[0:34] uh first announcement is that uh
john burke would not be with us tonight
[0:37] he's not feeling well
i would like a resolution for approval
[0:41] of tonight's agenda mr
[0:54] a resolution for the approval of the
minutes for july 26th
[0:59] mr perkins second high school
any discussion
[1:05] by saying aye aye
opposed motion carry first up uh we have
[1:10] uh here power authority renewable energy
opportunities presentation
[1:14] and it's by casey master who is a senior
key account executive
[1:21] good evening everybody thank you very
much for your time again i'm casey
[1:25] mastro senior key account executive with
the new york power authority i am joined
[1:30] by my colleague vanella yeah hottie
who was a manager in our clean energy
[1:35] advisory services group
we put together a short slide deck for
[1:40] your perusal uh in review during our
time here um this this opportunity we're
[1:46] very grateful for it's it's a secondary
opportunity that stemmed initially from
[1:51] a conversation that we had with st
lawrence county uh representatives
[1:55] several weeks ago
and so we're looking forward to
[2:00] describing to you in more detail what
our
[2:03] service offering encompasses how it can
be of value to the county uh and allow
[2:08] you hopefully plenty of time to answer
any you know any ask any questions
[2:12] provide any comments that you may have
on the potential development of some
[2:16] sites that we've been
uh you know preliminarily discussing
[2:19] with county representatives for for some
time
[2:22] um
so this presentation will primarily be
[2:26] driven by by vanilla um and i'll be uh
helping drive that conversation and
[2:32] answers to all any and all questions so
i'll let vanella introduce yourself and
[2:36] we can jump right into it
[2:40] right wonderful thank you casey good
afternoon everyone as casey has
[2:43] introduced i'm vanilla yardati i'm
manager of the clean energy advisory
[2:46] services group here at the new york
power authority uh i will share my
[2:52] screen and please do let me know um when
you're able to see it
[3:01] please let me know if you can see my
screen
[3:06] yeah
all right
[3:10] i'm going to put it in slideshare more
so um
[3:18] are you still able to see the actually
the full slide or the notes with the
[3:21] next light on
[3:28] all right wonderful all right so thanks
again and we can go ahead and get
[3:32] started i believe niko does not need any
introduction to the folks that are in
[3:35] the room or anybody on the in this
meeting but just as an overview
[3:39] uh we generate about we're a state-owned
utility and
[3:43] that does not basically use taxpayers
funds to run the entity and that's
[3:48] because we generate our own revenues
through the generation projects we have
[3:52] along with the transmission
infrastructure that neither owns and
[3:55] operates so 20 of new york state's
electricity is generated uh by neither
[4:01] and of the 20 of the energy that's
generated are provided to the state 80
[4:06] percent of it is produced through hydra
so similar to saint lawrence county uh
[4:10] that already operates i think for some
parts from libra it is already green
[4:14] power
and
[4:16] we own and operate over 30 of the
transmission infrastructure in the state
[4:20] and expanding and developing on that to
support uh a majority of the renewable
[4:24] energy projects including some of the
offshore wind projects that are coming
[4:27] online in new york state
uh the
[4:31] over 300 million dollars is invested
into energy efficiency projects to
[4:34] support our customers along with
creating more than 400 000 jobs in the
[4:39] state through the different economic
development sniper has
[4:42] when we're talking about this
organization
[4:49] always thinking about how do we further
support our country advisory services
[4:54] team that has evolved and since its
inception this team is a dedicated team
[4:59] all we do is customer sighted renewable
energy projects we call it because it's
[5:04] customer sighted we're talking about
smaller scale mostly connecting to the
[5:08] distribution grid so these are
distributed energy resources and that's
[5:12] why
i mean the clean energy advisory
[5:14] services team is also known as the der
that's the distributed energy resources
[5:18] advisory team so the benefit we bring is
we've come up with a streamlined program
[5:22] structure and a procurement process that
helps public entities to take advantage
[5:27] of uh
complete like turnkey solution project
[5:32] provisions to our customers so we act as
in short we act as bonus rep or owner's
[5:38] advisor on these projects all the way
from doing very early feasibility
[5:43] studies
to actually full-fledge completion over
[5:48] providing project management oversight
for
[5:50] completion and execution of the project
itself that is the true implementation
[5:54] all the way until commercial operation
and of course what i boast about is uh
[5:58] that because we are the new york power
authority even once the systems are
[6:01] operating we are still around and we're
still here so if there is ever a concern
[6:06] any time about the ongoing or operating
projects you could still always knock on
[6:10] our doors
so
[6:14] some of the advantages here again
the the renewable market in general is
[6:21] very volatile and dynamic especially in
new york state because of course we are
[6:25] special in every way correct no pun
intended there so
[6:28] uh the policy to the financing of the
project itself varies almost on a daily
[6:33] basis and sometimes we see it the policy
changes even on an hourly basis which is
[6:37] in a way concerning but
our team actually dreams in solar panels
[6:41] and
that hasn't turned into nightmares yet
[6:45] so we take pride in that as well so but
to keep things more streamlined and get
[6:50] the best value to our customers take
making sure that the best in available
[6:54] incentives are made available because
most of the incentives whether at state
[6:58] level or federal or on a first-come
first-served basis or
[7:02] they have a duration like
they continue to take her down typically
[7:06] uh based on the timeline so both time is
of essence always for these projects and
[7:11] also the other one is the scale so we
take into consideration all of these
[7:15] things and we've actually come up with
uh
[7:18] naipa went out and
issued a solicitation publicly for
[7:22] renewable developers to
[7:36] uh projects that were done early on
there were
[7:39] not saying whether they're large
developers or small developers just
[7:42] because of the marketplace there have
been incidents where a developer could
[7:46] not continue to keep up with the project
through the term of the contract and
[7:50] that is of concerning
uh to a lot of public sector customers
[7:54] especially so what might have done is
that libra has a pre-qualified tool of
[7:57] vendors and
when we
[8:00] we develop the entire request for
proposals all the way through the
[8:04] solicitation and everything through our
streamlined procurement processes and we
[8:08] have the ability to either go
through a public solicitation process or
[8:12] a public rfp or we have the ability to
go to our pre-qualified pool of vendors
[8:16] and ask them for a quick turnaround on
the pricing it's still competitive
[8:20] bidding either way and most of the
developers that are local to new york
[8:24] state local to specific regions
work or operate nationally and also
[8:29] globally are all on our list so it makes
things a lot more easier
[8:33] this shows i think i kind of briefly
touched upon this the different phases
[8:37] that we can support our customers with
that is from the very early i would call
[8:41] it inception
transaction of the project or the
[8:44] portfolio doing the technical
feasibility the economic viability and
[8:47] all of that
considering the then current market
[8:51] conditions all the way to developing the
rfp going through the bid process and
[8:55] evaluation process
to ongoing project management support i
[9:00] want to take a quick pause there to see
if there are any questions before we
[9:03] move on to the next
[9:07] you don't slide any you may continue
please
[9:10] wonderful all right
so uh some this is just a very high
[9:15] level overview of our pipeline and
projects actually in development at
[9:19] different stages we work with all public
sector whether that's new york state
[9:23] agencies or other governmental sectors
uh entities including municipalities so
[9:28] we're doing a portfolio for westchester
county where we're developing projects
[9:32] at eight of their sites
that portfolio is a very unique
[9:36] combination and that's where we have the
flexibility under the same procurement
[9:39] mechanism or under the same rfp to
evaluate pricing whether our customers
[9:44] are interested in let's say outright
owning the project as a capital budgeted
[9:48] project or want to update 100 of the
energy under let's say a power purchase
[9:53] agreement contract or if it's just want
to host the project under a community
[9:58] solar model so they can provide
affordable clean energy to their
[10:01] constituents and westchester county is a
combination where we're doing a few
[10:06] projects under uh a power purchase
agreement model where the county will
[10:09] often 100 of the energy and will pay the
developer
[10:13] uh a dollar for kwh or a unit cost for
each unit of energy that's produced from
[10:18] the system the other half of the
portfolio is being developed under a
[10:22] community solar model where the
constituents of the county whether
[10:25] that's
uh residents like me that's the beauty
[10:28] about community solar and i have a
program structure i'll show you in a
[10:31] little bit here um
because it's for people like me i'm an
[10:35] apartment dweller and
i do this job because not because it's a
[10:39] job but because this is truly what i
believe in and i want to be doing
[10:42] renewables and i can say the same for my
entire team you're very passionate about
[10:46] this
unfortunately while i can claim that i
[10:49] have a ceiling i don't necessarily have
a roof and that's where i think new york
[10:52] state's community solar model is really
beautiful where it gives people like me
[10:57] an opportunity to operate from clean
energy and local solar projects
[11:01] basically so
the westchester county is a combination
[11:05] of both systems are both approaches uh
city of white plains we are recently
[11:09] developing our the projects are in
construction it's also a community solar
[11:13] portfolio at uh
nine of the city owned properties and
[11:17] under a community solar model
the city of white plains the city is
[11:21] also off taking a portion of the energy
to offset their own bills and
[11:26] about forty percent of the energy will
be off taken by the city along with
[11:29] hosting the project and the remainder of
the 60 goes to what we call the mass
[11:33] market subscribers that's residents and
small commercial entities within the
[11:37] city
uh a few of the customers as you can see
[11:40] the list we are working with new york
city developing a portfolio across 53 of
[11:44] their sites uh their department of
education's k-12 schools and uh also six
[11:49] water treatment facilities belonging to
the department of environmental
[11:52] protection we do work with a quite a few
other agencies within the city as well
[11:56] uh city of albany we're doing a
community solar project where it's not
[12:00] actually uh
being implemented on the city's sites
[12:04] but uh actually they're off taking from
local projects because there are some
[12:09] challenges with their own properties for
developing communities uh developing
[12:13] solar in general so we look at
opportunities of
[12:17] what serves the best need of our
customers and
[12:20] make sure that we are still able to meet
their objective and not just it's not
[12:25] like a private developer or a private
consultant that pushes the project down
[12:29] but truly provide the full transparency
as to whether our customers should move
[12:33] forward with a certain project or
whether it's not economical or which of
[12:37] the options would be the most economical
and or provide the best value to them
[12:42] in terms of both economics but also when
i say best value in terms of the overall
[12:45] goals and objectives
[12:49] so a typical contract structure that
includes both the project contract
[12:53] structure but also nybis is that uh lipo
will execute a contract what we call an
[12:59] advisory services agreement uh with our
customer most of the feasibility work
[13:03] and everything else that we develop is
at no upfront cost to our customer the
[13:07] way we developed our model is to make
sure that the
[13:11] impact or the financial impact to our
customers is minimized to the extent
[13:14] possible
however we are mandated by our board to
[13:18] recover our the cost that is basically
for my time and uh the rest of the team
[13:23] that spends time on the project so it's
truly for man hours and it's typically a
[13:27] lump sum what we call advisory services
cost recovery fee
[13:31] but
when we go into the rfp phase we include
[13:35] what the advisory services fee should be
in the rfp so this full transparency
[13:40] and actually recover that through the
developer
[13:44] once the project goes into
implementation it'll be it will be paid
[13:46] in milestone payments and uh that way
it's not included by our customer at all
[13:51] we have actually formal feedback and
several cases from the developers as
[13:55] well
where
[13:57] if the developer were to do all the due
diligence typically that is otherwise
[14:00] performed by naiba because they're a
private entity and because of their
[14:03] rates and structure it costs them a lot
more so nipper doing the upfront
[14:07] development actually makes it very easy
for the developers and they're also
[14:11] looking at a portfolio that's almost a
definite uh happening to like definite
[14:16] project so
that factor
[14:20] uh reduces the risk for the developers
and they're more than happy to pay the
[14:24] advisory services
just based on uh the projects that we
[14:28] have in the portfolio and how we have
operated this class turns to be a
[14:33] very small
single digit the lower single digit
[14:37] fraction of the overall project cost so
that's where developers see value in
[14:41] what uh knife are bringing in as well
and have no issues ever actually paying
[14:46] it we have never been contested or
challenged by either customers or
[14:50] developers on our advisory services
model
[14:53] so
uh the other one that we i have to the
[14:56] left here where i talk about the house
cited and the anchor subscription is
[15:00] what
our customers would typically uh execute
[15:03] with the solar developer especially
under a community solar model so the
[15:06] host site agreement could take multiple
uh in a way basis are multiple
[15:13] mechanisms it could be the
straightforward and the most preferred
[15:16] by the solar industry is a lease
agreement we do because of the project's
[15:21] lifetime itself based on the technology
which could be upwards of 30 35 years
[15:26] based on the latest technology or the
current technology
[15:29] developers prefer at least a 25-year
lease agreement especially for community
[15:34] solar models um
and also because some of the incentives
[15:38] to the credits or the revenue streams
that are available especially for the
[15:42] current state policy are dictated and
logged in for the period of 25 years on
[15:47] most projects as well so there are
definite revenue streams that the
[15:50] developers want to take advantage of
they should that should minimize the
[15:53] risk and the concerns our customers also
have about will they be able to pay us
[15:57] the lease payments moving forward
because
[15:59] the system as long as the system's
producing the developers incurring are
[16:03] realizing their revenues and as long as
the developers realizing their revenues
[16:07] there should be no problem paying the
if you want to call it the rents or the
[16:10] lease payments to our customers the
second option is if there are consents
[16:15] which i do tend to see with government
sectors especially talking about
[16:18] municipalities
executing a very long-term lease
[16:21] agreement the second option is a license
agreement
[16:24] so it could be a revocable or
irrevocable either lease or license
[16:28] agreement will come with the termination
schedule that the developer will provide
[16:31] information on upfront and that can be
included in the contract in case a
[16:35] contract needs to be terminated before
the end of the job
[16:39] so that's on the project side uh and as
i've explained we start with just a
[16:43] simple authorization to proceed
memorandum it's just a one-page
[16:47] non-committal non-binding uh memo that
we share with our customers for neighbor
[16:52] to start the work on on behalf of you
start the development of the rfp once we
[16:55] finish the feasibility et cetera and uh
as we're going through the development
[17:00] of the rfp process in parallel we uh
typically execute an advisory services
[17:05] agreement which is also
uh casey jump in here anytime of course
[17:09] you're more familiar with those
contracts too which is also really a
[17:12] non-comprehensive i'm an engineer by
nature and not a council but
[17:16] uh to customers about some of their
advisory services agreement they did ask
[17:20] me if i'm a counselor so i'll take that
as a compliment and if i'm able to
[17:23] understand as an engineer i would say
it's a very simple uh contract again so
[17:28] casey do you have anything to add there
i would say that um
[17:35] the two contracts working in tandem
together
[17:38] um
represent naiba's
[17:41] uh
ability to encompass both project
[17:45] specific information and an
authorization to proceed
[17:49] which would then get
expanded upon in a statement of work and
[17:53] the terms and conditions agreement is is
an overarching agreement that is not
[17:58] project specific it's a
generally a one-time signature
[18:03] terms and conditions agreement that
is
[18:07] is represented for all capital projects
for all of our customers so
[18:11] uh those two documents together are
generally
[18:14] the only all we need to move things
forward to
[18:17] what we would call a design kickoff
meeting where we would actually get
[18:20] boots on the ground and start talking
about
[18:23] you know the beginning of work
essentially
[18:27] thanks casey
so the next one i
[18:31] what i wanted to show you is just talk
about the high level structure of how
[18:34] community solar works which you've
braved a little bit but also we went
[18:38] ahead and looked at one of the sites
that or one of the county owned
[18:41] properties um to assess whether it's
viable for solar or not and if we were
[18:46] to move forward with the project how the
economic value to other benefits
[18:50] looked like to the county and your
constituents so
[18:54] a community solar typical project
here in new york state i can walk you
[19:00] through just this
[19:04] traffic here to the left
the county will be the site
[19:12] and you will have the opportunity
the anchors to be an anxious subscriber
[19:17] what that means is you'll have the
opportunity of the energy that is
[19:20] produced from the system 40 percent of
the energy the county will receive bill
[19:23] credits on its utility bills and that
should be an iou
[19:27] unfortunately right now the current
state policy only allows these credits
[19:31] to be applied to investor-owned
utilities so that such as national grid
[19:35] and it does not it is not available
through
[19:38] muni operated
systems so
[19:42] we were looking at one of the sites
that's in messina of course it's just
[19:45] looking at from a very high level and i
believe that particular region is served
[19:50] by the messina electric district so most
likely that project
[19:55] cannot fall under community solar model
as the current policy state policy
[19:58] stands however with them if it's a
national national grid territory or a
[20:02] nice territory or anywhere else
we can go ahead and implement the
[20:06] project
then
[20:09] the developer will be responsible for
earning and operating the system through
[20:13] the term of the contract he's also
responsible for not only getting the
[20:17] anchor subscriber for 40 of the energy
or basically it's the subscription
[20:21] management as a sponsor of the project
to go out and enroll
[20:26] uh for the remainder of the 60 of the
energy that's produced from the systems
[20:29] mass market subscribers that would be
again residents and small commercial
[20:32] entities
whoever subscribing into the project
[20:36] they typically receive a discount on
their utility bills they don't have to
[20:40] pay anything out of their pocket until
recently there were two bills they would
