[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

Finance Meeting - August 23, 2021.

Transcript