City Council meeting to order. Our first uh order of business is the pledge of allegiance. Will you please rise? >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Will the clerk please do the role? >> Council member Clawson >> here. >> Council member Olsen >> here. >> Council member Theiti >> here. >> Council member Garza >> here. >> Mayor Bailey >> here. Uh next on our agenda is open forum. This is the opportunity for anybody to speak on anything that's not on tonight's agenda. Uh we did have a signup sheet out in the entryway and nobody signed up. And based on what I'm seeing in the audience, I don't know that anybody wants to speak on open forum. You're on consent. >> I figured that. Okay. So, with that, I will go ahead and close open form and I'll move to uh the next one, which is adoption of the agenda. >> Move the agenda. >> All right. We have a motion by council member Theiti. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Second by council member Garza. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Opposed. >> Motion carries. Uh six uh uh presentations this evening. We do have four different presentations. The first one is uh always an exciting thing. I guess you say that for the city of Cottage Grove. the citizens love it and that's the spring cleanup uh that we do uh every year and Ryan Berfine, our public works director is going to walk us through this. So, welcome Ryan. >> Thank you, mayor, members of the council. Um you're right. Coming up quickly is our spring cleanup day, always the first Saturday in May. So, May 2nd this year. Um as always, 7:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. down at Cottage Grove Public Works right off the Jamaica Avenue roundabout, West Point Douglas Road. Um overall, very similar to previous years. The one change I want to highlight is uh with Washington County um they've been really trying to get folks to go to the environmental center which you can use uh multiple days a week. So um we aren't planning for electronics recycling because that's a county provided service and they really want to get people to use um that uh that facility in Woodbury. So we're trying to get that word out there as much as we can just so folks are prepared for that um as they come to the event. Uh you can see our uh pricing here uh from our fee table which is pretty consistent with last year's and here's that information on the environmental center in those uh uh handful of days four days a week that they're open at the South Environmental Center. So we're looking forward to it. It's always a fun day and we hope we have weather like last year which was beautiful and not two years ago which was in the 30s and raining the entire day. So um once was enough in a career with weather like that but the guys still did it. They're there. We're all there uh to do a good thing for the community. Any questions? >> And I did see just so I'm going to plug you it in here too. I see you're doing document shredding there during that event. And that's >> correct, Mayor. Yep. That we still do continue to do as the document shredding as well, which is always very popular. >> Yep. All right. Any questions for uh Ryan on this one? >> Thank you, Ryan. Appreciate that. All right. We'll move then to B, which is Arbor Day proclamation. And council member Olsson is going to uh talk or share this one and then he's going to make the motion uh to accept. Go ahead. >> Oh, Mr. Mr. So, three proclamations tonight. This one we do have a handful of slides for um just because there's a handful of events that we have and we like to talk about that um for this uh for this day. So, Arbor Day, talk about it every year. Um, internationally recognized for tree planting, uh, preservation of trees, and then, you know, adding trees to places that we don't have them. The city, uh, continues to be, uh, is at the Tree City USA, I believe believe we're on our 38th year, so we're closing in on 40 years, uh, for that recognition, which is awesome to see. And all these events are part of that uh, that recognition. Uh, the parks department each year has a volunteer tree planting event um, which this time will be on the military trailway corridor. So, it's just north of 70th Street, kind of west of Cedar Hearse Mansion along Juliet Avenue. So, that'll be 1 p.m. on Wednesday, April 22nd. Uh, as always, uh, we have our Arbor Day tree giveaway, um, which we're continuing that method of people can sign up by 8 a.m. on April 22nd, and there's a drawing that we'll have, uh, for these bare root trees, um, which we will deliver to homes on April 24th um, here uh, that day of Arbor Day. So, very popular thing. People need to sign up quick because it fills up very fast. And then, um, we do our our random drawing after that. Uh, finally, we have our Buckthorn pickup. Um, which is another popular one. Uh, people just need to call in is what we ask before April 17th. And then we will haul it away uh the week of April 20th, weather permitting. Um, so that's kind of our third and final uh event that we have. And I'm ready for any questions. Otherwise, we can have the proclamation. Any questions for Ryan at this time? >> What uh what type of tree are you giving away this