Washington County Board Meeting

I will call the Washington County Regional Rail Authority board meeting to order at 9:00 AM. Stephanie, roll call, please. Commissioner Miron. Here. Commissioner Karwoski. Here. Commissioner Cox. Here. Commissioner Bigham. Here. Commissioner Clasen. Here. Roll call taken. All present. Please join the Rail Authority for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The first item on the agenda is the approval of the March 10th, 2026 Regional Rail Authority meeting minutes. There is no change of... Would like for a motion. Mr. Chair, I will move to approve the minutes as published. Second. Motion to approve as published by Commissioner Miron, second by Commissioner Bigham. Any comments? With none, all in favor signify by aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Minutes approved. Next we will go to a public hearing. I've got a script to read. Public hearing to consider the adoption of the Washington County Ordinance Number 222, the Property Management Ordinance. A property management plan was adopted in 2002 by the Washington County Regional Rail Authority. While reviewing the plan content for updates, it was determined that the better mechanism for the contents of the plan, which primarily functions to manage the property of the Washington County Regional Rail Authority owns... for the property that the Regional Rail Authority owns, is an ordinance.

Using an ordinance to manage the role is the same process the county uses to manage county-owned role via Washington County ordinance for the management of the county highway right of way ordinance, Ordinance 188. The stated purpose of the Property Management Ordinance Number 222 exists pursuant to Minnesota Statutes and 398A, which authorizes regional railroad authority to plan, establish, acquire, develop, construct, purchase, enlarge, extend, improve, maintain, equip, operate, regulate, and protect railroads and railroad facilities. The 2013 amendment to the MS 398A expanded these powers to include bus rapid transit on railways, and included in the appro- on railways, included in and approved by the Metropolitan Council's Transportation Policy Plan. This hearing is being held pursuant to the requirements contained in Minnesota Statute Section 375.51. Madam Secretary, was the notice of the public hearing published? And do you have a record of its publication? Yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Before we proceed, let me explain the format we will be following. These proceedings are being videoed, recorded, so that a verbatim record of what occurs today can be maintained.

Each individual who wishes to make a presentation should come to the podium and identify themselves with their first and last name. Since everyone who wishes to speak will be given the opportunity to do so, we ask that none of the speakers be interrupted, except that board members are encouraged to ask questions during the presentation for clarification or additional information. If there is any documentary evidence that anyone wishes to us to consider, it should be given to the clerk, so that it may be made part of the record. I ask each presenter to be clear and as brief as possible, and as always, the chair reserves the right to limit an individual's presentation. At the conclusion of today's presentation, after receiving public testimony today, the public hearing will be closed, and board members will discuss this matter. Are there any questions concerning the procedures we will follow? We will now proceed with a presentation by the Public Works Department.

Welcome. Thank you. Chair and commissioners, my name is Lissa Lightner. I am the planning director for Washington County, and I'm here today to give a little bit of background about the Property Management Ordinance, excuse me, Number 222, and before have opening up for the public hearing. There we go. Okay, a little bit of background here. First, what is an ordinance? An ordinance is a law that is enacted or amended by a governmental authority following the adoption of a required public hearing. It represents the most binding and permanent act of the board, and once adopted, established rules that both the county board and the public must follow when conducting business, and can only be repealed or changed through subsequent ordinance or formal amendment. Ordinances are structured by design to be clearly defining of processes and establishing consequences for non-compliance, which makes them among the more straightforward and effective tools for enforcement. A little bit of background on the Property Management Plan. It was originally adopted in 2002 and has not been updated since. The plan addresses the current and future use of the property that the county already owns, or the Regional Rail Authority already ownsThe current access to property and future access needs, the condition of the property, and the disposal of the property. The property management plan is not a vision and does not guide future purchase or transit investment for the county.

This document only manages the assets we currently have. Some updates that were made in the draft ordinance from the original 2002 property management plan. There was no changes to the goals or the overall intent of the document. We updated the Regional Rail Authority descriptions to be consistent. There was a lot of inconsistencies in the level of detail that was described in the three properties the county currently owns. We expanded the definition section, added language to provide some flexibility in permit fees. We realized over the years utilizing that plan document there were instances in which the Regional Rail Authority wanted some flexibility, so we made sure we added that in. Clarified the roles and responsibilities between staff, the Regional Rail Authority board, and a permit holder, and then one of the more important ones is updating references since 2002. Two of the larger ones was the acceptable use at county facilities policy was adopted by the board, as well as a new memorandum of understanding between Hugo and Washington County regarding the Trunk Highway 61 corridor, which does parallel the Regional Rail Authority property.

I will note, in the packet there is just one red line change that we received via a comment, it was from a commissioner, that there was an inconsistency still with the descriptions, and it was removing of or changing the square footage in one of the property. That is the only comment we've received thus far in writing. Ahead of this, we did email this probably four weeks ago to the cities in which the three properties reside, and we have not received any comments from them. And so, at this point, Minnesota State Statute 398.34 requires a public hearing notice to be published. That was done, and the public hearing is scheduled for today. We have tentatively scheduled the adoption of this on the April 14th, 2026 agenda in case there are comments that we can then have time to make those and loop back with an updated document. So with that, we can take any public comment if folks are here today, or take any comments or questions from you all.

Thank you. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to come forward and speak on the matter? Anyone in the audience that would come? This is an open public forum. Anyone in the audience who wishes to be heard.

Okay. We'll move to bringing this back to the board, but before I do that, I've got some prepared statements to read. I will note that in advance of today's hearing, members of the public were provided with an opportunity to submit comments to the Public Works Department. Comments that were received, if any, have been provided to the board members and made part of the record. Madam Secretary, do you have all the documentary evidence? Yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Now that we've heard from interested parties, which none came forward today in person, and we've received documentary evidence to this point, I will ask for a motion to close the public hearing and open the matter for discussion and comments by the board members. Look for a motion to close the public hearing. Move to close the public hearing, Mr. Chair. Second. Okay. Motion to close the public hearing was made by Commissioner Bigham, second by Commissioner Cox.

All in favor signify by eye. Eye. Opposed same sign. Motion carries. The public hearing is closed. Now county board discussion. Anyone have comments? Commissioner Clasen. Yeah. Thank you so much for your presentation, Director. I had several questions in regards to this ordinance because it's going from what was a plan to an ordinance. And I didn't know, and I keep asking the question of the why we're doing this. So rarely do we create an ordinance, and I was able to review our past ordinances, and in one of the attachments you gave me was the Right of Way Ordinance 188, and when I was reading through 188, I feel like this ordinance already does exactly what we're trying to do today, because it actually manages and regulates public use of the county's right of way along the county road pursuant to the authority granted to the county under state and federal statutory, administrative, and common law.

That's probably the strongest I've ever seen in the protection of our right of way. So I don't know, and I still don't quite understand why we're doing this. I think what it does is memorialize the three right of ways, but I would like to instead ask the rail and transit community their thoughts. I know that the cities that you notified, they a lot of times don't have the right of way you're discussing currently, but that doesn't mean that we couldn't potentially have something in the future. And so I'm just concerned with doing this if thismemorializes it in the way of repeal or amendment to the ordinance, because so rarely does this occur. For my constituents, I think I owe them more of an explanation of why this is necessary when I see the ordinance for the right of way management so strongly written. Chair and Commissioner, are you asking me to explain why we're doing this right now? I just want to clarify- No.

... if that was a question or just a general statement. I think at this point- Okay... I've asked staff enough- Okay... questions as to how it came about. I know that it seemed to be between two departments who recommended it, but I don't think it matters at this point. I think I just need to say that I'm opposing this at this time. Okay. Commissioner Miron. I appreciate the fact that we're going to look at an ordinance and that we've published and offered to take public comment. As was pointed out, the plan was adopted in 2002, and it hasn't been updated. But since that time, we've created some significant policies that have directed planning and work that communities are doing within these corridors or where our facilities are located. And quite frankly, policies can be changed by a simple vote of this board, and can undermine some significant planning that's gone on for years. The ordinance changes to that, and I understand this ordinance takes into account those policies that have been created since 2002, and incorporated them into the ordinance.

And I appreciate that because a change then would require another public hearing and an opportunity for the public to be engaged with us to share any concerns they might have about changes that we make to the ordinance, which in the past has just been policy. So I think this provides a significant protection to the public in protecting investments and decisions that they have made, that might be impacted by a change in policy, but now a change in ordinance, with the protection of the public hearing and the public notices that come with it. So I appreciate that. I think it's a good move for the county and certainly, I hope that any other public comments might be incorporated if in fact we receive any, even though our public hearing is closed. But I hope that the communities and the public continue to review the ordinance. But once it's approved, then those protections are within that ordinance and the process that needs to be followed to make changes.

Commissioner Cutts. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Alyssa, thanks for the presentation again. I think what I appreciate about this is the formalization, as Commissioner Miron was saying. There's been significant investment in these corridors and with these properties, and so just making sure that we're protecting those feels very important with the ordinance. So I appreciate that. Commissioner Bigham. Thank you, Ms. Leitner, for the presentation and the public hearing. I also just want to highlight that I think this is more concrete clarity for the local stakeholders that would be involved in these projects throughout the county. And so, a policy is good, an ordinance is stronger, and so I just think it's the right thing to do, especially when you're dealing with property. Yeah. Alyssa, thank you for the presentation. I agree with my colleagues that are in support of this. I too am in support of it for the reasons well stated. I do think it gives us more transparency, and I really like the aspect of we have to have a public hearing on any change.

And also, this ordinance can change. So if something isn't quite going right, we can always change it, so it's a living document. And what's always important to me is when the cities we partnership don't come forward with comments opposed, no comments at all. I take this as something that they're not concerned with at this time. And often we get comments that are supportive, and if we had comments that were critical, we try to incorporate those kind of comments. So I'll be supporting it. Any additional comments before we move to a vote? Okay. Commissioner Clasen. I really don't think this is a working document. Ordinances aren't considered a working document. It's something that's codified, and it's something that isn't easily changed. So I just wanted to state that. Thanks. Any other comments? Commissioner Miron. Just, Mr. Chair, you mentioned about a vote, but I don't believe we're- Right... taking a vote today. I think this is- Yeah... going to be considered on April 14th.

I was just testing the board to see if... Thank you. Any additional comments? Okay. I'm going to move to a prepared statement. Based on the discussion and comments of the county commissioners, I request the county staff to draft a proposed resolution consistent with the board's discussion and comments to adopt Washington County Property Management Ordinance number 222 The matter should then be set back on the county board agenda for the board to consider adopting the resolution. That concludes our topic here regarding this ordinance, so we will move on. That was item C. The last item on the agenda for the Regional Rail Authority is a motion for adjournment. Mr. Chair, move to adjourn. Second. Motion made to adjourn by Commissioner Miron, second by Commissioner Bigham. All in favor of adjournment signify by aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Regional Rail Authority is adjourned.

All right. I will go ahead and call the Washington County Board of Commissioners meeting for March 31st, 2026 to order. Clerk, please take the roll. Commissioner Miron? Here. Commissioner Karwoski? Here. Commissioner Cox? Here. Commissioner Bigham? Here. Commissioner Clasen? Here. Roll call taken, all present. Sounds good. We did do the Pledge of Allegiance in the Regional Rail Authority meeting, so we will move to comments from the public. If there's anybody here that would like to address the board, please approach the speaker's dais and state your name and community. Just a couple things. We like to keep it about three to five minutes, and then try not to repeat maybe something what somebody else has mentioned as a speaker. And we don't respond in public comment, but either we will or the administrator will follow up. So with that, sir, please state your name and community. My name is Philip Williams. I'm a Mahtomedi resident for about 37 years now. And good morning, commissioners.

I have a statement to make about a petition that we would like to present to the board. First of all, I really appreciate the public forum section of the meeting. I was here for January 13th when there was a public forum about the potential Woodbury ICE detention center to be built in Woodbury. And the commissioners did a fantastic job of listening to what the public had to say. And in my view, they also took an action, which was they sent a letter to legislators stating that they would not approve of an ICE detention facility anywhere in Washington County. I really want to thank the commissioners for the listening and also the action that they took. The reason I'm here today is that I would like to present a petition that encourages you to make a public statement on public safety and immigration enforcement. St. Croix Valley Indivisible developed the petition and was able to get 169 signatures from Washington County residents, both from our membership and from our friends.

