 I'd like to call the order of the Tuesday April 28th meeting of the Sheboygan County Board of Supervisors for a side of a business compliance with the open meeting. The agenda was posted on the 24th at 2 p.m. Do you please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? The Pledge of Allegiance is to the right of the United States of America and to the republic of the United States, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Next item is roll call. Supervisor Smith. Supervisor Gruber. Supervisor Schneider. Supervisor. Supervisor Montemayor. Here. Supervisor Clark. Here. Supervisor Nelson. Here. Supervisor Broadjack. Here. Supervisor Kacz. Here. Supervisor Schobert. Here. Supervisor Brower. Here. Supervisor Jorgensen. Here. Supervisor Zugelbauer. Here. Supervisor Nenig. Here. Supervisor Abler. Here. Supervisor Kulo. Here. Supervisor Dan. Here. Supervisor Wagner. Here. Supervisor Emel. Here. Supervisor Ojay. Here. Supervisor Hoffman. Here. Supervisor Hilflink. Here. Supervisor Hillbillink, here, Supervisor Boseman, here. Supervisor Veldman, here. Supervisor Garry, here, Supervisor Tostrui, here. 25 Supervisors present. Thank you. Next item of business is approval of the April 21st, 2020 Journal. Supervisor Brauer. I'll show you approval. Thank you, Supervisor Brauer. Supervisor Hillbillink. Second. Thank you, Supervisor Hillbillink. Is there any discussion? Okay, then all those in favor of approval of the journal say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Next item is the appointments by the executive committee. Do we have a motion? Supervisor Wagner. I move for approval. Thank you, Supervisor Wagner. Is there a second? Supervisor Adler. Thank you, Supervisor Adler. Any discussion? If we're given the target to see the lights are kind of in the eyes. All those in favor of the County Board Committee appointments say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Locations. Finance. The Lower East Theater down here. Health and Human Services upper west theater up in this corner. Health Care Center down the hallway and down the stairs like you're leaving the building. It's the first room on your right. Room 7001. Human Resources down here. Law and Art Gallery past the entrance here where you came in. Planning Resources, Agriculture and Extension down that same far hallway down the stairs and to the left room 7006. Right next door to that is Property Room 70010 and the upper east theater by that white board is Transportation. Okay, and with that we'll recess to Organizer Committees. Okay, we'll reconvene tonight's meeting. Roll call, please. Supervisor Smith. What is it? Supervisor Gruber. Here. Supervisor Schneider. Here. Supervisor Montagnier. Here. Supervisor Clark. Here. Supervisor Nelson. Here. Supervisor Projack. In attendance. Supervisor Kach. Here. Supervisor Schover. Here. Supervisor Brower. Here. Supervisor Jorgensen. Here. Supervisor Ziegelbauer. Here. Supervisor Nennig. Here. Supervisor Abler. Here. Supervisor Cullo. Here. Supervisor Gamm. Here. Supervisor Wagner. Here. Supervisor Emel. Here. Supervisor OJ. Here. Supervisor Hoffman. Here. Supervisor Hibbling. Here. Supervisor Bosman. Here. supervisor Belvin, supervisor Gehring, and supervisor Tostridi, all 25 are present. All right, next is public address. There are none. Letters, communications, and announcements. We have none. Okay, how many administrators report? Thank you Mr. Chairman, I am going to remove my mask for this report so if the chair wants to move to the side a little bit more, or Cheryl does that some of you, otherwise I think we've got ample distance, isn't this something? Well, I hope everything went well tonight, it appeared to do so, I think this is a compliment all involved with how this is working at the theater, so well done. I wanted to share a couple of things, first, if you feel your committee assignment is not going to keep you busy enough, and you're looking to do more, and as you know as a newly elected county board supervisor, as a county board supervisor, you can attend any committee meeting you wish, and listen and learn and participate in that discussion with the committee chair's prerogative, but you're encouraged, especially as a new board member, to go around and visit other committees and go to different departments and don't hesitate to reach out to me or any department head for insight, you know you can do that, but if you're looking to do more, you want to get more engaged, in your email today, my executive assistant Elaine Bosman sent out a memorandum, sharing that there are literally 75 advisory committee appointments available, 75, so again if you're someone who is looking for a little bit more or want to be directly engaged, please look at that email attachment, if you didn't receive it, it was again distributed today, and look at all the different advisory committees that you can participate on, many of them, in fact most of them the chair will make those appointments as an elected official, if it's a citizen member, I generally do, and then some, in some instances the committee actually makes the appointment, but please follow up with Chairman Bernkacz, either through email or phone call, whatever you prefer, but let him know if you're interested, Elaine will coordinate and she does an excellent job with that, but a lot of opportunity to get more involved if you're so