As an expert transcriptionist, I have analyzed the context of the dialogue and the list of officials provided. **Note on Speakers:** * **Susie Brown** is the Chair of the Commission. * **Zac Dockter** is the Parks and Recreation Director. * **Tony Khambata** is the City Council Liaison (identified in the transcript as "Councilman combata" and "Tony"). * **Commissioners** mentioned: Gustafson (new), Crabtree (Vice Chair), Miller, Olson, Larson, and Waterman. *** [00:00] **Susie Brown:** Thank you. Thank you. A lot better. Calling the March 13 meeting of the Parks, Recreation, and Natural Resources Commission to order. The mission of the Cottage Grove Parks and Recreation Commission is to create and promote policies, programs, and places that enable live active living for a more vibrant community. We have a new commissioner joining us this evening, Commissioner Gustafson. It’s an honor to welcome you to the Parks Commission. So please feel free to take a moment to introduce yourself and tell us what’s your favorite park. [00:01] **Commissioner Gustafson:** Thanks so much, Susie. I am thrilled to be on the commission. I’ve been a resident here in Cottage Grove for about seven years. I have a background actually in Parks and Recreation, so I have 20 years of experience in municipal government. Right now I’m currently a stay-at-home mom and I have a three-year-old, and so I’m thrilled to be able to have the time to serve the community that I live in. And my son’s favorite park is definitely Woodridge Park. He could probably spend days on end there. We go there every day if I let him. So, thank you so much. [00:02] **Susie Brown:** Yeah, we're so glad you’re here and we’ll get started with tonight’s agenda. Roll call taken. Has everyone had an opportunity to review the agenda? [00:02] **Commissioner Olson:** Yeah. Okay. [00:02] **Susie Brown:** Any questions or comments? [00:02] **Commissioner Olson:** I’ll move to approve the agenda. [00:02] **Commissioner Miller:** Second. [00:02] **Susie Brown:** Thank you. Those in favor? Those opposed? I think motion passes. See, has everyone had an opportunity to review the minutes? [00:03] **Commissioner Miller:** Yep. Motion to approve. [00:03] **Susie Brown:** Thank you. [00:03] **Commissioner Crabtree:** Second. [00:03] **Susie Brown:** Thank you. Those in favor? All right. Those opposed? Motion carries. Any open forum this evening? Don't think so. Presentations done tonight? All right, then we can jump right into action items and we’ll start with officer appointment. [00:04] **Zac Dockter:** Thank you, Chair, members of the commission. The Parks and Recreation Natural Resource Commission has two officer positions that we need to fill: the Chair and the Vice Chair position. The Chair position is actually appointed by our Council Liaison, and Councilman Khambata has recommended the reappointment of Commissioner Brown as the Chair. And then the commission is responsible for appointing the Vice Chair. So I’m looking to the commission tonight to guide that discussion and appoint a Vice Chair. [00:05] **Susie Brown:** Do we have any nominations? [00:05] **Commissioner Miller:** So our current Vice Chairperson is Commissioner Crabtree. I would like to nominate Commissioner Crabtree if she’s willing to serve. [00:05] **Susie Brown:** Yeah. Are there other nominations? [00:05] **Commissioner Olson:** I’d second that nomination. [00:05] **Susie Brown:** Would anyone else like to make a nomination? Okay. Would you accept the nomination? [00:06] **Commissioner Crabtree:** Yeah. [00:06] **Susie Brown:** And now we have to vote. All in favor of Commissioner Crabtree being our Vice Chair? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. And do we have to make a motion for the result of the vote? [00:06] **Zac Dockter:** No. [00:06] **Susie Brown:** No? Okay. All right. Next up we have Commission Bylaws. [00:06] **Zac Dockter:** Chair, members of the commission, since it's our first meeting of the year, along with officer appointments, I do like to get the bylaws in front of the commission for review. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to review those. The last time they were actually amended was in 2019, but the commission does typically review these annually or semi-annually. So if there’s any items on there the commission would like to amend, we could take that motion and bring it to a future meeting. But they do have to be reviewed. If there are any amendments, they have to be reviewed and approved at two consecutive meetings. So if there are no recommended amendments, then we would just carry the bylaws forward as is and they would not be on the next agenda. [00:07] **Commissioner Miller:** Chair, I would just say that I’m happy with the bylaws as they are and I can support them as they exist today. [00:07] **Commissioner Olson:** I like the bylaws as they are as well. I would like to separately look into how we recruit for commissioners. We had kind of talked about seeing if the application form could be made electronic to increase accessibility, and I’d be interested to know the different areas that we put out requests for applications just to be aware and see if there’s anything we could update or expand separately. [00:07] **Zac Dockter:** I can bring that as a future agenda item. Thank you. [00:08] **Susie Brown:** Thank you. If no one has any suggested amendments, I’d be looking for a motion to approve the bylaws as written. [00:08] **Commissioner Crabtree:** Sorry, I have a question, Zac. When at the last meeting you said something about the Council was looking at changing like term lengths or additional terms or something, does that have to go into our bylaws? [00:08] **Zac Dockter:** That is a good comment. I will have to see. I believe that did get approved here at a recent council meeting. Let me look into that. If it is, I’ll bring it back to you at the next meeting, but you can certainly approve them as is, and then if I have to come back with a future amendment, we can do that. [00:09] **Commissioner Crabtree:** Okay, that’s a good comment. Thank you. [00:09] **Commissioner Olson:** I'll motion to approve. [00:09] **Commissioner Miller:** Second. [00:09] **Susie Brown:** Those in favor? Any additional discussion? Oh, sorry. Olson was the motion, who was the second? [00:09] **Zac Dockter:** Miller. [00:09] **Susie Brown:** My apologies, but we skipped Susie’s question—I forgot to ask if there was any additional discussion. Sorry. Okay, so motion passes. Okay, moving on to the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area Water Trail plan. [00:10] **Zac Dockter:** Thank you, Chair. Members of the commission, at the February Parks Recreation and Natural Resource Commission, I left you with the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area