 Welcome to Sheboygan County government working for you. My name's Adam Payne, County Administrator and co-host of this program with County Board Chairman, Roger Distruty. And as you know, every month we strive to focus on a different department and often have the department head with us to talk about their roles and responsibilities. And today, I'm real pleased that Aaron Brelt is with us, our Planning and Conservation Director. Welcome, Aaron. Hi, thank you for having me. Good to have you here. Aaron's gonna talk a little bit about the very important roles and responsibilities of the Planning and Conservation Department and a lot going on. The weather's getting a little prettier out there. And Aaron, please set the stage. Why don't we just give our viewers a snapshot, a little bit about yourself when you started with the county, a little bit about your background. Sure, I've been with the county now for just over eight years. Prior to that, I've worked in every sector. I've worked at a private consulting firm. I've owned my own business and now for the last eight years, I've worked in the public sector. So you're unthreshold or retiring? Yeah, I would. Maybe. And so, yeah, so I've been with the county for eight years. Worked for an urban planning consulting firm for four years, right out of school. And then, like I said, I own my own business for a number of years as well. And you live here in Sheboygan, their family man? Yep, live here in Sheboygan with my wife and two kids. Yeah, very nice. Well, we've enjoyed working with you the last eight years. We were just talking a little bit off the air about Aaron's basketball days and softball days, and we're all aging a little bit. Roger used to be a tremendous tennis player amongst other, and back in the day, basketball player, but those days are starting to leave us. Yes, they are. I enjoy watching and coaching my son and daughter, so. There you go, there you go. Well, it's, again, it's good to have you with us. So let's focus on the department a little bit. Big picture, what are the roles and responsibilities of the planning and conservation department? Sure, big picture. We're a regulatory arm of the state, so we maintain and enforce 10 ordinances in our office. And I believe we have about 13 or 14 different programs in our office that we are involved in. A couple of specific things. We maintain all the county's mapping. So if you dial 911, call comes into the sheriff's department, all the mapping behind that, the addressing and everything is maintained in our department. All the county's tax parcel information is maintained in our department. We deal with a lot of environmental and water quality issues on our conservation side. We deal a lot with the agricultural community in helping design buffers on their land to help water runoff into our streams and rivers and lakes and things like that. We design manure pits for certain farms, farm layouts. On the planning side, we work with land owners on shoreland issues, making sure the development's happening correctly along our shoreland zoning district. We also deal with the county's sanitary maintenance program. So I think there's 11,000 sanitary systems in the county that are maintained through a maintenance system in our office as well. 11,000 of them and every three years they are required to be checked and pumped, are they not? That's true, yep, and all that's maintained through our department. Right, right, very good. What's your total operating budget and how many staff do you have? Typically our operating budget is around two, two and a half million. Although last year, through a couple big projects, it was over seven million, so it varies year to year, but I'd say on average it's typically around the two million dollar mark. We have 14 full-time staff in our office in both divisions, both the planning and conservation side, and then 14 total, not in each division. And then there's one individual that is in our office that's not technically a county employee. He's funded through a private grant that coincides with the efforts of the department. So we work with him hand in hand, but he's privately funded through a grant that we got through a local foundation. John Nelson. Yep, John Nelson, next DNR, fish biologist. Our viewers may know that name. He's been around for 30-some years and is well respected. So 14 staff, yet you're a combined planning and conservation department. And I know a number of years ago we compared in contrast at our staffing levels in Sheboygan County with other similar sized counties. What did we learn? I think we're appropriately staffed. I think our TO, the numbers on our TO are down a little bit, but we've streamlined things and made adjustments in the department with co-training people on certain things, and we've made it work over the years. Yeah, my recollection was we were a little bit on the more frugal side, which isn't a surprise for how we operate here, but a compliment to you and your team, because when we consolidated a number of years ago, obviously that created some efficiencies in your staff. They work so well together, a real good group of people. So back to the programs and services a little bit. What are the primary areas you're focusing on now? Listen. This year and over the past few months, the big thing for me has been the Amsterdam Dunes purchase. The county had an opportunity last year to purchase some land in the southeastern part of the county along Lake Michigan for a preservation in Wetland Mitigation Bank area. So that's taken up a lot of my time, a lot of grant writing to try to recoup some of the investment that the county's made into that, and then to restore the area as well. So a lot of different grants have been applied for over the past few months, and hopefully we'll be successful on those. We'll find out here probably early summer where some of those applications are at. So that's taken up a lot of my time. We were fortunate last year in receiving a Brownfields grant to do Brownfield assessments in the county, throughout the county, focusing on old industrial areas or perhaps a parcel of land that's been underutilized or undeveloped or redeveloped for some time because of a pollution issue, leaking underground storage tank or something like that. So we've been working with the communities and identifying projects where we can do the assessment of how bad is the pollution, what's there, what was there, things like that. So we'll be able