[20:44] receive so for every unit of energy
that's exported under the community's
[20:48] solar model
[20:52] the utilities
say let's say gives about a dollar per
[20:57] for every rate of energy out of the
dollar i get to keep
[21:01] 10 cents off it and i'll give the 90
cents to the developer so you can almost
[21:06] look at it as
somebody put it very simply that's
[21:08] actually
my experience
[21:12] works commissioner that said it and the
way he said it is buying a 100 gift card
[21:17] for 90
so you get the 10 discount and you can
[21:20] use that towards your utility bill
credits but the state has recently moved
[21:25] to something called as consolidated
billing so
[21:28] any of the subscribers including our
constituents do not have to see two
[21:31] bills anymore it's their continuous
ongoing whatever they've been getting
[21:36] from national grid let's say in this
case and they'll just start seeing a new
[21:39] line item that shows them build credits
just for subscribing into the project
[21:42] nothing out of pocket at all
uh and of course the same developer will
[21:47] pay the lease payments and if there are
any bill credits will be passed to uh
[21:51] from the utility that's the overall
community solar structure
[21:58] and uh the site we looked at just as a
sample to give you some information on
[22:02] this is the 1201 and 1203 champlain
street in austin and uh jason thank you
[22:08] for providing all of the information if
you're on the wall and this is about 18
[22:12] and a half acres site so i want to sorry
i want to walk you through the different
[22:18] images that we have here the most
important things that matter are
[22:22] how does the topography of the project
site look like is it flat lands is it
[22:26] are there too many trees that need
clearing out not the tree cleaning is uh
[22:29] cannot be done but it also comes at a
cost and if you want to consider a
[22:33] replacement because
while we're doing something really good
[22:37] doing solar projects we also want to be
conscious about
[22:40] any impact that there could be
especially if you're talking about local
[22:42] uh environment so
typically what we ask developers is if
[22:46] there's any tree removal it's replaced
at least one is to one or if there are
[22:50] any local guidelines for the carbon
footprint footprint we ask for
[22:55] equivalent one is to one like carbon
footprint replacement so they have to uh
[22:58] replant trees elsewhere if they're
taking any trees down
[23:02] and the second one is also are there any
slopes just the terrain and other things
[23:07] but along with that we look at
any wetlands or other environmental
[23:11] concerns as well including endangered
species and other things so there
[23:15] the top left image was what was shared
by the county when we were looking at
[23:20] this particular site and the bottom left
one
[23:23] is something that the new york state
dec the department of energy
[23:29] conservation
has published as their maps as you can
[23:33] see there is some slight um extension of
wetlands or the buffer the light green
[23:38] you see here is the buffer that nyc dec
maps share we always want to edge on
[23:42] them
john caution when we approach these
[23:45] models we tend to be a little
conservative because as long as if the
[23:48] system can be expanded to more than what
we are
[23:51] assessing
always well and good but we we just tend
[23:56] to take that conservative approach at
least for the purpose of initial and
[23:58] preliminary assessments so as you can
see while that entire area was available
[24:02] to us
we only utilized about
[24:05] this area based on also the wetlands
that are shown by the dec maps
[24:10] the second and the most important thing
uh also one of the biggest reasons or
[24:15] the factors that has led to several
projects not moving forward in new york
[24:20] state unfortunately
is the utility interconnection what that
[24:23] means is
does national grid infrastructure as
[24:27] it's as it exists right now
at this site be able to support another
[24:32] solar project and this additional
renewable generation
[24:36] and that's what we look at the utilities
are required to publish that make
[24:39] certain information publicly available
with some registration and other things
[24:44] of course and we go and review that if
we have any difficulties if we don't
[24:48] find enough information we do pick up
the phone and speak with the ious as
[24:51] well we've got very good relationships
there but we also have internal
[24:54] technical and interconnection teams that
we rely on as well to
[24:58] take a second look at and validate
anything that we are verifying so that's
[25:01] what we've done for this particular
project as well and there seems to be
[25:04] not too far off like our project site is
right here and the blue line you're
[25:08] seeing
here is the national grid um i call it
[25:13] the wires that exist there that we can
connect to
[25:17] so
i think uh typically my favorite part of
[25:21] the
presentations any time we do it um casey
[25:24] did give me a mandate that i should be
able to have you all
[25:28] through our presentation but this is
just very high level so
[25:33] i may not be able to meet his
expectations at the same time
[25:36] as you can see just for that one sample
side we went ahead and did an analysis
[25:39] on how it looks like and see if there's
truly economic value at this particular
[25:43] site right so
one thing that we did not include here
[25:46] we show
if the county were to update 40 of the
[25:50] energy produced by the system
[25:54] how it would look like and uh this is
the that that's where you're looking at
[25:59] around 11 000 a year just in build
credits
[26:02] and
and this is in addition to the any any
[26:05] lease payments that the county may
receive just for hosting the project
[26:08] so the remainder of the credits are
going to local communities of course the
[26:14] constituents as we discussed and we're
looking at about 450 000
[26:18] over the 25-year period that your
constituents can receive in bill credits
[26:23] alone
about 395 metric tons of carbon dioxide
[26:29] reduced are offset each year that's
that's a significant value and uh based
[26:35] on the national consensus especially for
the region on jobs that solar and energy
[26:40] storage projects typically create
we're talking about a commercial and
[26:44] industrial scale project site right not
not the residential
[26:47] say for a cni project we're looking at
about this project general creating
[26:51] about 60 jobs in the region along with
being able to power 71 homes for its
[26:56] equivalent of taking 86 cars off the
road that's again each year
[27:00] the way we presented again in each the
reason why we presented in
[27:04] each year is because
while it might look like a very small
[27:08] number think about it that's over if it
has to expand over 25 years the impact
[27:12] is significant so
here as you can see obviously the higher
[27:17] benefits are to the constituents or the
community and
[27:21] when it comes to build credits to build
credits but again when the lease
[27:24] payments are added on top of this it is
it will be of significant value to the
[27:28] county as well and we're just looking at
one site
[27:31] if we expand it to a portfolio of
multiple properties of course it's
[27:35] scaled to be even higher and provides
even much higher value than that
[27:41] vanilla how many years how many acres
does the 2.3 kw represent
[27:46] so
this just this portion of the property
[27:49] while the entire i think uh the area
that is available is about 18 and a half
[27:53] we're probably looking at
less than half um
[27:57] we are using some advanced
wattage kind of like better efficient
[28:01] more efficient modules here in our
modeling too so that gives us some
[28:05] like the density that you can get they
call it typically the ground coverage
[28:09] ratio in the industry basically means
how much ground are you covering how
[28:14] much energy are you getting like yield
or energy are you getting for each
[28:17] square foot of um
the system that we're installing so this
[28:21] probably is around about three megawatts
so about maybe
[28:25] 12 acres i would say 12 to 12 and a half
[28:34] i want to make sure the folks on the
call at st lawrence county
[28:37] who know
you know from the conversation we had
[28:40] before their total acreage
it is that they're considering you know
[28:44] given with some kind of sense of scale
so thank you yep absolutely and also we
[28:49] have the ability the reason we what we
develop is here again baseline when we
[28:52] go to the rfp stage we will provide
baseline uh designs to the developers so
[28:57] when we get the responses back or the
bits back we're doing an apples to
[29:00] apples comparison at the same time we
give them the flexibility crazy
[29:06] uh we give them the flexibility to
basically come up with their own designs
[29:11] and be able to propose what they want to
propose and expand the system size
[29:15] because
increases system size like when we ask
[29:18] for let's say under community solar when
we ask for them to provide pricing for
[29:21] leases lease as well
we don't ask them to just give us uh
[29:25] dollars per acre instead we ask them to
provide it in dollars per megawatt per
[29:29] year that is so if at all let's say one
developer has really good supplier
[29:34] contracts for getting solar panels and
they're able to get a larger system on
[29:39] the same plot of land when compared to
the other one
[29:42] if they're getting benefits from scale
or anything we want that trickle down
[29:46] back to us as well so that's where our
neighbor's approach in requesting rising
[29:50] to moving forward with the project or
evaluation is different from how
[29:56] the rest of the industry looks at it
so
[29:58] we are there is also that level of
transparency we require from the
[30:02] developers to provide to us
[30:06] right the next set of slides i have here
are just very quickly we can go through
[30:10] them these are mostly case studies just
want to show you some projects that
[30:13] we're doing i've mentioned about the
city of white plains um
[30:16] of course there is also the regional and
locational value oops sorry uh
[30:22] for the uh these projects can offer as
well and that's why you see that the 6.8
[30:27] megawatts pretty much provides um
it's actually a 6.85 megawatt portfolio
[30:32] and you can see this is unique sorry
this is unique in a way because we
[30:37] either think about when we talk about
solar we're talking about ground mount
[30:40] systems directly built on the ground
or rooftop just lying on the roof where
[30:45] the roof cannot be used for anything
else or parking lots here as you can see
[30:50] on the top picture
these are actually built on parking
[30:54] garages
so because we are talking about a
[30:57] densely urban city like white plains as
well there's not really a lot of
[31:01] open spaces and that's where some of the
city-owned properties are these really
[31:05] large massive parking garages and uh ipa
was able to provide them services where
[31:10] they could actually build canopies on
top of the garages and still be able to
[31:13] make about a million dollars a year in
just in lease revenues
[31:18] annually and that is in addition in our
in addition to that or on top of that
[31:24] they were able to receive about a little
over a hundred thousand dollars in bill
[31:27] credits
the
[31:29] the incentives
are one of the major things that played
[31:32] into giving them that kind of benefits
and that incentive market has tapered
[31:37] down significantly now in the state not
saying like not economical anymore at
[31:41] all but
not
[31:43] may not be as attractive as what we're
looking at here and also the region and
[31:47] where
uh the cost of electricity in the
[31:50] southeast new york region obviously is
slightly are significantly higher than
[31:54] rest of the state so that kind of added
value to the project as
[31:58] well a couple of other examples we are
building a portfolio of uh similar
[32:03] community solar projects that about
thirteen and a half megawatts of solar
[32:06] pv paired with energy storage at the jfk
international airport uh that will be
[32:10] similar to what we're doing for
westchester county where a portion of it
[32:13] is
consumed on-site at the airport the
[32:16] remainder will be offered to the local
community constituents and
[32:21] constituents basically
[32:24] the last one is uh as we were working
with westchester county we had a lot of
[32:28] municipalities that had reached out to
us within the county uh that were
[32:31] interested in a similar model some of
their sites were smaller where
[32:35] they may not be as attractive to the
developers uh if they stood by
[32:39] themselves and that's where we thought
again out of the box and worked with the
[32:42] county partnered with the county
actually to come up with what we call a
[32:45] community solar partnership program
under this program basically
[32:50] public entities within western county
have the ability to enroll into the
[32:53] program where they can either develop on
their own properties
[32:57] or just off take from projects that
exist within the region that are within
[33:02] the portfolio again
or do a combination of both so we have
[33:06] about
actually not counting the county uh
[33:09] westchester county themselves we have
about 26 municipalities that have
[33:12] enrolled and over actually nine school
districts right now that are not
[33:16] participating from the get-go of the
program
[33:18] uh
this mean this meant actually it was a
[33:22] heavy lift because there are dozens and
dozens of sites that are submitted by
[33:26] all of these customers and we went
through all of them thoroughly vetted we
[33:30] are in the process of making an award we
issued the rfp as a public solicitation
[33:34] we have gotten some really really good
responses that are in a way
[33:39] we were thrilled and surprised and uh
it's a pleasant surprise there uh and
[33:43] we're in the process of making our final
selection of the developers so that's
[33:47] where this particular project stands uh
it's expected to generate anywhere
[33:50] between 25 is the lowest again that's
being very conservative opportunity to
[33:55] expand on that is also significantly
high here and of course it has the
[33:58] potential to uh incorporate battery
energy storage systems which will
[34:02] provide additional value both in terms
of lease payments and also in terms of
[34:06] bill press
so i believe that's the last of my
[34:10] slides and i'll stop shooting now
and open it to you if you have any
[34:14] questions
yeah i think we do uh let us let you
[34:18] read
five questions for the answer
[34:21] okay
let's let your hands
[34:24] uh thank you very much for your
presentation
[34:28] could you please share that deck with
possibly our county administrator i'd
[34:33] like to go over the slides again there
was a lot of information you presented
[34:37] and
if you could send it to her if you
[34:40] wouldn't mind she could send it to the
people that request it
[34:44] absolutely no problem at all
casey will be able to share that with
[34:48] the county
thank you very much
[34:51] anyone else
[34:55] well thank you for your presentation and
thank you for your time
[34:59] we'll look into that information when
you send it to us probably much closer
[35:02] thank you very much
fantastic thank you we would obviously
[35:06] make ourselves available for any and all
subsequent questions comments or uh
[35:11] opportunity to talk further about
development of this project
[35:16] an absolute pleasure thank you to you
have a great evening goodbye everyone
[35:21] thank you
thank you everybody
[35:25] so next up
is
[35:28] st lawrence
arts council we have maggie mckenna the
[35:31] executive director
[35:34] thank you everyone for having me um i am
maggie mckenna uh saint lawrence
[35:40] actually our our official title is st
lawrence county arts council but we are
[35:43] not as you all know affiliated with
county government um but we are the arts
[35:48] agency within st lawrence county and we
actually distribute re-grant funds from
[35:53] the new york state council on the arts
in upwards of 60 thousand dollars to
[35:57] both to st lawrence jefferson and louis
counties we are the only arts agency in
[36:03] those three counties that receives that
grant from niska and so we're kind of
[36:07] the mini niska new york state council on
the arts for the mini niska of our
[36:12] region
i'm also going to share my screen and i
[36:14] wanted to talk to you about um
our north country arts festival that's
[36:20] starting up um at the end of next week
and then also talk to you about our um
[36:26] art center that we're working on can you
all see my screen at this point
[36:31] yes
excellent okay so this is actually our
[36:35] printed program and i will send this
over to you next week when we get it um
[36:39] from back from the printers
but i'm going to run through it with you
[36:44] so you can see what we're working on but
this north country arts festival
[36:49] alongside the new creative spirit
community arts center that we're
[36:54] building
they're really the two pillars of our
[36:56] strategic plan um
so that we have both a hub for our
[37:01] organization and for the arts industry
in our region as a whole and a festival
[37:06] celebrating the arts across our entire
county and hopefully expanding that even
[37:11] further than than just st lawrence
county we would love to really um to to
[37:17] bring the whole arts region or the arts
industry together as a regional uh
[37:23] tourism destination
so um
[37:26] this is the the north country arts
festival and it starts
[37:30] next weekend actually with potsdam porch
fest and canton porch fest so hop on
[37:35] through and show you some all the
different things that are going on
[37:37] throughout the month of september and um
we'll go from there so uh also i wanna
[37:43] actually before i go there at the sa
lawrence county arts council our mission
[37:46] is uh we we enrich the vibrancy of the
north country community by cultivating
[37:52] art appreciation and inspiring creative
expression
[37:57] let me go back to this let's see if i
can make this work there we go okay so
[38:02] this this uh festival is really a series
of different events that um are all
[38:08] marketed together under one
umbrella that is the north country arts
[38:13] festival in an effort to
expand our marketing reach um to both
[38:18] the all of the communities throughout
lawrence county and then also to
[38:22] tourists just outside the community that
will come up for events and um
[38:28] and participate in the arts industry
that we have the very vibrant arts
[38:32] industry that we have up here
so
[38:36] the creative partner showcase is an
exhibit of all of our artists work we
[38:40] have about
30 artists participating in that one
[38:45] exhibit and i
don't have the exact numbers right this
[38:48] second but we have
over a hundred different artists between
[38:52] musicians and creative and visual
artists um participating in this
[38:57] festival as a whole
so we have a few different other
[39:01] exhibits including our big and small
themed exhibit that's in the potsdam
[39:04] town hall and the plein air group
exhibit that will be at the traditional
[39:09] arts of upstate new york tawny in canton
and plein air is just painting outside
[39:14] um there's an incredible number of
people in our region that do that and do
[39:19] incredibly well selling their artwork um
when they just create it on site
[39:26] um so the biggest the the big starting
event is um on september 4th and it
[39:32] actually
includes three different components so
[39:35] the first is that we have um the sales
slc arts market and that is a sales
[39:41] event for artists um we have the list of
participating artists right here and um
[39:47] they
will be selling in ice park in potsdam
[39:51] and all of them actually have to have
their own sales tax id number and they
[39:56] will be
selling their work on that day
[40:00] um the next the other component within
ice park as well is a whole
[40:04] festival of concerts um
the ives park concert series started in
[40:09] 2016 and we're kind of just
repositioning it um so we have four
[40:15] different performances and it actually
ends with a really wonderful uh
[40:20] originally pop stand native sinclair
who's now down in nashville and she's
[40:24] internationally known
so that is
[40:27] the fourth and then the last component
on the fourth is our porch fest which
[40:31] was a really fun um coveted safe event
that we've ran for the first time last
[40:36] year um and it is in residential on
residential porches um within the
[40:41] village of potsdam um so people can walk
from knives park down to the
[40:45] neighborhood and see everything that's