Water Trail plan. This is the document that I will be meeting with the National Park Service and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in April—April 12th to be exact—to review and discuss the plan. Just a reminder that Cottage Grove is on the National River and Recreation Area, so it’s part of the National Park Service. Some of the goals of this plan are just to raise more awareness of the water trail plan, increase participation and activity on the waterfront, enhance safety and access, strengthen economic development, provide opportunities to connect people to the river, increase the health of the river and its peoples, and build and sustain partnerships. So I’m hoping the commissioners maybe had some time to review the document, and then I would be happy to bring comments from the commission forward when I meet with the team that will be discussing this in April. [00:11] **Commissioner Olson:** I’d like you to make sure we get on the map. Hazen P. Mooers isn’t mentioned and we’ve got a nice paddle share program there, shore fishing, picnic area, and if possible to include our picnic stop with canoe launch at Settlers Island as well. They talk about there being that stretch of water trail while there isn’t a stop, but we have a stop now. Right? [00:11] **Zac Dockter:** Thank you. [00:12] **Susie Brown:** I really enjoyed going through the plan. I thought it was really interesting and I actually learned a lot about the river. You know, it’s a bit dated, but I get that. I would want to make sure that the National Park Service understands that while this isn’t Saint Paul where our section of the river is, it is part of still a working river. And so I believe even in-river signage maybe would be something to consider from a safety standpoint so that people don’t accidentally end up out in the main channel—things like that. I mean, those of us that grew up around the river, it seems pretty common sense to us and easy to understand, but I’m not sure, with us trying to get so many people to come—which we should—that that should be part of it too. Again, it’s not Saint Paul, I get that, but so that was one of the things that I wanted to bring up was navigation and training and safety. [00:13] **Commissioner Miller:** Something I’m hopeful you can bring back for us too is some information about if there’s a planned replacement for the Nice Ride program. That bike rental program has kind of been relied upon to use a land gap between some of the water stops, but now that that program isn’t continuing through the cities, I would be curious to see if there’s a backup plan. [00:13] **Susie Brown:** I agree. [00:13] **Commissioner Waterman:** Chairman, I would also observe that what I’m reading says there will be a replacement. It’s such a successful program and those were actually kind of getting outdated and they just weren’t making enough money to keep them up is what I think I’ve read. My guess is it just keeps getting better, right? It’ll become even better and more integrated as more people get involved. So I think it’s a great thing to bring up, but I have a lot of optimism that that’ll get replaced. [00:14] **Susie Brown:** Any other comments on the Mississippi National River and Recreation water plan? I’d like a—can we make a motion for staff to consider the inclusion of these comments at the next Park Service meeting? Can I make a motion? [00:14] **Zac Dockter:** You can. [00:14] **Susie Brown:** Okay, yeah. I make that motion. [00:14] **Commissioner Crabtree:** Second. [00:14] **Susie Brown:** Okay, those in favor? Those opposed? Motion passes. Next, we have the Cottage Grove Trailway Corridor Habitat Restoration Grant. [00:15] **Zac Dockter:** Commissioners, it’s been a couple years since we’ve applied for a Conservation Partners Legacy Grant through the Minnesota DNR, and we’d like to continue our work. The last time we did this was at the Kingston Park open space, and this is actually kind of a continuation of that effort. So the entire prairie—I call it a prairie belt or habitat belt—under the power line corridors that run from the northwest corner of the community down to Ravine Regional Park here, we’ve been attempting to restore that since 2005 into native habitat. So a lot of prairie, some wetland, some woodland, and this is an extension of that. So it runs from Imperial Avenue to the east, then runs to the west to Hinton Avenue, and would connect the Hidden Valley Prairie restoration to the west, which was done in 2018, and it would connect to the Cottage Grove Trailway Corridor Prairie habitat to the east, which was done in 2005—that was actually the original. So we’re getting close to kind of filling in all the gaps. I did include some maps that kind of show you the long-term effort. It’s been actually one of my most favorite accomplishments is restoring that habitat. This is a good opportunity to restore another nearly 50 acres of that space. The match requirements are included in the report. Obviously, it’s about a 10% match, so it’s not a high participation rate for the City of Cottage Grove. Those funds would be derived from the Public Landscapes Initiative. If you’re not familiar with that, that’s where, when development occurs, if trees are taken down or habitat is destroyed, we get cash or replantings put back in place, and that’s where this cash would be derived from. So it’s a good reuse of those funds that maybe came from some of these straight habitats from previous development—housing or commercial or whatever it might be. So, looking for support, and then at the future when we do apply for the grant, we’d be looking for a commission letter of support as well, because those letters of support go a long way for those grant applications in terms of their success. So tonight, just looking for support of the grant application. [00:17] **Commissioner Olson:** It’s encouraging to see so much of the trail has restoration complete and they're getting close to filling in those last two portions. So glad to see the grant application come forward. I had just a couple little questions. For the in-kind match, what kind of things does the city provide for that? Is it labor? [00:18] **Zac Dockter:** Chair, there’s a few different ways that we do have some project management support that can be taken out of that, but a lot of it is—we’ll mow the site, we’ll do some deforestation, so cutting down trees or taking out buckthorn or whatever it might be. We do intermittent mowing. So on the—if it’s a prairie, for example, typically we’ll have to mow it at least once or twice a year those first few years. So we’ll do that and then we’ll incur those costs as part of the match. So anything from labor on the ground to some administrative project work as well. [00:18] **Commissioner Olson:** And it mentions like