to fund about 16 of those assessments and then move on to hopefully getting those parcels redeveloped and getting the pollution cleaned up as well. You've had an outstanding track record of tapping into some grants, and of course these allow us to help make good things happen in the community, just as you said with the Brownfields, but perhaps the largest grant that ever fell in our lap that we didn't necessarily go after, but all of a sudden we had the opportunity to do good things was the 25 million non-motorized transportation program grant, which I know that numbers changed a little bit over the years, but another key focus of you and your department. Yeah, absolutely, like you said, it was a very large opportunity for the county and we're coming to the end of that. I mean, there's a few projects still out there that need to be wrapped up this year and a couple more perhaps moving forward, but we're coming to the tail end of that. We, I think we had about 36 total projects funded, 27 of those being infrastructure, and out of those 27 infrastructure, probably over 80 different segments. In one community alone, Sheboygan Falls, it was considered one project, but I believe they had almost 30 different segments that were built in their community. So a very large effect on the overall community. A lot of time has been spent on it and hopefully wrapping it up pretty soon. And that's how you started with Sheboygan County. You were a non-motorized transportation director. Yep, yep. I can't recall exactly what your title was, but that was your role for a number of years before you were promoted to planning and conservation director. That's what I did for the first three and a half, four years of working with the county was focused on that. Who's serving that role now? That's where we have, we combine it in our department. So there's not one specific person, so Emily, myself and others in the department, yep. Little shout out to our advisory committee. You know who you are. I know Erin worked with an advisory committee to help identify where all these infrastructure projects were going to occur throughout the Sheboygan County and how the money was going to be spent and spent most efficiently to create these networks. And I think we had 15, 20 people or 30 people on this advisory committee and how long has it been now since they were created? They were created from the get-go. So when we received the grant back in 06, 06, 07, yep. Time flies. They just banded themselves, I believe, in 2011. And once all the projects had sort of been selected and they felt that they had done their task, they did their job and did it well and it was just time to start implementing things. Well, a shout out of appreciation to all the citizens who participated on that. Of course, they were advisory to people like Chairman Roger Distruty and the county board and of course your liaison committee but their input was really valuable and a lot of good things have happened. In fact, now you've received, the Sheboygan County has received accolades for being one of the nicer areas in the country to go biking. Yep, absolutely. We're one of the League of American Bicyclists, bicycle-friendly counties and there's a number of communities throughout the country that are but not very many counties as a whole. So that was something special. We have to reapply this year every five years. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Roger. Well, as everyone knows, Sheboygan County's got a great track record of holding property taxes in line and now with the caps in line, the state cap imposition, how has the planning and conservation helped keep the budget in control and what steps have you taken to help that along? Sure. Adam alluded to a number of things. We consolidated an apartment with the land and water and became the planning and conservation department. So we gained some efficiencies there, not only from personnel but buildings and whatnot. So equipment, things like that. We've also, again, as Adam alluded to, we've been very active in pursuing grants in our department, which both private and public that we've been able to utilize that for paying for staffing and things like that. So those are probably the big things. And I guess I should say too that we've implemented some fees to help offset the cost reductions that we've had to incur here and there. So we went through the boat landing a few years ago with the boat landing fees and that certainly has helped. So yeah, I think the big thing though are grants. We've been able to help offset some of our costs through grants. And you mentioned the recreation fee and it once was very controversial. Some people didn't like it, but would you explain the status and what some of that money goes to help keep things in line and improve them? Yep, absolutely. So yeah, as you mentioned back in 2010, I mean that was the first thing that fell on my lap when I became planning director was the boat landing fee. And so that was a good learning experience. But I think overall it's proved successful. So every year the dollars that come in, and I'll note that about, I think the average is usually about 15 to 20% out of county dollars in those fees are coming in to help pay for the six boat landings that the county maintains. So we keep the lights on with those dollars, we keep the toilets clean and pumped with those dollars. We've been able to do some infrastructure upgrades with some of the failing peers and dilapidated peers that we've had over the years. So a number of good things. We're able to help pay for a staff person, you mentioned before, how our county differs perhaps differently from, we're one of the few counties in the state that doesn't have a parks department. So when we combine departments and sort of reorganize things, that was one thing that we looked at was having somebody on staff to take care of all of our recreational facilities, boat landings, trails, things like that, parks. So yeah, overall I think it's proof successful, and every once in a while we'll still get a little comment here or there, but overall I think it's, people have accepted it, and overall I think it's all the good things that we've been able to make happen. And would you tell us a little bit about the planning documents and ordinances that are up for an update this year? Sure, our audience won't know this, but last evening or two nights ago at the county board meeting, we had an update of our bicycle and