I'm Kath. I'm the vice chair of the Cottage Grove Public Service Commission. I'd like to welcome all those in the audience and those viewing uh this evening out there. We are calling this meeting of the Cottage Grove Public Service Commission to order. Uh this is November 17th and we're starting at 700 p.m. First item on our agenda was called to order. So I've accomplished that one. Moving on to the pledge of allegiance. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance. >> 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. >> Thank you. With that, I'll ask for roll call. Second. >> Thank you. Uh, next item is the approval of our agenda. I'll ask for the approval of the agenda with one addition we have this evening. We are going to add a presentation. Presentation B for an ebikes uh presentation. So, with that, I'd ask for a motion to approve the agenda with the addition of 8B ebikes. >> I'll make a motion. >> Do I have a second? And a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Those opposed. Motion passes. Moving on then, the approval of our meeting uh minutes. These minutes were from our September 15th um uh meeting. Uh all of our commissioners had a chance to review these before the meeting. So, if I could, could I please get a motion to accept the meeting minutes? >> I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. >> Okay, there's a motion. A second. >> Have a second. >> We have a second. With that, all in favor of approval of our meeting minutes um signify by saying I. >> I. >> Those opposed. >> Motion passes. Moving on to open forum. At this time, anybody in the uh audience can come forward to speak on any uh item outside of our presentations or business items this evening? Not seeing any. We will move on to our first business item this evening. It's a item which is our snowmobile club uh map approval and I'll we'll kick it off with Ryan with the presentation. Thank you chair, members of the commission. So each year we like to uh connect with the local snowmobile club. This is our chance just to talk about um you know what's going on in the city. Is there any changes in town that could affect the snowmobile trail? um just want to make sure we can preserve that ability to snowmobile and cottage Grove. I think it's a good amenity to have access like we do to the local the Star Trail and the local trails as well. So, we like to talk about, you know, what type of development is coming up. Um how could that impact the trail and how can we make sure we keep the snowmobile trails open. Um we also have on the screen the the map of the Star Trail and specifically the Cottage Grove section. So, each year we like to do an approval of of that map as well. Um, and I will say a couple of the key items for next year that we're already working on with the staff is, you know, we're starting to see development potentially east of Keats Avenue. Um, so making sure we can maintain that snowmobile trail along Keats Avenue and then um as we get more development, you know, kind of in the um south part of town as well. So with that, Jeremy Goble is here uh with the local snowmobile club. So I'll turn over to him just to talk a little bit more about last year and any changes for this year. flyers for you guys. I didn't obviously didn't bring enough. >> Oh, >> that's okay. We can share. We can share. >> That's all right. >> Pass those down. >> Good evening. I am Jeremy Goble. I am the president of the East Hydro Scramblers. Um I live up here on 70th Street by Lamar Ballfields. Um, our snowmobile club's been around since before my time and I just have become the president and they won't let me quit because I do such a good job, I guess. So, um, I pass out a couple flyers. We put on the show called Dust Them Off. It's held right in my farm field by Carbonies there. Um, it's a great event. We bring a lot of people to the community. It gets bigger and bigger each year. We work with the Lions Club. Um, I worked with the PD before and uh, we're actually putting up a heated tent this year, so if it's cold, people got a place to go warm up and get out of the wind. So, um, like I said, it's it's a great event. It's getting bigger and bigger and we're thrilled to have it here. So, um, as far as the snowball trail, I am a member of the Washington County Star Trail as well and I am a what, how would you say that? For men USA, I'm a a board I'm on the board of directors, but I'm not I'm just for region six. So I take care of it's from like Forest Lake down to Dakota County is our region. So but as a star trail I am the area specialist for Cottage Grove area and that consists of everything south of Valley Creek Road. So we maintain our club maintains and marks from Valley Creek south all the way down along 95 through uh Woodbury on Bailey 19 all the way down to the county point that's like the holiday gas station down there. come back down to Anderson Renewal and then to the VFW then along back through the park right behind us here. So the only questions I had had is I know there's talk of development on tanks here and the trail does run right through the middle of the field and it is a lot nicer to run through a field than it is in a ditch and it's also safer to be in a field versus a ditch. And then I also had heard possibly some development going on by Walmart maybe in that field. Right now, we currently run on top of there. There's a gas line easement. We come in the backside to get to the VFW and they love having the trail back in there because for years, you couldn't get to it, and they're thrilled to have us back in there. So, I just kind of like to know how we're going to work on keeping that trail open for those areas if there's any comments or anything. Um, and then, uh, there was one other thing, the down on Hunter Street by Hadley. We had been talking to our club members now with the development on Great Cloud Island. It'd be nice to have some kind of trail go down along 103rd to get those residents access out to the trail. So I that's something we can look into. Obviously probably not for this year because it's kind of getting late in the season, but that would be another option to get people out of town. And then also Junction 70th is on the Star Trail map as a sponsor and they have a star on the map and the trail used to go down there years ago and it got shut down. If there's another option for us to work around to get the trail back open to them and I don't know if that might be down the New Ravine Parkway or taking military and coming down Hinton somehow if there would be a way to work with the city on that to get that reopened because I know they'd be thrilled to get the business back as well. Sure. >> So, um, with that, I don't if you guys have any questions for me or Okay. >> concerns. I also have the the STAR trail coordinator, trail coordinator with us here tonight if you got any questions for him. He's newly appointed to the position but >> he's uh just lives over in Denmark, so he's from this area. He's familiar with trails and whatnot. So, >> Sure. >> Well, thanks, Jeremy. With that, then I'll open up to any commissioners that have any uh questions or comments. First, I think what we should do is we'll we'll put it into two buckets here for for Jeremy. Why don't we talk just the current map we have in front of us to approve that and then from there we can maybe have a quick discussion on maybe some of the other items you brought forward on the the new developments coming forward if that seems reasonable. So, with that, are there any questions about the current map that we have in front of us that we had a chance to review? There's really no changes to it from what I could tell from last year. >> Nope. Everything's the same. >> Okay. So, if there's no other no questions about the map, then I'd ask for a motion to approve the snowmobile map for this year. >> I'll approve. >> We have a motion. Second. >> Second. >> We have a second. With that, is there any other discussion? Okay. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. With that, then um I'll open it again to commissioners if you have any thoughts or maybe some comments that maybe can help Jeremy for um some of the developments and and keeping snowmmoiling snowmmoiling uh viable here in in Cottage Grove. And I know Ryan, you had mentioned to me that there was a little there's already dialogue with the city and the club to try to work maybe work some things out. I don't know if you have anything you could help share first. Uh yeah, members of the commission and chair, uh just kind of in general, I think ever since we did, you know, I want to say lose a 70 street trail, we've tried to make a pretty conservative effort to maintain our trails in town, especially when roads are expanding um like we did down on Hunter Street. You know, we actually widen that road, added trails and everything a couple years ago, and we're able to make sure we had a route for the snowmobiles um that we maintained. Um I will say for Keats, um similar situation there. The road itself isn't changing, but like Jeremy said, it it does run more in the field. So, I think that's something we have to look at as um there's still development. There will be a extremely wide rightway. And then there's also an easement with the Mech Council sewer that's actually even outside of that. So, there's going to be a lot of nice open buffer space between Keats Avenue and the homes. So, I think that's what we got to look at. And then just kind of setting the stage, right? You want that that understanding that the snowmobile trails are there. We want to keep them there and and and make sure people understand it's a it's a positive overall for the city. So, that's just kind of an ongoing dialogue with our planning uh staff, I would say, as well. >> Sure. Okay. Um, Captain Peterson, is there any is there any data I'm probably throwing you a little bit under the bus here, but like last year, did we have any citations from snowmobiles at all or any noise complaints that you can think of? >> I'll apologize. I didn't come prepared with the actual data. Uh but I can tell you just uh anecdotally there are very few incidents and I can't think of any citations or arrests that are related to snowmobile offenses. >> Okay. Thanks. And maybe Jeremy if you could maybe for the public um give them a little sense on you know how how often are the trails being used like what time of day? Um how late into the evening? Because I I would imagine that from a from a residential it's more about the noise at midnight a snowmobile come fly in my my backyard type thing. >> Yep. Um, it's pretty much I mean sun up till it's past sun down I would say. But all my years and experience I don't ever see people out ripping around much after 9 10 o'clock anyways cuz it's it's just you're too late anyways. But we do a very good job of when there is enough snow. The last couple years we haven't had that. But we do a very good job of grooming to keep people on the trails instead of veering off into random places. And so we work really hard on that. But like I said I don't see people running running late. I mean, the weekends would probably be the busiest times or right when kids get out of school and they want to go rip around a little bit, but that's what I've been noticing. >> Sure. Okay, good. >> And I do know a lot of people do utilize the parking lot out at Lamar now. So, because they used to park on 70 street at Highlands parking lot and since we lost that section of trail, the city gave us the Lamar parking lot. So that's >> that's a nice area for everybody to come and the city plows it out so they got a place to park and or actually the one year we raised enough money we put an AED out at the Lamar ball fields there for the city. So and then I believe last year as well we donated to the K9 fund and I think it went towards the wood boxes for the dogs for training which are also out at Lamar. So >> nice. >> Yep. >> So I grew up on snows. You could go out to our front yard and hop on the trails and go all the way to County Point. So, I appreciate this conversation. What I'm wondering is you mentioned um tanks and selling some of that property and there might be some areas. Did you guys have suggestions? Did you come with any ideas on how to expand your area? >> Yeah, this leave us a spot right through all the houses. >> No. Um well, like Ryan had said, the Met Council line runs through there and also the Northern Natural Gas line runs through. There's two lines that run through there that come across my field and go kitty corner across tanks. >> Mhm. at an ang basically from like old 70th and it comes across the field at an angle towards 80th and 19. So obviously they can't build anything on top of that I'm assuming. So that would be another option or if we can go further to the east around it but the drawing I had seen they're going to they want to put Ravine Parkway through there kind of on top of that new storm line storm water pipe they put in if there's wide enough easement there for us to run on. Otherwise we'd have to move out further east. But then I saw potential of a development of that field as well. So I don't know, you know, so we got like three options probably. I mean, I prefer to keep it out in the country versus in the ditch because once you get north of Cottage Grove, that's all it is is just pure ditches and driveways and it's no fun. A lot of people like trailer down here to go riding here because we have farm fields and you get to go through the woods and whatnot. So, >> any other comments or questions? I know for me, I'm an avid snowmoiler, too, and I've always said I I grew up in Ember Grove when like Highway 52 came in and they expanded that and my mom and dad were really active in their snowmobile club at the time. And that's the time to really get ahead of it when the the construction's not there already. So, the dialogue, I think, is good that we're doing it before any pavement goes down. And then if we can convince maybe not to plow our streets right down to the bottom back in the day. I mean, we used to Nimber Grove just leave from your house and go too and go all the way down to Dakota County and all that kind of stuff. So, um, I applaud your your club for all the effort and all the work you do. I'm one that's been at the the last couple shows that you guys have had out there, the vintage run and stuff that that it's just a hoot and it's it's a great time that you guys put on for it. So, thank you for doing that. um and excited to have you always come forward and bring this to the front of the public for us. So, >> but I think I think what I'm hearing from the the commission is that we're definitely proponents and we think it's an an amenity for the community here is another thing we can hang our hat on and say, "Hey, we're one of the communities that still want that type of recreation because it is it is a fun recreation sport." >> So, with that then, thanks Jeremy and then we'll look forward to coming to your event. It's the the flyer. he uh handed out to us, folks. It's uh January 10th starting at 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. So, I know you'll probably have a lot more information out there, but we look forward to it. >> Yep. Thank you. >> All right. Have a good night. >> Yep. >> Thank you, >> Chairman. You want these back? >> No, you guys hang on to them. Sure. Yeah absolutely. >> All right. Thank you. >> Appreciate it. >> All right. We'll move in. That's uh our one and only business item for this