Briefly, the petition asked the commissioners to make a public statement that assures residents that the county welcomes immigrants and is committed to protecting civil rights and assuring due process for all. The reason for this ask is that we believe our community is still suffering from the actions of ICE during the surge. A member of our church just this past week approached my wife and I, and asked for help delivering rice, bags of rice, large bags of rice, to immigrant families. And the reason for this is that these families had not been able to work for the past two months and had financial distress, and also they were still afraid to leave their homes. The second reason for this is that while there are fewer ICE agents in the Twin Cities today, we have no guarantee they will not increase their numbers, and no guarantees that they will change their tactics in the future. I'd like to read the petition at this point, and I have copies for the commissioners.

If I could pass those out, would that be okay?

Thank you.

Okay, so the petition is for a Washington County public statement on public safety and federal immigration enforcement. The actions of Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minnesota has left our citizenry rattled, angry, and afraid. This is true not only in the Twin Cities, but also in Washington County. Several cities have made public statements expressing concern about current immigration enforcement tactics and explaining the role of local law enforcement in immigration enforcement actions. We believe that Washington County should make a similar public statement that assures residents that the county welcomes immigrants and is committed to protecting civil rights and assuring due process for all. The following public statement was crafted by a group of concerned citizens, and we are asking the commissioners to adopt it or a version that is similar in spirit and display it prominently on its website. Here's the statement that we ask you to consider. Federal immigration officials are targeting members of the immigrant community in the Twin Cities and across Minnesota.

Many local law enforcement leaders have acknowledged that ICE is actively engaged in racial profiling, and there's no doubt their tactics are frequently overaggressive, if not illegal. These actions cause fear and uncertainty in our community, particularly among our immigrant neighbors. To provide reassurance to all members of our community, Washington County and the Washington County Sheriff do not and will not enforce federal immigration law, nor will we conduct immigration enforcement. Washington County law enforcement officers will not ask about immigration status. We want everyone to feel safe calling 911, reporting a crime, or asking for help in an emergency. The Washington County Sheriff will not detain a person solely based on federal civil immigration violations. As an aside, we believe that this is the current policy or the current status, the way that the sheriff treats immigration enforcement actions, but we would like to have that memorialized in a statement. Further, the Washington County commissioners will not approve any agreement with ICE nor consider such approval without holding a public forum. And also, should federal enforcement activity occur in Washington County, the county's priority is the safety of everyone involved, maintaining calm, and reducing the risk of harm.

Washington County Sheriff personnel would be present only to support de-escalation and public safety. What are we doing? In other words, what is Washington County doing in regard to these issues? We will encourage county employees and public servants to attend educational workshops regarding the rights of individuals and businesses during immigration enforcement actions. And I believe that Washington County has actually done some of this. We will provide support to any municipalities within Washington County who are prepared to make their own public statement. We will explore the formation of policies that conform with this public statement, and we will keep the public informed. So, that is the petition. We have 169 signatures associated with that. Some of you may ask, why do this now when the number of ICE agents in Minnesota has been dramatically reduced? One reason I've already stated is that the immigrant community has been traumatized. And in my view, Washington County should do everything it can to make the immigrants feel safe here.

Second reason is that none of us knows what will happen in the future. ICE has been funded with $75 billion, specifically targeted for mass deportation. This is over and above the $10 billion, which is part of their budget each and every year. The first attempt at mass deportation resulted in turmoil and deaths we saw here in Minnesota. Do we want to bet that this $75 million will be spent in a way that we as citizens will applaud? Or will more turmoil and hardships occur? We just don't know. The third and final reason I have for you as commissioners in taking this action, is that there's nothing in this public statement that would hinder ICE from performing its normal job, and nothing that would hinder ICE from targeting immigrants who happen to be felons. So please consider our petition and help Washington County a place that is safe for our immigrant neighbors. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Williams. Is there anybody else that would like to address the board in public comment? Okay, seeing no other folks coming up to the speaker's rostrum, we will move on to the next item, which is approval of the agenda. Is there a motion? Madam Chair, I move to approve the agenda as published. Second. Moved and seconded. Any comment? Seeing none. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Motion carries. We are now on to the consent calendar. Are there any items that members would like to pull? Seeing none. Commissioner Cox. I would move approval of the consent calendar items A through G as printed. I'll second that. Moved and seconded. Clerk will take the roll. Commissioner Miron? Aye. Commissioner Karwoski? Aye. Commissioner Cox? Aye. Commissioner Clasen? Aye. Commissioner Bigham? Aye. Consent calendar passes five zero. Thank you. The next item is from the Office of Administration and Administrator Corbid. Madam Chair and commissioners, good morning.

This item actually is presented by Chris Ing from the Community Development Agency and a team of individuals that are with him.

Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. Good morning, Mr. Ing. I'm Chris Ing, the economic development director with the Washington County Community Development Agency. I want to thank you for having us today, and thank you for your ongoing support for economic development and workforce development here in Washington County. I do have with me today some colleagues that we are very pleased to talk about a partnership and an award that was just recently provided to the partnership from the Economic Development Association of Minnesota. The Economic Development Association of Minnesota, or EDAM, is a statewide organization for economic development professionals, and there's over 500 members across the state of Minnesota. Every year at their annual conference, they give out annual awards, and this year, this partnership received the Innovation Award for the metropolitan area for the EXCITE 2025 program, which is a teacher externship program. And this partnership had the opportunity to send out 57 teachers from across Minnesota from the high schools out into the businesses to find out what the needs are and what the opportunities are for the students.

And those 57 teachers will have the impact on almost 10,000 students. On 9,900 students, we estimateAcross the county, introducing them to different career pathways, to career opportunities, and to give the teachers an opportunity to see what happens inside of these buildings that they drive by every day and really don't know much about the businesses. And the really neat thing about this opportunity is for those teachers now to take what they learn in those businesses back into the classroom and develop curriculum around that. And so I want to introduce today, we've got Sarah Shanley from 916 and the Northeast Metro Part Consortium, Perkins Consortium. Got Bob Manning from the Stillwater Area High School.

Got Mike Miron from the Forest Lake Area High School, and Robyn Anthony, who's a really important partner with us on the fiscal side of the program from the Stillwater Area Chamber, and I'll turn it over to them and if you want to give a couple remarks, and then if it's okay with the board, we'd like to present the award this morning and have a photo taken of the county commissioners with the partnership. Absolutely. Thank you. Mr Ng. Speak on the mic. Morning. My name's Bob Manning. I'm a career pathways coordinator at Stillwater High School. This program is in its fourth year. It's been very successful. We've seen it grow every year. Teachers are excited about it. One of the things you don't hear too often is teachers who are more motivated to do even more, than what's currently on their plate. And, so this is exciting. One of the core principles behind a teacher externship, like Chris was saying, is that this gives teachers, not just the career tech ed teachers, but all teachers, an opportunity to see what's available out there. What is the economy like?

What are the opportunities available to change their paradigm of what students need to do to get a high-wage job in an industry that's growing. And so, if you think about every teacher has contact with about 175 students every year. And over the course of four years, they have such a great impact on what students know and what they should investigate. So students are kind of paralyzed by indecision right now. They have what we call the exposure gap. They only know what their parents do, possibly, and maybe a neighbor. They really don't know what's out there, especially for things that don't require a four-year degree. If we have more teachers who know about these opportunities and who build relationships with the employers who can come into their classroom, help them revise their curriculum, come in and do projects with them, more students will be more aware of the options available to them. So, that's what this does, and I'll turn it over to Mike Miron, who may have something else to say.

Thanks, Bob. Madam Chair, Commissioners, the only thing I would add to-- Bob summarized the program really well. But the partnership with the Washington County CDA really allowed us to scale the opportunity to include more teachers. We were serving 35 to 40 teachers a year previously. The partnership and the resources that the CDA has provided allowed us to bring in more teachers, and that interest is growing. We just finished up our application process, and we have more than 70 teachers that want to be part of this for 2026. And so interest is growing, interest is building. The teachers who want to participate and learn more is exciting. And so we appreciate this partnership between chambers, local units of government, as well as schools, to help us provide this opportunity to teachers. So thank you very much. Thank you. Well, and again, thank you. I couldn't do it without the partnership. I had this vision a long time ago, and then Mike and Bob and Chris helped bring it to life. So thank you all. And Robyn, working with the chambers is something for all of us in schools are like, "Who are the chambers of commerce? Who is the CDA?" All of these partnerships have come to life, and we couldn't be out in our businesses without our chambers, without our CDA, because we only know what we know too.

And so we thank all of you and look forward to another successful year and another good partnership. So thank you. Good morning, commissioners. Robyn Anthony, the executive director of the Greater Stillwater Chamber of Commerce. This is such a great program. It keeps students here, keeps revenue here, and really, workforce education and business collaboration is directly aligned with our mission as a chamber and as foundations. So thank you for all you do. Thank you. I'll open it up for some comments here, unless you have some closing comments, Mr Ng. Just real briefly. I just want to just again thank you for your support. This program couldn't happen without the support of the CDA board and the Washington County Board of Commissioners. So we appreciate everything you do to support businesses and workforce and student and educators across the county. So, and from a practical perspective, economic development can't happen without workforce, and our students are our talent pipeline. That's where our future is.

And if we can help make those introductions to our businesses, and I think from my perspective, education is a critical component of economic development. So again, thank you, and thank you for the partners. All right. Commissioner Miron, you want to kick us off since you're our representative on the CDA? Well, congratulations and certainly the representative on CDA, but Commissioner Karwoski serves on the Workforce Development Board, and this connects very much with that as well. I remember back when we didn't have an economic development director, and our focus wasn't on business retention and expansion and recognizing the importance that businesses play within our communities and within our taxing system. Within Washington County and the services that make this just a great place to be. This award, I think, is certainly deserving. There's been a lot of effort, as Bob indicated, four years of effort and work here with teachers. But what hasn't been discussed a lot is the impact that it's had on our students and the direction they're moving.

And for them to have teachers that are engaging them and recognizing the opportunities that exist, I think Robin pointed out keeping our kids within the communities that they've grown up in and they live in, is really important. And I think for them to recognize early on the opportunities that exist right here in Washington County, that's going to have long-term effects on our communities and our family structure as well.

Just keeping sometimes those kids close to home and staying connected with the support system that's been created around them. So kudos for this award. Certainly well-deserved. I've watched this unfold. I know many of us have attended some of the functions at the high schools that... And elsewhere where you've engaged with the business community. And I know the business community has really embraced this and I think have found some long-term employees that are going to benefit their business here within Washington County and the services they provide. So Chris, I've said this before. We're so fortunate to have you in a leadership role with the CDA. I appreciate the board's decision to get involved in economic development. I think there are other counties that envy us in the work that you do, and we're certainly fortunate to have you, your value system, and the important work you do in working with our chambers and working within the business community here within Washington County.

Thank you. Commissioner Cox. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chris, thanks for the presentation, and thank you everyone for coming and to show off your really amazing award. I've had so many aha moments with many of you standing right here, and I just am continually amazed at the work that this partnership keeps doing. And Mr. Miron, I love what you said of the scale, that this partnership allowed for that kind of next step, and I'm curious to see what your next step is after this event. So, thank you for the great work and I just appreciate you all being here. Commissioner Karwoski, our representative on workforce development. Thank you, Chair Bigham. Yeah, thanks for all coming and saying a piece of the story. And I know Chris Eng, our economic development person for the CDA, your leadership has been instrumental over the years. This has been a lot of years in the process. It's such an important partnership to have the county supporting and being a member of working with the schools, working with the chambers, and then the talents of the CDA to bring economic growth to the area.

