 I'd like to call to order the Tuesday, January 17th, 2023 meeting of the Sheboygan County Board of Supervisors. Are we certified in compliance with the open meeting law? We'll sit on the 13th of January at 2 p.m. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Next is roll call. For present one absent. Next is a consideration of a memorial resolution. During the life of former County Board Supervisor George Meyer, whereas former County Board Supervisor George Meyer passed away on October 24th, 2022 and whereas Mr. Meyer served as County Board Supervisor over a span of six years from 1990 to 1996. Having served on the Law Committee from 1990 to 94, Agricultural Committee from 92 to 96 and the Finance Committee from 1994 to 1996 and whereas prior to his service as County Board Supervisor, Mr. Meyer was dedicated to his career and social work for Sheboygan County for 30-plus years, ultimately retiring as the director of the Division of Social Services in 1990 and whereas in addition to serving as community as noted above, he also served in the U.S. Navy from 1950 to 1953 and whereas Mr. Meyer will be remembered for his devotion or caring for people within the community and his work in social services for Sheboygan County. Now therefore be it resolved that by passage of this resolution the County Board herewith makes public its recognition of Mr. Meyer's dedication, dedicated service to the citizens of the county and expresses its heartfelt sympathy to the family and friends, especially his wife Roxanne, children Jeff, Pam, Kristen, Leslie, Michael, and Peter. Be it for the resolve, the clerk be directed to court a copy of this resolution through Roxanne Meyer, Jeff Meyer, Pam Bell, Kristen Rooker, Leslie Paulson, Michael Paulson and Peter Paulson respectively submitted the 7th day of January 2023. Pursuant to County Board rule 2.13, this resolution will be on the floor for immediate action. Please join me in a rising vote. The motion passes. Would the family please join me at the front? We met a lot of nice people through this group. A lot of the group is gone but we did meet very nice people and it was a learning experience for both of us. Thank you. Next is the approval of the December 2022 journal. Supervisor Wagner? I can't believe I got the button right but anyways I move for approval of the journal. Thank you Supervisor Wagner, Supervisor Clark. Thank you Mr. Chair. I'll second. Thank you Supervisor Clark. Any discussion? Seeing no discussion please vote. The system worked. Consideration of appointment by chairperson. To the Veterans Service Commission, Kirk Anderson of Kohler. Supervisor Gehring? Thank you Mr. Chairman. I move to concur with the appointment of the chair. Thank you Supervisor Gehring. Supervisor Brower? Thank you Mr. Chair. I will second that Thank you Supervisor Brower. Any discussion? Seeing none please vote. Next is a presentation. Adam Payne, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Secretary. Update and thank you. Good evening. Felt just a little different driving in this evening and it feels just a little different being here this evening but I know I'm around amongst friends and I appreciate this opportunity Mr. Chair, Vice Chair. Thank you Sheboygan County. First and foremost just thank you for the opportunity that I had to work for you and with you for the last 24 years. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I had to work for Sheboygan County to have raised my family here and for our track record of collective accomplishments. The county board, my co-workers and so many others. We worked effectively to problem solve and together, together we helped make good things happen. There are far too many people to mention by name but I will always owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Strudy and Bill Gehring as well as dearly departed Bill Jens, Jim Gilligan and Dan Lemieux for taking a leap of faith and hiring me 24. I also want to thank Mike van der Steen, Tom Wagner and Vern Koch who like Jim, Dan, Bill and Roger all served as county board chairman and my direct supervisor. Their support, their guidance, their thoughtful, pragmatic leadership was and remains a key to our success. I'm very grateful for those relationships. Ultimately I was fortunate to count them all among my friends. Sheboygan County is such a strong leadership team. Over the department heads are here this evening and that was very kind of you to be here and I knew I was leaving Sheboygan County in good hands. We just have such a thoughtful, caring, talented organization of highly dedicated employees. Sheboygan County is a leader. They're recognized as a leader and as I said you are in good hands so I'm so grateful for the opportunity that was presented to me and to be here for a few minutes this evening to say thank you as well as share a few things about I don't know if you heard but I recently got a new job. I just started two weeks ago and let me let me tell you it has been a whirlwind, absolute whirlwind as Chairman Koch and others know I was implanting to transition till March with the Wisconsin counties Association and January 3rd I started as Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and I can't tell you I can't put in words how honored and humbled I am by the governor's appointment. I'm very mindful that it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for everyone in this room and again our collective accomplishments, our track record, working effectively in collaboration with others. I wouldn't have been asked to serve in this role if it wasn't for our track record here and all the good work in relationships that we've had built. I thank you for that. I'm also very thankful to the community it's I know I'm in the honeymoon period and it won't last long but the notes and the calls and the just notes from you and others in the community the encouragement it really means a lot and I thank you for that. I've tried to get back to most people I'm sure I haven't to everyone but it really is appreciated. Similar to Sheboygan County the DNR is a complex organization with numerous programs and services. I go into this humble and I know I have a lot to learn