inclined. I want to thank Marilyn Montemayor, because at the last meeting we were sitting here, and as the elections were proceeding, she whispers to me, you got to take some photos, this is historic, and I thank you, thank you for that prompting, Supervisor Montemayor, Emmett Feldner was here, and I know he took a picture and was kind enough to put it on the front of the Plymouth Review, so thank you Emmett, and we got some shots of Elaine and Greg and the sheriff getting everyone's votes, but I was able to take a few snapshots while I was up here and we shared that with you as well. Marilyn just shared with me before I came up here that, you know, with all this going on with the coronavirus, we really should be documenting this as well, because again, historic times, many of us will look back years from now and hopefully go, wow, we got through it and we did the best we could, and to her credit, I not only appreciated that comment, but being old school myself, I have a binder now. All of six inches thick with all of the daily updates from our public health staff, all of our news releases, every order that came from the governor or from state public health, and it's very helpful to me, because as I pull things together I can quickly look at that rather than trying to find it as a younger person would do on the on the internet. So I wanted to briefly give you an overview of just where we've been in just the last six weeks. For many of us it feels much much longer than that, but we we've gone through a lot in a short period of time. You know, it was just on March 11th, March 11th that Wisconsin had six confirmed cases in the entire state. I was at your March 17th County Board meeting, the last one we had in the County Board chambers, and that night I reported to you that on March 17th we had 72 confirmed cases across the state. 72, 4 in Sheboyton County. April 28th, we now have 6,289 Wisconsin confirmed cases. 48 in Sheboyton County. That number has increased dramatically, but the silver lining is thanks to the wonderful job particularly people have done in Sheboyton County with social distancing and all the sacrifices that have been made, whether you're essential or non-essential, as it stands today we have five active cases. So if you look at that daily update that our public health staff provide and the dashboard that was just included, it really quickly gives you a quick snapshot of where we've been, how we're doing, and what's happening with the curve, and fortunately the recovered cases continue to go up and the active cases continue to go down. We certainly hope that that trend continues. That historical quick snapshot, December of 2019 coronavirus is detected. December of 2019 is throughout numerous countries around the world. On January 30th, 2020 the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a public health emergency month later. On March 12th, Governor Tony Evers declared a public health emergency. On March 13th, President Donald Trump proclaimed a national emergency. On March 13th, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services ordered statewide school closures. I can remember that week real vividly because all of the state superintendents or school superintendents rather were like, okay the governor has ordered the closure but it doesn't have to happen today. They had until March 18th to implement it but of course some school districts were feeling, gee should we do it sooner rather than later? They were seeking input from our public health staff. A lot of uncertainty that week but ultimately all the schools as you know were closed. Guidance at the state and federal level was changing daily if not hourly. I mean it was really difficult to respond to the information and share it with our citizens in a unified manner because as soon as you got something ready to send out literally we got different guidance from the state or federal government. For example, we received guidance limiting non-essential gatherings to over 1,000, to 250, to 50, to 10 and less than one week. It was difficult to keep up and respond to it and communicate it and then have to change it the next day or have information ready to send out and literally minutes before you hit the send button you needed to update it. On March 16th, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services ordered that all public and private mass gatherings of 50 or more people were prohibited. So very quickly early March those numbers continued to go down. On the 17th just the next day the Sheboygan County Board you declared a state of emergency in Sheboygan County to empower the county administrator to undertake whatever is necessary and expedient for the health safety welfare in good order for our citizens. That was a 60-day authorization that's good through May 16th and that's all the time I have. I'm hoping that we won't need to extend that beyond May 16th. Obviously that'll be your decision and we'll see what is in the best interest of our community. On March 17th that same day the last day we held our County Board meeting in the County Board chambers, non-essential businesses and gatherings were reduced to 10 with some exemptions. For example those exemptions included health care providers, grocery stores, gas stations, auto repair centers, manufacturing, processing, distribution and production, utility and