meeting with some of the adjacent homeowners to talk about the impact on their properties. And sometimes I’ve seen when you’re doing the controlled burns along there, that, you know, there can be some—I guess people who live along the Trailway can experience that. What other impacts do we see on homeowners that are next to that property? [00:19] **Zac Dockter:** Sure, that’s actually a good question. I should have talked about that before, Chair. Well, one, it can change their sightline. When people look out their back door, what they see today might not be there. And that could be—like one example is to the west end, there’s a Black Locust forest that’s grown there. If you’re not familiar with Black Locust, it’s an invasive species and it continues to grow out and it doesn’t make for great habitat. It just continues to expand, similar to how sumac expands, and we'd be removing all those trees. So someone who’s looking out their back door now might see what they think is beautiful woods, but that’s something we’d be trying to destroy and then put in some other type of habitat in its place. There’s a lot of encroachment, so people started to use public property for private uses. Those are issues that we always clean up anytime we go through here. Now we’re pretty aggressive on our encroachment management, so it’s not as bad as it was maybe 15 years ago, but I can almost guarantee that anytime you go into a site like this, there will be some private encroachment of public property. So it might be getting people to take their gardens off, getting people to take their trailers off, getting people to remove their trampolines, whatever it might be. So all those things can get people upset, but we would—this is usually a pretty good forum for that. And I would say times have changed. When I did this in 2005 for the very first time, this place was full at the—well, it was the old City Hall—but it was full of people that were upset because they didn’t quite understand what prairie was back then. And now we do them and you know, maybe we get a few people, but it’s typically just a concern of what they’re going to see out their back door now, and it’s a change, right? And change can be difficult for anybody. So I do think this is a good forum to allow people to come in and voice their opinion or their concerns, and we can talk them through that and explain what the benefits truly are because it really is a benefit to the community as a whole. That’s the intent of this project. Hopefully I answered your question. [00:21] **Commissioner Larson:** So Zac, as part of the process, do you fence off the area and make it so people can’t walk through that? Well, so one of them is my backyard and you know, people walk that path quite a bit and drive that path quite a bit. Would that be fenced off then from those activities? [00:21] **Zac Dockter:** Commissioner Larson, no. It’s—we don’t typically put in any fencing. So we remove private fencing sometimes, unfortunately, but no, we wouldn’t put any fencing in. [00:21] **Commissioner Larson:** Do you mean like temporary, while you’re doing things or anything? [00:21] **Zac Dockter:** No. Nope. The most invasive things people will see is, well, I mean, deforestation, that’s the immediate impact, and then we kill everything. I mean, really go through and almost kill everything unless we find some sort of habitat there that we’re unaware of. But at a site like this, it’s already been disturbed back in the 1960s, 70s when housing development took place. So most of it’s just brome grass, weeds, and like that Black Locust forest or sumac and things like that. So we would be killing almost everything back, almost killing most everything off. There won’t be any grading, but then we’d just be tilling seed back into the ground with a no-till drill. [00:22] **Commissioner Waterman:** Would this work be done under a previously prepared natural resources evaluation, or is that part of the $155,000, or is it even necessary for a project like this? [00:22] **Zac Dockter:** That’s a good question, Commissioner Waterman. We actually do have a natural resources management plan as a part of this that we’ve prepared because it goes hand-in-hand with the grant application, and I can certainly get that to the commissioners as well. [00:22] **Commissioner Miller:** Just a really quick question: how long is this projected to take? At least how long would we be working on the site specifically? [00:23] **Zac Dockter:** Good question, Commissioner Miller, as well. It’s really three to five years for a prairie to fully establish, but the most invasive part of it’s going to be that first year to two years. By the third year, you’re starting to see good maturation of the plants and you’re starting to see a lot of flowers and grasses grow. But that first year, it’s going to look like a dead field. Around 2026 is usually when it's kind of... if we started now—if we got the grant application this year—we wouldn't start working until likely 2024. Probably the winter of 2024 is when we would go through and do a lot of the deforestation, and then most of the site prep and the first round of seeding would be in 2024, and then that second year growing, 2025, 2026 is when you're really going to see a lot of the impactful insights. [00:24] **Commissioner Crabtree:** Building off of that, is there an incentive to get this done and through as quick as possible, or is it just kind of more of a leisure thing, I guess? [00:24] **Zac Dockter:** No, so we have a pretty tight timeline. Yeah, we try to get it done as quick as possible for everybody’s benefit. And the grant does have a three-year limitation because they do allow you some growing maintenance costs there. But yeah, we try to get it going as fast as possible so we can get that site matured and get it used. [00:24] **Commissioner Crabtree:** So when you take out all of the trees and stuff, how much visibility from the houses to 19 will there be? Like we’re part of that circled, I mean... [00:24] **Zac Dockter:** Well people go... yeah, so actually the blue is not being restored, so then it doesn't affect you then. Just kidding, when you're talking about something else someday, it will, just not today. We’re looking at the wrong color. So that—Commissioner Crabtree, though, that’s a—it is... right now there’s homes that can’t see across the field because there’s trees blocking their view. Now they might be able to see the homeowner across the field, right? Might be nice, though. [00:25] **Susie Brown:** So I would be looking for a motion to support the application for this grant. [00:25] **Commissioner Miller:** I'll make a motion to support application for a Minnesota DNR Conservation Partners Legacy Grant for Cottage Grove Trailway Corridor native habitat restoration in the amount