but there's also a lot of similarities to Sheboygan County and it's a complex organization. Sheboygan County is a complex organization. The DNR has a seven member policy making board. It's a very important oversight board to the Department of Natural Resources that the agency works closely with. I look forward to that close working relationship and making it even stronger. We may have different roles but we have similar goals and it's important that the DNR and the Natural Resource Board and the governor and the legislature and all stakeholders are pulling together working together together to problem solve just as we have done Sheboygan County for years. The total annual budget of the DNR is five hundred and sixty four million. A little bit more than Sheboygan County and we have two thousand five hundred and fifty full time equivalent positions and another fourteen hundred part time and seasonal LTE. So close to thirty five hundred employees. A lot of employees a lot of people to meet and I know I won't get all their names down the first time I see them. So if you'll bear with me I want to share a little bit about the DNR and I want to leave you with a little information that I encourage you to act on and be engaged with because I've learned a lot in just the last two weeks. I can't imagine what's all ahead of me but I've really learned a lot. And let me just start with the DNR mission. To protect and enhance our natural resources our air land and water wildlife fish and force and the ecosystems that sustain all life to provide a healthy sustainable environment in a full range of outdoor opportunities to ensure the right of all people to use and enjoy these resources for their work and leisure to work with the people to understand each other's views and to carry out the public will and in this partnership consider the future generations to follow our values which are very similar Sheboygan County and I hope most organizations integrity professionalism collaboration respecting customer service and our vision we excel at protecting and managing natural resources while supporting the economy supporting the economy and the well-being of our citizenry at the end of the day our goal of the DNR is to make our air safe to breathe water safe to drink land productive for farmers and others to use and let me tell you what I've been learning it's no small feat serious challenges that we all face in the state but before I get into that did you know that Wisconsin has 84,000 miles of rivers and streams 15,000 lakes 800 miles of Great Lake shoreline 190 miles of Mississippi River shoreline over 5 million acres of wetlands and over two quadrillion gallons of groundwater I don't know what quadrillion really represents I can't imagine that two quadrillion gallons of ground groundwater did you know during the pandemic of which we all work together and did the best we could Wisconsinites really made their way outdoors sure many of us included park attendance went up 22% boat registrations went up 28% Park passes sword 42% first time fishing licenses increased over 100% people got outside and I think that's wonderful 95% of our residents participate some form of outdoor recreation which puts Wisconsin the upper half of the nation when it comes to economic impact in our state outdoor recreation is a financial engine for the state of Wisconsin resulting in 17.9 billion a year in consumer spending 168,000 jobs and 1.1 billion in state and local tax revenue homeowners benefit obviously as well during brought knows that the Sheboygan County Board knows this when you have public lands non-motorized trails other opportunities to recreate near you adjacent to your property your values of your land go up it's important I see former senator Jim Baumgart in the audience Jim was a key champion in the legislature for the stewardship program all the lands that that purchased over the decades and it's a real bipartisan program right now thousands and thousands of acres have been purchased through the stewardship program it's so important to our state and again Sheboygan County locally in addition to role utilizing that we created our own local stewardship program I bet is we're one of the few counties that have done that whether was purchasing more property of the Sheboygan County Marsh Gerber Lakes or of course Amsterdam doings what a credit to you this organization for that vision and leadership did you know our state has 50 state parks more than 500 boat launches 15 state force 44 state trails over 5,000 campsites and again thousands of acres for people to explore it's pretty cool bipartisan support many of these lands and properties purchased through the state's stewardship program as you can imagine I'm getting a lot of requests for interviews from the press a little national radio program last Friday this weekend I couldn't have done any interviews because I lost my voice Friday night I've tested twice by the way and it just started coming back today so feeling much much better but I'm glad I had the weekend to recover a little bit but of course I'm asked well what are the most serious issues facing the state of course I just want to say well I've only been here two weeks let me a little give me a little time right to learn from staff to listen and learn but it didn't take long I'm sure many of you can relate water quality PFAS how many of you have heard of PFAS at acronym excellent excellent for our viewers or perhaps people in the community that haven't PFAS are a human-made chemical that have been used for decades that can be found in a variety of products such as non-stick cookware fast food wrappers and certain types of firefighting foam just to name a few it's nasty stuff these forever chemicals are a serious public health concern that can build up move through the soil and seep into our surface and groundwater I had heard of PFAS but I'll admit last couple years that hasn't been on the forefront of my mind wasn't on the forefront of my mind two months ago but it is today it is when I stayed at an old college friends home one evening two weeks ago and I said signage on Lake Madonna that says don't eat the fish it's at all about PFAS