year? >> You know, that's a great question, Council Member Olsen, and I clearly didn't come prepared because I should have that answer for you given that it's my event and I can't think off the top of my head. So, >> uh I'd like to say it's on our it's probably out on Facebook. Um I can look at Phil it >> and I bet Phil has the information. >> Phil's feverishly his fingers are going. >> I apologize for that. >> Say that it's a great tree, whatever kind of tree it is. It's great. Okay, perfect. >> Is always great. >> On that note, I will move forward here with the proclamation declaring April 24th, 2026 Arbor Day. The proclamation reads as follows. Whereas in 1872, the Nebraska Board of Agriculture established a special day to be set aside for the planting of trees. And whereas this holiday called Arbor Day was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska. And whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation and the world. And whereas trees can be a solution to combating climate change by reducing the erosion of our precious top soil by wind and water, cutting heating and cooling costs, moderating the temperature, cleaning the air, producing lifegiving oxygen, and providing habitat for wildlife. And whereas trees are a renewable resource, giving us paper, wood for our homes, fuel for our fires, and countless other wood products. And whereas trees in our city increase property values, enhance the economic viability of business areas, and beautify our community. And whereas trees, wherever they are planted, are a source of joy and spiritual renewal. And whereas the city of Cottage Grove will host a ceremonial tree planting and volunteer planting event along the military trail corridor at Military Road and Joliet Avenue on April 22nd, 2026 at 1 p.m. Now therefore, the mayor and city council of the city of Cottage Grove, County of Washington, state of Minnesota, hereby proclaim April 24th, 2026 as Arbor Day in the city of Cottage Grove passed this Wednesday, the 15th day of April, 2026, signed by Myron Bailey, mayor. Um, mayor, I will make the motion that we proclaim April 24, 2026 Arbor Day in the city of Cottage Grove. Thank you, Council Member Olsen. I have a motion by Council Member Bros. Do I have a second? >> Call a second. >> Second uh by Council Member Clawson. >> All those in favor signify by saying I >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. Thank you for reading that. >> Thank you. >> All right. And the next one is National Work Zone Awareness Week Proclamation. And I believe uh Council Biti is going to take that one. Yeah, we uh we kind of all know when spring comes that uh we start seeing all the the orange cones and everything else out there and start working on the the roads and and uh and and all that sort of stuff. So, this is actually to to kind of recognize that uh uh with a proclamation for um National Work Zone Awareness Week. And this is an annual spring campaign held at the start of construction season to encourage safe driving through street, road, and highway work zones. And whereas motorists are encouraged to slow to posted speed limits, eliminate distractions while driving, and be watchful for roadway workers, their equipment, and vehicles on the side of the road and in work zones. And whereas according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2023, there were 899 fatalities in US work zones, including 11 in Minnesota, affecting road workers, motorists, and their passengers. And whereas the city of Cottage Grove strives to keep employees, contractors, consultants, and the public safe during road maintenance and construction in work zones. And whereas the theme for the 2026 National Work Zone Awareness Week is safe actions save lives. Again, that's safe actions save lives. And whereas Go Orange Day takes place on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026, and provides an opportunity to unite in wearing orange to show support for the men and women who work tirelessly to keep our roads safe. And whereas a moment of silence is encouraged on Friday, April 24th to honor the lives lost in work zones. And whereas keeping everyone safe in work zones and on our roadways is our collective responsibility. And now therefore, the mayor and the city council of the city of Cottageg Grove, County of Washington, state of Minnesota, hereby proclaim April 20th to 24th, 2026 as National Work Zone Awareness Week in the city of Cottage Grove. And I would like to to uh make that uh motion to uh accept April 20th to 24th as National Work Zone Awareness Week in Kash Grove. Thank you uh Council Member Theiti. Uh so you made that motion. Do I have a second? >> I'll second that motion. >> All right. We got a second by Council Member Garza. All those in favor uh signify by saying I I opposed. >> Motion carries. And then finally under presentations uh we got drink drink drinking water week proclamation and uh uh council member Clawson is going to read that one. >> Uh thank you mayor. Um this is a proclamation proclaiming May 3rd through the 9th 2026 as drinking water week. Whereas water is our most valuable natural resource and whereas drinking water serves a vital role in daily life serving an essential