of $155,000. [00:25] **Commissioner Olson:** Second. [00:25] **Susie Brown:** Any further discussion? Those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Okay, motion passes. Next, we have presentation of information. [00:26] **Zac Dockter:** Thank you, Chair, members of the commission. I just wanted to share some updated information on the Capital Improvements planning/budgeting. This actually came from a question from Commissioner Olson. Since I thought it was a good question, and I shared some additional detail from some of the past budgets and Capital Improvements plan that I’ve shared with the commission, obviously it generated questions for him, which I’m guessing maybe some of the commissioners had the same type of questions. So I thought sharing with him was probably good to share with everybody. So I just presented some extra information that I thought you might find helpful. If it’s generated more questions, please let me know. There’s no secrets in our budgets; these are all public documents, so I’m happy to answer any questions you might have. [00:27] **Commissioner Olson:** Yeah, so I guess I just wanted to share the extra information and answer any questions you might have. I love this kind of stuff, so of course I dug into it. But what I really wanted—why I was asking about it—is because as we come up on our application or our voting in 2024 for the local option sales tax, it feels to me like we want to know as much as we can about this part of the financing of parks in our community. And so that’s really what I was going for, was to start here and get us to really understand it even better because we want to be able to answer citizens’ questions and we want to also be real thoughtful about how we feel about the local option sales tax relative to the other funding that we have. So that was what I was driving for, and I think it’s very, very helpful. So I just want to say thank you, Zac. [00:28] **Commissioner Crabtree:** Zac, was there anything from 2022 that didn’t get done that needs to—that is coming, like that is still going to be done in 2023, or was all of that completed? [00:28] **Zac Dockter:** Glacial Valley Park would be the only project that’s carried over, right? Yeah, I see that. And I should add one of the follow-up comment questions from Commissioner Olson that was helpful too—that we talked a little bit about this weekend—was you’ll see negative numbers for forecasting. We don’t spend what we don’t have. So to your point, Commissioner Crabtree, if I don’t have money for a project, even though I schedule it in here, it doesn’t mean the project’s going to get done. If the Park Trust Fund is out of money and we have a future park that we want to build in a neighborhood, we either have to find alternative revenue sources for that or we push the project out for a year or two years until development fees come in. So I found out I used the wrong term, which was "conservative budgeting," but we try to put the numbers in as large as we think they are—which in today’s world, it seems like it’s never large enough. I keep getting blindsided by these crazy project budgets. But anyways, we try to estimate and budget high for those that way when the projects come, and we also try to estimate a little bit low on revenue sources too so that we hopefully have enough money in the pot each year to do the projects we anticipate doing five years down the road. It’s a little bit hard to estimate, especially the Park Trust Fund, because you’re projecting when housing development’s going to take place, and that’s always hard to do. So it’s hard to judge how many houses are going to get built a year that’s going to put money into the fund, or commercial development or industrial development that’s going to put money into the fund. And it’s also hard to budget for or predict when you’re actually going to build the park because a development could be four phases—you might develop that park in Phase 1, 2, 3, or 4, and that could be a 10-year window of where that park needs to go in. All things that need to be considered, which I probably don’t need to bore you with too much tonight, but that’s why sometimes when you see the negative number, don’t get too concerned about that because it doesn’t mean we get a free-for-all to go spend the money into a big hole. So we kind of—that first two years is the critical year and then the rest is kind of just forecasting from there. [00:30] **Susie Brown:** Yeah, it’s a budget, not a checking account balance. Bingo, right. Really appreciate the inclusion of this information because it helped me understand more everything else we could do with the local option sales tax. Like, I kind of see this agenda as the things that we need to do to maintain where we are now, and our parks are such a point of pride—you know, it attracts so many people to come and live here—but we’re also known so well for the way that we maintain our parks and our trails. So having that additional funding through the local option sales tax would really allow us to explore some of those projects that would help us be even bigger and better, and it made me more excited about LOST funding than I was when we originally approached it. So I really appreciate bringing this up and bringing it forward so that we could have a better understanding. [00:31] **Commissioner Miller:** Good. One thing I might want to add is looking through the Park Trust Funds, especially in 2025 where you’re seeing—I believe I’m reading it right—the Hamlet Park expansion as well as the Mississippi Dunes, and that coming up to around 11 million. Is there a possibility in the future where we might have to wait a year just based on our budget? Because that’s a pretty hefty expense to do both of them in 2025, especially looking at the previous years where it’s almost close to five times the amount. [00:32] **Zac Dockter:** Yes, Commissioner Miller. Well, local option sales tax would actually pay for those two projects. So if the local option sales tax referendum proceeds, then those two projects would get funded using that, which clearly eases up the budget to get those projects done. So that’s why we did push those out a little ways because we’re just estimating that might be when they happen. Obviously, if the local option sales tax doesn't happen, then we're going to have to have a completely different discussion on how those projects develop. [00:32] **Commissioner Olson:** Would it also be true, Zac, that those wouldn't really all happen in 2025? It’s kind of a placeholder because when we’ve looked at the plans for them, it’s a two-to-three-year build for each of the three initiatives in the local option sales tax. [00:32] **Zac Dockter:** That’s correct. [00:32] **Commissioner Crabtree:** Is there a—this might be a question for