e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all right good evening uh this is the January uh I almost said 28th January 8th 2025 kage gr city council meeting which I'm calling to order um our first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance soop IFH 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 well the CL please do the role council member Clon here council member Olen here council member thei here council member Garza here mayor Bailey here uh next on our agenda this evening is the adoption of the agenda um if there's no changes or Corrections I'll look for motion in a second move the agenda all right all right so we have a mo we have a motion by council member uh the second by council member Garza any further discussion sing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries uh next item is presentation um and oh I I skipped by didn't I yeah sorry I did Skip by of all the years I've been doing this um so I did Skip by open Forum uh we did have a signup sheet out in the entryway and no one did sign up so I just wanted to check real quick is there anybody that wants to speak on uh open form this evening on anything that's not on the agenda all right seeing none I'm going to go ahead and close open forum and we're going to move now to number six which is Pres presentations and our first order of business is going to be the oath of office and so I will I guess kick us off down in the front and our County Commissioner Carla Bingham is going to um start that process with us um and then um I'll ask my grandson Easton uh to come up and hold the mic boy I don't know I don't have oh that's I'm already here yeah you don't need I myin Bailey I byon Bailey do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Minnesota and the constitution of the state of Minnesota and that I will Faithfully execute and discharge the duties that I will Faithfully execute and discharge the duties of the office of mayor for the city of Cottage Grove for the office of mayor for the city of Cottage Grove County of Washington County of Washington state of Minnesota state of Minnesota according to the law and to the best of my judgment and ability so help me God according to the law and to the best of sorry I knew we were going to laugh at this one and to the best of my judgment and ability so help me God thank you congratulations thank you it never fails yeah see if we can get through this it's always one oh all right all right the clerk did such a good job of breaking it up to all right if you want to raise your right hand right I Monique Garza I Monique Garza do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Minnesota and the constitution of the state of Minnesota and that I will Faithfully execute and discharge the duties and that I will Faithfully execute and discharge the duties of the office of council member for the city of Cottage Grove of the office of council member for the city of Cottage Grove County of Washington County of Washington state of Minnesota state of Minnesota according to the law and to the best of my judgment and ability according to the law and to the best of my judgment and ability so help me go so help me God you going to help me all these things all right ready I'm ready all right let's see I Justin Olsen I Justin olssen do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of Minnesota and the constitution of the state of Minnesota and that I will Faithfully execute and discharge the duties and that I will Faithfully execute and discharge the duties of the office of council member for the city of Cottage Grove of the office of council member for the city of Cottage Grove County of Washington County of Washington state of Minnesota state of Minnesota according to the law and to the best of my judgment and ability according to law and to the best of my judgment and ability so help me God so help me God there you go all right all right swapping out you thank you thank you all right raise your right hand and repeat after me I David Clawson I David Clawson do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Minnesota and the constitution of the state of Minnesota and that I will Faithfully execute and discharge the duties and that I will Faithfully execute and discharge the duties of the office of council member for the city of cottage grow of the office of council member for the city of Cottage Grove County of Washington County of Washington state of Minnesota state of Minnesota according to the law and to the best of my judgment ability according to the law and to the best of my judgment and ability so help me God so help me God congratulations so may you want to get some pictures with your family yes I know pictures y so can I get my family up front and Friends Ken up here before we get a picture oh yeah you got to do family awesome Dave we'll get a picture of you guys after moa's done is what she say all right and I think we're going to do a quick group picture so once you come up uh Jennifer since you uh war in uh Mr clawen and Carla our count of commissioner Dave's GNA be in a lot more pictures than he ever been in his life actually well thank you obviously to all the family members both my own and Monique and David uh for our families for showing up tonight for this uh awesome celebration and welcome obviously Mr cson welcome to the welcome to the council officially right while they're working their way out um Council uh we actually even though it looks like a long agenda it's actually a fairly short agenda a lot of uh so the next item on our agenda this evening is the consent agenda is there anything that Council wants to pull off of uh consent this evening no all right seeing none I'll look for a motion and a second to approve the consent move consent all right so we have a motion by council member uh Olsen oh second second by council member Garza all those in any other discussion I should mention that first all right seeing on all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries so if you're