transportation services and of course state local government. I mean this is just so rapidly unfolding. Three days later on March 20th the Wisconsin Department of Health Services updated its mass gathering ban again and provided further clarity and more exemptions including exempting commercial and non-profit entities, childcare facilities, construction sites and projects including public works and remodeling projects, financial institutions and services, food production and distribution, hotels, lodging and laundromats. So a lot of activity about essential non-essential what's exempt what's not. All activities that were exempt require and continue to require social distancing, use of personal protective equipment and other safeguards. I think for many people now it's just becoming common sense. Businesses are taking action, we're all taking action to protect one another. On March 24th the Wisconsin Department of Health Services took further action and the safer at home order was made. We're hearing a lot more about that in the media, the safer at home order. This order further defined essential activities, essential government functions, essential travel, non-essential operations. What's prohibited, what's not and extended the governor's order or at the state public health order depending on how you want to look at it through May 26th. That's what we're currently under. Those last few orders really didn't change a whole heck of a lot other than further define and clarify what the original order was setting out to do. Republican leadership has since filed the lawsuit challenging the governor's authority on extending it to May 26th. We're all aware of that, we're reading about that. There may be some outcome to that here within the next week but what's rather interesting about that process and the time and resources that are going into that challenge is that regardless of the outcome the state Wisconsin Department of Health Services already has the statutory authority to act in the best interest of citizens health and well-being. So I'm not so clear how much that's going to change if it goes through. The legislature could come in and remove or eliminate the state Wisconsin Department of Health Services statutory authority that's already there they could change that but right now public health has a lot of authority to take actions and put orders in place that are the best entrance of citizens health and safety. So there you have it. That was just four weeks. Remarkable it's all played out. Sheboygan County government plans and preparations I share your pride with the teamwork that's being exhibited here. It's been a remarkable thing to be a part of. Our Health and Human Services Director Matt Stripmoder who I see here today, our Division of Public Health Star Grossman, Libby Jacobs our public information officer you heard from some of them at that March meeting. They continue to do just stellar work really sharp professional dedicated our emergency management director Steve Steiner. Steve reports directly to the sheriff they do good work but Steve Steiner he's all in and thankfully his 20 years of experience does good work. They're providing key timely critical information to the public and I've heard Senator Devin Lemieux and a number of people share that when they look at our Sheboygan County website that they get to see another county that has a better one and again that's a reflection on our team and the people I just mentioned. Bernie Romer our purchasing agent that we share with the city of Sheboygan. He's been around now for 20 years as well. This gentleman I mean he can find things and to his credit in early March even before orders were coming down or emergencies were being proclaimed we were working he was working to find personal protective equipment. We knew we were going to have to get what we could because of course we're at the first county that this was happening and we're learning from county south of us and other states and other countries to Bernie's credit he was able to acquire a stockpile it's a minor one adequate one but we have been able to help people as needed and certainly one of the first things we wanted to do is get PPE to our own and operated nursing home Rocky Noel. Every Monday morning at 7 30 we have a pandemic administrative panel. It's key community leaders that come together and talk about what they're doing and how they're preparing and what actions or steps they've taken. It includes representatives of the hospitals and clinics, health care providers, emergency responders, obviously public health, sheriff's department. I mean the schools Jamie Schramm who helps set this up for us today thank you Jamie he's always on those calls they give updates and it's an effective way for us to share and work in collaboration and sometimes the level of information shared feels a little light but without question the passion of everyone involved the commitment to work together and help one another it's there it's real and I'll share an example in a moment. Rocky Noel we were the first county in the area to close the visitors on March 12th we took decisive action right away and it contributed to protecting our residents and staff so I compliment Kayla and her team for the work they've been doing the contingency plans they have in place I think Rocky Noel continues to be a leader in