it is today when I saw two news releases coming out to the Department of Natural Resources up in the wasa area don't eat the fish Wisconsin River where I've been fishing since I was a little kid consumer consumption warnings fish advisory warnings how hard did we work in this community to get rid of those signs along Sheboygan River and Harbor for economic development and so people would be safe and feel comfortable swimming eating the fish and the ducks more and more of them are going up because of PFAS breaks my heart I was in wasa I'm eating with mayor last week and their whole public utility was contaminated by PFAS people were calling the mayor council members asking if they could give their children bottled formula they could drink the water just horrible unfortunately about a year ago they had already started building a new water treatment facility 44 million dollar facility and because it's state-of-the-art it is now pulling a lot of that PFAS contamination out but get this they're still looking at adding another 14 million dollar addition to it because they didn't plan for PFAS when they first envisioned this and the system though it's helping clean it out it isn't as effective and it's an $800,000 annual cost to replace the system that pulls the PFAS out and of course where do you go to PFAS where do you safely get rid of it this is just in wasa town of Stella little community that everybody has their own personal wells drinking like I have and many of us have about your point in County about a third of people in the state of Wisconsin rely on their own grilled well and it's really under your own responsibility once that's put in has to be done in a certain way but once it's in how many of us test our well how many think about it when they go to the tap but a third of the people in Wisconsin relying on that and the town of Stella just got hit with PFAS and I don't know 35 or 40 wells and these people are shook up how long have we been drinking this water how much has it impacted our children our family where do we get clean water how do we pay for it do we drill deeper well maybe if there's testing done and you can drill deeper but once it's in the groundwater that may or may not be an answer can we put in systems to pull the PFAS out yes but that's expensive and technology continues to improve can we work with the local water municipal water maybe get water from them yes but that takes coordination time in ours providing bottled water to some communities said as a crisis innovate intervention remarkable how frightening this is we need more testing we're gonna have to make some investments I was so proud to share the work that Kevin struck in Aaron Brault are doing extension and planning conservation I think most of you know this but they've been collaborating for years Kevin in particular has been taking the lead doing testing town by town one town a year in Sheboygan County and they haven't been checking for PFAS at least I don't think so but I certainly encourage us to start doing that going forward and it is such a credit to extension and conservation that they're doing this testing and guess what they're gonna be looked to as a leader statewide because I think every community is going to be seeking more testing and who's going to coordinate this who's going to take the lead I know how important our land and water conservation departments are local extension is they certainly can provide some boots on the ground and help with that it's critical so when it comes to what is keeping me up at night other than this crummy cold is our water quality and PFAS and other chemicals that we've just got to do something about you're gonna hear proposals by governor evers to make greater investments to combat PFAS to do more testing to help communities get new personal wells or help add to municipal wells or install infrastructure to try to remove the PFAS and to me one of the things I like about this transition from county government to the Department of Natural Resources is I do not see water quality as a partisan issue who amongst us wants to drink contaminated water and as a new grandpa I can tell you I'm even more mindful now of children and grandchildren future generations what legacy are we gonna leave we've got to do something and I think of Roger Distruity Greg Schnell a little bit about this challenge as early in my career it was those two particularly Roger said you know Adam when it comes to our transportation system you can kick the can down the road but it's only going to get more expensive the longer you wait on that road making sure that you build it up whatever it needs to be it's kind of getting more expensive if we kick this can down the road with dealing with PFAS providing standards and not stepping up to lead like Wisconsin should lead is only gonna get more expensive and then someday we're all gonna be wondering what are grandchildren their kids gonna be drinking we can do better and we will do better so in closing water is definitely an issue on my mind there's the proposed wolf plan that no doubt is gonna get real interesting because you have sides who don't want any wolves killed others who say more should be that'll no doubt get controversial there's a new Enridge line going through Upper Wisconsin that is important to obviously pumping crude oil but it's environmentally sensitive and going to be rerouted around the tribe there's a lot going on but I am not only grateful for the opportunities I had to work with this team our collective track record but I'm also grateful to start with an agency that also has so many good hard working caring people and I'm looking forward to working with them beating with them working with the many stakeholders that certainly are engaged with the DNR and care about natural resource protection and enhancement and just as we have in Sheboygan County helping make good things happen. Thank you for your time and attention this evening Mr. Chair. Thank you. Next is public addresses. First we have Natasha Tory of Sheboygan speaking on truancy and children's mental health resources. Thank you to the chair vice chair and the board I had no idea that I'd be speaking