here for anything on tonight's consent agenda all of those items have been approved uh number nine is public hearings are ourn n tonight 10 is Bid awards are ONN tonight 11 we do have one item which is our normal item for the first meeting in uh January which is the commission and committee appointments oh I'm sorry diss we got to pay the bills pay the bills did I miss that yes number eight is right at the bottom oh it did I did Skip by that thank you all right so uh number eight before I get to the rest of it see I'm really rushing us out of here um is uh approved dispersement 8A is to pay the bills bills motion by council member Olsen second so second second by council member Clon all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries thank you for catching that for me and then uh as I mentioned on the next item uh is a regular agenda and it is commission and committee appointments uh this is where I will ask for a motion in a second to approve um I will list for the public so they're aware um this is where the mayor uh gets the opportunity to um one talk to the council but also or ask the council I should say if there's any particular um commissions that they would like to be um uh a part of or the lia on to and so what I've done this year is um the following are the order of who is going to be uh in charge of each of the different groups so mayor protem for uh 20 uh 24 I'm sorry 2025 is going to be council member Garza uh for beyond the yellow ribbon will'll be council member Olsen The Cottage Grove Chamber of Commerce I'll just continue on that it was on that last year uh the cotage gr of convention and visitors bureau will be council member Olsen East mro strong will be uh council member clawen um Economic Development Authority be myself as the mayor and Council M Olsen uh the great rail uh River Rail commission will be council member Garza the historic preservation advisory committee will be council member thei the holiday train committee will continue with myself as as it has been in the past um the investment committee will be both Council me we have two Daves now obviously uh council member thei and council member Clawson uh the parks recreation and Natural Resource Commission will be council member Clawson uh Planning Commission will be council member Olen uh the Public Services Commission will be council member theti the Red Rock Corridor commission kind of keeping you in that Transportation piece uh is council member Garza the South Washington County telecommunications commission will be council member theti with the alternate being uh council member clawen uh the um South Washington County watershed District be council member Clawson and the strawberry fist committee uh will be uh council member the and I did um as an alternate if needed maybe just to get him going in that too uh as Council Council Clon so um with that at this point um I will ask for a motion and a second to approve the uh commission and committee appointments so moved all right so I have a motion by council member Olsen do I have a second second uh seconded by council member Gara all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed motion carries uh next is 12 is Council comments request and I know our former council member is in the audience here I usually start on my right but to give him break for a few minutes I'm going to actually start up I left tonight and already alerted her so she knows and we'll just kind of go down and then I'll end it so we'll start with Council comments request on anything from you council member Garza thank you Mr Mayor first I just want to say Happy New Year to everyone um it's starting off to be a really wonderful New Year we don't have any snow so that's good I don't mind the cold weather as long as we're not sliding around it looks like we have some really fun things happening at River Oaks coming up in January and in February so just want to mention a couple of things that are happening we have the Francis Ford capella director's cut wine dinner on January 16th that sounds like it'll be a lot of fun and I know the Dueling Pianos are always a pretty big one here and that's February 21st at 5:30 so looks like some fun things happening at River Oak so if you have some time go check that out also parks and wreck um the parks Boys versus East Ridge will be on January 16th so that will be a lot of fun at The Cottage Grove Ice Arena so thank you and I'll just plug in there for you you probably want to get your tickets early because that does sell out so all right thank you anything else was it uh council member theti I just like to to mention about uh you know Strawberry Fest and we're still actively planning for that obviously and it's starting to the intensity starts to build at this point uh you know to for the festival in June and uh uh we can still use a lot of uh input and help and so forth and typically our meetings are are over uh are on the first and third wednes or Monday of the month over at uh carbonis and in their back room there and so uh yeah definitely would like to have anybody that would like to have fun you know come by and and help us out and give us an input and things like that uh I'll also mention that uh you know seeing that I'm also on the historic preservation again that uh you know uh we're always looking for people that have interesting information and stories and so forth about the city of Cottage Grove and development and and different things like that to uh to contribute and and uh you know so if you ever have any input if you like that sort of thing uh by all means we'd uh we'd love to have your input and we're we're looking at a variety of different ways to to in fact uh documents some of that sort of stuff in some fun and and meaningful ways so we're always looking for input on those those kind of things also so that's me perfect thank you um Council M rolson thank you very much mayor first and foremost I want to congratulate my colleague uh David Clawson on his uh election to the city