Right now we have many more of our talented adults leaving the county. The more we can train them to opportunities of options beyond a four-year college, we can have companies grow here locally, grow and employ our talent, retain our talent in the county. It's nice to see the consortium of chambers being created. Hopefully you can keep building on this success. I know Chris Eng and I serve on the Workforce Development Board, and the Workforce Development Board is very interested in supporting that connection of having a career pathway in our schools. And hopefully we'll continue that. And I think the award reflects a lot of hard work by each of you and your partners within your school, within your chambers. Appreciate it, and congratulations on the award. Commissioner Clasen. Yeah. Thank you so much for the presentation. Congratulations to the Innovation Award from Economic Development Association of Minnesota. I used to work for city government, so economic development is something I always cared a lot about.

Now I'm a recruiter, and so talent acquisition is a big part of what I do every day. And teachers are a big part of children's and kids' lives. But the recruiter and the talent acquisition is very important to businesses. I would love to see more partnerships with recruiters because they have such a relationship that's already built within, in the exact areas that you're looking for, which is manufacturing, healthcare, and other office and home services will be one of the biggest areas, because AI can still not do plumbing. It still cannot clear the sewers, and there is some skills that are not going to go away. When AI arrives. So, any type of opportunity where you can get more of the recruiters and talent acquisition leaders along with you guys, I think it would really help create a more comprehensive view. A lot of issues come with resume building for the youth. A lot of issues are the interviewing and not being prepared with examples that show their skills and experiences.

So, these are things that we just need to continuously train. We have more people, more need, and so I see this growing. I know this is more in the northern part of the county, but this is definitely something that our workforce board can do more of this collaboration that's necessary. Because I do see several populations seeming to have difficulty getting hired. And I know that if we could just start at the schools and clear some of the frustrations with what they see versus what a recruiter sees, is very different. And that is the number one part of getting a job, is that number one spot where you are applying, and the recruiter is reviewing. And if you're not getting calls, it's because of your resume. And maybe you're not applying for the correct positions that you're skilled for. But, I do feel like that starts in high school. And, I was, as a high schooler, given a checkbook and was forced to complete a check.

We don't even do those anymore. But I know I needed to learn how to spell all the different, tennis, and all the things, cents. And now you don't even put cents, right? So, it's just different. And people need to go with the times, and AI is changing everything now. So when you're going to interview, more than likely, you're going to get an automated person who interviews you in the future. You are going to have a video camera that you're going to have to take a video and answer these questions, because that's what's going to occur, so we can weed out faster people who are not eligible. And the more I talk about it, the more I know people are like, "What is happening?" Yes, and it's something that is going to be very different, and it's going to happen quick. So I'm glad that teachers and businesses are working together, because AI is really changing a lot of what we need from our workforce.

Very different skills. So thank you for coming. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Just to close this out. Our motto, slogan is, "Rooted in connection, grounded with direction," and I don't actually know if there is a better example of our motto than that with this program. The connection that these students have with the schools, the teachers, and then growing them with direction into where we are meeting our workforce needs and their interests. So, I just think that this is fantastic, and congratulations. And I too am excited to see where you bring this and continue to grow it. And I also just want to acknowledge that we have Executive Director Taphorn from the Washington County CDA and Ms. Soderstrom from the CDA as well here. And so, with that, if there are no other comments, we can do a photo at the front of the dais here. So thank you. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Oh, okay. Thank you. It's my... Take one step. One step. Hope to be here this time. I don't see you. Yeah, actually I'll be standing right on the thing. Oh, yeah. And when you said it, you laughed. I know, right? I sit here with you. Chris, how long should I leave my... Because you're too tall. I'll just go... Down to the parking lot. Okay. Are you ready? One, two, three. Sorry. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Sounds good.

All right. Then anything else, Administrator Corbid, on this? No, Madam Chair. All right. Thank you. The next item is our annual presentation from the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District, where we have Alex Carlson and Daniel Huff.

Welcome. Thank you, Madam Chair, commissioners. My name is Daniel Huff. I am the executive director of the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District. I am joined by my colleagues Alex Carlson and Josh Medetsky. Josh is the manager for the Washington County facility based in Oakdale. I want to thank Commissioners Fran Miron and Bethany Cox for serving on the MMCD Commission, representing Washington County. And I want to just center the-- Most people think of mosquito control because we make the outdoors better around here. But we're also a public health agency. And last year, we had an uptick in West Nile virus. We had the most cases we ever had. West Nile virus is carried by mosquitoes. We had 47 cases in the metro area. Eleven of those were hospitalized. And when people are hospitalized, it's usually for encephalitis, and that is swelling of the brain. And unfortunately, we had two fatalities last year from West Nile virus. Our job is to suppress mosquitoes, to track disease, and to protect public health here in the metro.

I want to thank Washington County Public Health, Dave Brummel, and his team for being such good partners with us in this important service to the public. And with your permission, Madam Chair, I'd like to turn it over to Alex to provide an update on our year. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and Commissioners. It's great to be back once again this year. I'm Alex Carlson, the Public Affairs Manager with Metropolitan Mosquito Control District, and I just have a brief overview of the last year's activities, a little preview of what we expect from 2026, and also I end with a little bit of frequently asked questions, some of the questions that we most often get, which I expect you are also getting when you hear from residents that have questions about what those helicopters are doing or what mosquito control actually does in the community. So I'll have that kind of wrapping up at the end.

But first, just a little background. We've been around since 1958, and our governance is our county commissioners. As Dan mentioned, we're lucky to have Commissioners Miron and Cox on our board for 2026. We have over 2,900 square miles in our service area, over three million people, and 88,000 wetland habitats that we have mapped, and you'll understand why that's important as we talk about the role mosquito play. Our funding comes from property taxes, so the medium home throughout the Twin Cities pays about $11 per year to fund mosquito control services. And we've really structured our services around what we call integrated pest management. Basically, the goal is we want to target the specific mosquito or blackfly species, that we can do our best to eliminate to protect public health and improve the outdoors while providing minimal impact on everything else in the environment. So it starts with surveillance. Mosquitoes start their life cycle in the water, so we go out and do larval surveillance, and then we also do looking out for adult activity, where we're finding out where the adult mosquitoes are harboring.

Then we do identification at our entomology lab in St. Paul, so we can determine which species are active. Then we determine our control measures based on the type of mosquito species that we're finding. Doing lots of reviewing, which we're improving with a new research entomologist on staff this year to help make sure that we're being effective and safe. And then also public education and just in general, engaging with the community is important for mosquito control as well. But we're not just mosquitoes. We also do blackfly control, which are those biting gnats that emerge from rivers and streams. We do monitoring of tick populations and reporting with county public health and with other local agencies, to just report on when we see high tick activity or tick-borne disease. We also have an interactive website with maps and educational data and weekly reports throughout the season. And then another important aspect of our job is what we call source reduction, which is going out and removing anything that's holding standing water that can become mosquito habitat. So the big stories from 2025, as Dan mentioned, it was a record year for West Nile.

It says 45 cases, but I think we're actually up to about 48. Sometimes there's a delay in the reporting. Our previous record was 28, so it's substantially higher than that. So a lot of factors came into play on why that happened. Cattail mosquitoes, which is the midsummer scourge that we see when we have a huge spike around the beginning of July, they had the highest number since 2020. So those are what people probably noticed during the mosquito season last year. But we had a lucky slow start to the season. So we had some of the fewest number of spring mosquitoes we had ever seen last year. So slow spring, big peak in the summer was kind of the big story from last year, and then, of course, the disease cases. This is the map of last year, so the gray line represents the 10-year average. You can see we usually see an early surge around the end of May with our spring mosquitoes, and then we peak around the beginning of July.

Last year, we didn't see that spring surge, but we still peaked right around July 8th, was when we saw the highest mosquito activity. That was because all those cattail mosquitoes emerge. They all emerge all at once right at the beginning of July, and then they slowly fade out, and then they don't emerge again till the following year. So they're really not dependent on that summer's rain. They're dependent on the previous year's rain. And then we see what we call our summer floodwater mosquitoes. They kind of go up and down based on when the rain comes. So a very simple line last year, if you were out and about around early July, you noticed a lot of mosquitoes. And the rest of the year was either average or below average. Our main focus of control is larval control, so we target the mosquitoes when they're in the water for many different reasons. But most importantly, it's the most environmentally sensitive and effective way to do it.

So we do multiple different methods of treating the larval mosquitoes. Most commonly is our helicopters, so people recognize the helicopters flying around over wetlands. But we also do drones, which we improved our drone program and added several drones last year, so we were up to eight throughout the Twin Cities. And then we also do some hand or backpack applications for the small areas. We tripled our drone acres just from 2024 to 2025, and we're going to continue to grow that program.

And you can see last year was our highest year of larval control since 2016. So we're continuing to respond to weather and also just be as active as we can. Adult control is what we use to supplement our larval control, mainly in conditions when there's disease cases or disease activity that we're noticing that needs a response. So we do this with nighttime fogging, like we did at the state fairgrounds, or/and targeted backpack applications to control areas where we see high disease vector activity. So we actually continue to decline in our adult controls. And this is important because larval control is widespread. It's safe for pretty much any other non-target species. It's very specific to mosquito larvae. We train our staff to be very careful with adult control, but these are broad-spectrum products, and so we are very sparing with them. And so we're really able to target our larval control and be effective with reducing adult control. But we do think adult control is an important part of our program, especially in cases when we see high disease activity. So for Washington County last year, pretty similar numbers to 2024. Those are two rainy years, so 2024 and 2025, we saw above average precipitation for the summer.

So, a slight decline in larval treatment, a very small increase in adult treatment, but you can kind of see the difference there. We increased our catch basins, similar numbers of tires removed, and slightly fewer residents called us. We always encourage people to call if you're noticing high mosquito activity or black fly activity, or just if you have any questions, it's a great way to engage with us, and we're always happy to answer the question. Between, during business hours on weekdays, we always have a live person available to answer your call. For the budget side, the change from 2025 to 2026. So for Washington County, 1,945,000 to 1,994,000, which is a $49,000 increase. And again, the median home pays about $11 per year across the Twin Cities. So the big question we always get, especially right now as it's starting to get warm outside, is what is the mosquito season going to look like? It's very hard to predict this early what the summer's going to look like.

There's a few species that we can predict with some accuracy, but so far right now, they're predicting about average precipitation for the Twin Cities. So we're not in the drier areas in the west or the wetter areas in the east, we're kind of in between. So we'll see what that actually results in. But we are expecting another, what we call the midsummer surge, the cattail mosquitoes are likely to return. That graph on the bottom right there shows, the projection, which is the yellow line, and the actual, which is the kind of teal line. So last year, we actually projected a lot and came in a lot less, and part of that was because we didn't have very many spring mosquitoes, so we were able to restructure our treatments and focus on cattail. We are going to continue to do that this year and really try to focus on those cattail mosquitoes, so we don't have as big of a summer surge.

But we are expecting, because of last year's rain, there's a lot of cattail mosquitoes in the water, and those will likely emerge around the beginning of July. Our tick specialist is increasing a slightly elevated risk of Lyme disease this year. So basically, ticks have a multi-year life cycle, so they survive three years. And last year's larval ticks, we're testing at a little higher rate than normal. So that means this year's nymph ticks might have a little bit higher prevalence of Lyme disease. So just something to take precautions. We're already in tick season, so as you're out and about collecting ticks, make sure that you're taking precautions to find and remove them as soon as possible. This is a change for our tire recycling program. So we've always been collecting and recycling waste tires, which are a big mosquito habitat, especially for some of those disease vectors. Last year, we piloted a program in Dakota, Scott, and Carver Counties, where instead of going to residences to pick up tires, we hosted drop-off events where people brought their tires to us. Basically, the demand for tire recycling has skyrocketed. We doubled the amount of tires we collected last year, and it's becoming a big strain on our staff and our budget.

And so this allows us to really control when we're recycling those tires. We're still going to go out and make sure that we're reporting and trying our best to remove tire piles that are abandoned. But if people have tires that they want to get rid of, they bring them to us on specific days. So those dates are published on our website, and we're going to have a live form where people can sign up for the days they want to bring them up around mid-April. So the frequently asked questions that we get about mosquito control. The number one question we get the most often is, "I'm having issues with mosquitoes. What can I do?" Or black flies or ticks. So we put a couple of sources on our website. One, we have a residence guide with over 40 tips of what you can do for your yard, for yourself. Everything from removing standing water and different types of standing water to setting up a fan to blow away mosquitoes, and things that you can do to really protect yourself.