evening. We'll move into presentations. Our first uh presentation is the fire uh service evaluation study presentation and I'll turn it over to Chief John Perk to uh kick it off for us. >> Chairs, commissioners, uh thank you for having us tonight to present our fire service evaluation study and also thank you. Some folks on the commission did attend our focus group. So you might hear some um information you've heard, but we've also added additional pieces to it as well. Uh earlier this year we did an RFP process to do a fire service evaluation study. You also hear it be called a standards of cover and community risk assessment. And a lot of times we shorthand that to standards of cover with that. Uh it was really based a lot on our strategic plan last year where we did a 5-year strategic plan which this commission had a lot of good feedback on and help develop that. And then how do we kind of match the resources and needs of our community to fulfill the vision of our fire department? And one of the biggest precipitating pieces to this study was what do we do a station for? It's no longer response station. In order to do that, we really had to engage experts in the field to evaluate that. But on top of that, also evaluate as we're a rapidly growing community, uh looking at how the fire department can best serve that rapid growth. So tonight we have um BJ Youngman and Mike Mandor from Fitchen Associates that's going to share a draft briefing report on thus far some of the findings in these and also seek your feedback on that. And also we're very fortunate um through our RFP process of Fitch is a national firm. However um Mike and BJ are both have extensive experience in the Twin Cities and also serve as fire chiefs in the Twin Cities. And while they're not recogniz or representing their departments tonight, they do know kind of the landscape of the Twin Cities and frankly have both been leaders in both the state and the metro in advancing fire and EMS services. So they are the experts I I would say in our state and our metro. So please um if you have questions about anything, please take this time to pick their brains because they truly have been instrumental in transforming EMS and fire for the betterment in our area and our community. So, I'll turn it over to them and they can walk you through uh that draft report briefing. >> Good evening, Commission Chief. Thanks for the introduction. Uh my name is BJ Jungman. I'm a senior consultant for Fitch Associates and uh we're honored to be here to present uh to you tonight. I've been in the the fire service uh for 25 years, second generation firefighter. Uh I grew up in the metro here and as Chief Richard said, serve as a fire chief in the metro. uh also a paramedic and uh have worked in as a volunteer all the way up through career department. So worked in many different models uh worked in private EMS, hospital-based EMS and now firebased EMS. Also worked in a dispatch center for a while. So got some varying experience in the public safety realm and I'll let Mike introduce himself. >> Good evening and thank you for having us. My name is Michael Mondor. Um I have 23 years in fire EMS service. Similar to to BJ started as a volunteer. I've worked in part-time, full-time, combination models through for the duration of my my career. Um, a master's degree in organizational leadership with a focus in fire science administration and both of us have our executive fire officer and chief fire officer designations from the center for public safety excellence and uh we're just happy to be here tonight. Awesome. >> Procedural wise, is it easier for it to go through the presentation first and questions after or would you like questions as we go along? Um, feel free to ask questions as we go along. If we tell you, if we think we're going to answer it in a future slide, we'll just tell you that, but that way it's fresh in your mind and you're not trying to remember it. So, feel free to interrupt us along the way. So, >> okay, fair enough. Thanks. >> Thanks for asking. >> All right. So, we'll talk a little bit about the firm, uh, talk some substantive issues, and then a little bit on recommendations and findings, and then answer any questions you might have. So, again, we're in the draft stage. None of this is finalized and we still have some more work to do to frame out some some recommendations, but this gives you kind of a good backbone of of what's coming with the standards of cover. So, a little bit about Fitchin Associates. Uh we're a consulting firm and uh we look at fire and EMS systems and dispatch centers. Uh we have multiple pieces of the firm. Uh we've been in business for over 40 years and we've consulted on all but one continent uh all across this country, all across uh North America and like I said on other continents as well. Um we do a lot of standards of cover. We do a lot of strategic planning. Uh we we look at systems and what I really like about our firm and and why I chose to be part of this firm is we ground a lot of our recommendations in data. Uh we think that helps reduce bias. Uh you don't need Mike and BJ's great opinion. uh you want to know why something is happening and we ground ourselves in in that data. Uh and so we take a lot of pride in our recommendations that they're based in substantive issues that we can back up why they're issues. Um so you'll see a lot tonight on the data analysis we do. We do heavily data analysis and GIS analysis and then there's also the qualitative side that we do uh with stakeholder input and interviews with folks. So um so yeah, that's a little bit about our firm. We're based in Kansas City, but our consultants are from all over the country. Um, in my eight years, I've had the fortune of of consulting all across uh the country, from the east coast to the west coast. And so, um, it's a little bit about us. When you look at project deliverables, uh, we really have this broken down in four phases. The first phase is the qualitative data analysis. Um, that's always kind of the first phase cuz that seems to take us the longest. It's a bit challenging sometimes to get the data out of the systems and get it analyzed. Um, and then phase two, we get into the GIS and station location analysis. We'll show you a little bit of that tonight. And then phase three is a community risk assessment. Uh, at the end of the day, the fire and EMS department is really a risk mitigation tool. So, you need to understand the risk in the community now and what it's going to be in the future in order to plan for uh what your future organization might look like. And then phase four, kind of where we're getting is the standards of cover and findings and recommendations. And so, we're in the middle of phase four right now is kind of where we're at. So first three phases are pretty well wrapped up uh with draft reports on all those pieces. And then phase four is what's coming forward here in the next month. So some of the key considerations that we've come up with is improving dispatch time, turnout time, and total response time. And we'll show you a little bit on on each of those buckets coming up here. Uh then the considerations as the chief had talked about for fire station location, particularly station 4 and a regional solution. Um, as you likely know, you provide fire service to the city of Cottage Grove and your EMS landscape goes beyond the borders of Cottage Grove to three other communities. Uh, also some capital planning for the department, particularly around vehicles. We know fire department vehicles are not cheap. Uh, and they've gotten more expensive. Uh, but at the same time, you want to make sure that you have high reli highly reliable vehicles that have modern technology in them uh to support your staff and providing service to the community. Uh, also the stakeholder feedback. We did some um some input from the stakeholders and also looking at cost recovery considerations. We'll talk a little bit about that tonight. And then uh thinking about adding additional dedicated EMS transport unit to deal with your increasing demand for EMS volume. So that's kind of a highle overview of what we're going to talk about. Um when we look at this uh this is your response times. So uh this is at the 90th percentile. So, really quick, you're probably used to seeing average response times. Those are very commonly reported. Uh, we will we will show in the data report the average response times, but if you think about an average, that's a coin flip. So, if you're the one calling 911, it's a coin flip on whether we get there in that amount of time. Uh, half the time we're going to get there at less than that time and half the time we're going to get there in a longer period of time. So, it doesn't show you with great reliability how the system operates. So, this is what we call the 90th percentile time. So this means that nine times out of 10 we're going to perform at this level or better. So it's a function of reliability. So when you hear 90th percentile, that's really what it is is nine times out of 10 we're going to be at this response time or better. Does that make sense? So it's a different response or a different measure than than average. So you see that we broke it down on the left column through EMS and then we broke down um all the cities uh Cottage Grove, Newport, St. park and and grey count greycloud island and then you see on the fire side we have the fire bucket, the hazmat and the rescue bucket. So you can kind of see by program the the times. Uh the first bucket there is the dispatch time. So in theory this is from the time the call picks up until the fire department knows there's a call going on. That's what we call dispatch processing time. That's the first bucket. The second bucket is turnout time. From when the firefighters know there's a call until a truck is leaving the station to head towards the call. That is called the turnout time. That is the the time that the fire department has the most control over uh is is the turnout time. And then the response time is the time from when the truck leaves the station until it is at the doorstep of the address that they're calling from. So that is the that is the travel time. Then the overall response time is all three of those buckets. But I want you to look at them as four different buckets because you if you add up the 90th percentile of each individual bucket, they will not add up to the 90th be or or the total response time because you are having different measures of each of those statistically. Um so your dispatch time is is 4.3. Your turnout time uh is 3.1 overall. Your travel time is 9.3 with a total 90th percentile of 14.3. I would tell you to look at the response time more than the individual buckets because there's a lot of nuance in how that data is captured and reported. So really from a public policy standpoint, the biggest number you want to we want to focus on on what's acceptable to the community or not is that 14.3. >> Sorry. So So you had a question. >> I did have a question. Um but maybe I'm just trying to understand on the dispatch time. Yep. >> So you have an average of 4.3. Is that 4.3 minutes from the time that a call comes in for the dispatch to turn that around to Cottage Grove Fire Department? >> That is correct. Uh that is how that is measured. >> I don't understand the four minutes. >> Yeah. So there's some nuance in that. So you got to remember the average is going to be much lower than that. >> Okay. >> So uh the 4.3 and part of this is the chief and I were talking about this before we came over here. Part of this is really technical in how they're dispatched. So their individual units are not dispatched but their station is. So part of the part of the dispatch time is also accounted for in the turnout time. So it's there's some bleed over between those two. That's why I'm trying to focus you on the the overall response time >> because it's a function of how they're dispatched >> that the the actual call processing time might be slightly lower than that. >> All right. Um >> thank you. It just it felt like a long time and I wasn't understanding. It it is and there's a function of when we get to the 90th percentile we're encompassing a lot of calls >> and there might be times uh for instance where we need language line right that might take a longer or >> or um because you got to remember we're talking about 10% of the calls that are longer than that. So we're we're hitting a pretty high subset of the calls at the 90th percentile or there could be multiple calls going on, not enough call takers due to the volume. Um there's a number of things that could get you up there. Okay. >> Does that help? >> Yeah, it does. Under hearing that side of it. Yep. >> Helps me understand better. Thank you. >> Very good. So, if you look in the kind of the center bottom there, best practices uh established by the National Fire Protection Association says the dispatch time should be about 2 minutes. The turnout time should be about 1 and a half minutes and then the travel time should be 4 minutes. Now, something to consider about the travel time is both the urban and the suburban standards are the same, but yet the concentration is very different. like the the concentration across the entire Cottage Grove service area may not be urban yet the standard in the in the industry is still four minutes. So just remember those are benchmarks, not anything you have to meet, but it's a it's a point of reference, right? Um so when you look at that, you know, you're looking at um a little over 7 minutes if you add all those pieces together. Uh you're a little bit higher than than that. Um I wouldn't say it's it's off the charts too high. um it might be a little longer, but you have a bigger area, you're covering from a single station. We'll get into some of the geography coming up here. So, um but one of our recommendations is to better align our dispatch and turnout times and data collection with best practices. There's a way to to parse through the data a little better and make sure that we got the right pieces of time in each bucket um to make sure that we are clear on what is dispatch processing time and what is turnout time. So, and then the ve very bottom of that recommendation is if we work on the dispatch and the turnout time, that has an excellent return on investment because when we start talking about travel time, the only way to really fix that is to put more physical plant facilities and more people in those facilities to to take up the travel time. It it's a function of distance, right? Uh we can't get there any faster. We don't want to recommend people drive faster and reckless as firefighters and big vehicles. it just doesn't it's not a safe way to approach it and the return on investment is so small. So focusing on the dispatch and turnout time from an operational standpoint is an important thing for the chief and his staff to work on. Uh we'll get into the travel time piece here in a minute. With that, I'm going to turn it over to >> I have a quick question. Yeah. Um and forgive me if you already mentioned this, but I know you said this is based on 90% of the 911 calls. What's the state EMS response average? >> Oh, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head. >> Okay. >> I I don't know. And I just was wondering how close we are to that. >> Yeah. And I would say I don't know that I want to take the average of the state because you have so many rural areas, >> right? You you might want to take the metro and I don't know that anybody publishes that currently. It's a great question. Um >> which department which department do you work for? >> Uh I work in a a metro department. >> You don't have to say. >> It's all good. >> I work in a metro department. I would tell you um our travel time is slightly less. Um, but we have two stations in about the same geography, give or take a couple square miles. So, >> so that's a pretty good parallel in terms of keeping it metro style. Okay, cool. Thank you. >> So, >> so if that's helpful, but I >> Thank you. >> EMS data is a little interesting just because there's private providers and public providers. So, the state has the data and some of it's public and some of it's not. So, trying to get a comparison on the EMS side is much more challenging than on the fire side. So, um, unfortunately I don't have a an applesto apples comparison, but it's a great question. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Uh, as as fa part of phase two of the study, we conducted a GIS analysis, which uses a marginal utility model to help identify how are our current stations performing? What would the future look like if we we moved things around on the map? and knowing that uh you know the the the central fire station is a beautiful uh new facility, we want to validate that that's in a good place. Uh and so as part of that analysis uh 93.5% of all the calls in Cottage Grove can be uh responded to in travel time. So that's one of the response time elements that uh BJ had alluded to in eight minutes or less. Then when you look at when you factor in EMS and understanding that uh Newport, St. Paul Park uh and Great Cloud Island, similarly 93.5% of all calls for EMS can be answered uh in 9 minutes or less from that current uh central location. And so in other words, the current fire station location is well positioned to meet the community's needs at that travel time performance standard. With uh station 4, the the question is, you know, do do we the most expensive cost is facilities and then putting staff in those facilities. So if we wanted to operate out of two stations, what would that look like? Um and what we found was that station 4 is highly duplicative. Uh there's a lot of overlap between the two fire stations. Uh and so you're not really increasing the capacity of response and that the customers experience by uh staffing that facility. You can meet over 93% of the time with that one central location. So, uh, we would recommend considering other options, uh, for that physical location where station 4 is currently at because it does the the level of investment doesn't equate with the benefit. You have a a diminishing return of value, uh, when you're operating that close in proximity. Um, and while station 4 was highly duplicative, in talking with uh community development staff and looking at the future of potential development in the southwest corner of Cottage Grove, uh we put together some hypothetical modeling of what future future locations could look like where you would start to see see return on investment and maintain that travel time over a period of time. And so we're able to model that out uh and build out potential locations where the city may want to consider purchasing land for the potential of future investment if as that uh part of the area continues to develop. Uh when you're looking at uh St. Paul Park, uh, Newport, and Great Cloud Island. If the the department would like to partner from an EMS response standpoint, uh, they could coverage those areas uh, at about 95% in that 8 minute travel time. So, if the the city's desire was to have another dedicated ambulance and just have that staffed as an ambulance, uh, partnerships with Newport and or St. Hall Park could help that overall travel time that all customers are experiencing from an EMS standpoint. Next, we looked at um capital. The challenges around fleet and capital for for the fire industry have been extremely difficult postco uh where ambulances we used to see turnarounds of about 6 months to get an ambulance and now you can look at two to three years. We used to be able to get a fire engine in a year to 18 months and some manufacturers are out four to five years. So planning is extremely important and as you see in this graph the the green line is ideal replacement and you can see that several of the department's uh vehicles are either approaching or have surpassed ideal replacement of vehicles. An ideal replacement would be seven years for uh moderate duty apparatus such as ambulances and then those can be held in reserve status for three additional years, 10 years replacement for light duty apparatus such as response SUVs and and those types of vehicles and then 15-year replacement for heavy duty apparatus like fire engines, ladder trucks. Uh we would recommend and industry best practices the National Fire Protection Association uh recommend that no apparatus should exceed 25 years from manufacturer date and still be utilized in emergency response capacity. looking at that and understanding that it's really difficult uh a based on the current climate of of procurement and b from a cost perspective we established a good better best uh option >> for fleet replacement for the department uh the good option will be contained in the report and I'll get into it a little bit further here in the next couple slides but that would be a balanced replacement over time so we looked at what are the costs of these apparatus what are the highest priorities properties and how can we balance the the fiscal impact of that over time. Understanding that it's really hard when you have a limited fleet uh to balance the fiscal impact of a onetime cost for $2 million for a ladder truck or $1.3 million for an engine. But let's not stack on a bunch of other replacement if we know that those those high expenditures are coming. So, let's plan for this over time. uh a a better option would to look at the the combination of ideal and and what we've recommended and to come up with a hybrid model working with finance staff to say, "Hey, you know what? These this SUV is costing us $12,000 a year in maintenance costs. Let's maybe bump that up a year. We can absorb that in in in year three or year four instead of year six or seven." Uh and then the best would be, I mean, to follow industry standards. Uh and so that ideal replacement will be laid out uh as an option. So, couple different ways to frame it up. Understanding that uh it's really difficult to wave a wand overnight and replace half of a department's fleet. This will be contained in the report. Um but you have uh basically an ideal replacement that's based on that 7, 10, and 15ear model that I discussed. Uh and then we looked at what recommended replacement would be looking at balanced costs over time. And so that's in the far right column. Uh the fire department also reports that it has reduced the size of its fleet as it's uh consolidated and transitioned to a more of a full-time staffing model and there's additional apparatus that uh upon replacement could be considered for removal from the fleet and through some um rep prioritization of of that fleet plan. >> I'll pause there to see if there's any questions about fleet or GIS. >> Good. I have a quick question and this is more maybe for John and company >> but um there's been talk about our service areas changing. If that happens is that going to give us the ability then to reduce some of that data and have a better response time in addition to having a plan for demographic growth and potentially putting in a new fire station. >> Um our consultants will actually cover that in the coming slides. Great. So um I'll defer to that. I'm happy to answer that, but I think that'll offer a lot of those answer to that question. So, >> thank you. >> Yeah, to the chief's point, we do have a slide in here that can kind of look at the different demands uh from Cottage Grove and then your your other partner communities to to talk about what that added demand or if it were to be decreased, what the level of investment would need to be. Um, we also analyzed uh transport rates. uh there we want to see consistency across all communities served, right? And so there's a a much higher number of incidents in in the city of Cottage Grove, but you do see uh consistency if someone calls 911 and the percentage of times that they're transported that's being equitable across all of the different communities served, which we would expect to see. And that aligns with national uh averages. Additionally, if you look at kind of the squiggly lines, the dark blue line and the light blue line, um that's transport rates over a 24-h hour period. And so, you would not want to see uh huge variation in transport rates, let's say at 3 in the morning because somebody wants to get back to doing whatever and not transport somebody or during peak times where they're just trying to turn calls. everything that we analyze within the transport rates was appropriate and aligns with national best practices. So that that just reaffirms kind of the services that Cottage Grove Fire and EMS is providing. We'll turn that. All right. So, we know there's been some discussion because you do provide ambulance services outside of your community and and there is a cost to providing that service and and just like any other clinic or any other healthcare provider, the the reimbursement rate doesn't always cover the full cost. So, the question is how do we address that, right? Um, so there's a there there's a couple of ways to do that. We came up with four of those and and I'll get more into them a little bit as we as we get into the slides um about why or what. But one way to do that is is is to think about uncompensated care. And um when we look at the uncompensated care, you would take your net bill versus your net collection. We wouldn't use gross because there's mandatory write- offs. Uh just like when you get your explanation of benefits after you go to a clinic, there's what they charge and then there's contractual adjustments. So the contractual adjustments bring you down to a net uh amount. So what you would do is take the uncompensated care and then put it in the buckets based on where the city uh was served, which city was served, and then build that difference to whatever city it might be. Um there's also the cost recovery for actual costs and that would be done by figuring out uh your cost to provide ambulance service. Uh what's your staff cost? What's your capital cost uh per hour and then distribute it by the EMS percentage or EMS calls percent by city. So uh Cottage Grove is 73% of the cost. So you would bear the 73% of the cost uh of uncompensated care. So you take what the deficit is from the revenue and distribute it. And Newport's 13, St. Paul Park's 12, and Great Grey Cout Island is 2%. So you could do that by actual cost. Um, and then you could do it by um the allocation of the budget deficit, thinking about what you budget versus what the cost is, and just straight up do it by call volume and just say your x percent to Cottage Grove, this percent to to uh St. Paul Park, Newport, Great Collar Island. The fourth one would be to create an EMS taxing district. One, the statute 144F allows for a taxing district. Uh it would create a separate board that would be appointed elected officials. So it would have to be elected officials on the board and they would directly tax the communities through an aortionment model um to pay for that service. So all four of those are options. Um we're going to talk a little bit about demand and resources. I would I would encourage uh any movement towards this to be collaborative, right? it can be easy to say um we need to to fill this void and that's good but I think taking a long-term approach and make sure it's collaborative would be helpful uh in making sure that everybody is bought into whatever solution is uh pursued in this matter. So when you look at this uh we looked at both Cottage Grove and all jurisdictions and what you see is all seven days here by hour of day. What you see in the the the green bars that are vertical there is the demand. So how many calls are we going to per hour? And then what you layer on top of that is the geography to meet that 9m minute travel time that we are talking about um is the lighter blue area in there. And then on top of that is the red line. The red line is the amount of vehicles staffed. So currently you're staffing two vehicles. And if we look at Cottage Grove only, you're bumping up against those two vehicles, not considering the other three cities. Right now, if you take the other three jurisdictions and add them in, you're still bumping up against the lines. So from a resource standpoint, although when you look at the the numbers on paper, uh there's a gap in in in the revenue, when you look at the resources and the sunk cost of providing fire and EMS to the city of Cottage Grove, the cost and the allocation is the same whether you provide ambulance service to only Cottage Grove or to all four communities. So I think it's important to understand the sunk cost is already there uh with the two resources that you have and that that demand wouldn't change whether you're doing one community or four communities uh as those other other four other three communities don't add that much demand that would tax your resources and whether you tax your resources or not in this next slide we're going to show you're going to need resources to maintain the service level uh not even necessarily improve them. So if you look at Cottage Grove only and we look at a a modest 5% which is what most of us are seeing on call demand and and the majority of that we're seeing on the EMS side within the next four years you're going to need to add a second dedicated ambulance just to stay afloat with that 8 minute drive time. Um so again that can be accomplished by adding an additional ambulance 12 hours a day because what do you see is you see peaks and valleys right you see overnight hours it goes down daylight hours it is higher and most communities see that same bell curve where 8 or 9:00 a.m. until about 900 p.m. is about the peak demand uh for the fire department and EMS department. Um, if you were to take that and and take out Cottage Grove and just look at uh the other three cities independently, again, you see how small the demand that adds on top of what the city of Cottage Grove has by itself. So, those two compare future 5 years uh with 5% growth and what Cottage Grove is versus the other three or other three communities. Does that make sense in what we're covering? Okay. So when we look at uh staffing uh currently they staff four uh personnel. So that's the first column there in red. Uh so there's 24 hour two four 24-hour seats. Uh the minimum per shift is four. They don't run anybody on a 12-h hour shift. The you see the 3.72 that's a calculated uh relief staffing multiplier. So all these staff have vacation, sick time, all that kind of stuff, right? So to staff one seat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it takes 3.72 FTEES when you you figure that out. Now that is if everything happened perfectly. If we knew exactly when everybody's going to call in sick and the vacation was equitable across the entire year. Doesn't quite work that way, but that's how you plan for it. So uh currently you need 15 FTEEs to to cover that. They currently have 16 again to to cover that four personnel a day. If they were to bump that up to six personnel a day, um