after Adam today but it's it's maybe appropriate because Adam had a hand in my first coming to Sheboygan back in 2003 and in fact I can remember some of my first court hearings were here in this room because the branch 5 courtroom was being worked on. I was right in this back room with Judge Boulgert doing chapter 51 hearings so chapter 51 is the mental health hearing so kind of comes full circle today as I'm here to talk to you about truancy and children's mental health. So again I'm Natasha Tory I've been an attorney here in Sheboygan for 20 years and first started 11 years as assistant corporation council for Sheboygan so I was an attorney that worked for the county and pursued mental health commitments and guardianships and I did child support enforcement but it was the the mental health component of my job that attracted me to the position and it's why I wanted to come to Sheboygan in the first place because I've always had a concern for people that are vulnerable people that might have situations or circumstances that are putting them at a disadvantaged state. I was elected to become the municipal judge for the city of Sheboygan and village of Kohler in 2015 and the municipal court is what's called an alternative to the criminal justice system and that is because we handle cases like trespass disorderly conduct operating while intoxicated but also children's issues like truancy and underage drinking and those are the cases where they might not be the biggest numbers on my case load which is between 5,000 and 7,000 cases a year but they take the most time because for each truancy case those are private those are one-on-one situations where I'm working with families to try to talk to to them about what is going on why why are they not going to school and you might not be aware but we have a truancy crisis in Sheboygan and our Sheboygan area school district right now at any given time we have about 8% of elementary students being truant not going to school and that is growing to 20 to 30% of high school kids the reason that our numbers are not getting reported to the state is because the remainder of the kids that are going to school are there 98% of the time so you have between 20 and 30% of high school kids truant and not attending school at all but the remaining 70 to 80% are having 98% attendance so because of that we end up having an average of 92% attendance so then we don't trigger extra resources because it looks on paper like we're doing well I can tell you that we're not because that those 20 to 30% of high school kids are having additional problems they're having situations where they're gonna get involved in drugs they're starting in some of them to have criminal records and this is something that I can see where it'll start with truancy and then in a short period of time they're coming back with things like theft or disorderly conduct and then it eventually escalates out of my court but they're still not having access to resources to deal with these initial issues of of truancy and why aren't they going to school and oftentimes when I'm meeting with the kids one on one through things that I can do like a truancy workshop that I created so tomorrow I'll have 40 kids 15 middle schoolers 26 high school kids coming to the municipal court to try to talk to me about what is going on and it'll just be me and a social worker and the kids they're telling me they don't have access to mental health that they don't have access to counselors that they're going months at before being able to get an appointment if they can even get one there are programs that have counselors in the school but they have to be in the school in order to get that and so they feel that their condition is such that they have anxiety to the point that they can't get to school so then they can avail themselves of those programs so we need more services a couple weeks ago I was unfortunately at a funeral for a young woman in our community who died drug overdose and she had even though she was very young already had over 12 years of mental health crisis and drug dependency the next day I talked to her mom and she asked me you know if we could brainstorm what are some things that we can do to help kids before they're incarcerated prior to incarceration what can we do to get the community to start caring about the fact that our young people are dying that we're losing them that that creates an exponential harm to our community that we can't can't understand again I've always been interested in these mental health issues that's why I'm doing what I do at the municipal court that's why I'm running for the circuit court but I do think that we need to have our community come together and realize that this is a problem and I think it can be addressed I'm on the board of Boys and Girls Club we have a be great graduate program we're only able to fund 24 kids at a time but every every one of those kids that was able to be funded is doing better is going to school yesterday I was at the Boys and Girls Club at the Y talking to kids playing four square and I did get badly beaten and I was a little bit embarrassed but but that that is a source of pride for kids to be able to have a place like that and that's not available to everyone in our county we only have centers like that here in Cheboygan and here in Falls we're looking to expand but but that's not something available to everyone so I just wanted again just to bring this this matter to your attention today just to understand that just because you might not see a report on something doesn't mean that it's not a real issue of concern and hopefully we can come together and do that problem-solving so we don't have to go to more funerals like the one that I just attended. Next up Jamie Schramm talking about housing development at UW Green Bay Cheboygan campus. Good evening and thank you Jamie Schramm one University Drive Cheboygan, Wisconsin I serve as a campus executive officer for the University of Wisconsin Green Bay's campuses overseeing the campus right here in Cheboygan and the one directly to our North and Manitowoc. Mr. Chairman, county board members, staff, guests, assembled this evening