trying.
[40:19] It's the biodiversity site.
[40:20] So our biological survey, when they're out surveying,
[40:24] the biology, when instead of creating these areas,
[40:28] it's just a map that doesn't, not doesn't, excuse me,
[40:31] denote sites of high outstanding or moderate biodiversity,
[40:35] so the difference is that the high biodiversity
[40:38] is in the clicking statewide.
[40:42] It's something you can watch later.
[40:49] I mentioned that yesterday, I had never heard 140 mentioned
[40:52] this, but one hour or another, other ones in the area,
[40:56] And I've got some materials I've been in many wants to show is a thing that I battle
[40:59] all the way to things on our works like, too.
[41:01] Yeah, Lake County itself has three scientific natural areas, the closest one to here
[41:05] would be Ayolos Beach between us, Laura Claythouse and Newspirate Ball State Park, ten acres
[41:11] like, probably been there, driven by, might not even know how to do this, I didn't get
[41:15] it.
[41:16] So when
[41:24] you ever stay away, can we go?
[41:25] How do 170 statewide?
[41:29] Very well.
[41:32] Normally, I'm not big fan of all of this stuff, you know, but this is a one project that I can get behind.
[41:39] The discussions we've had that certainly sold the significance of this area and why it should be preserved for the public.
[41:47] And I do appreciate you dubbing off that corner and leaving that in the counties.
[41:54] It's a jurisdiction for managing,
[41:59] I figured I was going to have to screen that several
[42:01] times before we got to the approval part and I appreciate the fact that it's already
[42:06] documented there.
[42:13] Well, thank you very much.
[42:14] Appreciate you taking the time.
[42:16] Let's just do us a little bit more work ahead.
[42:21] Thank you for having us.
[42:23] All right.
[42:35] and you'll update the learner session.
[42:38] Break your arm.
[42:39] Here's running board.
[42:40] I don't know if I'll break it.
[42:43] You're going to be wanting the next copy of Bible.
[42:48] There we have that doesn't have one.
[42:50] I don't know if I'll break it.
[42:51] I'm going to try to tell you what it's like.
[42:54] It's like a movie scene.
[42:59] You can do it.
[43:00] You can do it.
[43:01] Do you need one for record for record for record for the world?
[43:08] I don't know if this is going to be as interesting as looking at statistics of sales and foreclosures and stuff like that.
[43:17] Take a quick run through trying to take care of that kind of stuff.
[43:23] This is basically a continuing learning of statistics and analysis of the assessment process, but basically since I think about 20, 2010 we started a lot of it.
[43:36] It's 2015, whatever fits into
[43:41] the formatting on different pages.
[43:43] We cut stuff off from 10 to 16 years.
[43:46] But the first stop, which is going to be an section one and an A letter A, I just
[43:53] call it, this is our most recent sales study ratio telling you what our median sales ratio
[44:00] was for each jurisdiction from the county, including the county overall.
[44:04] They'll all been highlighted in yellow.
[44:06] I'll see if you can draw rate to the main focus of this past year sales study.
[44:12] We shoot for 97% meaning the typical sale of 100,000 out of property will have assessed at 97,000 dollars.
[44:21] It's considered the sales ratio.
[44:23] That's our goal.
[44:24] Obviously we can never hit 97 right on the nose.
[44:28] Sometimes when you start forcing those numbers, you actually occurred to your assessments.
[44:32] So we try to stick with it a percent or two of the 96 or 7 percent guideline.
[44:37] We have, we'll be several years history, I believe that is 2015 all the way back to 2010.
[44:44] There are 2020, 25 back to 2010.
[44:47] Every bit of data I could get on the sales ratio is included in this.
[44:50] This is the only one we don't cut in the out-on.
[44:56] We also have our state, historical state.
[45:00] We have more of a necessary equalization reports, and as I said every year, this is basically the Department of Revenue's report card, and how all of the assessors are doing, they review tons of different topics.
[45:10] They give us the areas that we need to follow up on areas of concern, sometimes you can get kudos in an report.
[45:18] We've actually trimmed it down from three to two pages.
[45:22] We've said a lot of follow-up concerns and issues,
[45:25] and we've managed for the last several years to get a lot of that stuff brought into compliance,
[45:29] and make a lot of improvements on it.
[45:34] And if when you go to see, you get to see that this is,
[45:37] you know, just a ton of data on this statistics,
[45:41] running with the average value.
[45:42] And when you see the value, it's $6 billion.
[45:44] a lot of people say, well, I have a $3 billion dollar, county will have a $3 billion
[45:48] dollar for the taxable. I put it all into one and they break them out separately. So when
[45:54] you look at all of the exact property, which is about 80% of the county's value, we're over
[45:58] $6 billion dollars, and that includes boundary waters and everything like that. And it runs
[46:03] all the way across, the EMB changes, you know, the county taxable market, county, the new
[46:08] construction, new construction changes, tracking to see that some of it kind of fades away
[46:14] with long history and kind of becomes, you know, just walk as a way for us in the data.
[46:20] But the big thing is that we've had a lot more instruction of the last 10 years when I first
[46:24] started.
[46:26] Sometimes, it's up and down, but the new construction has been a really nice adder, additive
[46:30] to the county's tax base,
[46:35] and keep going back to my directions.
[46:43] If you have questions about different sections that we go, let me know on up for Fisher's
[46:51] stay.
[46:51] We have the pie chart showing complete counties values by property type, running through
[46:58] from agricultural land to bank land, seasonal residential, residential, commercial industrial
[47:03] is out, and then the second pie chart will be running taxable market value sets, just the
[47:12] taxable, the other is total value within the county, and we'll see if in a small agricultural
[47:17] community.
[47:18] But bacon land, 8.4% seasonal, residential, commercial industrial,
[47:34] inside joke, you're actually
[47:35] sorry about that.
[47:36] Oh no, no, we were looking at some wall records and we came across the 1800s, so
[47:44] 1886 Board of Appeal and Equalization changed the rate at which cows were tats.
[47:51] These are tats, cows.
[47:54] That's what we took out.
[47:55] Were they bolted down there?
[47:57] Oh, they're sats.
[47:58] They have a separate tats.
[47:59] They have come in and open up your drawers.
[48:01] They look at your silverware.
[48:03] They look at every thing.
[48:04] They have personal properties of part of the adult tats.
[48:07] Now it's taboo to pull this on the drawer.
[48:11] Okay.
[48:12] And then we go to the Kelli White sales statistic, the big thing that I draw out of the sales
[48:16] statistics is we're just now getting back to the pre-COVID sales level.
[48:22] Right after COVID went a big spike, I mean almost doubling the number sales.
[48:27] The overall good versus not good are the qualifying sales, the state about the same, about
[48:33] two thirds of the sales in the county are considered arm slip transactions and good
[48:37] for the sales study, about a third generally followed side of that, based on multiple criteria,
[48:43] which we include later on in Section 2, but the sales theaters in the Section F, and
[48:49] it breaks out all the sales and the sales that are what they're rejected for and the terminology
[48:56] and the transaction from relative sales to government sales to personal presales.
[49:01] And then the end, which is last piece of data, which is actually kind of the mixed bag for
[49:08] closures, are up a little bit.
[49:11] We had quite a bit back in 2008, before I was here, which was typical throughout the state.
[49:16] We ran through some later on COVID, and then they dropped off from back to about 5, 6, 4,
[49:20] closure, which is not bad, but it's never going to see your top lot for closures.
[49:32] And then the second section, the book, second chapter, is going to be our office routines,
[49:39] which are, you know, sales studies, the big thing that they just got, their first sales
[49:43] study report come out for this coming year, which doesn't end in a file, September 30th, but
[49:49] they're starting to track the sales, they're starting to put the other ratios, which
[49:52] are not a data level, you could idea what's happening.
[49:55] But we are still being surprised by the listings that we're seeing compared to our assessment,
[50:01] especially when you're talking about water property and we've always been aware that
[50:05] view property has a premium but view properties now are really getting hard to deal
[50:11] with because some of the spectacular things we're seeing. We've seen some waterfalls on a
[50:16] sale, a water sale, my press camp road, which was a year and a half ago, but we were on a
[50:20] where of it and the 38th of person sold from about $400,000. It looks like it was very
[50:26] up throughout the whole thing. We're seeing more and more bad. So our job as far as assessing
[50:32] is getting a little harder because we have to spend more time going out. We actually go farther
[50:36] foot now on land sails as opposed to just looking at everything. We're not land sails but bacon
[50:41] land, parcels, especially when there's a water attribute or if there's a believed view on the property,
[50:48] we actually walk a lot of those parcels which takes a lot more time.