comprehensive pedestrian plan for the county that was recently over the past year, went through the public participation process, we had a survey, things like that. We had one in place when we received the grant that Adam spoke to earlier, but that was essentially out of date, the day we published it because of all the different projects that we had coming forward with that opportunity of funding. This year too, we're also updating our park and open space plan. I believe it's every five years to be eligible for some dollars at the state through the state stewardship program, we have to update that comprehensive plan. And then we'll have two ordinance changes likely coming forward later this year, one being our subdivision ordinance, the county maintains the county subdivision ordinance, so if there's a subdivision or a parcel that splits for this reason or the other, all that comes through our office and that hasn't been updated since the 90s or prior. So that needed some updates and then also our shoreland ordinance will be updated. We were one of the first counties a few years ago to update our shoreland ordinance to reflect the new state language, but there's been some tweaking of that at the state level. So that's sort of a minor change that'll happen to that. And would you tell us a little bit about the county hazardous waste program? Sure, in my mind that's one of the most popular programs and most appreciative programs that I think we take care of in our office. The household hazardous waste program, we run about four to five events per year to collect household hazardous waste from our county's citizens. So every year we get some weird things and things that have been banned for a long time, DDT for one. I believe that was banned in 1972 and every year we continue to get DDT. So since 2001, I believe we've disposed of or properly disposed of hazardous household hazardous waste to the tune of 1.3 million pounds. So we average close to 100,000 pounds of hazardous waste every year. And you gave us an update at last night's county board meeting and you mentioned that you did a survey of how many people would pay a fee and would you tell us a little bit about that to help offset the cost? Sure, yeah, going back to your earlier question about how we've been keeping costs in check. That was one of the fees we implemented through the household hazardous waste program. And in 2012, when we were considering that, we surveyed every car that came through one of our lines that year. And I think it was about 1,300 cars. And 97% of those people said that hands down they would be more than willing to pay a small fee to help offset the cost of that program. 2% said they were 50, 50, maybe. And then 1% was an absolute no. So I mean, very rarely in our line of work do you get 97% of people agreeing on something. So I thought that was pretty spectacular. So good citizens want to do the right thing and they'll pay a little to have the opportunity to get rid of these things. And that's one program, we're a regulatory body. So we don't get very many thank yous very often. But that's one program where we continuously get thank you. Thank you for having this, thank you for doing this. So I enjoy working those Saturdays. And another thing along the same lines are the prescription drugs and how to dispose of them. Would you explain that a little bit to our viewers? Sure, our waste pharmaceutical program, there's a Dropbox at every police station in the county. So the Sheboygan police station, the Falls, the Plymouth, Kohler and Elkhart Lake police stations all have a Dropbox in their front vestibule. So people can get rid of their medication in a proper way. And that's good for a number of reasons environmentally and keeping it out of the wrong hands and from small children or whoever getting at it. So. And the three of us were at a meeting at one of the towns in the southern end of the county and the chairman complimented you and your department on how well you were support for them for their local zoning and the many people don't appreciate the work that you do in concert with the other municipalities and support them with their zoning issues and a great resource for everyone. So thank you for the work you do. Thank you. That'd be nice to wear the white hat a little bit more than the black hat. When like you said in that regulatory role, you can't say yes to everything, but I think overall your staff, they're just so well respected. And when you think about your staff and you've got some zoning administrators like Matt and Kevin and Catherine, some of these people have been around for 20 years or better, have they not? Yeah, we have a lot of good experience in our staff in both divisions. There's been like you said, a number of employees that have been there 20 years plus. So. Eric and Chris, I'll bet you they've been there probably well over 25 years, pushing 30. Eric, Chris and Dave have both been there about 25 years, Eric is almost 30 and then Matt and Kevin are just over 20. Yeah, so if you're not familiar with the planning and conservation department staff through a regulatory situation, whether it's dealing with a zoning situation with a building close to a lake or water, or whether it's a septic situation, but you're interested in putting some trees on your property. I imagine by the time most of the folks see this, that tree sale may have already happened, but one of the other, I think projects, your staff all come together and enjoy working on is your annual tree and shrub program. What happens with that? Yep, that's this week. So I'd say we have one of the biggest tree sale programs in the state and so we sell, this year we had I think close to 650, 700 orders for trees. So people from all over the county and all over the region come to our tree sale. We even get people from Illinois coming to our tree sale who are on their way up north or on their way to Door County that stop in and buy trees on their way up north. So it runs pretty slick. We run it out at the Aging and Disability Resource Center. Which used to be the Land and Water Conservation Department. Yep, that's why it's there. So most people typically pre-register and we have them all bagged and ready for you. You just drive on through. You don't even have to get out of your car and we'll package them up in your trailer or trunk. And then on Saturday we'll have sort of a leftover sale. Some potted stock and things like that that people can come and buy. I've worked it a few times in the past and I love it when we'll have someone order 1,000 trees or 500 trees or whatever it is and they roll up and they got a big old monster trailer behind the truck that they're pulling and we hand them a couple of bags and they have little seedlings in of course. Yeah, they're not buying six, seven foot trees. Except maybe the apple trees. We sell fruit trees that are like that but if you're buying Shagberg Hickory or White Oak or what have you, you'll get something that's about three feet high. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you haven't ever heard of it before or you haven't checked it out, consider it next year because every year the County Land and Water Conservation Department puts it on, they do a nice job with it. Let's go back to something talked about earlier. You mentioned we aren't real big in a Parks Department standpoint. We're a frugal county but with that said, we've got a lot of wonderful attributes going on in this county. When I think of the Shiboy and County Marsh, Gerber Lakes, I mean two beautiful assets that the county is owns and is responsible for. The DNR may help manage the marsh a little bit but we own these facilities and we've got some other parks here and here and there and not a lot like other counties but we do have some real jewels and the most recent one that Chairman Distruty and the County Board and certainly you helped add was the Amsterdam Dunes that you just mentioned. Roll us back a year and a half or two to why did the Board want to purchase this property to begin with? What was the vision? Well one, it's a spectacular piece of property but I think the real driving mission to garner support for was the wetland mitigation aspect of the project so anytime there's a development whether it's public or private and it affects a wetland you have to mitigate that disturbance somewhere else. Generally the rule of thumb is one to one and a half so let's say your project disturbs an acre of wetland. You have to restore or replace that wetland somewhere else to the tune of an acre and a half. So the county's had a number of projects. We've had some local businesses that are looking to expand that are affected by wetlands and in the Lake Michigan Basin and especially in southeastern Wisconsin there's just not anywhere to purchase credits or to establish their own bank so that's sort of how you can do it. You can go at it and create your own bank or permit a responsible piece of property or you can purchase it from a bank that's already been established by somebody. What do you mean establish a bank or create a bank? What's a wetland mitigation bank? Sure, private developer will go out by a piece of farmland that's been drained over the years through drain tile, cut the tile and revert it back to its natural state as a wetland and then they're able to sell credits before re-establishing those and the credits on the open market depending on the type of wetland you're talking about can be anywhere from $50,000 to $70,000 an acre. So it's not a cheap endeavor if you have a project that's affected by one of these and in the past couple of years we've had a few road projects, County Highway J, County Highway LS, the reconstruction of that where we've had to buy a few credits and so the county has been spending dollars that are going up to Douglas County which is where our superior is to purchase credits in that county. That does our citizens no good. They don't have a nice piece of hunting land or some nice open space at the end of the day to people in Douglas County do but we certainly don't hear in our projects and from an environmental standpoint you want it hopefully in the same watershed. So if Sargeno headquarters wants to expand and they're surrounded by a lot of wetland and of course they're not gonna have a practical alternative that's something that most likely is gonna happen or if we have our Sheboygan County Airport and we want to extend a runway and it goes through some wetland well it's not real feasible to completely move your airport or runway same with a county road, a state road, a town road and now thanks to the county board's action we're gonna be poised in Sheboygan County to not only preserve 333 acres of beautiful property along Lake Michigan some of the last remaining on development property from between here and Chicago but also we're gonna be poised for economic development opportunities so when that's Sargeno or Johnsonville or Kohler company or local unit of government wants to expand we're gonna have a bank and be prepared to do that and far more cost effectively. Yep, much more cost effectively. It'll take some time to get it established it's a process but long term I think we'll be looking good. And for some of our viewers they may be wondering well how did you purchase this property? We only have a minute left but real quickly what was the approach there? We looked to the county board and I think we've always said we took a leap of faith in that knowing that there might be some potential grants coming forward to help recoup the county's coffers on that so and it looks like we'll be successful in those we haven't received a definitive word yet but I think things are looking pretty good. It's looking pretty good. $4.2 million of fund balance leap of faith that will get that back in stewardship funds or through other grants and thus far thanks to your good work and others we're looking it's looking pretty encouraging. Yep and at the end of the day if that 4.2 million doesn't come through the property's worth to the tune of seven and a half to eight million. Yeah, yeah we did all right. Well Aaron thank you so much for being here today great high-end overview if anyone has any questions for Aaron Brault our planning and conservation director look us up on the website or stop on in the office if you have suggestions for improvement let us know that as well and if you don't let us know certainly contact your county board supervisor Aaron thank you for the very good work you do I've so enjoyed working with you over the years we've got a pretty dog on good team in place and you're one of our stars so thank you thank you and thank you for joining us next month we're gonna have Greg Schnell with us another one of our shining stars from the highway department to talk about some of the transportation infrastructure projects in place so until then have a great spring and thanks for joining us