purpose to health, hydration and hygiene needs for the quality of life of our citizens to enjoy. And whereas tap water delivers public health protection, fire protection, support for our economy and the quality of life we enjoy. And whereas the hard work performed by the entire water sector designing capital projects, operators ensuring the safety and quality of drinking water or a member of a pipe crew maintaining the infrastructure communities rely on to transport highquality drinking water from its source to consumers taps. And whereas the CO 19 pandemic has shown a light on the importance of drinking water for health, hydration, and hygiene needs. And whereas we are all stewards of the water infrastructure upon which current and future generations depend. And whereas the citizens of our city are called upon to proclaim, excuse me, upon to help protect our source waters from pollution, practice water conservation, and get involved with their water by I'm sorry, get involved with their water by familiarizing themselves with it. Now therefore, the mayor and city of cottage city council of the city of cottage grove, county of Washington state of Minnesota, I do hereby proclaim and I would also move that we proclaim May 3rd to May 9th, 2026 as drinking water week in the city of Cottage Grove. >> Thank you, uh, Council Member Clawson, and making that motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Second by council member Olsen. >> All those in favor, uh, signify by saying I >> I opposed. Motion carries. Thank you, Ryan, for uh, doing those slides. Thank you. >> All righty. Uh, so now we'll move to number seven on our agenda, which is consent. Is there anything council would like to pull on consent this evening? >> Okay. Seeing nothing being pulled on consent, I'll look for a motion and a second. >> Consent. >> All right. So, we got a motion by council member Theiti, second by council member Garza. Any further discussion? >> Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. >> Motion carries. So, if you're in the audience or you're watching on Yep, there you go. When are you going to open? When you when you reopening April. >> End of April. Okay. So, uh just uh for the public, if you are at home, um uh High North uh dispensary, if you will, uh which I think everybody knows is down in the Target Mall there. They've been closed for a while, but now they're going to be reopening after the remodel. So, there you go. >> Yep. >> Congratulations. >> Yeah. Congratulations. Yep, you got her. So, if anybody's watching at home to everything on our consent agenda has been approved this evening. All right. Uh, next is 8 is approved dispersement. 8A is to pay the bills. >> Move the bills. >> We have a motion by council member Olsen. >> I'll second. >> Second by council member Clawson. Any discussion on the bills? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Opposed. >> Motion carries. Nine public hearings. We have none this evening. 10 is bid awards. We do have one this evening. Uh A is the 2026 payment management project bid award and Paul Ashbanch, our city engineer, uh is going to take us through this one. Good evening, mayor and council members. Uh in our capital improvement plan, the city has an annual pavement management project that uh rehabilitates our city streets and utilities and keeps them in good condition. Tonight we have the bid results for the 2026 uh pavement management project. Sorry, something's missing. Sorry. Um, this year's project includes rehabilitating streets for the neighborhood between Inwood Avenue and Jamaica Avenue and uh between 90th Street to Hillside Trail. Um, somewhere I lost a picture of the map, but the work to be done includes full curb replacement, pavement replacement, and extensive utility repairs. City council approved plans and specs and authorized bidding on March 4th. We advertised for the bids starting in March and then reopened those bids on April 7th. Three bids as shown were received from MCamera Park Construction and Batuminous Roadways. The low bid from MCamera about $3.4 million was about 13% higher than the engineers estimate. We did review the bids pretty extensively concluded that the bids are pretty close. They are competitive and results indicate ind indicate the uh market conditions at this time. Our estimate includes inflation from bid results from previous years, but this bid just seemed to have a lot more uh increase in those uh bid items. Asphalt uh often volatile pay item only increased about 7% over last year. So that wasn't really a driving component of this uh bid uh cycle here. The additional costs just seem to be uh spread across the board for all pay items. McNamera is a responsible contractor by state statute. They've done work for the city before including last year's payment management project with a higher than expected uh bid results. We did come up with some options for you considered. We did include those in the uh council packet. I can discuss more with that if you'd like. Otherwise, our staff recommendation is shown here. If you have any questions, I'm available. >> All right, council. Any questions? Council member Olsson. >> Thank you, Paul. Not super common to see the bids