going on throughout the day the next day
[40:50] though on september 5th we'll have this
is the first time we're running this and
[40:54] it's a canton porch fest and so we'll
have eight different performances on
[40:59] four porches in downtown canton as well
um and that'll be a really fun event
[41:06] pretty low-key and i hope that people
will come and see all the wonderful
[41:10] musicians that will be performing then
um we also have another iceberg concert
[41:14] series concert the crane latin ensemble
on the 18th so another piece of this um
[41:20] the festival as a whole was that we're
really trying to develop our partners
[41:24] across the county as much as possible
and we work with the remington art
[41:29] museum in ogdensburg with tawny and
canton um with messina artists
[41:34] association and all sorts of other
agencies to promote the arts together
[41:38] and really work as a
county-wide team
[41:42] so we do have some partner events that
we have in here including for
[41:45] representation that's doing a plein air
event on site there um music on maine is
[41:51] an event in canton that's happening
every thursday um from five to six and
[41:56] then um tommy has a few different
exhibits and the harvest moon that's
[42:00] happening at the that's the fall
fundraiser dinner at the remington so we
[42:05] wanted to make sure that those got
promoted as well and there's more
[42:08] partner information later on too
okay so this is kind of the the
[42:12] centerpiece of our whole festival and
this the studio tour the artist studio
[42:17] tour has been running for 34 years um so
you might remember going into an
[42:22] artist's home like 30 years ago and um
that was what you were doing you were on
[42:28] the slc arts studio tour at that time
but what we're doing this year is we're
[42:32] actually separating it out into three
different regions so i'll show you the
[42:36] three really quick we have the southeast
that's kind of colton parrishville um
[42:41] hannel falls then the northwest which is
ogdensburg um
[42:46] all the way down to the iva smith and
hammond and some other places in lorenzo
[42:51] falls in canton
and then the last day the last weekend
[42:57] uh potsdam
madrid um up to waddington we didn't
[43:01] have anybody in messina sign up this
year unfortunately um but we wanted to
[43:05] give people an opportunity to um
see the different artists and when we
[43:11] had it all the whole entire county all
combined in one weekend most people
[43:16] could only go to one or two or three or
four maybe
[43:19] sites i
my first year working at the arts
[43:22] council i went to 18 sites in two days
and it was
[43:26] bonkers so not recommended for anyone um
so we're separating it out this year so
[43:31] that you can go
all the way across the county over three
[43:35] weekends and really visit with these
artists um
[43:39] see their work
by their work and
[43:42] and get to know the county as a whole
and the amazing talent that exists here
[43:48] we as an organization will also have a
hub set up in different parts of the
[43:52] county for each weekend as well so the
first weekend we're going to be down in
[43:56] colton if ireland's living the second
weekend we'll be at the remington and
[44:00] then at tommy the next day then this the
last weekend we're going to be at the
[44:06] pound equipment museum with the county
chambers um open air market that's
[44:11] happening on the 25th um
and then the last day will be in our new
[44:16] arts center
um the remington arts festival really
[44:20] closes out the festival and that's a
really awesome sales event again for our
[44:26] artists um and it's celebrating the
fredrik remington who was born in canton
[44:33] um and letting canton kind of hold on to
that ownership of remington just a
[44:38] little bit because i know that there's a
little bit of ogdensburg canton uh vibes
[44:42] going on through about remington but uh
we want to kind of mesh that together
[44:47] and that's actually the same day as the
gala event at the remington art museum
[44:51] so it'll be a really fun remington day
to celebrate his birthday
[44:56] um as i mentioned before this is another
part of our program and it's our
[45:01] re-grant program again that's that 60
thousand dollars that we distribute to
[45:05] organizations and artists and some of it
also goes to
[45:09] class uh to
public school programs like helping them
[45:13] with their theater programs um so it's a
really amazing program that we have been
[45:19] doing since 2008
and um we're just growing that re-grant
[45:24] program more and more and more every
year
[45:27] and we also have a celebration
award ceremony for our grantees
[45:33] on the 29th
so this is the other part about our
[45:36] partners that i want to mention we do
keep an inventory of arts resources that
[45:41] exist throughout our region and this is
really the first time we're publishing
[45:46] what we have um
so
[45:49] it's again it's it's just great to see
across especially st lawrence jefferson
[45:53] and lewis counties um how many
world-class art resources there are um
[46:00] so many really wonderful things to go
see and really we don't fill in the
[46:04] adirondack park as much because that's
not really our region um there's another
[46:09] agency that kind of focuses on that
we're really focused on st lawrence
[46:13] county jefferson lewis for the re-grant
program and then oh sorry
[46:18] and then again uh we highlighted some of
our major partners throughout the county
[46:23] who um provide really amazing cult
[Music]
[46:27] arts and culture resources for the
people who live here and
[46:31] tourists as well
so the um before i continue actually
[46:36] does anybody have any questions on the
arts festival
[46:44] okay i will just finish up real quick
with um again i said the two pillars of
[46:49] our strategic plan include the festival
and then our creative spirit community
[46:54] arts center which is in downtown potsdam
um we did receive 578 000 from potsdam's
[47:01] downtown revitalization initiative grant
um to renovate that building and we're
[47:06] purchasing that building the full
project is about eight hundred thousand
[47:10] dollars um we have a campaign to raise
about two hundred thousand dollars um
[47:15] and this
this is creating a hub for the arts
[47:20] industry as a whole in our region um
and re reusing a building that is has
[47:26] been underutilized or mostly vacant for
a very long time um and so and one that
[47:32] has also held an exhibit hall for for
many many years as well so there's a lot
[47:36] of history that goes back into that as
well
[47:39] so
um
[47:42] it's great it's
once we're dedicated and we are holding
[47:45] this festival these two components are
going to work really beautifully
[47:48] together um to to support the artists in
our community to
[47:53] support anybody who's interested in
music art theater comedy uh any kind of
[47:58] drama any kind of painting or
learning uh we're developing
[48:03] partnerships with the colleges and with
the public schools with all sorts of
[48:09] arts agencies across our county as well
and um looking to
[48:14] in to
show more people what we're up to really
[48:18] that's why i'm here um
and
[48:24] sorry i just want to make sure that i
didn't leave anything out um
[48:28] that's yeah that's pretty much all i
have on this uh does anybody have any
[48:32] questions specifically about
the center or the festival
[48:38] you know we'd like to ask our legislator
for lucia why there's no talent
[48:42] yeah
speak to that mr terminelli
[48:57] thank you mrs mckenna um
i noticed the town of pakistan recently
[49:03] designated the st lords arts
council as their
[49:08] uh
local arts agency can you
[49:12] tell me how that benefits you or if that
would be something that we as a county
[49:17] could do
absolutely um as a county-wide
[49:22] region-wide agency um we are always
looking to support the region as a whole
[49:27] especially through our regret um
our regret opportunities so we actually
[49:33] applied for the first time ever to the
national endowment for the arts this
[49:37] year um to be
to receive
[49:41] what they call sub granting dollars but
it's the same as our regrant dollars um
[49:46] sub granting dollars to
distribute to agencies in our region
[49:51] in order to do that we did need to be
designated as a local arts agency um
[49:57] with that i would love to discuss um
becoming a local arts agency for the
[50:01] county and it wouldn't cost the county
anything it would just say we are the
[50:07] agency you would go to for or to to ask
for those kinds of re-grant funds or to
[50:13] create projects like that um we're also
another part of our strategic plan our
[50:18] longer term strategic plan is to do
cultural planning so um and and to
[50:24] encourage creative place making which is
i'm not going to get into all that
[50:28] because there's like many scholarly
papers on that that are complicated and
[50:32] but i have talked to uh jason
flotenhauer about that just putting a
[50:35] bug in his ear at the county um but yeah
it would just be strengthening the
[50:40] partnership and really
um
[50:42] recognizing that the arts are a crucial
component to our region's economy
[50:48] and to our um our community vitality um
so so if that was something that the
[50:54] county would be interested in i would
definitely um like to speak to that more
[50:59] um but really with the town and
if we were to
[51:03] expand to the county um it would be a
designation for as a local arts agency
[51:10] that federal funding
thank you very much okay
[51:15] anyone else
well thank you mr kenneth for your
[51:19] presentation
love what you've got going on in
[51:23] september showing all the activities
for people that live here in the north
[51:28] country they think that nothing is going
on they need to get involved because we
[51:32] really have some world-class talent
musicians and singers and art
[51:36] um and just the local talent artists
it's just something to explore for
[51:40] everyone so
it's by doing what you're doing that's
[51:44] that's helping in getting out there so
people get a wider array of what's
[51:48] happening in their community
thank you and i i
[51:53] am hoping to speak to you more about the
the effects that the arts have on our on
[51:58] tourism within our community as well as
economic development
[52:04] well thank you once again a little bit
great on appreciate your time
[52:07] [Music]
okay first up we have legislator
[52:11] margaret hager mark would you like to
read your resolution please yes mr
[52:15] chairman thank you
um i offer a resolution for plan
[52:19] proclaiming september 12th through the
18th 2021
[52:24] as national arts and education week in
st lawrence county and move for its
[52:29] adoption did someone like the second
second by mr truman and mr smith
[52:35] discussion
[52:42] um
i think based on what
[52:45] certainly what
mckenna presented to us this evening and
[52:49] uh
the importance of this in education
[52:54] i think that we need to take the extra
step of proclaiming a special week so
[53:00] that is in forefront in everyone's mind
about how this contributes to our
[53:06] community
not just our student community but to
[53:10] the entire community
um i think that uh as you said mr
[53:17] chairman we have so much going on in our
county and it would be great to be able
[53:22] to make it more
visible
[53:25] and attract people here there's a lot of
stuff with our great
[53:31] outdoor resources but we have a lot of
indoor resources too so thank you very
[53:36] much i couldn't agree more i mean two
sundays ago there was a presentation
[53:40] over by crane the performance series and
it was all by local music uh teachers
[53:46] from indian river
cena
[53:53] what's up jerry's last name jerry yeah
jerry mcdaniel's daughter is an
[53:57] incredible talent
um
[54:00] it was just a wonderful experience of
singing all afternoon
[54:05] as good as you can
these are all the people that are
[54:09] educating here today so i want to thank
you for that for raising this resolution
[54:14] any further discussion on this
resolution so you've done all those in
[54:18] favor signify by saying aye
opposed motion carrier next up we have
[54:23] solid waste with mr don chambers that
the resolution is modifying the 2021
[54:29] budget for the solid waste department
for overtime and expenses
[54:33] move by
mr smither's second language purpose
[54:38] yes thank you um
the resolution that you have for
[54:43] consideration this evening um
takes funds within the
[54:48] from the contingency fund within the
operating budget of solid waste
[54:53] and uh puts the funds in the
uh
[54:57] in the line for overtime expenses
uh
[55:01] the
uh that will bring our total overtime
[55:05] all expenses allowable to approximately
134 000
[55:10] um
and leaves
[55:13] uh around
117 000
[55:17] left in our contingency count account
within the operating budget
[55:23] any questions for mr james
seeing none all those favorable
[55:28] resolutions 65 are saying aye
opposed or she carried thanks up for
[55:34] highway
also with mr chambers the first
[55:37] resolution is modifying the 2021 budget
for department
[55:42] i just had a question on solid waste
genders
[55:47] few years back several years back
when fuel was escalating costs
[55:53] uh i believe we
implemented a fuel surcharge
[55:58] and i think we're hearing i see the
average gallon of gas is 316 nationals
[56:04] today
um i don't remember what we were at
[56:07] before right i'm thinking it's pretty
close
[56:09] is there any consideration out of that
or thoughts or
[56:14] well i believe i will uh need to have uh
some further uh discussions with
[56:21] uh the solid waste committee on some
other
[56:24] uh changes that will be coming possibly
coming in the
[56:29] 22 budget but
our fees may have to be looked at uh due
[56:34] to uh some outside forces
okay yeah absolutely remember
[56:41] it was quite well all right thank you
thank you
[56:45] our next resolution is for highway and
it's modifying the 2021 budget for the
[56:49] department of highways for overtime and
machinery rental
[56:53] move by
mr perkins said goodbye
[57:03] yes thank you um a couple topics being
covered here uh i'll take it uh with the
[57:10] first with the overtime
taking funds out of the existing highway
[57:15] budget out of the
[57:19] area where we pay
motor equipment operators and heavy
[57:23] equipment operators we've had some
vacancies
[57:27] uh that should uh that
will be able to
[57:31] uh fund the overtime expenses uh
hopefully till the end of the year
[57:36] um
and the other item uh item two items
[57:41] that are related uh
one that goes into the
[57:45] hb1 machinery rental that's for bridge
uh machinery rental and
[57:51] h1 machinery rental that's for road work
um
[57:57] due to the
the increase in work that we have
[58:01] with
the increase in chips funding
[58:05] being almost 1.6 million and then
rolling over uh from the previous year
[58:11] due to the holdback of the state of over
a quarter of a million dollars
[58:15] uh has you know facilitated more work
to be done uh by our forces
[58:22] um the balancing and again this is being
balanced within the budget basically
[58:28] putting the uh expenditures uh where
they uh need to be for this year we did
[58:34] have a rather uh light year uh for snow
and ice removal so that's where you'll
[58:40] see in the decreases the hcr machinery
rattle that for county snow removal and
[58:46] the h snow
machinery rental which is uh on state uh
[58:51] roads uh from machinery rental that's
the internal machinery rental is the
[58:57] internal charges that we charge
from one account to the from uh
[59:03] basically
the uh to fund the shop from
[59:08] um uh highway operations so uh
basically internal accounting but
[59:14] staying within on all staying
within the existing highway budget
[59:22] okay
any more questions for mr chambers
[59:27] so you're not all those favorite
resolutions signify by saying aye
[59:33] thank you
next resolution is approving federal aid
[59:38] local projects supplemental agreement
number one for right-of-way incidentals
[59:41] and acquisition for county route 35
[59:54] move by
[59:57] miss birkin second by mr
[1:00:02] yes thank you uh this project we've had
a number of uh resolutions moving
[1:00:07] forward uh for various contracts with
the
[1:00:11] uh with the state for funding uh this
one happens to deal with the
[1:00:16] uh acquisition of right of way
this uh project is on county road 35 at
[1:00:22] the intersection with
the potsdam morley road
[1:00:27] this project will be replacing a bridge
but also
[1:00:31] uh doing safety improvements for
uh
[1:00:35] the intersections of the hot stand
morley road and actually uh relocating
[1:00:40] uh the two legs of
potsdam morley wrote as they approach
[1:00:46] uh county road 35
increasing
[1:00:50] sight distance and
[1:00:54] meeting modern uh
standards for safe intersection safety
[1:00:59] so this will uh approve the res uh the
uh contract with the state of new york
[1:01:04] who is procuring them right away for the
county
[1:01:08] okay any questions mr chairs
so you've done all those in favor of the
[1:01:12] resolution 65689
closed ocean carrier next we have a 2021
[1:01:18] project update this is james
yes i'll try to be brief there there
[1:01:24] we do have a lot going on
um i'll start out with the uh bridges
[1:01:30] uh the department currently has eight uh
bridges currently in construction out of
[1:01:37] the 10 planned for this year
county road 54
[1:01:42] on the uh in the town of stock home near
the
[1:01:45] lawrence town line is planned to be
closed uh
[1:01:49] september 9th so that'll be the ninth
bridge under construction
[1:01:54] um and county road 27 uh town of russell
uh near thule pond uh will be closed
[1:02:02] somewhere in that uh time frame as well
um the other projects of bridge projects
[1:02:08] that we have uh jones road uh bridges
which there's actually two bridges at
[1:02:13] that location we're uh working on the uh
there's work going on on the foundation
[1:02:20] and
uh the steel uh the foundation work is a
[1:02:23] little over 50 percent complete
uh browns bridge uh in the hannwei area
[1:02:30] and pierbot uh they're this structural
all the sub
[1:02:34] or um substructure work is done
um
[1:02:38] the new steel is in place and deck
forming is underway
[1:02:42] island branch road in the town of
a fowler is uh working on deck forming
[1:02:48] as well
uh northumberland uh in the town of
[1:02:52] morristown is a remote bridge removal
and the water and sewer installation
[1:02:59] is underway uh which is required prior
to the removal of the structure
[1:03:04] uh
halfway house uh road a bridge in the
[1:03:08] town of waddington
uh super instruction uh structure uh and
[1:03:13] deck installation uh is planned for this
week
[1:03:17] darren road in the town of lawrence uh
superstructure and deck installation
[1:03:23] within two weeks
depot street in uh town of brazier
[1:03:28] hamlet of helena will have the steel uh
set uh tentatively this wednesday
[1:03:35] um on our roadway projects uh within
approximately two weeks all the road
[1:03:42] projects that we'll have will be
recycled and we are starting on the uh
[1:03:47] paving schedule the final paving
uh at this point is already underway
[1:03:52] and should be complete by the second
week in october um
[1:03:58] as far as the outpost the russell and
lisbon uh new outposts are coming along
[1:04:04] with the concrete foundations and uh
concrete walls
[1:04:08] uh being installed at this time
[1:04:13] okay any questions for mr chambers
[1:04:18] is it happening at
the new purchase on the podcast site on
[1:04:21] route 11
actually i had a meeting with new york
[1:04:26] state d.o.t uh to give me the
preliminary uh they gave me preliminary
[1:04:31] approval of location today
um
[1:04:34] we will need to then take that to the
surveyors to uh do a deep description uh
[1:04:40] to move the uh that project forward
[1:04:45] anybody else
thank you mr chambers
[1:04:49] thank you
next up is our county attorney stephen
[1:04:53] button
and the first resolution is authorizing
[1:04:56] the settlement agreement between johnson
and johnson and st lords county with
[1:05:00] respect to an action related to the
opioid crisis
[1:05:04] moved by mr forsyth second by mr light
club
[1:05:12] good evening everybody i think everyone
is aware that the uh county has been
[1:05:17] engaged as a litigant associated with
um the opioid
[1:05:22] epidemic specifically dealing with the
uh recoveries that are going on with
[1:05:27] respect to the uh distributors and
manufacturers of oxycontin and fentanyl
[1:05:33] we have had uh actions going on with
respect to purdue pharma uh we've had
[1:05:37] actions going on with respect to johnson
and johnson
[1:05:40] uh abbott laboratories
and a number of other distributors and
[1:05:44] manufacturers of opioids um i i know