I've had the privilege of working over the last several months with our property committee, with the executive committee, community and business leaders to bring together or bring forward tonight's resolution resolution 15 which is part of your agenda. That resolution does not ask for approval of a specific plan a specific housing development or a building plan. What the group is seeking is the okay to go ahead and engage in an RFP process regarding a privately developed privately funded and privately managed apartment style housing on our Cheboygan campus location. To be clear this isn't University owned or operated housing it's ownership and operation or reside where I think it should with the private sector but it would provide a housing option for students throughout the region. Now we would seek to promote this the university's commitment to promote this housing to our students however it could be students in the region. It could be students from LTC, Lakeland, students completing perhaps a college internship in the region and in the area. Again, it's not University of Wisconsin Green Bay housing just located near our campus. We believe such an initiative fulfills the community need, supports the long-term growth of our employers, sets our university up for long-term success in supporting academic achievement. Keeps the talent that comes here in our community and continuing to make our community stronger. Now as luck would have it as we were going through this process and engaging with a lot of our community leaders our our friends and partners in higher education at UW-Platteville announced that they were closing the Richland Center campus. Not the kind of news you want when you're talking about expansion. And that question came up and we talked about it and addressed it. I know some of the people at Richland Center and UW-Platteville they're good people. They have strategic choices to make. We at UW-Green Bay made our choices and we chose a bit of a different path. We chose not to continue the model of the UW colleges where it's just giving away associates of arts and sciences to your degrees. Here in our Sheboygan campus, campus in Manitowoc, our campus in Marinette, that's still an option. Students want to come to us for a semester, get their feet wet, understand what college is like, more than happy to serve them. You want to get a two-year degree in transfer somewhere, we're more than happy to have you do that. However we've also started offering those third and fourth year course options. Started offering bachelor degree completion opportunities, specifically in engineering, business and psychology and we're seeing growth in all those programs. We also aligned our course offerings across disciplines to support bachelor degree completion. Yes, there were some courses in the old UW colleges catalog that were just requirements for associate's degrees. We said let's take those courses out and let's make sure that we're offering courses that not only support an associate's degree completion but also support a bachelor degree completion in your major. Why would we ask our students to spend more money and more time in college? Let's quicken their path to degree. These are specific choices we made at UW-Green Bay. Our four locations, including the main campus in Green Bay, have the highest growth across the UW system for the last nine years, specifically since 2018 when the merger occurred. We've embraced a one university for our location model. The public university option in Sheboygan County is our campus right here. I feel the resolution and I've been very proud and honored to work with so many great people in Sheboygan and I'm always happy to be working in Sheboygan County because of our record of collaboration. It truly is something unique. But we're bringing together county, business community, members of the SCEDC and the university. As I mentioned, we will commit to promoting such a housing development to our students. We view this not as a transactional initiative but transformational. Myself along with other leaders of our university are grateful for the efforts here in Sheboygan, grateful to all our partners and friends who have helped bring this to you before you this evening. I ask for your favorable consideration and I look forward to engaging with all of you in the process moving forward. Always remembering we have to be great stewards of those resources that are put in front of us. Thank you. Next is letters, communications and announcements. We have one resolution from Winnebago County requesting the State of Wisconsin review and revise its policy on foreign ownership of farmland. We'll send that to Planning Resources, Agriculture and Extension Committee. That's it. All right. Now is the Deputy County Administrators report. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, everyone. It is so nice to see a full house here tonight. I can't tell you how nice it is to sit up here and look out at all these smiling faces. Thank you, Cheryl, for putting up the PowerPoint. So I was going to start this evening by giving an overview of Resolution 15. However, Jamie Shram did such a wonderful job. I don't want to overstate anything he just said or take any more of your time repeating that, but just wanted to drive home the fact that this resolution is purely to authorize the county to continue to explore this option and to enter into the RFP process to get more information about options, cost, et cetera. And so we are glad that this has been looked into. Housing has been brought up over the years at the UW campus. And over the last couple of months there have been a lot of discussions to get the ball rolling on this. And so the resolution before you tonight would simply be to continue looking into this, go through the RFP process and see what the options are and what is the best move going forward. So again, I don't want to spend a lot of time on that because I think Jamie did a really nice job giving an overview of what's been occurring already and the purpose of the legislation before you tonight. So with that, I am going to get into the main portion of my report tonight. I'm very pleased to