come in um higher than our engineers estimates and in this particular case, you know, to the degree that they did. But I know that this is a somewhat unique project based on the timeline that we're attempting to work with here because we're trying to get an awful lot done in a relatively short period of time. Do you think that may have played into uh some of the the bidding just that it's it's not your normal kind of straightforward project? >> I'm not sure what really is driving it. It's yeah, everything seems to be uh um the bids were comparable. Um they're all fairly close to each other. So, just seems to be uh just the way the the market is right now. >> Okay. >> There's a lot of factors that go from between the region and the state and other projects going on that certainly plays into it and how full the contractor schedules are to yeah what the uh what the economy is doing and man world events I'm sure. Yeah, I know the cost of asphalt is, you know, volatile based on oil pricing and and, you know, that also sometimes plays into some of these things. Uh, one thing I wanted to ask is as we look at the scope of the project, you know, we're looking at 80th Street, uh, obviously a a pretty important roadway for us, and then a portion of East Point Douglas, but, uh, we chose not to do all of East Point Douglas in addition to 80th Street because I think, um, you know, we may have been biting off more than we could chew in that circumstance. I wondered if you could just talk for a moment about sort of where things stand relative to the portion of East Point that's not going to get done this year and um maybe the logic behind that, some of the history and and what that's going to look like moving forward because that stretch of road's pretty tough shape. >> Yeah. No, thank you, council member. Uh I certainly haven't been here very long, but uh from what I understand of the history, it's uh been something that's been on our on our radar for some time here. We did do uh an uh overlay of the of the roadway um about 10 years ago and and trying to keep it together here as we have lots of other priorities. I know uh Jamaica Avenue and uh East Point Douglas Road project a couple years ago was a big uh one for us and then certainly um 80th Street here, but uh we do have it on our program uh next year to address and we are putting forth plans uh as we speak on that and the intent is certainly to uh get that done next year. So, >> and I noticed today just driving through town that um we had our our folks out there uh on that portion of roadway doing some some hot patching and of course, you know, when a road's in that condition, the the cold mix doesn't like to stick. Um so, do we anticipate that the the hot mix now that we're using is going to get us through the summer okay in terms of drivability and all the rest of it on that roadway? >> Yeah. the the hot mix spray patching that we're using is definitely a much more stable um patch. The cold mix is something we use in the winter when we don't have the temperature or the availability of hot mix asphalt plants. Um and it's really a short-term fix, but yeah, this is definitely a longer fix. It's still a patch, but it'll it'll give us a lot more durability that'll hopefully get us through the next winter here and until we get this resurfaced next year. Yeah, they were working hard on it today and I noticed that, you know, they had the roller out there and all the rest of it. So, we'll keep our fingers crossed. I know the freeze and thaw cycle never does any favors for us on on roadways, but hopefully we can get through the summer months without too much trouble. Um, but this project is desperately needed. There's no question about it. And even though the estimate came in a little higher, I don't think it's going to get any cheaper if we wait. So, I certainly am in favor of moving forward with it. Um if nobody else has questions. >> Okay. >> Okay. Council member. >> Yeah. And and in that light. Okay. Right now we know that oil is at a you know very very high price and oil is a big component of asphalt. Right. >> And so how much did that really do you think contribute to the overpricing with the estimate? It it could have had some influence u but with only about a 7% increase. Asphalt most the asphalt industry tends to stock um all their tanks and so forth the winter before the construction season. So all those uh tanks are now full for this construction season and we're um filled with last year's rates. So that's uh hopefully uh keeping us uh low for this year anyway. what next year brings. Uh that'll be uh waiting for that. Uh >> so so tell me again why we missed the the estimate by so much then because I kind of assumed it was probably because of the escalation of the oil prices. >> Uh we only saw about a 7% increase uh over our estimate um in the in the bid results here. Um, so not a significant portion of it, but >> like like >> may have added some to it. >> Can I >> like was stated that we we're not used to that, right? No. So we we we usually see that the the actual number comes in probably uh sometimes even 10% under, you know, and and so forth. So that means maybe we were like 17% higher than what we we really