Recommended bug sprays and stuff like that. We also always encourage people to call us if you're having questions or issues. Another question we got is, "What products are you using and are they safe for kids, pets, wildlife, public health, pollinators, and stuff like that?" We're all residents of the Twin Cities, and we care about the environment a lot. And so obviously, we want to make sure that we're protecting the environment when we're going out there. So all of our products that we use are listed on our website, but the larval control materials, which is the vast majority of our control, are very targeted for mosquito larva. So they're specific to the alkaline gut of a mosquito larva, and it doesn't interact with other animals, so not harmful to fish or other aquatic insects. And definitely not harmful to pollinators like bees and butterflies that don't have an aquatic part of their life cycle. And then adult control materials are used sparingly and safely by our trained staff.

Another common question that we get, "Can I ride in the helicopter?" And unfortunately, no, you cannot. I always like to plug our maps. So we have a great resource with interactive maps. People can go on our website, type in your address, and see all the wetlands that you have around you. Sometimes people are surprised. You might have a big pond. You think that's where the mosquitoes are coming from, but it might be a drainage ditch down the end of the street. And you can see about 20 years of data on when we last visited it, what we found, and what treatments were done. And then finally, we always like to plug our public outreach as well. So we are active throughout events. Informing the public about who we are, what we do, what products we're using is very important. And so we'll be at parades, we'll be at public events, we'll be at the Washington County Fair. There's our mascot there in the foreground.

Her name is Victoria. She likes to make public appearances. But if you know of any events that we should participate in, please let us know. And with that, I'll open it for questions. Awesome. Thank you so much. Commissioner Miron. The closest Commissioner Cox and I got to riding in a helicopter was having our picture taken by one of the helicopters. So, Alex, you do such a good job in our public affairs. You've been with us, what, a half a dozen years or? About, yeah, about seven years now. Or so. I'm just so impressed with your presentations, with the work that you do in communications, and of course, Executive Director Huff, has been with us for, what, about two years now? And, he's the first executive director that we've had that is not an entomologist. We had to go through a statutory change to get that approved. So the legislature, you might have been in the legislature at that time, Commissioner Bigham No...

When that was approved. But I just make note as we look at the staff members that we still have three entomologists on staff. So, the board certainly recognizes the importance of science in the work that we're doing, and so we make sure that we have those qualified people in those positions. And Josh, we just got to get the Oakdale facility recognized in the annual report. I see you're listed under the Plymouth facility, and then there's no listing of the Oakdale facility. So Alex, one error there after all the praises, because I assume you're responsible for the annual report. But really, just very well done. And Josh, I want to go back to you because I know you've provided a number of tours for us, for legislators, for other people of the facility, and I'm just so impressed with how that facility is being managed and the work that you do along with your team there, and how respected you are amongst the workers there. And this document just, I think, demonstrates the workforce that we have, the number of people out there, the technology that we're using, and really the infrastructure that we manage and oversee.

And I appreciate, Daniel, your leadership in trying to address the needs of our infrastructure. And maybe you want to share a little bit about, first of all, the strategic plan that you went through, or that we went through, and then also some of the facility upgrades that we've completed and that we're looking at. Madam Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Miron. Yes. So we, last year, completed our strategic plan for the district, and there are really four goal areas. One is our resources and capacity, making sure that we're using taxpayers' resources effectively and efficiently and making sure that our capacity meets the demand. Looking at our community engagement, are we engaging and partnering with folks within the community and with organizations effectively? So looking at our environmental sustainability, our products that we use to treat mosquitoes, the way the machines that we do, the buildings that we have. Are we being environmentally sensitive in those? And then finally, how do we expand to treat the entire district? Right now, we focus our treatment in areas that are higher population density, and we want to be able to serve every resident, as much as possible within the 3,000 square mile district of the seven-county metro area. And part of that is really looking at our infrastructure.

We have seven different facilities that we operate out of. Our home base in St. Paul, the Oakdale facility, as well as facilities in the other counties of the metro area. And we're important stewards of that public resource. And so we have really evaluated and are making sure we have a capital plan, to address all those capital needs. We want to make sure that we are continuing to serve the public and that these buildings will last. One of the things that we're doing, we have the Metropolitan Library Services Agency, or MLSA. I know that Washington County is represented on their board. They're going to be coming to cohabitate with us. We're remodeling our laboratory and building an office suite for them. So we will have three metropolitan agencies in our downtown St. Paul office, the Emergency Services Board, ourselves, and the Library Service Agency. Trying to be good stewards of our resource, making sure we're providing good value to taxpayers as we share that space that is a public building. Thank you.

Your improvements to the lab? Yes. So our lab is original to the building, which was built in the early '90s, and we are doing a full remodel of that lab. We will have expanded capacity for entomologists to identify mosquitoes and black flies and ticks. We will first have our PCR lab, or testing DNA and RNA for the pathogens that cause disease that are carried by these wee beasties. And we're also going to have an insectary, where because there's not enough mosquitoes in Minnesota, we're going to raise our own. And actually, we'll use those to test the efficacy of the materials that we use, as we know insects can develop resistance to materials, and so we want to make sure we're being effective using the right materials. And it's important for the work we do, but it's also important that we're spending taxpayers' dollars correctly. So we're very excited about that remodel, and we hope that all of you will come for a visit when we open the new lab in the spring.

Nice. Anything else, Commissioner Miron? Commissioner Cox. Thank you, Madam Chair. Gentlemen, thank you for the presentation. It's always interesting to see your graphs and your charts and where we're at and what's happening, and I guess we're preparing for another Fourth of July Mosquito Fest, so thanks for that heads up. As we do that, and Mr. Carlson, those videos you have that show the ticks moving just make me crawl a little. Yeah. So thank you for that. But also just the importance of this public health role that mosquito control plays. The fact that West Nile is killing people in the metro area is a huge concern. And so I know that the $11 that are on my property taxes, I'm happy to pay because of the important work that you do, and I'm just excited to see with the drones and with just the tools that mosquito control has at your fingertips, how much more can be done. And I just appreciate serving on your board and being able to be parts of those discussions, and thank you for the important work, and I will scare someone, I hope again this summer.

We have a catch basin, so a sewer, right at the end of our driveway, and they were out there treating it, and I was like, "I'm so happy to see you," and they were like, "What is wrong with this woman?" But it's just such an important part of keeping our community safe, and so thank you for this work. Commissioner Karwoski. Thank you. Thanks for coming. I think you pretty much come annually and present. I think the public really appreciates it. Do we have a link? I always ask, is either a link on our website to your website or the presentation is available. I think it's something that citizens are really interested. I'd prefer a link if there is. Madam Chair and Commissioner Karwoski, our communications manager, Teela Elam, is nodding her head affirmatively that we have those things available. What I find that between Alex and Daniel and Josh, you come here and you present, you're so excited to present and talk about larvae and stuff. It strikes me as amazing, but you should be prideful in the work you do.

Much appreciated. We appreciate your presence in Oakdale, and yeah, you can't doubt that enough. As Commissioner Miron pointed out. I did have a question, though, on the slide presentation. You don't have them labeled, but where it had the larvae, where you're handling more acres, and I think it's because of the eight drones and the effectiveness to cover more acreage. But then two slides later, it talks about the larvae control, and I don't think it was specific to adult, but it showed going from 28,000 acres down to 20,000 roughly. Am I interpreting that incorrectly? If you follow me on those two slides. Madam Chair, Commissioner. Yes. So the way we do our larval control is we inspect a wetland. If we find the larvae are there and we identify them as those that bite humans, because not all mosquitoes actually bite humans, then we treat them. So you will see that we did a number of sampling. We sampled a number of wetlands, but we only treat those when we find human-biting mosquitoes.

So if they're not there, we don't treat that wetland. So essentially, it even further reinforces more effective. You're- Yes... covering more areas, treating less because you're treating what needs to be treated. Thank you for that clarification. And then I'm all for the mascot. I know I've seen it in the Oakdale Summer Fest Parade. I know you have it out for loan. I'm not sure it'd be great for kids' parties. I'm not sure on that. But- Amazing... I think it's great that you promote what you're doing in parades and community events, so thank you. Commissioner Clasen. Yeah. Thank you for your presentation. I enjoy it every year. I know that one of you lives in my district, and so I appreciate coming here. I think you guys keep your workforce happy by the helicopters and parades. I think that that would make me happy if I get to be a mosquito mascot. But I also got to be in a helicopter.

I got married in a helicopter in December- Wow... over the courthouse of Stillwater, where I met my husband. And so, I just really appreciate the comments about the helicopter today. Question about tick prevention. You talk about the hatching of, and the being careful of, but what are some things that people should consider to prevent getting bitten by a tick? Madam Chair, Commissioner Clasen, thank you for that question because that is really important. The majority of deer ticks carry one or more human pathogen, Lyme disease and other diseases. So the best thing you can do is wear long pants. I like to tuck my pants into my socks because it's a good look, but it also prevents them from crawling up under my pants. I also will use bug spray, DEET or picaridin work well. You can spray your clothes for permethrin before you wear them, and that can last for about six weeks in your clothes, and that prevents ticks.

And then you always do a tick check after you've been out in the woods. Now you are fortunate in Washington County that you have your Washington County epidemiologist, Chris Keller, who knows quite a bit about ticks, who does a lot of great education in Washington County parks about how to protect yourself from ticks. So if you see Chris, he's another great resource for you right here in Washington County. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you Well, thank you very much. I just appreciate the data and the information, and I know the public does too. I have neighbors that get very excited whenever they see the vehicles pull up in some of the stormwater or runoff areas that are tested in my neighborhood. I think the West Nile issue is a big concern, and I know that the state and the county are, and the control district are monitoring that and working together on stuff like that. But that is a big concern.

The one comment I have is, as you know, we are part of the Ramsey Washington Recycling and Energy Board, and it would be for the tires. Anything you can do to help partner with them, which I know you're in constant conversation with them, but if there is any promotion that can be done, please don't be shy about forwarding that to us. And those of us that are on social media have no problem promoting that, because the tires are a huge low-hanging fruit to not do, and help not spread stuff and create mosquitoes as well. So, with that, any final comments or anything? All right. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is to adopt a resolution recognizing National Public Health Week with Deputy Director Timm.

Good morning. Excuse me. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. It's good to see you all this morning. As noted, I'm Jill Timm, deputy director in the Department of Public Health and Environment. I'm here today representing Director David Brummel, also our management team, our managers and supervisors in public health and environment, as well as our entire staff, asking you to help us recognize the first full week in April as National Public Health Week. I always think it's fitting that Public Health Week falls in the month of April, where we also recognize National County Government Month. National Public Health Week specifically is a time to recognize the contributions that shape the protection and the public health efforts in our community. In 2026, the theme, Ready, Set, Action, is meant to remind us that public health progress does not happen by chance, but rather it's the result of dedicated professionals that work every day to prevent disease, to promote health, and to perfect-- protect, excuse me, protect our environment.

Public health and environment, as you know, is built on collaboration. We work hard to connect with the businesses, the partners in the communities that we serve in Washington County. I come to you today asking for your support by passing a resolution recognizing next week, April 6th to 10th, as Public Health Week in Washington County. If you would prefer, I would read that resolution for you now. Go right ahead. Thank you. Whereas Washington County strives to promote the health, safety, and quality of life of citizens; and whereas the mission of the Department of Public Health and Environment is to protect, promote, and improve the community's health and the environment; and whereas the American Public Health Association annually recognizes the first full week of April as National Public Health Week; and whereas National Public Health Week in 2026 celebrates with the theme Ready, Set, Action, recognizing how public health has improved our daily lives, safeguarded our families and environments, expanded our lifespans, and strengthened our communities, honoring the public health workers who show up for us every day, and advocating for policies and practices that promote good health for all; and whereas the Department of Public Health and Environment supports positive health and environmental outcomes through the work of dedicated staff who provide medical care to inmates in the Washington County Jail, who respond to the opioid crisis and address substance use, who license and inspect food, pools, and lodging establishments, hazardous waste generators, and septic systems, who provide family health nursing and WIC services to families, who implement and promote environmental initiatives, including recycling and waste management programs, who prevent, investigate, and respond to infectious and communicable diseases, who strive for community-driven initiatives to promote health and wellbeing, who partner effectively with other professionals in the communities we serve, who prepare for and respond to public health emergencies, who evaluate data and trends to create effective and responsible plans, who support the operation of the Environmental Center and the Recycling and Energy Center, and who provide exceptional customer service; and whereas the role of local public health is not only to provide service, but to provide leadership, facilitate conversations, engage the community, communicate effectively, and support policy which positively impacts the public's health and environment.