share the state of the county. I see Adam is just grinning from ear to ear back there. So he is going to get quite the kick out of hearing me present the state of the county as you know, he's been doing this for the last 20 plus years. So I'm sure he's enjoying the fact that he can sit back there and relax while I give this presentation tonight. So I am going to start with the state of the county as it relates to the budget. So before you, I think you guys are all familiar with these graphs, we put these together every year after the budget is adopted. This is just showing on your left is the breakdown of departments. I realize it's a little small, but on the left is the breakdown by the departments based on the tax levy. The overall tax levy is $52 million and then on the right is the total expenditures for all of the departments and those total $182 million. So you can also see by the chart the four largest departments and that's comprised of health and human services, transportation, the sheriff's department and Rocky Noel and those four budgets together comprise nearly two thirds of our total budget. So those are by far the largest in budget and in staffing. Next, I'm going to go over some of the major accomplishments and milestones that occurred in 2022. There are so many great things that happened last year that we can all take pride in. So it was difficult to narrow it down. But for purposes of this evening, I'm going to go through kind of the top 10 milestones or accomplishments that we are most proud of. And I just would like to ask you to all keep in mind as I go through this list that these are things that you should all take great pride in yourselves because you all had a part in this, whether it's serving on the board as a whole or the various liaison committees that you're a part of, the collaboration internally with all of our departments, externally with all of our business partners, nonprofits. None of these things couldn't have happened without collaboration. So I hope that you all feel the same pride as we do as I go through this list of our top 10 major accomplishments or milestones from 2022. So with that, let's get started. These are in no particular order, by the way. But first up, the alternatives to incarceration addition at the detention center. This was a $1.85 million expansion on the detention center. You can see there in the picture, I guess if I use the laser pointer, you guys won't all see the screen I'm pointing at. But if you look at the graphic of the building itself, this is the right hand side of the building that was the addition. And then you can see the image from the architect that kind of shows the layout of the addition. So this was to add eight new offices, a secure reception area, and two bathrooms as well as additional storage. Currently, our ATI unit is working out of something to the equivalent of a closet. And I think Sheriff Chrysler would confirm that we have a lot of staff working in close quarters and they are very excited about this expansion. We have been increasing programming in this area so that we can alleviate the population at the detention center so that we can avoid even more expensive addition. Currently the caseload for the staff that work in the ATI unit is anywhere between 300 and 400 clients per day. So that is unique people that they are responsible for whether they're on electronic monitoring, day reporting, etc. And so we're very proud of this addition and the services that we can offer and hope to not have to add addition to the detention center to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. It's currently in the five-year capital plan. It's been there for a number of years, but so long as we can keep our population under control, we're going to keep pushing that out and avoiding that cost because not only is it costly to add, it will be very costly to staff. Next up is the stream restoration at Amsterdam Dunes. So the 328 acre property at Amsterdam Dunes that we acquired last year, we restored a stream in wetland by re-aligning two branches of a tributary to Lake Michigan and this was to enhance the water quality in Lake Michigan and the ecological integrity. So you can see a couple photos here. The one on your right is a very nice aerial photo that I believe one of Aaron Brault's staff had taken with the drone to see the portion of the stream that's headed out to the lake and the restoration work that was completed. This project in total was just over $600,000 and the vast majority of that was grant funded. You can see there on the slide the names of the different grants that paid for that. So that is sustain our Great Lakes, the Fund for Lake Michigan and the Natural Resource Damage Assessment Fund. The Kohler Center for Marsh Education. I know many of you were here to celebrate this milestone, but this was a $2 million project of that the county's portion was about $350,000 and this building was completed last year. So we had a ribbon cutting and a open house and I know many of you were there to celebrate that and see the inside of that beautiful building. It is just extraordinary and I encourage you if you haven't been out there to go and check it out. Normally one wing of the building houses the Camp Waikota's Marsh Education Program which sees over a thousand students annually and then the other wing of the building is the new campgrounds and excuse me the new showers and bathrooms for the county campground at the marsh. This building while not being used for the educational programming is available for rent. So if any of you would like to have an event out there, please contact Erin Brault so you can host your own event out there and showcase this beautiful facility that is now ours at the marsh that we're very proud of. The Economic Support Services, they relocated last year they were formerly at the Job Center and they are now housed within the Aging and Disability Resource Center in Sheboygan Falls. There's two before and after photos there for you just to get a little snapshot. Yes the staff are very excited that those avocado counters are now gone and they have beautiful new office space and extremely enhanced amenities