Based on the context provided, here is the transcribed meeting with speaker names identified. Note: In the original transcript, the name "Kada," "Kat," or "Kabada" appears to be a phonetic transcription error for **Councilmember David Clausen**, and "Pete ker" is a transcription error for **Brad Petersen**. *** **[00:00:00] Mayor Myron Bailey:** All right, good evening. This is the March 6, 2024, Cottage Grove City Council meeting which I'm calling to order. We are short a few members and a few staff members; you can tell it is absolutely Spring Break. So, thank you for the two that are here, and we'll get roll call here in a minute. So I am calling the meeting to order, and our first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. If you please rise. **(All present recite the Pledge of Allegiance)** **[00:00:30] Mayor Myron Bailey:** All right, will the clerk please do the roll? **[00:00:35] City Clerk (Tammy Anderson):** Councilmember Clausen? **[00:00:37] Councilmember David Clausen:** Here. **[00:00:38] City Clerk (Tammy Anderson):** Councilmember Olsen? (No response). Councilmember Thiede? (No response). Councilmember Garza? **[00:00:41] Councilmember Monique Garza:** Here. **[00:00:42] City Clerk (Tammy Anderson):** Mayor Bailey? **[00:00:43] Mayor Myron Bailey:** Here. Next on our agenda is open Forum. This is the opportunity for anybody that wants to speak on something that's not on tonight's agenda. I'm not seeing anybody in the audience other than the ones that I know, and no one did sign up, so we will move from open forum to number five, which is adoption of the agenda. **[00:01:00] Councilmember David Clausen:** I move to adopt the agenda. **[00:01:02] Mayor Myron Bailey:** All right, so I have a motion by Councilmember Clausen. Do I have a second? **[00:01:05] Councilmember Monique Garza:** I second. **[00:01:06] Mayor Myron Bailey:** Second by Councilmember Garza. All those in favor signify by saying "Aye." **[00:01:08] Councilmembers:** Aye. **[00:01:10] Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. This evening, number six is a presentation, which we do have this evening. What we're titling this is the Minnesota Law Enforcement Support Office, or MN LESO presentation, and Captain Brad Petersen is going to walk us through this. So, welcome Brad. You're not on spring break like everybody else? **[00:01:30] Brad Petersen (Acting Director of Public Safety):** Unfortunately, I'm not. Good evening, honorable Mayor, Council, staff, and our guests who are our community members who are reviewing remotely. I'll be presenting on the LESO annual briefing. This will be the fifth time we've done that, so I’ll give you a quick update on that program and then I'll be looking for a motion to continue support of that program at the end. So, what is the LESO program? It stands for the Law Enforcement Support Office program. It's a program at the federal level that disposes of unwanted DOD property—that's Department of Defense property—and it hands that property out to federal, state, and local law enforcement offices to support our law enforcement mission. It's administered by the DLA and Minnesota's Homeland Security Emergency Management office here locally. Within that program, there are two different types of property. The first being DLA—those are things like AEDs, medical supplies, clothing, tools—things that generally have a lower property value and aren't sensitive to our nation's national security. Those DLA properties come with less strings; they’re regulated less. They stay on our books for one year and they're still available to support the state's Emergency Management plan if they should need it. For example, if we had sandbags on our inventory and there's a flood in northern Minnesota, they could call on us to use those sandbags. After one year, it falls off our books and they don't care what happens to it at that point. On the other hand, there's controlled property: things like MRAPs, night vision, rifle optics. Typically these have a higher dollar value attached to them and they are sensitive to our national security, and so those are regulated very strictly. Those are not owned by the City of Cottage Grove; they're essentially borrowed to us from the federal government. So at the end of their life with us, we have to return them and we have to maintain strict accountability of them. The slide should read: over the past five years we've acquired significant amounts of property, all of which is available on the civilian and law enforcement markets. None of this is "weapons of war" or military-only equipment. These are all things that we would have access to through our normal supply chains, but it would cost us a great deal of money. So essentially, we've gotten all of this equipment and supplies—actually in the neighborhood of about $10 million over the past five years—that we've gotten essentially free. And so it comes with a great cost savings and it's helped us increase our preparedness and safety for our officers and the community. So