Now therefore, be it resolved that the Washington County Board of Commissioners hereby proclaims April 6th to 10th, 2026 as Public Health Week in Washington County, and recognizes the contributions and efforts of all employees contributing to a healthy community and environment. Thank you. Excellent. Is there a motion to get the resolution before us? Madam Chair, I would adopt a resolution recognizing April 6th through 10th, 2026 as National Public Health Week. I'll second that. There's a motion and a second. Commissioner Cox. Thank you. Deputy Director Timm, thank you for the presentation. I recently presented to a local Rotary Club, and when I asked for support in putting together some of the Rotary's key, I guess, highlights and what they stand for and compared it to what the county did. I feel like all I did was talk about public health. And so I'm really glad to see you here today. From the groundwater plan to the septic systems, jail medical, family health nursing, WIC.

I feel like I talked about all of those things. And someone looked at me and they said, "Well, do you have a master's in public health?" And I said, "No, but maybe there's an honorary one that we should be getting." But I just think it shows the importance of everything that your department does, how it touches the community in so many different ways. And I just am really grateful for the support from you and your team that I've had when I've had questions or just needed clarification on things. So I'm happy to support this. Thank you. Commissioner Karwoski. Thank you, Chair Bigham. Thank you, Deputy Director Tim, for being here. Likewise, Commissioner Cox's comments, even though I email and call with problems all the time that you're quick to solve regarding public health, everything from food to waste management, everything in between. I'm also, and I think our whole board would be this way, we're very much advocating the good work you do. It almost comes up in any conversation socially, from always advocating the good work you do.

I know we have Director Brummel in the audience, and you probably have some staff also, so we appreciate the work you do and the professionalism. You truly are a large group of professionalism. I think the county everyday citizens, like so many of our services, you're kind of doing it quietly behind the background. Of course, if somebody has a problem with the well, it's not quite as quiet. But individually, you really interface with the people with those problems. But on the large scale, you are doing a lot of good service quietly behind the scenes. And that's why we really have a highly rated healthy county. And again, thank you, Deputy Director Tim, for presenting, and pass on our best regards regarding this resolution and the week of National Public Health Week. Thank you. Any other comments? Commissioner Miron? Yeah, happy to support the resolution. Thank you, Jill, for bringing it to us. I'm just going to call out, as the resolution points out, the partnerships, but certainly the work that Public Health and Environment does to support extension and extension programming, something near and dear to my heart, and I know others of you that support that program as well, and public health certainly is a partner there. So, thank you again, and just happy to support the resolution.

All right. Any other... Jill, thank you for being here today and for bringing this resolution because I say this every year that public health professionals and the staff here will never get credit for the lives they save through preventative measures. And I just think that to keep that in mind, to keep folks going that are in these professions, to know that you are having a huge impact on people's lives, whether it's the home visits through the public health nurses, whether it's extension, whether it's vaccine clinics or WIC clinics. It's a huge load to really get out there with the residents and educate them on the importance of a lot of these preventative and long-term benefits. The other thing I just want to highlight from the whole staff, and it does come from the top down, but the forward-thinking and innovative efforts that each staff member brings from the department is incredible. We are leaders. People look to Washington County because of your work. So, very much appreciate that and happy to support the resolution. So thank you, Deputy Director.

If there are no further comments, we will go ahead and take the roll. Commissioner Miron? Aye. Commissioner Karwoski? Aye. Commissioner Cox? Aye. Commissioner Clasen? Aye. Commissioner Bigham? Aye. Resolution passes five zero. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is a resolution to adopt a resolution to accept the county's long-range transportation plan, which is called Connect 2050 with Madeline Dalheimer. Hi, Chair and Commissioners. Thank you for having me here today. As mentioned, my name is Madeline Dalheimer. I am a planner in the Public Works Department. For this presentation, I will be reviewing the long-range transportation plan and requesting board acceptance. So our presentation is structured around four primary sections. We'll start by reviewing what we mean when we say transportation in Washington County and cover some of the unique elements and considerations for our county. Secondly, we will provide an overview on long-range transportation plans generally, along with our specific process and approach. We'll highlight key aspects from the various plan elements as listed on the screen here. And lastly, we will talk about plan next steps once we do have an accepted plan.

So this long-range transportation plan focuses on the county surface transportation network, which includes five systems or modes of transportation: vehicular travel, freight, bike, ped, and transit. Our county highways, bike ped facilities, and associated infrastructure support all of these systems. I will note here on this slide that the county's transit needs study is being updated at the same time as this long-range transportation plan development. And while the long-range transportation plan focuses on infrastructure improvement needs, which support the transit system, the transit needs study itself will provide additional guidance on transit service within the county, which can be used in tandem with this plan as we're having conversations both internally and with agency partners. More important than the physical infrastructure itself, when we're thinking about transportation in the county, we are thinking about the role and purpose of transportation in serving and connecting communities. So transportation, regardless of the system or mode, really is the great connector. It supports our populations and economies across various community types, and it connects people to one another, to services, to education and employment opportunities, and to destinations.

A long-range transportation plan is a 20 to 25-year planning document that is used as a tool to support communication and discussions around transportation. A long-range transportation plan is not intended to be a project selection tool, but rather is an additional resource that can be utilized when working through the capital improvement plan or CIP development process, and engaging in conversations with our city and township partners. The diagram on the right of the slide provides a high-level hierarchy for how the long-range plan fits in with other county planning documents. This type of planning document focuses on years past our current five-year CIP, so years six to 25, to help look beyond near-term improvements to understand and prepare for what is coming down the pipeline. This will be the county's first long-range transportation plan, which was initiated in part due to the continually growing list of competing priorities for available resources. In this planning process, we set out to identify our overall network needs, centralize information related to transportation decision-making, and review our current goals and identify priorities.

Our plan approach, as shown here, closely resembles how the plan itself is formatted and falls into four primary tasks. So we have existing conditions first, where we review our existing network and establish baseline needs. Agency and public engagement, where we get feedback or receive feedback and input on the transportation network, stakeholder priorities, and what is important to people when they're thinking about transportation. Followed by transportation goals. We were able to use that feedback to update our goals around transportation. And lastly, plan recommendations, where we identify strategies and actions that will serve us in advancing our goals and vision. So I'll cover each of these in greater detail on the following slides. Starting with existing conditions, this section of the plan report reviews our network performance today. So we have specifically focused on reviewing our transportation network based on four drivers that would flag an area for potential infrastructure improvement needs. The drivers identified include safety, condition, bike and ped system gaps as identified in the county's bike and ped plan, and travel time reliability.

While our report provides additional details on each of these categories individually, the map on the screen shows how all of these baseline needs layer over one another to illustrate where we have singular or multiple needs across the county. So this map in and of itself is helpful in communicating the many transportation needs that exist, but does not necessarily provide the guidance or insights into how to begin addressing those needs. So per the usual, this is where our agency and public engagement comes into play. So our engagement approach for the long-range transportation plan focused on engagement within the county, input from our city and township partners, and feedback from the public. Specific activities included in-person work sessions, virtual and in-person meetings, a pop-up at the county fair, an online questionnaire, as well as opportunities to review the draft plan. Our engagement focus was to gather input on what is important to stakeholders related to transportation, including how we could consider those many competing priorities.

The most referenced priorities are shown along the bottom of the slide and are reflected in the plan recommendations. After our initial engagement activities, we used the feedback to inform our vision and goals as part of this plan. Our high-level vision statement in this plan is to create a robust transportation network providing safe, accessible, and reliable transportation options for all users. The supporting goals are shown on the screen and include that transportation in Washington County is safe and comfortable, is in good condition, supports ease of travel and choice in mode, supports access to services, businesses, jobs, and destinations, is environmentally responsible and forward-thinking, and recognizes and adapts to surrounding contexts. Moving into plan recommendations. Feedback from engagement activities were also the primary driver in developing our plan recommendations, which fall into five primary categories as listed here. I will review each of these categories on the next couple of slides here. So our first draft recommendation is to utilize needs prioritization to support programming decisions. So as mentioned through our engagement process, we received a lot of input on what is important to stakeholders when considering competing priorities on our transportation network. From that input, we've established an approach to prioritizing the baseline needs as presented as part of our existing conditions.

And those priorities are shown on the slide here. So across engagement activities and groups, safety and infrastructure conditions stood out as the highest priorities. Secondary priorities that arose included bike and ped system improvements, economic development, and travel time. As part of our analysis and informing a recommendation that can be used as a tool to support decision-making, we've identified representative metrics, scoring, and weights reflective of these priorities, and applied them to the existing conditions map. While the existing conditions map layers and captures needs across the county, the map as shown on the screen here highlights needs most in line with the established priorities and identifies opportunity areas for advancing our vision and goals. Another plan recommendation includes tracking development corridors to support proactive transportation planning. Many of the metrics and available data used to conduct our needs analysis emphasize area with higher existing traffic volumes. Given the long-term nature of this plan and the unique mix of developed and developing areas in Washington County, we wanted to be sure we are also identifying and planning for areas that are anticipating growth.

To accomplish this, we created the development corridors map as shown on the screen. To identify these corridors, we compared existing and planned land use from Met Council data and marked locations where the land use is changing to a higher intensity use. Additionally, we did have specific engagement with city and township partners on this map so that they had a chance to review our initial draft and provide input for their individual communities. The third recommendation category documents our continued commitment to a comprehensive project delivery approach. As part of our project process, we identified three priorities that come in at the project delivery stage rather than the project programming stage, that we wanted to be sure we were capturing within our report. Environmental stewardship specifically is something that we heard a lot about through all of our engagement activities, which really confirmed that that continues to be a top priority in the county. The feedback on these priorities reiterates the need for the county to continue to track industry advancements and best practices in these areas, and also invites an opportunity to promote and communicate how we are addressing these topic areas in our work today.

Recommendation category number four is to regularly review our policies and practices and establish appropriate update intervals to ensure that Washington County stays in step with the latest standards, regulations, and best practices.

And last, but certainly not least, this plan recommends continued collaboration with local partners, including MnDOT, Metro Transit, and regional transit providers, our city and township partners, and our neighboring communities. The county's transportation network is one of several that make up the overall transportation experience of our communities, and ongoing engagement with our partners is vital to advancing our transportation vision. Following plan acceptance, we will publish the report along with an online interactive map to our website and share that publicly. As mentioned, while this plan is not a project selection tool, we will be able to utilize the information in supporting discussions and decision-making in our annual CIP process. So that's one place you may see this plan show up in the future. Our approach for making updates to this plan will be determined in consideration to data availability and how often the data is updated, the percentage of baseline needs addressed as we're tracking improvements that are made, and with any major shifts in transportation needs or priorities.

So with that, Chair and Commissioners, we would recommend the board consider adopting a resolution to accept the county's long-range transportation plan, Connect 2050. Thank you, and I would be happy to stand for questions. Thank you, Ms. Rohlinger. Commissioner Karwoski? Maybe to start the conversation and get this before us, I'm going to make a motion to adopt the resolution to accept the county's long-range transportation plan, Connect 2050. Second. There's been a motion and a second. Commissioner Karwoski. Thank you, Chair Bigham. Madeline, great presentation. Appreciate your leadership, and I know there's many maybe in the audience, but a lot of staff- Mm-hmm... throughout our county workforce contributing to this plan. I find it interesting that with the Regional Rail Authority, we moved from a plan to ordinance because we needed more control with the right tool. But I wholeheartedly agree in this case, it's a plan, a vision. It's hard to make everything rigid and binding.