for our staff there. So the collaboration here now that Economic Support Services is located within the Aging and Disability Resource Center it allows for crossover and great collaboration amongst the departments and divisions that are there. So between Elder Services, Economic Support, Veterans Services, etc. they can provide comprehensive services for the clients that we serve in a modern beautiful facility. So the staff are excited our clients it's a win-win for everyone. So very glad to see that this transition happened and in addition it is saving the county about $80,000 a year because we no longer have the lease that we're paying at the Job Center where Economic Support was formerly located. Okay next up is the ARPA task force initiatives so as you may recall in June the county board voted on the various initiatives that the six task forces proposed and in front of you is the list of a couple of the highlights from those task forces so I won't name them I know you guys have heard a number of presentations on ARPA and the task forces etc but we're very proud and grateful that the board supported the process with the engagement and collaboration of so many different people throughout the community to put together those recommendations and then support them financially with the ARPA dollars. We've been working closely with the entities that will be carrying out those projects some both internally and some externally and we're very excited to see that the impact that they have in our community and then just to give a quick status report on the ARPA funding to date the county board has obligated 18.5 million so we have about 3.8 million left and that needs to be obligated by the end of 2024. Rocky Knoll despite all of the challenges that they have out there with staffing the pandemic etc we are so proud that they were able to maintain their five-star rating for the fifth consecutive year that is something that the other nursing homes in the community cannot say we are the only five-star facility and we're very proud to maintain that especially due to all of the hardships that we've endured as as it relates to staffing and this is really a commitment or this achievement shows the commitment to quality and the dedication that our staff have to the residents out there so we're very proud of this and you can see there's a couple of fun photos there my particular favorite is the the resident who is dancing with Moscow the mascot from Lakeland University who is out there to visit in addition to maintaining their five-star rating as many of you know we've been making a lot of enhancements at Rocky Knoll to the building and creating a very home-like space for the residents and it's just beautiful I was just talking to the Deputy Finance Director earlier who's out there today saying how how nice it is so I encourage you all to get out to Rocky Knoll and see it for yourself in addition Kayla Clinton and her team have been working to provide a number of opportunities for recruitment and retention of staff we have a lot of programs in place and she continues to work with our local schools being LTC in Lakeland and how we can enhance training opportunities for staffing positions so we hope that Rocky Knoll continues with the good work and continues to maintain their staffing and increase their staffing so that we can increase our census because that is good for everyone next up is the Highway 23 expansion is finally complete all the way to Fond du Lac previously the portion in Sheboygan County that had been done first but now the expansion all the way into the City of Fond du Lac is done there was a ribbon cutting ceremony held in October to celebrate you might recognize some of the faces there in the in the photo cutting the ribbon and this forlain expansion as many of you are well aware was so critical to enhancing the safety and is vital to our economic development so we're so glad that this is finally done I know many of us who travel that road are grateful to have a safe and much faster ride I know Supervisor Brower travels that road every single day and is glad to see that done in addition to the road expansion the old plank road trail which runs along the highway was also expanded and that now runs from the City of Sheboygan all the way to the City of Fond du Lac and then one other fun fact on this project which you may have heard over the years but when this project was originally enumerated nearly 30 years ago it was said to cost forty two million dollars and because of delays inflation etc the total cost of that project ended up at 173 million dollars so to Adam's point earlier about kicking the can down the road and things just becoming more expensive when you delay this is a prime example of that the airport in 2022 the county board approved the county offering FBO services at the airport and this is there's a couple objectives here one to provide services such as dispensing fuel offering transparent and competitive pricing and just enhancing the quality of service to the people that visit the airport in addition one of the other primary goals is to eliminate the tax subsidy that is required to operate the airport so we're very excited in 2023 to get underway with that and we want to make sure that when there's people coming to the airport whether it's for business or pleasure whether they're coming to Gulf or go to road America or whatever the case is that someone's utilizing our airport we want to make sure that they receive the highest level of service and feel welcome when they come to our community and perhaps if they're coming for business reasons that they contemplate staying so a lot of great things happening at the airport and excited to see that continue in 2023 strong fiscal track record so this is the the other two graphs that you may be familiar seeing the one on your left is showing the tax rate and the one on the right is showing the tax levy so again i know these are a little tricky to see but the tax rate for 2023 that the board adopted as part of the annual budget process is 4.37 that is a decrease of 8.28 percent and will be the seventh consecutive year that the property tax rate has gone