everyone is familiar with the fact that
[1:05:49] we reached an agreement that is moving
to the bankruptcy courts associated with
[1:05:53] uh the purdue pharma
they were one of the main distributors
[1:05:58] and manufacturers of
fentanyl and oxycontin
[1:06:02] the resolution you have in front of you
would authorize a settlement with
[1:06:05] johnson and johnson
uh about a month and a half ago uh
[1:06:11] johnson johnson started their uh test
case down on long island and that test
[1:06:17] case ultimately resulted in the
settlement um from that there was a
[1:06:21] framework that was developed that would
identify uh what the other plaintiffs
[1:06:25] would be eligible to receive
uh within the body of this resolution
[1:06:29] you'll see that
there is a range that st lawrence county
[1:06:32] can recover as a result of the
settlement uh it is contingent on the
[1:06:36] other counties uh that our names lit
against signing in the more counties
[1:06:40] that sign in the more money we will
actually get on this settlement uh the
[1:06:46] range as you'll know uh indicates that
it's somewhere between seven hundred and
[1:06:50] seventeen thousand or approximately
seven hundred and seventeen thousand
[1:06:53] three hundred and seven thousand
um it's looking like it's probably gonna
[1:06:57] be closer uh to the seven hundred
thousand range rather than the three
[1:07:01] hundred thousand dollar range uh because
from what i have been informed uh the
[1:07:05] counties are in fact signing on to this
agreement all of the counties that are
[1:07:09] signing on to this agreement have to
pass resolution authorizing the
[1:07:12] agreement prior to september 10th uh so
this resolution would effectively
[1:07:17] authorize me to communicate uh our
acceptance of that settlement
[1:07:24] any questions from mr button mr forza
[1:07:34] [Music]
that's correct um what i'm hoping is
[1:07:39] that this board will authorize me nunc
pro-tung or retroactively at the
[1:07:43] september 10th board meeting to
authorize effective this date um just a
[1:07:47] couple of other side notes that i think
everyone should be aware of associated
[1:07:51] with the settlement the vast majority of
this settlement will be what are
[1:07:56] designated as restricted funds um
restricted is defined as those funds to
[1:08:00] be utilized for um
purposes related to the opioid epidemic
[1:08:05] whether they be in the form of treatment
would they be in the form of law
[1:08:09] enforcement or activities that are
related specifically to uh opioid
[1:08:13] recovery um there's approximately 154
000 that would come up front uh that
[1:08:20] would be unrestricted county could
utilize it for any purpose
[1:08:24] but i think as mr forsythe pointed out
i would be seeking to have this
[1:08:28] resolution retroactive to this date
[1:08:35] okay
anyone else
[1:08:39] um
i will be voting against this uh as i
[1:08:43] have
in the two three years that we've been
[1:08:45] doing this
uh this is a legal drug that billions
[1:08:49] were spent by pharmaceutical companies
to bring onto the market it's been
[1:08:54] highly regulated
and it's prescribed by doctors and
[1:08:58] doctors are not being held accountable
for any malfeasance of over-prescribing
[1:09:03] or
doing multiple prescriptions for uh
[1:09:07] certain individuals
uh the end result will be
[1:09:11] increased costs to us
patients uh consumers of the actual
[1:09:15] products and it will study uh
bringing other products to the market so
[1:09:20] i'll be learning now to be consistent
but it's been the last three years
[1:09:24] so
uh any other discussion see none all
[1:09:28] those in favor of the resolution signify
by saying aye aye
[1:09:32] opposed
[1:09:37] next resolution is adopting the legal
arguments of the amethyst brief
[1:09:41] submitted by the state of arizona on
behalf of 25 similarly situated states
[1:09:46] in the matter of new york state rifle
and pistol association incorporated
[1:09:51] that's al the kevin b p gruen in this
bishop capacity as superintendent of the
[1:09:56] new york state police
and all currently pending before the
[1:09:59] united states supreme court moved by mr
leifert
[1:10:04] secretary of foresight mr indonesia
and miss curran
[1:10:09] mr ben
thank you
[1:10:12] i know this board is very familiar with
the activities of the past six years
[1:10:17] related to
concerns that arose with respect to the
[1:10:21] term proper cause that's contained in
penal law section 400. in penal law
[1:10:26] section 400 the issuance of a pistol
license is conditioned on a licensing
[1:10:30] authority a licensing officer
determining that the applicant has what
[1:10:34] is known as proper cause
a demonstration that the individual
[1:10:39] is
uh similar
[1:10:41] excuse me is
specially suited to possess a firearm
[1:10:45] and capable of possessing a firearm
this
[1:10:49] a term
has permitted a really wide array of
[1:10:53] responses from licensing authorities and
all of the 57 counties outside of new
[1:10:59] york city and then a special arrangement
essentially in new york city that
[1:11:03] encompasses the five boroughs uh really
compiling the whole 62 counties having
[1:11:09] uh a patchwork quilt of solutions
related to the issuance of pistol
[1:11:14] licenses
um back in 2015
[1:11:19] uh this board moved to actually define
the term proper cause because the courts
[1:11:23] had identified
that proper cause had never really
[1:11:27] truthfully been defined and this board
identified proper causes being
[1:11:30] essentially any legal or legitimate
purpose to allow for the issuance of
[1:11:35] these licenses
when there were difficulties moving
[1:11:39] forward from that this board took
various actions in the forms of
[1:11:42] resolutions calling upon changes in
state law calling upon changes in uh the
[1:11:49] legislation that govern the issuance of
pistol
[1:11:53] uh this continued until approximately
2019 when this board joined with the
[1:11:59] state of louisiana and 16 other states
as amicus in the matter of niserpa
[1:12:04] versus new york city that was the first
real significant challenge to uh the
[1:12:09] pistol licensing staff statutes since
2010
[1:12:14] first major challenge uh to individual
rights and seeking to at least identify
[1:12:19] the scope of the second amendment for
utilization
[1:12:22] um after the new new york state rifle
and pistol association versus new york
[1:12:27] city case that was ultimately mooted by
a change in state law to permit for
[1:12:33] transport of weapons to and from a
person's primary residence to a
[1:12:37] secondary resident uh there were a
number of cases that popped up uh at the
[1:12:42] supreme court the first nine were almost
out of hand out of hat um shrugged off
[1:12:49] uh they were dismissed by the supreme
court as not moving forward uh this case
[1:12:55] in particular recently popped up when i
say recently it popped up in in march
[1:13:00] this case is nicerpa versus uh kevin
broon it was previously corlett
[1:13:05] uh the name of the new york state uh
police superintendent
[1:13:10] the allegation that has been brought
forward is that new york state's pistol
[1:13:15] licensing statute more specifically its
gun laws um impede the utilization of
[1:13:20] the second amendment that the second
amendment should proceed from a shall
[1:13:25] issue
uh rather than a may issue and so let me
[1:13:28] explain that a little bit so you
understand the distinction
[1:13:31] um the presumption that many states take
the
[1:13:35] 26 that you're seeing in these
resolutions is that a state must
[1:13:41] demonstrate why an applicant should not
have a pistol license rather than force
[1:13:46] the applicant
to demonstrate why they should be
[1:13:50] granted a pistol license or a gun
license and the may issue states like
[1:13:55] new york and california continue to work
from that operative provision these
[1:14:00] proper cause or reasonable cause
requirements within the statute
[1:14:04] the shall issue states work from the
belief that everyone should be entitled
[1:14:10] until the state demonstrates their own
proper reasoning as to why no license
[1:14:15] should be issued the argument before the
state uh before the united states
[1:14:18] supreme court
is that
[1:14:21] all states should be operating on a
shall issue basis rather than a may
[1:14:26] issue basis to force the state
demonstrate why
[1:14:31] an individual should not be in
possession of a firearm rather than
[1:14:34] force all individuals to demonstrate why
they should be entitled to one um the
[1:14:39] argument is really the first
major second amendment case that appears
[1:14:43] to be headed towards full argument and
full decision uh since the uh heller
[1:14:48] case dc versus heller uh they came down
in 2009 and in 2010 chicago versus
[1:14:55] mcdonald's both of those indicated that
the second amendment is an individual
[1:14:59] right and also applicable to states and
local governments so uh by adopting this
[1:15:04] resolution the board would be adopting
the arguments that the state of arizona
[1:15:08] and the state of arizona filed its
amethyst brief on july 21st this will be
[1:15:12] going to oral argument before the united
states supreme court on november 7.
[1:15:19] thank you
any questions for
[1:15:21] our county attorney on this matter
see none all those in favor of the
[1:15:27] resolution
oh i'm sorry mrs purpose yeah i'd like
[1:15:30] to thank steve for his uh diligence with
this and uh bringing it forward and i'd
[1:15:34] like to be added as a co-sponsor please
anyone else
[1:15:51] co-sponsor please
[1:15:58] ready
[1:16:04] all those
[1:16:16] all right next up is uh resolution
considering information technology we
[1:16:20] have chris johnson with us resolution is
authorized in the chair to sign a
[1:16:24] contract with usherwood office
technology
[1:16:28] to provide a multi-function device
ladies and management program for st
[1:16:31] lawrence county
[1:16:39] good evening everybody thanks for
letting me attend yet another legislator
[1:16:43] meeting
uh the dark consideration uh this
[1:16:47] evening i appreciate the opportunity to
bring it forward
[1:16:51] is what used to be known as the uh the
every four year copier contract
[1:16:56] is it is has now evolved into
multi-function device
[1:17:01] that has
been depended on
[1:17:04] as a piece of our technical
infrastructure throughout the county
[1:17:08] five years ago we forged a relationship
with pressure wood office technology our
[1:17:16] hope was
um to as opposed to just
[1:17:20] did this out like widgets we were placed
every so often every four years
[1:17:28] we were hopeful to develop a
relationship
[1:17:31] uh that that could evolve because these
things do so much removal and
[1:17:36] what really has
risen to be
[1:17:39] done very well by us
having to settle that now that um and uh
[1:17:44] because of extenuating circumstances a
year ago we are here now five years
[1:17:49] after the forking of that contract
and uh they've come forward with a very
[1:17:55] aggressive
very impressive offer
[1:17:58] which uh for all intents and purposes
replaces
[1:18:03] uh with new machines but we just used to
replace them all
[1:18:07] uh and that's of course a high at a
higher cost
[1:18:11] because these units
are
[1:18:14] are higher quality
and we're continuing the relationship
[1:18:18] with the vendor we have new
opportunities
[1:18:22] available to us in this case for the
first time ever we'll be
[1:18:26] actually keeping a third of the fleet in
place
[1:18:30] and replacing two-thirds of the fleet uh
with the promise that if any of the ones
[1:18:36] not being replaced fail they'll be
replaced at no additional charge
[1:18:41] that's going to bring our costs down to
approximately twenty four thousand
[1:18:45] dollars a year
um
[1:18:48] from what we're paying now and uh
getting two thirds of the units replaced
[1:18:52] and they're also
adding net three
[1:18:56] additional machines
really great contract very excited to be
[1:19:01] presenting
[1:19:04] any questions from mr johnson
seeing
[1:19:14] thank you
next up we have a resolution from uh
[1:19:18] legislator tony arquette thank you very
[1:19:35] i had a good fortune being friends
with a gentleman named dennis banan who
[1:19:39] uh lost his leg a couple years ago and
the snowman relaxed it just up from the
[1:19:44] jones road bridge his uh
his life was taken far before his time
[1:19:49] uh he was a really good family man
a good friend to many
[1:19:53] if you don't recognize the name you
might have known he was he worked for
[1:19:57] frenchie chevrolet in the service
department
[1:19:59] his entire adulthood i actually ran the
service department for the both of those
[1:20:04] years
um i won't get too motivated into this
[1:20:07] because he's got a contingency that's
going to come in on the 13th for the
[1:20:10] full board meeting
um but you know just a little bit about
[1:20:15] it he was very happy hunter fisherman
outdoorsman
[1:20:19] to the degree that he was the president
of the flower hill hunting club
[1:20:23] sportsman club up in that area
uh spent just decades with his friends
[1:20:28] a close circle of friends that continued
to suffer
[1:20:32] regularly over his lives
i appreciate the support on this
[1:20:36] research
[1:20:39] so any discussion
seeing none all those in favor of the
[1:20:44] resolution second by saying i all right
[1:20:50] next up uh we have legislator bill
sheridan bill uh mr sheriff would you
[1:20:54] like to read your right solutions
[1:21:03] so the first resolution is setting a
date for a public hearing on imposed
[1:21:06] local law city
uh number yet to be termed for the year
[1:21:10] 2021 for setting the salary for the
county attorney
[1:21:14] ruled by mr foresight second minus
lightfoot
[1:21:17] indonesia
and this current
[1:21:20] um
discussion
[1:21:25] uh
it's simply setting the date for a
[1:21:28] public hearing the
number that has been
[1:21:31] uh
suggested and one that i proposed was
[1:21:36] the
salary of 158
[1:21:40] 000. which was derived as an average
salary
[1:21:46] uh with the other counties that share
with the county training it's also
[1:21:51] involved with
the social services and the county
[1:21:55] attorney's office
and those counties are
[1:22:00] the first one being erie which was 172
000
[1:22:04] and then the other one was uh orange
county 169 000 that's what they're
[1:22:10] paying those attorneys
both that we're both has
[1:22:15] dutchess county 168 000
and then
[1:22:19] schenectady county was 150 000
in ontario 133 000 so the average of
[1:22:26] those
was 158 000 and i thought that would be
[1:22:30] a fair
uh number that we would
[1:22:34] agree upon and be fair to the taxpayers
[1:22:50] i think it is a lot more than just a
workload
[1:22:55] in my mind it's the level of
understanding it's the level of
[1:23:03] the county attorney's knowledge of the
laws
[1:23:06] and
his ability to
[1:23:09] uh give this board the best possible
legal advice that we could
[1:23:14] hope to obtain
i think that it is a low figure i think
[1:23:20] if you take a look at what the other
attorneys in the county are charging
[1:23:25] uh 200 an hour plus
do the math and figure out what he could
[1:23:32] be earning in private practice
and this is one guy that i don't want to
[1:23:37] see in private practice i want to see
him representing statements
[1:23:43] thank you mr chairman i have all those
sentiments
[1:23:47] i think that uh that all of us have
certain levels of expertise and
[1:23:52] intelligence in certain areas a little
bit less than others
[1:23:55] as far as county government is concerned
i have yet to find where mr buff is not
[1:24:16] sorry about that
i i agree with mr lightfoot and mr
[1:24:20] arquette i think in many of those
counties the county attorney that we're
[1:24:25] talking about their salary the only
thing they do is keep track of the other
[1:24:28] county attorneys where our county
attorney does it all
[1:24:33] but
[1:24:35] i appreciate the idea of giving him a
raise
[1:24:39] i just did it more
any more
[1:24:42] discussion see none all those payroll
resolutions signify by saying hi
[1:24:48] opposed
motion gary
[1:24:53] now mr sheridan you read your vessels
yes
[1:24:58] chairman i have a resolution of
supporting milf oil reduction efforts uh
[1:25:01] silly silva to cellulite
and the town of fowler modifying the
[1:25:06] 2021 budget for sandra county and move
forward
[1:25:10] second
[1:25:25] about this issue
concerning that late in the milfoil
[1:25:30] problem in that particular way it's
beautiful
[1:25:34] and a town supervisor
a follower rick newvine who's also been
[1:25:40] in contact with me with his concerns and
asked for the count of the prosecutors
[1:25:46] of their situation
uh i've been in contract with a lady
[1:25:50] who was in charge of the milford
the milfoil uh management fund
[1:25:56] up there and she's been involved in this
uh fight with milfoil for like 20 years
[1:26:02] she tells me she's
knows an awful lot about the issue
[1:26:06] and i learned
[1:26:16] raising money raising funds
for a while and like for example uh
[1:26:24] i think it was
last year they spent eight thousand
[1:26:27] dollars they raised eight thousand
dollars
[1:26:31] and
then it was matched for sixteen thousand
[1:26:34] for two weeks
here that was the year before
[1:26:38] and then last year they did the same
thing
[1:26:42] uh so they have been putting some effort
in it and raising funds fighting this by
[1:26:47] themselves
and they've asked for us to help out
[1:26:51] and he worked with uh one of two
companies that do fight this milfoil
[1:26:56] uh in this state
and it's owned by a gentleman by the
[1:27:00] name of a dominant jew jude and his wife
they own one of the two companies
[1:27:06] and they uh
they're dealing with uh
[1:27:12] this company has a
scholarship internship program set up
[1:27:17] for college students
who want to learn how to dive
[1:27:21] and
it's
[1:27:23] so they hire these students
to do the work for two weeks on that
[1:27:27] particularly
every year
[1:27:30] and they're going to do it again next
year probably
[1:27:34] and these students get money for pulling
actually pulling the plants from the
[1:27:40] bottom
of that
[1:27:42] lake
and
[1:27:44] rather than other
uh ways of harvesting so forth which is
[1:27:50] controversial and some say it spreads
the milk oil rather than
[1:27:56] actually takes care of it
and the issue there on that leg it's
[1:28:01] like 548 length
is little foils around the edge of that
[1:28:05] leg it's not like it is black like it's
not just the edges so they have a little
[1:28:11] bit more
optimistic view
[1:28:14] of beating this
because it is on the shoreline
[1:28:19] and it's in the
shallow water the lake is actually deep
[1:28:24] so it's okay down in the deeper areas
but it's along the shoreline that
[1:28:28] they're concerned about one end of in
particular
[1:28:31] and so they
their idea is this company's idea is to
[1:28:36] pull those
milfoil plants early on
[1:28:43] and then it won't grow
it takes two and a half years to grow
[1:28:47] one of those plants so it actually
reaches the surface of water
[1:28:51] so if they get it early they tell us
they'll make uh and what they've learned
[1:28:57] is is that that flame one plant once it
goes out and flowers on the water that's
[1:29:02] when the seeds start
producing and making more
[1:29:07] so they did it before this early stages
and because they've been doing this for
[1:29:12] a while
they've started a pretty good battle on
[1:29:16] it
and they these kids who they have like
[1:29:19] four per pontoon boat that worked on
this
[1:29:22] project uh will collect uh up to
thousands of pounds of milfoil in just a
[1:29:29] day
and uh and they uh they put them in
[1:29:33] these like huge bags and they they take
over the boat ramp and
[1:29:39] trucks them in uh and other farmers
bought that
[1:29:44] stuff they pulled out the milfoil for
chicken feed filled laundry's not near
[1:29:49] body of water
and uh and other they use it for other
[1:29:54] things as well so it works out that way
quite well for them they they've really
[1:29:59] been giving an effort to uh
fight it out there so they're asking for
[1:30:04] some help and uh so i explained to him
that it might not be something that
[1:30:10] is going to be on a
a yearly thing for us
[1:30:15] i explained that
there's some of us on this board feeling
[1:30:18] that it should be up to the state of new
york and the dec and the federal
[1:30:22] government can take care of our lakes
and our streams in the state of new york
[1:30:26] county governments
so they understand that but they would
[1:30:29] like a helping hand
and
[1:30:32] the
figure we came up with is a half of what
[1:30:36] we talked about for uh
and that last resolution mr presented
[1:30:42] and that i supported
and uh but that's that's a bigger link
[1:30:46] it's like 27 miles
long
[1:30:49] that's right
and this is only 504 acres