This is certainlySomething our capital improvement plan will move to support, so I don't see us wanting... I know this has been a long time coming, a little over two years of getting this plan to the point of we're going to vote on it. But moving forward, I hope it's a real active live plan. I know you've mentioned things, next steps, which gives me a lot of confidence that'll be very much interactively used. But I'd really like to see this pulled out whenever we're planning a development, planning something environment. It's so tied, it really creates the multimodal look we're looking at. How do we look at roads and transportation beyond roads, and involve walking, pedestrian, bike travel? So I really hope we can pull this out whenever there's something pertinent, and it's very mindful. I'm also hoping we can work with the cities for that. They're always exposed to us showing it, pertinent to a conversation, that they can use it as a tool to better connect the county trails and roads, and we can vice versa.

And a few more comments. I was impressed with the 760 different people communicating, 24 communities.

I really think it's a great future vision. That's why I want it be used and brought out wherever appropriate, for that we can constantly be adjusting that. The beauty of the plan, we can rather quickly adjust the plan. With the ordinance, there'd have to be a public hearing. Mm-hmm. So I think with the plan, if we can really tune this up as we go and make sure it's pertinent for that, city and residents will want to call on it- Mm-hmm... and say, "Hey." I know we have a growing active walking and biking population in the county. And there were a lot of really good maps that we asked for in developing this, and hopefully those, when you would email them to someone, or even save on paper, you're maybe not going to print them out large, but on a computer, you can expand these out and get pretty good detail. You're nodding yes. I think the more we can use these, the more confidence we give the taxpayer that we're really implementing their vision. We're representing them, and this board's vision to have a transportation plan.

But really, we're speaking on behalf of our residents to fulfill their vision and expectation for the counties. So, thank you. Commissioner Cox. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Dahlheimer, thank you for the presentation. I wrote down it's been two and a half years. So this plan has been a really long time coming, let's be real. And so, you have been the face of it since I have joined the board, and I'm just thankful for all of your time and your patience in getting this to us. I wrote down a couple things. First, I'll copy my colleague here, 760 responses. I can't imagine the amount of time it took your team to read all of those and respond to every one of them. And so just thank you for that attention to detail. And it's an important part of the process for people's comments to be incorporated and heard. So, I appreciate you taking that time. I also wrote that this transportation system is a lot of things to a lot of people, a lot of different stakeholders with a lot of partners.

And so I know that you are very clear when you say this is not a decision-making selection tool, but I just have to step back from it and go, but everything that's put in here allows us to make a better decision. And so I know it's not the only tool that will be used for the CIP and those types of decisions, because there are limited resources, and I think this just allows us to hone in on the important areas. And the last thing that I'll just say is the number two step that you have here is the proactive transportation planning.

I know that's not always possible, but this is what a long-range plan should be looking at, and so I'm really glad to see that that's in there. And I think there was some of that with Highway 61 that got to be incorporated, kind of as we look forward. And we might not have a lot of those opportunities, but I really appreciate the importance of it being in there. So, thank you. Any other comments? Any? Commissioner Clasen. Yeah. Thank you for the presentation today. I know that somebody said it took two and a half years. Actually, it took a little longer than that. I have been asking for this long-range transportation plan since I became a commissioner. The reason why, it was pretty clear to me when I started, I had a commissioner say that my district was a cash cow district. And several times throughout the 2023 meetings, I had to endure that. And I was hoping that today I would see more of a balanced approach in the wording for transportation goals.

Because in the past, we've always made sure that districts were balanced. I also have concerns about the supporting access to businesses. I've always really been a fan of the approach of supporting economic vitality. That is one of the most important parts that transportation does, is it supports thatAnd if we just support the access and we're not really identifying the areas of the most economic vitality, I think we miss out on preparing those roads for the hardships that it endures with all of the traffic that comes with shopping and going to different industrial parks and business parks. And so I do have concerns that this isn't equitable and that this continues to show me that Woodbury isn't getting the importance of congestion across to the county, because it's really about traffic flow and congestion. So when we, for instance, have a diet road that goes from east to west, how that challenges our transportation from east to west, but north to south.

And the community that I'm a district of, or I'm a representative of, is a huge community, and it's the biggest city in the county, and it's still going to gross more population. And I just am very concerned about the competing projects and the limited resources. I know that we have projects that are being proposed that are $50 million, and that's a lot of money for those districts, and those districts get to have those amazing projects. But what about the other districts that are not getting the $50 million projects? How are we going to make that right with those communities? Because they have just as big of priorities as the other communities. But because commissioners are on here longer, I feel like there's advantages to those that have longer terms here and get to make sure that their projects go before others. And that's really what this was supposed to, and I hope it does continue to become a working document and where we go back and make sure that there is an equitable balance here. Because who gets the sales tax revenue? Who gets that? Who makes the earnings occur? Who allows you to have these amazing projects are the businesses and the cities that are taking on all of the economic visitors and the developments, and it's a lot.

It's a lot. And so we need to make this more fair. I don't know. I think this is a start. I don't think we're there. Mm-hmm. But I absolutely appreciate all of the work that his staff has done. I just hope that we make this a more equitable, balanced approach in the future. Thank you. Commissioner Miron. Thank you, Madam Chair. The plan clearly identifies the prioritization that we're going to follow in supporting programming decisions, and the highest is safety and condition. And, I think that needs to be called out, that public safety is our primary charge. Yeah. And then secondary priorities and, it's important that these are included as well. But bike and pedestrian improvements, economic development and travel time, and so all of those items are included in the plan, and are going to guide us as we make decisions as to improvements that are needed and the funding that we have available to make those improvements.

So I really do think the plan is well laid out, and certainly I support that prioritization, so that we make sure that we're making investments where they're needed within our communities throughout Washington County. Commissioner Karwoski. Thank you. Just a few additional comments. Just to feed off the safety aspect, I really think, maybe, that... And I really like the ability to pull out a map that's pertinent to what you're discussing, and I hope we can be really interactive moving forward with them. But I think one map that's maybe needed would be something where you lay out the vision, as you move through the years of where safety improvements are planned. We know roundabouts make safety improvement. We know some options are driving a car on a trail. And maybe it's not easy to separate them, but maybe that's why this is such a large transportation plan. It's so multifaceted, but I think it should be active where we're always trying to kind of improve it.

So I think there's a potential to highlight safety movements that we're making big improvements. And also, I think when we're putting in the infrastructure on our roads and we're working with the city and development to reinforce what Commissioner Clasen was saying, I really think, again, if we're using this map, we can learn that maybe if we tweak this plan a little bit, it'll align with better growth and better development. Always bringing the plan to the table for that discussion. Mm-hmm. The first time I spoke on this, I didn't speak on the slide 14. I think the environment, climate and advancing technology is huge- Mm... because we just take for granted we're improving a road or we're adding a trail. But really the environment stewardship, it kind of ties in with safety as reallyThere's trails now with... I can see the growth of pervious materials, especially in trails. We can be highlighting that. We can be highlighting that grass trails, which I really advocate for wherever we can do them, and maybe they're within our parks mainly.

Mm-hmm. But pervious materials, adding a trail where a road expansion, it provides an option to some vehicle transportation. This all adds to a climate resilience. And then advancing using the latest materials and roads, everything from the thicker line and a different kind of road line that allows an autonomous vehicle to be driven. There's so much here. There's so much potential. It's a good start, but it's a really strong start. But again, I think we shouldn't let these sit. The plan shouldn't just be set. I hope we can use them very actively. I think I've said that a few times. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Yeah. Chair and commissioners- Go ahead... if I could on that, thanks for all of the comments. Two things I wanted to say that I think are related to almost all of the comments that were made. I certainly want to reiterate that we truly see this as another tool in our toolbox, and that we can use this in these conversations about specific projects as we're identifying them, as we're figuring out where they fit in with our conversations with city and township partners.

So certainly see it from that perspective. The other thing that I did want to note, while the plan report itself is kind of capturing this one moment in time, or the moment in time that we created this map, we do intend to not necessarily update the plan on an ongoing basis, right? If our priorities are still in line with how we've identified them herein, we can leave that as it stands. But do anticipate, as our data sources get updated, that we can have that online map that is more so continually being updated. So as we address needs within our CIP, we could update that map to kind of remove those needs from here. As we get new pavement data, safety data, we can establish a routine to keep that very up-to-date so that it is a living tool that we can use and open up at any time. Thank you. I'll just wrap us up here, that I just appreciate so much all the time and the effort that went into this plan.

I think it is fantastic, and I have it here. I actually appreciate all the opportunities that not only to the board members had to provide input, but also the communities that submitted comments, and public. And so I just think it's really a good example of how we are collaboratively working and trying to deal with one of the largest issues that as commissioners we deal with. But a couple things.

You mentioned the update or review. Mm-hmm. The CIP usually drops off the year that the new one happens, the projects do or they're adjusted. And you mentioned it, I think it would be good to do, as you're saying, something similar with this, as you mentioned with the data, and as things either get done or as they kind of come to light and are resolved, that maybe we remove them from here. But I also think to keep a historical document of what we've done is important, because there are parts of the county that grew faster and more dense than others at different times. And I think that that's kind of what this is for, to be able to track that. So I hope we are reviewing this actually right before we do the CIP to make sure that it is merging and we're accomplishing what we want with this long-term plan. I know on page 16 that there are comments about the trails and the pavement management.

The way I am reading it, it talks about the external trails that are not included in our parks. Mm-hmm. Could you clarify that for me, that the trail indexing does not include the- Mm-hmm... vast amount of trails we have in our regional parks? Yeah. Chair and commissioners, I'm going to kind of peek this direction as I answer the question, just to get a nod confirmation. But it's my understanding, so in 2023- Yeah... for the first time, we reviewed our pavement condition on our trails in the same way that the pavement condition on the roadway gets reviewed. It's my understanding that that was for all of the trails within the county. And you can- Along the county highways. Along the... Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because it's quite an expense- Yep... for the trails that are in our parks as well, and some of them need some TLC. Mm-hmm. So that is my point, that if we're going to have a Connect 2050, well, some of those connections go through parks and start at trail heads. And so, I just kind of want to make sure that we're keeping all of that in mind related to this.

Mm-hmm. And then, is there a plan to get, once approved, this long-range transportation plan out to the public works directors in our local municipalities that have them so that they are aware of kind of-Where we're at and what we are utilizing for data and what we're tracking. Yeah. Chair, commissioners, thanks for that question. Yes. We will be sharing this out once we have an accepted plan. So as I mentioned within the presentation, we will have these materials available on our website. We'll update the website to include the plan report as well as an online map. Throughout this process, we have had specific contacts identified at all of the cities and townships. Most often that's the administrator, and then potentially city planner, city engineer, maybe all three. So as we get this, once this is accepted, we will blast that out and share that information with those individuals so that they can share also further within their cities and townships.

Excellent. Really appreciate that. Mm-hmm. If there are no further comments, then the clerk will take the roll. Commissioner Miron? Aye. Commissioner Karwoski? Aye. Commissioner Cox? Aye. Commissioner Clasen? Nay. Commissioner Bigham? Aye. Resolution passes four-one. Thank you, Ms. Brillheimer. Thank you. Next on the agenda is an item to adopt a resolution recognizing and honoring the public safety telecommunicators with the wonderful Dar Panicone, who is our division manager at the comms center and legislative testifier extraordinaire. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair, commissioners. Good morning. Before Alex, I brought a partner, reads the proclamation, I'd like to highlight that public safety telecommunicating has evolved significantly. Every day in Washington County, when someone experiences their worst moment, a medical emergency, a fire, a crime in progress, or a loved one in danger, the first voice they hear is not a police officer, a firefighter, or a paramedic. It is the voice of a public safety telecommunicator, a highly trained professional who remains calm under pressure, gathers critical information, provides life-saving instructions, and ensures that help arrives as quickly and safely as possible. Today's telecommunicators manage complex multi-system environments.