it's a great benefit to be a part of this program. Over the course of our life in this program, we've engaged heavily with the community to make sure that we're being completely transparent and giving the community an opportunity to provide feedback and ask questions. So you'll see us have the MRAP and all of our equipment out at many of our community events, such as the open house or basically all of our festivals. We're out engaging with the public with this equipment so they are familiar with it. By and large, we've had overwhelming support from the community. There have been a couple citizens who ask questions naturally because they're interested in the program, but once we explain the program, they're generally very supportive. Two years ago, the federal government changed the rules for the program, and so two of the new rules were that we had to provide notice to Council and we also have to provide notice to the community on an annual basis that we intend to participate in this program and that we might continue to acquire controlled property. So that's the purpose of tonight's brief: to inform Council and the community that we are going to continue to participate in this program pending Council's approval. The rest of these rules we already had in place, so it wasn't a great change to us. We are required to do some training; there's a lot of rules that come attached to this program. We've adapted policy; essentially, we've adopted the state and federal requirements as our own policy. Over the last year and a half, we haven't acquired any new property; we've just continued to maintain what we had previously acquired. In fact, there's not a whole lot of supply available right now, and so we're not actively looking to acquire any property at the moment, but we want to continue to participate in this program just in case a particular need arises or equipment or supplies suddenly become available in 2024. So Council, I'm asking for you to authorize continued participation in the MN LESO program and then give us the authority to acquire controlled property. Pending your questions, that completes my brief. **[00:06:40] Mayor Myron Bailey:** Okay, well, so first, Captain Petersen, thank you by the way for the presentation. Since the beginning, personally speaking, I've been in favor of this program because you actually mentioned a little bit earlier the equipment that we've been gathering—whether it's medical, or ballistic shields, the MRAP—those kind of things, I mean that totals $10 million. Most of that stuff we would have had to purchase as a community anyway. So from a government standpoint, federal government standpoint, whether we as citizens pay the federal government tax or we're going to have to tax our citizens more to get those things that we needed... I didn't look at any of the things over the years that we have been able to acquire through this process as something that we didn't need or wouldn't have gone out to purchase at some point in time. So I do appreciate the fact you're doing that. Now, do they keep you up to date on like—is there a book or something that comes out or a website that says, "Hey, we've got these items"? So if there's something that you or the Public Safety department finds out we have something that we could use, how do you go about that? **[00:07:55] Brad Petersen:** There's a website that lists on a daily basis all the property that's becoming available. I've stopped looking at it currently just because I know there's nothing available, but when I was very active I'd go on it every day and search through the new inventory. Once you see that something is available, it's kind of a first-come, first-serve; whoever puts in for it first gets it, essentially. There's layers of approval it needs to go through, but yeah, it's all based on a website. **[00:08:20] Mayor Myron Bailey:** Okay, perfect. Thank you. Council, any questions? Councilmember Clausen? **[00:08:25] Councilmember David Clausen:** I know that some of this stuff is otherwise hard to obtain and expensive. From a budget standpoint and the "hard to obtain" aspect, how has this program helped our first responders be more prepared in their response to various types of emergencies that we encounter in our community? **[00:08:45] Brad Petersen:** So I would say there's a few different ways. The first being training supplies and equipment. We've acquired a great deal of training supplies and equipment that we've supplied the HERO Center with and our officers train with on a regular basis, so it prepares us from a training standpoint. Secondly, personal protective equipment—incredible amounts of all types of PPE from N95 masks to biohazard protection to ballistic protection. Every manner of PPE you can imagine, we've gotten. As the Mayor referenced, we have ballistic protection shields, blankets, body armor, an armored vehicle, and incredible amounts of rescue equipment and safety harnesses. Literally any type of rescue equipment you can imagine, we've acquired it through this