[1:30:54] it's it's not as big of a lake
as they say you've got the deep water in
[1:30:58] the center it doesn't have the issues so
we covered the thousand dollar figure
[1:31:02] and that would help them go a long way
uh for next year
[1:31:06] uh so
and uh so i asked for your support on it
[1:31:11] any uh any discussion or questions
mrs
[1:31:16] thank you mr chairman i'd be inclined to
support this but i'm having a hard time
[1:31:22] understanding
where exactly the fifteen thousand
[1:31:26] dollars go does it go to
pulling the weeds or
[1:31:31] i don't need to call something weed it's
not a weed but it sounds like a weed
[1:31:35] okay
pulling the weeds or studying it or how
[1:31:39] specifically do they spend that money
uh it's actually just
[1:31:46] it's used to pay
the
[1:31:49] people who are working for the company
uh who are on that pontoon
[1:31:56] who i think spend like eight hours under
water per day and another three hours on
[1:32:01] the top of the water
taking the uh the stuff that's been
[1:32:06] chopped up by the props where the heavy
set fishing area is because they've got
[1:32:10] to try to get stuck that the props are
chopped up and that's what it is that
[1:32:14] uh makes the oil grow
uh so they clean that up for another
[1:32:19] three hours so
i'm from what i understand it's like a
[1:32:22] 12 hour day
and it goes on for two weeks period
[1:32:28] mr ford says yeah do we have a
percentage of
[1:32:32] how much of the milk oil they do in that
two-week spent through extended
[1:32:38] percentage
[1:32:52] like
they didn't tell me a percentage other
[1:32:56] than they're saying they're pulling up
30 to 35 big huge uh net bags of
[1:33:02] this milfoil plant on a daily basis
that's over a thousand pounds
[1:33:12] they're still young
and that's where they think they can get
[1:33:16] ahead of the game by getting stuck
keeping up with it the
[1:33:21] the reason i asked
i missed the governor when i wanted to
[1:33:24] talk on this
fair one especially i was there when uh
[1:33:28] senator schumer came to black lake
several years ago and he was at the
[1:33:31] flanders right
[1:33:44] um
to me it's a band-aid fix
[1:33:48] sam is just about every effort has been
a mandate fixed um
[1:33:53] it came to me the other day uh mr
campbell came in
[1:33:57] regarding
the water testing
[1:34:01] that's gonna be the next one
[1:34:17] where do we start where we stop and what
effect does it truly happen i know
[1:34:21] there's an effort um
with the 28 000 now i've heard that
[1:34:26] they're not even going to utilize it
this year to do
[1:34:29] all that channel they're going to use a
portion of it and save it for next year
[1:34:34] so we just write blank checks to all
these places with the species
[1:34:39] i don't know um
margaret asked the question who gets the
[1:34:43] money so are we just going to write a
check for 15 000 the sylvian lake
[1:34:47] association i don't know
once you do one you're going to do them
[1:34:51] all
and you're going to find out how many
[1:34:53] invasive species there are in the lakes
county and at one time
[1:35:08] and i support blacklight i've supported
it as a business owner for years
[1:35:13] with their hand pictures and sponsored
fish every year
[1:35:17] so
you know i i feel it but
[1:35:21] we're not the body that should be doing
this
[1:35:23] if this was to retain to help them
retain
[1:35:26] someone would be a bigger benefactor a
matching fun type thing which it sounds
[1:35:32] a little bit like in the resolution
i may support it a little bit
[1:35:37] but to just go pull a few weeds which
i'm guessing it's probably two to three
[1:35:40] percent of the weight
i think it's just
[1:35:44] utah
i'll help
[1:35:47] good
let's do it
[1:35:52] that's the first i've heard you're not
going to
[1:35:58] and i will certainly look into it
but uh i think that uh
[1:36:03] legislative forces
it needs to be a
[1:36:08] an effort not uh you know peace meal uh
blacklight this year
[1:36:14] so be like next year nor would like the
year after
[1:36:18] uh with that in mind
i've reached out to the dbc
[1:36:23] i've reached out to clarkson university
i've reached out to
[1:36:28] the chambers of commerce on black lake
the towns that surround black lake
[1:36:35] the
uh i have it in my calendar to reach out
[1:36:39] to the
superintendent
[1:36:43] of the town minerva in essex county
uh the reason for that is because that
[1:36:49] is i think i mentioned that there's one
of the links in the adirondacks
[1:36:53] that is being treated chemically
by
[1:36:58] an applicator
licensed by the dbc to
[1:37:02] do such thing
[1:37:05] i don't know the name of the chemical
that they're uh treating with
[1:37:10] but what i am told
is that
[1:37:13] they have had a great deal of success
with it it doesn't eradicate it
[1:37:19] it
holds it in check more than anything
[1:37:23] else eliminates it
for a period of one or two years i'm
[1:37:28] told and it will come back if
something is not done to continue
[1:37:34] i've also asked and i've been in
consultation with the board chair
[1:37:39] i've also asked the
planning department
[1:37:43] and the environmental management council
to take the lead in
[1:37:48] spearheading an effort a countywide
effort
[1:37:51] to
look for grants
[1:37:54] and dr twist at clarkson university the
head of the biology department
[1:37:59] is the gentleman that conducted the last
survey on martin light
[1:38:04] that report will be issued here within
the next couple of months
[1:38:08] he is also familiar with the grant
process
[1:38:12] and applied for and received the grant
to study the issue on
[1:38:18] norwood lake
uh
[1:38:20] he's interested in participating in this
uh so i think
[1:38:25] the more
that we have the wider
[1:38:29] network cast to get interested people in
the county
[1:38:33] on board with this and i think
getting the emc and planning on board
[1:38:38] with it and agreeing at least in the
concept
[1:38:41] to
be the driving force behind it it can't
[1:38:46] be an individual chevy group
and
[1:38:50] i think that once
we see what is available
[1:38:55] and
through some of these other
[1:38:57] environmental organizations
that uh
[1:39:01] have as their
charge
[1:39:04] looking at invasive species on the
eastern end of lake ontario and the
[1:39:09] saint lawrence river
that uh
[1:39:12] you know we stand a pretty good chance
of at least getting a better
[1:39:16] understanding of this stuff
and uh hopefully
[1:39:20] in uh the years to come
uh
[1:39:23] you know with a lot with enough
scientific minds looking at this
[1:39:28] uh in interest on the part of property
owners and uh governments such as st
[1:39:34] lawrence county and the townships that
surround these lakes
[1:39:38] that we will be able to get a better
handle on it and hopefully something
[1:39:43] will come that will enable us to
eradicate
[1:39:48] these issues
the whole point is is that
[1:39:52] yeah we can sit back and
lament the fact that at this point in
[1:39:57] time there's nothing we can do to
eradicate this stuff but by the same
[1:40:03] token just to let it go
if not going to uh
[1:40:09] further us
in pushing us down the road
[1:40:13] for for developing some way to eradicate
it
[1:40:16] so
[1:40:19] i i just hope that this would allay some
fears that we're going to spend
[1:40:24] you know 40 50 000
worth of taxpayers money and not seeing
[1:40:29] any results i'm hoping that this will be
the start of something and that
[1:40:35] somewhere down the road there will be a
good ending to this stuff
[1:40:40] yeah but
you know what i i think there's a
[1:40:42] different other component to this that
we're making an effort to preserve some
[1:40:47] of our richest property value that we
have in the county
[1:40:51] secondly
um i believe that the individual that
[1:40:55] turned sheridan is speaking to the
spearheading the fundraising efforts is
[1:40:58] gene dodds that's caroline yes her
legislator haggard's question i've
[1:41:04] worked with jane in a different capacity
for her and i
[1:41:08] for a number of years and i can i can
tell you that she will be diligent
[1:41:13] in her task if she's overseeing that she
will
[1:41:24] thank you mr chairman i agree with dave
[1:41:28] and mr lightfoot and mr
but
[1:41:32] i think
it's a great idea
[1:41:35] that we're we're looking into this but i
don't think we're the body to do it i do
[1:41:40] think maybe
like mr life has reached out to numerous
[1:41:45] organizations i i think that's great
i think we're going down a slippery
[1:41:50] slope
there's dave says there's 46 bodies of
[1:41:54] water i know there's at least
five in colton
[1:41:57] three in periscope one in hopkinton
i mean that's just some of my district
[1:42:03] we're all having the same issues
where are we going to start doling out
[1:42:08] to all these
places that's my concern
[1:42:14] the state just purchased 8 000 acres for
4.1 million dollars i believe put in a
[1:42:20] conservation easement
i'd rather have them taking that money
[1:42:24] and putting it into actually the
conservation of these waters and looking
[1:42:30] into that i think that's we need to look
to that and other methods is
[1:42:37] like
the chemicals and stuff
[1:42:40] i know in some of the southern states
they do use chemicals to get rid of uh
[1:42:47] the invasive species there's many
different types
[1:42:50] and it does so without harming the fish
and things like that
[1:42:55] we need to do something because our
waterways are tourism
[1:42:59] and so i do agree but i just don't think
this is the right way to go about it so
[1:43:03] i won't support this one either
let's just know this uh i would agree
[1:43:08] that this is a difficult problem we do
need to try to
[1:43:12] protect our resources
but i'm not sure that it's
[1:43:17] up to just us to do that
the homeowners are doing something
[1:43:21] that's great i think
[1:43:34] do you have any figures uh
[1:43:50] does that mean that they won't
uh
[1:43:53] no
maybe if i approach them i think reality
[1:43:58] my guess would be if we were going to
help out then maybe the town would
[1:44:03] as well help
so
[1:44:08] thank you mr chairman without getting
into crosstalk um i'd say to mr um
[1:44:15] lightfoot thank you very much for all
that work because that's calling a lot
[1:44:20] of people i too reached out to a couple
people at clarkson
[1:44:25] and there's a complicated and way over
my head away going about this and they
[1:44:30] have the expertise and i'm delighted
that
[1:44:32] he spoke to professor twiss about that
because i his name did come up with
[1:44:38] people that i was speaking to
i would thank um mr lightbrook for that
[1:44:43] that being said
i agree with mr forsyth
[1:44:47] um the problem is this is here this is
now and they have
[1:44:52] um come to us and asked us we've given
it to one municipality they have a
[1:44:58] solution that sounds like it fits in
with the little i know
[1:45:04] um about this being ecologically sound
and that's why i ask the question more
[1:45:10] about the money than anything else
is if they want to mow it down don't let
[1:45:14] them do that because that's one thing i
learned that's a no-no it just makes the
[1:45:20] stuff
go crazy but
[1:45:24] more to the point um
mr lightfoot's approach is how we have
[1:45:29] to go because maybe we draw the line
right here i'm going to vote for this
[1:45:33] because i think they have come up with a
good resolution to the immediate problem
[1:45:39] and it takes a while to study these
things in the meantime all this damage
[1:45:43] is being done and if we can
contribute somewhat getting it
[1:45:48] under control for this year i think
that's a good thing
[1:45:51] but once again i appreciate how much joe
did
[1:45:55] looking into this and um
i will certainly if
[1:46:01] i'd love to be involved in helping out
but i'll certainly bring back any
[1:46:04] information to
the town and the village pod stamp too
[1:46:10] uh if there's anything that they can do
because i'm we have a lot of water
[1:46:14] we all have a lot of water thank you
that's great
[1:46:18] mr i'm going to support this
but i would
[1:46:27] i really believe that we need to develop
a county-wide comprehensive plan
[1:46:34] uh
in which
[1:46:37] when the 36 different bodies of water
come to us
[1:46:43] that we have criteria that we have
rules
[1:46:49] on how much the property owners are
going to
[1:46:52] put up is their match how much the local
governments are going to put up is their
[1:46:56] match
and
[1:46:58] uh
whether
[1:47:00] an
attempt to get grant funding when that's
[1:47:04] possible
um
[1:47:07] which is why
[1:47:10] i really believe
that uh the environmental management
[1:47:14] council
needs to
[1:47:17] make this
their major priority
[1:47:21] because we've got a lot of lakes and
rivers in this county
[1:47:27] and
by bringing
[1:47:30] dr twist who i know who's the head of
the great rivers institute at clarkson
[1:47:35] and you know our scientific community
involved
[1:47:41] it can help us develop a uh
[1:47:46] real plan
a rational plan
[1:47:49] and one that maximizes our resources
as opposed to the current
[1:47:57] one shots
that
[1:48:01] don't really
address anything and don't
[1:48:06] provide us with any hope that we're not
going to be back
[1:48:11] uh
10 months from now
[1:48:14] dealing with the same question with the
same bodies of water
[1:48:18] with you know no answers and
the uh
[1:48:23] you know the
many adrenaline communities have used
[1:48:28] the herbicide that uh
has been uh mentioned
[1:48:33] and
you know it's been found
[1:48:36] that it works and it doesn't harm the uh
[1:48:43] rest of the
ecosystem uh
[1:48:46] the
but of course
[1:48:50] um
it takes a lot of education and
[1:48:54] uh some
[1:48:57] leg associations are not going to ever
agree to it
[1:49:01] you know so
uh
[1:49:04] having the environmental management
council take a look at
[1:49:08] the blacklink study the norwood study
other studies that uh have been done
[1:49:15] um
to try and come up with a
[1:49:21] you know ranked choices of what works
what has the biggest bang for his buck
[1:49:28] uh is fighting and you know
um
[1:49:34] the i i
would ask uh
[1:49:38] our county planning director if he's
uh watching tonight
[1:49:42] um
to
[1:49:44] uh
you know
[1:49:47] we need to assign this as a task
and bring
[1:49:53] these minds together
and come up with a real plan
[1:49:58] on what we're doing and how we're doing
it and
[1:50:02] so each of these communities
when
[1:50:07] they come and put you put the arm on us
and say do something for
[1:50:12] you name it like
you know we can say okay
[1:50:16] you know here's the criteria here's what
your
[1:50:21] property owners group is going to have
to contribute here's what your talent is
[1:50:25] going to have to
contribute and here's what you can
[1:50:28] expect from us
as our our contribution
[1:50:35] yeah
any other discussion
[1:50:39] i'll be voting against resolution
although i do appreciate the method of
[1:50:44] actually pulling the wheatworks uh
you know it's limited you don't do the
[1:50:48] whole lake so i don't know what the rate
of spread is i believe i voted against
[1:50:53] the black late one because the
harvesting the way that it actually
[1:50:57] doubles the actual problem
the other arguments have been made every
[1:51:02] body of water has some type of invasive
species this is a lot bigger than san
[1:51:06] orance county
i will remark that any herbicide that is
[1:51:09] used actually becomes resistance i
failed to
[1:51:13] have to see the actual work but i doubt
that not everything survives after
[1:51:17] putting herbicide in a body of water
something else dies
[1:51:21] i can guarantee it
so um i'm concerned uh much like uh
[1:51:27] our
legislative perkins and mr foresight
[1:51:30] will it be that we spend money here and
then the next one i mean i jokingly
[1:51:35] called up mr uh lightfoot after seeing
bill sheridan's
[1:51:38] resolution and i told him that my
neighbor's pool had no foil it would
[1:51:42] need sponsor resolution take it out but
i don't see it here it's just a
[1:51:46] sarcastic joke
[1:51:57] i do
uh i just want to say that uh the topic
[1:52:01] that
[1:52:04] legislator reagan uh suggested
is the whole idea behind this is to get
[1:52:09] the expertise of uh everybody uh get the
support of the public get the support of
[1:52:17] the balance and keep going i'm not
i'm not going to sit here and say that
[1:52:22] the planning board and the emc ought to
be
[1:52:26] telling the towns or the county
how much money
[1:52:31] if any is going to be devoted to this or
should be and how much uh each
[1:52:36] individual town
uh you know per capita ought to be
[1:52:40] contributing to this i think that you've
got organizations you've got a
[1:52:45] partnership with a regional invasive
species management that's called prism
[1:52:50] that handles that eastern lake ontario
st north river
[1:52:54] uh
corridor that i'm talking about they are
[1:52:58] into grants uh and uh
in innovative ways of financing these
[1:53:03] things so it isn't something that i
certainly don't want to see the county
[1:53:09] get saddled with uh
you know being the piggy bank or
[1:53:14] something like this why do i think that
we can't expect the towns to do the same
[1:53:20] you've got towns of town rossi
has
[1:53:25] about 800 people that
uh you can't expect the town of rossi is
[1:53:30] going to pony up significant monies to
address this kind of an issue it's got
[1:53:36] to be done as dave said through the
federal government through the state
[1:53:40] government those are the two entities
that
[1:53:44] we should be concentrating on
to fund whatever needs to be funded to
[1:53:51] control if not eradicate this and that's
that's my feeling i think that getting
[1:53:58] dr chris on board
with something like this somebody who
[1:54:02] has
uh experience in obtaining grants who
[1:54:06] has had success in obtaining grants from
the dbc
[1:54:10] that uh it's a big step
and uh
[1:54:14] i think what it will need is a little
bit of time to see how it works
[1:54:19] i'm hoping that next year by this time
things will be well underway
[1:54:26] towards
you know some serious investment in
[1:54:30] time and energy and if it takes money
money
[1:54:34] to
get rid of the problem because like tony
[1:54:37] said
people's waterfront gets clogged up with
[1:54:42] this stuff and i think dave mentioned it
too
[1:54:44] that
property values are going to decrease
[1:54:48] already on black blacklight people are
looking at reductions in their
[1:54:51] assessments and i can't you can't blame
them at all they can't use the water in
[1:54:56] front of their camp with this
so
[1:54:59] one other thing
is also
[1:55:02] uh
inquiring of the ddc
[1:55:06] what uh they can do to
eradicate
[1:55:10] uh or lessen the effects of some of the
invasive species that they're starting
[1:55:15] to see on the river one of those
happened to be in boost bay
[1:55:19] down
in jefferson county where they did use
[1:55:22] the chemicals they did
they want to say eradicate it but they
[1:55:26] really cut it down tremendously
so uh and then one last point you
[1:55:33] mentioned that half of the uh
the stuff that gets cut up close down
[1:55:38] the river there's no evidence to that at
all there's evidence that
[1:55:43] some of it once it's
not chopped up it's cut off
[1:55:47] uh that yes if you cut something you may
get a particular particle or a leaf or a
[1:55:53] piece of the
vegetation that is going to separate
[1:55:58] from what you're harvesting and what's
left and float down the river but it
[1:56:02] doesn't by any means meaning that
half of what you harvest is getting cut
[1:56:08] out and floating out into the same large
or whatever
[1:56:11] so
i i just cautioned you on uh you know
[1:56:16] using
you know what we think is a good measure
[1:56:20] uh
in any event hopefully
[1:56:24] with the county board with the interests
of the other people
[1:56:28] with
uh the scientific people with the dec
[1:56:33] with the federal government we can do
something to
[1:56:38] not eradicate it but ameliorate
so there wasn't any talk about stuff
[1:56:43] floating down the river it's when you
cut it
[1:56:45] or was one head two heads appear
i think that was mr perkins allegation
[1:56:50] that when we were talking about your
resolution mr tunisia there's nothing
[1:56:54] scientific that i found that would
lend greetings to that
[1:57:00] mr denison
[1:57:04] it's been said and i i mentioned that if
it doesn't repair when we were
[1:57:34] i think it's good that we do something
because it does it does impact us
[1:57:38] however
[1:57:40] i am concerned
that uh you know we've done it for
[1:57:45] black lake
uh i'm going to
[1:57:48] take a little bit
of favor
[1:57:52] [Music]
uh i think it's the right thing to do
[1:57:55] but
[1:57:58] i'm not sure
but how many bodies of water we've got
[1:58:04] so everybody continues
says i would like to get an 8 000.
