[music] >> Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of the Council Update. I am Phil Gents, your communications manager, and with me today is Council Member Justin Olson. Council Member Olson, welcome. Well, thank you for having me. How are you doing today? I'm doing very well. Nice, good to hear. Well, Council Member Olson, as many have maybe already learned, Chief Pete Kerner recently announced his retirement and after 34 years of dedicated public service. I know that you and Pete have worked very closely together over the years on countless items and I'm just wondering are you able to share a little bit about Chief Kerner and his service to Cottage Grove? I would be happy to. Pete is, as many of you know, a very dedicated public servant. As you mentioned, 34 years with the city and I believe he started right out of school as a community service officer or a CSO and then gradually transitioned into a regular police officer position moving through the ranks of sergeant, captain, and ultimately our public safety director or chief of police, which are two separate positions that actually go together because the public safety director also oversees EMS and fire in the city of Cottage Grove. So, Pete has given his life to our community and growing up here, Pete was, as I like to call it, a PhD or a Park kid with a Park High diploma just like me and you. >> That's true. And also very involved in youth athletics. His father was the president of the Cottage Grove Athletic Association for several years and Pete and his brothers were involved in lots of different sports, particularly baseball. So, you know, Pete bleeds Cottage Grove green and white. There's no question about it. You know, definitely somebody that we were very lucky to have for as long as we did working for the city. So true. Uh, very dedicated, very fortunate to have had him serving. And I am just curious, you mentioned a few things about Pete that just in terms of his background and your relationship with him, but do you have like a first memory of working with Pete or an early memory of Pete that you could share? Well, one thing that always has stood out to me about Pete is his sense of humor. Right. Pete's always good for a practical joke or two and he's a hilarious person to spend time with. But when Pete was a a younger person, he had that flaming red hair and that was the one thing that you'd always know when Kerner was coming down the the the hallway in school because you could see the red hair and just always a smile on his face, happy-go-lucky guy, one of those people who made you feel better every time you connected with them. But he wasn't very incognito with the hair. No, not a bit. >> [laughter] >> Pete Pete does not have the ninja skills that maybe some others do. It's pretty hard for him to hide with the red hair. But he was still effective, so that, you know, impressive all the same. >> used it to his advantage. Did a great job. So, Justin, why don't you tell us a little bit more about Pete's work in the community? A lot of people know him, obviously, as the public safety director and the chief of police, but people may not know how he has shown up for community in other ways. You mentioned a couple things already, but what are some of the other ways that people might not know that Pete has shown up for our community over the years? Oh, that's a great question. You know, Pete's been involved in lots of different things that maybe don't quite stand out as much as his public safety career. For example, I mentioned youth athletics. Pete wasn't just an athlete, he was also a coach. So, you know, you you think about somebody like Pete who is so community oriented and likes to give back, he spent time giving back to youth as a coach and that's a a way to pay it forward for all those people who, you know, spent time coaching him and his brothers. A lot of people don't know that Pete gave of himself in that way. Additionally, Pete has been intimately involved in the Holiday Train here in the city of Cottage Grove and for those at home who follow, the Holiday Train is the largest fundraiser of the year for our Friends in Need Food Shelf. Pete has been working with that group for quite some time and for those who may not know, year after year after year record amounts of fundraising for the Holiday Train, City of Cottage Grove is seen as one of the very best stops on the train in North America. In fact, due to Pete and that team's efforts several years ago, we were able to have Sheryl Crow come and perform in concert live in the city of Cottage Grove as a reward for the great work that they did. Part of that is through Night to Unite. Everybody who participates in Night to Unite contributes to Friends in Need Food Shelf as well and Pete helps coordinate that. So, they collect school supplies and, you know, different sorts of non-perishable foodstuffs and then the next day Pete and several of the public safety team would go out and collect all of the materials from the various parties and in many cases 40-some different locations for parties and take those down to the food shelf and make sure that the people who needed it could enjoy a distribution of those school supplies and other foodstuffs. Pete also has worked very closely with the Youth Service Bureau. In fact, Pete was an award winner last week for the the Youth Service Bureau's highest honor, which is service to youth Right. in the community for lots of different things. Part of the reason that Pete was successful working with young people is he is a connector and he very much engages with people on their level or as some people like to say, he meets them where they are. >> Right. And his work with the Youth Service Bureau has resulted in countless numbers of youth who might have been heading down a a path towards, you know, potentially, you know, criminal behavior and those kinds of things, but due to Pete's involvement and getting them involved in early intervention, you know, they were able to turn things