Minutes for November 5^th, 1997
(approved February 11, 1998)

Saline County Study Steering Committee in conjunction with the Saline County Study Management Team

Wednesday November 5, 1997 6:00 PM CST
Farm Credit Services Building, Highway 65 North, Marshall

Kathy Borgman, Patti Carr, Vince Buck, Richard Clemens, Wayne McReynolds, Mark Belwood, Tim Simmons, Marc Harris, David Perkins

Corey Lyon, LeAnn Haling

Russell Dehn, Mike Dillon, Richard Pemberton, Cynthia Crawford, Gerry Snapp, Tom Johnson

Chris Fulcher, Darin Starr, Dennis DiPietre

Chris Barnett, John Lory, Mubarak Hamed, Mary Hendrickson, Vincent Burke

The reading of the minutes of the previous meeting was dispensed with as everyone had received a printed copy of the minutes prior to the meeting. There were no additions or corrections to the minutes, and the minutes were approved. The report on the August 20 meeting regarding Kettering Issues forums was given. Because this report was also available in written form prior to the meeting the report was not actually read. There were no additions to or discussion of the report on the Kettering meeting.

At the previous meeting the Chair and Recorder had been given the responsibility for determining a custodian for the Steering Committee's records. The state's Sunshine Law requires that each public governmental body have such a custodian. It was announced that the University Extension office would serve in that capacity.

The Communications Subcommittee has not yet been appointed.

Richard Pemberton noted that several new CAFOs are currently being planned for the county. Some of these are new operations and some are expansions of existing operations. He suggested that the group consider adopting a resolution in favor of a moratorium on CAFO construction.

Discussion of economic baselines to use for the study was next. Tom Johnson first made some comments in regard to some of the graphs that he had presented at the last meeting. He said that the recent upward change in employment has been due to people commuting to work from outside the county and not to a change in population; therefore, jobs--not a change in the population--has been the driving force in increasing employment. He said that the per capita income baseline is unlikely to grow at the same rate as employment. He said that jobs and a higher per capita income provide a double draw in regard to population. In subsequent discussion Tyson (now Excel), ConAgra, Fitzgibbon Hospital, Kayes Engineering and the Habilitation Center were mentioned as some of the businesses responsible for the increase in jobs. Tom Johnson said that one additional job in the service sector is created for every five economic base jobs created.

The comment was made that a lack of low-income housing is currently a deterrent to people moving into the area; also, businesses were hampered from expanding by a lack of trainable labor. Tom Johnson referred to the comment that Daryl Hobbs had made at the retreat that the trend is that people want a quality environment in a rural area and they want to be able to work at home. The comment was made that it seemed that there is now a trend for more young people to stay in the county or to return to the county after obtaining higher education.

Tom Johnson said he needed to have a consensus on the employment and per capita income treads in order to continue his work on the Saline County baseline. The group settled on using 1.4% for employment and 1.2% for per capita income.

The next matter of business involved prioritizing the issues to be researched. Because of funding limitations and time limitations, all issues cannot be addressed by the current study. A sheet was passed out listing six researchable issues that had been identified from issues prioritized at the retreat and subsequent meetings. The listed issues are as follows:

1. What is the capacity of land in Saline County to assimilate additional animal manure nutrients, and where in the county is that capacity? What would be the consequences of exceeding these capacities?
2. Are there legal options available to the State and/or county governments to influence or restrict agricultural uses of land? What would be the economic and environmental impacts of restricting the availability of land for certain types of animal agriculture? How would such restrictions affect landowners, property values, tax revenues and County services?
3. What effect, if any, do large-scale animal confinement operations have on the value of nearby property? How would the location, size and technology of animal operations affect the level and distribution of odor?
4. Are there particularly valuable and vulnerable natural areas in the County that justify protection efforts? What would be the economic impacts of protecting these sites?
5. Are there particularly valuable and vulnerable water resources in the County that justify protection efforts? What would be the economic impacts of protecting these water resources?
6. How has County land use changed in recent years and what has been the economic impacts of these changes? How has growth in residential land uses affected county revenues and services?

During discussion concerning prioritizing the researchable issues Russell Dehn stated that he would like to see the study continue for several years (if not continuously). This prompted the question as to whether it would not then be appropriate to start considering applying for a grant.

The motion was made that the six researchable issues be prioritized in the following order: 5, 4, 3, 1, 2, 6. The motion passed with no audible dissent.

A short break was taken.

Mary Hendrickson was introduced to the group. She will be conducting interviews in the process of evaluating the project.

John Lory passed out a sheet listing the Natural Resources Assessment Team's proposed methods for obtaining the necessary additional GIS data for completing various layers. After clarifying that animal feeding operation owners would not be approached to divulge personal information, the methodology was approved.

Mary Hendrickson explained the purpose of the evaluation process.

The next meeting was scheduled for Wednesday January 14, 1998 at 6:00 PM CST. The tentative location for the meeting is the Farm Credit Services Building in Marshall.