[50:56] Then the sails,
[50:59] Right here at the redepth, I just went through the good versus the bad sales.
[51:03] There's about eight to ten pages of things that we have to go through to verify whether or not we believe the sale is a good sale for the study or not.
[51:12] And the Department of Redu has to agree with us.
[51:15] We've heard people in the past say that we throw certain ones out.
[51:18] We keep certain ones for different reasons.
[51:20] It's a joint decision between us and the Department of Redu and when you realize that we have 400 sales a year.
[51:26] You know, had it in County of 6,000, and every jurisdiction goes through everyone and everyone's
[51:33] verified by the Department of Regents, as well.
[51:38] And I think this is duplicate, yeah, and I've got duplicates of some of the data that I always
[51:42] put the most recent state board of equalization report, which is, again, our report card always
[51:50] goes into the officer teams, because that's an annual thing that we go through.
[51:54] And then we go to just the routines of the office from the assessor calendar.
[51:58] of these are like eight of them.
[52:00] Oh, pardon?
[52:01] Yep.
[52:02] I just hit K.
[52:03] Thank you.
[52:04] So we go through the assessor calendar, which the nice thing about it is I don't
[52:08] have to look this up a lot of the stuff.
[52:10] Who you have notifications on it and tickler files sent to us.
[52:15] But kind of a busy, busy calendar, luckily I have Jan
[52:19] helped us out a lot.
[52:21] And it goes to the appraiser, which appraisers really
[52:24] set people, jumps from one thing for another, but there's
[52:26] Also things that happen year-round sessions, check out ERV's and check you out.
[52:30] I'm calling on sales to confirm sales, but that would be all that we go through.
[52:36] And M runs into our administrative assistant cycle, our work cycle, which we've managed over the last
[52:42] couple of years with some efficiencies that we've changed and some work procedures we've actually
[52:48] been able to merge through office jobs into one position. So this gets pretty busy as well,
[52:54] but we got very lucky to be hired from that and she's handled that very well.
[53:00] And then when
[53:00] go to chapter 3.
[53:05] It's basically what's going on right now and it's an introduction of the
[53:10] office staff which we haven't had any additions in the past year. So it's going to be
[53:15] cocked from previous year. Current work and process outside of the normal everyday work that
[53:21] is our statutory requirement. The big thing is is right now we've had a focus on the recent
[53:28] There's a fair amount of paperwork to be done and we're about halfway through with it.
[53:32] Rhinny is going to get involved in it soon, like you and we're going to be hopefully sending
[53:38] up the applications shortly to the affected people and hopefully we're going to get a good
[53:42] response from someone I just ran into so many other day that didn't know who I was, that was asking
[53:48] if I'd heard anything about what's going to happen with the fire they lost their entire property
[53:53] No clue who I wasn't on like really you don't know who I am and so if there's there's some people are waiting on
[53:59] the seal we're gonna be doing
[54:02] The big thing is those is putting together. There's a put in some disaster relief qualification information
[54:07] Things that we have to look for but and the qualifying factors are putting here as well, which
[54:13] Moral has as a part of your packet for the resolution
[54:16] But if you're still showing what we have to verify the fact that that our
[54:20] residents that were affected by the fire, doing the qualified for assistance from the state.
[54:28] And then just basic data again, the commitment, as we get to,
[54:32] P, the commissioner districts in the course finding the praiser when we are a praiser.
[54:37] We are down one person, so I have the pleasure of joining the assessor staff for a while,
[54:43] so I'll be in charge of calls and issues and concerns in some of the open jurisdictions.
[54:49] And then the fun thing is take a percent changes, if you notice, overall, the county would
[54:55] have 8.1% last year, but then we have Beaver Bay, 1.23.8% UT1, because up nearly 20%, different
[55:05] areas are moving at different places for different reasons.
[55:10] It's been kind of fun, but it's hard to always try to identify what it is and we believe
[55:15] that are affecting that so we can stand top of it for the future.
[55:19] But this shows last years, and then there's a history behind, after we look at the
[55:25] ratios, the history of the ratios, which I believe this is all repeat, but as
[55:30] So we get both from there to ask, that is a 10-year history of their overall ratios.
[55:39] And then we end up with just a prisoner of jurisdictions and contact information, quite
[55:49] sure you all know how to get a whole different prisoner of your areas, but this just puts
[55:52] it out.
[55:53] I notice from when you look at it at any time, at the wish.
[55:57] Quick run through, but it's, same thing you look at every year.
[56:00] just add a year's with the data and then we get to go back and compare it to the previous year
[56:03] which is kind of fun to do sometimes.
[56:10] And if you're having problems sleeping because of the
[56:12] heat or anything, if you want to read one whole section, it will take care of that point.
[56:16] From questions
[56:28] are great.
[56:33] And it was, yeah, they're very first one, one, one, eight.
[56:37] Yep, and I'm going to tell you a couple of things to do on that.
[56:41] And we're going to organize number two and I think that's money.
[56:46] What do you want to know about those person?
[56:49] It means me and versus what the mean ratio,
[56:54] mean ratio, mean ratio, the ingredient ratio,
[56:55] COD, and what does that mean?
[56:59] Yeah, well first off, I don't get the top.
[57:03] That's a new P.L.
[57:05] So the mean ratio means average.
[57:08] So rather than everything in the assessor world
[57:11] median, which is the midpoint. So if you have 11 sales and can you rank them by their sales
[57:18] ratio from high low, the sixth sale would be the median sale. So medianism midpoint mean
[57:26] his average. Departant revenue doesn't use average because it can be skewed easily. They want
[57:32] the midpoint revenue and also when you get rid of outliers which they do automatically.
[57:35] We don't determine what they considered being outlier. So those are the ratios based
[57:40] in the median, the aggregate ratio,
[57:43] and I forgot to definition that I think it is the,
[57:47] it's a combination of the two.
[57:49] So you get to, you get any type of major outlier,
[57:52] gets kind of broken down into more common.
[57:54] COD is coefficient of coefficient of dispersion.
[58:01] And the smaller, or the closer that is to 100,
[58:05] the higher quality of your assessment is.
[58:07] It measures and says, yes, we know that your midpoint
[58:09] is 97%.
[58:11] And we know that the world operates in a bell curve.
[58:14] How big is each one of the average deviations?
[58:18] Because you're supposed to have like 3%
[58:19] that are three average deviations within 85% in a bell curve.
[58:24] So that tells you your accuracy,
[58:26] the closer that it is to 100,
[58:28] if the number is 100, yes.
[58:30] The smaller deviation you have between each one
[58:34] of the ratios, or each one of the sales.
[58:37] PRV is priced really to differential and the higher the number as you get over a hundred
[58:43] it means you're over assessing lower valued properties compared to higher value properties.
[58:48] So they like to see whether or not your assessment levels progressive or regressive
[58:51] on higher higher level properties versus low value properties.
[58:55] They want to make sure that everyone's getting assessed equally in those different levels
[59:02] of all of our values and then the sale count and the trend of sale count.
[59:09] So what you'd be looking at and there's three different categories you'll look at.
[59:13] 91 is a residential, we don't do much commercial and this is one of enough sales, but
[59:17] you'll look at the very first one.
[59:20] It just says 91 and there's 95.59 is the meme, 97.18 is the median.
[59:25] 91 is the overall. And then below that 91 n is that 91 no water influence, so that's
[59:33] off water properties. And again, we're 95.97 for the mean. And 97.3, 6 for the medium. And then 91
[59:42] W is on water. And as you notice, we're 91.9%. But there's only 6 sales on water versus 28
[59:50] off water in 34, and the reason why it'll be at 91% is because the push in the
[59:55] further was going to mess up the CONIC. So we sometimes balance
[1:00:02] We're looking at the overalls of what the Department of Revenue really looks at, but they also want to look at the differences between on and off water. And we make sure that as we're making those changes, that we're not affecting the quality of assessment, just to get the numbers in line. We're looking at balancing of both. We do this with 10 jurisdictions for on and off water, so 30 different calculations. I'm trying to balance that out, but that's what all those different individuals are doing.
[1:00:30] I mean, media and price really have differential coefficient deviation.
[1:00:46] We often do Senate, certainly couldn't explain what is that,
[1:00:50] but at least have my general idea of what is said.
[1:00:52] Yeah, well, price rate difference was the price and property,
[1:00:55] what's the differential and your assessment model?
[1:00:57] That's the best way to look at that.
[1:00:59] The higher you go, what you get worse with your assessment or better
[1:01:02] with the assessment or the lower you go.
[1:01:05] And a regressive assessment, we consider you are over assessing
[1:01:10] lower value properties versus higher value properties and then I say
[1:01:15] if I forget exactly what the average value is I used to think that might be in one
[1:01:20] of the cell study was in an average of the mean and the mean. I think that's what it
[1:01:27] feels like I'm not going to say for sure because I think that's the time they didn't come up.