[1:58:10] whatever
uh
[1:58:12] significant amount of money uh i would
like to suggest
[1:58:17] uh in a legislator
[1:58:27] involved
[1:58:44] uh
[1:58:48] um any more funding
[1:58:52] uh
i think that's necessary to do that
[1:58:57] if you don't
have
[1:58:58] and
and with the moratorium it would be uh
[1:59:06] thought that we would
hand this over to the environmental
[1:59:09] management council
uh but the people that would be involved
[1:59:16] mr foresight this just logistics
question the whole board meeting will be
[1:59:20] september 13th
the funds will be available after
[1:59:25] september 13th
and it's not on uh
[1:59:29] whether they spent it
or inverters it's just we're gonna check
[1:59:35] what we're planning on just whatever the
account
[1:59:38] is that the assumption i don't yeah
[1:59:44] unless the resolution
prescribed a certain way or a certain
[1:59:48] reconciliation or any of those types of
things it would get submitted invoicing
[1:59:53] okay so they have to submit an invoice
okay
[2:00:15] i don't know
whether this money
[2:00:18] can be
used this year it's getting late
[2:00:22] and then
they also she also talked about the
[2:00:26] covet
issue
[2:00:28] so uh i was
under the impression that
[2:00:32] we would when i told her in no uncertain
terms probably not going to be happening
[2:00:36] in the future
[2:00:39] don't expect it to be something that's
going to happen here but i said we'll
[2:00:43] try to help you that's also mentioned
uh
[2:00:50] i think we can roller if you don't spend
it this year then it'll count for next
[2:00:55] year's uh
effort
[2:00:58] at this particular time you know it's
really pushing you thinking they're
[2:01:02] going to take care of all these next
months
[2:01:05] so i think that i don't know i have to
get an opinion from the
[2:01:09] attorney here maybe we know right here
can be used for next year
[2:01:14] that's why
[2:01:18] i
and i and i will tell you now that
[2:01:21] that's what they will be using next year
not this year
[2:01:26] so that way you would have a couple of
options in terms of providing each other
[2:01:30] next year budgeting accordingly or on
their end if you were to provide it to
[2:01:35] them this year they could
roll those funds over in their project
[2:01:38] that would not be ours we would make a
payment and that would be
[2:01:41] the conclusion of our interaction on
that transaction the other thing
[2:01:48] i don't think that
that group can
[2:01:52] accept the funds it would have to be run
through the town of power
[2:01:56] and then they would
[2:01:59] spend the funds on behalf of that
organization
[2:02:16] at all
[2:02:19] officially
so we asked for
[2:02:23] a good market
anyone else
[2:02:27] so i'll just reiterate
the two solutions the black lake i think
[2:02:32] was faulty in the methodology of
actually the problem
[2:02:37] uh i think as mr forsythe pointed out
what percentage of delays you don't get
[2:02:42] at all how much spreads
i like the idea but the biggest thing is
[2:02:48] this problem is so much bigger to say
look county is statewide it's not even
[2:02:51] just statewide
[2:02:54] and so
the monies the research and everything
[2:02:59] is much bigger than the planning
department much bigger than our local
[2:03:02] ufc
and uh
[2:03:05] i think that by reaching out to the our
local efforts that david we can
[2:03:09] stimulate some action on the federal
level
[2:03:12] but this is going to be a runaway uh
moratorium means my uh neighbor's
[2:03:16] getting covered larry so
it's just
[2:03:20] it'll be one thing after another in fact
it's how it follows that but then it is
[2:03:24] very discouraging also so
let's vote on this
[2:03:27] um
let's do uh
[2:03:30] a roll couple please
[2:03:38] reagan yes
foresight no
[2:03:42] lightfoot
sheridan yes
[2:03:46] smithers
yes
[2:03:49] denisha
[2:03:52] perkins no
acres faye
[2:03:58] i'm sorry
haggard yes
[2:04:02] piaco yes
[2:04:05] yes
terminelli yes
[2:04:10] curran
no
[2:04:22] nine yes
five no one absent okay so the
[2:04:26] resolution passes
so let's move on to vacancy review
[2:04:30] committee mr chair yes i'd like to offer
verbal resolution if i could
[2:04:50] on spending um towards an invasive
species until after we have
[2:04:56] had a study done through all the things
that um
[2:05:00] legislator
has
[2:05:04] suggested
[2:05:15] is it just aquatic
[2:05:21] [Music]
[2:05:32] is
[2:05:43] until we've gotten recommendations from
either
[2:05:46] our committees that
we call upon or um
[2:05:52] you know a study has been done that we
need to make
[2:05:56] well-planned informed decisions
and
[2:06:03] mr reagan and mr
talked about the parameters
[2:06:11] mr speller's discussion i would have to
agree with
[2:06:16] the comments that this is a much bigger
problem than just
[2:06:19] how many efforts
so that this this does make sense to
[2:06:24] have a moratorium
to get something
[2:06:28] also
[2:06:43] the lowly san marcos county is going to
convince
[2:06:46] senator schumer
to uh owning up whatever it is that we
[2:06:50] would need
obviously he was here in the past
[2:06:55] made some kind of assurances that
things are going to happen and
[2:07:00] nothing has happened i think if we start
out
[2:07:04] with the small group this board
and move it out
[2:07:09] so that we have a much larger
group of people in st lawrence county uh
[2:07:15] with expertise without expertise
with a will to do something that we
[2:07:21] convince our local representatives
let's you went along the eec to the
[2:07:27] federal government let's see let's see
what we can do with that
[2:07:30] we can't do it by ourselves
mr ford said
[2:07:35] well i'm just googling no foil success
stories in our zones
[2:07:49] um
[2:07:58] 100 000 grant from the state department
of environmental conservation
[2:08:02] along with 30 000 from the town of
the town contributed to the problem as
[2:08:08] well as 70 000 from the pound
so it's a collaboration of all three and
[2:08:13] that's where we have to go
to just throw 15 000 into a pot
[2:08:18] it's not going anywhere i think we're
wasting it but if it's a collaboration
[2:08:24] then i can see us
really kicking so
[2:08:27] because there are successfully
not getting that him mr ray
[2:08:33] thanks for pointing that out dave indeed
the biggest thing to keep in mind is
[2:08:40] studies have been done
on the milfoil issue
[2:08:44] on bodies of water throughout
new york
[2:08:48] state and it's more of a matter of
compiling them
[2:08:55] looking at the recommendations taking an
army corps of engineers study that
[2:09:00] senator schumer
had done
[2:09:05] and then taking
those recommendations you know the
[2:09:09] missing piece was
senator schumer got money to do a study
[2:09:15] and then
no one ever went back in and said okay
[2:09:20] here's what the study recommends
could you give us the money to implement
[2:09:27] the study
and that
[2:09:30] you know he's the chairman of the senate
finance committee the if ever there was
[2:09:35] anyone in a position
to uh make available
[2:09:40] uh funds to implement a study that he
personally
[2:09:45] had done
this would be it but i think we need a
[2:09:50] bipartisan
uh
[2:09:53] effort
to bring together
[2:09:55] our communities
our scientific community
[2:09:59] our political community
[2:10:03] in order to
marshal
[2:10:07] public opinion and
ask our federal representatives to
[2:10:13] make this
give us the resources
[2:10:17] to
help address this problem that's facing
[2:10:21] so many of our bodies of water
mr character yes
[2:10:27] could i please ask uh mr denisha
the co-chair since this was his idea and
[2:10:33] i opened my big mouth and said something
about it but i want to give credit for
[2:10:37] credit what would you like to what would
you like to ask i'd like to ask mr
[2:10:41] vanesh if he would please be um the uh
co-sponsor of this resolution that i'm
[2:10:47] offered
absolutely thank you okay
[2:11:06] okay
so next up is our vacancy review
[2:11:09] committee uh the annual vacancy if you
look
[2:11:13] actually
[2:11:16] to you
[2:11:19] each year i'd like to provide you with a
status update of the reinstatement of
[2:11:24] the vacancy review committee its value
to the process and then typically make a
[2:11:29] couple of recommendations or affirm a
couple of actions the board has taken
[2:11:33] that demonstrate why it's been helpful
but also what that has meant over the
[2:11:38] years since 2015
it's changed in its purpose and and
[2:11:43] you'll see that a little lower when we
talk about the best performance years so
[2:11:48] i always include a little bit of history
for those you know tuning in or hearing
[2:11:51] about the annual analysis for the first
time
[2:11:55] and
long ago the vacancy review committee
[2:11:58] was
in operation and then it went out of
[2:12:01] kind of service uh by that process for
about four or five years so the board
[2:12:06] coming in 2015 wanted to reinstitute the
committee
[2:12:10] our recommendation was could we rotate
legislators through that giving everyone
[2:12:15] an opportunity to have discussions with
departments directly about their needs
[2:12:20] for staffing
that part has been tremendously
[2:12:24] successful often hearing and learning a
lot more about department activities
[2:12:28] than just about the position so it's
really lend itself lent itself to a
[2:12:32] process where you also get a little bit
more information about the departments
[2:12:36] that are included that month
so that generally talks at the top
[2:12:40] resolutions it references that actions
the board has taken over the years to
[2:12:43] affirm the essential hiring freeze to
provide for opportunities for modest
[2:12:49] adjustments to the process but overall
keeping in place the vacancy review
[2:12:53] committee
so also thinking about 2020 because
[2:12:56] that's what this review is for
what was provided at that time was two
[2:13:01] opportunities one was to create
temporary positions
[2:13:05] in situations where either there weren't
enough staffing so we were at full staff
[2:13:09] we needed more such as public health a
few other places
[2:13:13] or we had some physicians that really
needed additional support in the
[2:13:17] transition to either retirement
departure or during leaves so the board
[2:13:21] was very generous not only in keeping
all staff in san lance county employed
[2:13:26] during coping 19 response last year
but also provided for temporary
[2:13:31] positions granted me the authority to
create them and fill in to meet
[2:13:35] operational needs
i can give you the total on that at this
[2:13:40] point has been 43 and i can also provide
you if you'd like with department by
[2:13:45] department summary of those
after so the sunset on that was december
[2:13:49] 31st we had a conversation earlier in
the year about continuing that practice
[2:13:54] because it was successful because those
needs had not subsided and because we
[2:13:59] also are seeing uh
retirements of long tenured positions
[2:14:03] that need to have someone in before they
leave and i think that was one of the
[2:14:08] challenges in county government for many
years was the chair was cold before
[2:14:11] someone came to sit in it and the
learning curve the onboarding all of
[2:14:15] that is tremendously challenging when
the role that they are asked to take in
[2:14:19] county government is substantial
so both of those have been tremendously
[2:14:24] helpful in departments both having short
staff having staff out for a variety of
[2:14:28] reasons one of which may be covered but
overall to be able to meet operational
[2:14:33] needs
so that being said looking at your chart
[2:14:38] we are one position different from last
year so we thought it was a food because
[2:14:42] of focus there was not a lot of mobility
associated with physicians our prior
[2:14:48] average is covered between 150 and 165.
last year they dropped 136 and this year
[2:14:54] they're 135 so my hope is that we've
seen you know that difference in changes
[2:15:00] of annual um adjustments to the
physicians so that was just under a 1
[2:15:06] change over last year then you can also
see over the years uh they were there
[2:15:11] have been the different levels of
positions to be built media phil the
[2:15:15] board took a position a pretty firm
position years ago about a 60-day fill
[2:15:20] and then it was increased to 90
and the departments have the opportunity
[2:15:25] to come in and say while i recognize
that's the policy of the board i'm
[2:15:28] asking for you to allow me to do it
immediately for these reasons and the
[2:15:31] board can make a determination most of
the time agreeing with the department
[2:15:36] but in some circumstances saying could
you wait 30 days could you wait 60 days
[2:15:40] or they would be asking well enough
ahead that they could win 90 days so a
[2:15:44] variety of those and they're captured
here by the percentage you can then see
[2:15:48] the changeover percentage from last year
which in most situations is negligible
[2:15:55] in the 90 days vacant and the denied we
did see an increase in the held
[2:15:58] withdrawn with positions
if you recall there have been 17
[2:16:02] positions added in social services and
another 15 were requested that i put on
[2:16:08] hold to allow for the folks coming in to
be trained
[2:16:12] so that really is most of the reason for
that held withdrawn category being a
[2:16:16] little bit higher than you're used to
i also like to take all six years
[2:16:21] provided together and give you a an idea
of the change over the average so i
[2:16:26] reference that number of positions we've
dropped down to 151 from that
[2:16:31] 155 160 number that we've had been
um
[2:16:35] how it is as that number diminishes
we're keeping people longer we're
[2:16:40] keeping people either through the
organization but we're not seeing those
[2:16:44] those departures so we didn't make any
great uh changes in our best performance
[2:16:49] year last year we saw that performance
year improved in
[2:16:53] the 90 days vacant category so let me
explain this a little bit as well so the
[2:16:58] immediate field position of the board
early on was to delay those so a high
[2:17:03] percentage in that would not be good so
we were looking for the lowest
[2:17:06] percentage in that year you can see this
year it's 72
[2:17:10] but also you can make an argument in
many departments if not all of them did
[2:17:14] for why they needed those positions
built immediately but that number should
[2:17:18] be low with the policy of the board so
the best year we have is 30 percent this
[2:17:22] year you can see we've got 72.
30 days vacant and lifeline so as you
[2:17:27] scroll down the 90 days vacant 90 days
vacant our best year was four percent
[2:17:33] that 25 in that 60 day vacant range was
really the area where the board's policy
[2:17:39] prescribed that that was the goal and so
the best year would have doing that was
[2:17:44] in 2016 2017 so one year after the
committee was put back into place
[2:17:50] so you can see the numbers there you can
see that average is coming down a little
[2:17:54] bit i wanted to let you know we had 13
positions that were abolished
[2:17:59] but we're filling positions our ratio
right now between positions created to
[2:18:04] physicians abolished is about three to
four to one so for every position we
[2:18:09] abolish we're creating between three and
four positions this year
[2:18:13] that's remarkable and very different
from years past but i can also tell you
[2:18:17] going into budget this year the 2021
budget had 809 positions and as of
[2:18:22] august 18th we're at 840 positions so
that's going to also have an impact when
[2:18:27] you see both projections for the 2021
budget and the 2022 budget in the next
[2:18:32] month or so
that being said uh the next item that we
[2:18:37] have been providing to you is the
vacancy savings you don't make an effort
[2:18:41] because there are so many variables to
capture the fringe benefit savings the
[2:18:46] salaries alone uh for 2020 to 2021 and
we're looking at 1.6 million in savings
[2:18:52] now that's pretty close also to that
position number i gave you that's only
[2:18:55] 17 000 less the year prior it was
substantially different coming in
[2:19:03] at 300
000.