They are integrating voice, text to 911, mapping technologies, and real-time data while making critical decisions in seconds. This is a highly skilled profession that requires extensive training, adaptability, and the ability to perform under sustained pressure. Each year, our team answers nearly 200,000 calls, including more than 80,000 911 calls, each one representing someone in the need of help. We are proud of the professionals serving Washington County and the essential role they play in our public safety system. Madam Chair, if you allow me, I'd like to introduce Alex Froehler, a four-year public safety telecommunicator and a trainer in the Emergency Communications Response Center, to read the proclamation for 911 Public Safety Telecommunicator Week. Sounds good. Mr Froehler. Hello, Madam Chair, commissioners. Whereas emergencies and crisis can occur at any time, requiring the immediate response of law enforcement officers, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel. And whereas when a resident calls 9111, the voice that answers is often the first lifeline in a moment of fear, confusion, or crisis.

And whereas the public safety telecommunicators serve as the critical first point of contact for emergency services, gathering vital information, coordinating resources, and ensuring responders receive the information they need to act quickly and safely. And whereas these highly trained professionals provide life-saving instructions, reassurance, and calm guidance to individuals facing emergencies while simultaneously coordinating complex responses across multiple agencies. And whereas modern emergency communications professionals operate advanced systems that include voice, text to 911, digital data, and other emerging technologies designed to improve emergency response and protect our communities. And whereas public safety telecommunicators demonstrate extraordinary professionalism, compassion, and resilience as they assist people during some of the most difficult and life-altering moments they will ever experience. And whereas the public safety telecommunicators of the Washington County Emergency Communications Response Center serve our community 24 hours a day, ensuring that residents and responders alike receive the support and coordination necessary to protect life and property. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Washington County Board of Commissioners hereby proclaims the week of April 12th through April 18th, 2026 as National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week in Washington County and encourages all residents to recognize the dedication, professionalism, and vital contributions of these public safety professionals who work behind the scenes to keep our community safe.

Thank you, Mr. Froehler. To get the resolution before us, is there a motion? I'll so moved. I will approve the adoption of the resolution recognizing and honoring the public safety telecommunicators in Washington County during National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, April 2nd to the 18th, 2026. There's a motion. Is there a second? Second that. Commissioner Clasen. Thank you so much for the presentation, Darlene. Is it Panicone? Panicone... Commissioner. You and I had a conversation last week, and to me, you're a career change makerYou have really secured retirement for this profession, and I just really wanted to honor you and say that even though it doesn't necessarily help you, you're a change maker in the career. And I just really think that you're something special, and I wanted to honor you with that today. And thank you so much for your presentation as well. Thank you. Mr. Karwoski. Thank you, Chair Bigham. Darlene and Alex, thanks for presenting.

Can't be understated, as you mentioned, how valuable for the normal public, the 911 call dispatchers, and very stressful job. I remember it was not much over a year ago, you had some remodeling of your area there, and we all walked in there, and we were in awe of how complex the job is. You had more screens than... I've never been in an airport traffic controller, but it was like the multiple screens, the multitasking you all do. So please share our thanks to all your staff in this area. It's certainly the key to getting the police officers on the street off to a good start, and certainly those words you offer our residents when they're in grief or have a stressful moment, life-threatening. You save so many lives. I think Chair Bigham has mentioned it on areas you can't appreciate all the good you do, or you get saved. She says it in public health, but applies here too, in policing.

It just goes unnoticed. If a life is saved or someone's life's improved, a bad situation's avoided, we don't hear about those. You tend to just hear about the tragedies. So again, thank you, Darlene, for your leadership, and then Alex, thanks for presenting on your four years. But I know you've got a very experienced staff, and we appreciate the work you do each day. Thank you. Commissioner Cox. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Pancone and Mr. Feuerer, for your presentation today. I was actually just attended last week a school mapping tabletop exercise with the MESB. And there were administrators from the schools, and then there were some law enforcement and emergency services people there. And one person that was also there was someone from a 911 call center. And I have to say, the input that that person had was absolutely incredible. You've got administrators that are pretending that they picked up the phone to call 911.

And the person playing back was a 911 call center operator. And so it was just the real-life experience that that person brought into that exercise was absolutely incredible, and I think it really brought home for those of us not on the law enforcement or public safety side of that exercise, how important that first person is in getting the information to the officer or to the fire department. The role that it played was just incredible. So I'm really grateful that you're here this year and sharing this important message, and I'm happy to take it forward. Thank you. Mr. Miron. Yeah. Just pleased to recognize the work that public safety telecommunicators do. Just critical work and very difficult work, and just appreciate the opportunity to recognize that. Yeah, I can wrap this up. Telecommunicators are the frontline, and even though they don't have the legit eyes on the scene, they're like the eyes and ears to be able to get that information out to the next line, whether that's police, fire, paramedic.

And the amount of stress that they go under, because imagine having to try to navigate something you can't see and not knowing what on the other side of that is, and trying to give as much information as you can to, again, whoever the next line of public safety is. It's just incredibly taxing and stressful. And they are an integral part of the public safety team as a whole. And it is a job that it's getting more and more taxing and the demand and the lack of people going into the field, the workforce shortage is a concern. And I want to thank both Commissioner Miron and Commissioner Cox for being on... Clasen and Miron for being on MESB for taking on a lot of those issues, too. And it goes without saying, our staff is incredible. Dar, your leadership is amazing, and appreciate all you do on behalf of the profession. And I really enjoyed this proclamation and highlighting this every day because telecommunicators are definitely unsung heroes that don't get enough credit for what they do.

So thank you, Dar. With that, we will go ahead and take the roll. Commissioner Miron. Aye. Commissioner Karwoski. Aye. Commissioner Cox. Aye. Commissioner Clasen. Aye. Commissioner Bigham. Aye. Resolution passes five zero. Thank you, Madam Chair, Commissioners. I'm so proud of my staff and the professionals in this industry, like you said, Commissioner Cox, across the entire state. So thank you very much. Thank you. All right. The next item is general administration, and with Administrator Corbid in a resolution on National County Government Month. Madam Chair and Commissioners, I have the honor to present the third and final resolution that is recognizing groups of county employees today. And actually, the group that we have here in front of you is really all 1,500 county employees. And we are asking the board to adopt a resolution proclaiming April as National County Government Month. This has become an annual event for the county, and we use that to help educate the public on the purpose and service provided by county governments throughout our country.

The theme this year is in celebration of the country's 250th anniversary of its independence, and just a reminder that last year we celebrated our county's 175th anniversary. In Washington County, we utilize this proclamation to celebrate the nearly 1,500 employees of the county and the excellent service they provide each day. It's also interesting to think of ourselves as part of a larger county family throughout the country. There are over 3,000 counties in our country and over 3.5 million county employees. Together, just a couple of examples, we manage more than 1,900 public health departments, own almost half of the public roads in the country. We certainly are all a part of that much larger organization that plays a huge role in the everyday life and activities of the people we serve. As we have done in the past, during April, we will announce and celebrate the winners of our County Employee Recognition Program awards. And just a note, I think I saw two people in the audience still today that are going to get one of those awards on April 14th.

That same board meeting, we'll have a short reception prior to the board to celebrate the awardees, and the board members and county leadership will have an opportunity to visit many of the county work sites to thank employees for their work. And again, we will provide that great popcorn from Candyland to all of our staff on that day. It seems like we are saying this every year now, but it certainly has not been an easy year for county employees and the people we serve. But we continue to succeed because of our ability to adapt and adjust to the needs of our residents, customers, and clients. Washington County has tremendously dedicated and talented staff, and all of our success starts with them. I would ask the board to consider and approve the resolution thanking them for their work and proclaiming April as National County Government Month. Would you like to read the resolution, or the clerk? Either one.

Madam Chair, Stephanie has volunteered to do that for us. Thank you. Sounds good. I'm happy to. Whereas the nation's 3,069 counties provide essential services to create healthy, safe, and vibrant communities to more than 330 million Americans, and whereas counties fulfill a vast range of responsibilities and deliver services that touch nearly every aspect of people's lives, and whereas counties as intergovernmental partners enact local, state, and federal programs to address the needs of all, and whereas Washington County and all counties take pride in our responsibility to protect and enhance the well-being, health, and safety of all people in efficient and cost-effective ways, and whereas our nation is celebrating 250 years of independence, and counties have served our residents with pride and dignity, and whereas each year since 1991, the National Association of Counties has encouraged counties across the country to elevate awareness of county responsibilities, programs, and services by proclaiming April as National County Government Month. And whereas Washington County, through its more than 1,400 employees, provides services that ensure individuals can live in strong and vibrant communities, and whereas Washington County is proud to be one of the original nine counties that made up the Minnesota territory, and whereas each of the county's 12 departments take pride in our mission to provide exceptional services that enhance quality of life and promote a safe, healthy, and welcoming community for all. And whereas if we fulfill that mission, we will reach our vision of being a vibrant county that embraces the diversity of its communities, advances equitable access to resources and opportunities, and prioritizes the sustainability of its natural environment.

And whereas during the month of April, the county board is excited to undertake efforts to highlight and thank all county employees for their outstanding leadership and service. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Washington County Board of Commissioners thanks and recognizes county employees for their willingness to serve and for their dedication to the noble and honorable work of public service. Be it further resolved that the Washington County Board of Commissioners hereby proclaims April 2026 as National County Government Month and encourages everyone to participate in county government celebration activities. All right. Is there a motion? Madam Chair, I will move that resolution. Is there a second? Second. Commissioner Miron. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm really pleased that the resolution focuses on our employees and the good work, the hard work that they doEach and every day to serve the people within Washington County, and even in a broader way, in many cases, as we look at national leadership that Washington County provides.

So again, we could celebrate our employees all 12 months of the year. We identify one month in particular here, but we have the best of the best here in Washington County, and just so much appreciate all the hard work that each and every one of our employees does to make life good within the county. Commissioner Cox. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for reading that, Stephanie, and for bringing this to us. I think after sitting here for a year now, this has a different meaning to me, and so I'm just really grateful to be here and just proud to represent our county and all of the 1,500 people that do this work every day, and it comes from their heart, and so I'm just grateful. Thank you. Commissioner Karwoski. Thank you. I echo the comments made by the other commissioners. I'll add, we can't stress as commissioners every day we see the good work of our county employees assisting us.

Our residents see them as first line. They're the reputation our county gets from libraries to roads to all sorts of social service contacts. And we get nothing but high regards back from our residents on the work our county employees do with those interactions with the everyday citizens. Our city partners, I always marvel at our city works with our cities in a way that allows the cities to even get better, and I really think that's the kind of relationship you have. It's kind of like a marriage. Cities make us better, we make them better. And then with our new motto, Grow with Direction, obviously the employees are really key to growing positively with good direction. So we thank all the 1,500 employees. Any other comments? Commissioner Clasen. Yeah, I just wanted to acknowledge all the wonderful staff. Everyone has their own expertise in county, and it's very important that everyone is acknowledged for their work, even from the janitor to the person who is answering the calls at the property tax booth department.

Everyone matters, and so we wouldn't be able to do the services that our constituents demand without the staff. And so I just think that you need to know how much the board appreciates the work that you do, and we respect your expertise in the subjects that you care deeply about. And we want to acknowledge that although tough times are really tough right now, that we have each other, and that we really do respect your work. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Stephanie, for reading that resolution. And it is a ever-changing time, it seems, in public service. If it's not one thing, it's another, and it just seems to keep moving along. But the perseverance and the versatility of our staff is incredible. The innovation and modernization of what we, as a group, need to do to provide the resident services is incredible. And the leadership that our employees provide is recognized, I think it was Commissioner Miron, both nationally and on the state level, and that is something we should all be proud of. Specifically, when peers look to you from other counties in what we're doing, that is a huge compliment, and it's because of the dedication and the hard work of our employees that that recognition is possible.

So just want to thank everybody for all the professionalism and the passion that they bring every day to their job. So thank you. If there's nothing else, we will proceed with the vote. Commissioner Miron? Aye. Commissioner Karwoski? Aye. Commissioner Cox? Aye. Commissioner Clasen? Aye. Commissioner Bigham? Aye. Resolution passes five zero. Thank you. Madam Chair, I am going to be pinch-hitting for Deputy Administrator Lucke here today, and I will give a very brief legislative update. There is an updated legislative platform tracker at your desk this morning. The one update we have is that Senator Klein has signed on as a co-author to the County Road 19A and 100th Street Realignment Project Bill. Secondly, on the state level, we expect a little quieter week because they are on break this week, and so there'll be a little less activity than there has been the last couple weeks. On the federal side, all congressional-directed spending requests have been submitted to the five congressional members who represent Washington County.