[1:01:32] to take a moment.
[1:01:33] OK.
[1:01:34] It's missing a little bit.
[1:01:35] It's called.
[1:01:36] And my, where is, still pressure steady, quite
[1:01:42] curried might be, and you just got to click the little eye
[1:01:46] in the circle where I don't know what exactly
[1:01:47] would that be?
[1:01:48] The way to mean, and it is, in 2H, it's got to be medium to
[1:01:54] medium to medium to medium to range.
[1:01:56] I have an absolute deviation, quite efficient
[1:02:00] of dispersion and the posterior differential and the way to mean some of your crazy values
[1:02:05] provided by some of the sales prices.
[1:02:09] I don't think that is what I'm talking about.
[1:02:10] I might not calculate that we calculate our earnings and our COE's.
[1:02:17] But that will give you the absolute definitions of all to mathematical formulas.
[1:02:24] Price-rated differential provided by the way of being statistics has a slight bias upward.
[1:02:29] press with a differential above 1.0, 310 in the case of assessment, with a rational request to the press with the difference of 0.90 in the case of assessment,
[1:02:40] quote, see if the question is set for the rest of the.
[1:02:44] Mr. Chair, yes, please.
[1:02:47] What?
[1:02:48] Great.
[1:02:48] What numbers on this stage are the same core of equalization number one?
[1:02:51] What numbers do you enter when you're entering?
[1:02:55] Are these generated numbers, or do you actually, you don't type all these?
[1:02:59] No, this is a document in the Department of Representatives.
[1:03:01] This is their statistical philosophy we enter to get to this document.
[1:03:06] Is it a handful of numbers or is it a page?
[1:03:10] Our numbers at the end of every, well, twice a year we have what they call prism reports.
[1:03:15] Riding with prism stand for, based on the legislature.
[1:03:21] Exactly.
[1:03:22] It's a state reporting that we do an initial report and basically, you know, they've got all
[1:03:29] and the computer, I just push the buttons to tell me information, we transmit the data
[1:03:32] of the states related generates everything up and they take all this data downloaded and
[1:03:38] sift through it and this is very small amount of data, compared to what they sift through
[1:03:43] it.
[1:03:43] Yes.
[1:03:44] So I was going through all this, I don't know if you're going to do it in your office,
[1:03:47] this is your paper.
[1:03:48] It's like, whoa, whoa.
[1:03:49] Nope, this is all pulled out of the apartment rather than they are.
[1:03:53] We do our, we do the same kind of work on our own, we do it up and let some more work
[1:03:57] right, a lot of them they do.
[1:03:59] Because I mean, they do sometimes make mistakes.
[1:04:09] Other questions?
[1:04:13] Well, thank you Greg.
[1:04:14] I appreciate all this information.
[1:04:16] It's always good to look at.
[1:04:18] So is there a cause to me that anybody in the reasons why I would or wouldn't leave?
[1:04:26] And I think we got enough.
[1:04:27] We have to take it.
[1:04:28] So you can bring whiskey.
[1:04:30] About 10.
[1:04:31] Where do you request one of them?
[1:04:44] I'm going to go home with the memory of this puppy.
[1:04:50] There will be a quiz.
[1:04:54] The mystery of the next.
[1:04:55] All right, just a brief update on the fire, warns, contemplate that we don't hear
[1:05:05] but interestingly enough, we're just changing the zones that we speak, because
[1:05:11] think of the ready set, the ready's evacuations zones.
[1:05:14] So we, on Sunday, we made changes, open up the firmer, we'll essentially all look one zone
[1:05:22] from go to set, and all of our set zones from set to ready. We had one area left and go,
[1:05:30] which was right up by the start of where the campfire was at. And St. Louis County had two
[1:05:35] adjoining areas that were in ghost houses, as well. Those properties all got access from the
[1:05:42] cloquet line, which we've all heard about the number of times, which starts and St. Louis County
[1:05:47] goes through Lake County and goes back into these areas that they had in the evacuation of the
[1:05:52] Now, today, I assume based on conversations with all the folks working on the fire, seeing
[1:05:58] those coming on and moving their areas to set that were off the cocaine line.
[1:06:04] We had a hard stop on the closure on the cocaine line road at the Cedar Lake Bowen Access.
[1:06:12] So, them changing that, precipitated us having to get some messaging out and change it.
[1:06:17] So, we actually, with our last area that was in goal evacuation status, we cut that in half
[1:06:24] and allowed the cold K line to be opened and we didn't have any property owners or
[1:06:29] cabin owners that were affected by that, it was more just a coordination thing.
[1:06:33] So actually had three o'clock, they were doing that, they started meeting into, but warm back
[1:06:40] didn't go too, because I couldn't help with that, but anyway, just a recent change on that,
[1:06:46] So we're at, you know, set status, the four services making changes on the boundary waters,
[1:06:55] status.
[1:06:56] And so we're actually working with them on that because I think for the first time, as we're
[1:07:01] going through this process and they're closing the boundary waters, we actually changed our
[1:07:06] evacuation zones in the Bongo Arts to match that.
[1:07:09] So as they move to remove part of that evacuation status, we have to match the long-term
[1:07:16] that they magically drew through the boundary waters.
[1:07:18] And I suppose based on lakes and axes, but didn't line up
[1:07:22] directly with what we had in our GIS.
[1:07:24] So we're working with the four servers to match the next
[1:07:27] out within our GIS within the boundary water.
[1:07:31] I think a good chunk of the southern portion of the bond wars in Lake County will be open to overnight permits. I think that's starting Thursday. They don't quote me that they have their own release coming out on that.
[1:07:44] And so, as we, you know, Warren and Tim's from the Sheriff's Officer are just still engaged in following all the work that they're continuing to do up there on the campfire, but obviously things have been going in the right direction.
[1:07:57] the last number of days to get folks back in their home and every minute you go to
[1:08:03] whenever we go, they continually remind us that in the fight, typical fire season is
[1:08:09] August in September, so we're not necessarily other words, again, it's going in the right direction,
[1:08:17] but obviously we'll continue to watch and monitor that in a things chain who will make decisions
[1:08:21] accordingly, but things seem to be headed in a positive direction at home.
[1:08:28] Does there any questions about the fires in the status right now?
[1:08:33] I think one fun fact that Warren stated this morning is 2 million gallons of water have been done.
[1:08:40] I don't know there yet.
[1:08:41] I'm a fire so far.
[1:08:45] For so reason it doesn't seem like a lot.
[1:08:47] All right.
[1:08:49] We didn't make a dent from the lake.
[1:08:51] Unless you've carried into the thousands of gallons at a time.
[1:08:55] You're a pale piece.
[1:09:00] So, we currently have the emergency operation center still stood up, I think we have a meeting tomorrow at 8.15 again considering whether we just go virtual with that and just continue to watch the meeting.
[1:09:13] We open that if necessary things take a turn.
[1:09:21] There's no questions on that.
[1:09:23] I think I'm going to let Jay start with the dump of River Road.
[1:09:25] Do you have a plan to talk about that?
[1:09:27] I don't need it.
[1:09:30] You got it?
[1:09:30] Sure.
[1:09:31] We had a meeting yesterday to talk about the Dunkin River Road, the county border authorized some preliminary design and work to be done on that and the community we had working on that for a yearland was able to sit down and hear some more details on that and so just give Jason to have two years to how they were at and we were looking to go.
[1:09:51] Sure, so yeah, just as a reminder, we were kind of not knowing what we didn't know about the improvements that I wrote with look like.
[1:09:58] I think I had thrown out some very big numbers for a cost to do an improvement to that road to make it more of a suitable road for any vehicle other than an ATV or UTV.
[1:10:09] So we brought on SEH to do a preliminary study for that project.
[1:10:14] I'll actually have them submit a proposal for a complete project delivery all the way to a project
[1:10:19] plans, but we kind of authorized them this April I believe to do just the preliminary
[1:10:24] look into that.
[1:10:26] So I'd like to call it kind of a concept planned development.
[1:10:29] I'll turn those analysis and kind of pushing towards it, I'll call it a 30% plan set, just
[1:10:35] kind of understanding road-aging metrics, how much curve realignment do we need to look at,
[1:10:40] how much hill cutting and low area filling
[1:10:44] do we need to look at to bring a row
[1:10:45] to just a higher standard of road.
[1:10:48] So SEO just completed that and thrown some preliminary
[1:10:51] cost estimates at that.