program. So it makes our officers safer and makes the community safer. Oh, also, robots—all kinds of gadgets, I guess you would say, things that we can introduce into the house or scene so we don't have to put officers or people into harm's way. **[00:10:00] Councilmember David Clausen:** Good. Thank you. **[00:10:01] Brad Petersen:** That's just a short list. There's more, I could spend a lot of time, but I was told I only have five minutes. **[00:10:05] Mayor Myron Bailey:** No, that's fine. About $10 million worth of stuff on that list, so I'm sure it's a big list. I think you're hearing it here that it's a very good program and it's benefited our community. **[00:10:15] Councilmember Monique Garza:** I just had a quick question. You mentioned some of the uncontrolled merchandise that you all have—after the year, are you still continuing to use it or is it being recycled, or what are we doing with that? **[00:10:25] Brad Petersen:** Yeah, so as long as we're continually using it, we just maintain accountability of it. We get audited every year; the state and/or federal government comes in, looks at our books, and does a physical audit. And so as long as we're using it, we keep it. The minute we stop using it and we don't have a use for it anymore, we send it back. **[00:10:45] Councilmember Monique Garza:** Perfect. Thank you. **[00:10:46] Mayor Myron Bailey:** All right. So Council, as our Acting Director of Public Safety Brad Petersen mentioned, the recommendation is before you for an authorization. If someone wants to read that and make the motion and a second. **[00:11:00] Councilmember David Clausen:** I'll motion to authorize continued participation in the MN LESO program and approve CGPD to acquire controlled property. **[00:11:10] Mayor Myron Bailey:** All right, so we have a motion by Councilmember Clausen. **[00:11:12] Councilmember Monique Garza:** I will second. **[00:11:13] Mayor Myron Bailey:** Second by Councilmember Garza. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying "Aye." **[00:11:18] Councilmembers:** Aye. **[00:11:20] Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you for coming in tonight. **[00:11:22] Brad Petersen:** Thank you, Council. **[00:11:24] Mayor Myron Bailey:** You got it. All right, now we'll move on to seven, which is the Consent Agenda. Council, is there anything you want to pull off consent for separate conversation? All right, seeing none, then I'll look for a motion and a second to approve consent. **[00:11:40] Councilmember Monique Garza:** I will make the motion to approve consent for number seven. **[00:11:43] Mayor Myron Bailey:** All right, so I have a motion by Councilmember Garza. Do I have a second? **[00:11:45] Councilmember David Clausen:** I'll second. **[00:11:47] Mayor Myron Bailey:** Then we'll just banter it between the two of you. Second by Councilmember Clausen. Any other discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying "Aye." **[00:11:55] Councilmembers:** Aye. **[00:11:56] Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. So if there's anybody watching that was interested in items that were on consent this evening, all of those items have been approved. Number eight is approved disbursement. 8A is to pay the bills. Again, a motion and a second. **[00:12:10] Councilmember David Clausen:** I’ll motion to pay the bills. **[00:12:12] Mayor Myron Bailey:** We have a motion by Councilmember Clausen. **[00:12:14] Councilmember Monique Garza:** I second. **[00:12:15] Mayor Myron Bailey:** Second by Councilmember Garza. All those in favor signify by saying "Aye." **[00:12:18] Councilmembers:** Aye. **[00:12:19] Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? Motion carries. Nine is public hearings; there are none tonight. Bid awards—there are none tonight. We have nothing on our regular agenda. We're now down to Council comments and requests, which is number 12, and I'll start with Councilmember Clausen. **[00:12:35] Councilmember David Clausen:** We've had a pretty streamlined evening. I don't have anything to add. **[00:12:40] Mayor Myron Bailey:** There you go; that's kind of what I figured. How about Councilmember Garza? **[00:12:43] Councilmember Monique Garza:** I think everyone is on spring break, so I think I'm agreeing with you. **[00:12:48] Mayor Myron Bailey:** And I'm not even going to bring up anything; I think we're good this evening. So, the only other items on our agenda for this evening was 13, a Workshop open to the public—there is none—and 14 was a workshop closed to the public, which there are none. And so we're literally at 7:13 and I'll look for a motion and a second to adjourn. **[00:13:10] Councilmember David Clausen:** A motion to adjourn. **[00:13:11] Mayor Myron Bailey:** We have a motion by Councilmember Clausen. **[00:13:13] Councilmember Monique Garza:** I will second. **[00:13:14] Mayor Myron Bailey:** Second by Councilmember Garza. All those in favor? **[00:13:16] Councilmembers:** Aye. **[00:13:18] Mayor Myron Bailey:** Opposed? We're adjourned.