thought it was going to be. I usually like to estimate a little bit on the high end to have some good news at the at the council meetings here, but >> but uh >> um so so I guess my question ultimately is that that if in fact you know oil being over a 100 bucks a barrel comparatively and and it was at like 64 or something like that uh uh relatively speaking if ultimately it comes down that type of percentage you know uh after hopefully after some things get uh corrected and that out in the in in our political environment. Um is it is it possible that we could could save that uh like 300 grand or so by because you put a few different options in in the packet and I guess we really didn't discuss those did we? um you know and and whether we should actually take any of those whether we should delay it whether we should uh change a piece of it or something like that uh uh so that we don't have to increase the bonding or increase the the budget uh and things like that. So maybe we need to kind of discuss what those possibilities are and and and you know what you know the pros and cons would be. >> I can do that if that's what you desire. Yeah, I think you may have a I think you said you may have a slide on there. >> Yeah. Yeah, I got the uh three options here if you'd like to go into some more detail here. So, with option one, uh what the the staff recommendation is is is to award the low bid here and proceed with the project as we planned here. Uh the benefits of that is it maintains the capital improvement plan schedule, gets the projects going. We know the cost. They're not they're not pretty, of course, but we know what they are, what they are going to be next year. It's going to be anybody's guess at this point um with uh with proceeding with the project. Uh um the roads in these neighborhoods are deteriorating and uh so moving forward with a improvement project. It'll save on that future maintenance. Um we unfortunately do need to increase the bond amount by about $300,000. Um this will increase the tax levy uh starting next year about $35,000. That's about uh $2 uh on the median home. Um so um that's the the disadvantages of going forward with this. Um so with option two um one option was to remove uh the 90th uh street uh from this project here. 90th street here at the bottom of this picture here. And this is a this was a picture that I was missing on the previous uh that I wanted to show you here. All this neighborhood is a um all the routes in blue is the roads that we were going to do including 90th Street down in orange there. But this option would take 90th Street out of the project. Um we do have uh 90th Street west of uh Inwood Road here uh in our pavement management plan for 2032 and we could then uh add that to that project a couple years down the road here. Um benefits of this, there's been no change to that levy that I talked about in the first option. The contract amount would be reduced to about $250 to $350,000. Um the uncertainty there is a change order is required and it's a pretty significant change order to the to a contract. our specifications in that contract. Um if certain levels of changes u would require us then to kind of renegotiate a lot of the other bid price the other bid uh units the other prices. Uh so that could uh it's not as easy that we might have to work with the contractor on that. The contractor is willing to uh discuss this option with us. Um but it's going to take some effort there to get that to happen. Um there are two um accessessible uh property owners uh three different parcels but that uh would be affected. Um the two parcels owned by the uh property owner that uh has the Aldi store um those would be removed from the project and so the Aldi store would not be um assessed with this project. But the church uh just on the other side of the street though um they have two access points. So, we'd have to re-evaluate their assessment and uh um most likely drop their assessment by some because they get benefit from both both roads here. So, of course, this delays the work on 90th Street and um 90th Street is certainly in uh need of repair here and uh we'll have to spend a lot more time and effort to maintain that route until uh we can get it done the next time. The third option is we could uh just not award the project and then re-evaluate this for a future year. I think in the uh the bid packet I talked about doing it next year, but you had brought up uh um East Point Douglas Road. That's I think the higher priority and so it would probably be at least two years before we can get back to this one. Um we'd have to kind of restart the whole assessment process all over again. Um, so additional monies to pay for the assess the uh appraiser. Um, it could potentially be higher costs for the uh the property owners there on their assessments. It delays the project, like I said, increases the maintenance. There's that unknown uh construction inflation that tends to be pretty high. Uh, recent uh construction uh inflation indexes are 10 to 15% a year. And of course the uh asphalt volatility especially in uh the news of the world these days uh it could be quite a bit different here and of course it just kind of creates a ripple