down so that is something that we can all be be proud of and then the tax levy on the right for 2023 is a 1.66 percent increase so sheboygan county has a collaborative budget development process we have healthy reserves a strong bond rating we really are in very solid financial condition and these two charts illustrate that for us so going into 2023 we're in great position in addition the finance department received the certificate in financial excellence in financial reporting for the last eight years and that's really attribute to the finance department and all of their hard work and we appreciate all of the time that they put in supporting us not only throughout the budget development process but throughout the entire year and last but not least the county administrator who you just heard speak a little earlier as you know adam worked for the county for about 24 years he was our chief administrative officer he was hired in 1999 on January 3rd as he mentioned earlier began his new role as the secretary of the dnr but one of the i guess i don't know if this is an accomplishment that's certainly a milestone it will be very different not having adam at the helm but we're currently the process for recruiting a new county administrator is underway and as adam mentioned earlier we have a strong team in place and i think good things are on the horizon for shabuigan county but we will certainly miss adam and his leadership and want to thank him for all of the good things that he did for the county over those 24 years there's far too many as he mentioned there's a theme here if you can't tell between our two presentations far too many accomplishments and far too many people to name we'd be here all night so just wanted to say thank you adam for your years of service and if you wouldn't mind chairman catch and vice chair obler and adam if you could come up here for just a quick moment on behalf of the county adam we just wanted to give you your plaque and say officially thank you in front of many supervisors current and past and thank you for your service and dedication to the county so that is all i had for my report tonight again thank you adam thank you mr chairman consideration of committee reports executive committee resolution number 15 regarding supporting housing development at dw green base shabuigan campus recommended to adopt as amended supervisor gearing thank you mr chairman i move for adoption as amended thank you supervisor gearing supervisor brawler i will support that motion thank you supervisor brawler under discussion okay i just um and i want to thank the deputy administrator uh for kind of clarifying some things about this proposal and also the campus executive officer but just for my own peace of mind that this resolution tonight is not confirming that we're moving forward with any housing development but that this is to get more information and probably go back into the two committee process because i still have a lot of questions is that is that accurate and i'm happy to speak to that yes that is accurate this resolution is a policy decision from the board indicating a willingness and a desire to move forward with exploring housing options on the campus any further discussion seeing none please vote resolution number 22 regarding a questioning state of wisconsin review and revise the compensation rates for entry-level and experienced assistant district attorneys recommendation to adopt supervisor emel thank you mr chairman will make a motion to adopt thank you supervisor emel supervisor wagner thank you mr gerald second that motion thank you supervisor wagner under discussion supervisor clark the chair just wondering i think there was some discussion at our last meeting about if we were going to do something for about the public defenders as well and their hey is that something we were considering or county's association thank you hi and i can respond to that you and i are set up kind of odd tonight that i can't really see you um so the short answer to that is that i am working to put together a letter that i would then submit to the law committee and i believe it's the executive committee um and so as opposed to a resolution which would follow our normal introduction and referral process we wanted to be able to get that out to the various entities a bit quicker so i do have a draft letter back at my office which i will be submitting shortly and i did uh indicate to the district attorney that i would review that with him first so that he's comfortable with it as well any further discussion seeing none please vote he was approved unanimously resolution number 23 regarding authorizing application for department of natural resources surface water grant recommendation to adopt supervisor distrote thank you mr chairman i move to adopt resolution number 23 thank you supervisor distrote supervisor clark thank you mr chair i'll second thank you supervisor clark any further um any further discussion supervisor weigner i just thought maybe we could just hand this to the incoming dnr secretary and save the post that you're something somehow some way just a thought thank you supervisor weigner any other discussion seeing none please vote unanimously with that i will hand the gavel to the vice chair thank you mr chair resolutions to be introduced this evening from resolution number 25 from the executive committee regarding approving the use of american rescue plan act funds number six thank you that'll be referred to the finance committee resolution number 26 from finance committee regarding carryover of unexpended 2022 appropriations to 2023 that will be referred to the executive committee resolution number 27 from planning resources agriculture and extension regarding approving permanent easement for american transmission company that will also be referred to exec resolution number 28 from transportation committee regarding authorizing alcard lakes vote america right at first refusal and option to purchase thank you that'll go be referred to the executive committee also there are no ordinances tonight to be introduced so supervisor to sturdy give mr vice chairman i move to adjourn i will second that motion