around. So, you know, he's done many things beyond just his role as a police officer and or an administrator with the city, but he does it quietly. He does it humbly. Pete's not a guy who looks for the spotlight. He's just a guy who does the work and he's incredibly effective. And imagine the ripple effect that some of that work does for years. I mean, it's just just amazing. Absolutely 100% [clears throat] true. I know that Pete served as a very first school resource officer at Park High School where he had an opportunity to engage with young people and clearly made a huge difference in many people's lives. He was a DARE officer also working with young people in our school system. So, that ripple effect analogy is absolutely appropriate. Pete's touched many, many, many lives in a very positive way. 100%. So, I got to ask, what's your favorite Pete story? Well, there are a couple of them that I probably can't tell on TV, but I will tell you this, when my children were little, you know, they got to know Pete and some of the other officers and those interactions were extremely positive and Pete would always find time for my kids. He would always make time if we were at an event, he would walk over and he didn't just talk to me. He talked to the kids, talked to my family. So, when my children were little, when they were young, they called him Pete the Police. That was his name. His name was Pete the Police and anytime anything would happen on TV and my kids would see a story about some sort of event that involved law enforcement, my kids would always say, "Oh, that's okay, Pete the Police will take care of it." They really grew to respect him as a law enforcement officer, but also as a human being because he showed respect to them even when they were young. And I think my favorite part about Pete is he does that for everybody all the time. I've had the benefit of spending time with him on Night to Unite many, many, many years and whether we are at Norris Square or the Legends working with retirement communities or whether we are at house parties and we're working with, you know, families, Pete's the same guy and he treats everybody equally and, you know, make sure that everyone is given the respect they deserve, treats them with dignity and as I said earlier, he's a connector. He that interaction is never forgotten. Right. He's never introduced himself as Pete the Police that I'm aware of, though. I I would like him to start if that's possible, but >> He can't. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. So, any projects that you've worked on with Pete that you are particularly fond of or proud of? In Pete's time as a captain on the police department and then also as the director of public safety and the chief of police, we've done a lot of different things. I think the thing I'm most proud of is our work together on building the City Hall Public Safety Facility Right. >> absolutely critical for our department to evolve. That former City Hall was it was outdated and it needed a lot of work. And prior to our council, I know there had been lots of talk about, "Hey, at some point we need to address this." But, you know, working with Pete and the rest of the leadership team, we were able to actually bring those thoughts to reality and it was not easy. Uh there was a lot of resistance in the community about that for a variety of reasons, but I think in many cases what happens is people are resistant to change because they can't envision what that change is going to look like. And so Pete put together a program where we let people tour the current public safety facility at the time and showed them all the deficiencies. Right. >> And talked about, you know, this is why we need to grow and evolve. One thing that stood out to me was for our female officers, we did not have locker room space. We did not have room for them to change and shower and do the things that they needed to do. So if they were involved in an incident, they'd go home and change and shower and do all those things. And in many cases, if they didn't live in town, that was very problematic. The other thing that Pete was intimately involved in along with um Captain Renzel was the Hero Center. >> Right. And they worked tirelessly with the city of Woodbury and our other partners at the Capitol to secure funding to bring the Hero Center online. And that has made an incredible difference in our community with respect to the quality of training that our officers receive and our ability to both recruit and retain great talent. Which is, you know, pretty important. >> It's essential. Very, very important. >> Yes. So any last thoughts, stories, anecdotes about Pete, Pete the Police Sure. uh before we wrap up? Well, I'll tell you this. Nobody will ever replace Pete. He will be sorely missed. But the thing that Pete has done that everyone should be aware of and proud of is succession planning. He made sure that when the time came, whether it was now or a year from now, that the department would be in better shape than ever and that we would have leadership in place that would not only carry on the work that Pete and his team did so well, but continue to evolve, continue to grow. And he worked very closely with uh Captain Peterson and the rest of the team on when the time came, what that would look like. And much of that is due to the fact that Pete really took the time and ensured that, you know, we continue to train and develop and coach those internal candidates to take on the the greater responsibility that is now left to them. Couldn't have said it better myself. And so that really is going to do it for us, Councilmember Olsen. And of course, thanks to you for joining us. >> Thank you. Thanks to Chief Coroner, Pete the Police Pete the Police. >> and his service. And uh that'll do it for for this edition of the Council Update. So thank you all for watching. Thank you, as always, to True Lens Community Media for producing these videos. And we will see you all next time. Thank you. >> Thank you.