Tony—but is there a timeline of when Council’s planning to send that to voters, or like what the timeline is? [00:33] **Councilmember Tony Khambata:** Yeah, we already voted on it and now it’s up to the legislature at the state level to accept or deny it. So they’re currently in session working on those budget items. So we’ll know rather quickly here whether or not our request for local option sales tax got approved, and then it would kind of go through that process at the state level and then it would come back and it would be on our ballot this following November. [00:33] **Susie Brown:** Yeah, we want 24. We want as many voters as possible. [00:33] **Councilmember Tony Khambata:** Yeah, yeah. And to Councilmember Khambata’s point—wait, I mean, and to Councilmember Khambata's point, the legislature—I believe they’re going to hear these bills, the Senate and the House are talking about hearing the bills over the next two weeks for local option sales tax, and there’s—I don’t know what there is—30-ish communities that have bills being considered. And from the conversations that I’ve heard, given the state’s current position with a surplus, it sounded like they were optimistic about our requests. But yeah, I think that whatever the next normal election is, 24 is when that local option sales tax would be on there. And I think it was important to get it in now because if it gets denied this time, we could bring it back again next year and still get on the ballot for 24. So we were on a timeline to get that voted on and get it into the request for this year so that we have two opportunities to get that through the budget process at the state level. But as Zac said, we’re not going to spend money we don’t have. So once that gets approved, then we can basically borrow against it. That’ll be a bonding initiative, and once we have that, then we’ll incrementally basically issue bonds for the amount needed to do certain stages of the projects that are approved for in that local option sales tax. It’s important to note that that money can only be spent for those projects. Like once those projects are done, we basically stop getting money—asking for and getting money. And we try and be... [00:35] **Commissioner Olson:** I’m sorry, could I interrupt? Is it when the projects are done or when the bonds are paid? [00:35] **Councilmember Tony Khambata:** It’s when the bonds are either paid or the project is done. And that was going to be my next part: we need to be pretty careful in forecasting the cost of those because if you’re aware, inflation has been an issue with building projects here this last couple of years. So if we only ask for say 10 million dollars for a project and it ends up costing more, then the city’s on the hook for the remainder. We can’t go back and ask for an extra 10 percent or whatever the overage might be on the project. So we try and be very careful and project what a cost for a project is going to be in 2026 when the project’s actually going to get done. And I think with our specific asks for those local option sales tax projects, if the numbers seem a little high, that’s why—we’re asking for what they’re going to cost when those projects get done, which are years out. [00:36] **Commissioner Crabtree:** Once the legislature—once if they approve it, it comes back—is there anything that you guys need to do after you get the approval? Is there anything Council has to do with that after they get the approval, or do you guys just send it to referendum after that? [00:36] **Zac Dockter:** They still need to prepare the referendum question, right? [00:36] **Councilmember Tony Khambata:** Yeah, so we would prepare the referendum question, but then it would be on the referendum, and once it gets approved, then it would get certified and then the county actually would start collecting that sales tax. [00:37] **Commissioner Crabtree:** Got it. So Zac, if for some reason this doesn’t pass or something, does that—how will that impact those two potential projects? Does that mean like they would get tabled until the funding is there? Got it. Just keep pushing it back then? Or I mean, we chip away at it, right? [00:37] **Zac Dockter:** And if you’re familiar with the Hamlet Park project, we’ve been chipping away at Hamlet Park for 15 years. So some stuff could still potentially get done at Mississippi Dunes; it wouldn’t just sit there forever until something could get done. Correct. [00:38] **Councilmember Tony Khambata:** And it’s worth noting that I think the Council has a willingness to want to see these projects come to fruition. So if for whatever reason we didn’t get the local option sales tax approved, that would be the next step is the following year when we go through our budget process, we would start itemizing and prioritizing some of these projects. [00:38] **Commissioner Olson:** I just want to clarify something that was said that I don't think it's really what we meant. So once we issue the bonds, the city’s on the hook for all of it regardless of anything else. So it doesn’t matter if there’s a cost overrun—the city will still be responsible for the bonds when it borrows that money. The city’s borrowing that money. [00:39] **Councilmember Tony Khambata:** What I meant by that is the reason why we have these projects done in phases is specifically for that reason. It gives us a chance to kind of reassess the cost of those projects as they go. [00:39] **Commissioner Olson:** Right, I understood that part, Councilmember. But the point I’m trying to make—and disagree with me if you will—but the only point I’m trying to make is once we issue bonds, it doesn’t matter what the projects cost, we are responsible as a city for paying those bonds back. They are liabilities on our balance sheet. [00:40] **Zac Dockter:** That's correct. Yeah, thank you. [00:40] **Councilmember Tony Khambata:** So yeah, and our ability to bond is tied to our taxing authority, and that’s why we have to go to the state and get approval from them, and that’s why it goes to a referendum vote. And then once that’s all been approved, tentatively, that’s when we can go back and issue bonds against it. Up until then, we don’t have any taxing authority to issue those bonds. So that’s why this is a long and drawn-out process. And once we’ve gotten all that done, yes, once we borrow those bonds, those funds can only be used for these specific projects. And I believe we were talking about a 20 or 25-year payback so that the principal and interest has been factored into the big picture for what we’re spending. And then it’s noteworthy that the sales tax—the local option sales tax—is what we’re going to be collecting over the period of the next 25 years, and that sales tax, that separate amount, is what’s paying the debt service on those bonds. So the better