[1:10:54] And the kind of reworking all of the curve of a road
[1:10:59] from we used nip creek, which is kind of about five miles in
[1:11:04] from how we two as our Western boundary of highway two,
[1:11:08] their numbers got a little bigger.
[1:11:09] The mine which but I think there's a lot of fine tuning that we can do with the design
[1:11:13] that we decided to go forward.
[1:11:15] They also looked at an alternative alignment which would be a kind of a new road, which
[1:11:20] would cut off if I remember correctly, almost 12 miles of road, it would kind of add one
[1:11:26] mile of new road and cut off about three miles of or two and a half miles of the Dunker
[1:11:30] River Road.
[1:11:31] It's just a short trip to Highway 2, but it does cut through some low line areas and actually
[1:11:39] through some non-US-4 service line,
[1:11:42] and so we've written some additional challenges.
[1:11:44] So, where we're at right now is kind of trying to decide
[1:11:47] if we're what next steps do we want to take with the project?
[1:11:50] Do we want to continue going forward,
[1:11:53] which kind of calling phase two,
[1:11:55] which would be further study, further surveys,
[1:11:58] and further kind of analysis of that,
[1:12:00] and then taking the studies and the design
[1:12:04] to a point where we could kind of get through
[1:12:07] environmental review process, and obviously fine-tuned the cost and the design of that for
[1:12:14] that purpose, and then start being ready to actually apply for some funding to actually build
[1:12:19] the road. There was a funding opportunity that came up from the, it's a federal funding opportunity
[1:12:25] for significant lands, I think it's based around. We would have been eligible for that, but we didn't
[1:12:31] have the environmental review process done, which you needed to have done in order to actually apply
[1:12:35] and you receive funds for it.
[1:12:37] So you kind of shall really type the thing.
[1:12:39] Pretty close.
[1:12:40] Yeah, I would imagine if you didn't have
[1:12:42] been documents that final construction plans,
[1:12:44] you'd probably be okay, but yeah,
[1:12:45] you and you have to have the design far enough along
[1:12:47] to get through that review process.
[1:12:49] So that's what you're talking about, phase two.
[1:12:51] Phase two would be kind of going into that.
[1:12:53] Yeah, that reminds me of a review
[1:12:53] and getting it to a more of a, I'll call it
[1:12:55] a 60% plan design.
[1:12:58] And taking a look at those two different alternatives
[1:13:01] that we would have for that road alternative.
[1:13:04] So, one of the things that kind of puts a little bit of a time crunch on us and I've got
[1:13:10] planned to put this before the board for action next to the next action medium and August,
[1:13:16] first meeting there.
[1:13:19] It's just, it's already mid August at this point and our field season starts running out pretty
[1:13:22] quick for geotechnical surveys, sort of warrants, and especially wetland delineations,
[1:13:29] and getting a well-indulination completed, which would be a critical part of that environmental review.
[1:13:36] So, what we'll be looking at is kind of authorizing an SCH to be got on face two of the project.
[1:13:41] Again, which would be kind of the need for environmental review process,
[1:13:45] what the delineations, sort of warrants, et cetera,
[1:13:48] to really help us kind of, again, it takes us to that point where from there,
[1:13:53] we could get into construction plans and funding.
[1:13:57] But the one caveat to that was again that becomes, you know, we kind of wanted to take
[1:14:01] off an initial bite of this with that preliminary kind of corridor planning study,
[1:14:07] which was a $90,000 contract.
[1:14:10] This would push it kind of into that next phase, which is pushing into, I think, all in
[1:14:14] $300 to $350,000 minus the 90, so somewhere in that ballpark of an additional $240 to $250,000
[1:14:24] for that.
[1:14:25] And again, that's not a fun and project, but it's important for access to that area.
[1:14:31] I'm talking over road, so.
[1:14:33] I think the one thing to add to that full scope of moving forward with more design work,
[1:14:40] I think we're still looking at it as in segments.
[1:14:44] So at this moment, we need these couple pieces and continue to follow what things go along.
[1:14:49] And at any point, we decide we don't want to go down this path anymore.
[1:14:54] We're not all in for the full 300,000 we stop at that point and it's just where that and we're done
[1:15:00] So, this is kind of looking out these next few months. We might get approval to do the rest of the agreement, but we're really looking at these next two to three months to do this, and they continue to figure out where we're at and make decisions, you know, essentially, a few months, depending on where the things are at, this is still the direction we're on, right? I think that's an important piece of that as well.
[1:15:23] Now, the other part of it is, as I mentioned in the funding cycle, we missed that federal funding cycle
[1:15:30] because we didn't have the need for stuff done.
[1:15:33] In order to get that done, the next phase 2 we have to get some of this work done
[1:15:38] in order to get in on the next federal funding cycle to get outside funding.
[1:15:44] If we delay on this, the fall comes and goes and they can't do a lot of the wet
[1:15:49] and deal in the nation, and they end up with a drop dead date and a sort of war and
[1:15:55] it's just stuff.
[1:15:57] So the sooner we could say, go ahead and go to the next phase, we can get it done and
[1:16:02] get it all worked done in order to get in on that funding cycle for next year for federal
[1:16:09] funds.
[1:16:10] Right.
[1:16:11] So that's kind of the crunch we're in right now is to keep moving forward.
[1:16:15] But there is a little uncertainty in the air, and not that we find out what this isn't around, that we need.
[1:16:23] We pull from the pin right at that time.
[1:16:26] Just a little bit.
[1:16:26] Do we do we spend money on this project that front, and then it goes through, and then we apply for funding,
[1:16:35] and if some of that funding can it be radioactive or no?
[1:16:39] Good question. The funding sources are looked at.
[1:16:42] Don't think so. That's usually pretty rare. It's usually not a well, not a few very
[1:16:47] spent the money. You can go back and get it. It's a rare thing, but certainly something
[1:16:50] we can look into. And what was certainly look at other options. And we talked about
[1:16:54] having conversations with IEEE, about if there's any opportunities there. Just finding
[1:17:00] breaking this project out into all the little phases on that between construction, design,
[1:17:05] planning, studies, and seeing if there's a car vote that we can make and say,
[1:17:10] Yeah, we don't, we're not asking you to fund road construction here, we're asking you just to fund a study engineering work.
[1:17:15] So it's a project.
[1:17:16] Chicken and chicken and the egg thing.
[1:17:18] We've got to have this before we put that.
[1:17:20] But we don't have the money for this.
[1:17:23] It's like, it's a big, it's in my head.
[1:17:27] It's going back and forth like ping pong daddy.
[1:17:29] You know what I mean?
[1:17:30] It's difficult.
[1:17:33] There's a lot of that.
[1:17:35] And we got to stay focused a little bit on why we're doing this.
[1:17:39] And I think there's some skin in the game that they should have to, and reimburse in a colony, but if you want to go to us, we have.
[1:17:48] Oh, I'm making a good plan.
[1:17:55] So, nothing on the table for action today, we're still kind of working through that,
[1:17:58] of SSCH to take their original proposal, which is, again,
[1:18:02] we kind of had them look ahead to complete crash delivery and say,
[1:18:06] let's pick out kind of those next phases and build a phase two out of your complete proposal
[1:18:11] and get a scope and a cost to that, and that's what I'd be putting forth
[1:18:16] to the board for a view and approval at the next section.
[1:18:23] Thanks for that Jason.
[1:18:24] There was a lot of extra work.
[1:18:28] Keeping just tabloid and see each of itself, so appreciate that.
[1:18:32] Yeah, I think they're pretty excited to get on board.
[1:18:36] It's a fascinating project.
[1:18:37] You don't often build brand new roads, essentially.
[1:18:39] I mean, you look at what's out there today and trying to build a road out of that.
[1:18:44] It's kind of fun for an engineer, so they get to have the fun and I get to manage it.
[1:18:52] I'm proud to be a game six months.
[1:18:59] Yeah, I think we like suggested that it's going to be a very action forward.
[1:19:02] I think we're also going to do a little more exploring the ultimate route.
[1:19:06] I think we have, we have a bunch of context, but I think we got one that we want to give a call so we can chat about how we tackle that and see if there is an intention.
[1:19:16] There to look other directions and save some miles, save some costs to those types of things.
[1:19:22] I think the other things I had on my list is the 2020 7-budget process.
[1:19:27] It's out to departments and anticipating what I have all that stuff back on August 7.
[1:19:31] I think the thing we need to do, since we are a little later at the process, get some
[1:19:37] budget meetings set up.
[1:19:40] I'm kind of looking at that week of August 24th, 28th, to give a chance to get all the
[1:19:44] information back and meet a budget presented to the county board.
[1:19:50] So today is the day we could look at calendars and get something set up.
[1:19:53] That would be great, or certainly next week, we got to get that.