[2:19:06] so kind of a change kind of a different
approach than the year prior
[2:19:10] so um rolling over to your second page
of this report two recommendations this
[2:19:16] year very modest i did already speak to
one of them on the temporary physician
[2:19:20] component i think it's been very a very
useful tool working with departments to
[2:19:24] make sure the work gets done the public
is very uh
[2:19:29] the public is very informative when we
aren't completing the work that they
[2:19:32] expect of us and so this has been able
to bridge those gaps this has been able
[2:19:35] to fill in those places where otherwise
we would have to tell folks they have to
[2:19:40] win
because in many if not everything we do
[2:19:42] there's a substantial training and
learning curve attached to it
[2:19:46] so the second one uh was again that
transition to allow those overlaps and i
[2:19:51] encourage you to continue to think about
that here departments out and to look
[2:19:55] upon those favorably because they're
pretty careful when they choose to make
[2:19:58] that request
what we've also tried to do just as
[2:20:02] an aside when you look at those
percentages if a position is vacated and
[2:20:06] it's not going to be until even the
resolution comes before the board if
[2:20:10] that 30 days is going to be met we go
ahead and try to give them credit for
[2:20:14] that because regardless that position
will be vacant for that period of time
[2:20:17] and there should be a note attached to
that because that's also part of your
[2:20:20] vacancy savings so you can start to see
where some of those impact our overall
[2:20:24] totals
so then this year i decided to give you
[2:20:28] some staffing summary statistics
you can see they're highlighted in bold
[2:20:32] the
greatest or the highest reporting
[2:20:34] category so st lawrence county is 59
female and 41 now
[2:20:41] our age range goes from 20 and probably
a little bit younger to over 70. and our
[2:20:47] largest group is in the 50 to 54 euro
range and 145 but you can see the
[2:20:53] categories and also by which the
generation of folks in those categories
[2:20:58] as well similarly if you drop down below
uh the retirement tiers we don't have
[2:21:04] any tier ones anymore
so i thought they were still a couple
[2:21:07] but we're at zero uh our bulk is tier
four if that's a lot of what
[2:21:11] municipalities are seeing right now
at 397 for us but also coming up very
[2:21:16] quickly is the tier vi
which doesn't have
[2:21:20] the investing that we are used to in
tier up to tier four and a little in
[2:21:23] tier five
also though remarkable in this report to
[2:21:26] me and i'm certain for all of you is the
years of service so when you look at
[2:21:31] 48.2 percent
of our workforce is in their zero to
[2:21:35] five years of service we have had i
think there was a phrase that that i
[2:21:40] can't recall at the moment but a phrase
of talking about the retirement age of a
[2:21:43] lot of our workforce and seeing a lot of
those folks retire and a lot of new
[2:21:47] folks coming in at all levels of county
government so that was a pretty
[2:21:50] remarkable in those other three
categories at six to ten years eleven
[2:21:54] and fifteen and sixteen to twenty hovers
right above that ten percent mark
[2:22:00] and i would be falling into that sixteen
to twenty year one 122 employees
[2:22:05] so you can also see though those numbers
in the 31 plus category we used to be
[2:22:10] quite heavy in that in that category and
now we sit at 23
[2:22:14] which amounts to only two percent of our
workforce
[2:22:17] so that whole societal change of how
long folks are staying in their jobs is
[2:22:22] changing and this is a reflection in my
mind what that's starting to look like
[2:22:26] here mr forrester
question
[2:22:29] here board of tier 6
the retirement contribution to the
[2:22:33] employer
is there less
[2:22:37] and if johnny answered that question
i wouldn't get that for you um
[2:22:48] i'm sorry so you want to know
the difference between tier 4 and tier 6
[2:22:53] for employer employer contribution would
be a less less contribution or stay in
[2:22:58] the same
um i think tier 4 right now is averaging
[2:23:03] around nine percent
and tier six
[2:23:06] is averaging well tier six
depends on
[2:23:12] um
no it tier six is eight percent
[2:23:16] so for the employer
[2:23:21] as well
okay
[2:23:24] and then just so that you understand um
certainly we have over the last year and
[2:23:28] over this year uh all seven of our
reunions have and will come up for
[2:23:33] negotiation just trying to give you a
little bit of a little bit better
[2:23:36] picture of how many employees are
represented by each of our units so i'd
[2:23:40] like to always take the opportunity when
i can to improve your work knowledge of
[2:23:43] what the landscape looks like here and i
thought the annual vacancy review
[2:23:47] analysis was a good opportunity to do
that
[2:23:49] are there any questions concerns
excellent
[2:23:56] okay thank you and i have the vacancy
tonight as well
[2:24:02] go ahead
yes so um i took an extra step in this
[2:24:07] process for this vacancy and chair
denisha of the buildings and grounds
[2:24:11] committee and
legislators aqua legislators
[2:24:14] got to hear this twice so we took the
opportunity to have in our discussions
[2:24:18] about upcoming projects and the dialogue
necessary to move things forward
[2:24:24] in terms of the projects so one of the
things that came up in that discussion
[2:24:28] and then proceeded to vacancy review
committee was the opportunity to request
[2:24:33] the board consider
bringing in a buildings and ground
[2:24:35] supervisor which most closely reflects
the work we're looking for this person
[2:24:39] to do
probably to most folks this would fit
[2:24:42] the clerk of the works designation uh
someone who can move our projects along
[2:24:47] what we've done and i think it was out
of the
[2:24:50] times that we were living in
over the last five years our projects by
[2:24:55] by and large have been handled by the
departments where they occur
[2:24:58] so as an example the interoperability
radio project we did not bring on
[2:25:03] someone to
assist with the installation of i
[2:25:06] believe over seven towers over a three
year period that we still are plugging
[2:25:10] along trying to get the resources
together and that was a complex project
[2:25:14] because not only were we trying to avoid
county government having to have input
[2:25:18] so we were quilting this um this barrage
of funding on our resources from aid
[2:25:24] sources from a whole host of different
funding opportunities to pay for it and
[2:25:29] then also trying to get work done so
fortunately we're not in a bad spot but
[2:25:35] that had i the knowledge i have now i
would have asked you in 2016 to provide
[2:25:40] an assistant or an opportunity like this
for our department head
[2:25:44] as you know all of our department has
carry very busy schedules and have a lot
[2:25:49] of work to accomplish
asking them also to manage a capital
[2:25:53] project is more than i think is wise on
our behalf so in looking at the project
[2:25:59] you looked at last month at the public
safety center with about three projects
[2:26:02] coming forward which that will include
if the board is uh looking upon it
[2:26:07] favorably the jail principally the
sheriff's or the matron's house there i
[2:26:11] believe it's properly called the
sheriff's house the warehouse
[2:26:14] potentially addressing the family court
space
[2:26:17] all of those will be ongoing projects
that need oversight so this position i
[2:26:22] would envision taking first on the
public safety complex that's our most
[2:26:26] aggressive timeline in terms of trying
to move forward with an internal project
[2:26:31] and all of these will be i would also
give you the example of the jail project
[2:26:35] we took staff completely out of their
roles in county government and put them
[2:26:39] in the jail project
while i recognize that it's a
[2:26:42] large-scale project of 30 million
dollars at the ceiling
[2:26:46] we reassigned our staff completely to
that and backfilled their goals they
[2:26:50] were focused and they delivered on time
under budget project that will have
[2:26:54] benefits for this county for years to
come so in this in this situation what
[2:26:58] i'd really like to do is be able to
bring someone in part
[2:27:01] and should that be a concern in terms of
will their uh will they have more work
[2:27:05] to do than they have time i would give
you updates uh periodically about how
[2:27:09] they're doing and how well that's
serving the purpose what i'd like you to
[2:27:12] consider the opportunity for us to do is
to bring in someone with that being
[2:27:16] their sole focus they are the point of
contact they watch the budget they see
[2:27:19] the change orders they do the punch list
and they have the conversation with all
[2:27:23] the contractors our liaison
we also have three outposts going on
[2:27:28] yeah
[2:27:52] any other questions
[2:27:58] okay so moving on now to the kevin
administrative report if that's okay
[2:28:03] uh just to give you a
bit of a picture like i'd like to on the
[2:28:07] weeks that we don't have a focus 19
update from
[2:28:10] um orr from dr williams um our new total
today is 8160.
[2:28:16] we've gone from the middle of july
averaging two per day to now six per day
[2:28:22] over the weekend we saw a slight
reduction to
[2:28:25] case totals in the 20s instead of in the
30s uh what that means yet it's hard to
[2:28:29] hard to know but always positive to see
those drop a bit
[2:28:33] we saw i believe over 100 cases since
friday we will now proceed with daily
[2:28:38] reporting on the weekdays
so we also are looking to improve our
[2:28:42] graphics for the information we're
putting out to the public
[2:28:45] so if you have any suggestions or you
have any concerns in looking at this for
[2:28:49] once at a time now let us know and we'll
try and address those and get some some
[2:28:53] cleaner it is going to still have the
same information and if not better
[2:28:56] information for the public um
good a little bit more specific on the
[2:29:03] vaccinated people
getting it
[2:29:19] is
[2:29:22] [Music]
[2:29:28] is
effective like 91
[2:29:32] now now
and
[2:29:35] okay because the last time i asked it it
was like two or three so dr william said
[2:29:39] two and a half percent last time in our
public health community from information
[2:29:43] he had seen from israel
that was more like nine to ten percent
[2:29:48] okay
[2:29:53] [Applause]
[2:30:02] yeah we can get some more specific and
keep it correct
[2:30:06] no i wanted to answer oh okay
about this reporting did that require
[2:30:13] some sort of special software or
anything to go back
[2:30:17] this is reporting from public health
that you're asking it's a combination
[2:30:21] yes of reporting from public health and
the planning office doing the math is
[2:30:24] that what you mean yes okay okay so
they're going back to a daily yes
[2:30:29] wonderful days
[2:30:34] so this is mimicking what happened in
the uk with the delta
[2:30:38] big surge
and then two weeks to drop off
[2:30:42] we're going
hopefully 31 down
[2:30:50] any other questions right now
so the pfizer vaccine received fda
[2:30:55] approval regular approval which i think
in some of the
[2:30:58] vaccine hesitants has been stated as one
of the reasons why folks were concerned
[2:31:02] so hopefully that will see another
percent of two or five of folks in the
[2:31:06] county getting vaccinated
our report today indicated at full
[2:31:10] vaccination status san luis county has
fifty
[2:31:14] uh those are the first dose is 53.7
and our positivity rate because that
[2:31:20] also being pointed out in our graphics
now is 5.61
[2:31:25] so certainly a change from a few weeks
ago
[2:31:29] i will tell you even within county
government last week starting thursday
[2:31:33] we haven't seen cases on staff in almost
a time where you notice and start to
[2:31:37] worry
well that has been remedied because as
[2:31:39] of thursday we had our first positive
case and now i have six departments one
[2:31:45] with two units who have cases on staff
one of which is our dmv and so there is
[2:31:52] 10 posts quarantined so that was going
to impact the closure of one of our
[2:31:57] satellite offices our county code is
working right now to try and keep those
[2:32:01] open um but also that maybe like phone
calls that may delay responses things of
[2:32:05] that nature but working very hard right
now to try and keep all those offices
[2:32:08] running a lot of folks work through
their quarantine so we also are seeing a
[2:32:13] challenge with the removal of the
essential worker status so that is a
[2:32:18] challenge for us i've talked with jolene
about that received several questions
[2:32:21] about it she has uh indicated that the
department of health is looking at what
[2:32:26] their essential work requirements might
look like not anything they really will
[2:32:30] not that could become a challenge for us
it's the jail with the number of
[2:32:34] operations we have 24 7 we really need
to be able to have folks able to work
[2:32:39] so i'll keep you posted i'll get back up
to where i used to report to you on how
[2:32:43] many total on staff
we have acquired our own cleaning
[2:32:47] equipment so i don't think that will
require us to bring in outside folks to
[2:32:50] do that type of fogging and cleaning we
haven't seen the same stress placed on
[2:32:54] that that we did early on with the
surface cleaning and the plexiglas we're
[2:32:58] not seeing that saying it's more about
mask wearing
[2:33:01] and distancing
so certainly things to be aware of i did
[2:33:05] make the request of the group
to reconsider returning to mass as
[2:33:09] public health is now
recommending that indoor facilities that
[2:33:13] occur and with this change in our status
and our staff
[2:33:18] i just wanted to call that to your
attention uh once again to identify the
[2:33:21] interest for the board's election to
return to masking indoor facilities or
[2:33:27] to remain where we are which currently
is
[2:33:30] if you are unvaccinated you need to mask
or if you're visiting the courts in this
[2:33:34] building if you are un if you are
vaccinated you are not required to mask
[2:33:39] um
[2:34:00] yes and uh what
you know what uh what percentage of a
[2:34:06] number of
those
[2:34:10] numbers
[2:34:14] classrooms by the number of number of
folks that have been that have been
[2:34:20] [Music]
a number of positive cases you positive
[2:34:24] cases
that were currently close to their
[2:34:27] vaccine
[2:34:42] to put that number out with your report
[2:34:49] it was remarkably higher than you
thought wasn't it it was
[2:34:52] much so
i guess i would just like to throw that
[2:34:55] out
[2:34:59] i think
this is
[2:35:02] anecdotal of course
but um we have
[2:35:07] a lot of people with health conditions
in saint louis county and we have an
[2:35:12] aging population
some people are older than others okay
[2:35:18] so i think those two things may be
factors in um
[2:35:22] this because
my understanding is that vaccinated
[2:35:27] people who are testing positive
[2:35:31] are
immunocompromised in some way
[2:35:35] or um
have
[2:35:39] age related issues of some sort
it would have to include
[2:35:45] i mean you can't look at one portion of
it they're vaccinated it would have to
[2:35:49] include
you know their age range and i think
[2:35:53] part of it is because we have a lot of
people with diabetes and saint lawrence
[2:35:57] county a lot of people
um
[2:36:01] who are older
[2:36:04] that might have more factors added into
that
[2:36:08] so
dr williams released a statement
[2:36:12] wednesday after our meeting
and it was if you're up on the situation
[2:36:17] it was very in-depth
detailed
[2:36:20] but really what he didn't emphasize
what i suggested was
[2:36:26] virtually everybody that's ended up in
the emergency room is on backstage
[2:36:30] and that that's the message that has to
be is to be set for adults correct they
[2:36:36] won't speak about children
but certainly for adults
[2:36:40] that's what they're finding in the ei
and
[2:36:43] and also in hospitalizations and the
dead people
[2:36:48] no one
is we're still at 97 deaths or 99
[2:36:51] whatever it is right there's no dying
elsewhere and primarily
[2:36:57] 99 of those people are unconstitutional
i don't know okay so that's what i
[2:37:05] thought that because it was
i understood it because
[2:37:09] we all would because this is what we're
hearing every monday
[2:37:12] and following it and maybe much of the
population but the point we emphasized
[2:37:17] was everybody that's showing up at st
mart's health systems attended the
[2:37:21] emergency room or in their hospital bed
is on next day
[2:37:24] it's not a hundred percent
but it's like 99.
[2:37:29] so do it
i i think that's an excellent point uh
[2:37:34] thank you for bringing it up
and i would urge ruth and our public
[2:37:40] health uh director
to
[2:37:44] bring that to the media
so that they can bring that to the punk
[2:37:49] because
i think
[2:37:52] we need to get across
the people that
[2:37:58] you know
if you are unvaccinated
[2:38:02] you've been playing the odds
uh
[2:38:05] and
[2:38:08] with this new delta variant that's more
contagious
[2:38:13] it's becoming riskier
and
[2:38:15] uh you know
people need to
[2:38:20] think about you know
what their choices are going to be
[2:38:26] and since you know we're seeing an
increase in the number of people going
[2:38:31] to the emergency room
and
[2:38:37] the both of those people are vaccinated
that point needs to get across to
[2:38:44] that
50
[2:38:46] of the public
uh that
[2:38:51] has chosen not to get vaccinated and
i just think that that's
[2:38:58] something that
needs to be stressed and understood so
[2:39:03] that
people can make an informed choice
[2:39:09] so i'll just reiterate the vulnerable
population is age 65 and up
[2:39:14] in san bernardino county over 82 percent
have chosen to get vaccinated
[2:39:19] so
um
[2:39:22] and of course if you're looking at the
county where only fifty percent
[2:39:25] is vaccinated you have to
encompass those that are under the age
[2:39:29] of 12
which the vaccine's not approved though
[2:39:34] and then the limited number of
individuals from 12 to 19.