way to look at it, I think, with the sales tax aspect is the people that are coming into the community to use those amenities are going to help pay for those amenities. But to be clear, if the sales tax revenue underruns the principal and interest in any one of those 25 years, the citizens of Cottage Grove are still responsible for making those payments. [00:41] **Zac Dockter:** I asked that same question and that is correct, and that’s why we took a very conservative estimate on what our projected sales tax revenues are going to be. So we have—if I can add—we are not pulling out the full 36 million out in year one; we would actually pull out the money in phases. So we would only pull out what—we’re doing two different studies on what the projected sales tax is going to be, and right now they’re only projecting about 15 million dollars. So we actually have these projects—not only do we have 36 million dollars in projects, but we also have those projects tiered on how we’re going to build them, because we may only be able to build the first tier of improvements in all these parks if we don’t get enough sales tax. But we also have to project that there’s going to be additional sales tax growth as more people move into town, as more businesses come to town, as the price of doing business goes up. So, just so that we’re clear that we’re not taking out the entire 36 million right up front; we’d be taking out a much smaller portion of that and then probably bonding again in the future. And then to Councilman Khambata’s point, if those projects are all done in year 18, we would no longer leverage any sales tax revenue at that point. Those projects are done, we’ve taken out the bonds that have paid for them—whatever that bond amount is—projects are done, the sales tax is done. Or if you’ve maxed out at the 36 million, you’re also done. [00:43] **Susie Brown:** Sorry we had to go three rounds on that. We had several long and drawn-out Council meetings on that topic as well. All good discussion though, it’s been good. [00:43] **Zac Dockter:** Okay, moving on to action updates. Park Naming: I just wanted to give a couple of updates on some action items from previous meetings. The Olsen Memorial Trail was authorized by the City Council at the previous council meeting, and then also—any questions on the park naming? [00:44] **Susie Brown:** Congratulations. It was a long time for the family to try and figure out... you know, it was a long process that took us a lot of meetings. [00:44] **Zac Dockter:** They did. And then in terms of park improvements, once again, the map is before you: projects we’re going to be working on. So if you have questions or thoughts or wondering what’s happening, please let me know anytime. [00:44] **Commissioner Crabtree:** Just something really quick. So Glacial Valley, if I’m—correct me if I’m wrong—was the only one that didn’t get finished from last season? Correct. Is it—if you were to guess, when do you project it to be finished by? [00:45] **Zac Dockter:** The majority of the park site development will be done right around mid-July. We have to pave some courts to get the playground installed, and then the park building is projected to be complete in October. Now, the turf will have grow-in time, so we’ll be planting the turf this year; it needs a full year of growth before that can really be used. So the athletic fields will be in and growing, but they won’t be used this year. [00:45] **Susie Brown:** Thank you. Next, we have donation acknowledgments. [00:45] **Zac Dockter:** Thank you, Chair. I just included the fourth quarter donation acknowledgments that went to Council. I think I’ll start putting this in your packet moving forward so that you’ll have a list of all the donations that come to the city at that—I think it’s a good document. So something I’ll start sharing on a quarterly basis with the commission. If you have questions, I’m happy to answer. Reports and educational material: have some division highlights between our divisions within the Parks and Recreation Department. I also wanted to note that I dropped on your dais the volunteer banquet invitation. There’s an RSVP on there, so if you’re interested, you’re all invited with a guest. And then obviously all the groups we work with too—the bike park, dog park, disc golf group, all those groups that we work with, the Athletic Association—they all get invited as well. So it’s a pretty good turnout, and then we’ll have the Volunteer of the Year and the Volunteer Group of the Year. There’s actually I think right now there’s six or seven nominations in each of those categories, so a good turnout for that. So exciting to see that happening again. And then I believe this fall we’ll have an all-commission meeting again with the City Council too. So some exciting things to look forward to, get you to engage with the community a little bit more. And then lastly, I just included some educational information that I found in one of our Park and Recreation journals that I thought was interesting, and this was actually a Dr. Temple Grandin—an individual that was at our national park and recreation conference too, and she was pretty inspiring, so I thought it was worthy of sharing. [00:47] **Susie Brown:** Thank you. Okay, next we have commission comments. [00:47] **Commissioner Miller:** So I actually have a comment, but I also—on our previous agenda item—I just want to say thank you again to staff and all for providing that information for us, and I really enjoy the articles that you come across that you think would be interesting for us. So I just want to encourage you to keep doing that. The thing I want to talk about for commissioner comments is that some of you may remember I’m also on the Washington County Parks Commission—it’s called Parks and Open Spaces. Well, their meeting is Thursday this week, and their agenda stuff came out after hours so I didn’t know about this until just a couple days ago. But on our agenda for the Land and Water Legacy Program, the City of Cottage Grove has applied for a $500,000 grant to help us with land acquisition. And the way the Land and Water Legacy Program is going to do it is through a conservation easement. And if I understand it correctly, it’ll be everything down there that’s not the city park. So the land that’s not the actual city park land will have a Washington County conservation easement on it, which means in perpetuity—which I do find as long as the United States of America exists—nobody can develop it, nobody can mine it, nobody can do anything to it. And that’s what that $500,000 that they give us—that’s what the county gets in exchange for that. That’s my basic understanding of this. Now, I felt like it would be kind of awkward for me to go to that meeting without having shared this with all of