[1:19:56] We need to get it a lot, because September 30th, we need to get it a couple, and we need
[1:20:01] line up right now.
[1:20:08] You sit at 24 through to 20? Yeah, that's a week that works well for me and I think it's
[1:20:14] some time you get those budget back some work with the county auger and all that stuff prepared.
[1:20:29] I have a lot of open time
[1:20:30] and we're going to couple me in on three meetings, three events and then I think that's great. One day,
[1:20:38] Wednesday and Friday or open for people.
[1:20:44] I have an exact same date,
[1:20:52] so any of those
[1:20:53] were probably one day or one day would be the best. Wednesday is bad for me. Monday is
[1:20:58] best for you. Monday is good for me. Yeah, it'd be best for me. Monday is really well for me.
[1:21:06] I'm sure. What time would you like to start? 1 p.m.
[1:21:15] I'll show you.
[1:21:17] Here.
[1:21:20] We'll check the conference rooms.
[1:21:22] If there's that.
[1:21:24] It's good to have a highway to have a highway to have a little less.
[1:21:26] Get that figured out.
[1:21:28] Get it on everyone's calendar.
[1:21:33] I just want to need that.
[1:21:33] The one for an hour.
[1:21:38] It looks like this room is free.
[1:21:40] There you go.
[1:21:41] Thank you.
[1:21:44] Very good.
[1:21:58] I want it to 130.
[1:22:01] And one, two, four, three.
[1:22:03] Yeah, that's it.
[1:22:07] Just a little
[1:22:12] sister in there.
[1:22:17] The couple of things I had, is you've talked about the camping slash and the service for
[1:22:22] the county land.
[1:22:23] Tax war fit fee.
[1:22:25] I would like to propose an August 25th as a date for a public hearing.
[1:22:30] For that ordinance, we have what is almost a final draft. Give us another week or so to put together something and get that public notice out. Hold that hearing and then move forward in that process.
[1:22:44] And then we kind of look at that before, I think everybody was in support of going that direction and just want to make sure that date will work.
[1:22:51] What date did you have? The 25th August 25th.
[1:22:56] Is that before the meeting, we'll do it during our county board, during the board.
[1:23:00] Yeah, yeah, okay.
[1:23:02] Yeah, the board.
[1:23:04] Okay, sure well.
[1:23:05] One, two, three.
[1:23:06] There's that.
[1:23:09] We had mediation with LALS last week.
[1:23:14] And so we went through that process, and we have another date selected.
[1:23:19] So we continue on with mediation in the early in the month of August.
[1:23:25] And then just a final thing,
[1:23:29] skewer rules,
[1:23:29] I was going to talk about that.
[1:23:32] Just remind folks that we do
[1:23:34] have some decision on how
[1:23:36] we receive those ones and what they go towards.
[1:23:39] I don't know what the timing of them,
[1:23:40] they actually come back and ask us to
[1:23:43] restate how we want those money to go.
[1:23:45] But historically,
[1:23:46] I think ever since,
[1:23:48] you know,
[1:23:48] the Securable School Safety that famous came out,
[1:23:50] We elect 85% of it goes to what is called Title 1, which is to our schools and to road in British, split 50-50.
[1:24:01] Then there's a last 15% that goes 8% to Title 2, which I think is the rack committee that used it on that the forest decides how to spend.
[1:24:12] And then 7% goes to Title 3, which you hear mostly warm talk about with emergency management,
[1:24:19] fire-wise related things, search and rescue related things.
[1:24:23] Of course, we pick the highest amount that we could towards Title 1, to our schools, and 2 rows.
[1:24:31] And then we pick the highest amount towards Title 3 out of that, that we can use locally.
[1:24:36] So it could look a little different, but I don't really see any reason to give more to the rack,
[1:24:40] or take the last for our schools and for our roads.
[1:24:45] So, every once in a while that comes back around to be certified for four years.
[1:24:49] It's at four years.
[1:24:50] That's why I kind of forget about it before I come back around and I understand that.
[1:24:54] So every four year to be certified, in lieu of secure rules, schools, you used to just get 25% of the receipts off of national forks.
[1:25:03] That's the payment we receive because of changes and revenues that we receive.
[1:25:08] the implement of that 2000, interesting to note that in Minnesota actually three counties,
[1:25:16] certainly two counties, would receive more on the 25% payment of the work the foreseers
[1:25:22] is doing on the national force and they would receive under the safety net.
[1:25:26] I think that's cast and I task a count.
[1:25:30] We don't.
[1:25:31] So I think we get about 600,000, and it's substantially lower what we get from the 25% payment.
[1:25:37] I don't know if that's just because the market's different here for the type of forestry that they can do.
[1:25:44] But out of all the counties that get secure real schooled, we are right at the highest amount of St. Louis county.
[1:25:49] We get the same amount of St. Louis county, at around $600,000.
[1:25:53] So that, it's something that comes up very, I feel like there are a few years because the feds have to reauthorize.
[1:26:00] Well, they reauthorize at different months.
[1:26:02] I mean, the election I've been doing before is sometimes they authorize it for two years or four or four.
[1:26:07] four years they've done it for different amounts of the approved this payment that you know locally again
[1:26:13] emergency management gets it and then you know I always been getting two to three hundred thousand
[1:26:18] dollars a revenue that goes towards the road every year and a lot of years are wondering whether we
[1:26:23] budget that I'm going to budget it we're going to get everything I'm going to get it but anyway we just
[1:26:28] made that election and things just I was good to just another one of those sources of revenue that we
[1:26:32] that we have a little bit of decision authority and I always try to fight to make sure we
[1:26:38] continue.
[1:26:43] That's what I have. Question should you let
[1:26:48] Jason, did you have anything else?
[1:26:51] Today, let's move on.
[1:26:54] Nathan?
[1:26:57] Auditor?
[1:26:59] I want to give you my couple quick updates.
[1:27:01] We have started the 2025 state audit from our financials.
[1:27:07] The state audit team is here in the auditor's office today in meeting several of the departments together in relation to begin their audit process.
[1:27:16] So that's where all along is way.
[1:27:19] A couple of election updates is mentioned at the last meeting.
[1:27:23] We have started early in-person voting.
[1:27:26] So anyone can come into the Lake County Courthouse and vote early in person and insert their ballot into the ballot tabulator.
[1:27:35] We do still also offer early voting by mail through election days.
[1:27:39] So anybody in Lake County can request a ballot by mail.
[1:27:42] To be mailed to wherever they're currently residing.
[1:27:46] So this question did come up in some training with the recent evacuations we had and how those people might be able to vote.
[1:27:53] But anybody in the State of Minnesota can request a ballot or ever, they're currently receiving mail.
[1:27:59] That was a good point to make.
[1:28:04] Last week, we did hold our public accuracy test of the election equipment and the ballot tab leaders.
[1:28:14] On Tuesday, and we did invite all of our head election judges and in another kind of coalition judge.
[1:28:21] And for some additional election change training, so that went really well for us, election
[1:28:27] judge training has been online since the round COVID-2020.
[1:28:31] So this thing personally was nice to get some judge's here in person and have all of some
[1:28:37] additional training.
[1:28:39] So that's welcome.
[1:28:42] Hello.
[1:28:43] And I guess last is tax-war mature, we did complete the for-picture process last week.
[1:28:48] So we did have two residential properties that did for fit here in 2026.
[1:28:54] They're currently in their repurchase period.
[1:28:57] Hopefully we can get that worked out with the prior owners.
[1:29:00] If not, we'll be falling up with public client adoption.
[1:29:10] Okay.
[1:29:10] Do you say only two private hospitals or two homes?
[1:29:13] Two residential properties.
[1:29:16] So they did both have homes on them.
[1:29:19] The rest were severed mayoral parcels, but it doesn't, it doesn't.
[1:29:24] Okay.
[1:29:32] One thing is, in public comments today, we heard a lot about elections.
[1:29:40] Can you point me to those statutes or send those to me that?
[1:29:46] Yes.
[1:29:47] There is public election statute with how ballots are to be counted.
[1:29:54] To determine the election results at the end of an election, there's also additional statutes.
[1:30:00] If you use voting equipment or tabulators, which then does that count for you and takes away the hand count part of the vote, but I can definitely send you those statutes for review.
[1:30:17] Because we didn't go through this two years ago, but similar, as Bonnie had alluded to.
[1:30:27] But if we have one concern here, we've got 20 out there.
[1:30:32] So I just want to make sure that we are doing everything and doing correctly as there.
[1:30:38] And there's one statute that does refer to the counting of ballots.
[1:30:45] One specific question is the counting of ballot cards at the close of polls as Bonnie mentioned.