council and his swearing in this evening it'll be fun to work with Dave I brings a lot of knowledge and experience uh from his time as a uh employee with the city that uh will be invaluable to the work that the city council does so congratulations Dave uh secondly I just wanted to take a moment to um remind people that with the turn of the New Year we will have some commission openings that will be available in February for those who currently serve on some of our volunteer advisory commissions those terms tend to expire after uh the end of January of the new year and so we may have some Commissioners who choose to uh move on they they've done their um their Duty and and it's something that they want to give somebody else a chance to do sometimes people actually time out where they've served uh several different terms and uh they need to take a one-year break before they're able to reapply so if you're interested in serving on any of our City's volunteer commissions and you heard the mayor kind of talk through you know the various liaison appointments so uh you can you can definitely see that there are several opportunities now would be a great time to get your application in and if you're interested in applying you can go to the city's website uh the application is available right there uh and if you have any trouble please reach out to your council member or any of our city staff members and we'd be happy to walk you through how you make that application come to life you do have the opportunity when you do that to select you know in order of preference which commissions you may want to serve on so uh a great time to do that if you've ever thought about it I highly encourage it good way to learn about your community and then the last thing I wanted to mention mayor is I know that the park and wreck Department's been working uh very very hard to get the outdoor ice rinks uh up and running we've had a little bit of a weather challenge here the last month or so but um I know people have been out skating especially over the weekend the cold snap uh you know that we had late last week and through the weekend has really helped and I personally have had a lot of very positive feedback from people I know who uh are are very excited to get out and use our our new ice surfaces uh in the Parks especially glacial Valley boy it seems like everybody wants to get over to glacial Valley so kudos to the park and wreck department I know it took you guys a while but um you made a lot of residents really happy thanks for that and with that may I'll turn it back to you okay C mclawson anything you want to add thank you uh first of all I want to uh thank the city staff Jennifer staff has been very welcoming and any questions I ask they've been all my why questions they're answering uh thank you so much um thank you uh Council and mayor you've been most uh gracious and um inviting and uh welcoming me into the group uh thank you to the voters you've uh entrusted us with a lot of responsibility and we're going to serve you well um most importantly I want to uh thank my wife Jane and my daughter Ellie uh for putting up with me it was earlier this summer I said hey I think I'm going to run for city council and she said you're going to do what uh anyway uh thank you so much um I love you thanks thanks for all your support thank you fantastic thank you and and thank you for uh giving him up and sharing yes I could I could say both my friends and my family that was here um it takes a family right sometimes we get uh there's good things like you say in the positive comments but there also the beat ups every once in a while and so sometimes our our spouses and family have to kind of bite their tongues a bit and uh U so we do know it's uh it's as much of a job so to speak for us up here as well as it is for the the families back uh at home uh and and the only other thing I'm was going to mention tonight other than we've already talked about everybody um kind of giving each other a uh uh a welcome uh at the council table here um earlier this evening just for the public to be aware uh we did have a a workshop session uh with our uh State uh senators and representatives and our County Commissioner um Carla Bingham uh and the purpose of that is kind of talking through what we call our legislative priorities for the city of Cottage Grove and uh in doing so um what our purpose of that is to really highlight what are some of the big things that we're we are looking for for support from our state level you know I'll just give the first one as an example um funding so that we can finally get a 100 Street uh under construction which would be the extension of 100 over to Highway 61 that has been we've been slowly gaining the money uh in order to uh make that project become a reality amongst other things but um I just want to thank our our local legislative team and our County Commissioner uh for their uh immense support and their comments to us today that sounded very positive about whatever they can do and we all know there's a lot of angst and a little anxiety and animosity happening both at the state level but also at the federal level and so hopefully all of our different parties and people will be able to get together work together and um do what's right for the citizens of both the city of cotage Grove the state of Minnesota and obviously from a national basis obviously the the United States of America so with that um if there's nothing else from a council's perspective um I guess what I'll do is um I'll mention that uh 13 is a workshop which is open to the public we do not have one this evening 14 is a workshop closed to the public but we don't have this this evening so we're down to adjournment would uh council member Clawson like to make the motion move we adjourn second oh he beat you to it there Dave uh so uh motion by council member clus second by council member Olen all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed we are adjourned thanks everyone for coming tonight for