you, and then offer to all of you to bring any kind of messages to the County Parks Commission that you might want me to bring to them. The other thing I will share that I learned from going through this document that they sent out is that Pulte, the home developer on this property, has evidently pulled their development plans. So they’re no longer at this point building homes there, and that took place sometime the end of last year, beginning of this year. And beyond that, there’s lots of pictures that we’re all familiar with of our park to be, and the rest of it is pretty much—I mean, they look at it a little different, but it’s what we all already know about it. So I wanted to share that with all of you and offer you to give comments if you want. I’d be happy to take them back to the county commission for us. [00:50] **Commissioner Olson:** So this is our ask for more funding to have those conservation areas from the county’s Land and Water Legacy money bucket, right? [00:50] **Commissioner Miller:** It was always from the beginning when this plan was coming together and we were carving out this land—there wasn’t enough developer give-back of land to us to cover it all, the entire bank of the river. And so this was one of the places we were going to go to apply for those additional funds, and it feels, the way they’ve written it here, like it’s going to succeed. I mean, it looks to me like they’re doing everything they can to figure out how to do it. And they’re saying things like—which we have said—very high for habitat quality on the eastern portion of dry prairie, very high for multiple wooded areas on the site, location again of the river. I mean, there’s just a lot of bullets that say "very high" why we should do this and why it matches the goals of the Land and Water Legacy Program. Does that help? [00:51] **Susie Brown:** Yes. Well, I think if you’re speaking on behalf of Cottage Grove, or I don’t know—I think, sort of, isn't that how you would think about it, Zac? [00:51] **Zac Dockter:** Yeah, I think just a reminder that there is such a strong and consistent ask for areas of land that would not be developed, that would be protected as natural spaces for people to enjoy, and how that funding would help meet the request of so many of our residents. You know, we’re excited about having a developed portion of the city park for access and those things, but the importance of protecting the species that are there and providing that natural, kind of more untouched access... [00:51] **Commissioner Miller:** Absolutely. That sort of matches up with how I feel, so it’s pretty easy for me to carry that message. And it’s contiguous to the scientific and natural area, which is just an amazing piece of good fortune for us, and we should take advantage of it. [00:52] **Commissioner Crabtree:** Okay, well thanks. Tony, what’s the reason that they pulled their permit to build? [00:52] **Councilmember Tony Khambata:** Actually, last summer I had an opportunity to talk to the regional director, CEO of Pulte. And being in real estate and having a real estate background, I asked him some pointed questions about, you know, what was their contingency if interest rates went up and so on. And he disclosed kind of how—and I imagine most national builders operate this way—but he disclosed kind of their inner working in terms of Pulte having a lender too. Some of it is in-house, but I’m sure they draw funds from various sources. So they kind of have their own in-house underwriting process. And so as these projects come around nationally or regionally, they still have to present the economic viability of those projects to their underwriting department, board of directors, what you will. And at the time they hadn’t pulled, but he just said, you know, if things change we’ll go back to the underwriters and make a new case for economic viability of the project. That could be a different product and housing product; it could be a number of factors—maybe more high density—and they would basically try and rework it and make the project work. However, I didn’t at the time—and I’m sure most developers didn’t—see the type of rate hike we saw on that debt. That drastically reduced demand. And I also know from working with some of these developers that they pretty much have a contingency to get out of the contract until the day they close. There are a ton of logistics that they have to go through in land development—everything from, as we know, environmental assessments, economic feasibility studies, rights-of-way. In many cases, there’s more than one landowner that they have to get to cooperate. So they pretty much build in contingencies until the day they actually fund the purchase, and they exercised that option here. I don’t believe that it means they won’t come back, but I think given their size and the scope of the slowdown we saw on the market, especially in new construction, that they were exercising their contingency as a fiscally responsible measure because they’ve got projects all over the country. And if they hold on to all those projects, even if it’s for months or a year, that’s a lot of interest payments in terms of delays and so on. So I think they were just making the safe move. But the fact that they came to the table, they went through the long and arduous process of getting all of these feasibility studies done—if nothing else, they’ve shown that under normal economic or normal circumstances, it is a viable project. And I think that will attract either them to come back as the market normalizes here—which it’s already kind of showing signs of doing that over the next few months here—or we’ve got an amazing staff that does a lot in terms of kind of courting developers. And believe it or not, under most circumstances, there are developers that are reaching out to our staff and saying, "Hey, what’s available?" And our staff is going to say, "Here’s this project that we had queued up; this might be a good fit for you." So where we don't go—so we don't go knocking on doors for Pulte or any other developer for residential development—however, they come knocking on our door quite frequently. And I think for all the steps that the city’s already taken, this project will come to fruition whether it be with Pulte or another builder. [00:55] **Commissioner Crabtree:** So them pulling out, does that mean like the Friends of the Mississippi—like if they somehow came into the millions of dollars, could they buy that land now like they wanted to do before when they were trying to get all those grants and things? Is that something that's still a possibility, or is it set for only a housing event because it’s still zoned for housing? [00:55] **Councilmember Tony Khambata:** Contract law would state that if that landowner is no longer obligated to Pulte