[1:30:53] The voting equipment does tally the number of votes as those ballots are fed into the machine.
[1:30:59] And it'll display a public card for that polls closed.
[1:31:03] That is recognized by the election judges, then based upon the number of voters who came
[1:31:09] into the precinct.
[1:31:10] So they verify that.
[1:31:11] The signatures on their election roster and the voting receipts who give people or you
[1:31:16] receive a ballot.
[1:31:18] So those figures have to be tallied out at the end of the night with the public count on your
[1:31:22] ballot tabulator to know that you have the right number of ballots in the right number
[1:31:27] of voters.
[1:31:28] So, some of these election statutes are specifically referring to that in the counting of ballot cards to match the number of folders with a number of ballot cards in your ballot tab later.
[1:31:45] But again, they're statutes, and they're written like statutes.
[1:31:50] There's always some whom they're interpretation of trends.
[1:31:54] Well, that's right, but I think, which is totally fair, but just that whatever process
[1:32:01] that we're using is to make sure that that needs our statutes in.
[1:32:06] So, the last time we're on it, there was three that they had brought against us, and I think
[1:32:11] we actually made a couple of changes, so we need to go over the court to court if I don't
[1:32:16] have to go into the lead, and then on that.
[1:32:19] So, I'm just making sure.
[1:32:23] But if you can point me to those I appreciate that.
[1:32:25] Really? Thank you.
[1:32:27] I remember a conversation I had with our senator on
[1:32:32] on the most recent changes here.
[1:32:34] A couple of years ago, I didn't believe I went through.
[1:32:37] But fire you met with him then was,
[1:32:40] they were passing an agenda murder legislation.
[1:32:45] That said, if you have a machine, that's gold.
[1:32:48] You can't question. And I remember arguing with him about that and telling him, you should always be able to come back to the paper copy, but they were, and I think it vast.
[1:33:00] I remember being quite a gentle dimsel. I think there might be people not reading the newest legislation that's passed in the last couple years, because they've made a lot of sexual changes.
[1:33:14] So I agree with you.
[1:33:15] We need to understand better so when we get these questions, we make sure that we stand up
[1:33:20] to the citizens.
[1:33:21] So, that's all.
[1:33:24] There may be another statute related to this issue that we have at review, but Bonnie did
[1:33:32] contact our office and referenced some specific statutes in her question.
[1:33:38] Those were also reviewed by the Secretary of State's office who did get an opinion on
[1:33:43] of statutes. You did it the opinion. Okay, pretty good.
[1:33:50] Well, probably just send it up to the
[1:33:52] whole board if you want. Thank you.
[1:33:57] All right, Commissioner's correspondence. Joel gives
[1:34:00] a brief update on returning home.
[1:34:04] So 12 days at C. Okay, did you see like C legs? So
[1:34:11] I felt it. Anyway, we got home. I think it was Sunday, not what Sunday. Anyway, Monday was kind of a war, but I
[1:34:21] Before I did all of that, I was still attending things throughout, and I went to a night river to the boat house, a ribbon cutting, for that Viking ship.
[1:34:32] the Lee Pherson ship. But I didn't win, because they ended up by saw Neal Athens there.
[1:34:40] It's Sons of Norway, and I was wearing a sport coat and then sort of a bit approachable
[1:34:46] when I blew I am. And I got to talk to him, and then he announced that, you know, on the
[1:34:51] thing, there was a big kudos to Lake County for participating, and I, you know, helping
[1:34:56] and paid the way for those projects.
[1:34:59] That boat building is, that's pretty amazing.
[1:35:01] One guy built that thing.
[1:35:04] That's unbelievable.
[1:35:05] They mean all the parts stuck in all of the big,
[1:35:07] tinkercad toys that, but basically, it's huge.
[1:35:11] And so yeah, the whole thing is really up,
[1:35:12] but nice, and that, that was a nice celebration.
[1:35:15] And at several people who came up to me,
[1:35:17] who had seen me on television,
[1:35:19] because I had three around in, three runs on TV.
[1:35:22] I did all about the third one, but before I did this,
[1:35:25] I attended the town hall in Eely at Vermilion with Grant and Roger and had a whole bunch of other people from the state.
[1:35:34] And everybody was in there pretty much sitting low in the middle and we're going to do that.
[1:35:38] That's all that you said for about an hour.
[1:35:40] Anyway, I just kind of drew the discred because I had a firsthand experience of throwing my lodge guess out and saying,
[1:35:48] I'm saying you've got to go.
[1:35:50] And hi, one guy is 85 years old, he's in a cabin number five.
[1:35:53] I go there and I said, hey, I hate to tell you this,
[1:35:56] but you guys got to go, we're in first.
[1:35:57] See that smoke flower blonde.
[1:35:59] And he goes, what do we have to leave?
[1:36:01] I said, well, like, no, there he goes.
[1:36:06] I don't even let you get a good night's sleep.
[1:36:09] I got it.
[1:36:10] Oh, but he was kind of a challenge.
[1:36:12] I had to hook his boat up for him at the back.
[1:36:14] It's truck up for him.
[1:36:16] I said, how did you get you?
[1:36:18] He doesn't even know how to drive this trailer.
[1:36:19] It's like, oh, did you drive a hold in it?
[1:36:21] Almost.
[1:36:22] I thought it was going to have to drive him up the driveway.
[1:36:24] It's like, holy, holy, holy.
[1:36:25] But we got a new lot of there and everybody else.
[1:36:28] Yeah, it was crazy, and then I went blind on a highway,
[1:36:31] and my left eye, and that was all the other things.
[1:36:34] Screwed the crap out of my wife, and all that stuff stuff stuff.
[1:36:38] Yeah.
[1:36:39] You could drive me to get driving over it.
[1:36:40] I drove, I kind of did.
[1:36:43] Yeah, I didn't want to stop.
[1:36:44] It's just, well, there was a lot of traffic and it was just coming at us right there.
[1:36:49] Vesta hit traffic for just while I was.
[1:36:54] Anyway, I went up and around the mountain there and I happened back down the other side because I knew
[1:36:57] where the hospital is, I just passed it. I go in there and I tell my wife, my wife, my wife,
[1:37:04] I got there in the parking lot. It's like five. I said, I think I'm good, so I didn't
[1:37:09] Now I got my wife yelling at me on the phone, no, get in there, call her doctor, call her doctor and he goes,
[1:37:16] Joe, I think you're definitely having a medical emergency go to the urgent care right now.
[1:37:23] I said okay, so I go in there and I walked in, it was three minutes, it was un...
[1:37:30] Assembly will all many people jumped and started clearing the path for me.
[1:37:36] Sit here, do this, do that, and then check this out and ask me my name on the birthday of 257,000 times.
[1:37:43] And then I finally get to a room, and the nurse that was areas of all guy with a mustache.
[1:37:50] He says, it's going to be like the ND500 that the pit could stop right now and it was
[1:37:59] straight people and there's a little tiny room and we're sticking something in, we
[1:38:02] poking me and checking everything and looking, oh my god it was chaos and pandemonium, then
[1:38:09] I MRI CT scans and you didn't have a stroke, I went all the way, so I had to go to an
[1:38:19] of something's blocking the back of my eye and made it go blind and then come back and she
[1:38:25] didn't think that was going to be a problem. She said it may never bother you ever again.
[1:38:30] That's a while I'm going to certainly remember that pattern. I saw when I was going to
[1:38:33] want to. I know anyway so yeah that was a crazy week but I was I was really kind of tired
[1:38:39] and Monday when we hit a couple of zoom meetings I didn't drive to Tim Buck too. I said
[1:38:46] It's got to zoom this copy in anyway. Yeah, the Viking ship was a highly of the week
[1:38:51] It was a really it was a nice event next year is going to be their hundredth year
[1:38:56] They're gonna add this was the this was the test run for the big event
[1:38:59] So I got to see grant again, so I believe in staying in front of our politicians
[1:39:05] Constantly so it's like every day and I'll see in about some point or another which is good and
[1:39:11] So that's pretty much my week and that's short. The shortest I can make it apparently
[1:39:16] or glad you're back at home.
[1:39:18] Yeah, they always say, get your health.
[1:39:20] Oh, yeah, I want to say thanks to Matt and Warren
[1:39:23] and the Sheriff's Department and all the people who
[1:39:27] were done this fire.
[1:39:29] As far as I'm concerned, I don't think
[1:39:30] you could have a better emergency.
[1:39:33] I mean, it's a weird way to say it.
[1:39:34] But it was very un-eventful.