effect to all our pavement management uh projects that we have planned for the for the future here. So not a lot of good options. So, but those are the options we've come up with >> and I don't see it mentioned anywhere here, but what is how does it affect the individual assessment on each of the houses >> as far as uh going with option one? >> Well, with with any of the options because you don't you don't bring it up and I and I would figure that it didn't we didn't we all already give an estimate on >> Yeah, it it's capped. Yeah. So, there it would it can't go higher which is why the suggestion is that it would have to go onto the the levy if you will. >> That's correct. >> Okay. The um like the mayor said, the the assessment is capped. Uh so um despite the increased costs here, um the property owner would not see a change in uh in that assessment amount here. So, >> all right. And I'll just make a quick comment because I know we're talking about the oil prices, but if I remember seeing through the the bid, the increase actually is across the board in all different areas. So the the oil prices, I don't know that they really had >> that much of an effect on this project at least. >> I asked >> it was interesting to see that it it's I just the cost of everything right now with inflation. So I don't know if administrator uh Levit, do you want to say anything? And mayor, members of the council, I know right now you're thinking a lot about road conditions. You're probably seeing it on social media. Residents um are seeing potholes forming and those pavements deteriorating. And Council Member Olsen, you know, East Point Douglas is one of the worst that we have right now. Um and we knew we couldn't choke off those businesses and had to give another access in. So, we couldn't really, you know, include that street at this time. And I know public works is probably going to be patching a lot on East Point Douglas so people can get used to seeing us out there uh this summer. And I think what you're wrestling with is the challenge right with 90th Street. If we don't do 90th now, it'll be 2032 until we're probably back doing that. And I know right now you're already taking a lot of heat for road conditions. And so I know that's probably weighing on you um as you consider this. Um I think what's challenging is by not moving forward um you have the increased costs for plan development again the bidding cost reestablishment of that and then all the uh benefit appraisals will be redone and those are all expenditures with not a lot of benefit coming back to the city. So I think you really have two good options. One is if you wanted to delete 90th Street um from it to bring it in line with our debt service that we had anticipated or if you're feeling like you know the pressure and conditions today uh from our residents on road road conditions you'd want to go with the standard award. >> Okay. Yeah. Let me uh Monique uh sorry Council Member Garza. Sorry about that. Um do we know that if we do delete the 90th Street option on there and you mentioned it a little bit so the um developers or the um contractors are open to u maybe removing that but will that increase the cost of the other things because we are reducing a portion of the project. Um yeah, not sure what that means. uh with a with a um a bid like this, a a project with all the different pay items we have. Um there's a when you have a certain amount of material or uh task that needs to be completed, if we're taking some of that away, some of the contractor's uh mobilization or overhead costs and so forth, instead of being spread out against a a larger amount of materials or or tasks, um that's shrunk down. So then the contractor and our contract um gives uh the contractor the ability to work with us to renegotiate those prices and that would tend to be higher. So >> so that would increase yourself in the foot. Sorry if we end up removing that 90th Street and then we end up paying a little bit extra. we'll save 300,000 but we'll pay a little bit extra and then when we circle back around to 90th Street are we going to pay 500,000 for 90th rather 300,000 so that's my concern >> Daniel good council member Olsen had something and I'll >> I'm going to defer to the administrator you had something you wanted to add to that I believe >> um mayor members of the council I think going to council member Garza's point you know it's really challenging right we know uh by if we even if we reduce 90th street it's not going to decrease residents assessments, right? So, that's not going to change the formula. It'll the only thing it could do is it could push additional burden to the general levy. And so, at this time, you know, when you benefit weigh the benefit and cost of it, um you're not doing the residents a disservice in the assessment. Um you're actually pushing that uh back to the general levy. >> Okay. Was that it for you? >> Thank you. No, I I do have something further. >> Council member Olsson, >> um first of all, uh it never gets cheaper when you wait. never. I've never seen it happen. Um so, uh I don't think that's a wise option. Um and I agree wholeheartedly with um you might save a few dollars now, but you're going to pay