Homes, they could probably sell it to whoever they want. And if that new buyer, whether it be Friends of the Mississippi or another developer, if they wanted to do anything above and beyond what it’s already being used for, they would have to come back and go through the same approval process that we already went through for Pulte. If they wanted to redevelop, there would be a land dedication, which is the 10% of the land being developed or the parcel size. So we would go through all those same steps. Outside of preservation, any redevelopment of the property, we would get that land dedication fee for the remainder of the park that we were already planning on. However, the city worked the deal with the current landowner for this parcel, so I imagine if the Friends of the Mississippi River came and they brought a viable offer and the property owner were to accept, there would still be some way for the city to acquire control of additional land down there to fill out the park that we have envisioned now. How and when, how and where the funding comes from on that—again, there are infinite scenarios depending on who buys the land and what their intended purpose is as to how that might have to work. [00:57] **Commissioner Miller:** Just real quick, I want to—I agree with you 100%, Tony, that the city will get its park. Even if the Friends of the Mississippi comes, I believe it just will happen. It would be hard for them to come and say, "No, this whole thing has to be conserved." I just don’t see that. I think we would get our park. [00:57] **Councilmember Tony Khambata:** Yeah, and I do believe that Friends of the Mississippi is going to have a hard time coming up with the amount of money that Pulte or a developer would be willing to pay for that property based on its highest and best use. However, I don’t have a crystal ball; I can’t see the future. The owner could have a change of heart or Friends of the Mississippi could say, "Hey, you know, we’ll buy the undesirable portion of land that the developer didn’t want anyway," and in that case, I would assume it would be contiguous to the existing SNA. But again, there’re just too many variables. Ultimately, if a buyer comes and the landowner wants to sell, we’ll work through whichever buyer comes to the table, whether it be Friends of the Mississippi or another developer. But based on my previous experience—I got into real estate after the 2008 recession and I saw a lot of these developments that had been kind of put on ice come back and get built out—real estate is cyclical. So I imagine that if anything, we’re going to see a couple-year-at-most setback in terms of timing on the development and acquisition of this park space. But ultimately, I think we are going to see that land developed for housing of some type, and when that happens, a portion will get dedicated to the city. [00:58] **Commissioner Crabtree:** And just to be clear, I don’t think the Friends of the Mississippi were against the park. I know that they wanted to purchase the land, so I’m just curious if with Pulte pulling out if that meant the door was open again for them to try. [00:59] **Councilmember Tony Khambata:** The city as a practice isn’t part of those types of negotiations, right? We’re reactive in almost every type of those instances where private buyer, private seller, and then they come to us with a proposal. We’re not proactively out there trying to negotiate on behalf of one side or the other unless or until it becomes an infrastructure-type project and there’s easements and land swaps involved—that’s when the city would get involved. But again, that’s reactive; it’s not necessarily proactive in terms of the critical path for land development. But yeah, I mean, ultimately I think it’ll get done; when is really the question. And in terms of Friends of the Mississippi, I think the landowner at the time gave Friends of the Mississippi time to come up with the funds and they were unable to at the time. I would really like to see something well-meaning be done with that property. I did get a chance to tour it last summer and the state of disrepair that it was in at the time was a little disappointing because it has so much potential. So I would just hope that somebody comes to the table with a good idea or a good proposal for that piece of property. [01:00] **Susie Brown:** Next we have Council comments. [01:00] **Councilmember Tony Khambata:** Well, I think we’ve kind of hashed out everything I would have said. But no, in terms of development to Commissioner Crabtree’s point, we are seeing things slow down. However, the city has been really forward-thinking in how and where we’ve been putting our resources to get kind of projects ready to go. So we still have a couple of big projects that are underway in our industrial park. We’ve still got businesses that are choosing to come here and build here even in today’s current economic climate, which just goes to show what a great staff we have in terms of making the process easy and understandable and really making people who want to invest in our community feel like they’re welcome here. And the other part of it is, you know, some of these projects take a long time to—as we know from the Mississippi Dunes thing—you know, there’s a long drawn-out process in many cases before a shovel ever hits the dirt. So we’ve got a lot of stuff that was in process and is in process that is going to start popping here this summer once construction season starts. So from that standpoint, I think we’re in a good space as far as development and continuing to grow in a calculated manner here through the remainder of whatever—if you want to call this a recession. Same with housing—we still have plenty of developers that are looking at green space and raw land development opportunities. So again, Pulte, I don’t know as a national company how they’re leveraged or what other line of underlying circumstances might have caused them to pull out, but we’re not seeing that with all of the people who have chosen to invest in our community. [01:02] **Commissioner Crabtree:** Yeah. Zac, when does the renaming of the rink happen? Isn’t that happening soon? [01:02] **Zac Dockter:** We are actually meeting with the company tomorrow to talk about signage and things of that nature, so we’re on our way. So it'll just be the north rink—the north rink will now be the North Point. It’ll either be the North Point Development Rink or the North Point Rink. Not the entire facility, right? That was very convenient. North Point. [01:02] **Susie Brown:** I'm ready. Okay, ready? Yeah. Okay, right now. Yeah. Okay. [01:03] **Commissioner Olson:** I motion to adjourn. [01:03] **Commissioner Miller:** Second. [01:03] **Susie Brown:** Close. Those in favor? Those opposed? Motion carries. We're adjourned.