[1:39:38] It could have been absolute complete
[1:39:41] pandemonium in chaos and everything went really, really,
[1:39:46] move which surprised me, you know, because I mean, if people get a little
[1:39:49] our logic, you can see the whites of some of their eyes, we had an employee who just
[1:39:54] started to freak out, she went and ended up going back to Missouri. That's a big
[1:39:58] freak out. All the way back to Missouri, but she's coming back, so she'll be back
[1:40:04] you're now that everything's better, so at least we're at a set two, so. Anyway,
[1:40:09] yeah, Claire was really upset. He said the white man here, her eyes got bigger and
[1:40:14] real clear. Just breathe. We're going to be okay. We're not on fire. Fire is over there.
[1:40:19] Yeah, we're good. She could have drove your old guy.
[1:40:22] Look. I don't know. Yeah, he was on that way.
[1:40:29] Thank you.
[1:40:29] All right. Thank you.
[1:40:32] What else?
[1:40:35] No way. No way.
[1:40:36] I don't know.
[1:40:37] I certainly am not good at trying to compete with people in the world.
[1:40:42] But the light is first of all for Jason and possibly meet the hairlake boat access.
[1:40:55] Met with a association up there, our attorney, Russ and myself had a Zoom call with their
[1:41:03] association and and what came out of that it was a set up another meeting and we all left it with the little homework.
[1:41:11] But it was agreed that there's some some erosion coming from the colony road that runs down
[1:41:19] and indivolated across the access to the boat access that's there now.
[1:41:25] And we agreed that's probably our issue to look at and figure out what we want to do there.
[1:41:31] They, the association that called, so in a water to come out and look at it, make a big report, and their ideas of how it should be repaired, but you can certainly look at that, but we said our engineer will look at it and decide what they want to do there to stop that erosion.
[1:41:53] And then the other part of it is on that plat.
[1:41:58] There is a dedicated spot for both landing,
[1:42:01] but there's 20, 20, 30 feet of woods there.
[1:42:06] And so that would have to be cleared out
[1:42:09] and some gravel put in there if we're gonna abandon
[1:42:13] the original boat landing.
[1:42:15] And this all started because they blocked it off.
[1:42:19] We have, we believe we have the use for it.
[1:42:20] attorney believes you have to use for it. But it's probably not in the best place. And the
[1:42:27] agreement on that call was we're not doing anything until they move the rocks. They agreed to
[1:42:34] move the rocks. So people can back a small trailer down there and that's all we've looked at. So
[1:42:40] but for the August 27th, there's a next meeting. I like that something to give them back to. I told
[1:42:47] this is pretty low priority they understand that on ours but at least if I could say we
[1:42:53] went out and looked at it we were working on a plan or whatever we're doing and I think
[1:42:59] as far as relocating the boatmen and you can look at it give us an idea how big a job it is
[1:43:07] and if it's more than something we want to tackle then I'll go back to soil and water maybe
[1:43:13] have them go and find some funding and hire a contractor to do it.
[1:43:18] Take the deal.
[1:43:20] But I can't do any of that.
[1:43:21] I get your opinion on what you think we should do there.
[1:43:26] And I can forward you their correspondence and the soil
[1:43:30] and water's report to keep on that.
[1:43:33] Maybe one of your guys are up in the area.
[1:43:36] They can look at it.
[1:43:38] But I'm in the 27th.
[1:43:40] I don't want to say we haven't done anything yet.
[1:43:42] I'd like that, have they seen what I saw on it,
[1:43:49] and for Nate, has there been any more
[1:43:53] correspondence with the club in Silver Bay, but that property up there?
[1:43:57] No, I don't know if they even went and got there with him.
[1:44:00] Okay, oh, I'll chase him down, and then the moving that trail on the Starmquist land is
[1:44:09] that something that we can, what a fool of look at it.
[1:44:11] Yeah, maybe make something happen there before fall into the rest.
[1:44:19] Tell you.
[1:44:21] There you go.
[1:44:23] Uh, a few things for me, uh, I mentioned, uh, earlier that, uh, uh,
[1:44:32] Ronnie had taken me into the courthouse, uh, records fault.
[1:44:35] And we were looking at these old, uh, records.
[1:44:38] I think it's a little boyager, one of you guys should make it, you haven't been in there before, because it's an archive, and it's pretty cool, just take a look at a couple documents,
[1:44:53] and just, well, I want you to show in there your stay-odders.
[1:44:57] It didn't have to stare at the 1880s.
[1:45:01] Trial balance or financial statement with state auditors. It had three entries, grant total of $3,100 in county funds.
[1:45:13] A lot of money back there.
[1:45:17] So, jump on that and, you know, sometime when you have a bit of take a look.
[1:45:24] I mentioned this to Matt, I'm going to bring it up to this group,
[1:45:32] Scott Robinson, probably
[1:45:34] no one will have him, lives in Joe's district, but he does that sort of inspection, who
[1:45:42] or installs and stuff, he called me and one of the things that he wanted to know is looking
[1:45:55] up records when he's doing a sewer inspection, he wants to see what the previous records
[1:45:59] and stuff were related to it.
[1:46:02] He can't access that through art form and you kind of explained to me, this is something
[1:46:08] that you guys have talked about, we talk about a staff of how, how, when, where we actually
[1:46:16] do that, but we have the ability to do it, where you don't have the ability to do it, but
[1:46:22] something that staff seems to do.
[1:46:25] Because there's been conversation that I'd have to dig back into a bad thing.
[1:46:30] That was the whole that we could attribute more of things if you're looking on a GIS of other records.
[1:46:36] What it would take to get to that point is the answer I don't have the question to do.
[1:46:42] We have to, like, everything else have to scan all that into the system.
[1:46:47] The challenge is we have a number of things scanned and in different databases.
[1:46:53] What it would have to be in to be able to speak with GIS or other systems where you
[1:46:58] will bring them up and what lift it would be to get all that together, that's the answer
[1:47:03] I don't know.
[1:47:04] I just remember being maybe it was even with Christine or other things that there was ideas,
[1:47:12] dots, maybe goals of that, but what would it take to get there?
[1:47:17] It's a challenge for any entity, and I don't know if any county has this word, just every
[1:47:22] zone for an accepted permit is out there.
[1:47:27] And so, it's a loose light, I mean, it's a loose light,
[1:47:32] because they created GIS as the
[1:47:36] center of their government, basically, all the departments branch up from that, GIS leaves
[1:47:44] the county?
[1:47:54] So anyway, that's got that call, so it's got to be a number of our sewer operators are probably
[1:48:00] running in the same thing and I imagine with other applications that we're not thinking
[1:48:05] of all of it, but he had that concern, so I'd bring that up and you'll see where it's at
[1:48:11] and you'll back to him all of that.
[1:48:14] with that and jumping way ahead, obviously, you know, really know what the catch is, but
[1:48:20] would that be something that, since it has to do with records and applying to parcels,
[1:48:26] that you can use some of the recorded response that you've put in that.
[1:48:35] It's a program.
[1:48:35] It's certainly there here.
[1:48:37] Certainly.
[1:48:37] Well, it comes across to get help to come in here in some sort of conversation.
[1:48:44] And I think one of the conversations I was in the morning, the record was part of that about trying to tie different documents, but that's the other application is
[1:48:57] the record search just to see.
[1:49:02] I received a call from Bob and it's a chairman of the NAF River Larson Law Sanitary District,
[1:49:11] PASTIF 5.
[1:49:15] I could come down and bring our environmental services director with to take a look at
[1:49:21] issues surrounding the sewer plant, our previous environmental
[1:49:31] service director Christine.
[1:49:34] She had false abylations and some things that she thought could be improved down there.
[1:49:40] And Bob, let's really drill down and make sure that we get those off covered and then we
[1:49:46] dry her and then kind of get her up to speed and just work to get those corrected.
[1:49:52] So we're doing that on Thursday.
[1:50:00] Oh, so the night river RECOMSEL, they had their boat.
[1:50:07] They opened up a membership to the public.
[1:50:12] They had about 250 members now.
[1:50:17] I think it was 157 voted on whether to purchase the night river campground or not.
[1:50:25] And 84% of the vote was in the positive, so good turnout, really local democracy and action,
[1:50:41] and they do have a bunch of the funding in place to participate.
[1:50:46] I think they said they have to raise about 135,000.
[1:50:50] And they passed a promise of some anonymous donors and they're going to continue to move and get that done.
[1:50:58] I think it was by a November they had to get it.
[1:51:01] So, like I said, here we are.
[1:51:06] And then the last thing I had was in our packet.
[1:51:11] It was the, the veteran, the best home.
[1:51:14] Oh, yes, we can be there.
[1:51:16] See that one?
[1:51:17] Yes, we're going to be there.
[1:51:17] I went to this last year and it was a great event. We had started doing this many years ago.