We have been fielding questions from their staff as they prepare our request to go to the appropriate appropriations committees. That deadline for the legislators to get their requests to those committees is April 3rd. I did see an email this morning from Congresswoman McCollum, and I think we're going to hear from her which projects she's decided to move forward sometime today, it looks like in that email. Then finally, I was going to report on a meeting that was about to happen with Commissioner Miron and Representative Stauber on the county money that we received, but that's been canceled because of a conflict with Representative Stauber's office. And I know that Ryan Hawes and Ally Bernt and others will work with Commissioner Miron to get that rescheduled with Representative Stauber's office. That's the end of the report, and certainly can try to answer any questions you have that Jan, I'm sure, could answer. So if she were here. All right. Thank you, Administrator Corbid.

Next up- Madam Chair, I just have one last item under general administration, and just a reminder that last week we had members of the public from Afton, as well as a city council member, that came to talk about the issue of deer hunting with rifles and shotguns. We also received a letter from City Administrator Morse, and it's actually in board correspondence today for you. I have worked with Assistant County Attorney Ristad and Commissioner Cox to get answers to the questions they raised, which were, does the county have authority to delegate our authority to do an ordinance to the city, or can we do an ordinance that would only affect Afton? And the answer to those questions was no, we did not have authority to do the things that were requested of us. So I've drafted a letter in response to the city, noting those answers to their questions that they raised last week. Because time is of the essence for anybody to act on this, I'd like to get that letter to the City of Afton so they have that information this week, and then they can work with their city council to identify options that they may have to designate certain zones or whatever authorities cities may have to deal with this issue at a local level. So if there's no objection, we will send that letter to them under my signature.

Sounds good. Oh, Commissioner Clasen. Yep. Thank you. Mr. Corbid, can you tell us what the legalities was that prevented us from doing this? Is it through the DNR or... Madam Chair and Commissioner Clasen, in general, and certainly I can give you a copy of the letter too, but in general, when the law changed to allow rifles in the sections of the counties that it didn't prior, the law was specifically said that counties can pass an ordinance to further restrict it to shotguns or rifles. It didn't allow cities to do that. And there was also nothing in that statute that allowed us to transfer our authority under that statute to a local government to do that. And so the analysis that was done by Assistant County Attorney Ristad basically looked at, do counties in general have any of these authorities that they asked for, for us to do something for them? And the answer to that was no.

Okay. Thanks. All right- And any commissioner who wants a copy of that, I'd be happy to give them a copy of that draft letter. Sounds good. All right, we'll move on to commissioner reports and comments. Commissioner Clasen, you want to start us off? Oh, sure.

Well, I guess I'll start with the Women's Empowerment in ERG annual event. That was really nice for us to be able to be invited as a board and attend the women's event. I enjoyed being able to talk to staff and be able to just see how people were being able to take the journaling and the other events and be able to focus. I know I couldn't even stay present during that, so just appreciate the invitation to the board. And Woodbury's Business Expo was this weekend. It was very, very busy. We had so many businesses and wow, I love being a part of the city. I get to see so many people that I know. But more importantly, I get to talk to people about their businesses and if I can promote it in any way, being somebody who uses a lot of the local businesses in Woodbury. So it was nice to talk to businesses, see what they need.

I even saw my dentist. It's always nice to get a toothbrush from my dental office. And then seeing friends, and I also saw Commissioner Karwoski. It's always nice to see commissioners visit Woodbury Business Expo and just appreciate the business community in Woodbury, and a special shout-out to the Rotary. They were there promoting their huge vision and mission is really to bring back what the community needs and different projects, and the $20,000 that they were able to donate for the Open Cupboard freezer has made a tremendous difference in the service of Open Cupboard. And it was wonderful to be able to volunteer for them at their booth. And then, there was a meeting on the regional trail long-range plan for the trail that is now being called Creek to Croy. And that is a regional trail that I have been really pushing and advocating for, so it's really exciting to see it come to fruition and that the plan will be in front of the board very soon.

And it's been wonderful to see how much staff's been involved and also the parks and open spaces members have been very involved in this first east to west trail that's south of I-94. It's a big deal, and staff did really well at presenting the material this morning, and I'm excited for the board to see it come to you very, very soon. And then it looks like next week we don't have a meeting, but I have a meeting for the finance committee in which we're going over the investment report, and also the new penny rounding policy. So I did mention that we don't talk about cents anymore. The penny seems to be going away. "A penny saved is a penny earned," I think is something I never will stop saying, even if the penny no longer exists. But thank you. That's all I have. Commissioner Miron. Thank you, Madam Chair. I've had a number of calls and emails, contacts about the valuation notices that went out for property taxes.

I think some frustration with the postal system and the delivery of those. But I just want to remind people too, that if they have an issue related to either the valuation or the classification of their property, to contact our assessor's office and visit with them about that. There can be errors made, and the assessor's office is really good at working with people to correct those things, especially where there's additional clarification needed or just an explanation, and so I would just encourage people to reach out. I think the other frustration that I received was that the timing of our valuation notice in relationship to the board of appeals within the local communities, it's a very tight timeframe and so we can maybe look at that. But I just want to remind people that that's ongoing, and they should have received their notices, and there are some early dates for those board of review and equalization meetings.

I also attended the Women's ERG group, and just a good work there that's going on. I appreciated the county board being able to take a break from our busy schedule for a little bit to allow us to go down there. I attended event at the Forest Lake High School. Good to be connected with the school there, and quite a number of people that were at that event. I also attended a educational program event at the Cornelius Marine Watershed, held in Scandia over the past week. And had good attendance at that program and appreciated the work that they're doing in conjunction with some of the work that we're doing at the Lower St. Croix Policy Committee. Last night, Ryan Hafes and I attended the Forest Lake City Council meeting to talk about the improvements scheduled for 2028 on County Road 50 and Trunk Highway 61. I suspect we'll be getting a letter of support for one of the options here, coming up from the city council. And then, we did have a personnel committee meeting this morning that you'll be receiving recommendations on, I believe, at our next county board meeting, a request for communications specialists for the county attorney's office.

And then, we did have conversation about the awards that Kevin was talking about. That's all I have, Madam Chair. Thank you. Commissioner Cox. Thank you, Madam Chair. You're going to hear probably from all of us about the Women's ERG event, but I just have to highlight. We have some really creative employees. Some of the crafts and art that were happening down there blew me away. I think I could draw a blue line and that would be about all. So, grateful to see where people are thriving. I attended an extension webinar actually on the focus of rural Minnesota, and it was actually really interesting. I might forward it along to my colleagues here. But just talking about how growth in rural communities is happening, and where it's coming from, and people don't necessarily have roots in those communities. They're just finding them and moving in. And so it was really interesting to think about growth throughout the county. The Browns Creek Watershed also had an event called "The Water Where We Live," and there was a panel put together by a local artist, and there was an art exhibition. And it was really just neat to see how our natural spaces in our county are really influencing people and creating some really beautiful art that had more meaning behind it than I've ever put into thinking about something.

So, that was impressive. I think I saw Director Castillo at one point, but thank you to her and to Ellen from her team. I tagged along, essentially, is what I did last week, with the Minnesota Association of County Social Services Administration, for a day at the Capitol. And so we were able to connect with seven different legislators and really highlight technology modernization- There you go... as well as SNAP and Medicaid cost shifts, and with certain other legislators, we talked a few other things. But, that was the highlight of the day, and so I'm grateful to be included in that. I've had some conversations with a local foundation, and I'm just grateful for Executive Director Taphorn's support in those conversations. Has been really great. And then was able to meet yesterday with quite a few from the public works team. So thank you for an early Monday morning meeting to start the week off right and get some good information to pass along.

I really appreciate that, and then the personnel. So, thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Karwoski. Thank you. As mentioned, after our last board meeting, I also, along with my colleagues on the board, we attended some of the time with the Women's Empowerment annual event. There's always a different theme, and we've got a great workforce of women throughout every department, I believe. Appreciate their service to our county. Attended the Woodbury Business After Hours event last week. The Woodbury Foundation sponsored it. It was held at The Green MillNear 94 and Century Avenue, 120 and 94. Always a good way to mingle with our business owners. Created a District 2 mayors meeting. Six of eight of the mayors from cities I represent attended. Had a very good, relaxed dialogue. Got some action items from that that I'm following up with, and staff's helping me with. As Commissioner Clasen pointed out, I ran into her, and I think Chair Bigham also attended the Woodbury area community expo.

They held that at the M Health Bielenberg Fieldhouse, which is huge. And thank goodness they have a facility like that that's largely used for athletics, because it kind of mimics the amount of business vitality. So that facility, which is large, was filled with local businesses. And as mentioned, Woodbury area expo, so there are a lot of businesses outside of Woodbury that offer services to not only Woodbury, but the entire county. Very vibrant expo, probably one of the better in the metro area, I would gather. As usual, we always entertain a lot of constituent follow-up and questions. I also had one regarding property taxes, which I'll be following up with a meeting tomorrow. So that's all I have to report. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The women's empowerment, the ERG, was fantastic. The coloring and the painting of the rocks, and just that connection was incredible, and just want to thank everybody who organized that. I think it's just a great annual event. And then also, the Woodbury Expo, I just want to give a shout-out to the Woodbury Chamber, and Lori from the Woodbury Chamber, and how the amount of hours that her and her team have to put into it to pull that off.

And I know that Lori from the Cottage Grove Chamber was also there. And I think having the nonprofits and organizations there just also kind of shows the partnership that these businesses have, which leads me into the next thing. I went to the Basic Needs annual gala in Van Meter, and received an award, and then Dr. Cheryl Jogger from Sawasco Cares received an award. So it's just that you can't really do one without the other. And so it just kind of highlights that thread that brings our communities together. Also-- Ooh, I'm doing good with transitions today. Also about a thread that brings people together, unfortunately, Gary Spooner passed away who was a staple in our-- Now I'm going to get emotional, our community. He started "The Bulletin" with his wife, and the Chamber and Rotary when we had one. But more importantly, he lifted up Cottage Grove, put them on the map, and whether it was business or nonprofit, he also did events as Santa. And so that really brought a lot of people a lot of joy, and he just always was there. And it's going to be a huge hole in our community for his leadership, and just the smile that he brought and the joy that he brought.

And I know there's a lot of people in this room that actually know him and have worked with him through the years. And his wife, Judy, who passed away about 10 years ago. But there'll be a celebration of his life in April, and I know Mayor Bailey is going to be organizing or having that or facilitating is the word I was thinking of, of that. And it just shows the impact that he had in his defense of the First Amendment and the freedom of press. He was very big on that and talked a lot about it. So just one of those people that's always been. So his legacy will live on, and our condolences to his family. I also testified, I think at least three times, which I joked that I had more time testifying in the last week than I did five years in the Senate in the minority. But on the MAPA Act, trying to make sure we get some clarity on that, and then medical waste bill both was going through the process, and they are on break now, so hopefully they'll get some stuff taken care of.

The City of Cottage Grove had a meeting with our staff and their staff about a variety of topics. And I appreciate the opportunity that that provides to be able to exchange where everybody is at on projects. I did tape a mayor's moment, it's good to be mayor when you get your own podcast, with Myron Bailey on the projects that are happening throughout Cottage Grove this year. And then related to property taxes, we do have open book meetings. And the one for Woodbury is on the 16th of April at the Central Service Station. The one for-Cottage Grove is on the 2nd of April at the Cottage Grove Service Center, and they're from 5:00 to 7:00. And I just think to make sure that we are putting that out on social media and putting that in maybe a press release or something would be helpful for people to know the process and what they can do during these times. So, that is all I have. If there's nothing else, all right, we'll move on.

We do have board correspondence, which has been addressed by Administrator Corbid with the City of Afton. So after adjournment here, which I will do in a second, we have two workshops, one with community services on integrated children's mental health and family services collaborative, and then also the solid waste governance evaluation with the R&E. So seeing no further business before the board, we are adjourned.