Sheboy and Coney and throughout the region. Our new HR director Dennis Miller. Dennis with a Saturday he had to head out Dennis is down here in front if you haven't had a chance to meet Dennis please take the time to do so he's been here six or seven weeks now and talk about getting thrown in to the fire but Dennis immediately was engaged with policy development how does how do we provide employees with emergency sick leave FMLA vacation what does that look like what if they can't take vacation what adjustments do we make all of that needs to be charted and written very effectively and communicated and Dennis has been doing a great job and then just giving our staff some comfort they're scared they're essential employees and people are coming and going and depending on your age your health conditions what have you there's different angst throughout our 800 plus employees and to the credit of HR we now have 180 employees who voluntarily are working from home so that created a safer work environment we limited public access right away on March 24th to our county administration building in all the buildings when I say limited please call ahead make an appointment go to the website use good judgment you don't have to come in to do your family tree now is not the time to do it right on April 2nd we up the ante and we required the public to come in appointment only shut down the second and third floor of the administration building we've taken steps to protect our staff and to protect the public and the secured entrance that you supported we have at the courthouse thanks to your support your leadership and the good work of Corey staff and the Sheriff's Department has that made a difference and protecting not only our staff but the public so that's worked out well and Jim to be bus his heart building services staff and cleaning and doing deep cleaning more so than ever before as you can imagine just like all businesses and and anybody should be doing if they want people to come and be a customer employees to be safe but in addition to the deeper cleaning Jim took the lead to work with the staff to put plexiglass and other safeguards in place so if you go to the county clerk's office now and most of you probably haven't right but if you do walk in there if you make an appointment and you go in there Cheryl and John are protected because there's a big sheet of plexiglass across their entire counter and now when people come in based on appointment the register of deans or HR or whoever it may be they can go down to the court to the county clerk's office meet with the person there based on an appointment be behind protective plexiglass so the employee and the customers are safer if they need to go to a conference room they can do so and have social distancing wear masks we really haven't seen a lot of people come in I mean the traffic's gone down significantly but if someone has to come in for a birth certificate or whatever it may be they can do so and they can be served safely I mentioned the teamwork earlier and you've some of you have heard me say this before but you learn a lot about your team during a crisis you really do and when COVID-19 was detected and sadly we had our first death associated with COVID-19 at Sonny Ridge did we learn a lot about one another ultimately there were 19 individuals there between staff and residents that were positive for the coronavirus it was essentially the largest outbreak we've had in Shmoyden County to date hopefully we won't see another and it could happen to any nursing home any nursing home this could happen they had 90 residents and a lot of more family members that were obviously scared or concerned 150 employees half of which who weren't sure if they should come to work or not whether they thought they potentially had COVID-19 or we're just scared significant staffing needs it was a crisis and within 48 hours I participated in teleconferences led by our public health team people I mentioned earlier getting the state on the line getting the Army Corps not the Army Corps the National Guard on the line getting our hospital providers on the line I mean it was all hands-on deck and what was really noteworthy for me and I'll never forget this I'll just never forget how everyone pulled together but unlike a fire where everyone will just run to that fire do what they have to do and get that fire out and help that family need and go home everyone together but it was a cautious what do we do next how do we make sure we're set safe our staff are safe our families are safe when we go home it was a more guarded approach to how we respond to emergency I'd never experienced that in my career St. Nick's and Aurora stepped up immediately provided staffing support to bring some immediate need to that facility and they needed it and what a difference that made sunny Ridge employees I can't say enough about them they're like any nursing home a lot of hard-working dedicated caring staff and for those that felt healthy or perhaps weren't as scared or didn't have other sensitivities did they work hard to take care of those residents and protect those residents and ultimately at the end of the day we avoided a broader spreading of the coronavirus the numbers stayed at 19 and so far so good but it really taught me a lot about I knew we had good people but to see how they all came together