with the 12-h hour shift as we were talking about, um that would be um four people 24 hours a day, two people 12 hours a day. That would get them six during the day, four at night. Um there's two different relief multipliers. The 3.72 is the 24-hour shifts. The 2.5 is the 12-h hour shifts because they would acrewue and work a different schedule. Your firefighters on 24-hour shifts work an average of 56 hours a week. Your firefighters that work 12-hour shifts are on an average of 42 hours a week. So, their vacation and sick time acrruel and use would be on a different scale. Uh so, in order to do that, you would need a total of 20 FTEEs. So, you're short of that by four in order to accomplish that. Uh six during the day, four overnight. If you were to invest and just go to say, "We're going to do six personnel 247 and we're going to run three units 247," um you would need 23 personnel and uh you would need uh an additional seven personnel to make that happen. So again, your existing deployment really is two vehicles, four people per day. uh our future recommendations and what we're building out right now as we talked about is a good better best model based on what you just saw in that graph. So um we will uh we'll be coming back with that here relatively soon uh to the council and to the staff uh with the staffing recommendation. But you can see that growth over the next five years really puts a strain on the current resources just to maintain a current level of service to the community. So, there's any questions on staffing. All right, I'm going to turn it back over to Mike. As with our experience in both consulting and as being fire chiefs, the level of investment uh to staff and to adequately equip fire departments is significant. And so we did spend a significant effort to try to get stakeholder feedback to see what the community thought about that the different potential levels of investment. Um so we had a survey at the fire department's open house in early October and then we uh hosted a focus group on October 20th with some of you familiar faces and other people stakeholders from the community. We actually had three of our commissioners that attended that. Myself, Nick, and um or Nate, and uh Jenny, just for everybody's info. Uh overall, respondents were highly satisfied with fire and EMS services. Um there's strong expectations for prompt service. A majority of the survey respondents expecting response times within four to eight minutes, some even wanting less than that. uh most participants expressed the desire to have the department uh strongly expects the department to participate in outreach prevention and engagement opportunities and initiatives. Uh there are questions about the the costs associated with some of these changes. uh there was, you know, conditional support on tax increases if that could be tied to value uh such as improving response response times and slightly lower. So, uh but still substantial report support to fund prevention outreach and engagement initiatives. Um there was some conversations about uh regional service and cost sharing, concern about timely mutual aid and demand in neighboring communities. Uh concern about Cottage Grove residents. Uh subsidizing the response and just want a cost sharing model that's fair across all jurisdictions. And I like I think the key to that is as BJ mentioned uh that we would recommend having a collaborative approach to determine what determining what that looks like. Uh overall there was an interest uh in in regional collaboration in the different group between the stake the stakeholder feedback and the focus group. Uh the primary themes was that there's strong support and trust in the local fire department and cottage Grove fire and EMS. Uh desire for fast and reliable response times. there's a a willingness, general willingness to invest more uh especially among those residents and people that had had identified as using the service uh if they're tied to tangible real service improvements. Uh as I mentioned, there's concerns about financial equity. Um and there's openness to to structural reforms as such as cost sharing or regional regionalization of the fire and EMS district. With that, we will open up to any questions or comments. >> Well, maybe you could um expound a little bit because I remember at that at the community or the meeting we were at, you guys did talk about St. Paul Park that their fire station right now has the capability of actually housing a an ambulance right now or did I mis think about or mishar that >> their current facility wouldn't be able to support overnight staffing? And then there's also just a if um collaboration required then how do we respond to fire calls simultaneously as well in terms of like the geographic location. It does offer a prime location for um serving both Cottage Grove Newport and uh St. Paul Park. However, there are some logistical challenges with the actual station itself. So you're correct location is very good. However, there are some issues in terms of the operational pieces that would be comprised with that. >> Okay. >> Correct. And I would say, yeah, the GIS location suggests opportunity, but there are local policy decisions and the fact that you're balancing fire and EMS response uh with that. So, those are all operational things that and policy level discussions that would need to be had. But geographically, the geo analysis suggests that there's opportunity there. So, I'm curious on that the the board you guys talked about, the tax board. Um, how how does that board come together? You mentioned now it's an elected office versus an appointed office because that was always my concern that you're if you have appointed people that are in charge of taxation. That didn't seem to feel very good to me. >> So, it's appointed elected officials. It's it's a great question. So, it would have to be elected officials from the the makeup of the community. uh councils. So each council would get x number of seats, right? And that's part of the development of that is what would the power share be on that of how many seats would Cottage Grove get versus St. Paul Park versus Newport or Great Clet Island. But it would have to be elected officials from those city councils that make up that EMS taxing district board. It could not be appointed community members. It would have to be appointed elected officials. to your point, someone with an election certificate that is making taxing decisions, not necessarily a community member. >> Okay. Thanks. Other questions? >> Yeah. Just because I don't know um how many ambulances do we have today? >> So, currently we have two ambulance. So in terms of staffing or the actual physical ambulance themselves, I I'll answer both just for uh we have currently we have three ambulances. Um and really with any system you need at least one backup because ambulances break down unfortunately frequently. Uh secondly, we currently have one and a half per day. And what I mean by that is we currently have one ambulance that is staffed. They're firefighter paramedics. However, that second ambulance has to be cross staff with a fire engine. So, if a fire call comes out, they're no longer an ambulance. If a EMS call comes out, they're no longer a fire apparatus. So, it's um Rob and Peter to pay Paul a lot of days with that. And then, um within our system, if we have two calls at any given time, we no longer have any sort of fire EMS response coming from Cottage Grove that we would have to rely on neighboring mutual aid to cover any calls with that. And would having another ambulance help fix those times, those response times? >> And that's what's like kind of what's being suggested here. And I'll kind of give that to him to offer a more succinct question. I will share though within that. Um, it would help solve that issue if we have two calls going on. We'd still most likely then have reserve that third unit then to as a fire engine so we always can provide a fire response to the city. So it would help coverage and then I can um leave it to them to discuss the actual response times. >> Sure. I'm sorry I have questions because then I was thinking if you had another ambulance you do you have the staff to cover the other ambulance or would you need to increase that staff >> currently? No. And that's again with what our current FT um >> thing is we could not provide a third unit right now reliably. So but >> all right >> but I'll know that Cottage Grove is on both sides of the railroad. Um we have over 80 trains that go back and forth a day. Does any of that impact our response times? >> So you know fortunately what happens is we do are able to access southwest parts of the city both through St. Paul Park which some of our largest apparatus has to go through there because of that train bridge. Otherwise it does not impact our um response times. Hence it may theoretically if we run into one we go you know around holiday on Hadley instead of going out the other way but no not on a reliable or consistent basis does that hinder our response time. So but that's a good question in terms of that station placement at one time station 4 was placed there not just to support a volunteer model but because it's on the other side of the tracks or um potentially could get across the other sides of the tracks. >> Thank you. So this is amazing information with a lot of question marks. What is the plan moving forward and what does that timeline look like to engage our community and make decisions? >> Yeah, from our perspective, we are finishing up the draft report with recommendations and I believe it's December 3rd. It's coming up here in a couple weeks. We'll be presenting to the council kind of a final draft with all the recommendations. >> Okay. Um, so then our part will be kind of handing it off and then I'm not sure what the the plan is after that, but that will kind of conclude that phase four of the study and the standards of cover >> and then strategically the city council will figure out strategically what works and the plan and the money and the budget over time I would imagine. >> All right. Thank you. >> Have a question about the analysis around the central fire station. As you look forward in the future, obviously our city is continuing to grow, adding more households, adding more people. Did you look forward is is there a point in time where that won't be sufficient to support the city? And do you have any sort of recommendation what that would look like going out 5 10 15 years? that that is the the beauty of this analysis is that it's focused the GIS analysis is focused on the the current locations and travel time. So you can get to 93.5 uh% today of calls in Codrove in 8 minutes or less. And so that says that unless there's any major disruptions to your road network or they put train tracks in every other intersection, which is not likely that that from that location, you will be able to respond in 8 minutes of of travel time. And the only variable to that is as the demand continues to increase that it would it would look at future investments in the number of bodies or the staff that are required to respond from those areas. So that does account for for future planning and and future growth. We met with community development and know that there's there's growth to the west and or to the east, I'm sorry, and then to the southwest. And that's why we looked at that other hypothetical model. So, if you really started to see a boom, you would want more reliable service. And I'll just go to kind of the graph here down where it gets light green or is not highlighted, you would want more reliable service there if that area continues to grow. And the hypothetical modeling would say, hey, now if we have two stations, we can get there within that 8 minute travel time 90% of the time. So it does account for future growth and allows for the the plan to grow in the staffing plan to grow into that. >> So is that station 4? I'm sorry. Or is that something else when you talk about a potential second location? >> Um where are we here? Let's optimize that one. >> This this one is the one I I meant to scroll to. So this is a optimized location. >> Okay. >> Versus I scrolled one too far there when I went. But yeah, so we we and we can literally uh through the GIS analysis, we can take we just take the parcel information and say like, okay, 3M is here. We we're not going to be able to build there. So, we just move it to a place that's potentially available. And then if the city gets to a point where they're like, hey, we want to consider this location. This parcel became vacant. we can plug it in and say here's what you could expect from a system performance standpoint if you wanted to make that level of investment. >> And the other benefit uh to that point is our central fire station cuz we're um doing some scenarios that if station 4 would be something that we no longer need. And just to emphasize the point in which station 4 to make it a util to make it a usable response station the amount of money you're probably approaching over a million dollars just to get it to that point. And as we saw here there's probably not much value cuz there's so much overlap. But as we were looking at those pieces and possibilities, we also did realize that our central fire station just with some remodeling without like tearing down walls or getting like foundational pieces that we could add an apparatus bay and even go up to 10 dorm rooms in there. So it could theoretically house 10 firefighters 24 hours a day. So it does have that potential for growth. However, to the point that we also have to be uh cognizant of the volume that also occurs in that southwest area. So, it gives us a great opportunity to plan for that. However, we still know we have a lot of growth we can do in that central fire station while covering up to 94% of that city in an 8minute drive time. So, frankly, we're in a really good spot while we can do deliberate planning for the future based upon what we've seen thus far. So, so kudos to folks and everyone involved in selecting the central fire station and putting it on that spot because it was a great selection for that. So, I have a quick question. Maybe I missed it. You spoke a lot about the growth we would need uh in staff, but you and you just touched on a little bit uh John, but what about actual apparat apparatuses and things of that nature? Do we know what that need will be looking at that fiveyear growth? >> Yeah, I would you want me? >> Yeah, I would. In our analysis of your fleet, the current number of vehicles is well positioned to support any of the good, better, best staffing recommendations that we would make. you know, with some adjustments and understanding that over time there might be small tweaks, but when we're looking at the level of investment for C fire engines, ladder trucks, you're well positioned. Ambulance, you know, you're you're really well positioned, but you you might be on the cusp of of one additional depending on growth and and staffing models. And that is one um I know it's a big change and it's a monumental step when you kind of convert to more of a career more career all full-time model. But one of the benefits of that is typically you need less fire stations which we're seeing why many of you that grew up in this community we used to have four fire stations and now we're down to one. But the other addition is you don't need those four fire stations in communities with like three or four fire trucks a