[1:51:27] It's just the car club. We come in and say hi to the vets. They come all wheel low, walk home, whatever.
[1:51:34] They look at a few cars and we drive off. We know it's kind of morphed into a little bigger thing. It's really a nice event.
[1:51:41] It's on August
[1:51:46] 12th, 11 to 2. That's a Wednesday. That's the day that you and I have
[1:51:52] got to meet with this DNR above the Crosby. They claim it's just one night, they went in to go in.
[1:52:00] Well, I think Nate's going to be there. That's going to be there.
[1:52:06] I've got a pair when I was 19 years old spent a little summer,
[1:52:10] I've got my journals.
[1:52:13] It's supposed to be done by Newton, and I don't really envision that.
[1:52:17] Right, that's why I always think that we can always stop.
[1:52:19] Stop here and leave that.
[1:52:20] I'll go away back.
[1:52:21] So, if anybody else can make it,
[1:52:23] I'd be at this event here.
[1:52:25] I'd question for the board.
[1:52:30] What are we going to do with the mayor and that committee? They're looking at building another building, you know, where they say, word, I don't quite know why I should do it. That same day, I have a mayor and that meeting. I mean, I don't have a problem going to the meeting, but I'm kind of wondering what my involvement is being, since we're in a long drinking room. We don't really, what is it, what anybody have a clue what I should be doing? Well, we're probably still listening to the original agreement
[1:52:59] when they purchase their buildings,
[1:53:01] they still need some representation,
[1:53:04] but I think their long-term plan
[1:53:07] and talking to people behind the scenes
[1:53:09] is they're going to tear the building,
[1:53:11] they just got to figure out how do they come,
[1:53:14] they will ooze in there.
[1:53:16] That was the discussion we had two months ago.
[1:53:18] A big part of that's going to probably be driven
[1:53:21] by the next few weeks here as we meet with folks
[1:53:28] Folks that may or may not be interested in the silver-made clinic because that might move the pharmacy down there
[1:53:34] which will expedite everything else going on with that building.
[1:53:39] Okay.
[1:53:40] Well in that case I will continue to.
[1:53:42] I'll be there for the car show and the mayor.
[1:53:44] They're going to overlap a little bit, but I'll do.
[1:53:47] There's probably not any big decisions going on with that building.
[1:53:50] If you had other priorities, I wouldn't worry.
[1:53:52] Missing a Merry Mac meeting, but it's there, it's there.
[1:53:57] Yeah, well, it's a little bit of a show, so it's all going to kind of work.
[1:54:01] Come on, now.
[1:54:03] All right, thank you.
[1:54:04] Good news, and I can up and down the hills with the mosquitoes.
[1:54:09] Let's get into your district.
[1:54:11] Well, I think it was just the lands committee that there.
[1:54:13] Is that all they targeted?
[1:54:15] Yeah.
[1:54:18] We'll keep you filled.
[1:54:19] I don't know.
[1:54:20] I don't know.
[1:54:21] I have no idea.
[1:54:32] That's the end of my report that's move on to our action items.
[1:54:36] First up, general consent, any items anybody wishes to remove?
[1:54:41] I'd like to have number four pull-off,
[1:54:43] bring that to the top of our action items.
[1:54:53] Here, you know, other I'll remove the rest of them.
[1:54:56] or the motion of second, except the consent agenda over the removal of number four, whole
[1:55:02] favor.
[1:55:03] All right.
[1:55:04] Opposed?
[1:55:05] That motion carries.
[1:55:10] We'll bring this over to our resolution.
[1:55:12] Is that a clerk?
[1:55:13] All right.
[1:55:14] All right.
[1:55:14] All right.
[1:55:15] We'll just table them before then.
[1:55:17] No.
[1:55:17] We'll bring it to the top of the rest of the bar.
[1:55:19] Thank you.
[1:55:20] Thank you.
[1:55:20] Thank you.
[1:55:22] Thank you.
[1:55:23] I'll preview it for you on the consent agenda.
[1:55:27] We're motion.
[1:55:31] I'll move.
[1:55:33] Motion second at discussion.
[1:55:40] One of the concerns of Commissioner Hoganson and I asked the same question was the applicants
[1:55:51] on this action for planning commission have other rental properties.
[1:55:56] Our ordinance only allows for an owner to have one property, one rental, one short-term rental.
[1:56:07] They can't have two short-term rentals.
[1:56:10] So we're seeing that going on in one direction.
[1:56:13] So I asked to pull this off just to discuss it because I met and mentioned that you talked to my own services.
[1:56:26] And they didn't see any problem with that, I just want to make sure we get this discussion.
[1:56:32] Yeah, there's another choice I had a permit that they're aware has multiple permit
[1:56:39] for vacation rounds within the city to harvest.
[1:56:42] In this choice, they don't see any other rental permits.
[1:56:45] In our ward, it's just talks about the area we have jurisdiction over correct.
[1:56:49] So it's a one in our area.
[1:56:50] So that current applicant that's in front of us they're only aware of this one the other one that was
[1:56:55] Some period in the past did that by the ones but still met our requirements
[1:57:00] So there there there is no no one issue with our ordinance related to these
[1:57:05] Based on everything
[1:57:08] So just want to make sure that that was clear on this particular action. All right, yep
[1:57:13] All right, so we got a motion second discussion and a more
[1:57:18] All the favors.
[1:57:19] All right, equals, that motion does pass.
[1:57:24] Yes, your movement.
[1:57:25] I don't remember one.
[1:57:27] I don't remember.
[1:57:29] Score, conversation.
[1:57:34] All the favors.
[1:57:35] All right, terms, motion carries.
[1:57:39] Anyandi I don't remember Q to.
[1:57:41] So more any değil and discussion.
[1:57:46] All the favors.
[1:57:47] Hi.
[1:57:49] Holds?
[1:57:49] That motion carries.
[1:57:52] Item number three.
[1:57:56] Sport.
[1:57:57] Any discussion?
[1:58:00] All of it.
[1:58:01] Hi.
[1:58:02] Holds?
[1:58:03] That motion carries.
[1:58:05] Item number four.
[1:58:07] So.
[1:58:11] Discussion?
[1:58:12] Did you get it?
[1:58:13] It was a good amount.
[1:58:14] I heard it.
[1:58:15] Let me share the next one.
[1:58:16] Thank you.
[1:58:18] Oh, you mean for this part?
[1:58:21] I don't care.
[1:58:24] Discussion?
[1:58:26] All the favor?
[1:58:27] All right.
[1:58:27] Opposed?
[1:58:29] Motion carries.
[1:58:31] Item number five.
[1:58:33] A move.
[1:58:35] Discussion.
[1:58:37] The one thing I wanted to bring up on that was I was looking at in our packet.
[1:58:42] We had the 5A and 5B.
[1:58:47] And I don't know, I'm assuming that this is just more information that is exactly what the numbers would be of that, you know, because they found an error in there.
[1:59:02] I guess my understanding is this would be a preliminary resolution that will allow us to see
[1:59:10] reimbursement for any disaster being the sort of credits that we do grants, but as part
[1:59:18] of that process, the assessor will be bringing those final payment requests to or for the
[1:59:28] Okay, so that's kind of what I figured it was going to be, but I just want to make sure
[1:59:33] these weren't the numbers because we should be approving an error in that.
[1:59:37] So I think you're just trying to provide an idea of what's out there in terms of what we'll be potentially
[1:59:42] located in the university. Thank you.
[1:59:46] I have another question.
[1:59:49] And then with this dollar amount that we are reimbursing, we keep track of that so we can put that in for disaster relief.
[2:00:00] Well, I think that's the idea behind this, is that we're going to go through this process, get applications. This resolution is going to help us seek the reimbursement back for the credit sheet for the requirements.
[2:00:12] That is the point of this, it's getting that reimbursement to the state.
[2:00:17] And we did get approval of the disaster declaration for the other work that we've done.
[2:00:23] So now, we've provided preliminary damage assessment that we have potentially get 75% of the
[2:00:30] reimbursement of the force amount.
[2:00:31] Through those specific numbers and try to capture that, I mean, this is kind of separate
[2:00:36] from that, that we'll be eligible for, and based on this resolution and the application
[2:00:40] we get.
[2:00:41] We'll be able to get the reimbursement back from the state to help those folks.
[2:00:47] Very good.
[2:00:49] Anything else?
[2:00:51] Hold the paper.
[2:00:53] All right.
[2:00:53] holes and that bullshit here and that brings us to the day end of our agenda. Anything else
[2:01:02] could be good in the morning?
[2:01:05] Thank you very much.
[2:01:07] Thank you for the second full favor.
[2:01:11] I had holes.
[2:01:13] Thank you everyone. We're adjourned.