and on a Friday teleconference on a Saturday morning teleconference National Guard is there Sunday everyone was tested all employees and residents it was really well done so finally next steps ahead we're all getting tired of this the levels of angst and trepidation stress are all over the board some of our staff are so consumed with this I mean they're tired fortunately we've been able to bring some additional staff resources to bear especially for public health other staff probably tired of working at home but we're working there's a lot of people in our community that are stuck at home and wondering how they're gonna put food on the table or if they're gonna have a job to return to there are others who are so concerned about their own health they dare not come close to anyone else or go to a grocery store it would whatever it may be the angst is all across the board I've shared with some of you my wife's nurse and my two daughters are in the healthcare field they are in the front lines it's just amazing to see the different levels of stress and angst that everyone feels but I do think that I think Sheboygan County hopefully has seen the worst of it I hope so when we've seen our numbers continue to go down with the active cases and that's happened now for a couple of weeks that's very encouraging none of us in this room know knows what's going to happen next and none of us have the answer but it's why all of us need to pull together and work it through and that's what's been happening at the state level we're following the guides of state public health trying to be as consistent as we can provide ideas suggestions the White House came out with guidance and CDC came out with guidelines for opening up America again came out I think two three weeks ago governor Tony Evers in the wisconsin department of health services came out with badger bounce back plan doesn't roll up the tongue the badger bounce back plan it is very consistent with the guidance that the White House our president CDC has been sharing very consistent that's a good thing because there's so much uncertainty already the more we can be consistent in messaging the better no plan is perfect yet to see the perfect plan yet to see anything that's come out of the door and it's just perfect no doubt there's room for improvement so 18 members of the Wisconsin legislature wrote a letter to governor Evers with a four-week plan demanding that it be implemented immediately and that reminded me of dr. Fauci saying we won't be necessarily establishing the timetable the coronavirus will be establishing the timetable so I thought that was an interesting approach but feedback was provided by the legislature by these 18 members and then just this week the Wisconsin manufacturing commerce commerce came out with a back-to-business plan I read all of them this week went through every single one of them and believe it or not it doesn't take that long you can get through all of these in about an hour the Wisconsin manufacturing and commerce back-to-business plan I think has some good ideas in it I think there's some good thoughts in there so what we need our state leaders who are willing to sit down at the table and talk just like we do at the county level just like every successful business does we need state leaders who can sit down and put their egos aside and focus on the health of our state and our citizens and talk and the fact that we don't have that is a stronger expectation in this state blows me away just blows me away we're wasting time and resources when that doesn't happen so all of you have people that you know at the state level Republican Democrat independent I don't care we should expect them to talk I got a call from a supervisor Jerry Jorgensen yesterday and he asked me some good questions and I wanted to end on that essentially was asking well how are we looking here in Shevoi County because this Badger bounce back plan involves a number of milestones or steps that need to be met before we would potentially open for business and I mean fully open because there is a lot of business going on we just need to keep turning that dial but if we're going to fully open by May 26th the Badger bounce back plan involves downward trajectory of COVID-19 cases reported unfortunately we're not seeing a downward trajectory necessarily in Shevoi County we're seeing more cases but the trajectory of positive cases are active cases is trapped like a rock and that's the key one to focus on and that is really encouraging we must have robust lab capacity and testing and that's where supervisor Jorgensen called me and said what's going on with testing you know I get that question a lot so I appreciated him raising it yesterday how are we doing with testing the answer is not that good we're not doing that good in Shevoi County with testing we're still just testing people that show significant symptoms or if the National Guard comes in because there's a crisis and tests every resident every staff person we're not testing to the extent we should be it is encouraging that lab capacity appears to be improving it is encouraging that there's more tests available including the swabs and the things you need to do the test but it's not where it needs to be and we have to continue to put more resources in that area because if there's a big spike if we turn the dial and there's