piece. So, just in the last three years and um we've gotten rid of a fire engine that was essentially just sitting there. We've gotten rid of a brush truck, gotten rid of a UTV, a trailer. So, we've already made some of those cuts. And so, as we look forward and as um Mr. Mandor had pointed out, we're in a good position. Even if we added staff, all we're doing at that point is for example like a twoperson fire engine. Ideally, you have a four people. So if we add staff, all we're doing is just making that even more efficient and better because we already have the seats to put people in. So it's really we're in a really good position with a number of apparatus. And then um if we replace the engine, we could get rid of that second ladder which typically have hefty replacement cost. So actually it's kind of one thing I think I'm really happy about thus far is a we made a good decision to get rid of that excess apparatus, but it really does set up us set us up for future growth with that as well. So, but thanks for the question because it's a we are proud of that that we're making good wise stewardship decisions for our community by not having excess apparatus. I have a question um when it comes to staffing is the need for staffing in a demand right now like we're looking for people or is it because we need to invest in having more people? >> Currently, we're in a good spot. We're actually have a full complement of our full-time people, which and I I appreciate the question because it's one thing we brought up as we talked about strategic planning, especially on recruitment and retention is getting good people in the door. So, we're there. We're still struggling with our part-time folks and hiring people. And that's again across the market. And there's I unfortunately there's no magic wand to fix that. Um and again, I'd love to see it, but um we're still struggling there. So a lot of these additions for investment to your point would be full-time staffing adds to that. So it's not necessarily need the people because we currently are fully staffed in terms of our full-time staff is that these additions would be that additional staff on top of the folks we already have. >> So then we would have to focus on how are we going to get that staff here and get them hired. I think it's a good point though. still need to focus on that and we can't lose sight of that because for example we were just talking tonight there's probably with um there was the metro is very fortunate to get some staffing grants from the federal government and I think we added there's going to be at least probably what 20 plus open positions probably in the next um few weeks and months and we're always going to be facing that as other communities go through the same significant additions that like we're seeing is that we're always going to have compete for good people and how can we be competitive to your point it's not just adding positions like hey but we still have to get them in the door and I think that still deserves a lot of attention and a lot of innovative approaches to that >> okay so something we can focus on >> yes >> Mike and BJ I actually got to draw off your expertise again I I won't put you on the spot and ask which department you work for again I was actually asking that to to kid around but uh so is this this isn't a unique situation we're in right across the metro. This probably happens somewhat frequently. Um, do you have any I don't want to spoil the December 3rd uh suggestions, but do you have any summary you can provide in what some other departments across the metro have done well presented with this dynamic like uh you know what what did they do to solve this problem? Did they pass along any one of those four recommendations or did they come up with a hybrid approach? Yeah, I mean it it becomes and then that's what BJ mentioned of of you letting the data inform the decision and then what level of service does the community expect and so at at that 8 minute travel time if the community expects them to meet that at 90 at 90% uh that requires investment and so there's there's a lot of different policy decisions that are interweaved in that decision. But I think this gives some framework to say if we want an 8m minute travel time 90% of the time and we're going to still look at the overall response times and chip away at those individual pieces then this is the level of investment we need today and as volume goes up that gives us some a benchmark to say hey if we're not meeting that that's going to require future investment. So there is a way to to look at alternatives and stair step it in. Uh really it it depends community to community how they decide how they're going to do that. There's a there's a large variability in how they've been implemented. >> Yeah. cuz I would imagine like right now if you were to go ask pretty much any Cottage Grove resident uh if they're willing to sacrifice response time um you know to save a neighboring community some having to kick money in to support uh you know the the service that they're used to. Any Cottage Grove resident's going to say no absolutely not. I'm more concerned about the response time for my house than I am for somebody down in the street that doesn't pay taxes to support what we're currently used to. Um, so I I am interested to see how this dynamic dynamic decision plays out. Uh, especially because uh, like I said, the residents of Cottage Grove, they get used to the service that is provided and it's stellar, right? So to sacrifice anything um, it's it's going to be a hard sell to the residents of Cottage Grove. That's for sure. >> And thanks for your guys' presentation. Again, this is the second time I've seen it. So, uh, it's fantastic. Still, thank you. Thank you. >> I'm just going to throw out there that you might want to, um, go to the mayor's Facebook page and check the comments. >> Yeah, I did. Well, that that was going to lead me to a question. Um, this data, as as I've always believed, too, the data should help be a guide, right? How has the data been receptive? because I know this presentation's been given to our to our partnering communities. Correct. >> And what's the response been from them because you know again we is Cottage Grove brought this forward. I'm curious how they interpret the data and what is going to so I don't know if you were all part of those presentations or John if it was council that went and presented to um our neighboring communities. I'm just curious to hear because again to to Lisa's point obviously we're all seeing now Facebook we have mayors posting stuff all over the place all the mayors. So I'm more about okay how are we going to keep everybody grounded on what are the true facts that when we have to come to a decision point that we're all kind of in agreement because once it gets out there it's the old I told you you told him and she told that next thing you know we got 15 different stories out there. So, a lot right there. But I'm kind of curious how this data has been >> um brought up to the other communities. >> We've shared it with other comm community. We've shared it at the end of September city administrators and we've had discussions, but in terms of like where we're specifically talking about I would defer that to Mayor Bailey or a member of the council to discuss like the political aspects of it. I think this data and the facts kind of are there. I can speak to that. But in terms of some of the other stuff, I would defer to our um elected officials for that. >> And I think it's hard right now too until the actual recommendation comes out. You know, it's still a little bit everybody assume they're are making assumptions too. I think if we all just stay grounded on at least what the facts are right now and think that the recommendations are grounded in these facts, too. I think that'll that'll go a long way. >> My personal opinion and I I shared at that um focus group and I'll just share because I know Councilman Thi's here. The one the one option that I'd be really nervous about though is that taxing authority. And the reason being is we have control right now. If you create a taxing authority, correct me if I'm wrong, we lose a little bit of control because now you have a number of different members that are all part of that. So you've got that dynamic to work for. And especially I I spent a number of years on a school board that was part of a collaborative that was really hard to manage and we were the biggest district within that collaborative. And once you go into those collaboratives or taxing authorities or whatever you want to call it, um you do lose control. And I think that's the one thing we have to really be cognizants of is the control part of it too when the decision has to come. So I share that as a my own personal opinion. So any other questions or comments? Again, thank you gentlemen for uh bringing the data for us. Um I appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> With that, then we're going to move to our uh added agenda item. Uh that is uh the the addition of the ebikes and that's going to be presented this evening by Captain Peterson today tonight. And I and I know as or as commissioners, we did have a meeting with the parks commission, I think a little over a year ago. we kind of discussed maybe some different things and now it's come to a little bit more of a head and that's why um Captain Peterson's bringing it forward to us tonight. There it is. All right. Good evening, commissioners. Um, so fortunately, um, the issue we have to talk about now is not nearly as complex as as, uh, the EMS and fire issue and not nearly as politically charged. So, we can all relax a little bit and, uh, >> you don't think so. >> So, anyhow, um, let's talk a little bit about ebikes, scooters, etc. Um we know that their their popularity and growth has been skyrocketing in recent years and that along with that it brings a lot of safety concerns and increasing demand from our community to regulate uh these recreational devices to some degree uh so that uh our community is is safer and the last thing anybody wants to see is an unfortunate outcome when um a car and a ebike collide and and a kid is injured, right? Nobody wants to see that. So, there's been a lot of narrative um on social media and in general throughout the community throughout the community over this last summer about how do we um make this safer for everybody involved. Um I can say and I'll share the statistics statistics with you in a little bit. We we've been fortunate in that we haven't seen a huge uptick in in crashes and injuries regarding these devices. Um but what we do know is that the safety risk is higher. um the propensity for significant injuries is higher when ebikes are involved versus traditional pedal bikes or other non-motorized recreational vehicles. And so the other thing that I want to um talk about a little bit before we get too far into the weeds on this topic is that uh I'm saying ebike for the sake of simp simplicity um but in reality um there are all kinds of mobility devices that that don't fit neatly in that ebike. um bucket. And so I want to talk little bit a little bit about that. Um and so we well have a common understanding of what is an ebike, what is not an ebike, and what should we do with those other mobility devices as well. So I'm going to run through uh some of these definitions and descriptions real quick. I'm not going to get too far in the weeds for the sake of time. If you have any questions, raise your hand and I'll do my best to um talk about it. And I'll be the first to admit, I'm not an expert on this. I thought I knew it pretty well until I started preparing this presentation and then I realized, oh my gosh, this is way more complex than I realized. And I didn't know what I didn't know. And now I know I >> I don't know. So um and and also statute has not been keeping up with um this market. And so there's some things I'm not sure whether this is a motorized bicycle or a motorcycle or an ebike. I I can't tell you today with definity or with I can't give a definitive answer what this thing is. And so it makes it really challenging to regulate those and enforce those things. So um your Segways, whether it has handlebars or not, that's an electronic personal assisted mobility device. That's a mouthful. Um you've got your traditional foot scooters that it can be motorized either with gas or electric power. And those may or may not have a seat. And then you've got micro mobility devices, which is really a catch-all. Um, so those devices that you see that are like one- wheeled hoverboards all the way up to your motorized skateboards to these scooter looking things. Um, so a scooter can only have two wheels. So if it looks like a scooter, but it has three or four wheels, I think that's a a micromobility device. It's my best guess as of today. And then uh you've got your ebikes. And so you can see the definition before you that can have two or three wheels by by statute. It has to have a seat. It has to have operational pedals. Um and in order to be considered an ebike, the electric motor has to be 750 watts of output or less. And so it's really common to see what looks like an ebike, but it's got a a 1000 watt motor on it. Those aren't ebikes. Those are motorized bicycles. So um a class one has pedals. The motor only engages when you're pedaling and it can only go 20 mph. A class 2 still tops out at 20 mph, but it has a throttle on it. So, you can either pedal, engage the throttle, or both. And then a class 3, the motor only engages when you're pedaling, but the speed goes up to 28 mph. And then like I said, if it's over 750 watts, that's a motorized bicycle. Motorized bicycles encompass a lot of things. It can be those little pocket um pocket rocket scooters. It can be a traditional bicycle with a gas engine on it, or it can be an ebike with a larger electric motor on it. Then you've got your traditional motorcycles that um includes everything from Harley's to dirt bikes to mopeds to these auto cycles which are your three- wheeled vehicles that you're seeing more more commonly now. And then one of the newest things is these neighborhood electric vehicles or the medium speed electric vehicles. Um and I'll be the first to admit I don't know much about these. Um but we are seeing them in our community now. I'm sure you've seen them on social media. Um there was a posting recently where you're seeing this driving on the road and I know we've had u some conversations with a resident who has a doctor's um permission to drive these on our paths and trails. I don't know if that's legal yet or not. I've got to do some research and dig into that. Um so more to come on that. And then you've got that other bucket of just other stuff that we see on the roads occasionally, utility vehicles, golf carts, etc. And then last thing I want to note is that there's a a wide um array of different wheelchair devices um that can literally go anywhere if if they have a need for it uh or some type of disability. It can literally go anywhere. And so along with all of those definitions, classifications, um it's important to understand all of those different categories because there's statutory requirements tied to each of those different definitions. there's not a whole lot of uniformity across those different devices to say that, you know, I can't say that none of these devices can be on sidewalks or the age requirement is the same across all of these devices. Um, it's all over the map