[2:39:38] so the goals that are vulnerable
65 and up
[2:39:42] in this county 82 percent of backstage
so when ruth
[2:39:48] you know told all of us about whether or
not
[2:40:02] my argument would it would be
detrimental to people who are
[2:40:05] unvaccinated
because they would say
[2:40:10] i'm not vaccinated even those that are
vaccinated now they're gonna wear the
[2:40:13] mask the heck i'm not doing it
one of the things i read that's the
[2:40:17] highest percentage of people that are
enough to actually are actually phd's
[2:40:22] so take that
whatever salt that is
[2:40:26] so um
i think it would be
[2:40:30] you know people are well aware that the
vaccination has been available is
[2:40:34] available in every
pharmacy
[2:40:37] uh the state side was an overwhelming
success
[2:40:41] and easy to get to uh quick and very
efficient
[2:40:45] so people have made the decisions
whether or not the vaccination rates are
[2:40:49] actually up in the county
i think they've almost doubled
[2:40:53] so i know if joel is on that she could
get on a daily basis
[2:40:58] so
obviously people get scared and those
[2:41:00] that uh you know people that got sick or
whatever
[2:41:05] made the decision so you've gotten more
but you've got
[2:41:08] you've got a group that made your own
medical decisions
[2:41:14] so i think that those that have been
vaccinated
[2:41:18] should not have to be punished to wear a
mask
[2:41:21] we may be told that the mass prevents
that
[2:41:28] mr
[2:41:42] last week uh 120 were fully backstained
that was positive
[2:41:49] and say it was counting
so that would have to represent 10
[2:41:53] percent
178
[2:41:56] there were comebacks
okay so of the 102 were they ill 120 of
[2:42:02] the 120 really ill i did not know did
they end up in the hospital this is what
[2:42:07] they're finding is that those are that
are fully vaccinated or testing as much
[2:42:12] with covet as actually unvaccinated
so the vaccine is preventing people from
[2:42:17] getting sick
it's not preventing them from actually
[2:42:20] experiencing coca
[2:42:24] couple more
[2:42:37] who had been mobilized to provide
the
[2:42:42] larger clinics in august
they're going to be pulling together to
[2:42:46] do the back to school events that you're
seeing we'll make sure to push those
[2:42:48] schedules out to you if you wanted to
either stop out and see our public
[2:42:51] health staff when they're at those back
to school nights or
[2:42:54] um just send them a note you know i
think encouraging the fact that they're
[2:42:57] putting in the time and they're getting
back out there through those
[2:42:59] vaccinations always appreciated um we
understood today and certainly you've
[2:43:04] probably heard travel restrictions with
canada will continue until at least
[2:43:08] september 22nd
and this week we're going to meet with
[2:43:12] the school districts again in public
health so i think that as we get closer
[2:43:16] to the school year beginning it's a very
wide open communication line with the
[2:43:19] school districts and public health uh we
don't have the
[2:43:22] i guess a blessing or curse depending on
how you look at it of the executive
[2:43:26] orders in place uh identifying how we
can and cannot behave so i think it's
[2:43:31] helpful for more communication with the
schools so that we all know where
[2:43:34] everyone is and what the facts of the
information are
[2:43:38] so that's my covet update i want to let
you know that negotiations with the
[2:43:42] supervisors of council lady 2 began last
week and as a reminder there are three
[2:43:46] contracts that one included but also the
deputies and the deputy supervisors that
[2:43:51] will expire at the end of 2021
um schedule just an update on that on
[2:43:55] wednesday at two buildings and grounds
committee will need to
[2:43:59] have that discussion on the sheriff's
house but also a request has come
[2:44:03] forward about the historical designation
you often see those signs designating
[2:44:07] either locations or districts um there's
always kind of been a stigma that this
[2:44:12] board or others before you have taken
about the impediments that might cause
[2:44:16] to what needs to occur at that location
so i want to have that dialogue and
[2:44:20] hopefully bring that to you in the
future to have a conversation about
[2:44:23] whether or not designating this campus
here on portland johnson street would
[2:44:27] make sense for the county i think
there's some great benefits but also
[2:44:30] understand the truth about what we can
do to build exactly those designations
[2:44:35] um so we'll have that discussion i also
want to let you know on thursday
[2:44:39] as a part of our budget discussions um
the staff of rural property and i will
[2:44:43] meet with the city of ogdensburg to talk
about the chargeback so about a year ago
[2:44:47] you may recall we had the discussion uh
the city was in a challenging time with
[2:44:52] staffing in their office to
deal with their real property charges so
[2:44:57] our staff stepped in and has been
billing them rather than the charge
[2:45:02] vectors
[2:45:05] provide the funding for that to the real
property office on a two-year on an
[2:45:10] annual lag we're going to meet with them
to determine this year we've kept it the
[2:45:14] same because the budget was already done
but for 2022 if the service is still
[2:45:19] preferred by the city like it's provided
to the others how we might manage that
[2:45:23] whether it stays a bill or goes to a
charge so i'll give you an update after
[2:45:27] that as well
a follow-up on the request at the last
[2:45:31] meeting for a meeting with the on the
opioid treatment program um i'll be
[2:45:35] meeting and certainly extend the
invitation to
[2:45:38] anyone interested in sitting in
with the president david acker on
[2:45:42] september 3rd
around noon i believe to have a dialogue
[2:45:46] about their next steps because we will
uh in october
[2:45:50] into this process so anyone who's
interested we'll make sure you have
[2:45:53] those details
[2:46:02] from the board of health
[2:46:06] meetings
[2:46:11] yeah well you're asking will j eldridge
be there how are you
[2:46:17] okay thank you
um just an update i'm coordinating i've
[2:46:22] been brought to your attention that nice
act takes place on the same day as
[2:46:26] september board meeting because of the
holiday i've coordinated with nice hack
[2:46:29] to have a room set up so that all the
folks there myself included can attend
[2:46:34] um the meaning virtually
from that location and i will be
[2:46:38] graduating from their government
institute or venezuela institute at that
[2:46:42] meeting as well that was supposed to
happen in january
[2:46:46] um so operations and services uh we have
uh we've been taking a look at getting
[2:46:51] you an informational
update on redistricting prior to all the
[2:46:56] census blocks being finalized all that
information just getting a status to you
[2:47:00] on where we are today
to be provided to you in september and
[2:47:04] then finance we'll finally have a
broadband survey
[2:47:07] from combination of bank and ecc
technologies to let you know the results
[2:47:11] of those that go through what those
month mean and the opportunities that
[2:47:15] become as a result of that
any question on those
[2:47:20] and then lastly i just wanted to give
you an update
[2:47:23] i want to provide you
with a recommendation tonight since the
[2:47:28] june board meeting you all know that
we've been receiving complaints with
[2:47:31] regard to our social services specific
to children's services uh we have
[2:47:36] included ocfs in that discussion um and
they've taken a look at both the
[2:47:41] original complaints which were coming in
about employees acting as foster parents
[2:47:45] as well as a secondary about
complaints associated with the
[2:47:49] department so they've been helpful
they've given us a little bit of
[2:47:52] feedback
both from the case review done by the
[2:47:55] commissioner by the county attorney's
office and the fact gathering we've done
[2:47:59] since those have come in i will be
recommending to you that a third-party
[2:48:03] review occur
and i just want tonight to get with any
[2:48:06] objections to that
but if not i'd like to proceed with that
[2:48:10] and bring you actions necessary by
resolution to the board
[2:48:13] i also sat down last thursday and again
today with caseworkers to let them know
[2:48:18] that first but also to be able to give
them an opportunity to express their
[2:48:22] frustrations and concerns so that they
have a voice to be heard in this process
[2:48:26] i think part of the challenge that they
expressed is they have to sit in silence
[2:48:31] while stories are shared concerns are
raised allegations are made about them
[2:48:37] in general and them specifically make it
very difficult when they can't respond
[2:48:41] so what we'd like to do is make sure
we're getting information about
[2:48:44] out to the public about how
those programs work without identifying
[2:48:49] information about the folks they're
talking about but also about how complex
[2:48:52] and challenging those situations can be
and also as soon as they learn the laws
[2:48:58] and the regulations they continue to
change we're five weeks away from family
[2:49:02] first hitting the next threshold on
september 30th so that also i think is
[2:49:08] going to change the dynamics again it
would be great to have this discussion
[2:49:12] um addressed we can all improve and
figure out where our challenges lie
[2:49:16] so that um i don't i don't think
necessarily a formal vote's required
[2:49:21] unless there's an objection i'd like to
move forward they are tired they are
[2:49:24] stressed and the goals that they have
the state has provided them and has not
[2:49:30] changed to keep animals together are
there any objections to having a third
[2:49:34] party review of the situation in dss i
have a question about that
[2:49:48] [Applause]
when we say third parties that's the
[2:49:53] state
external no the state is already
[2:49:56] involved all right thank you that's all
we need to do
[2:50:02] just a comment
uh
[2:50:04] the members of this board
are going it equally difficult
[2:50:09] uh as are our employees
to uh
[2:50:14] be silent on what's uh
occurring
[2:50:18] uh and uh being unable to respond
[2:50:23] uh you know certain individuals uh so i
think it's completely unfair
[2:50:28] to expect that we are going to make any
comments at all particularly in light of
[2:50:33] when you've got at least one
investigation going on and another one
[2:50:36] contemplated so
just a point of interest it's difficult
[2:50:41] on this side of it too
[2:50:47] lastly i'd like to share with you
dylan's going to bring it up right now
[2:50:51] we had
i want to share with you an individual
[2:50:55] making a difference
and this relates to dss
[2:50:59] a 15 year old
from home carecon
[2:51:02] ashley mckinley donated made and donated
50 teddy bears this summer with her
[2:51:07] grandmother um and is donating them to
the foster children in saint louis
[2:51:11] county so we're really proud of ashley
she brought them in
[2:51:16] i was able to share them when i met with
the caseworkers to take back immediately
[2:51:19] and get those in the hands of foster
children so while a lot of what we have
[2:51:23] to do isn't great news is a challenge um
there's some great people out there
[2:51:27] doing great things this is ashley
[Applause]
[2:51:44] can we
do something do a resolution uh or a
[2:51:50] presentation to actually
to
[2:51:53] formally
thank her for her efforts uh i think
[2:51:58] it would mean a lot to
a 15 year old to be
[2:52:03] brought to the board and
formally
[2:52:06] thanked happy to do so
she's probably had some great teachers
[2:52:11] at home she might have
[2:52:23] okay so we have an old and new business
[2:52:38] so we delayed the
social services statistics and so you
[2:52:43] all had an opportunity to take a look at
them um as i mentioned to you there will
[2:52:47] continue to be work in
progress as we evolve there's statistics
[2:52:51] there you'd like to see or that you
don't think are necessary
[2:53:03] thank you good evening i'll do my best
to go through the department's july data
[2:53:08] report
and thank you to dylan for some
[2:53:11] technical assistance by sharing your
screen
[2:53:15] um
page one child protective services
[2:53:19] i'd like to point out
um the decrease in the number of
[2:53:23] referrals
and the total children added
[2:53:28] this is not unusual for summer months
we do expect an uptick when children
[2:53:34] return to school but we are happy to see
numbers are down
[2:53:39] moving to the middle of the page
indicated unfounded and family
[2:53:44] assessment and response
our
[2:53:48] percentages have
wavered a little but they remained
[2:53:53] fairly
uh consistent
[2:53:58] i'll note that the u.s department of
health and human services from their
[2:54:01] 2019 summary finding found that across
the united states the average rate was
[2:54:07] about 16 percent so we're not far off
from their summary findings
[2:54:15] the safety checks completed on time this
is the
[2:54:19] child protective services caseworkers
inputting the documentation for
[2:54:25] the safety assessments we've seen an
incredible increase
[2:54:29] since
march and it was 94 for the month of
[2:54:34] june and i'm happy to report that it'll
be higher next next uh report out i just
[2:54:39] received that today
[2:54:43] page two
as expected the average cps pace load
[2:54:48] has decreased slightly with the
reduction in the number of referrals
[2:54:53] coming in
and you see that again in the middle
[2:54:56] graph the total case load
referrals
[2:55:01] on a trend downward
[2:55:05] the next set of
charts speak to the cases by month
[2:55:10] per supervisor
so you'll notice that through most of
[2:55:14] the cps units
the number of cases that the workers
[2:55:18] have has gone down there are a couple of
instances where the numbers have gone up
[2:55:23] and there are various reasons for that
um it would be difficult to speak to
[2:55:28] that specifically unless i were to
uh
[2:55:31] look into that further as to who it was
um
[2:55:37] i'll just note the training period we
are on track and doing well with
[2:55:41] training all of our new employees we
have several who
[2:55:45] will be ready the middle of september
and we have an additional couple that
[2:55:50] will be ready for the middle of october
and again the closed cases
[2:55:56] it just kind of this chart spreads them
out based on
[2:56:01] the years of service for the employee
[2:56:08] looking at page four preventative
services
[2:56:13] again you'll see a very slight reduction
in the number of children in care
[2:56:19] we typically don't have a lot of control
over the number of children that are
[2:56:23] coming in but there's been a lot of good
work done
[2:56:27] to try to establish permanency faster
and in the middle chart you'll see
[2:56:32] that um in the month of
july
[2:56:38] we were able to discharge more children
than entered care
[2:56:47] again the bottom charts average number
of children in care were hovering around
[2:56:52] we were hovering around that 3 30ish
mark
[2:56:57] and we have seen a slight reduction
the average number of days in care
[2:57:04] it notes that we're seeking additional
clarification and that is ongoing
[2:57:17] so the
number of children that are receiving
[2:57:21] preventive services in the home has been
fairly steady
[2:57:27] the case loads are a little bit higher
but still appropriate
[2:57:34] the number of cases per month by
supervisor
[2:57:38] you see fluctuations between one and
three
[2:57:41] cases again there are a couple of
outliers but for the most part it's
[2:57:45] within
a couple of cases and stabilizing
[2:57:53] and again looking at the training period
on page six
[2:57:57] we are really targeting the middle of
september for
[2:58:01] a small group of new employees to be
ready
[2:58:05] cases closed for preventive services
cases closed or moved to be closed when
[2:58:12] needed services by the family
are completed and the risk within the
[2:58:16] home is reduced so preventive cases
typically close when court ordered
[2:58:21] services are completed
if you look at the
[2:58:25] bottom of page six adoption activity
again pretty steady but what we like to
[2:58:30] see
is the number of children that are free
[2:58:33] for adoption
is steadily increasing and that speaks
[2:58:37] to the efforts for
improved permanency timelines for
[2:58:42] children and care
[2:58:47] on page
seven
[2:58:53] this is a breakdown of the number of
children that are in
[2:58:57] foster care placements
certified foster boarding homes
[2:59:03] kinship homes institutions
supervised independent living programs
[2:59:09] other and of course home on trial basis
youth
[2:59:13] this is
something that i wanted to point out
[2:59:17] because it does speak to our family
first goals
[2:59:20] we have already met the threshold of 50
percent
[2:59:24] for kinship homes we were at 54 percent
and we have already met the threshold
[2:59:29] for institutional or congregate care
which is to be below eight percent and
[2:59:34] we are at four percent
so those are important milestones
[2:59:39] that our
children's services staff have worked
[2:59:42] hard to accomplish to date
[2:59:46] on the final page
in our eligibility programs
[2:59:50] you'll see a an increase in snap
recipients and a slight decrease in ta
[3:00:00] in speaking to the staff in those areas
they referred to the emergency rental
[3:00:06] assistance program and the moratorium on
evictions as part of the reasoning for
[3:00:12] the ta applications being down and snap
benefits perhaps being
[3:00:17] increased with people
out of work
[3:00:20] and on
you know potentially having less of an
[3:00:24] income as the threshold is
lower for ta
[3:00:30] seven staff are doing the referrals to
the e-wrap program that i mentioned in
[3:00:35] addition to their regular duties
[3:00:40] and
i'll open it up for i guess any
[3:00:43] questions
[3:00:46] anyone
[3:00:49] mr heather how many
cases do we have
[3:00:54] for temporary assistance that have
exceeded the five-year limit
[3:00:58] that the county and the state are
responsible for and in addition to that
[3:01:04] how many cases have have the
state dropped
[3:01:08] and made the county responsible for the
uh entire expenses
[3:01:15] so that is a good question i do not know
the answer but i will find out thank you
[3:01:20] very much
mr ray
[3:01:23] thank you um
two
[3:01:26] points one
could we ask
[3:01:28] that
instead of initials on some of the
[3:01:32] programs that we just have
what it is so that
[3:01:38] other people will be reading these
reports who
[3:01:42] may not know what uh
temporary assistance is and
[3:01:48] the nutrition program and others
so that it's a little bit more
[3:01:53] accessible to those who
see this secondly
[3:01:59] on the uh
[3:02:04] adoption activity
the
[3:02:07] children freed without adoptive resource
[3:02:15] refresh my memory as to what that is
sure so the children that are freed
[3:02:21] without an adoption resource are
children who have legally been freed but
[3:02:26] for whatever reason they do not have a
foster parent or a legal guardian um
[3:02:32] who's wanting to take permanent custody
custody of them
[3:02:38] so what happens to you though
well we can if they wish if they wish to
[3:02:44] be adopted or if they do not have a
choice being under the age of 14 and
[3:02:49] being freed for adoption
then we continue to look for what we
[3:02:53] call hard to place
placements so we have several agencies
[3:02:57] that we work with throughout the state
who help us to locate
[3:03:01] families and
individual providers who may be
[3:03:06] interested so we seek resources outside
of our county
[3:03:11] all right let's
back up a little bit so
[3:03:16] you got a child
and you classified the child as free
[3:03:21] without adopted resources
[3:03:27] what happened where is that child who's
caring for it um
[3:03:33] what's going on
well the child could the child is in
[3:03:37] foster care the child's in the custody
of the commissioner of social services
[3:03:41] the child would be placed in either a
certified foster home that just is not
[3:03:45] interested in adoption
or the child could be placed in one of
[3:03:50] those other
options such as congregate care
[3:03:55] institutional care or a still or
um an independent living pro you know
[3:04:00] type program so it could be any of those
okay thank you that's that's what
[3:04:06] i
wasn't quite sure
[3:04:09] so heather what qualifies them as free
do they reach a certain age or is it a
[3:04:15] certain stability did you explain that
to the legislative body what makes them
[3:04:20] free sure so um a child becomes freed
when
[3:04:26] one
or both parents rights have been
[3:04:30] terminated to the child and i say one or
both because in some instances the child
[3:04:35] has only one confirmed parent so when
the parents rights have been terminated
[3:04:40] by the court or the parent chooses or
elects to surrender their rights then
[3:04:43] the child becomes legally freed for
adoption
[3:04:47] okay
that's a great explanation thank you
[3:04:52] does anybody else have any questions for
heather
[3:04:57] thank you for your report very clear
have a good night
[3:05:12] so any
more old or new business
[3:05:15] mr corset i think
[3:05:30] um library funding and i sent an email
out to everyone on the board
[3:05:37] years ago we used to
one dollar per person please hundreds
[3:05:42] okay 110
another person to help the 19 i believe
[3:05:48] there's 19 libraries
and when we call on rough times
[3:05:53] whatever
that was one of the full cpus
[3:06:01] um
one of the things you pointed out is we
[3:06:04] are one of the only counties not the
only county that doesn't
[3:06:08] give any sort of support
to
[3:06:11] our life
[3:06:24] she asked
now that the county's doing better
[3:06:29] maybe not to where we're supposed to be
doing better um
[3:06:33] would there be opportunity to
reinstate that fund i said well i'll see
[3:06:38] what the world
it was just is what the world board is
[3:06:43] by the response i got to the emails i
got one that said it would support it
[3:06:47] and
i could go either way
[3:06:51] um
i just wanted to throw it out there to
[3:06:54] just say
i looked into it there's not a there's
[3:06:58] not a stomach for it at this time
or or maybe there is but it also got me
[3:07:04] thinking about something
so the tacticals are going to be going
[3:07:07] on next week
and i know when i buy my hunting license
[3:07:12] there's an opportunity on the license if
i want to donate to the way wildlife i
[3:07:16] can contribute five dollars away
have we ever considered the outside
[3:07:21] funding sources a little blurb in there
yes i want to donate two dollars towards
[3:07:27] the library i want to make ten dollars
for
[3:07:30] whatever have we ever considered
anything like that
[3:07:33] and leave it to each individual to me i
don't mind spending two bucks here
[3:07:37] people say whatever but not everyone
does and i did so
[3:07:42] but it would give everyone an
opportunity
[3:07:44] and they put a little check mark on each
tax bill and say yeah i'd like to build
[3:07:48] five ten twenty dollars
[3:08:02] where's your wildlife fun thing the time
you're behind
[3:08:07] [Music]
[3:08:18] language about going local so the
language that sits on the tax bill is
[3:08:22] very uh specific and that could be
handled for a local law process let me
[3:08:26] look into that so i can find out
and i don't know how anyone else feels
[3:08:39] anyone else
so we do have a need for executive
[3:08:42] session for what items we do for
litigation personnel which is the
[3:08:47] medical financial credit or employment
history of a particular person or
[3:08:52] corporation or matters leading to the
appointment employment promotion
[3:08:55] demotion discipline suspension dismissal
or removal of a particular person or
[3:09:00] corporation
[3:09:12] gonna have a few minutes
[3:09:20] uh we're still waiting for the direction
from census bureau on some of those
[3:09:25] specifics and the numbers
that we're going to need in order for us
[3:09:28] to do our job we don't meet here until
september 13th so that's a while from
[3:09:33] now it's called this participle board
so at that meeting i will be making it
[3:09:37] official
from my appointments
[3:09:41] that i go out and give a meeting but i
just wanted everybody to know the list
[3:09:44] is already
available
[3:09:47] and at least as far as i'm concerned i'm
going to let you know that i'll have uh
[3:09:52] jill lightfoot we'll be scared of it
we're going to rick perkins on it
[3:10:05] anything else to come before the board
before you jared
[3:10:09] scene done motion to adjourn by mrs
bergen second by mr