a big surge we've got to have the ability to do adequate testing and I think I think the public is going to demand more testing to feel safer going back to work or being a customer strong capability to do contact tracing that was another key in this plan we're fortunate there we have eight individuals in our health and human services public health division who do tracing and we've just added four more LTE's and some of these LTE's were prior nurses and public health officers and really sharp people so we're we're in good shape there and we could we could take more capacity there so I'm feeling like we've checked that box reasonably well for Shevoi County increased health care capacity I think we've checked that box as well in fact if you talked to anybody from the hospitals they're very quiet very quiet emergency rooms elected surgery it hasn't been happening why because they were preparing for the surge that they ramp up preparing their contingency plans they took appropriate steps but because the social distancing and the other steps we've taken it works so well and good fortune they're quiet but we are prepared now with our hospitals and clinics to really be able to take on a surge and do more so I feel like we've checked that box for Shevoi and County and then finally procurement of PPE it is maddening to me when I hear about anyone in the direct care field direct care professionals that don't have PPE and it's personal for me because I mentioned my family but it should be personal for anybody's family if your loved ones are in the front lines and they don't have adequate PPE by now something is wrong and the feedback we're getting is that right now in Shevoi County what we have at all of our nursing homes and hospitals hospitals is adequate it's kind of a soft well we're doing better than we were four six weeks ago and that's for sure we're getting good reports that it's better and our stockpile is better we have a state stockpile we have the county stockpile that's all coordinated now through Steve Steinert our emergency management director that's better than it was four six weeks ago so overall with the Badger bounce back plan initiatives I think Shevoi County is in pretty good shape but this is not a county by county plan it's a statewide plan and that clearly will be one of the ongoing discussions I think at the state level will continue to be looked at from a statewide perspective or will they treat Bayfield different than they do Milwaukee personally I think there might be some room for some give-and-take there but we got but the data has to drive it the science has to drive it and obviously we need to keep people safe so there is a high-end overview on where we've been where we're at and what we're looking at and overall I'm encouraged I'm feeling hopeful and I feel like things have eased back a little bit for our team the angst the stress isn't quite what it was four weeks ago I mean it's people are maybe getting more used to it I hope it doesn't last long term I hope we're not meeting in this theater all year but I want to compliment all of you for the changes you've made to keep on another safe and the leadership for how we continue to meet and get the the citizens business done so be well thank you report on elections and meetings alright finance committee chair is supervisor Gary vice-chair to student secretary supervisor obler and the remaining members supervisor Wagner and Ziegelbar meeting the admin building room 119 302 when needed second and fourth Wednesdays at 3 30 health and human services committee chairperson and supervisor Hoffman vice chair supervisor Brower secretary supervisor Gary additional members supervisors Schobert Schneider and Montemayor meeting location and health human services first and third Tuesdays at 8 a.m. health care center chairperson and supervisor Beltman vice chair supervisor Brower secretary supervisor Bosman additional members supervisors damp and Montemayor will be meeting rock you know a west conference room second Wednesdays at 9 a.m. HR committee chairperson is supervisor damp vice chair is supervisor to sturdy secretary supervisor project with supervisor Schneider and knitting meeting location as the admin building room 302 fourth Thursday second Thursday when necessary at 3 30 the law committee chairperson supervisor Nenek vice chair supervisor Jorgensen secretary supervisor Hoffman additional members supervisor Schobert meeting at the LEC West conference room first Thursday of the month first third Thursday if necessary at 4 15 planning resources and an extension committee chairperson supervisor obler vice chair supervisor OJ secretary supervisor Clark additional members supervisors meeting at UW extension room 5024 3 30 on the second and fourth Tuesdays property committee chairperson supervisor Nelson vice chair supervisor hobling secretary supervisor Imel additional members supervisors cool and Smith admin building room 119 first and third Tuesdays at 4 30 and finally the transportation committee chairperson supervisor to sturdy vice chair supervisor Wagner secretary supervisor Boseman additional members development and Zegel Bauer meeting location either the highway complex or airport first Monday of the month at 9 a.m. thank you next item of businesses adjournment supervisor to sturdy supervisor thank you all in favor of adjournment say aye