and like I said, statutes not keeping up with the market. Um, but what I have done here before you I've summarized some of the common, excuse me, the common statutes, most of them fall under 169011 where you'll find your definitions and descriptions. And then on the other definitions you'll see pertain to traditional bicycles and ebikes. And then some of that is applicable to those other devices. Um and so I can one generality would be to say that uh the rules that apply to bicycles applies to ebikes for the most part uh at least in in the eyes of of the state statute. But that's not a universal statement. It's just a generality. So, when we're talking about ebikes, just ebikes, none of that other stuff, um there's a 15 um year old age requirement. There's no license, registration, insurance requirement. Uh surprisingly, there's no helmet requirement uh for ebikes anywhere in the state. They can go anywhere that a bicycle can go. Uh the exception to that would be uh they're not supposed to be on sidewalks in business districts. A business district is considered uh a block that has over 50% of the addresses on that block that's um listed as a business versus a residence. So areas like your H high-e um business district that would be a traditional business district where ebikes are not supposed to be according to statute. And then on state trails and traditional recreational trails, they generally can travel there unless the local municipalities have regulated um or pro prohibited their their access to those trails. And then um I've got a bunch of our ordinance uh copied and pasted onto the onto this. The important thing to note is u we haven't really regulated ebikes or any of these other devices yet. Um we you remember as a commission um you you visited this topic about two years ago and at that point we decided that we did not want to regulate ebikes. Um and so most of what you'll see on our ordinance pertains to bicycles, recreational vehicles, things of that nature. Um so with that, um I'm going to pause for a minute and just open it up for questions because I've dumped a lot on your plates and I'm sure there's there's questions. So once we get through those questions, I'm going to hopefully guide us through a discussion um in terms of where does our community need to go next to enhance our safety. So I'll stand for your questions. >> Can you go back a slide or two? Yeah. >> With the age requirements right here. So minimum age is uh at least must be 15 or older. Is that like a law? That's is that a >> recommendation a law? >> That's a state law for an ebike. >> Okay. So, if you see kids riding around in the neighborhoods that look like they're 10 or 12, they're not allowed to be doing that. >> Correct. >> Okay. What What is the recommendation? Like, do I call and say something? Do I just let them drive? It's It's scary to see them out there riding those bikes without helmets on. >> Yeah. So, we're encouraging all residents to, you know, report that. Um or, uh, if you know if you know the children or you know the family, well, >> talk to them. Um, that's always our first recommendation. But if you don't, um, call us and and we'll deal with it. >> Okay. >> Um, enforcement becomes the hard part. Like, what do you do with a 12-year-old who shouldn't be riding ebike, right? Nobody wants to see them get ticketed and have to go to court and all that stuff. >> So, and that's a discussion that I'm going to um ask us to push pause on for a minute and then at the tail end of this, I'm going to talk about what we're doing currently and what we plan to do in the future in terms of enforcement. >> Thank you. >> There is um three significant pieces of legislation that are being worked on this year. Um, part of it is defining motorized vehicle and redefining in 169. >> So, um, I think that that's something that we need to just keep in mind. Although it is very short and it's going to be a very fast session, who knows what policies will go through. We do have authors for a couple of them. In addition to um, DWIs on these vehicles because it's very hard to define if they're pedaling or if they're motorized and we've had some push back. So, stay tuned for that. Um the helmet suggestion says shale in the statute right now wear a helmet versus must wear a helmet. So there's a lot of and to your point then how do you enforce? So um there are so many pieces to this puzzle that are out of control and it's coming faster than we can do anything with. So thank you for bringing this to our attention and hopefully we can find um we have we have cities every day who are looking for advice right? >> Because it's a statewide issue. >> Yeah. And I will say we're not alone in this dilemma. Every community is struggling with this right now. Um and everybody's looking to their neighbors to the left and right to say what are you doing? And I'm going to share with you in a moment. Um well, you actually have the handouts in front of you. I did find um three communities h who either have or are considering some um ordinance changes to regulate these these devices a little bit more. Um so feel free to reference those as we talk about what we should be doing here. Is there any minimum age on motorized scooters? >> 12. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions before we move on? All right. So, um I've unpacked a whole lot and um even after spending countless hours trying to educate myself on this, I'm still very confused on it. And so how do we expect our officers to um go out and enforce this and educate the public if you know it's this difficult and confusing? So one of the things that we did this spring into the summer is is as a department we created this cheat sheet that you see on the screen before you. Um it's a quick reference guide to try to figure out what category this device is and what the rules are for it. And this incorporates our ordinances and our um state statutes. So, it's kind of a one-stop shop. We use this as an educational piece, too. So, when we do make stops, uh, rather than taking enforcement action, we're trying to educate the riders and their families. I'm sharing this on social media and in the schools and things like that. So, that's one approach that we've done. All right. U, here's the stats that I promised. You can see that fortunately, we have not had um many incidents at all and most of those were not very significant. So um but we all um digest the news and we can see that in other communities um it is happening with um a fair amount of frequency where there are uh significant injuries and fatalities and so our goal is to try and prevent that from happening here. Any questions on the um incidents? All right. All right. So my goal here tonight is to have a discussion about um as a community what approach do we want to take and um if we want to see some more regulation what does that look like and so what I can share with you or what I have shared with you is what Lakeville Lakeville Edina and Excelsure um either have done or about to do and then u Lisa shared what the state is doing. Um, I would caution everybody not to wait on the state. Um, because one of the things that we did in the past and we would likely do again is in our ordinance, we would adopt 169 as our baseline. And so whatever the state makes, um, we would just adopt that. So, um, and then if the state, you know, if there's holes in the state statute, that's where our ordinance fills those gaps. So, you know, for example, if the state um didn't come along and regulate helmets, right? We could say we're going to adopt 169 and we're going to require helmets. So, that's that's the approach I would recommend. Um so, I kind of I'll open it up to you. Um what are your thoughts, comments on as a community, where should we go in terms of regulating um ebikes? I guess my biggest thought is whatever we implement, we obviously have to be able to enforce it, right? So to me, that's the bigger question. Do we do we have the resources? Do we are we able to enforce anything of real substance at this point? >> Yeah, absolutely. We we've got the the staffing and the equipment um to go out and enforce any ordinance changes. So, >> well, then my po my suggestion was we we need something because I think it it's gotten to the point where something bad is going to happen. I mean, it's a question of do you want to be reactive or proactive and and I always am a proponent of being proactive. Um, so I think we need to get something out there to uh be able to enforce and mitigate any, you know, loss of life. >> Sure. >> Brad, what is your suggestion when it comes to I'm putting you on the spot. You're dealing with kids here and so 15 is hard to judge. 12 is hard to judge. They don't have IDs. They don't have anything with them. You're going to pull them over. You're going to ask them a question. They're going to either be honest or not. H how is that enforceable then? Do you take the bike and the kid and say, "Show me where your house is." And it becomes a parent issue. That's the gray I'm I'm confused with. >> Yeah. So, um when we make a traffic stop, it's always needs to be rooted in reasonable suspicion, right? We have to have reasonable suspicion that there's um a traffic violation or a crime. And so, seeing a kid that's questionable age on a bicycle riding through the park or anywhere in town, that would give us reasonable suspicion to make the stop. Um once we make that stop, um we can require identification. If they're going to refuse to do that or they don't have an ID on them, then next logical step that is um allowed by law is hold them, contact a parent or guardian so we can confirm their identity, their age, that type of thing. So um it's all within the scope and authority of our duties. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> What if a child does not want to give that information at all like where they live or anything like that? How would that situation be handled? >> So, we would handle it like we would any other instance, right? If we catch a 10-year-old shoplifting and um he doesn't want to tell us where he lives or tell us who her mom and dad or guardian is, we work through it. Um not saying we're going to put the kid in jail, but um we've got our ways of holding them, investigating them. And the good thing is is that we have a pretty robust um um RMS system. So, generally speaking, we can figure out who this kid is. Um, we've we have other means too, like an ibis where we can use their fingerprint to figure out who they are if they've ever given a fingerprint before. Um, there's there's all kinds of ways and I can't think of a time where a 10 or 12year-old has refused to identify themselves. Right. Right. They're too scared to do that. >> Yeah, that's true. I'm more so thinking about teenagers. I have teenagers right now. So, I was just wondering how you guys would handle that. >> I'm joking. But, you know, once the threat of going to jail is is uh put on the plate, they usually come around and tell us their name and who they are. So, >> so my my thoughts been it's even before the enforcement, it's more about the education. What What can we do to get in front of, you know, going back, I don't know if you guys still do even do this anymore. I remember when I was a kid for bike safety, you know, they had like bike roundup and you would bring your bike and the officers would teach you some things and then they give you a little sticker to put on your bike and you know, you would actually um it was good too if it got stolen and you had another thing of identification. So, I think there's opportunities for us to do that kind of stuff. Um, instead of waiting for the state to give out licenses, like, you know, I'm thinking of kids that have to have snowmobile permits and ATV permits and gun safety permits. Why can't Cottage Grove start a program to help educate our youth and have some type of an an accreditation of some sort that they get an identification on their bike or their helmet, some kind of a sticker or something. And so I I think we keep trying to do that. The education will be critical and these little bit of like these cheat sheets, keep that out in front of adults, I think would be just huge. So I don't know if the school district's been open to working with you. Um that would be another option to >> Yeah. In fact, I had a conversation with the youth service bureau and the school district this week to see if we could collaborate on this to accomplish exactly what you were talking about. And so, um, at a bare minimum, you're going to see, um, um, a diversion program so that we do find kids that are violating our ordinances or our statutes, rather than reading the ticket, we'll give them referral to a diversion program where they go to a class, learn about safe use of ebikes and things like that. Um, and then we're going to try to get an educational component into the the middle school this spring. Um, so more to come on that. And so, um, to your point, it's already being worked on. And one of the things that I have considered that I'm I don't know where I stand on this yet, but one of the things that I'm noodling on is, um, the age requirement. Like, what do we do with that 15 to 18year-old who hasn't gone through driver's ed yet, doesn't know the rules of the road, right? Do we have some type of safety certification course as an offering? If you want to drive an ebike in Cottage Grove, you have to attend this course and you get a certification that lets that 15, 16, 17 year old ride an ebike. And I'm not saying I'm recommending that at that point, but that's something that we can talk about. So, >> one thing with education, too, I would highly recommend is finding a way to wrap those parents in because kids when you educate don't normally go home and say, "Hey, guess what? This is what I have to do to ride my ebike." And parents don't know what they don't know. Their child wants it for a holiday gift or a birthday present. and they go out and they purchase and they don't realize the danger behind them. So, I think education is a great idea. It's just kind of a win-win. >> Yep. I think you're going to start seeing some education on that topic um this month before Christmas. So, cautioning parents, don't go buy your kids an ebike just yet or at least if you do, consider these things. So, >> that's nice. >> All right. So, I'm hearing that we at least want to consider some additional regulation. So, I'm going to try to guide us through some more specific stuff. What do we think the minimum age should be to ride an ebike or these other devices? >> Teen. >> And if we do decide that it's um younger, do we impose some additional safety certification or something like that or do we just defer to the state statute and don't touch it? >> So, from my understanding, the state statute is going to be 15. >> Correct. >> Because this is the one that's more than the 750 watts. Correct. >> Okay. Um I mean in my opinion I think that the responsibility that comes with this I think we should come up with some kind of a program that they could then graduate from to say hey I do know the rules of this because it is I don't want to say heavy machinery but you know there it's motorized and um how like you said how are they going to know the rules of the road um if they haven't been through a permit class yet. So I think that you know talking about your education piece as well that's something that we should probably go through with. >> Do we know are the ebikes out on the our bike park