more in the long run if you take out 90th Street and then you also lose that economy of scale as it relates to materials. um when they put their bids in, they're anticipating, I'm going to keep my people working from day this to day that. You're going to change that math for them. And uh it's going to create uh a ripple effect in terms of then increasing costs on what remains. So again, I don't like either one of those. What I did want to suggest or at least ask because it was not suggested yet is um in certain circumstances when we have situations where um a bid comes in higher. Uh sometimes we can buy down the project using available fund balance if that fund balance is actually available which would then save us from having to bond the additional amount. and then um add that additional bonding to the levy moving forward. So my question for staff, and you may not know the answer, I hope you do, is if we wanted to buy the project down to the original engineers estimate while maintaining the scope of work, do we have financial wherewithal to be able to do that? Council member, >> mayor, members of the council, and to answer your question, you know, one of the things that we want to do is we want to ensure that all of our project bids come in so we know where we're sitting financially. So, we bid 80th Street, so we know that uh right now this is a known commodity. We're waiting for the uh roundabout at 80th and 19 to bid um to know where those numbers are. So our our element and intent right now before we set that bonding amount is to watch these bids come in and then to your point, we do have the fund balance available in our debt service to be able to absorb this to be able to maintain it. But we want to look at everything in its totality because as you know the bond market could be a little bit in flux right now. So it might be better for us to try to buy down the debt with cash versus trying to bond for that debt. So we want to look at all strategies and so to your point it is a strategy we're looking at and it is available to us but before we bond we want to look at everything in its totality to come up with the right amount uh for that. Just to be clear, um, based on that information, it would be advisable to approve the project scope this evening at the, uh, funding level that we see with an understanding that, uh, we could revisit this in the near-term future and potentially buy down uh, whatever that excess looks like once we have further information on that roundabout. Is that accurate? Yes, mayor, members of the council, Ellers is advising us right now with the market conditions if we can hold as long as possible for our bond sale. That's what they're uh recommending to us at this time. So, I don't see that you're in a negative financial position to award the full amount because you have options uh available to you to buy down that debt. Um but I think we need to be real strategic on the exact value of our bond sale uh just because of the volatility in the market. That being said, moving forward with the uh project approval this evening, um what that does is it preserves the timeline that we're trying to work within instead of delaying even two weeks, which could put us behind on what's already a very tight project. Accurate, >> uh mayor, members of the council, that is absolutely correct because right now, as you know, um the weather is looking good and uh the sun's only going to shine so for so many months here in Minnesota. So, we do need to move forward with that. >> Okay. Thank you, Council Member Clawson. >> Thank you. U almost all my questions or they all have been uh touched upon, but I just also noticed that if we go option two and reduce 90th Street, there's no guarantee we're going to make up that um $300,000. I mean, there's staff time, there's the contractor time. It puts it behind schedule, and we may not even uh realize the savings by just taking out 90th Street. and it puts the project so far behind. Um, just wanted to echo those things that I've that I've heard. Thank you. >> Thank you. So, I'll just Yeah, I'll just say that um I mean obviously it's disappointing and I think uh I can speak for both staff and our council just to say we're so used to these bids coming in under >> when they first come in and of course with the inflation and things that are happening in the in the political realm right now is really wreaking havoc on everyone unfortunately. But um I'm glad we have a couple options as we kind of look forward here. And I actually my only question was going to be is I assume we're going to wait a little while before we go out to the bond market. So that was going to be my question for Brenda back there, our finance director, but that's good to hear because I think it'll give us some time and hopefully things will settle down uh in in the world, if you will. So all right, council. So it's up to you which direction you would like to go. >> I would like to Oh, where'd it go? to move it. >> Do you want to put that? >> Go ahead. >> Thank you. >> There you go. >> Council member Garza, go ahead. >> Yes. I'd like to propose adoption to resolution 2026-06 065 awarding the 2026 pavement management project to Magnamera Contracting in the total amount of 3,388,21 and that important 63 cents. >> All right. So, we have a motion by council member Garza. Do I have a second? >> Mayor, I'll second that motion. >> Second by council member Olsen. Any other discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> I. Opposed. >> Motion carries. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Yeah, I know it's like I said, it's always tough when it's a little bit higher than we anticipate. Uh 11 is regular agenda. There's no items on our regular agenda this evening. So, we're already down to council comments request. And I will swing to council member Clawson. >> Nothing tonight, Mayor. Thank you. All right, sounds good. Uh, how about Council Member Brolson? >> Mayor, I'll be brief. I just wanted to once again congratulate our volunteer of the year for 2026 in the city of Cottage Grove, Dan Harrison, who is the president of the Cottage Grove Athletic Association. Uh, he was provided with his volunteer of the year award at our annual volunteer banquet last week. And then uh also wanted to congratulate basic needs for being awarded the volunteer group of the year in the city of Cottage Grove at that same banquet. April is volunteer month and we always have our volunteer banquet here in the city of Cottage Grove in April. It's always fun to uh have the opportunity to celebrate all of the great people out there who give so much of their time and talent and energy to our community. um and just saying thank you to them um is a very important thing I know for all of us. But it in uh specific terms, Dan has really done a lot in his tenure as president of the Cottage Grove Athletic Association to advance uh youth sports and really works closely with the city, our park and Rex department, etc. and uh manages a very big important organization. So kudos to him and to basic needs for all they do for our community. Back to you, mayor. >> All right. Thank you, Council Member Brilson. Council member Baiti, >> I wonder what you're going to talk about. >> How many days pass? >> Two months. >> All right. >> Yeah, we just got two months. And I'd like to to officially state that we aren't raising any prices for for any of the food vendors or the marketplace and that this year, even though everything else is going up. Um and uh also mentioning that uh we've got a lot of a lot of the same activities where just on Monday we were trying to to nail down uh our all of our activities and the timing for things so we can get the uh get the official list out and so forth. Uh I can say that we're going to going to have the drones back. Uh we are not going to do fireworks this year. uh we're just gonna to focus on the drones and um so it's it's shaped up to be a great time. We we put our order in for for great weather. So uh hopefully that'll that'll uh all all happen and uh so it's going to be a good time. There you go. Awesome. Council member Barsa. >> Thank you, Mayor. Well, we'll stay outdoors since Strawberry Fest that's coming up and it looks like we have some fun stuff happening in our community. Park Run at Hamlet that's h happening every Saturday at 9:00 am. So it's a free fun fan familyfriendly run. It's a 5K so you can walk or run it and it's every Saturday at 9:00 a.m. at per at Hamlet. Also pickle ball. Pickle ball is back in effect and everybody is ready to go. So if you want to get in one of our leagues here in Cottage Grove, go on to the website and sign up. And I would say do it sooner versus later because it might already be filled up. I'm not sure, but it fills up fast. So, with that, I'll pass it back. >> Sounds good. Thank you. Uh, so just I'll just have one thing for this evening. I'll wait until the next meeting to talk about the Fourth of July fireworks because we keep getting additional sponsors. So, I want to make sure I don't miss anybody as those sponsors come in, but we have over 35,000 raised already. >> Speak to the vendor this week and we increased our uh amount spent for the show. So, it's going to be a huge >> It will be a big one this year and it is the 250th anniversary. So, see, I said we weren't going to talk about, we just started to. So, that's how it works, I guess. Uh, but what I did want to mention, uh, for the public is, uh, as as you may recall at our last council meeting, we did have a performance review checkup with our city administrator. And, uh, just want to say that everything's going good. Um, I could say great, I'll say great. and it was great to have some great conversations with our administrator Levit on, you know, uh topics that are important to her and important to the city. So, I thought that that was good. So, I just want to make that official that we did have that uh review and everything went well. So, uh with that, uh there is no workshop this evening open to the public. Uh and there's uh no closed uh workshop uh uh for the public this evening. I don't know why I said it that way. Uh so, and I'm looking now for a motion to adjurnn. I'll make a motion to adjurnn. >> All right. So, we have a motion by council member Garza. Do I have a second? I'll second. Second by council member Clawson. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. We are adjourned.