being used on the bike park at all? Because the reason why I'm asking the question because when you think about ages younger ages if they're off the road and they're at the bike park would be okay by in my mind cuz parents might be there but they're off out on a bike park but on a road then there could be a different age requirement. That's where my head goes to. Depending on location, streets should be fif could be 15 if that's the number. Um, seems reasonable in my head because that's middle school age at that point. Um, but younger kids that are riding bikes, I can't see if they have an ebike and they go to a to a park like that, not like Hamlet or something like that, but you know, a bike park, I couldn't see a problem with that. >> Sure. >> Um, I to to answer your question, I don't know. I I would assume or guess that there probably are ebikes um on that course, but I I can't say I've ever seen one. I >> but I've never looked either. >> Right. >> Any other thoughts on age requirements? >> Manufacturer guidelines are really good way to start. They're listed on like a car seat has manufacturer guidelines, but that doesn't mean that our clarification can't be stronger in the of safety. Maybe you're getting to this, but looking at the Edina Excelsier, I don't see different age restrictions. They're just saying under the age of 18 that uh they must wear or shall wear a helmet or other protective head gear. So, that'd be another approach. Not necessarily changing the age, but requiring that helmet. Maybe you're getting to that, you know. >> Yeah, that's my next slide. >> Okay. Is it all right? >> Oh, I kind of like that approach of just at least imposing the helmet requirement, >> right? Yeah. I think to simplify this, right, at 18, you're a legal adult. You can do whatever you want. You can ride an ebike. Um the the state minimum age is 15, right? And so the challenging part is what do we do with a 16 and 17 year old? Um what are your thoughts on imposing that safety certification? >> Yeah, I am a huge fan, Ron. That was a fantastic example uh suggestion. The uh the certification aspect of things like you said as simple as a sticker for your helmet or something. Um, you know, as I read through all three of these cities, they mention things that when I was 15, I did not know. Um, nor did I pay attention to, like, uh, when you're crossing the road, uh, one of them actually suggests slowing down to a walking speed to cross the intersection. Now, I have personally seen some kids on scooters riding wheelies across the road without any regard to any traffic signal or, you know, if a car was coming. So, yeah, I would say that teaching these kids and ensuring that they're taught uh the various rules of the road is probably paramount to their safety. Um, I don't remember which city it was that actually mentioned that, but I think that that's a fantastic uh thing to teach kids, but yeah, the the certification program, you know, it's probably also not far off that uh insurance is going to be required to even ride one of these things, right? If you've read about any of the accidents that have happened across the country where somebody's hit by an ebike, if it's somebody that doesn't have an umbrella policy, they don't have bike insurance, right? So, like when you run somebody over and they end up hospitalized, who's paying the hospital bill? So, that's going to get uh very interesting in the near term. Um I compare this ebike situation most directly to like the AI boom, right? Nobody knows what they're doing. They don't know how to put the guardrails on it. They're trying to they're being reactionary and and things are going off the rails quick. Um now with bikes, people are getting physically hurt and um you know, you have three examples of cities that are they've generated some fantastic policy. I think um like you said, if you're going to wait for the state, you're going to probably be waiting for a while. Um, I would be impressed if they do come out with some something sooner than later, but at least you have three solid examples that you could base some some policy for the local area off of. >> Um, thank you for putting this together, too, because this is very comprehensive. Thank you. >> Welcome. >> And Brad, I'd go back to my snowmobile and and ATV endorsements. You know, when you asked about 16, 17 years old, even if they have a valid driver's license, depending on their age of when their birthday was, they still have to go get that endorsement to add it to their to their license. Um, if they get pulled over on a snowmobile and they don't have the endorsement, they're in trouble. >> So, I would I would think of it at that for that age group that you identified there, think of it in that capacity. That that certification would be huge for them then, >> right? All right. Moving on to helmets. I think this will be easy one. Anybody under 18 requires a helmet? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> All right. >> Absolutely. >> And then where do we let these things ride? Right. So, let's focus on ebikes first. >> Um, do we have an interest in prohibiting or restricting certain areas? And if so, what are what are your thoughts? I would say looking at the motorized bicycle category I right now those are just streets but unfortunately we're seeing them on trails and so again that's that enforcement piece but those absolutely should not be on sidewalks trails way too dangerous, >> right? I mean, that's the equivalent of a motorcycle traveling on sidewalks and and bike trails. So, >> I don't know. And I I guess there's a big part of me that feels like even the the class one to three ebikes don't necessarily belong on trails where people are walking. I think uh was it Edina? >> Do they have speed gauges on these bikes? >> I don't know. >> Okay. >> Oh, actually the very first example, the Adino one on the back page where it talks about slowing when when pedestrians are present, slowing to a walking pace. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I I don't think you need to restrict these areas as long as that's part of the policy, right? Slowing to a walking pace to cross an intersection or when pedestrians are present. It's kind of I even if they don't have uh speed gauges at that point, it's still something you can judge as a as a rider. >> I think my challenge with that though in working with kids every day is you can have rules in place all you want. it's whether they're going to choose to do them and when they don't what goes along with that. So that's a real concern because um at that age 16 15 16 17 they're pretty they think they're pretty invincible and they just they tend to do what they want to do when they want to do it many times especially when there's not a parent around. Um, so that would be a real concern of mine by theoretically it sounds good on paper, but I don't know that that's what you're going to really get, >> right? The one thing I would ask you to consider is if we ban them from trails and sidewalks, now we're pushing them into the road. Um, and so that might not be the the direction we want to go. 15 in the road. >> Um I appreciate everybody's concerns and I I know that's one source of um frustration and safety concern in the community is that these bikes are whizzing past them on the trails or they're not clearing those intersections where a trail intersects with a street. Um but if we ban them from the sidewalks and trails that puts them in the in the road and is that what we really want to accomplish? So just something to think about. >> I also see a lot of older people riding ebikes too. So, I don't know that we want to necessarily lump everybody together as being a problem rider because it is >> it is a something that people as age can do for leisure and um recreation. So, >> yeah, >> I think some sometimes they're they're used very responsibly on trails. So, >> yeah, I don't even know. I I would have to agree with you. I think I see statistically more older people riding >> riding ebikes now like in my neighborhood than >> Yeah. >> than the younger kids. the ones that I see like the the younger kids I see riding them are down on like in the business districts around the the hi and the dairy queens and that's where I've been seeing the kids not necessarily on trails. Um so >> yeah I like I see them oftentimes down by the uh the Walgreens intersection going full send mode across that intersection just no look >> right >> full send. So that's where that's where my concern is like >> they don't know the they don't know the rules. >> They're in high traffic areas and they're not paying attention. Yeah. >> Nor are most drivers either. So that's like just waiting for something to happen unfortunately. >> Yeah. It's very scary. Like um I don't know the name of that road, but it's kind of like it's right across from the Grove 80 apartments. Um, and it's kind of like that one that'll go back, but you can pull out into 80th and it's kind of awkward, you know, but there's >> I would probably maybe >> maybe straighten and then um the cars can turn in when they're coming up 80th, they can turn into that one road right there. Um, there's a lot of kids who come from high school and they're just like flat. I'm talking about I will look right and I will look left and I'll look right and I'll look left and I'll start a little bit and all a sudden somebody's right there. Um and that's very scary and very hard and I think that um I would Is there ways that we can put signage up for them? I know that that was kind of something that we had talked about when we were talking about uh when the before these became a big thing and also marijuana too. We were sitting in the room and we were talking about if we should put signage up and things like that. Is that something that >> definitely that's an option? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That that was always my my thought to if you in the parks for sure is segregate with striping on the paths. You certainly could use all kinds of different signage. You know, blind corners coming around, slow down. Again, to the point, are they going to do it? At least we're trying. You know, where where do they need to stop? You know, is there a pedestrian crosswalk type thing? But I I think if we're going to let them in the parks, then it has to have some type of signage now for bikes at that at that point. >> Members of the commission, I can add because we did talk a couple years ago about this. There was speed limit signs added of 15 mph in the parks, but it is hard to enforce because how do you know that? And and for the speedometer question, class 3 ebikes do have speedometers. >> So the ones that go 28 miles an hour, it's a requirement. They have a speedometer. the ones that are class one and two that go 20, they don't. >> They don't. Okay. >> But in terms of enforcement, um, they are they do know how fast they're going. And I will say 28 m hour would be it's very fast on a trail. >> Yeah. Okay. >> So, we've covered some of this already. Um, I can tell you that, um, we invested a lot of time and resources this past summer. Um, making a lot of educational stops trying to educate the the public. Um, we did not do really any enforcement, right? U, we're trying to just educate the public u so they're making smarter, safer decisions. Um and until we reach a point where we feel like the community is sufficiently um educated, I don't feel that, you know, it's the right thing to do to start writing writing tickets, etc., especially when um the statute ordinances are lagging behind this this market. So, um my point being is that we have not done any enforcement yet, right? Um I know we've received a lot of criticism that we're not doing anything that's simply not true. Um we're just trying to take a measured approach. We're trying to educate the public. Um we're trying to figure out how we can u reach these these kids uh in the middle school because usually they're start riding you know around 12 years old. And so um that's what we've been doing to date. Um officers are making stops every day. Sometimes most of the time just casual stops, right? We're not flipping on the lights and sirens and and taking those traditional high visibility stops, but we're spending a lot of times in the parks and when the kids ride by. we chat with them for a couple minutes and encourage them to ride a or to wear a helmet or say, "Hey, you're too young for this." You know, go home and talk to your parents about it, things like that. Um, so that's what we've been doing over the last several months moving forward. I already talked about um working with Youth Service Bureau to create a diversion program. Um, we're going to get into schools this spring um is my goal. And then hopefully we'll be armed with um uh some statute, I'm sorry, some ordinance changes um before next summer rolls around. Um and of course along with that be all kinds of social media messaging and things of that nature to educate the entire community. And so really what I'm hopeful is that um I can leave here tonight with some suggestions from you and along with the input from other stakeholders, package it up neatly for council, present that to them uh in December and hopefully move forward with some ordinance changes at the very least clean up some definitions, descriptions, and very clear guidelines on what is and is not allowed. even if we don't take a more restrictive approach, those definitions and rules need to be cleaned up so we know, hey, hey, this device fits into this bucket and these are the rules for that for that type of um vehicle. So, that's my goal. Um and uh >> hey Brad, one one other thought came to my mind about the education part. I I don't think it always has to be fallen on the police department either. Um, from the standpoint of, again, I'm using my snowmobile ATV analogy, that's all volunteers that put on those classes. You know, it's a local snowmobile club. Now, I don't know how organized ebikes have, if they have their own associations or small groups or something or maybe we have some ambassadors out there that we can start to educate in their the ones that actually host the class versus always having to use staff. >> That's a great idea to do that. >> Love it. >> You know, something like that, too. >> Great idea. cuz that's that that's the way all your snowmobile, your gun safety endorsements, most of that's all done by volunteer organization, people giving up their time to teach kids and they enjoy doing that kind of work. >> So, you're volunteering to do that? >> I I was I don't know if you put me on an ebike though, but >> the other piece would be with like we talked about with the schools is um I know every year at the beginning of the school year they do bus safety training. uh they have a video that's presented you I wonder if we couldn't use that same approach in the schools and have some type of video that we could show not just ebikes but even on scooters and the importance of the helmets and that type of thing but to kind of tie that overall safety element together when they do that >> I think that's a good idea because then when they send out like the newsletters and things like that as well to the parents they can attach that video so the parents can see it as well and help connect that education, >> right? Which is what they did with the bus safety training. They they got that out to all the parents. And >> so that might be a >> I would recommend um doing it in the spring and then again in the fall because you are going to have a wild summer with kids out in force and they're just going to grow. And I'm not trying to make things difficult for you, but if you have a suggestion for the council, the council approves, now you're talking about a certification program, developing a program, doing all the things, and then having an education campaign. It's doable. Um, but I I would recommend getting something into those schools before summer. >> Yeah, that's >> and then hitting and having a great huge education campaign again going back to school because, you know, parents are thirsty for that information once the kids go back to school. So, I have kids in school and I get, you know, every Friday they send out a weekly newsletter. This is what we're doing. And I'm It's probably a good add-on to that, you know, you know, ebike safety, you know, because the parent, well, maybe the parents will read it. I read it, >> but it's just another avenue to share that. >> I think the video is a great idea to try to reach kids and parents without having a huge strain on your resources, too. So, >> it seems like a nice place to start and then maybe build from there. Great. It's all great feedback. Thank you. Um I will just um invite any of your recommendations. You know, if you feel strongly that, hey, I don't want ebikes on our trails or things like that. So, if there's anything that you feel really strongly about that I want to package up for council, uh please share that with me now or in the near future. >> All right. Thanks, Brad. >> All right. >> Especially for uh having to put this together right away for us. >> Yeah, you're welcome. >> Very nicely done. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. With that then that ends our presentations tonight. We can move on to our commissioner comments. Are there any comments this evening that anybody needs to share? >> I do have a thank you to um give to Captain Peterson. Um I brought forward from both I I looked at it from my bus driving career and my commissioner had and my resident had some of the issues that we have at Park High School right now. uh with for those that don't know, people that have kids in park know that it's under construction and so all the traffic's been diverted. Buses come out at a different angle. We're coming out of Crest View and it just makes for quite a quite a mess. And I was really worried about, in fact, it was the ebike part of it is when you're coming out of Crest View and you're trying to make a left turn onto 80th, it's it's it's pretty tough uh with the way traffic backs up. So, first of all, it's traffic is one thing, and then the ebikes, all the kids are coming out of school and they're coming down that sidewalk and and in these buses, you got blind spots that are crazy. And you're looking left, you're looking right, and I I'm just so fearful that we were going to have an accident. And um the the police department met with me and I shared some concerns over it and they've actually um come out and helped us with some traffic uh direction, which has been awesome. So, I can't thank uh you enough, Brad, and your staff for the support that you you've shown us. I know as a bus driver that's in quote unquote the belly of the beast every day out there, it's certainly um been very helpful and very much appreciated by our bus drivers for sure from a safety perspective. And again, just remind the public there that's hopefully just a one-year cure. Um by next year the the whole bus route will be different going and the parents going in and out of the school is going to be a lot more convenient than what it is today right now because of the construction that's going on. So thank you to your you and your staff. I very much appreciate it >> pretty good. to tell. >> Yeah. >> Wow. >> Okay. If there's no other, then we'll move on to our staff reports. I'm not sure who we'll start with. Is it want to start left to right or right to left or >> I think Ryan go first. >> Okay. >> Yeah. He's had it kind of easy today, hasn't he? So, we'll have Ryan go first. >> And I'll go quick. It's been a a good night with a lot of discussions. So, just a few of the the key points. So, one uh last time you hear me talk about it because it's up now is that hardwood hardwood court signal was made operational today. Um just a reminder that was put in. Um obviously traffic's been growing but the crash rate was um much higher there. So that was part of the warrants and the justification for that signal and it is designed for basically the full buildout of Cottage Grove and looking at potential redevelopment in the area. We kind of wanted a worst case scenario. I know it feels like it's very close to 80th Street but we looked at that every which way. And I mean, never say never. If an ambulance goes through or a pedestrian, a lot of pedestrian activity, certainly things can back up and double cycle, but um that was part of the plan for that area and now it's just getting used to that new signal. So, good to see that operational. Like council member Thei mentioned, we do have the 80th Street project next year reconstructing 80th from Ideal Avenue all the way to 61, including redoing the entire interchange MIDOT. That's kind of a mindot portion of the work, but we're doing it with our project, so it's all very coordinated. And then also redoing East Point Douglas Road from 80th down to like Arby's by by um Hi there. So it's >> an overlay or is there like indepth real construction? >> So it it is a full pavement replacement commissioner. So it is a full pavement replacement. Um more kind of spot curb replacement, sidewalk, things like that. Not a lot of utility work. The utilities aren't that old in that area, but um upgrading signals, doing like dual left turn lanes at 80th and hardwood, so that works much better. adding an additional lane um going through by HY Ve. Right now that lane ends and kind of two lanes go into HY Ve, one ends, there'll be an extra lane going on East Point Douglas. So, a lot of improvements as well. Um and like Council mentioned, we're we're being very careful with Park High School. So, our intent is to have all the park all the work done from Hinton to Ideal um just in the summer. >> So, we're going to kind of fit that in because that's the newest section of road. It needs the least amount of work with the concrete. So, fit all that in during the summer. So, we're really not impacting the school. And then we'll be adding the turn lanes that the school needs for the new entrances. So, it should time out well. Um, just other than that, the low zone water tower, if you're on Highway 61, you look behind the uh park and ride, you can see it, the concrete column sticking up above. So, you can kind of see where that tower is going to be. Um, they're done with concrete. They'll be working now over the winter on the metal actual bowl and then painting it next summer and getting that operational. And then lastly, the intermediate zone water treatment plant. That's the big treatment plant going behind the fire station. We're started pouring concrete. We were going to pour 15,000 yards of concrete between now and next July. Um, and that's all we'll be doing for about 8 months. Um, and then you'll start to see the building itself go up. So, a lot of work still to come and the fire staff have been a great partner because we kind of came in and um, we're working very closely with them, but not impacting operations of the fire station, but they've worked well with us as well. So, I need to say thank you to them. And that's all I have. I don't know if Gary has anything. >> Couple quick minutes here. >> Um, >> with the weather changing, tomorrow could be our first time out. >> So, something that we tested last year. >> Yeah. Three trucks we use tested treated salt. So, it's a brown colored salt. Um, it works so well, we were able to get about a 20% cut back and probably even a little more yet. So people might think we're putting down sand, but it's just a treated salt that's more effective in cold temperatures and with less amounts of warm temperatures, it'll clear off the roads. And a couple big things to remind, uh, no parking 2 to six or anytime it interferes with snow plowing. So good rule of thumb, if it's snowing out, get your cars off the road. We can get the roads plowed curb to curb. And one thing we're still having a big problem with is garbage cans in the street. Um the trucks can reach 5t up into them driveways. So if we could just somehow even let your neighbors know if you see it, it's especially in the new developments, we have a hard time getting down the roads because their cans are sticking out in the road. Um that'd be a big help to us. So slight chance we could get a little accumulation tomorrow. Nothing big, but we're prepared. We're ready. And with that, any questions? >> No. >> No. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> So Ryan, quick question for you. When when the East Point Douglas, didn't we have a discussion about the sidewalk going on the other side, too? Did that is the or did they decide not to do that? >> And commissioner, what uh what sidewalk? >> So So you have the sidewalk on Highway 61 side, >> but didn't we have a discussion about when that gets redone to put the sidewalk on the residential side, too, >> so that they didn't have to cross? I thought we had a discussion about that. And are you speaking of on 80th Street? >> No. On um East Point Douglas that stretched to take you from like the Applebees down to >> the animal clinic. >> Oh, I I see. Yep. Thank you. Sorry, I was focusing more. So, next year we are only redoing down to RB. So, that little section. Um and then we are looking at sidewalks and pedestrian improvements. 2027 is when we'll redo that long stretch of East Point. So, apologize for that. I was thinking of the small >> just a bad question. >> Yep. Yep. Um but yep, that is something we're definitely looking at. So, we're looking at um additional sidewalks and pedestrian crossings as well on East Point Douglas Road. >> Okay. Thank you. >> With that, we'll move to Brad. >> All right. Um in preparation for winter weather, we started our winter parking enforcement. So, trying to get those cars off the street for you, Gary. Um some good news. We received a grant to do our youth academy again in 2026. So that was a huge success this year. It was the first ever youth academy earlier this year. Um and so we'll be doing that again in 2026. Some more to come on that. >> What's the age for youth academy? >> I don't know. I'll have to get back to you on that. >> So that's different than like the citizens academy. >> It's similar in in format, but it caters to >> youth. Yeah. >> Yep. Um, we just recently released our quarter through report. So, if you're interested in in seeing our progress report, look that up on social media or our website. And then probably the biggest news coming from the police department is we're getting our third patrol K9 arriving in a couple weeks. So, um, that'll be um, residing with uh, Officer Whan and so we'll get to meet our new K9 in a couple weeks. So, stand by for that. >> All right. Thank you, Brad. Any questions? the other two canines that we have, they're still good and young and you're not are you scheduled to like retire any soon? Is this a replacement of >> No, it's just an addition. Um our goal is to get to four at some point. So each crew has a K9 assigned to it. Uh and so that's a two-year plan. So this third one gets us threequarters of the way there. Um the other two K9s, Odin and Scout, are right in the middle of their their best years. Uh, so we've got fingers crossed u handful of good years left to come with those dogs. >> Awesome. Thank you, sir. And then >> we say the same thing about Brad, too. But um sorry, you set it up too well. So um no, thank you for the um engagement in our standards that cover community risk assessment process. I know a lot of folks have had different parts in that and then on top of our strategic plan last year. So, it has been a lot of stuff to digest and very thankful for your engagement and then and really genuine and and um and then a couple just quick updates from our department. I'm very proud to um share that last year we did a u we hire folks that are firefighter EMTs and then we send them to paramedic school. It's the first time our department's really engaged in that on the fire side. Our police side did that years ago and then they signed an agreement to stay with us 5 years. our first person went through that program last year and um obtain their paramedic. So, we're very happy for that. It goes to Commissioner Moyer's question of how do we get folks in the door and how to give pe people those opportunities. So, I think that's a great example of that. Further on, um we look like we'll be starting our cadet next month, which again will be the first cadet we've had here. That gives somebody with very little or no experience and it gives them the opportunity to become a fire professional. Um, and I'm very biased in this from some of the best people in the business to train them and teach them on how to become a firefighter and hopefully um, we'll be able to keep them one day as a full-time firefighter. And then lastly, just an update just on our response. And of course, I don't know how much more data I can inundate you with in one night. However, we are in pace to um, eclipse 5,000 calls this year. And we're actually on pace for 5,300. And that's just assuming the current pace with December usually being one of our busiest months. And just to put in perspective, we just crossed the 4,000 threshold in 2021. So just a lot of growth in um in our city and really it's Cottage Grove is growing about 9 to 10% in that call volume. So obviously there are just a growing community, but we're happy and we're very proud of the services we provide to folks. Um, so barring any like pure prevention of all diseases, we will be eclipsing that 5,000 this year. So, thank you. >> Any questions for John? >> No. All right. Well, then that's our staff reports. We'll move on to council comments. Uh, >> you guys got the uh the council agendas uh in your in your packets and so forth. Whether you scan through those, whether you had any questions or anything it uh >> any questions. >> No, it must be clear as short and sweet. >> All right. >> Well, I I missed the the general comment question opportunity. So, sorry I missed that one. Uh what is going in where the essay was that was next to Los Murice? >> I don't know if we're able to actually say yet. I I there there's a couple different >> retail uh companies that are are looking at that. There's one that's maybe a little bit stronger, but uh yeah, I I don't know if we're able to actually >> I just I didn't know if I missed it from like the >> and for all I know, Myin may have already put it in Facebook, but uh >> No, I was wondering too. Good question. Yeah, >> I thought maybe I did. This is a Facebook data. No. Okay. So, it's TBD, >> right? >> TB or TBA to be announced. >> Okay, that's it. That was my only question. >> All right. Thank you, D. Uh, so that uh ends our meeting. So, I'll ask for a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion. >> Okay. I have a motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I have a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I I those opposed. >> Motion passes. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you all. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Great meeting.